Not the big bureaucracy — the small stuff. Recycling rules, opening hours, unwritten etiquette. What tiny everyday thing quietly defeated you for the first month? Let's laugh about it and save the newcomers.
commenting to find this later, so many good ones in here
Nursery drop-off has an outdoor-shoes-off rule nobody mentioned to us — found out when my toddler was the only one still in boots on day one.
OP here — compiling favourites as I read, and the bin day one is painfully close to home. Adding my own: I still haven’t mastered which day is actually collection day and just guess weekly.
The shopkeeper greeting thing got me too, Paolo! Thought I was just being awkward, turns out it was an actual rule.
Carla’s pharmacy-versus-supermarket split got me as well — which one actually sells paracetamol, in the end? I still default to wandering both.
Long midday closures tripped me up repeatedly — turned up for errands at what felt like a completely normal hour and found half the street shuttered for lunch.
Viktor — supermarket for basic things like paracetamol, pharmacy for anything prescription or with specific dosing, in my experience at least.
Found this thread via search months late but it’s exactly what I needed — my own tiny thing is a very specific door-knocking custom that took a neighbour actually demonstrating it before I understood.