“I say this with love.” — Image courtesy of clclt.com.
Let me begin by saying life in Germany is awesome. I love it here! I have, however, learned a thing or two about the realities of life abroad. What follows is a list of discoveries, oddities and annoyances revealed in my first months as an expat American living in Hannover, Germany:
- The common American advice, “Don’t worry about the language barrier in Germany; everybody speaks English,” is false. Everybody speaks a little English in Hannover, and they are terribly self-conscious about using it. Younger Germans are more likely to speak English, and I’ve met several who are fluent. However, if they aren’t fluent, and you desperately need to locate the nearest restroom, you’ll soon find yourself gesticulating wildly as you try not to make pants pickles.
- There are pharmacies on every goddamn block. Seriously. They’re called “Apotheken,” and they are everywhere in this city. You can go to the nearest Apotheke and get your prescription filled. You can also purchase a wide variety of over-the-counter medications which do absolutely nothing. It goes like this: you must convince the pharmacist you have a cold and then intimately describe your most disgusting symptoms, after which time, if they believe you, they hand you a box of herbal tea. “Thank you Sir! I was going to drown my symptoms in a near-lethal dose of NyQuil, but this lemon-flavored tea should prove just as effective!”
- Germans are impatient. They have zero tolerance for delays, lines or traffic of any kind. They operate at top speed, which is why, in the cashier line at the grocery store, you better pay for your items and get the hell out of the way, because Dieter von Shufflestein is right on your ass. The first time I tried to put my change away before taking my groceries from the counter, my items were suddenly overrun with those belonging to the person behind me. His pickled herring and canned hotdogs were all up in my situation, and he didn’t even care a bit. I wanted so desperately to turn to him and scream, “Bitch, I am going to throw your nasty shit all over the floor if you do not get off my Kool-Aid!”
- Craft beers and dark beers have yet to really catch on in Germany. I’m from Portland, Oregon, so I’m accustomed to an amazing variety of beer, but over here, I mostly see pilsner and hefeweizen. I’m not complaining, mind you; the pilsner here is rather strong, and my wife can always tell when I have, as she puts it, “a pilsner-buzz” on. Oh, and liquor is super cheap here. Like, $7 for a fifth of rum, type cheap. I mean, hell, that’s not just cheap, that’s cheap as balls.
- Recycling is a monumental pain in the ass. (I’m only speaking of apartment living with this one, and specifically, apartment living in the city of Hannover.) Glass can only be returned in these round tanks on the sidewalk, which look like giant metal boobies. And just like real boobies, they’re nowhere to be found when you need them. Recycling makes absolutely no sense to me here. You have to put your organic compost, or “Bio” garbage into plastic bags — yes, plastic bags — and take them down to the dumpster. Random items (like cotton swabs, tissue paper and tampons) go into clear plastic bags and are taken to an entirely different dumpster. Regular paper goes into blue plastic bags, while metal and plastic go into yellow bags; both of which are picked up from the street once per week… by different companies. Oh, and if you buy a bottle of water at a certain grocery store, and you want to recycle it and get your deposit back, you have to take it back to that exact same grocery store. So, with all of these convoluted rules and the counterproductive use of plastic in the recycling process, I kind of want to make a German flag out of rubber tires and hairspray bottles in the middle of a busy street and set that shit on fire.
Click here to learn more about the term “Culture Shock.”
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ha ha hilarious!! i want more!!!
As a German, it’s amusing how I can easily identify myself with these five things, but never think of them. Germans are very impatient, also zero tolerance for being late (I’m always early to everything!) is frewuently found amongst my fellow Germans. It’s funny though how you have a hard time coping with this, since this once was completely normal to me until I moved to Sweden. Swedes tend to take everthing very easily and are ‘slow’ compared to Germans – “taking it easy” seems to be the general life motto or something. Education in English, however, is obviously not as good as it’s supposed to be… Germans are noticeably very, very bad in English. Though I have to say that I am quite fond of the German recycling system, since it is very environmentally friendly (except the bio garbage in a plastic bag, but maybe we should encourage using composts.) in dividing garbage into different categories… Quite the ramble on my part, I apologise. You’ll get used to it though, and it all has advantages. Germans being bad in English may force you to improve your German. ;)
I hope you’re enjoying Christmas in Deutschland!
Hi,
I think you will get used to Dieter von Shufflestein and the recycling bit. As for dark beer, go to a Getränkemarkt and you will find other sorts of beer (Alt-, Schwarz-, etc). As for the Apotheken, just bring back the 5-gallon drums of NyQuil you can get at Costco or Sam’s Club when you go back to the States. Vick changed the drugs in the stuff anyway, so it doesn’t work as well for the (Ami) cold or flu.
I think the Automaten at grocery stores are very practical, and no, you don’t always need to go to the same store to return the bottles, at least not with the water. I can bring Real water bottles to Lidl and return them just fine.
Hang in there, it gets better. After your integration course your issue #1 will go away, though you will always need to go #1 and #2 at some point ;-)
You are really hilarious :). You haven’t mentioned that the pharmacies have night hours where you can drop off a prescription after going to the ER or Emergency Doctors Office. I don’t think that Pharmacies in the 24/hr Drugstores are open 24/7 as well.
Yes you are right, recycling can be a pain. ;) But as far as I remember you can drop off any recycling bottle that the store sells – even if you bought it somewhere else …
Frohe Weihnachten!
~Anja~
Oh I can assure you there are more than 5 things that suck about living in Germany. Kind of the reason why I am not living there anymore. However, recycling in my opinion would actually be a reason to stay there. I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it soon, seeing that you are evidently of at least average intelligence.
As to the pharmacies, I think because we don’t have them inside our supermarkets it is kind of difficult to find one when you need one. So we have a lot of them to increase the chance of encountering one randomly.
Greetings and Merry Christmas from Australia. You absolutely cracked me up. Germans are kind hospitable people, who value truth and honour and are gifted with a technical and highly disciplined mind. These qualities shine brilliantly in the fields of science and engineering. However in terms of communication and relationship issues, let us say that it’s challenging in every degree. I’m saying this because my fiance is German, and I’m of Australian-European heritage. They can be quite set in their ways and go from polite to extremely rude as if flicking on a light switch, and then not understand if you’re offended, even though they’d never tolerate the same comments if applied to themselves. You just have to laugh otherwise you’ll just cry. This post made me laugh because it’s so true.
What happens if you put something in the wrong bin?
I have line anxiety whenever I would visit the local Rewe in Mainz when I visited my gf. I always had my cash ready, change in hand, but then I realized I should really be packing up my groceries.
Viel Glueck with the reality checks! It’s good to have an outlet for the little things & find a commonality. :-)
They are all really good points, I have contemplated often about the Apotheke problem for a while. Real medicine that is over the counter in the States is totally nonexistent here in Germany. You really need to be dying for the house doctor to really prescribe it as well, I mean really, if I was suffering from a bad bout of runny butt syndrome, close to amoebic dysentery, they will prescribe coal pills… really? All I needed to do was munch on some Kingsford briquettes and it would be gone? Commercial Idea, “I no longer suffer from explosive bowel syndrome thanks to Kingsford charcoal, not to mention the great steaks I can grill with them as well!!!”
Amen, brutha.
I’m so laughing about #3! You have to get your shit in order. I’m a little impatient sometimes. It must be the German in me. And, that recycling bit. How does anyone accomplish this with it being so complicated. Whoa!! There are so many rules!
Right? It’s adapt or be trampled in the checkout line.
observations 1-3 are priceless and so true! and it is nice to have the classics and if you haven’t (i’m sure you have) you must try a dark hefeweizen- they are fantastic! recycling- well it was not that strict in wiesbaden (or i was doing it wrong the entire time!!)….
Thank you for the tip on the beer!
And yeah, I think the recycling thing is just here in Hannover, and mostly because The Wife and I live in an apartment. Recycling is probably much more rational elsewhere in the country. :)
“Recycling is probably much more rational elsewhere in the country”: nein, ist es nicht – es ist genau so, wie du es beschreibst ;)
also fun if you life near these metal boobies ’cause they often get emptied at 6:30 am or so…
there is a beer called Köstritzer Schwarzbier which is a black lager similar to stout or porter – you might like it.
NyQuil and DayQuil are also available here as “MediNait” and “DayMed” without prescription, although i don’t think those are better than a “Kamillen-Tee” and a schnapps and long sleep :)
Grüße aus Bonn,
Sebastian
PS: Sehr interessanter Blog! Weiter so
Thank you Sebastian! Great tips! I will definitely look into them!
Which part of Germany are you from?
Aufgewachsen bin ich im Ruhrgebiet und lebe jetzt in Bonn – the former capital. it’s a lovely city at the river rhine in the very south of North Rhine-Westphalia and it’s worth a visit. if you’re interested in german history I recommend you to come and see the “Haus der Geschichte” (http://www.hdg.de/bonn/ausstellungen/dauerausstellung/).
Thank you Sebastian! Will do!
I have only just discovered your blog so I’m catching up on all your awesome entries! The bit with the recycling made me laugh. I am German and live in the UK where they only just started separating things like paper and bottles etc. When I moved to the UK it was my secret joy to be able to just throw everything into one bin. I loved it. No more having 11 different bins in my kitchen as I had in Germany. Don’t get me wrong, I think recycling is important. But I’m more than happy to pay someone else to do it for me.
Great to hear from you Franziska! Thank you for finding us and checking out our posts. We’ll check out your blog as well.
Haw! Not recycling in the UK was your secret joy. I love that.
Please come back and visit us often! And if you’d ever like to write a guest post for us, just let us know!
Meine Frau ist auch Deutsch, und jetzt wohne ich im Berlin seit Juni 2012. Hier spricht man sehr viele Englisch! Aber … ok, enough of that. I’m American too, from New York. For English you have to move up north – in Berlin I hear English everywhere I go and I can’t say two words in German without the other person replying to me in English – and I’ve been a fulltime student in the Volkshochschule for six months now! Concerning English everyone does laugh, and says how “down south” nobody speaks English though :/
And as far as the Bio Garbage being put out in plastic bags – you’re supposed to use the biodegradable bags! If you put it out in normal bags they have to trash the entire lot :) Uh, I mean :(
Hi Chris! Thanks for the message! It’s great to hear from another Expat married to a wonderful German. And thanks for the advice!
I see you’re from MeetUp. I can’t find many groups for Hannover. Just some super small, super specialized ones.
How did you find our blog, by the way?