Five Day Learning Curve

With five full days in Germany behind me, I have already learned so much about living here! Here are some differences, learnings, and fun facts that we’ve accumulated so far.

• The doors to the outdoors lock automatically. In other words, yes, I did already lock us out of the temporary apartment we are in (lol yikes). Luckily we were still with our realtor, so she was able to call in a backup to unlock it for us.
• Sleeping without air conditioning is really hard.
• The doors and windows are awesome. Utilize them to keep the house cool in the summer. Turning the handle down locks the window/door closed, turning it to the side opens it, and turning the handle up opens it at the top, allowing for ventilation.

• The trash can situation is crazy – yellow bags are for plastic and other containers, blue is for paper products, brown is for compost (food basically), and black is for other waste like doggy bags.
• The washer/dryer combo is confusing.
• There are speed traps, and they are no joke. In Georgia we used to have traffic cameras that would snap a picture of you if you ran a red light, and then a few months later you would get a ticket in the mail. These are essentially the same thing but with speeding.
• Bring a reuseable bag when you go grocery shopping.
• “Iced Coffee” or eiskaffee is coffee with a scoop of ice cream and a lot of whipped cream.

• Bring a scarf or cardigan to kneel on if you go to a Catholic church – the kneelers are just a plank of wood, sans padding. At least at the one we went to on Sunday was like that
• You could probably get around without learning the language, but I think it’s easier if you do try. People always stop me wanting to talk about the dogs and I feel bad not being able to do anything other than smile and nod.
• Germans love dogs and most places are dog friendly.
• Schnitzel salads are DELICIOUS!
• Coasters are not used on the bottom of your glass, they are used on top of your glass to keep out bees and bugs!

Full blog post on our first week experiences is coming soon!