I’m wondering how much of this is a regional cultural thing or a religious thing.

I’ve been going on a rabbit hole learning about them after I was just randomly reminded about the Northwest Airlines flight 255 crash in Detroit Michigan, my hometown. Where everyone but a 4 year old girl perished. I’ve met people who knew others who perished on that crash as well, but today it feels like all but forgotten in aviation history as I don’t see anyone but Click On Detroit (a popular news channel) make new videos/articles/memorials on it.

What are some major disasters in aviation and shipping history that happened in your country, that it seems like no one but your local community remembers?

Edit: realized I forgot the year of the flight 255 crash, it was in 1987 and I believe it is still today the second most tragic crash in American history.

In Austria, mandatory military service can be quite boring depending on the branch you get sent to, like the guard or the guys doing telecommunications or something like that.

I was sent to the engineers and had quite a fun time, doing things I probably won‘t do ever again.

We went shooting frequently with the standard rifle and sometimes a pistol, we had explosion training, we rappelled down an old dam as a surprise in the middle of one of our marches, which is a great way to figure out that the fear of being embarrassed infront of your comrades beats a latent fear of heights btw, we camped a bit out in the woods for one or two weeks, we got to do physical exercises in a room full of irritant gas to test our gas masks, we got sent on an orientation march and some guys got lost and we had to search for them, and were sent on a mission to the other part of the country for about a month to build stuff.

I also got to stand as the honor guard at the tomb of some fallen soldiers of ww1 at the local cemetery on All Souls Day, which wasn‘t exactly fun, but memorable nonetheless.

How does military service look like in your country? Did you do interesting stuff, or were you mostly bored to death?

And if you‘re from a country without mandatory service, would you introduce it?

Can include things such as property tax, sales tax, income tax, car taxes, etc.

I can read the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets, not good at handwriting in either language. I can read some French too, but I would only read French handwriting very slowly, if at all, in most cases.

Also, for anyone who is something like 14 reading this, handwriting, also known as cursive, is this thing adults used to have to learn in school because old teachers used to be somehow unable to read anything we wrote unless it was stuck together, slanted, and drawn as artistically as possible.

While I was in Seville, the hostel had a school trip of British students come. I think middle school age, and again in Strasbourg there was a group of middle school aged students. But they spoke French so I don't know how far they were coming from.

Are school trips to other countries in Europe a common thing? I could see it happening if you lived right on the border, but what about if you lived in the middle of your country? As a New Yorker in Long Island, our middle school and high school trips were to the MoMA, Guggenheim, and Natural History museums in Manhattan, and they took us to a local jail in elementary school. The high school had a Six Flags day trip and a skiing trip to Boston that got cancelled, but that's the furthest I've ever of a school trip going. What are your field trips like? How does it even work getting so many students to another country, what do you do in these trips?

I've been seeing lots of articles about locals being badly affected by over tourism, what do you think of these school trips in your country if/when you see them?

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In Canada, it’s pretty common for someone purchasing used goods to try and negotiate a lower price (yard sales, flea markets, consignment stores, online marketplaces), but not with food or at regular commercial stores. Haggling can also be seen as rude in some circumstances, such as with certain goods, or offering too low of a price.

How common is haggling where you are?

This is excluding those who are of Indian descent. Would you react with concern, given all the publicized safety and hygiene issues in India (not to mention how polarizing the country can be as a tourist destination), and discourage them from going? Or would you have a more positive reaction? How would others in your country react?

My fav ice cream flavor is Moose Tracks (close battle with Pistachio Gelato) but I cant find it in my country. Any idea where can i find it in Europe?

I just checked Netherlands. The minimum is called transition payment and is one-third of employee's gross monthly wage per year worked, calculated from the first working day. The maximum is one year's gross salary, or EUR 94K. (Please correct me if I am wrong.)

What about the other countries?

I realized that one of the main differences in my lifestyle in Germany vs (western) Turkey is that when I am in Turkey, I usually don't bother checking the weather forecast that much, especially between May and October. I know it will be sunny and hot, and how hot usually doesn't matter that much. I may look at the forecast at the end of the evening news, but that's it. I do check it more often in winter and spring, just to get a general idea if I should take an umbrella or an extra jumper.

In Germany, though, the weather tends to be a lot more variable, and I tend to check at least a couple of times a week. Sometimes, if I am about to go running and or biking, I may even check for the next couple of hours.

What about you guys? How often do you check the weather? Does it vary by season? What influence does the forecast have on your activities?

One of my friends works as a photographer and is often ordered to do family photo sessions. Also, some people take more serious “family photos”, where everyone is together, wearing the same clothes, etc. But I don't think it's very common, it didn't happen in my family.
Do you have a tradition of taking family photos with a professional photographer?
How often? In general, do you have any traditions associated with this?

Not the government but the people, the country.

So let's you are the president of your country and every single country on Earth has decided to put a message and few things in a capsule and sent it out in space. What kind of message and things from your country would you sent that would represent your country and your people the best?

In Poland, this is evident in the quality of cable television and internet, which a few years ago may not have been so fast but were stable. However, now the quality is on a downward slope. 😐

This phenomenon even has its own name:

Enshittification

From en- (“caused”) +‎ shittification (“becoming shitty”). As a designation for a particular phenomenon affecting online platforms, coined by Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author Cory Doctorow in 2022.

Enshittification (Wikipedia)

Similar to the N-word in America, but unique to your country, something that I simply cannot know about as a tourist and it will be an unpleasant surprise for me.

I realize this is difficult to answer, but I‘m curious your thoughts on this. Especially if you‘ve lived in different countries.

In the United States, as soon as Easter is over you start seeing reds, whites, and blues in all the stores. In the same way you might see Christmas decorations in all the stores once Halloween is over. In the United States, the 4th of July is to summer as Christmas/New Year's is to winter.

Gotta get a new blue grill for the summertime cookouts, so that it matches your blue sunglasses and your little novelty American flag and your American flag tank top. The fireworks are boxed in red, white, and blue decor, all the soda brands start releasing their Summer Edition flavors, usually packaged in red, white, and/or blue...

What gets hyped in your neck of the woods once Easter is over?

Title.

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As a person living in Poland I've heard many stories about what life was like during the communism. I also imagine that it was pretty similar in other former Eastern Block countries. But what was it like from the perspective of the opposite side? What happened in your country during that period? What are common stories told by people from your country who have lived in that period?

Do you believe the EU elections have any point? Do you plan on voting in June?

And Slovak, on the other hand, has 'eggs'.

I have been watching videos of YouTubers going around interviewing people and it seems like people are from all other the place. He interviews people who live in Spain but are French but know German because they went to school there. Even people who come from us or Asia in Europe don’t settle in one place and have lived in a few countries or plan to move soon. Here in us I feel it’s common to live in one place. If they do move it only temporarily and plan to move back unless it’s a big city like New York or LA. I feel people in Europe just move randomly which is nothing wrong with it but there are no real benefits it besides the experience.

Here in the United States, most people have been having less kids than from pervious generations. Some have 1-3 kids, have decided to wait on having kids due to wanting to have more financial security before doing so, or decided not to have kids for various reasons. Most of this also implies for people who want to be married too. I myself do hope to be a father one day though.

So how open or inclined are people across Europe are about having kids and getting married?

In America you stay in "elementary" education (any pre-college education) and after that, if you want, you go to college. I've seen some things about starting university at 16 in some European countries? Is this true and how does it work?

What are your thoughts about why some European countries have a more accepting view of nudity than Americans? I know the obvious answer is the Puritans, but how do Europeans view nudity, particularly with the variety of all types of bodies? How are children taught to view nudity?

Do people get just enough to live or are people forced into homelessness because of whatever situation they are in.

Hi there!

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