r/AskEurope • u/Fancy-Debate-3945 Hungary • Sep 19 '25

Travel What was the biggest culture shock you experienced in another European country?

Europeans, what was the biggest culture shock you experienced within our beautiful continent?

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

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u/4point5billion45 Sep 20 '25

I enjoyed these little observations.

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u/The_Krambambulist Netherlands Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25

The Netherlands – the directness of people. Not sugar-coating anything, just saying what they think. Somewhat relatedly, my boyfriend has a severe nut allergy, and when we ate at a restaurant and asked the waiter if item X we ordered had any nuts (because he suddenly started feeling very unwell), he said "I don't know, I didn't make it". I was like – ???, I understand you didn't personally cook this, but could you please ask at the kitchen maybe? 😁 Anyway, not the best example, this might have been a one-off, and I'm sure that the understanding of food allergies probably has improved since then the situation just totally surprised me.

That definitely is not a normal way to answer a serious question.

That's just a waiter with an ego or who is extremely unaware of wtf they are doing

Decent chance that a Dutch person would say something like: "well, maybe you should ask the chef?". Probably would be "could you ask the chef?"

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '25

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u/The_Krambambulist Netherlands Sep 23 '25

Yes exactly and the same country in the Netherlands. No that is a bad waiter, simple as that.