Great things about living in Germany

So, I'm learning what everyone misses about the US and the UK. But what do you love/like about Germany?

I'll go first:
1. Laid back approach to work. Vacation is actually vacation (i.e. no work, no email, no cell phone, no checking in).
2. Freshly slaughtered meat from the butcher
3. Beautiful scenery (regardless of the rain). Love the mountains.
4. Close proximity to so many interesting places (easy, relatively inexpensive travel)
5. Country living (I live in Ilmendorf, not Munich).

That's all that comes to mind for now. Anyone else care to share?

Here is a good reason

There are cute women in Munich but I would hardly consider this the best European city to find beautiful women. My home city, Montreal, is listed in the top ten cities worldwide to meet gorgeous women, and it sure deserves this ranking. I recently went to Russia and thought the women there were on average much better looking than those in Munich. I would say a woman that would be considered average in St. Petersburg would be among the top 5 percent of Munich women, that's how much better it is in Russia. As far as Germany is concerned the best looking women seem to live in the NRW region of the country.

Here's my top ten list of cities with the most attractive women:

1) Sao Paulo, Brazil
2) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
3) Buenos Aires, Argentina
4) Caracas, Venezuela
5) Prague, Czech Republic
6) Sofia, Bulgaria
7) St. Petersburg, Russia
8) Moscow, Russia
9) Montreal, Canada
10) Singapore

A few other places would make the top 20 including Istanbul, Turkey, Barcelona,Spain, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Copenhagen, Denmark, Stockholm, Sweden, and Sydney, Australia.

The customer service, oh, and spending Sundays shopping.

That's its the law I should not work on Sundays ...got to have a reason for doing nothing.

1. Laid back approach to work. Vacation is actually vacation. i.e. no work, no email, no cell phone, no checking in - not at my gf's company, nor any company I've dealt with.

The beer, the good skiing in easy driving distance, the comparatively low crime rate, the opportunity to learn and use foreign languages, the easy accessability of other foreign countries, the standing outside-looking in aspect as opposed to the standing inside and that's all I have to know to be right.

my Lederhosen.
my skis.
my beer belly.

I really love the autobahn, I am in Canada right now and just paid a $297 speeding ticket.
I also love the fact that my family lives in Canada and I live in Germany.

You are all so quick to whinge about living in Germany . Why not write for a change the things you do like. I like that every weeekend there is a fest , call it the Fleckan fest, the onion fest ,I don t care its a fun day and we all get to mix, which is what it is all about, get to know the local village idiot, mix whith the locals SPEAK GERMAN, it doesnt matter if it is not correct German, they love it that you tried, and you can have a really good day out, and if you give your tell no get loads of English teaching jobs for €15 an hour.

Topics merged by admin

Point is that if you actually read the threads you will see that 90% of people love living here.

But there is nothing interesting in starting a thread saying:

Hi, I just went for a swim in the outdoor pool and it was great. There were no crowds. I had a lovely time, and then I had a beer.

Forrest Gump Journalism.

We wanna know that you got your foot jammed in the locker door and your bikini strap broke. Nothing interesting about people having a good time.

Weirdly this is all stuff which I'm loving about living in the UK, too. The only downside being the hole of a town I currently live, but it's bearable with so much good stuff close by.

I am in Selby.

Have to agree with NOFXMike on this one, most people at work will answer their mobiles when on holiday if someone from work calls them.

When I'm on holiday I'll answer the phone if I want to and then take a picture of how much fun I'm having and SMS it to them (after all the company does give us phones & calls for free).

I love living in Bavaria, been in Munich 6 years now and love it. I've lived in Stuttgart and Duesseldorf for a year each and Bavaria is a different country.

Isn't that what the Bavarians think too?

1. 30 days vacation
2. relaxed attitude regarding alcohol
3. relaxed attitude regarding nudity/prudeness

Eh, no, I have to strongly disagree there, that may be true for where you work, but not for any company I (or my husband) have ever worked for

That's waht I love about Ireland




Ireland again (even if the mountains are a wee bit smaller)

4. Close proximity to so many interesting places (easy, relatively inexpensive travel)

Ireland...



Wow, lucky you, I have only 24...


Having said that, I do like living in Germany,although it will never be home, as they sing in the song "There's a green hill far away, I'm going back there some fine day"

I must say again just how nice it is that my mother-in-law lives in Canada and I live here

And me ??? I love EVERYTHING about Germany. In 5 years of being here have yet to meet anyone that I have not liked. Say what you will ... Germany is great, but I do hope we beat them in the World Cup games.

Geordie Raffles.

That German football players would never come up with idiotic statements like:

"This was a total team effort," United States goalkeeper Kasey Keller
said. "Those guys bled today for our country and our team."

No, but they call Michaels Ballack's calf "Wade der Nation"

No one's immune. The (I think) Brit announcers of the 1st USA game, when talking about the world cup football, basically said "If you kick it poorly, it doesn't fly well. But if you kick it well, it really flies."

Sherlock Holmes would have been proud. ;-)

To their credit I guess there are some sports where that statement would NOT work. Like frisbee.

Just staying on topic, I like living here but a lot of things drive me crazy at times. I'm glad my company pays the German taxes for me at the moment.

im in germany at the moment for world cup. found this great site for info on what to do in all major cities. www.adoptagerman.com basically u nominate a german 'tour guide' who gives u advice on what to do. some great opportunities to see bands such as hard-fi and roots manuva. enjoy, its great fun.

Whilst I still think lots of aspects of living in Germany are distinctly second-rate, I was doing chores this morning and started to have some uncharacteristically charitable thoughts about some things that are pretty neat here:

1. Red squirrels - Grey squirrels are nothing but rats with good public relations, but red squirrels are awesome!

2. Fall - The fall leaves this year have been especially vibrant.

3. Hedgehogs - They look just like they do in storybooks ... so sad I had to be almost 40 before seeing my first one in person.

4. Outdoor/power equipment - Best in the world. I was looking at a wheelbarrow I was using this morning and marveled at how well it was designed vs. all the crappy ones I used in the States. Ditto for anything with a motor.

5. Recycling - I actually look forward to going to the Betriebshof early on Saturday morning.

6. Houses/villages - It's nice to not see cars up on blocks, sofas on front porches, trailers or other ramshackle elements that blight the landscape. I also like the buried utilities and tight controls on outdoor advertising.

A pattern emerges: As long as human contact can be succesfully avoided, this place is great

Yes, but cars on blocks means that folks actually know how to fix their own cars...

Disagreed ... if they could fix them, they wouldn't be up on blocks with weeds growing up through the hood

Well ok, that's a different story. My brother has never been to a mechanic. Do Germans even know how to change their own oil? haha

ok ok, great things... the baked goods!!

The red squirrels are indeed cute. Still waiting to see a hedgehog.

The curious thing is that when I lived in the UK (where the greys have pretty well driven the reds away) it was "common knowledge" that reds were rare and not to be found at all on mainland Europe. Since we moved into our house in 1988 we have frequent visits from red squirrels, sometimes a pair or even more running up & down the trees.


You should get out & drive a car more often

A reallyGreat Thing about Living in Berlin - public transport that works!

In Bristol, UK, where I lived previously, bus services were provided by First Group (otherwise known as Worst Group) and every year their timetables won the Nobel Prize for Fiction. The number 75 on a key route was supposed to run at 12-minute intervals - on numerous occasions I waited for more than 40 minutes before one turned up. Not uncommon on other routes, either - sometimes the accursed things didn't turn up at all. Same on the Bristol-Severn Beach local railway: the trains would often just be cancelled with virtually no advance notice.

Here in Berlin I have two Metrobus routes 1½ minutes walk away from my front door - they run at 5-minute interval service during large parts of the day. Then there's a station 5 minutes walk away with frequent U-Bahn and S-Bahn services. I can get pretty much anywhere in the city easily and quickly by bus, U-Bahn, S-Bahn or tram. Furthermore, there are useful routes like the 68 tram to the shores of the Langer See when I fancy a lakeside walk, or the 218 bus from Wannsee for wanders along the forest-lined banks of the River Havel.

hihi, still remember the first time our female dog met with a hedgehog - not wanting to get any closer, but still VERY curious, she made suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch a long neck , And the little guy, cool as you please, just went on looking for worms

A friend of mine had to go to court because her neighbour complained that a frog in her garden was too loud. Funny thing is that the frog just showed up one day after they put in a small goldfish pond. The judge ruled that the frog was part of nature and that the neighbour would just have to put up with the croaking at dusk. Another good reason to have legal insurance in Germany. You never know when you might get sued for the weirdest things.

Hmm... a great thing about living in Germany? Let me think... well, at least you get lots of funny stories to tell the folks back home.

IMHO you only have to go to the US to find sue-happy folk.
Like the woman who sued a department store after she fell over a small child & sustained injury - it was HER OWN CHILD!

pesky kids always getting under your feet!

>>hihi, still remember the first time our female dog met with a hedgehog - not wanting to get any closer, but still VERY curious, she made suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch a long neck , And the little guy, cool as you please, just went on looking for worms <<

This little hedgehog was snuffling around in the forests by Schwielowsee lake near Potsdam about this time last year. It took no notice of me whatsoever and simply carried on snuffling.

Just because people (no matter where they are from) don't change the oil in their car, doesn't mean to say they cannot. It just means that they have enough money to take the car to the garage because they have other things they would rather be doing.

Clean towns (at least compared to here, where people leave rubbish everywhere).
Low Crime rate (again compared to here).
Honest, direct people who don't talk about you behind your back and then suddenly talk to you ever so friendly next time they see you.
Easiness of travel to other countries.
Proper world news on TV (as opposed to the somewhat insular news on TV here).
Usually clean efficient public transport.
Unwillingness to sell most german public services to foreign companies (again unlike here where we sell everything because we are incapable of doing it ourselves).
Cafes
Cycle Paths
Most things work.

I could go on but won't bore you all as I usually do.

Reading these posts, I;'m amazed that most Germans don't just blocks most foreigners from living here--especially the English-speaking variety! I've lived in the US for 23 years since I was 18 and 80% of my friends where international, most being European--right now: we all HATED living in the US (and this even though most of our situations out there were pretty enviable) but even though, we had no problems with Americans in general and didn't complain half as much as people do here. I wonder why it is?

Things I like about Germany:

* That things work--from a hairdryer to a vacuum cleaner to the street lights.
* That it took me 11.5 minutes by my watch to get paperwork in order at an office, instead of the months and inefficiency I was used to in the US.
* That when I go into stores without a word of German everyone--from the cashier to the guy behind me--takes it in stride, is willing to help, even via sign language, instead of giving me that American-constant blank stare of 'where ya from?'
* That everything is clean, organized, neat, orderly--and I can expect it to be. Even the graffiti here looks like art!
* That the food is fresh & delicious and makes shopping, even at a discount's like Aldi, a fun experience--after 3 months in the UK I thought I'd become anorexic if having to face that 'grub' again (which depressed my entire childhood! Seems like 20 years later even the EU has not convinced Brits to learn the 'culinary arts'--Jaime Oliver or not! ) In the US, take NYC off the mark and the food, even so-called 'organic' food, is inedible. And I'm not talking about what goes into the 66 million obese and the other 20-odd million fat people. Having lived in all major US cities I can safely say that other than NY, the food sucks. I got to the point that I was smelling tomatoes at Wholefood's like a crazy person and even doused in the best Spanish or Italian oil they were tasteless. Here, I'm like a mad person--I want to eat all day long (which I see Germans doing anyway--they eat with a fury). Sure, it's not France or Italy or Spain--but it's great.
* That it's beautiful--small, yes, after North or South America, but still beautiful. And Germans are clearly aware of it, because they work hard to keep it so.
* That they value free time--for friends & family. Don't spend all day every day of the year working on just making cash.
* That stores CLOSE ON SUNDAYS: Yeah. I know. Controversial, huh? Well, I like it. I've lived in consumer-mad societies and grew sick of it. It's nice having one quiet day a week, knowing you can relax, read the papers, spend time with your family or friends or just read a book. It's nice walking out and not having everyone SHOP ALL DAY LONG. Just came back from visiting my mother in the UK and alas, they did nothing but shop. Not the UK of my youth. Do I think this Sunday closed shop thing is a tad exaggerated? Sure I do. And it seems to take Germans forever to change (I know--I'm married to one). But I prefer it to the alternative. In Houston, TX, we dubbed it the 'Shop & Drop' city: Sundays they went to church, had lunched, and then hit the stores... wow, that's fun!
* That they recycle and care about ecology and their environment and are not --alas-- into waste. Sure it's a hassle at times and seems like you need a PhD to figure it all out but if you've a sense of humor about it, it's all OK. Would we want a trash mountain like the US? How much more global warming can we take otherwise?
* That they're buildings are gorgeous, people's houses lovely, kitchens & bathrooms splendid -- Again, just got back from the UK and I've NO WORDS for British bathrooms. Felt like being in a BBC post-war special. In Cambridge, for example, Marks & Spencer occupies 2 blocks and has only one bathroom in the cafe 3 floors up on one block so if you've a 4 year old in the block across the street they tell you quite calmly there's no bathroom! LIke it's normal! Think of that and then think of ANY store in the US that doesn't have a bathroom almost in every floor--a nice big working bathroom, too. Then think of all the Brits on this site complaining of so-called German 'inferiority'!! Have you checked out German bathrooms? Anywhere? Yummy!
* Finally, I like that they're nice. Um. What a concept.

And to the guy from Montreal and his top cities with female beauties--being originally from Buenos Aires myself, I'm flattered you've included us poor ole pretty girls in your list but let me tell you: I've spent 18 months in Montreal when I was 20 and did not see ONE great beauty and yes, German females are not the most mouth-watering, but what does that have to do with anything?! I was also nonplussed that your list didn't include the men. I'm from a very sexual tango culture myself, of course, and rate male attractiveness very highly: I can tell you I'm often amazed by how attractive some (not all) German guys can be--same can be said for some Scandinavians--so let me include that in my list of things I like about Germany.

Thoughtful post, Houston. Hm. Someone on First Citizen's movie experience thread mentioned that they were tired of the usual, tired cr*p that came out of Brits' mouths upon first meeting him and finding him an American. A friend of mine went to Germany recently, and was surprised how he was supposed to hear all the invective about George Bush at parties and expecting him to defend it. I wonder if possibly you get a "pass" on being an American because you grew up in South America? Anyway, I too, have only had good experiences with Germans as a tourist, but I wondered if some of your good experience living there is down to your being an attractive South American, as opposed to a North American from the U.S. Consider yourself lucky, anyway, in this context.

Thanks for the laugh!

They give it their best shot ... but they clearly overplayed their hand when they tried to "block" certain varieties of German-speakers from living here, too. Occupation tended to bring lots of pesky english speakers who wrote most of that kind of behavior out of the latest german constitution.

Seriously, I agree with most of your post on the good stuff.

However, the bad/good stuff ratio remains stubbornly >=1 versus other places where it's clearly a <1 number. Compare the similar ratio of Germans/other foreigners in the US/UK by choice versus the other way around ... hence all the whingeing.

All the whingeing is on this site because this is where expats CAN whinge about everyday frustrations of living here.

Take a look at the German sites in the UK and you will see a mirror image.

Wonderful bread and such a variety. British bread is so far behind.

Agreed.

However, the great unspoken is that there's a real difference in that the UK/US generally benefit from a brain-drain of Germany's best and brightest who are too busy being sucessful to sit and whinge online, whilst those of us foreigners who are here generally (generally, generally, and I mean generally) are here for family reasons (came over with the US/UK military and/or simply met a German and got married, after which spousal homesickness set in) or are on short-term expat contracts with a view toward getting out eventually.

How many UK/US people do you know who bought a second/retirement home in Germany? How many Germans do you know who've done so in the UK/US? It's completely lopsided.

A retirement home in Britain? You gotta be joking!

Both the above are linked. A few months ago I was talking to a top competition-level German glider pilot who owns a pretty large fashion store in southern Germany. He told the tale of some father complaining that the shop was not open Sundays: my friend's response was that this weekend opening is killing the sport clubs (& other hobbies) & hes correct.


The curious thing is when we are in UK my (German) wife likes the bread - but of course it all depends on which type you buy.. (& she loves the cheese).

Take a look at the automotive industry here and you'll see lots of expats in senior positions.

Similarly I know many Brits in the aero industry who have made their home here.

I can't speak for other industry sectors.

Agreed that a significant number of German professionals went to the US during the last 10-20 years, and many apparently intend to stay.

But I'm not so sure there is any brain-drain with regards to Britain. Seems to me that those that went there are mostly bankers, because the City is where certain kinds of bankers tend to go.

Lots of Germans in Britain, continuing a long trend.

Editor Bob once said that 10% of the native-English-speaking population of Germany logged onto TT at least once ... grossed up that's c. 100,000. Britain has almost 3x as many Germans.

Unless they're at a movie theatre in Berlin hogging all the seats!

From your link above . .