RANDOM THINGS YOU NOTICE IN GERMANY!

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hallo Zusammen, I'm Diana! 😀 I'm originally from Toronto, Canada but I'm now living and working in Berlin, Germany ☾ On my channel, I share my experiences and thoughts on living and working abroad as an expat in Germany. Thanks for your support ☮

[DianaVerry]

hallo leute! Hey guys! Do you ever go out to eat alone or do you find it super awkward? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[furzkram]

Your room either needs some acoustic panels on the wall, or some textile and picture frames. It has an echo like an old train station hall.

[jensgoerke]

Here in Germany we try to prepare the kids for adulthood as efficiently as possible, which means they get to mature a little faster. My grandfather taught me how to plan a train journey by using the Kursbuch (The reference book with all the trains' timetables) when I was still in elementary school. I also learned basic cooking shortly after, but that was also common at that time, so we tend to raise our children along the same lines as well - after all, it made us adults ;-)

[TheTNc]

As early as 8 years old my parents let me and my friends go play in the woods and we came back when it was getting dark.

[bjoern]

The whole American-style coffee-to-go thing only came to Germany in the late 1990s, early 2000s. This was also when coffee was given a new image and American-style coffee shops with baristas started to pop up. Until that time, coffee was something one had either for breakfast or during the morning at work, or for coffee time in the afternoon along with some cake. The thing that came closest to a coffee shop were Eduscho shops, where older ladies would park their retired husbands to have a coffee while they themselves went grocery shopping. Other than that people would have their coffee at home, at work, or at a bakery or a fancy café. So the whole concept of drinking a coffee (or whatever) on the go was really foreign until then and sort of still is. Most people I know can't even have a coffee without something to eat to go with it. Why do Americans like their coffee "unterwegs"? Are there no coffee machines at work?

[nordwestbeiwest]

But you may already leave alone on the street as an independent foreigner, right? Hope you learned from our children that you can go to school alone as a small person? These helicopter parents are now also in Germany and it is disturbing to see how our children are not educated independently.

[saany]

OMG THIS IS ME. I LOVE BEING IN MY OWM COMPANY LOL
deff wouldnt mind if my kids walked themselves to school
I also used to let my dog walk herself
Coffee is always best sitting down 😊

[furzkram]

Bird: <3
Coffee: get a reusable thermo mug.

[ldFrittenfett]

Taking your leftovers home is looked upon as very cheap in Germany. Most Restaurants don't have "Doggiebags", but if you request to take your leftovers home (they will not offer it, they will just take it away and throw it away), they will do something with Aluminium Foil.

[JesseTechJess]

This was sooo spot on. I'm from toronto and you always nail our thoughts...! Usually every time i've been out for dinner and someone see's someone dining alone, it is always called out "aw dining alone, table for 1? a loner" it's sad but true. Probably 9/10 people walking the streets of toronto are holding takeout coffee cups from starbs tim hortons it's unreal when you think about it! And if anyone was to see a child alone, taking transit alone, playing alone, EVERYONE would be very concerned! That's very nice to hear how independent they are! Anyone would be calling the police or child protection here in a blink of an eye!...After all this, my youth mobility visa was approved yesterday and I can't thank you for all your help this past year! Cheers xx

[robertzander]

Hello Diana, nice to see your new video.
Do things on my own is not really a problem for me, of course i like it to go out with some friends and have a good time some good conversations and everything else. But on the other side i do also things on my own, i like to go to concerts, into the cinema or theatre and also in restaurant by myself because i enjoy it to have a timeout from my stressful job and i don't need always people around me. I am asking my friends if there like to do something, if not, i do it alone, cinema for example. I do not wait anymore for other guys when i like to go out, i just do it. Sometimes I found some new friends.

[stephaniemocklinghoff]

Hallo Diana, ich habe gerade deinen Chanel entdeckt. Ich schaue seit einiger Zeit Videos aus Amerika. 😉 Deine Gedanken über Deutschland finde ich sehr interessant.👍 Herzliche Grüße 🇩🇪

[Alias_Anybody]

I'm always slightly baffled when the argument against children walking around alone isn't something rational like traffic but the pretty irrational fear of all those kidnappers out there. It's about as likely as being struck by lightning, and even if someone actually tries do people assume all the other on the busy street will just look away?

[geraldherrmann]

PLUS: you get REAL coffee here, because - sorry - what you´re used to drink in the u.s. out of buckets is mostly not recognizable as coffee, haha

[tmgarcia]

i do it a lot, being an expat of 16 years in Singapore. I love it.

[neelsudarsanam]

Your vlogs are informative. You do good job in giving your observations about Germany. It is interesting every one in Germany is well behaved. Specially Americans can learn lot from Germany. Keep vloging about your experiences in Germany. I am curious to learn all about Germany.

[TheTroofSayer]

Happy to be alone, comfortable in their own skin? Amazing that you think it's amazing. But yes, I noticed that also in Austria, Hungary and Czech... maybe it's a central European thing. Makes me think about the insidious nature of groupthink, that people across the Anglosphere can't bear alone-time.

[justacatwhocantype]

I`m German but I lived in Canada for almost ten years. In 1997, when I was 13, my family decided to move to B.C. Prior to this we had travelled once across the country, starting in Halifax and ending in Campbell River. We did eventually settle in the Okanagan. For me it was a huge adventure in one way but a total shock in another. The reason for this was that I experienced pretty much exactly what you have been experiencing in Germany, only that I got the whole thing backwards. In Germany I had friends with whom I would go shopping, ride bikes and horses, go places, and so on, and suddenly I was going to school with a bunch of kids that were more sheltered than I had been in the third grade. And since my family has always had dogs, I also noticed the differences there. No dogs in restaurants, no dogs playing in the regular parks, a super difficult time taking dogs on public transportation, and very very rarely did I see a child walking a dog without adult supervision. I must say that while I did have some good times in Canada, I did have a very hard time getting used to these differences, and I am extremely glad that my parents didn`t move to Canada until I was 13 years old, because I would not want to miss all the experiences I`ve had and lessons that I`ve learned only because I grew up the way German kids do. To be frank, I found most Canadian kids to be painfully stupid. Only today I understand that most of them were not stupid but simply sheltered and ignorant, thanks to their own parents.


Oh and as far as the thing about being in one`s own company goes: I have always enjoyed time spent on my own. And because I had such a hard time getting used to the kids at my new Canadian school, I wanted to spend even more time on my own. And people soooo did not get it. I would go sit somewhere on my own, just reading or writing something, and I would be sure to get one out of three reactions: Either "Omg, what`s wrong? why are you sitting by yourself, what happened?" or "Haha, you don`t have any friends." or "oh, you`re alone, I`m going to sit with you" . Ugh. I did notice that the young people in Canada grow up with thise sense that being alone out in public is shameful, and they are accordingly dependent on constant approval from others. It was horrible, a lot of these kids thought that they would pretty much cease to exist if others no longer acknowledged them. And having said this, I have never seen students divide themselves into cliques and groups the way I have in Canada (or the US for that matter).


Now to sum up the majority of Canadian (or American, for that matter) students in two words: Superficial and sheltered. Yep, that`s them.

[fanatlarge]

Very interesting! I never thought of German people, let alone children or dogs, as particular independant.
I often go out alone during daytime, and it is not embarassing at all to sit in a cafe or Gartenrestaurant or in a park. In the evenings it could be awkward, depending on the kind of location.

[Humanity]

I can totally relate to these points. I lived in Berlin from age 7-21. Really miss some of these things. So many memories. Also, back then when I lived in Berlin dogs used to bury their own poop and there was no need to scoop the poop. Not sure if that is still true but it used to be.