by Eric Schenck
I lived in Germany for five years. As an American, I got to experience a lot of awesome things:
- German bread
- Christmas markets
- Trains that will take you anywhere
But along with the awesome-
Came the weird.
I could probably create a list of 1,000 things that were strange about Germany, but here are 10:
1) How comfortable they are with nudity.
The United States likes to reference itself as the “leader of the free world.” But as soon as it comes to nudity, we turn into puritans.
Not so in Germany. The comfort around being naked (gym showers, saunas, even hiking clubs) took a bit of getting used to.
And honestly – I never really got used to it.
2) Men sitting down to pee.
In theory this makes sense. But in reality? Do Germans just think that men can’t aim very well?
Funny enough, my Dad is part German. He’s never actually been there, but he sits down when he pees.
You can take the man out of Germany. Can’t take the Germany out of the man!
3) The insistence on paying separately.
Something no German has ever said:
“I’ve got this round, you get the next one.”
Obviously an exaggeration here. But the frequency of splitting the bill does start to make you wonder. Cool on a date if you don’t want to spend too much. But when you’re just hanging out with friends? Kind of takes the magic away.
4) How often conversations revolve around insurance.
The father of my German ex-girlfriend once told me a funny joke:
The German national sport is discussing insurance.
He’s not far off. The number of these conversations that I’ve overheard would boggle your mind. Your house. Your fence. Your TV. Your bike.
If a German buys something, but forgets to add on insurance-
Did they really buy it?
5) How many vacation days they take.
- Americans per year: 11
- Germans per year: 30
They clearly forgot the “work until you kill yourself” ethos of my home country.
6) Pfand.
Pfand means “deposit”, and it refers to Germany’s bottle-return system. Here it is in a nutshell:
- Every bottle you buy has a slight tax added to it
- You can return this to a store and get the tax paid back to you
I’ve never seen something quite like this, and it creates a weird kind of magic. Instead of taking your own bottle to a store to get your deposit back, it’s normal to leave it next to a trash can for other people to benefit from.
A quirk of the system that somehow benefits everybody.
7) The obsession with data protection.
I have probably signed over the soul of my firstborn to a Chinese software company a thousand times.
Germans? Not a chance.
They are a country that actually reads the fine print. You have to admire that.
8) You have to bring your own bags to grocery stores.
This is slowly changing everywhere. But coming from a country where we seem to have bags for everything-
The German system of “bag your own stuff at roughly the speed of light” started out stressful. And, well – it was always stressful.
I don’t think I saw a single person grocery shopping the entire time I lived in Germany that didn’t have their own bag.
9) Püntlichkeit.
Or, “punctuality.”
Every German, for every occasion, will be on time.
Enough said.
10) A general faith in authority.
This was maybe the hardest thing of all to get used to.
In the U.S., here are things you hear all the time:
- “ask for permission later”
- “move fast and break things”
- “the only person stopping you, is you”
It all kind of bleeds into an overreliance on yourself, and a natural distrust of higher authority.
In Germany? Not so much. Still not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing.
…
The five years I spent in Germany were one weird thing after another.
But the best things usually are. 🙂
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