13 things you NEED TO KNOW before going to Germany! | Feli from Germany

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As a German native, I hate seeing people visiting or moving to Germany and having a bad experience because of a few German-specific things that they weren’t aware of. That’s why in this video, I’m sharing all the things that I think you should know about German rules, customs, and people to make your stay in Germany as much fun as possible. 🙂 If you have more tips and things to know before coming to Germany, please feel free to share them in the comments below!
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0:00 Intro
0:46 Currency & units
2:16 Store hours
2:48 Cash culture
5:05 Driving
06:39 Drinking in public
7:06 Restaurants
8:40 Customer service
9:17 Paying to pee
09:46 German rules
10:33 Dubbing
11:10 Small talk/friendliness
11:49 Speaking English/German
12:42 Housing differences
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ABOUT ME: Hallo, Servus, and welcome to my channel! My name is Felicia (Feli), I’m 26, and I’m a German living in the USA! I was born and raised in Munich, Germany but have been living in Cincinnati, Ohio off and on since 2016. I first came here for an exchange semester during my undergrad at LMU Munich, then I returned for an internship, and then I got my master’s degree in Cincinnati. I was lucky enough to win the Green Card lottery and have been a permanent resident since 2019! In my videos, I talk about cultural differences between America and Germany, things I like and dislike about living here, and other experiences that I have made during my time in the States. Let me know what YOU would like to hear about in the comments below. DANKE 🙂
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You wanna go to Germany? Here are some things you need to know before you go from a German native! Hallo Servus and welcome back to my Youtube channel! My name is Felicia, I’m originally from Munich, Germany but have been living in Cincinnati Ohio off and on since 2016. Now travelling isn’t really a thing right now but I know that many of you can’t wait until that’s gonna be possible again and I know that many of you are already planning your future trips in your heads and for all of you who’ve always wanted to visit Germany – or even move to Germany – I’m sharing some things that you should definitely know BEFORE you go! These are things that I usually tell friends who go to Germany for the first time but I’m sure that many of you guys could benefit from this as well. The first one sounds pretty obvious but believe me, people forget about this aaaaall the time – different countries have different outlets and voltages, so if you’re from the US, you’ll need to bring or buy an adapter if you wanna use your electrical devices because your American plugs won’t fit into a German outlet. We also have a voltage of 220-230 Volt in Germany whereas it’s only 120 in the US and not all electronic devices can handle the switch so be sure that you do some research about that before you go. Especially hair dryers and hair straighteners usually don’t work with a different voltage – I actually broke a hair straightener once because I tried using my German one in the US and that just made it stop working. What does work usually though is laptops and phone chargers and those kind of things. And even though I’m obviously aware that the outlets are different I totally forgot about it this past Christmas when I went home to be with my family cause I got a new laptop recently in the US that came with an American charger and I totally forgot that for the first time ever, I’d need an adapter that goes from an American plug into a German outlet, and not the other way around, but luckily my dad has a BUNCH of travel adapters and one of them actually fit. Then of course, we also have a different currency in Germany – it’s the Euro just like in many other countries in the European Union– and at least compared to the US, we also use a different measurement system, the metric system with kilometers instead of miles etc. Even though for this the US really is the odd one out here! The next point causes a pretty big shock for many people who visit Germany for the first time: Stores are closed on Sundays. Even grocery stores. So make sure to plan ahead cause the only places you’ll be able to find any groceries on a Sunday are stores at train stations and gas stations. This has a Christian background but it also has to do with worker’s rights. In Germany, we believe that everyone should be able to get a rest day on Sunday and spend time with their family. Restaurants, movie theaters and those kind of things are usually open though. Even if you’re only in Germany for a day you should make sure to carry cash on you! Germany has a pretty big cash culture and there might be quite a few occasions where you won’t be able to pay electronically, like when you wanna get something at a bakery, a kiosk, small stores that don’t accept card payments, or things like parking machines. You can either get some cash from the ATM in Germany but be aware that there will probably be an ATM and a currency conversion fee if your bank account isn’t in Euros or you can also ask your bank at home to get some Euros to you before you leave, that might be the best option actually because that way you’ll also have some cash right when you arrive in case you need it. What you shouldn’t do though is exchange money at the airport cause it’ll be a lot more expensive. – Damn how do you cut someone out in Photoshop? Can you help me? – Just have an expert explain it to you on Skillshare! – Hey do you have any marketing knowledge? – Ehh I think it’d be a lot more helpful if you took a marketing class on Skillshare! – Ugh can you at least help me organize my closet? – shows with finger to Skillshare logo Okay all jokes aside, before I tell you what you’ll need to know about driving in Germany, I’d like to introduce today’s sponsor which is – you guessed it – Skillshare! It’s an online learning community with thousands of video classes where you can either discover new skills, deepen existing passions, or just get lost in creativity. In addition to the things I just mentioned in that little conversation with myself, you can also learn about music production, entrepreneurship, painting, dancing, languages and much more. Back in October when I launched my podcast “Understanding Train Station”, I took the class “Podcasting Secrets: How to Start Your Own Podcast” by Nicaila Matthews Okome which gave me a lot of helpful tips especially the things that were completely new to me like the hosting and publishing process of the podcast. The cool thing is that Skillshare is curated specifically for learning so the classes come with learning materials and have a consecutive curriculum with different chapters, and there are no ad breaks! If you would like to join Skillshare as well, make sure to check out the link in the info box below because the first 1000 of my subscribers to click the link will get a free trial of Premium Membership so that you can explore your creativity! And even without that offer, it’s less than $10 a month with an annual subscription. Now let’s talk about what you need to know about driving in Germany cause there are a few differences that you should be aware of before you get behind the wheel. The first thing is that gas is a lot more expensive in Germany than it is in the US, it’s about 3 times as expensive so if you were gonna rent a car and just drive around Germany or Europe that’s not gonna be as cheap as you probably expected. In fact, it might be a lot cheaper to get around by bus or train, we have a pretty good train system all over Germany and all over Europe too. And especially if you’re just staying within one city in Germany, public transportation might be a more convenient and less stressful option for you, too because traffic can be a little crazy, the drivers can be aggressive, and parking in a German city is usually a nightmare. When you need to get gas, you should know that you pump first in Germany and then pay afterwards and you don’t usually pay at the pump but you’ll have to go INSIDE afterwards to do so. And the regular gas in Germany is called “Super” but of course, you can always look at what it says inside of the gas cap as to what kind you should put in the tank. Then of course, there are different driving laws in Germany so be sure to check those out before you get on the streets! Two major things are that you can’t turn right on red and you always need to watch out for cyclists and pedestrians, especially when turning right! I’ve found that that’s not really something that people learn in Driver’s Ed in the States because in many American towns, people walking or riding their bike isn’t really a thing. For everything else, like the street signs, speed limits, and driving on the highway, the Autobahn you can check out my video on Driving if you wanna learn more! This one might be kind of shocking to Americans: In Germany, it’s legal to drink alcohol in public and Germans do that a lot too – especially in the summer, so don’t be surprised by that and who knows, maybe you’re gonna try it too and get a cool experience out of it if you can just sit by the river on a warm summer night with a 50 cent beer from the corner store. And yes, beer is pretty cheap in Germany but is still very very good. Now if you visit Germany as a tourist you’re probably gonna spend a lot of time at restaurants so here’s a few things that you should know about that. When you walk in you can usually just seat yourself and don’t have to wait for someone to show you to a table. Then, you won’t get ice in your drinks unless you ask for it but even then, it’ll probably just be a couple ice cubes. The sizes of drinks are also pretty small in comparison to the States – just like almost everything in Germany. And, water is NOT free at German restaurants, so if you order water you’ll usually get bottled water – either still or sparkling which Germans are huge fans of! Once you’re done, you have to ask the waiter for the check, they won’t bring it to you automatically. And you’re probably gonna have to flag them down because they’re not going to check on you all the time. And then they’ll usually have you pay right at the table – either with cash or you can also pay with your card in most restaurants but you’ll have to let them know because they’ll have to get the little device first. Now when it comes to tipping, we tip around 10% in Germany and the way it works is that you just tell the waiter directly what you wanna round it up to. So if your check is 20 Euros and you wanna tip them 2 euros you just tell them to make it 22 and you’ll get the change for that. It works the same way with card payments too so make sure to tell them the tip BEFORE you insert your card. Also, just a heads up the waiters in Germany might seem kind of cold compared to the ones in the US. You’ll have to flag them down if you need something and they’re probably not gonna be as friendly which has to do with the fact that they don’t have to rely on tips as much but also with the German customer service in general. Please don’t let it scare you off but the customer service in Germany is pretty bad compared to the US, at least in my opinion. I know that many Germans are gonna disagree with me in the comments but if you’re used to American standards, it’s very likely that some of the people working in German customer service will make you feel like you’re bothering them or annoying them. If that happens – please don’t think that it has anything to do with you being a tourist or not speaking German, it’s nothing personal, they treat me like that too. Of course, there’s also many great people working in customer service who are lovely to talk to but unfortunately that’s not the standard in Germany. One of the most popular topics of complaint among tourists is that you have to pay to use the bathroom in Germany. Now it’s POSSIBLE that that’s gonna be the case, like at rest stops on the highway you’ll find these bathrooms with turn styles and at some public bathrooms there will be a person sitting with a tipping plate but that’s not ALWAYS the case and at restaurants it’s usually free. But yes, sometimes you’ll have to pay for using a public bathroom so it’s always best to carry some change on you just in case. Germans like rules and they like to follow the rules and that includes stopping at a red pedestrian light. So no jaywalking in Germany! And by that I mean that you won’t see a lot of Germans jaywalk and many of them don’t like it when others do it either. Which by the way applies to other rules too. You may even get reminded by strangers to follow the rules. Besides the whole no jaywalking thing, some of these rules are to stay right on escalators to let people pass on the left AND very very important, don’t walk or stand in bike lanes. Next to the sidewalk there’s usually a bike lane and there are many many cyclists in German cities and if you block the bike lane you may either cause an accident or you’ll probably have a person on their bike ring their bell at you or even yell at you. In case you happen to turn on the TV or wanna go see a movie in Germany, don’t be surprised if your favorite American actor suddenly speaks German because almost everything is dubbed in Germany. We do consume a lot of American movies and shows in Germany but Germans aren’t big fans of subtitles and even though more and more people do consume English movies in their original version nowadays, the norm in Germany is the dubbed versions. Some movie theaters do show movies in the original versions too though you’ll just have to look out for the little addition behind the title that says “OV”. Many of you have probably heard the cliché that Germans are pretty reserved and rather cold and there’s actually a lot of truth to that so before you go to Germany you should definitely know that Germans don’t usually talk to strangers a lot and we aren’t big on small talk so don’t expect to have some nice conversations with people at the store or something. It depends on who you interact with of course but at first sight, Germans can come off as unfriendly especially when compared to Americans. It’s nothing personal though, it’s just a cultural difference. But if you ever have a concrete question, don’t hesitate to approach a German and ask them because Germans are usually very glad to help. Now HOW should I ask someone for advice if I don’t speak German? Well most Germans do know some English. They may have a thick accent and may not be able to have a full conversation but they’ll definitely be able to give you directions or tell you the price of something. Many Germans also speak pretty good English so to those of you who come to Germany and do speak some German and wanna use it, don’t be thrown off if you speak to someone in German and they reply in English. It’s a thing that many Germans do and I know that it can come off as rude in a way but they usually just wanna make life easier for the two of you cause they know that German is a difficult language and if they think that their English is better than your German they may think that they can make the conversation more efficient by switching to English. So please don’t be offended by that. If you really really wanna practice your German, I’m sure you can just ask them to stick with German. The last point on my list is mainly targeted at people who wanna move to Germany. Now when you move into a new place, be prepared that it might come entirely empty and by that I mean that there won’t even be blinds, curtains, or light bulbs in it and oftentimes not even a kitchen, so the space where the kitchen is supposed to be will just have a bunch of cables and pipes stick out of the wall and you’ll be responsible for getting all of the appliances and cabinets. Also, leases are usually unlimited in Germany unless it’s like a sublease or something but in the US I’ve found that a lease usually has an end date, one year in a lot of cases and then you can either renew it or end it. You won’t have to do that in Germany. Also when LOOKING for a place, you should be aware that a bedroom can be really small in Germany so you should always look at the size of the room or the apartment and not just the number of bedrooms cause a 3 bedroom apartment in Germany could be smaller than a 1 bedroom in the States. Also, bedrooms don’t have closets in Germany so you’ll need a wardrobe or a dresser to put your clothes in, and there are many many more differences regarding German and American houses – so if you’re interested in that you can click here and check out my video about differences at home. So those were 13 things that I really think are important to know as someone going to Germany for the first time. Especially the whole friendliness thing cause I know of several stories where an American thought the German cashier didn’t like them cause they didn’t speak German or where an old lady yelled at them for standing on the left side of the escalator and they let that affect their experience in Germany and I really don’t want that to happen. If you have more tips, feel free to share them in the comments below and of course subscribe to my channel for free and activate the little bell so that you’ll get notified about new videos of me. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook and you can support me on Patreon and buymeacoffee. Thank you guys so much for watching and I hope I’ll see you next time! Tschüss!