Inspired by the thread about idioms used in different languages, I'm opening this thread to talk about anything that you find weird, funny, ludicrous, wacky or plain disturbing in the culture of your country or smaller region. I'll go first, and then I'll want to hear about Finnish justification for salmiakki. :p

1) In Croatia people have this irrational fear of draught. Draught as in a current of cool air coming from a small opening into a closed room. Croatians believe it's the cause of at least 50% of the common diseases out there. You may open a window on the train on a hot day, only to be confronted by panicked requests to shut it because of the dreaded draught, otherwise someone may get ill. Mothers and grandmothers drill into children that they should avoid sitting on a draught at all costs; this also includes walking on a cold floor barefoot or sitting on a cold surface. This is all strangely similar to the Korean fear of sleeping in a room with a working fan.

2) Croatians love coffee. Meeting a friend is going for a coffee. Trying to get a date with a girl is asking her for a coffee, and you discuss interesting or important issues over coffee. Even people who don't drink actual coffee use those expressions. Saying that you didn't have the time for your morning coffee excuses you for being slow and unproductive that day. A household needs coffee more than it needs working electricity: otherwise, what are you going to offer to your guests who come for a social call? Similarly, when you're visiting someone's home, be sure to bring a packet of ground coffee – it's the default and expected gift even if you bring nothing else.

In Ireland you almost always get two separate taps in a sink. One for hot and one for cold water. No idea why.
It doesn't help that the water in one is scorching hot and in the other freezing cold.

And here I thought that only in Romania we have the "draught" issue. It looks an Eastern European thing though.

Speaking of water, I just got back from a trip to Germany and found it interesting that they generally don't drink tap water. Supposedly, this comes from the word for tap water, Leitungswasser, is essentially "plumbing water". I think this has changed over the years and you can still be served it in restaurants if you ask for it. Coming from the US where guests are served a glass of water with ice as soon as they are seated, this took a bit of getting used to, especially after a long day of walking around the cities.

I think that's pretty much universal code for "I'd like to get to know you/get in your pants" and understood anywhere in the world. :D

Or at least anywhere where women, sex and coffee have already been invented... :D

Coincidentally, I just had a visitor from the US over the weekend and that is exactly one of the things she found weird. I wasn't aware of the weirdness of it.
(Side note, we do drink tap water, mostly at home. I'm guessing that, yes, you can get it in restaurants as well if you specifically ask for it.)

Ah, that's why your tinyE. You live in the land of the giants!

In the UK we have a few strange things. One of them is the inability to differentiate between outside clothing, and pajamas's as evidenced by "onesie's".

The other interesting one I noticed recently is that people nowadays like to be hung up on coat racks at the end of the day, at least that is what I think this craze for large plastic rings in the ears is anyway. They are aware that bottled water comes from the tap (directly in cheaper brands!). There's really no difference, its not like Perrier have discovered the fountain of life and only bottle there.

Here in Romania we (mostly) don't drink tap water either. Because a) you might get sick if you're unlucky or b) it tastes horribly of chlorine which they use to disinfect it. In Germany tap water is actually good btw. Also many people don't drink plain water, they instead prefer the bubbling variant.

But that's the case with all water systems everywhere. Hot and cold from different sources. Why not combine into one tap.

Swedes love coffee as well. Or they hate tea, I'm not entirely sure which. Which I - as someone who doesn't drink the black sludge and instead prefer a nice cup of tea - experience fairly often. People are visibly shocked when they learn that I don't drink coffee, and if I bother asking if they have tea instead, there's a high chance the handful of (either Earl Gray, English Breakfast, or Yellow Label - only extremely rarely are there more than one kind, and even more rarely are there any others than those three) teabags they have have been lying in the cupboard for the last twenty years and have long since lost all semblance of flavour. Thankfully, I'm not the only tea drinker at work, there's a handful of us (out of about 200), and we thus have a small selection of teas available, even if it's paid from our own pockets.

I wouldn't have coffee at home unless mother bought it because she gets annoyed that I don't have any.

I adore the omnipresence of magic in Switzerland, as soon as you scratch the materialist, rationalist surface. From sorcerers who supposedly heal warts and light burns through telephone rituals (hospitals have informal lists of sorcerers to dispatch people to), to ghosts and exorcists, to various forms of magnetisers/de-magnetisers and gnomes inhabiting rocks, trees, etc... There is a whole untold mystical universe right behind the curtain of normality. Any conversation can all of a sudden take a very weird turn, as someone starts telling of their experience with that-sorcerer-who-cured-that-thingy-and-i-didn't-believe-it-at-first-but. It pops up everywhere, no matter the political or religious affiliation. I find it charming, in a world-re-enchanting way.

In Greece, I love the (evil) "eye". It's the mediterranean-widespread belief, slowly falling out of fashion, that bragging too much, or displaying a too flashy success, or just accidentally provoking envy, brings bad luck, through the magical glance of jealous people. It's unintentionnal, even making a sincere compliment to someone may bring them bad luck. It's usually aknowledged (the compliment is sometimes accompanied by a small counter-ritual, like a pretend spit on the ground, or just a comment of the "but let's not evil-eye it !" form), and most of times it's merely half-serious. But there's also the occasional urbal legend supposed to demonstrate that evil eye exists. And there are many little exorcisms that cure people of the symptoms of having caught the "eye".

I'm also amused by the readiness, by people who subscribe to these beliefs, to mock and dismiss exotic beliefs and magical anxieties. It's always fun to poke them with a "by the way, have you cured yesterday's evil eye" after one of their rants. Yet again, those beliefs on invisible causalities are not much worse than what they are asked to swallow in terms of economy mechanisms, conspiracy scapegoating, and other secular narratives supposed to make sense of the world. Of all the fictions that shape our worlds (from historical myths to ordinary soul mates), these ones aren't the most harmful...

I believe this is because, long time ago, only 1 of the sources was actually drinkable.

I am Scottish so the cliché has to be the good ol' battered mars bar. What were they thinking?! Who knows, but it was a good one!