What surprised you the most about moving from the third world to the first world?

The toothpaste aisle. There is an aisle for toothpaste. It's been almost 25 years and that still

boggles my mind. How well-lit everything was. It was like looking at Christmas lights and the

first time I smelled Burger King and saw a yellow Mustang. When I first came to Canada, it terrified me that people were so nice, especially when it came to traffic. The first few times it happened, I didn't know what the F was going on. I'd be standing in the little gap between the traffic signal and pavement, looking at this car that starts slowing down 20 metres in advance. While I watch it, expecting it to go past so I can cross the road, it just stops. And then the driver makes a little hand motion thingy, and I'm standing there thinking, do you want me to go? Do you want me to go first? What is this? What is the, is this protocol? Is this what's done here? You wait for me? I, as a pedestrian, have rights and not just a bull's eye on my face. So I spent

the first year or so just freezing like a deer in headlights every time I had to cross a road.

Because a lifetime of playing traffic frogger in Karachi did not leave me with the impression that

drivers knew what the brake was for. And Canadians. You're nice. It's damned terrifying.

Honduran here, who moved to Germany. Being able to walk in the streets with your phone in your hand was a bizarre feeling. Also how everyone was on time.

The passengers on trains have little to know instructions and mayhem somehow doesn't break loose.

Being able to find a ride online from a stranger and not be murdered along the

way. How everyone respected convention. Once I saw a hat on the floor for about as long as I sat there

and nobody picked it up. In Honduras, it had been gone in less than a heartbeat. How they allowed

and protected the Third Reich to hold a demonstration. In Honduras, if it wasn't the party in power, they would

have been repressed in no time. How I didn't really need a car. I was able to take public

transportation with my expense of headphones, book and smartphone in full view. Oh,

Deutschland, I ver me said his saucer. What surprised my grandmother when she saw Finland was how conservative people were

with land usage here. In Nigeria, during imperialism, a lot of land was wasted in grand architecture.

I remember going to a university there. From entering the front gate, we had to drive what was

at least a half mile before reaching the first building. Otherwise, it was just all grass.

Ha ha, yes. The Nordic countries are quite sparse and compact compared to a lot of places,

even other first world countries. But I'd argue there's a lot of beautiful stuff there

anyway in the right seasons. You can't beat Helsinki in summer. Air conditioning everywhere.

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