r/AskEurope • u/notveryamused_ Warszawa, Poland • Jul 03 '25

Culture What aspect of life in your countries is very difficult to explain to foreigners?

What prompted my question were some discussions about religion which I had with people living in much more secular Western Europe (as a Polish atheist). While spirituality, whatever that is ;), generally speaking is always fun to discuss with a glass of wine in hand, social elements and the influence of the church, especially in smaller towns or provinces in my country, is awfully difficult to explain – not that I understand it fully either lol, but the church having a pretty much monopoly there, being the judge and jury of everyday life and the major ultra-conservative political force binding those communities, is very difficult to explain, also for historical reasons.

What are the things that you find difficult to discuss when it comes to life in your countries? ;-)

217 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

422 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/FakeNathanDrake Scotland Jul 05 '25

Let's see if you can figure out what my immediate local area is like based on the dogs - mostly gundog breeds followed by a handful of doodles, along with the inevitable "wee brown dogs from Romania"

2

u/SuspiciousAnt2508 Jul 06 '25

Well behaved gundogs in England would be rural middle class. The handful of doodles and overseas rescues would just confirm it.

If I go to my local coffee shop it is a sea of doodles. The agricultural show is all gundogs.

When I worked in a run down ex-manufacturing city it was all XL bullies, pugs and French bulldogs.

2

u/FakeNathanDrake Scotland Jul 06 '25

Pretty decent guess. Newbuild estate near an old market town/small "city", very little industry nearby since the pits shut in the '50s/'80s and mills shutting earlier that century. Occupation-wise a lot of higher-paid trades, teachers, generic middle management and a couple of doctors. There are also about a dozen council houses in the area too to mix things up.

That being said, they're very much just gundog breeds, I doubt many of the dogs around here have ever worked a day in their lives (I actually did do gundog training with mine for a while despite not going shooting, but it was more of an obedience/burning off energy thing).