What Is It Like Living as an American in Germany? 🇩🇪 6 First Impressions 😮

As Americans living in Germany, these are 6 of our first impressions of living in Germany. We just moved to Germany, but these are 6 immediate shocks of living in Germany as Americans. Let us know your thoughts of our first impressions of living in Germany!

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🤔 WHO IS MY TRAVEL BF?
We are Mike and Becca, two passionate travelers who love traveling deep and experiencing a place through its food, history, and culture.

[JasonManners]

I lived in Germany for almost 3 years in Bavaria. I loved the summers there and all the places you could walk too. It is such a beautiful country to live in. The winters were a little long but the summers made up for it. There were really friendly people there wherever I went.

[forkless]

One of the things you will have noticed in Spain and Germany (I am Dutch myself) is how walkable everything is, no such thing as North American urban sprawl. I am willing to bet that you have at least one or two grocery stores within a 10 minute walk from where you live now. Anyway, enjoy your stay in Germany!

[KarlTheSwabian]

Bike infrastructure is pretty good compared to some other countries, but you gotta go to the Netherlands and ride a bike there, 1. In the city you get around really good 👍 2. They got "bike highways" connecting cities you can get from city to city in a more or less straight line, and every major city is connected. Greetings from Swabia(region in Southern Germany 😉)

[RustyDust]

Welcome to Germany. I hope you'll have a great time here.
Pro tip learning German: if you really want to practice it ask Germans who automatically switch to English to stay in German . You can probably see their faces light up in pride as well as respect for you trying it. Only switch to English if it is a very difficult or very important topic, not just everyday things like 'where's the central station?' / 'Wo ist der Hauptbahnhof?'.
We know our language isn't easy to learn, so we truly appreciate anyone doing it. Kudos.

BTW: if you live in Hannover you've selected the city which is known to speak the list dialect influenced high German. Actually, the Hannoveran 'dialect' could be considered the archetypical High German, or Hochdeutsch, which is taught in schools around the world (if and when it is taught).

Hehe, thank you for your compliments on the German bike infrastructure. But there's still a lot to do to even attain viewing distance of the quality achieved in two of our neighbors: the Netherlands, and Denmark. Both countries REALLY excel at having awesome bike infrastructure. Granted, in countries that are almost completely flat as a board it is a bit easier to implement, but there are still the same problems with bike lanes having to be placed into already existing systems. Which is what both countries have demonstrated marvelously well.

BTW: this comes from a German who is somewhat envious of both of our neighbors in that regard.
Greetings from Hamburg.

[ol_low]

Welcome to my hometown! Hanover is mocked a lot, but I always call it the world's smallest metropolis. All the convenient stuff a large city provides with the charm of a small town.

[mehulpansare]

Guys, Deustchland(Germany) is a great country for work life balance.Explore it to the fullest from Bayern(State of bavaria) to Berlin.Also don't forget to visit small towns like Rothenburg ob der Tauber and famous Neuschwanstein Castle on weekends, its like a fairytale
Once again, A GRAND WELCOME TO GERMANY!!!❤

[ericderami]

Hey! Welcome to Hannover!!
My first tip...., although the bike traffic looks well organized, it's not fully. Still stay alert. You will get people that will walk out in front of you without looking, oncoming riders like riding side by side and they will split for you!! This one I still don't like. Bicycle riding rules do not always follow traffic flow rules. And cars...people here in Hannover come to the stop quickly! So you will see a car coming from the side too fast and you think they won't stop but most of the time they will at the last moment. But ride defensively and you should be fine.

[heha]

Hey, welcome to Germany and to Hannover! May all your wishes come true and may you find happiness and peace! LG from Middle Franconia!

[BurgmanAN]

If you want to see what Hannover looked like during/right after WW II you have to enter the town hall. There are various scale models of the city from the very beginning to the 20th century. I grew up in Hannover, been living in the Netherlands for the past 35 years and love to go back frequently to visit my mum.

[NearFromHome]

Yes to all of these!

Also, this video is really well put together. It's so snappy and engaging :D

[jameslarue]

Congrats and enjoy your new location. Sounds like you like it already (The Beer).

[tiago]

Really well-done video. The standard of living looks better than in Spain. When I was in Germany I was very surprised at the high level of English (for the most part).

[Crypto]

Hey welcome to germany :)
I'm also from Han(n)over or at least near to it.
I instantly recognized the place you staying at 1:30 ;D

[naimapeukert]

Willkommen in Deutschland 🇩🇪 Deutschland ist ein schönes Land 👍
Liebe Grüße aus Hessen

[Mtti]

Hey thats a Gilde :D Ill be in Hannover from September 14th to 28th seeing my family in Heideviertel in Hannover. Hannover can be a really cool place if you explore with locals. It has some really amzing places and sub cultures.

[sytax]

hannover, city of my birth. you need to hang out at the "maschsee" or at the old town "altstadt" and of course you need to see at least one time the "herrenhäuser gärten". that are the most popular spots ... besides the zoo of course. if you love nature then you will love this town. i believe is one of the greenest towns with that size in germany.

greetings

[dhtran]

Welcome to Germany, if you love historic architecture, you should visit old villages or cities ("Altstadt") and ofc. castles in Germany.

[anonym-g-a-d]

In Germany so very safe as America. I hope the best safe for America and love America and people 🙏

[McGarden]

Actually you don’t have to use the official yellow recycling bag. Any bag that is transparent will do. It hast to be transparent so that the garbage men can check if there is really only recycling trash in it. If someone put the wrong garbage (organic waste etc.) in the bag the garbage men will leave the bag with a notice why they did not take it.

[AlBfR]

Many cities were destroyed during WW2 and many had to rebuild their houses for the citizens to live in. And because so many parts had to be rebuild, they went for the easy, quick and probably cheap solution. But i.e Dresden had it‘s Frauenkirche rebuild from 1993 to 2005 with old and mostly new bricks to what it was like before WW2, not like the in Berlin which was kept destroyed as a memorial against war. Berlin also decided to rebuild the Stadtschloss which was replaced after WW2 with a new building. In Frankfurt am Main there also was a big part of the „Altstadt“ built in medieval times completely destroyed in WW2. As kids we could visit and watch the ruins. They were not replaced by ugly buildings in the 50s but rebuilt in recent years. At least the facades were build with the original houses in mind. So there is a completely new „old“ town in Frankfurt now.