My Days in Germany

My time here in Germany has flown by these past couple of months; it has felt like both an incredibly short and long stretch of time. Christmas day is coming up so it feels like a good moment to write up a new blog post. I feel that my initial thoughts on Germany have shifted during these past few months.

My initial reaction when I arrived in Germany was feeling a bit overwhelmed with the amount of paperwork that needed to be done along with needing to become accustomed to this new environment and culture. I was surprised by quite a few things, such as shops being closed on Sundays and Germany being very much a cash-based society. However, I have come to enjoy these aspects of the culture such as having Sunday being a day of relaxation with the lack of having anything to do and physically handling cash being something that I would hardly do back in the United States as much of it has gone digital.

I think of the public transportation system as being one of the parts of Germany that I very much wish we had in the United States with it being incredibly robust and versatile. We have the light rail which has been slowly developing in Washington. Hopefully, that will continue to improve and we will someday have a public transportation system that is comparable to Germany.

In large, the interactions with the locals have been great. I have been lost many times in the city and asked locals for help. Even those with a very limited grasp of English would try to help me. One of my favorite interactions with a local was a conversation that I had with a person walking down the street playing music out of his speaker. I thought I had recognized the song and told him that it sounded good, and he said that it was by the band Eisbrecher. He didn’t speak any English and I used my own limited German to talk to him. We eventually parted ways, but it was reassuring to know that we can find people with similar interests all around the world, even when there is a language barrier.

Another conversation I had with a local that I found very interesting was with one of my classmates. I was doing a presentation on Germany for a class and asked him to take a look at it. I wanted him to check if I got any facts wrong and if there was anything that I should add that I missed. The section that I found the most surprising was the school system, and I asked him to explain it to me as I was confused on how it worked. From my understanding, kindergarten and elementary school in Germany are the same as the United States. However, after their early schooling, children go into three different possible paths and from these paths you will either be prepared for a vocational or academic career. Once you have started one path, it is difficult to switch to a different one. He recounted a story about a friend that had tried to switch paths, but the friend was unable to pass the final exams to get into a university as they had not been prepared for it during their student life. The idea that children are having their futures decided at such a young age is hard to wrap my head around. I do want to ask more Germans what they think about this system and tell them about our own school system in the United States as perhaps our education system is just as strange to them as theirs is to me.

Studying abroad has changed my perception of my potential future career and life goals. I had not previously considered living in another country to do work and potentially stay for a long period of time, but getting to experience another culture has made me seriously consider if I want to stay in the United States for the rest of my life or spend at least a few years living and working in another country. It’s an option to consider as my graduation date comes closer.

Prior to arriving in Germany, I already knew that many stereotypes would not be completely true, but others did turn out to be rather accurate. The stereotype of Germans all wearing lederhosen and eating sausages; while more common in the southern regions of Germany such as Bavaria, the stereotype is not representative of the entirety of Germany. The idea of Germans being incredibly orderly and punctual is likewise a widespread stereotype. While I do think being on time is an important social etiquette in Germany, it is often exaggerated in the media and there are those who are decidedly not always on time. Germany is just as diverse in terms of the type of people and how they act as any other country in the world.

I think overall the United States and Germany have cultures that are more similar than different. I feel that both countries highly value individuality and personal freedom for people in their respective countries. I did notice that Germans are more private, and this can be seen with Google Street View with much of Germany being a dead zone in which there are very few roads documented due to large numbers of people wanting to be excluded from the program.

I was a bit surprised by how much Christmas is celebrated here in Germany. When taking a moment to think, it makes sense as Germany was for much of its history a Catholic/Protestant nation. In late November, there were markets and massive trees set up in the city center that light up at night. I can only imagine it will continue to grow and become more intense as Christmas day draws closer.

My time in Germany so far has been great, and I hope it continues to get better as I explore and experience what it has to offer. I will have a few weeks of break near the end of my stay that I plan on dedicating to experiencing the many different aspects of German culture and the country's many different historical sites.