The north-sound division is true for many things. If you speak Bulgarian in Germany or The Netherlands, locals have a huge chance of calling your language Spanish. Actually, they only get it's a southern language and they know it's not Italian, so they are left with the logical conclusion - it's Spanish. They don't identify it as Slavic, neither as something like Russian - for them it's a southern language. I look to them as Spanish - I am shorter, with darker complexion, black hair...
Culture - lazy people, impolite shop-assistants, mafia, not obeying the rules, tending to look for "alternative ways" to achieve something, being loud... This is southern, it's not eastern.
Most of the things we would normally say are eastern are actually southern. However, there are some things that are thanks to communism - like the lack of responsibility at work.
Greetings from Rotterdam! :)