Talking about surprises - I don't know what culture you're from... is it even on this planet? But perceiving a "buddy of bankers" as "left wing" and someone who has protesters brutally clubbed down by the police as "liberal" is really something different... Lol.

It's called "whooping" or "war whooping."

It's the equivalent of a war cry.

Switzerland:

Famous for chocolate, cheese, clocks and watches...

We spent our holidays this summer in the Bernese Oberland (Hasliberg, Meiringen - famous for the Reichenbachfall). Two things were surprising:
1) The Swiss are usually very calm, placid (some say: slow) and friendly people. This is really true in most cases! We knew that Switzerland has pretty strict speed limits and from our experiences in Denmark last year we expected some relaxed driving... Not true. Somehow entering a car turns the placid Swiss into aggressive madmen - they honk like crazy when they think you're going too slow, they don't keep any safety distance, they overtake on the right side (strictly forbidden in Germany and crazy dangerous), they overtake on small curvy mountain roads with almost no free line of sight ahead... and they don't know how "zip merging" works, so every time two lanes collapse into one people are jockeying into the other lane like crazy creating a congestion which wouldn't be there if they simply arranged themselves how it's supposed to work.

2) Switzerland has an excellent network of public transport, the train network is probably the best in the world. And they are very aware of environmental problems and global warming. Much of Switzerland's water and energy supply depends on the Alps' glaciers and from current calculations it's estimated that in 80 years to come they will be all gone. There even was a brochure in the hotel which examined this problem. But at the same time public transport is crazy expensive! We were planning a trip to Rosenlaui, two adults and two children. This would have been a bus (called "Postauto") trip of half an hour from Meiringen (one way). To Rosenlaui and back this trip for us four would have cost 140 Franken (~130 €)! This insane! In the end we went by car although we would really have preferred not to. The same with the trip to Berne which would have been more than 200 Franken when going by train.

Wow. That is expensive.

That's even worse than Amtrak in America which seems to work hard to k keep it more expensive than flying or driving.

I'm always overwhelmed by how warm, social, open and friendly everyone who's not from Scandinavia is. It's sickening.

Tell me about it?

I am Cold, Anti-Social, Closed and unfriendly as everyone is in Australia, Like everyone I just don't get involved and keep to myself it's much much better that way.

It's so unfortunate that asteroid didn't hit earth, Most scumbags deserve it would make them get their shit together real FAST!

THIS PHOTO HERE *FISH STICK*
Like This

yes
i've always considered them kind of a guilty pleasure food. Fun to snack on, but I would imagine eating the box they come in is healthier then eating the sticks themselves. :P

Yes, Although taste like crap if you either undercook or overcook them though.

Like most Australians, I always wanted to travel. Unlike a lot of people, I have actually travelled to many countries (more than thirty); I have lived (and ridden horses, schooled and/or worked) on three continents, so I am able to give some interesting assessments, should the need arise.

Having said that, the cost of public transport is ludicrous in the UK. For a while I lived in the Home Counties (roughly 25 miles from the London GPO, in the surrounding countryside) and a season ticket for the train was more than £3000 (which, almost twenty years ago, was nearly $Au10k —— these days it's more like $5k).

On the other hand, even with ruinous parking fees and expensive petrol, car travel was much, much less. Hence why the traffic was abysmal. (This was before Boris Johnson was Mayor. I understand the situation may have changed a bit.)

Public transport is pretty dear, here, too. The one exception seems to be the allowance for seniors to travel for less (locally they may travel free of charge).

When we were in Germany I thought the trains were sensational. I do remember we were trying to make a train (around Bremen, IIRC) and it was just arriving. My spouse (being disabled) was not moving very fast. I recall the smiling attendant, leaning out of the doorway and then … leaning back in as the train left the platform —— still smiling. :) Can't have the train waiting for a passenger, after all, since that might cause the whole timetable to be distorted!

My mother visited Germany last year and had a few similar encounters. She thought that many people were rude. I can't remember the whole story, but there was a dog that bit her and the owner demanded she apologize for offending the dog in some way.

Speaking of train schedules, Amtrak seems to never be on schedule by mid-line. Could be 20 minutes early, but likely 2 hours late.

We do tend to have genuinely kind service, though. I'd love like to think that Amtrak would stop and help your mother.

I actually have found, generally speaking, Germans are very polite. I have another anecdote, from the Netherlands, where we were queuing to ride the tram and another new passenger ran ahead of us to push past the egressing passengers in order to secure the last seat. I yelled out my thanks sarcastically and he smiled as if it were truly funny.

This is mainly due to the ratio of many more tourists to locals in Amsterdam (where this was), though. It's very hard to have altruistic rapport with strangers when everyone distrusts / fears / mistrusts everyone else, with just a few locals to administer the (in this case, public transport) system. Once again, the few Dutch people I met were almost completely unfailingly polite (apart from the jerk who stole the last seat from a disabled person who had trouble standing, of course).

Mate... that's a crabstick. Not made of crab, but that's still what they're called.

Crabsticks and fishsticks co-exist on the menu.