Weed isn’t legal in The Netherlands, the sale of weed is only condoned. Meaning the coffee shops who sell weed cant legally purchase it.
As far as the laws concerned it magically appears.
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Weed isn’t legal in The Netherlands, the sale of weed is only condoned. Meaning the coffee shops who sell weed cant legally purchase it.
As far as the laws concerned it magically appears.
so they illegally purchase it and then sell illegal goods, legally?
Eh, not legally. It's illegal but condoned (up to 5 gram, for personal use only). Meaning they won't arrest or prosecute you for it, but technically you are still beaking the law. I guess in theory some DA could add it along with other charges. But since we don't have a US-style kangaroo court system, this never happens.
Ah yes, the magically appearing coffeeshopwiet. I'm trying to get rid of it officer, honestly, but it just keeps coming back! Suppose I may as well sell it for a reasonable price in my humble little shop in Doetinchem. Perhaps with a bit of coffee on the side. Maybe in edible form for those who can't smoke the leaves.
There are bow trials being done with legally grown weed. Meaning it's a government run weed farm.
Wasn't there a country where some company ran a "lost and found" service where you'd pay them to "find your weed". Like they were selling you weed but in order to make it legal their business was for you to pay them to find your lost weed.
We use the ISO-8601 date and time format, mostly. We separate the portions by points, not dashes, though. So a typical date looks like this: 2023.12.22. If we shorten it without the year, it's 12.22., or 5.12. We say it with just the numbers, without the points, and shorten "hónap" (month) to "hó". So its "5. hó 12", basically "5th mo' 12".
For time we use the 24H format, regularly even in everyday speech. If it's very clear that you are in the late afternoon or evening, you just say "6 o'clock 24" or "13 o'clock 46".
So always from bigger to smaller "powers". It's auto-sorted on most filesystems, table of contents etc. and very clear in everyday use. It's nice.
Hungary.
I'm so in favor of that time format, both 8601 and 24 hour.
Just to be pedantic, iso 8601 stipulates that the delimiting character is a "-" not a "."
I generally prefer dates ordered from most to least prominence myself, but any ordering is better than the weird flip flopped month day then year thing we got Stateside.
Interesting that y'all say o'clock before the minutes, tho! Haven't seen that before.
There are so many natural springs in the Swedish inland, that you don't really need to worry about bringing drinking water when hiking.
It is recommended to bring a water filter with you, but most of the water is clean and safe to drink.
How often do moose bite people in Sweden?
Not often as long as you're not karving your initials into its side.
I'd be way more afraid of their feet than their bite. Not that a bite wouldnt hurt but their kick will break bones
To my knowledge, I only have a vauge memory of having read this happening, but it may be a Total:Recall scenario where you comment has implanted a false memory.
In any case, I would not be worried about biting, moose are far more likely to crush you when they decided to cross the road just infront of your car, in the evenings, when it is dark, at roads with no lighting.
That is how me and my dad almost had a terrible crash many years ago, we were heading home from Uppsala toward Stockholm, dad was driving, we were on the backroads, and had just started driving on a long straight on the road, there was an oncomming car, and as we got close a moose decided to cross the road just ahead of us, dad had no tome to brake, and had to swerve into the oncomming lane and then back into our lane, we made it, but had a huge adrenaline kick.
All learner drivers in Sweden are required to go to a driving facility and learn about the risks of exsessive speed, stopping distance and swerving, both on dry and wet track to get a feel for it should it happen later, it is really fun, as you get to drive the car at speed alone for the first time.
People are racists on a town to town basis.
One of the official language isn't used in the daily life despite having the larger speaker base. People use dialect.
These dialect can vary a lot between regions or even towns.
People will be angry and rant if the train run 5 minutes late.
The biodiversity is actually bad.
You can legally urinate on a UNESCO monument.
Switzerland
Don't forget that making a spliff out of your train ticket, ink and all, is a thing lol
Edit: There are also pockets where the police won't go because they recognize they're full of crime and drugs, but as long as it stays within those couple of streets, they're happy to let things stay as they are so it doesn't spill out.
Oh and over a quarter of the population consists of immigrants.
And there's free water everywhere.. hiking, in towns.. just bring a water bottle and find a fountain that's always running. The water is ice cold year round too.
It's also the home of H.R. Geiger (Alien design fame) in Gruyère. You can go to the town of Gruyère, which is gorgeous, and see the museum, go to the Alien-inspired café, see how they make the Gruyère cheese that you probably know, and even visit the Cailler chocolate factory, which has a Willy Wonka-type tour with infinite chocolate tasting at the end.. mmmmmmm..
Some others:
Half of the people with swiss citizenship have a foreign background at some level.
The majority of immigration went from permanent to temporary. People come for a small amount of time.
Despite being one of the most neoliberal country, people of the city of Berne voted to allocate money to the self-managed cultural center. This can be explained by the city-countryside political divide.
Switzerland doesn't have direct democracy but a semi-direct democracy.
Appenzell Innerrhoden and Glarus still have a Landsgemeinde where people vote cantonal level legislations using show of hands vote.
Corruption at the local level is high.
There are more unwritten rules than laws.
People keep their friends during the entire life. As a side effect, people can be seen as unfriendly. It can take up to 10 years to make a local friends.
You can reach 95% of the country by public transportation.
The Habsburg dinasty originated from the small town of Habsburg in the Canton of Aargau.
We don't let sheep vote here, despite being outnumbered by them. We also have no romantic relationships with them either.
Australians suck and are terrible at sport. Don't pick on them though, because we're the Pacific redneck brothers. Only we can pick on Australians.
You always know when Tonga or Samoa is playing a sports match, because you'll see the flags and hear the cars tooting everywhere.
Guy Fawkes is a real big deal. Fireworks will be going all week.
All the fish and chip shops are owned by Chinese, all the dairies by Indians, and all the bakeries by Cambodians.
It's difficult to find some nationality that isn't represented by a restaurant somewhere.
Our national dish is Butter Chicken.
-New Zealand
you are writing about a place where every second person is prone to skin cancer and you don't even notice it... It's just like a cold (illness ) for you. And the fact that you live so far from the rest of the world that if you have the opportunity, you certainly try to escape from the country (despite the high level of prosperity of the country). And you can't swimming in ocean.... water is cold, evenin summer...
Guy Fawkes is a real big deal. Fireworks will be going all week.
Try a major UK city. It's dark early, often foggy, people are fighting each other with rockets on the streets. People are holding hands and burning effigies of the latest prime minister.
God do I miss England in November.
Don't pick on them though, because we're the Pacific redneck brothers. Only we can pick on Australians.
I've always loved seeing these sorts of brotherly rivalries between nations.
You always know when Tonga or Samoa is playing a sports match, because you'll see the flags and hear the cars tooting everywhere.
Ahh, that big a sports rivalry, then?
It's difficult to find some nationality that isn't represented by a restaurant somewhere.
Got a favorite nationality's food?
New Zealand is a beautiful country and it'd be a dream to get a chance to visit y'all some time :D
We also have no romantic relationships with them either.
Well yeah, bit rude for the sheep to cheat on their Welsh spouses, innit? Nawh I kid, love ya Wales! A Welsh accent's honestly my favorite from the Isles.
Canada is, surprisingly enough, not part of America.
We're not America's hat - you're Canada's asshole. /s
Just because we do our best here in Canada to not be like our American cousins .... it doesn't mean that a good number of us think, act and believe like our southern relatives.
Honestly, I live in northern Ontario where we shouldn't have so much American influence but it's so strange to meet and talk to outright Trump supporters with 'Let's Go Brandon' stickers, don't trend on me and Confederate flags. It's especially strange when some back woods people I know barely have any knowledge of Canadian politics but enjoy mentioning their second amendment rights and the right to bear arms (both of which is an American thing and not part of Canadian history)
That’s extremely strange. I’m curious - in your experiences, are these usually Canadian-born people or do they sound like they could be from America?
It's just the side effects of news media like Fox news.
They probably had a bit of conservative bent to their politics to begin with but when you toss in daily hourly propaganda to these people, their ideas start to sound normal and even necessary to them.
I also have a bunch of friends in southern Ontario around Hamilton and Haldimand region and you can't believe the number of boomers down there who just leave Fox News on all day in the background. They watch more American news than they do Canadian and they are the same group that will call the pubic broadcaster CBC as communist or socialist. It's amazing how powerful propaganda can be to a whole group of people. It may not fool everyone, but it fools enough of them to make difference.
There's a significant number of them that are Canadian born. Honestly, it speaks a lot to the influence of fox news and other right wing propaganda outlets... these people weren't the target - the propaganda isn't even relevant to them - and yet they're just as brainwashed as maga idiots.
We take folk dancing very seriously. There are A LOT of folk dance ensembles and they vary from random hobbyist groups to company-sponsored groups of 80+ dancers. There are lots of competitions, drama and every 5 years - a huge concert where most ensembles participate and perform in a stadium. One dance can contain up to 1000 dancers at the same time.
During this year's final dance the spectators mentioned that they could feel the ground shaking.
-Latvia
The night before December 6th, children leaves their shoes on front of the chimney, along with a glass of milk and a carrot for Saint-Nicholas and his donkey (other countries say it's a horse, but it's a donkey for us).
Saint-Nicholas leaves a bunch (like, a lot) of candy and toys during the night for children to find when they wake up.
Traditional treats include speculoos, chocolate coins, nuts, clementines and "guimauve" (like marshmallows but a little less soft, in the shape of clogs or religious figures, sometimes chocolate-covered).
Also, on Easter, children will find eggs in their backyard. They are dropped by "the bells". The story is that the bells of Rome fly across Europe and drop eggs along the way (see this postcard). So when the children are done finding all the eggs, they shout "THANK YOU BELLS".
Belgium
In Finland, during winter, we enjoy making wide openings into an icy lake near the shore, and go swimming in it. Best translation I can find is ice swimming. This is usually paired with a piping hot sauna, and you alternate between the 80-100 celcius hot room and taking dips in the ice water. If no lake/similar body of water is available, rolling around naked in snow is also a valid option.
We do that in Michigan too but it's to punish people who commit crimes against fashion
and translation is not necessary, here in Russia we call such people (swimming in an ice hole in winter) simply: walrus
Here’s a few:
Scotland
There are broadly 150 indigenous language groups but only about 14 are still in common use.
If you've worked for a single company/system for 7 years you get a bonus 6 weeks 'long-service' leave.
We have a native cherry that grows inside out called a cherry ballart.
Our cuisine is really varied depending on your geography with a lot of soth East Asian influences. Most people will make stir-fry reasonably often and we have our own variations of sushi and dim sum which would offend most Japanese or Chinese people.
South Africa has 11 official languages and some of the friendliest people you'll ever meet.
Sejm RP youtube channel (basically parliamant) recently got 600k subscribers and live streams have over 1M views
This website has maps of how french words are pronounced differently depending on where people live, sometimes the words aren't even the same but still refer to the same thing!
https://francaisdenosregions.com/index-des-billets/
Of course it's only interesting if you're into french language haha
Most slavic languages probably don't have spelling contests - what you say has mostly exact textual representation, except some letters that can sound alike when spoken.
The more I learn about other languages the more I realize that most languages do that. English probably also did that before it became mixed with french
English spelling wasn't even remotely standardized at that time. So phonetic was pretty much all there was
We eat raw olive oil with bread for breakfast. Trust me, it's actually more disgusting than everyone thinks.
Imagine a country physically located in Africa that has more influence from the Arab world and the European [sub]continent than local influence. Your average citizen can speak like, 3 languages, and there's certainly some that can speak more than that. We even participated in the Eurovision Song Contest at one point (biggest regret imo).
Have you ever heard of Pokimane? What about Loreen? Chances are they have ethnic roots from this country. Oh, and Faouzia too.
There's so many mosques here. I'm not against practicing religion, but I have to say that there's probably too many mosques, when a couple hundred is more than enough for everyone. Try appropriately 40 thousand. And the state actually wants to build more.
Some Israeli company uses our argan oil for their skincare products. To this day, this remains my worst nightmare.
Hospitality.
You guys really need to try our couscous. It's delicious.
Hey, I see you mentioned the USA in your post. Well guess what. It's not France that first recognized them, it's us.
I gave you enough clues. The country is Morocco.
We are not middle earth
Well obviously, you're a couple of islands surrounded by thousands of kilometres of water, that makes you Middle Ocean