Things That Shocked Me In The US After Living In Germany 🇩🇪 (Reverse Culture Shock)

After moving to Germany and living in Germany for 3.5 years, we hadn't stepped foot in the US for 2 years! So, when we finally did leave Germany, we were thrown into a world of reverse culture shocks. 😊

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❤️Aubrey was a Speech-Language Pathologist and Donnie was a graphic designer, but we both had a dream to #travel the world and experience cultures. After three years of being married and dreaming about if something like this great adventure would be possible, we decided to quit the rat race and take on the world. We sold everything we had, quit our jobs, and took off! After 9 months of aimless and nonstop travel, we now get to fulfill our dreams of #LivingAbroad as #expats as we move to #Germany!

00:00 - Intro
1:31 - Thing 1
2:31 - Thing 2
3:21 - Thing 3
4:33 - Thing 4
5:43 - Thing 5
7:16 - Thing 6
7:51 - Thing 7
8:59 - Thing 8
9:55 - Thing 9
10:29 - Thing 10
11:15 - Thing 11
11:35 - Thing 12
12:21 - Thing 13
13:44 - Thing 14
14:28 - Thing 15
16:06 - Thing 16
17:09 - Bloopers

[PassportTwo]

Thanks so much for watching, guys! If you enjoyed this video, you’ll like these as well! 😃

[LucasBenderChannel]

Gated communities always sound post-apocalyptic to me. Maybe that's because I first learnt about them in the context of segregated South Africa, a system right out of a dystopian novel. I've never heard of one existing in Germany. If someone wanted to establish one, I'm sure they'd be labelled as mad and paranoid.

[mcwurscht]

There are good reasons for the traffic light being on your side of the intersection. For one this prevents drivers from pulling up too far, thus blocking pedestrians and cyclists from crossing the street. And in a lot of places the intersections are not right-angled which can make it hard to see.

[nevillemason]

As someone British the big difference I notice between the US timber houses and the German/British houses (both use extensively concrete blockwork, concrete roof tiles) is how very inflammable US houses are. In the UK house fires are often confined to the contents of one room. In the US the entire house is quickly involved in fire and sometimes spreads to one or two next door. That never happens in Europe.

[Nifuruc]

I grew up in a "Sackgasse" with a "Wendehammer" and after we moved twice we ended up in another one. They're pretty common in German suburbs and smaller villages. I have even seen a couple of them in Mainz where I study. Maybe not in the middle of the city or the Altstadt tho :) But I have to admit you have to live there to recognize them because there is no need to actively look for them.

[ixiwildflowerixi]

There are professional gardeners or landscape artists that sometimes get hired by private people, but you usually do your garden on your own... it's part of why you have it. Fresh air, some exercise, some fun handling dangerous machinery, and the work you put in makes the end result taste or look even better. But then, it's also a golden opportunity to have your or your neighbor's kids get involved and earn some money.

[erichbaumeister]

The reason we have stoplights only on the near side of the intersection is simple: it keeps you from inching your way _into_ the intersection because you can't see the light there. It thus prevents you from having your front bumper sticking out into the lane for traffic coming from your left. It's quite a good idea.

[ohauss]

Regarding the construction issue, I once saw a video from a German living in the US who explained it this way - Americans are comparatively mobile, and when you build a house, you don't necessarily don't want or need to build something that lasts a hundred years or more, because in 10 years, you might be moving somewhere else anyway, and after that, the house is someone else's problem. Whereas in Germany, if you build a house, you expect it to last. A house is more of a generational project to pass on to (one of) your children.

Also, when I see that the whole apartment complex I lived in in Dallas doesn't exist anymore and has been replaced by other housing, a lot of the building projects in the US are, I think, deliberately more fleeting so that you can ditch them and replace them with something more to your liking/more lucrative whenever you want. Where Germans would go on a modernization project and ensure even a house from the 1700s has running hot and cold water and electric fixtures, the US are far quicker completely razing something and building something new in its place.

[volldillo]

As for thing 5: Never travel to Vienna, Austria! 😀 Sometimes, we have: Erdgeschoss, Mezzanin, Halbstock, Hochparterre, Zwischenstock, and then only the first floor. This is for historical reasons, because houses were taxed according to their number of floors at some time. So people became inventive and renamed the floors.

[jackybraun]

If you're told to go to the second floor, you just press "2" in the lift - it doesn't matter where it is!

[jennyh]

The only „gated communities“ I do remember in Germany were US armed forces accommodation. 🤷‍♀️
And we do have Sackgassen 😉
I hated shopping in the USA (groceries and everything else).
People with bigger gardens do sometimes get lawn crews, but they are usually there to care for the flowers, bushes and trees.
Nice to see, that you are germanized like that.
When I visited the USA I didn’t drink coffee, but pretty much everything was too sweet for my taste. My grandma (who drinks coffee) said that US coffee had to be flavored to be somewhat drinkable. I guess it has gotten better over the past few years. And no, Starbucks coffee is horrible.

Regarding your question: one drink group or one specific version? But probably water.

[agn]

The traffic light "above" is for all cars that are in line behind you, so they can a) see & prepare for the upcoming "jumb start", while b) the one to the side is for you - and that should be easily to see if you’ve learned to stop correctly "at the line" (that is marking the spot where your car will trigger the induction circuit that will manage the traffic light). Nuf said.

[leDespicable]

I don't think gated communities are a thing in Germany, probably because crime is much less of a concern. I think the closest thing that exists in Germany are "Villengegenden", so residential areas that mostly consist of villas and moderately-sized mansions on big plots of land. But those aren't gated, they're just wealthier people's homes concentrated in one spot.

[CodeNascher_]

No idea how it compares to US coffee creamer, but in Germany there is "Kaffeesahne". Usually comes in small round plastic cups (about a tablespoon each) with a lid like a cup of yoghurt. These cups are attached to each other in groups of 6 or 8

[traceymarshall]

As an irish person...i tried creamer in the usa and its disgusting. Its like putting gone off milk into your drink...or protein powder. It doesnt dissolve correctly and it adds a disgusting flavour. Prob full of unneccessary calories like sugar and fat. I drink black coffee...double espressos even better and its about 2 to 5 calories. In the usa...one coffee ends up being a 1/3 of your daily calorie intake with 600 calories or so in them. So us europeans like to avoid unneccesary calories where we can and save it for beer or fresh bread instead

[ingmargreil]

There's an additional feature of traffic lights in Austria that I'm missing abroad every time: Green light will flash 4 times at the end of the "Green" phase to indicate that "Yellow" phase is about to be engaged. Very useful.

[davebesset]

Here in Germany, there are strict regulations regarding fire protection, noise protection, environmental protection, and not to forget climate friendliness. We usually don't need air conditioning, as much is already regulated by the building. In addition, it is usually also prescribed which building materials may be used for which type of house in which region, depending on the development plan and the surrounding buildings. Pure wooden houses like in the USA would be accepted here at best as a gazebo or vacation home.

[TheEluminator]

Culs-de-Sac do exist in Germany and I have seen them in many places. However, usually they are in locations where it geographically makes sense or something blocks the road like tracks or a park. In my home town there was a pedestrian way and all streets on both sides of that walkway had a large turning bay with a small walkway towards that pedestrian way.

[chriskola]

3:45 this isn't just a German/US thing. It is a US/most of the world thing.
I'm Canadian and if anyone wore their shoes in my house I would never have them in my house again. I can't understand why someone would wear shoes inside a house.

[conniebruckner]

Since you asked: water, preferably mineral water, bubbly. Maybe w a squirt of lemon juice.
When I first went back home after a year, my auntie asked, "what would you like to do, something you have missed, some food you'd like?" My immediate response was: "go shopping on Sunday" she laughed and laughed. When I went to visit my mom who had moved to Oregon, a few years later, I was absolutely amazed at all the wood yards we passed.: enormous amounts of wood logs, for miles unending! And of course the same reaction as you when I saw all the timber framed houses as we neared the town.
Didn't the gaps on booths in public toilets bother you? That was something I noticed right upon landing and every time I needed to use one.
Something else was seeing all those people drinking from paper bags. It looked so silly.