Crazy Mainland European Ways!

Pride Fighter

You have to pay to use the jax or leave a complimentary tip in Germany.

They drive on the wrong side of the road, I have nearly been run over 6 times by instinctively looking the way I do in Ireland.

German people are mostly friendly.

The people of Madrid are heartless bastards.

Crazy Continental people.

Seaneh

Weirdest thing is seeing men in suits (loads of them) drinking beer at the little kiosks on the metro lines in Madrid at 7am. Like, skulling back loads of Maohou and whatever other local stuff was being sold.

Timistry

Gran Hermano wrote: »

Not beer, but you can have a glass of wine whilst enjoying a movie in Dundrum.

can get wine, magners, bud and heineken in the light cinema in leeds. its deadly if u go early and are going out afterwards..:P

Blitzkrieger

I have to say I ****ing love the Germans. Unlike some of the posters here I can't remember ever seeing an overweight German woman (my age or under anyway) and few enough fugly ones. Although I've met one or two that border on psychopathic, I've never met an unfriendly German either.

I can't say I've noticed that handshake thing. When I was on an echange there the boys and girls used to greet each other with that three cheek kiss thing but the lads used to just say hello. The Polish lads working here always seem to greet each other with a handshake. Hello Kristoff, I haven't seen you since.....yesterday. When my brother came home after living abroad for 18 months all the *greeting he got from me when I picked him up from the airport was a nod, and in an extreme gesture of generosity, a grunt.

There's probably a happy medium somewhere....

netwhizkid wrote: »

Fact 5. Czech Women are the hottest in Europe

I didn't see an ugly woman the whole time I was there. They must throw the ugly babies off a cliff or something.




*In my defense I'd had two hours sleep, his flight was six hours late, the chairs in the waiting area were the most uncomfortable chairs ever divised by man and it was a long drive home.

fryup

has anyone mentioned.......Naturism/Nudism yet??

i know they have a better climate on the continent, but my word they're into it big time even on clothed beaches...and unfortunately its not always fit women either, you see some big fat ol ones too YUK!!

and the men have great self control never seem to get aroused when the "babes" are about...maybe they're used to it??

HalloweenJack

I'm currently in Germany at the moment and I'm loving it.

You can get a six pack for 3.29 (and if you return the bottles, you get 25c back per bottle) and just go and sit down anywhere you like and drink away. It's great.

The crossing the street thing is weird. So far, I've got many dodgy looks for crossing the street on a red light with no cars around. The village I'm staying in is particularly deserted and devoid of traffic but people still stand devoutly waiting for the green light, regardless of oncoming cars (or lack thereof).

Another thing that I noticed is after a certain time at night, say 8pm, the traffic lights switch off and cars and pedestrians can go as they please.

Also, Germans are surprisingly modest about their English abilities. I've asked many people in my rusty German if they speak English to which they reply "a bit". I've then asked a poorly-constructed German question and receved an elaborate response in perfect English.

Dr Kamikazi

It's actually the other way round for me.
To me the Irish have an extremely weird and messed up attitude towards many things.
Alcohol, smoking, car insurance, providing parking for sports events and concerts (i.e. you don't, with the excuse that if you did, people would use them), when two consenting teenagers end up in bed together the guy gets thrown in jail (a medieval attitude), teenage pregnancy (due to lack of education brought about by your medieval attitude in the first place), buying property (I can't build a house where I live because I'm a filthy foreigner), providing infrastructure, which you don't with the excuse that if you did, people would use it, everything is narrow, poky, too small, expensive (your planning provides streets and car parks just about big enough for average use and at peak times chaos ensues), you have one sort of bread, cheese and sausages (alright, that has improved, now there are three of each), you build crappy (REALLY crappy), WAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY overpriced houses and then have to spend half the purchase price again putting them right so they even halfway approach european standards, when I first came here oil fired central heating was a MAJOR luxury in a house, that's why all my clothing and shoes went mouldy,
it seems to me the attitude here is that everything has to be made as difficult, weird and akward as possible to discourage people from doing it, which means that everyone then tries to do exactly that, because it's difficult, then there's widespread public moaning about the fact that everyone still wants to drink, smoke, drive a car, buy a house, then it gets made even more difficult....
These things are never a problem on mainland Europe.
Try to insure a car for example: Ring up, give details, get insurance. Sorted.
But not in Ireland, Oh No!
"I'm sorry we don't insure (yellow cars, drivers with shoesize above 11, anyone born on a wednesday, vans, cars, bikes, red cars, anyone with brown hair and blue eyes, people without a third nipple, anyone who has a 3 in their phonenumber, etc...)
it seems that the objective here is not to give you car insurance for the most outlandish and ridiculous reason possible.
Buying drink: 16 year old scanger walks out of Tescos with 5 flagons of cider, but I (40) get asked for ID and it has to be Oirish, which I don't have, so get rfused. The scumbag doesn't, cause they'd be back with 20 others.
You have all the laws in the world, no littering, no dog fouling, etc... with outrageous fines (1254343,34 Euro, hahaha) but no one enforces them, so no one gives a ****.
This country has a long way to go to civilisation.

number10a

The lack of Centra/Gala/Londis-type shops. There's nowhere on mainland Europe where you can walk in and buy a roll (or local equivalent of lazy/hungover lunch), top-up, fags, sweets and drink all under one roof. You need to go to four or five different shops. We have it sorted here with our convenience shops (though we do pay for it ).

In Spain for example you need to go to the bakery to get your roll, to the mobile phone shop for your top-up (and only your network's shop so you can spend ages trying to find the right one), to the tobacco shop for your fags, and to the supermarket for sweets and drink. Also (in Spain), the staff have absolutely no sense of customer service - anywhere, whether it be when buying top-up, clothes, food etc. There could be five people queueing in a place and about seven memebers of staff milling around sorting shelves, on the phone, looking out the window, but only one of them will be seeing after the customers.

redout

Dr Kamikazi wrote: »

It's actually the other way round for me.
To me the Irish have an extremely weird and messed up attitude towards many things.
Alcohol, smoking, car insurance, providing parking for sports events and concerts (i.e. you don't, with the excuse that if you did, people would use them), when two consenting teenagers end up in bed together the guy gets thrown in jail (a medieval attitude), teenage pregnancy (due to lack of education brought about by your medieval attitude in the first place), buying property (I can't build a house where I live because I'm a filthy foreigner), providing infrastructure, which you don't with the excuse that if you did, people would use it, everything is narrow, poky, too small, expensive (your planning provides streets and car parks just about big enough for average use and at peak times chaos ensues), you have one sort of bread, cheese and sausages (alright, that has improved, now there are three of each), you build crappy (REALLY crappy), WAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY overpriced houses and then have to spend half the purchase price again putting them right so they even halfway approach european standards, when I first came here oil fired central heating was a MAJOR luxury in a house, that's why all my clothing and shoes went mouldy,
it seems to me the attitude here is that everything has to be made as difficult, weird and akward as possible to discourage people from doing it, which means that everyone then tries to do exactly that, because it's difficult, then there's widespread public moaning about the fact that everyone still wants to drink, smoke, drive a car, buy a house, then it gets made even more difficult....
These things are never a problem on mainland Europe.
Try to insure a car for example: Ring up, give details, get insurance. Sorted.
But not in Ireland, Oh No!
"I'm sorry we don't insure (yellow cars, drivers with shoesize above 11, anyone born on a wednesday, vans, cars, bikes, red cars, anyone with brown hair and blue eyes, people without a third nipple, anyone who has a 3 in their phonenumber, etc...)
it seems that the objective here is not to give you car insurance for the most outlandish and ridiculous reason possible.
Buying drink: 16 year old scanger walks out of Tescos with 5 flagons of cider, but I (40) get asked for ID and it has to be Oirish, which I don't have, so get rfused. The scumbag doesn't, cause they'd be back with 20 others.
You have all the laws in the world, no littering, no dog fouling, etc... with outrageous fines (1254343,34 Euro, hahaha) but no one enforces them, so no one gives a ****.
This country has a long way to go to civilisation.

Well if you have that many problems with Ireland then why dont you go and live elsewhere ?

redout

number10a wrote: »

The lack of Centra/Gala/Londis-type shops. There's nowhere on mainland Europe where you can walk in and buy a roll (or local equivalent of lazy/hungover lunch), top-up, fags, sweets and drink all under one roof. You need to go to four or five different shops. We have it sorted here with our convenience shops (though we do pay for it ).

In Spain for example you need to go to the bakery to get your roll, to the mobile phone shop for your top-up (and only your network's shop so you can spend ages trying to find the right one), to the tobacco shop for your fags, and to the supermarket for sweets and drink. Also (in Spain), the staff have absolutely no sense of customer service - anywhere, whether it be when buying top-up, clothes, food etc. There could be five people queueing in a place and about seven memebers of staff milling around sorting shelves, on the phone, looking out the window, but only one of them will be seeing after the customers.

Apart from El Corte Ingles were they work on commission and follow you around like a rabid dog even after telling them you dont need any help. Honestly I have told a guy I was just looking then minutes later proceded to the other end of the (huge) shop and decided to buy something. I brought it up to the counter and was being served when this guy barges in and kicks the other guy off the till and tells him its his sale! These were to totaly different departments btw!

Dr Kamikazi

redout wrote: »

Well if you have that many problems with Ireland then why dont you go and live elsewhere ?

And that is exactly the kind of ignorant, oirish attitude I encounter here all the time.
The Irish can take the piss out of everyone else in Europe, but as soon as someone points out the shortcomings here, it's like "Why don't you f*ck off and live somewhere else".
Which I would if Ireland still had a property market.
Good luck trying to find someone to stump up a couple hundred grand for my overpriced, non insulated cardboard box.

Jesus Wept

Dr Kamikazi wrote: »

It's actually the other way round for me.
To me the Irish have an extremely weird and messed up attitude towards many things.
Alcohol, smoking, car insurance, providing parking for sports events and concerts (i.e. you don't, with the excuse that if you did, people would use them), when two consenting teenagers end up in bed together the guy gets thrown in jail (a medieval attitude), teenage pregnancy (due to lack of education brought about by your medieval attitude in the first place), buying property (I can't build a house where I live because I'm a filthy foreigner), providing infrastructure, which you don't with the excuse that if you did, people would use it, everything is narrow, poky, too small, expensive (your planning provides streets and car parks just about big enough for average use and at peak times chaos ensues), you have one sort of bread, cheese and sausages (alright, that has improved, now there are three of each), you build crappy (REALLY crappy), WAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY overpriced houses and then have to spend half the purchase price again putting them right so they even halfway approach european standards, when I first came here oil fired central heating was a MAJOR luxury in a house, that's why all my clothing and shoes went mouldy,
it seems to me the attitude here is that everything has to be made as difficult, weird and akward as possible to discourage people from doing it, which means that everyone then tries to do exactly that, because it's difficult, then there's widespread public moaning about the fact that everyone still wants to drink, smoke, drive a car, buy a house, then it gets made even more difficult....
These things are never a problem on mainland Europe.
Try to insure a car for example: Ring up, give details, get insurance. Sorted.
But not in Ireland, Oh No!
"I'm sorry we don't insure (yellow cars, drivers with shoesize above 11, anyone born on a wednesday, vans, cars, bikes, red cars, anyone with brown hair and blue eyes, people without a third nipple, anyone who has a 3 in their phonenumber, etc...)
it seems that the objective here is not to give you car insurance for the most outlandish and ridiculous reason possible.
Buying drink: 16 year old scanger walks out of Tescos with 5 flagons of cider, but I (40) get asked for ID and it has to be Oirish, which I don't have, so get rfused. The scumbag doesn't, cause they'd be back with 20 others.
You have all the laws in the world, no littering, no dog fouling, etc... with outrageous fines (1254343,34 Euro, hahaha) but no one enforces them, so no one gives a ****.
This country has a long way to go to civilisation.

redout wrote: »

Well if you have that many problems with Ireland then why dont you go and live elsewhere ?

Dr Kamikazi wrote: »

And that is exactly the kind of ignorant, oirish attitude I encounter here all the time.
The Irish can take the piss out of everyone else in Europe, but as soon as someone points out the shortcomings here, it's like "Why don't you f*ck off and live somewhere else".
Which I would if Ireland still had a property market.
Good luck trying to find someone to stump up a couple hundred grand for my overpriced, non insulated cardboard box.

Wtf is with the use of 'Oirish'?! Srlsy, It makes you sound like a big racist fool.

Your somewhat valid points* get completely lost with your use of inaccurate sweeping generalisations and inherent racism.
You are tarring us all with the same brush, ya big racissstt.
You've a massive (potato) chip on your shoulder.


40 minutes on the naughty step imo.

Dr Kamikazi

Italy?
Well, they have some of the worst governments in Europe. In fact they have yet to have a government to last the full term since WWII. As far as corruption goes they make this lot of bloody amateurs look like a lot of bloody amateurs.:D
And apart from food, wine, architecture, weather, infrastructure, access to the countryside, family unity and car industry, yes I guess they are a bit like the Irish.
Except that in all of Italy you won't find a single sign in a restaurant that says "Children Welcome".
Because they always are.
And for some reason always well behaved. At least every time I was there.
The whole family (3 generations) goes out to dinner together.
At least there's some facts about those wacky Italians in this post...

Jesus Wept

Dr Kamikazi wrote: »

Italy?
Well, they have some of the worst governments in Europe. In fact they have yet to have a government to last the full term since WWII. As far as corruption goes they make this lot of bloody amateurs look like a lot of bloody amateurs.:D
And apart from food, wine, architecture, weather, infrastructure, access to the countryside, family unity and car industry, yes I guess they are a bit like the Irish.
Except that in all of Italy you won't find a single sign in a restaurant that says "Children Welcome".
Because they always are.
And for some reason always well behaved. At least every time I was there.
The whole family (3 generations) goes out to dinner together.
At least there's some facts about those wacky Italians in this post...

Disclaimer:
There is only 1 fact in the above post.

dsmythy

NBB Bohs wrote: »

Hahah its true. For a lot of Germans Ireland is a magical little Island off Europe with a great history of myths and traditions. A german girl I knew absolutely loved everything about Ireland. I think a lot of Germans own houses in the wilds of Connemara and places like that.

There you have it. Some Irish people craving German order and some German people craving Irish chaos. People always want something "different".

Dr Kamikazi wrote: »

It's actually the other way round for me.
To me the Irish have an extremely weird and messed up attitude towards many things.
Alcohol, smoking, car insurance, providing parking for sports events and concerts (i.e. you don't, with the excuse that if you did, people would use them), when two consenting teenagers end up in bed together the guy gets thrown in jail (a medieval attitude), teenage pregnancy (due to lack of education brought about by your medieval attitude in the first place), buying property (I can't build a house where I live because I'm a filthy foreigner), providing infrastructure, which you don't with the excuse that if you did, people would use it, everything is narrow, poky, too small, expensive (your planning provides streets and car parks just about big enough for average use and at peak times chaos ensues), you have one sort of bread, cheese and sausages (alright, that has improved, now there are three of each), you build crappy (REALLY crappy), WAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY overpriced houses and then have to spend half the purchase price again putting them right so they even halfway approach european standards, when I first came here oil fired central heating was a MAJOR luxury in a house, that's why all my clothing and shoes went mouldy,
it seems to me the attitude here is that everything has to be made as difficult, weird and akward as possible to discourage people from doing it, which means that everyone then tries to do exactly that, because it's difficult, then there's widespread public moaning about the fact that everyone still wants to drink, smoke, drive a car, buy a house, then it gets made even more difficult....
These things are never a problem on mainland Europe.
Try to insure a car for example: Ring up, give details, get insurance. Sorted.
But not in Ireland, Oh No!
"I'm sorry we don't insure (yellow cars, drivers with shoesize above 11, anyone born on a wednesday, vans, cars, bikes, red cars, anyone with brown hair and blue eyes, people without a third nipple, anyone who has a 3 in their phonenumber, etc...)
it seems that the objective here is not to give you car insurance for the most outlandish and ridiculous reason possible.
Buying drink: 16 year old scanger walks out of Tescos with 5 flagons of cider, but I (40) get asked for ID and it has to be Oirish, which I don't have, so get rfused. The scumbag doesn't, cause they'd be back with 20 others.
You have all the laws in the world, no littering, no dog fouling, etc... with outrageous fines (1254343,34 Euro, hahaha) but no one enforces them, so no one gives a ****.
This country has a long way to go to civilisation.

Some of these "Irish" havn't been introduced to the concept of paragraphs either!

Dr Kamikazi wrote: »

And that is exactly the kind of ignorant, oirish attitude I encounter here all the time.
The Irish can take the piss out of everyone else in Europe, but as soon as someone points out the shortcomings here, it's like "Why don't you f*ck off and live somewhere else".
Which I would if Ireland still had a property market.
Good luck trying to find someone to stump up a couple hundred grand for my overpriced, non insulated cardboard box.

You didn't have to buy it...

Dr Kamikazi

Been here 20 years.
Generally speaking, that's what I've seen here in my time.
Take alcohol.
People make this HHHHUUUUGEEEEEEE deal out of alcohol and tell their children NO YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY, it's this really big deal and a big secret and you can't have any.
Result: Kids will try and sneak a drink whenever they can.
Make it stricter, it becomes an even bigger deal.
Impose fines of 10 gazillion on supplying alcohol to minors only leads to one conclusion:
Wow, that stuff must be something else if there's all this brouhaha about it.
Result: Hordes of kids drunk in the street.
And on their 18th birthday they go to the pub and usually have to be carried home or A&E by several people or ambulance.
In Europe:
Kids can drink beer when 16 and mostly are given alcohol much earlier by their parents.
Result:
Kids tries it, doesn't like it, gets sick, swears never to touch the stuff.
mystery over.

dsmythy

Dr Kamikazi wrote: »

In Europe:
Kids can drink beer when 16 and mostly are given alcohol much earlier by their parents.
Result:
Kids tries it, doesn't like it, gets sick, swears never to touch the stuff.
mystery over.

They have this attitude in Milan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8157725.stm

A third of 11-year-olds in the city have alcohol related problems.

If only it was that simple...

Dr Kamikazi

The-Rigger wrote: »

Disclaimer:
There is only 1 fact in the above post.

Fact 1:
Italy has the kind of government that almost defines the word corruption.

Fact 2:
No really, the Italians have food wine and culture.
Widely known fact.
The Irish have mass produced, industrial beer that's being consumed in industrial quantities.
And the famous snack box, the zenith of Irish Cuisine.

Fact 3:
Italians are family oriented. Children are always welcome. Instead of the restaurant hanging up signs "crying children must be removed from the premises"
(Matt The Threshers, Birdhill)

Jesus Wept

Presenting your inpressions and opinions as facts doesn't make them so.

Naughty step.

Dr Kamikazi

dsmythy wrote: »

You didn't have to buy it...

This goes for thousands of Irish people.
You didn't have to buy a cardboard box with 5 inch thick walls in a "suburb" of Dublin (anything within 2 hours drive) that had no insulation whatsoever, cost E600k and will cost the guts of another 100k to get at least a D in it's energy cert.
I was lucky, I got a decent house, built by English people that's nice, stylish, unique and because of good location will not lose 80% of it's market value.

redout

Dr Kamikazi wrote: »

And that is exactly the kind of ignorant, oirish attitude I encounter here all the time.
The Irish can take the piss out of everyone else in Europe, but as soon as someone points out the shortcomings here, it's like "Why don't you f*ck off and live somewhere else".
Which I would if Ireland still had a property market.
Good luck trying to find someone to stump up a couple hundred grand for my overpriced, non insulated cardboard box.

That is the exact attitude anyone would have if you talked about their country with such rancour.

Do you need to look that word up ?

Dr Kamikazi

redout wrote: »

That is the exact attitude anyone would have if you talked about their country with such rancour.

Do you need to look that word up ?

nope

Dr Kamikazi

NBB Bohs wrote: »

Where are you originally from?

Germany (usually followed by groans and chorus of "that f*cking explains it)

Dr Kamikazi

The-Rigger wrote: »

Presenting your inpressions and opinions as facts doesn't make them so.

Naughty step.

No really. Go there. You'll be amazed.
It makes you wonder how one crowd of corrupt criminals and thieves can build a working country and one can't.

taytothief

that f*ckin explains it :pac: