|
The differences between
Baltic countries and United Kingdom
Review by
Airida Balciunaite
FROM to my own experience, I feel confident to say, that
there are so many things which are different in these countries. Started from
food traditions, people, lifestyle or even fashion. However, some things which
may look different to me, might not be different for someone else or even
haven't been noticed by others. The thing is that everyone has different
opinions and attitudes but all these things can be strongly affected by country
where you live. This is because of traditions that are different, including
different political systems or because of the information propagated by the
news.
If we would take as an example, 1 of Baltic countries, Lithuania or Latvia, we
could see that there is a big difference. For example, people from Lithuania or
Latvia are more conservative and they feel more insecure than in United Kingdom.
The main reason could be because of the historic facts, things that happened in
the past, such as the time when Lithuania was taken by Russia. The life in these
"Russian times," wasn't very easy and enjoyable. The most important
thing was work, people didn't have a lot of free time and they weren't allowed
to say their opinions. That is why some of the people in either Lithuania or
Latvia are still very conservative and hardworking. While in United Kingdom, the
people feel freer to spread the ideas, in their minds, for the whole world, also
people look more relaxed and happier. One of the reasons could be that English
people don't feel stressed, there isn't as much tension in everyday life as
there is in Baltic countries.
However, as I have mentioned before, there are a lot of different things and
another one is food and its traditions. When I moved here, I won't deny it, the
food was one of the very first things which I found very strange. Especially,
full English breakfast, I couldn't understand how people can eat that much in
the morning. After a few times, when I had full traditional English breakfast I
got used to it and now I really like it. Also, the thing is that in these Baltic
countries like Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, people are not used to eating a
lot for breakfast, they usually have something simple such as a porridge or
yogurt.
Through all of the old times, and even these days, we live a very healthy
lifestyle, most of our traditional dishes are made from vegetables and a quite
big part take dishes like soup or salad and people usually cook at home.
However, from all the statistics, Britain is 1 of the fattest countries in
Europe. Some of the reasons are that children don't eat healthy food and they
don't exercise. For example, I think that when they are at schools they eat a
lot of unhealthy food like pizzas, burgers or chips instead of having salad with
chicken or some fruit. After a while they can't even imagine their life without
fast food, so when they grow up, they keep eating all the junk food and not
doing things which could help to burn all these calories. Also, another unusual
thing is as the different types of meat sometimes go with sauces like apple or
cranberry and this is, as I already have said, a very unusual thing to eat meat
with these kinds of sauces. Also it is quite a popular thing to eat in the fast
food restaurants or to buy food which is already prepared; I think that this
makes people to get used to junk food and they don't cook at home. That is why
some children are overweight, and this is something that you don't see in
Lithuania or Latvia very often.
There are a lot of differences which might have either negative or positive side
but in my opinion the best thing is to enjoy the life and focus on the positive
things because you always will find things which may you make sad or unhappy. |
