American Reacts to 13 things you NEED TO KNOW before visiting Germany!

Thank you so much for watching!

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[lindsaypolkinghorne]

Always makes me laugh when people from the USA complain about paying for bathroom visits or water at restaurants but are prepared to pay a fortune for eduction and health care

[MarkusUbl]

As a german i have to ask: What the hell is an elevator conversation? Unless you are returning from a bar with your friends, elevator-rides are more quiet and grave than a funeral.

[banji]

As a German who lived my entire life there too, I can confirm everything she says is right

[dndborn]

I travel to Germany alot for my work. Most of what she said is true. But I have always found the people friendly and willing to help. You do pay for water because it is mostly bottled water. They pay for it so the customers pay for it

[SK-rwfz]

Exactly, because you didn't come to the restaurant to chat with the waiter, but to eat and drink undisturbed and socialize with the people you came with. I never understood that American insistence on service in which someone constantly approaches you, interrupts you in socializing with friends with stupid and artificial questions. If I need you, I'll call you, bring us food and drinks and stay away and don't disturb :) Greetings from Serbia, Southeast Europe

[Kari_Bex]

She missed a few things out - In Germany Sundays are a day of rest (no shops open which she mentioned) If you're in a residential area you are also not allowed to use lawnmowers, strimmer's and noisy power tools on a Sunday. You also are not allowed to wash your car outside of your home - there are car wash areas in most garages... I believe it is so to prevent petrol and oil debris from going into the drains.

[languageatworkinh.r.-b.kip]

Two quick remarks:

Feli, the woman in the video, is originally from Munich and her take on things is still excellent -- although she's been living in the States for some years now. One thing that has changed a bit since she filmed this video is the German aversion to card payments -- now, post-COVID, more and more shops and venues accept EU-debit cards and larger locales even take international credit cards.

The German language does have a "bad reputation"; admittedly, the grammar is a bit more intricate, but it *is* learnable. I've been teaching it for some time now and after the initial shock of the case system (subject case pronouns, object case pronouns, and so on) wears off, quite a lot of my students take to it and do well. If you're keen on giving it a go, let me know! 🙂

[LexusLFA]

The thing with cash has another reason. Germans don't like being tracked if they can't control it. Cash is pretty much the most anonym form of payment.
Otherwise, Germans usually have a bank account, and along with that comes a Girocard. My Girocard has a wireless chip built into it so I can pay with my card wirelessly on the card terminal.

[cxgx]

Hey man, german guy here: First of all, I really enjoy watching your videos, as a German they're entertaining to watch, also I like that you're willing to take a look outside the box and to learn stuff about our culture :)
A few additional things to the video:
Drinking in public/drinking in general: Germans often drink to have a nice evening and not to end up being wasted. If you're going to a party and start drinking alcohol, it doesn't mean that you're getting totally shit-faced. Working with a lot of Americans (military) I've noticed that many of them either go hard or go home. Meaning IF they're drinking, they usually do it to get wasted. Germans tend to have a few drinks and then just enjoy the rest of the evening, especially on the example she mentioned when sitting next to a river or lake during the summertime. Correct me if I'm wrong, that's just my experience with the Americans I've met.
Jaywalking: Unfortunately she missed out the most important rule: You do NOT, no matter of how much you're in a hurry, you do NOT walk on a red light if there is a child either waiting next to you or on the other side of the road. If you do that and there are other grown-ups noticing that, you'll 100% be called out for that.
Speaking german/english: I personally do appreciate when Americans try and make the effort to speak german, it is a sign of respect if someone approaches you in your country and doesn't simply expect you to speak their language (even though as mentioned in the video, we're able to)

Just a few thoughts I had while watching, feel free to ask anything if you're curious :)

[jqripvq]

Water in Germany is usually (!) not free of charge because many restaurants are earning their money to a great percentage with drinks, not only with food. So while the food is usually very affordable in restaurants, they calculate to also make money with the drinks. So if water would be free, people would order less drinks, and the calculation wouldn't work for them. So the reason is mainly HOW restaurants earn their money. In the US, drinks are often cheaper or free, because the restaurants earn their money more with food, and then food is also more expensive.
That's why. :-)

[SkandalRadar]

Customer service in Germany is not unfriendly if you are friendly yourself or even a bit funny. But if you treat customer service like shit because you think you're the king, they'll treat you like shit too. As it goes into the forest, so it goes out again. That being said, customer service in stores is designed to leave you alone and not bug you. If you have questions, you can always approach an employee. It's only in DIY stores that you always have to look for employees. They always hide there ;-) Greetings from northern Germany.

[BadBoy-reow]

Gidday Joel. I am from Australia and I have visited Germany twice on business trips. As a tourist, I can vouch that I found this video to be a very accurate description of my experiences there. On another note: water has to also purchased in Australia in most cases. Australian households and businesses have to pay quarterly bills for supply of water and for the amount of water used over the billing period. We are also charged a sewage disposal fee on our water bills.

[ivylasangrienta]

Tipping isn't mandatory, it's just a nice bonus.

[FrankSui_]

I’m very much pro-cash (though I never use it myself). When you pay cash you physically see the money leave you, making you more aware of your spending. Whereas tapping your card feels like nothing.

[MellonVegan]

It's not about German being difficult (it isn't that difficult to learn for English speakers). It's just that speaking someone's native language or at least a lingua franca (English) when talking to them feels like the polite thing to do. Which is why it feels super weird to speak to people in German when I'm in the Netherlands, even though it may be the better option in cities near the border.

[Frohds]

Some thoughts about the opening times:
Our shops are closed on Sundays AND public holidays. E.g. on
- May 1st
- October 3rd,
- Good Friday,
- Easter and White Monday,
- Ascension Day,
- Pentecost Monday,
- Corpus Christi,
- Reformation Day or All Saints' Day,
- Noon at Christmas eve to 26th 2.5 days,
- Noon at New Year's Eve to New Year's Day.
- in some regions at Three Kings Day/Epiphany (January 6th), International Women's Day (March 8th; in Berlin only) and World Children's Day (September 20th, only in Thuringia), Assumption of Mary (August 15th) or Lenting-Day (in November).

As a tourist, you should definitely take a look at a German calendar beforehand.
At least in rural not so touristy regions, the petrol stations are at public holidays only open for a few hours.

Our opening times are not around the clock either, there are no Spaetis (kind of 7-Eleven) everywhere.
Most supermarkets open at 7am and close at 10pm. At the moment - because of the energy crisis - in my region from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
You should approach that with a realistic GERMAN view. We know, just because a shop is open many hours or on Sundays does not mean that customers spend more money there. Even American supermarkets can only afford the long opening hours because they save on staff.
They only get starvation wages, are not even allowed to sit, rarely have a full-time job so that no benefits have to be paid, overtime is required, only after a year they get vacation and sick days, but shouldn't use the all if possible, otherwise they will get fired for flimsy reasons.
We don't have anything of that. Our staff has rights, e.g. for benefits on Sundays and Holidays - (in some branches they get 2 times of the money per hour and every working hour count's 2.5 - so 10€ an hour means 50€ for the employer) . Nowadays the supermarket bosses are even considering reducing the opening hours because there is far too few staff on the market and the long opening times also cost a lot of energy. It's not worth it for only 20 customers who come after 9 p.m. They could have come at 8 p.m. I have to admit that I really like going shopping on Saturday evenings after 8 pm because I'm almost alone in the market, no screaming kids, no impatient pensioners. Rarely are there more than 5 customers in the whole supermarket at the same time, but there must be security present, two persons in the separated beverage market, at least two in the supermarket, and one in the bakery. 5 customers 6 employees. However, the 5 customers and I do not buy so much that the hourly wages of these people are actually earned.

We have a staff shortage because very few are dependent on a 2nd or 3rd job. None of our teachers have to sit at the supermarket checkout in the evening to pay off their tuition fees. Very few students have to work part-time because our universities are mostly free and parents are obliged to pay for their education. There is even child benefit up to the age of 25.

And no employee in the whole EU is allowed to work more than 48 hours a week in total. The bosses have to pay attention to this, otherwise they are liable to prosecution. If someone works the usual 39 hours a week, they can only do a temporary job with a further 9 hours, but under no circumstances may they work a single hour of overtime. That's why it's no longer so easy to get approval from your main employer. And even harder to get people for temporary jobs.

[katydaniels]

This ladies videos are really informative. I didn’t think I was interested in learning about Germany, but your reactions are great 😁

[phexter]

Of course there are places where you can only pay with cash in Germany, but I believe for at least the last 20 years of my life I almost never had to have any cash on me as I could use my debit card or credit card almost everywhere. It is true that in some instances you are required to reach a certain amount before the shop will accept you card (below the threshold they expect you to pay with cash) and in other instances it is frowned upon to pay for little amounts with your card. The reasoning behind both instances is that the payment provider (and/or even sometimes that bank) will charge the shop for a service fee on each payment made in the shop using a card. Nowadays this stuff (as far as I am aware) is way more regulated in terms of what you can reasonably charge as a payment fee in case of banks, and in case of payment providers you have way more competition now, so it's unreasonable to charge high amounts as well. Therefore, as I already stated and of course based on my own experience, you can get by very well without carrying some cash around.

Concerning the tap water, one of the reasons you often have to pay for it includes that German tap water has a pretty high quality standard. It is being tested regularly and keeping the water clean usually doesn't comes for free, therefore if you consume the(tap) water you have to pay your share.

[LunaBianca]

The cash thing's not quite so bad anymore, especially now after more than 3 years of COVID. People were encouraged to use cards instead of cash and many places still let you pay with them now, but Feli's right about small places like bakeries and such, I'd say.

[Corrupted]

I would say the still/sparkling water debate is changing quickly, I don't know a single person who prefers sparkling water over good still water, no matter the age