Subtle differences

- "Fashion" is different all over the world. Here, flashy tracksuits & manbags are de rigeur, altho they would be very out of place in Sydney!
- Coffee is brewed here in a little saucepan on the stove. Instead of a kettle, they use a mug-shaped receptacle (basically single serve size) with a big handle. The water/coffee is brewed in this, & poured into the cup for serving, one at a time.
- I am man enough to admit I am a bit of a number-plate nerd (or geek, I can never work out which!). In each country, I check out the number plates, to see if there is any system etc. For example, in France, 2 of the numbers used to tell you in which "departement" the car is registered. In the UK, 2 letters then 2 numbers tell you the area and the year of registration of the vehicle. In Serbia, a similar system is used in that all the cars registered in Leskovac start with LE, all the vehicles in Belgrade start with BE etc etc. Helps you work out the visitors! Spending a lot of time in taxis in Abu Dhabi watching number plates allowed me to work out the Arabic numbering system (altho riddle me this: why do we call western numbers arabic, when the Arabs use a different system themselves????) (EDIT - I think I have given far too much deail here, proving my nerd-ishness)
- Along a similar line, most cars in Europe have a 2 or 3 letter sticker on them, indicating the country of origin. Obviously SRB stands for Serbia, and there are still a few older vehicles with YU, indicating Yugoslavia. However, SCG had me baffled. Helen explained that the CG part stood for Montenegro (ie Black Mountain, or Crna Gora in the lingua franca), back when they used to be combined. I won't even begin to try & describe the history about which countries were part of where, as it is very complicated! Before I met Helen, I had a passing understanding of the geography & the recent history, but when I met her I started looking in more detail. However, I think I understand it even less now!!