From Russia With Love

Today in my 7th grade class, we were reading about ghost stories from different countries and we read one from the US about prom and my students had no idea what prom was. It was actually fun having to explain high school prom to them. When I told them about Prom King and Queen, one of them said, "so what do the king and queen do?" And I thought about it for a second and I said, "well nothing." So then they were a little confused about why we have a king and queen and about who actually rides in the limo and it sounded pretty weird when you actually explain it.

It's been fun noticing the differences in the culture. Here's a list of things I've come up with:

Staring is not rude. So if someone is staring at you and you stare back, they won't even flinch. It feels a little weird, but you get over it.
Bumping into someone is not a big deal, really. If you bump into someone just mumble, "excuse me" or say nothing at all and keep walking. Not like in the US where if you bump into someone, they get all upset.
Old ladies are not fragile or helpless. In fact, they pretty strong and they know how to get around.
You don't wear shoes inside. You take them off when you go to someone's house and they will have slippers or slip-on sandals for you to wear (if you don't have on socks).
Beer is like a soft drink. Like I've seen people drink it in the morning on the way to work.
There's never really a concept of getting in line; it's more that you get in the crowd and just sort of move with the crowd and wait your turn. Well not really wait, you have to be aggressive or you won't get anywhere (like if there is a person sized space between you and the person in front of you in a line, say at McDonald's or somewhere, someone will get in front of you).
Everyone smokes. Like as soon as he gets out of the gate from the school, the P.E. teacher lights his cigarette.
There are no preservatives in food. Which makes it a lot better, but it also means things go bad a lot faster (but I'm not complaining. I like this).

If I think of more, I will add them!

Oh and I was mistaken for a Russian again! Ha!