Dinner for 3

Saturday the 25. Of september I had Alexandra from Greece and Marian from Spain at my place for dinner. During the evening we talked about similarities and differences and here are some of them:

How you greet each other as friends is quite different from Denmark and Greece/Spain. Already here you can make a big mistake greeting in the 'wrong' way. In Denmark it's common to give your friends a hug when you meet them for parties or other social arrangements and In Spain and Greece you kiss each other on each cheek.
Before this dinner I were at a surprise party for a Spanish girl called Laura to celebrate her birthday. The first girl I saw I was greeting with a hug. It turned very awkward cause in the same movement I tried to hug her, she tried to kiss my left cheek and I didn't notice this so after my hug I pulled back while she was trying to kiss my second cheek:-)
Then I found out the people were greeting by kissing each other so the others I hugged while I kissed them on both their cheeks. Then I talked to Alexandra (the Greek girl) later that night about this and she told me that hugging while kissing was not the proper way, you just like bumped your heads together and kissed with one hand on the shoulder, or something like that:-)
We talked about this at the dinner and I told the girls it was quite intimate for a Danish person to kiss another person, While alexandra and Marian thought the same about hugging. I told Marian that I didn't kiss some Spanish girls at the party but only shook their hand cause I'd never seen them before and because of this they were giving me a strange look. Marian told me it was because in Spain you kiss a person even if you meet them for the first time, so it was kind of impolite I didn't kiss them:-)

At this surprise party one of the spanish girls brought 3 of her spanish girlfriends to the party. I asked Marian and Alexandra if it was common in their countries to bring friends who weren't invited to parties and they confirmed that is was quite common to bring friends to parties and they were always welcome.
It is different in denmark. It is considered impolite to bring friends to a party without asking beforehand. After hearing this Alexandra said 'aaah that was why Christiane (a Danish girl) asked for permission to bring her sister to the party'.

During the evening alexandra asked me a question about Classroom behaviour. Alexandra and a Greek guy called kostas was talking about how Danish students were behaving in class. They had observed that some of the Danish students were eating during the class and some had their feet on the tables or chairs and others had their computers and mobile phones on the tables visible for the teachers. In their countries it was considered quite impolite or disrespectful while the teacher was teaching to do so.
I said that it was common that Danish students were eating if they were hungry doing the class and it was common to sit in a position which were comfortable, but still putting your feed on the table were a bit too much! Having your computer or mobile phone visible and using them during the class is common as well.

To be Independent is difficult or impossible to be in Spain and Greece where you are depending on your parents financially until you graduate and get a job.
 In Denmark it's possible to be independent when you are 18 years old cause from that time you can get money from the state during your studies or if you can't find a job.

Religion similar to denmark. All the young people are atheists while the elderly are more religious.

With all these small differences it's easy to see how a lot of small misunderstandings can evolve to major problems if you don't talk about it. It's understandable how people from different cultures some times go to war against each other, cause they have different backgrounds, religions, traditions and so on and don't understand why some people react differently then their would.