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You know youre eastern europian when...



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Tue Feb 21, 2006 3:56 pm
Zion says...



1. Your neighbour comes over every day uninvited, for coffee.

2. You start your day with a cup of coffee and a cigarette

3.You are standing next to the two largest suitcases at the airport.

4.You arrive one or two hours late to a party - and think its normal.

5.All your children have nick names, which sound nowhere close to their
real names.

6.You know someone with 20 kids

7.You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.

8.You have lace curtains.

9.You have lace tablecloths.

10.You have rugs covering every inch of your house.

11.Your mom tells you you're too skinny even though your 30 pounds overweight.

12.You have curtains hanging across every doorway.

13.You know someone that married his girlfriend of 2 months.

14.Your house is full of medicine from your old country and it's probably
all illegal here.

15.You and your friends have ever been kicked out of a restaurant or
recreational park for being too loud or rowdy.

16.You dont know how to use a dishwasher b/c u are the dishwasher.

17.You have a vinyl tablecloth on your kitchen table.

18.You use grocery bags to hold garbage.
19.Your dad ever butchered a pig or lamb.

20.Your mom ever chased you with a rolling pin or a broom telling you to
stop so that she could hit you.

21.You're twenty years old and your parents are trying to send you back to your country to get you married cause your old.

22.Getting married at 18 is normal.

23.Getting married at 16 actually happens.

24.You don't use measuring cups when cooking.
25.If you don't live at home, when your parents call, they ask if you've eaten, even if it's midnight.

26.When your parents meet strangers and talk for a few minutes, you discover you're talking to a distant cousin.

27.Your parents don't realize phone connections to foreign countries have
improved in the last two decades, and still scream at the top of their
lungs when making foreign calls.

28. It's "normal" if your wedding has 600 people.

29.You dont know half the people at your wedding
cuz your parents invited them.

30.Your family owns a coffee grinder..and a nut grinder

31.Your 15 year old sister can out-drink any American guy.

32.You work out six days a week, but somehow you dad whoops your ass in like five seconds after he comes home from a thirteen hour day from the bakery / factory / food business.

33.You own a leather jacket.

34.You drive a nicer car than your parents.

5.Your dad carries around enough money to buy a car.

36.You have all brand new appliances in your kitchen but your mom cooks in the basement with the stove from your old house.

37.You are prohibited from speaking English in you own home.

38.Your parents have gone on vacation ONCE and it was to your home country.

39.Your church has a fully loaded bar

40.If you are a girl and not married by the age of 20 you are an old maid

41.You base your whole life on the fortune in your coffee cup

42.The head of a pig with an apple in its mouth is looked upon as a delicacy

43.Your parents still prefer to buy cassettes instead of CDs.

44.Your friends' parents talk to you like they're YOUR PARENTS too.

45.You are adored the first 10 years of your life, then treated like a
complete idiot until you get married.

46.Your car costs more than your college education

47.You drive a Honda (or, in the EXTREME worse case a Nissan), and your
windows are tinted to twice the legal limit

48.Your parents have computer "experience" for 8 years already on the
resume, yet they been in US for only 4...

49.You're actually nodding and laughing at most of these things

50.You're a proud Eastern European and pass this on to your European
friends..

51.There are no vegetarians in your family because they have all died off

52.You have been able to buy cigarettes or alcohol for family members as
early as age 7.

53. Even better you're 6 and your father sends you out to buy him cigaretts ad beer.

54. You have 17 consonants and 2 vowels in your last name.

55.Your parents tell you that they walked to school in 7feet of snow with
no shoes on.

5. A loaf of bread is eaten for lunch every day.

57. you take your shoes off when you enter the house, and every
family member has his/her own slippers (plus some etra for the guests)

58. your mother tells you not to sit close to TV, ad not to use cell phones, because you'll get a brain tumor.

59. You had to share a room until you were 21.

60. your mother tells you not to sit on the concrete slabs, or your balls/ovaries are going to freeze.

61. your mother threatens you with "oh, just wait til ur father gets home".

62. You begin and end most sentences with a curse word.

63. Your father refers to all politicians as "scum" and "criminals


And the weirdest thing of all is, 95% of these stuff is actually true! Including 60, 58, 9 and 1 :D
Without sensibility no object would be given to us, without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

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Tue Feb 21, 2006 4:16 pm
Rei says...



Yeah, I can definitely relate. My grandparents are the kids of imigrants from Eastern Europe and a lot of this stuff hasn't dwindled yet.
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Tue Feb 21, 2006 4:24 pm
Myth says...



I'm not European but most of these are things I can relate to.
.: ₪ :.

'...'
  





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Tue Feb 21, 2006 4:45 pm
Swires says...



Nice post, I dont relate to it but I can see how things arte in the east of Europe.
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Tue Feb 21, 2006 5:13 pm
Galatea says...



I have a few more (Yay! Being czech rules!):

-No matter what you eat, you still hold on to your 'birthing hips'.

-You burn sitting in front of a window on a winter's day.

-Your best friends growing up were also your cousins.

-Your Grandpapa keeps asking when you're going to become a 'real woman' and marry that nice boy up the street. (This really happened, I swear)

-You date a Puerto Rican and when s/he meets your Grandmama, she insists that he's Rroma and wants nothing to do with the Gypsies. (also really happened...)

-Your Grandmama refuses to teach you Czech because "Ve're ull Amerikan now."
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Tue Feb 21, 2006 5:34 pm
thegirlwhofateloves says...



Lol...although not Eastern European, but Western European, I can definitely relate to some of these... In particular 2 (except it's tea and 2 cigarettes), 3, 4,7, the exact opposite of 11 (I'm not fat in the slightest, but according to my mother I'm Queen Obese...), 15, 19, 20 (She's insane, I swear), 31 (I could drink ANYONE under the table at that age - alcoholism runs in the family. No I'm actually being very serious!), 44 ( Don't you just want to hit them sometimes? DON'T GIVE ME ADVICE!), 45, 52 (well, strictly speaking, I wasn't actually served, but I did get sent out by by grandparents and great auntie on numerous occasions when my mother's back was turned. Funnily enough, the shopkeeper laughed and asked for ID sarcastically) and 62.
*sigh*
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Tue Feb 21, 2006 7:58 pm
sabradan says...



About 2/3 of these also apply to Israelis, seeing as about half of the Israeli population has at least one family member who at one point emigrated from Eastern Europe, usually Russia, Poland or (former)czechoslovakia.
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Sun Feb 26, 2006 4:00 am
Bjorn says...



Damn it Arvy, that is a highly accurate list! I know, I live it every day! Though I agree, about 95% I can apply to. But some things were more relevant when I went down to Croatia. As a proud South-Eastern I can say this with surety. My curtians are lace...so are all the ones in the house, so are the dinner and coffee tableclothes; my nicknames include-danko, dancek, mimi, and miko; when we went down to Croatia, we had 4 suitcases, each one larger than the next, and four bags (it was interesting dragging them along from Croatia to Slovenija on bus); my mom has eceded an hour at the door-me and my dad still talk about it; we have rugs covering ceramic and hardwood; my parents always tell me I'm skinny; we have a dishwasher-we never use it; we used to always use grocery bags as garbage bags, although now only about 50% (my cousin still does); no measuring cups; theres always a new relative to be found in a stranger; my dad was always close to imposing the law of 'no English in the house'; he paid for his Caddilac; actually #33 applies to every male in my family, but me-I'm a reformist; the only vacation my parents have been on out of the country, has been to Croatia; my church does indeed have a fully loaded bar AND kitchen; my parents graduated high-school with top honours-they left their countries when they were 14/16; yes to 49, 50, 51, 54-Christ I can go on, but I have no time!

Also:
- Your North American friends don't know where the hell the country of your nationality is
- During attendance the teacher says everyones last name but yours
- You eat smoked meats for breakfeast and even when there aren't guests
- You have a shot of plum liquor to warm you up before shoveling the snow
- If you speak English, you come from America
- A gameboy is a camera
- When your eating a European chocolate (i.e. Milka), your friends ask you what it is
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Sun Feb 26, 2006 6:45 am
Elizabeth says...



49.You're actually nodding and laughing at most of these things

I have Hungarian-Austrian, German, UK and Ireland Blood in me....
HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA
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Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:52 am
backgroundbob says...



Irish blood, dearie :D Irish.

64. You can spell 'European'

;)
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Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:57 am
Zion says...



backgroundbob wrote:Irish blood, dearie :D Irish.

64. You can spell 'European'

;)


Not really...ya see, we use cyrilic

Кирилчна азбукаааа ракс мај сакс!

Cyrilic Alphabet rox my sox!

Oh also, I was named after St.Cyril, he invented the Cyrilic Alphabet but I prefer the macedonian version of the name, Kyril, cuz Cyril reminds me of cereal :?

One more reason to fall before my feet! :twisted:
Without sensibility no object would be given to us, without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

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Sun Feb 26, 2006 5:34 pm
Eleanor Rigby says...



Dude, you just described my LIFE. My grandparents have been in Canada for over 50 years . . . and it's STILL like that. Especially these two:

51.There are no vegetarians in your family because they have all died off.

54. You have 17 consonants and 2 vowels in your last name.

I love it. lol. :wink:
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Sun Feb 26, 2006 6:27 pm
Emma says...



That's all totally my life and my friends. Whoa...
  





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Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:25 pm
Galatea says...



I'm Czech. Yippie. I tried for years to learn to speak Czech from my grandmother, but she refused to teach me. I'm also shaped like a good Slavick woman. Big hips, big boobs, broad shoulders...my Grandmama called me all sorts of cute names, my favorites being Kiko and Kimi, but there were others too. Her accented perversion of Pumpkin was cute: Poompkan. I hated it when I was 6. Oh, and does anyone know the little nursery rhyme about the little mouse running in circles on your hand, and then it runs up your arm and hides in your armpit (an excuse to tickle)?
Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength.
  





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Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:58 pm
Meshugenah says...



Ditto Dan and Gal. Seriously.. I get the, "so, when are you getting a boyfriend" at very family gathering, at least twice, from three different family members. I am always forced to eat.. and my great grandmother was the only one who was actually from overseas that I knew.. my mom's entire family is from eastern europe, and it manifests itself in such strange ways.. and it takes at least an hour to leave. so if I want to get home before sunrise, start dropping hints about leaving almost as soon as we get someplace.

and my grandpa doesn't see the point in teaching me yiddish. and then proceedes to call me a kvetch. and other choice things I can't spell. in YIDDISH! arg.

and.. names with 17 consonants? yep. so name changing occured..

and everything my greatgrandmother owed I swear was covered in lace.

600 people at a wedding? oh yeah.. and how many would be friends of your parents you've only met once? eh.. maybe that's my family..
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