Culture Shock #10: German teens can open beer bottles with their eyes

I spent the past week in a youth hostel in the middle of the woods with two dozen Germans between the ages of 16 and 21. Here's what I learned.

1.  German teens can open beer bottles with anything. The edge of a beer crate. A piece of paper. Other beer bottles. I swear I saw one guy just stare at a beer bottle and it popped open.

2.  German teens would put U.S. American teenagers to shame in a trivia contest about geography, politics, and/or history. They are generally way more informed about where things are and how they got to be there. For example, we played Taboo one night and the category was "Towers around the World." Wanna guess who said the Washington Monument? NOT ME. 

3.  German teens can't speak English as well as they think they can. While a lot of German teen slang is English, they use these English words in contexts that make absolute no grammatical sense. For example, they use the word "safe" to mean anything from "yes" to "okay" to "heard" to "makes sense" to "I consent to these plans being made". In a conversation, it might look like this:

Me: The train is 10 minutes late.

German Teen: Safe, I'm gonna grab a pretzel.

At first, this frustrated the hell out of me. It was jarring to hear an English word in a German sentence, let alone an English word that makes no sense in the context of the sentence. That being said...I caught myself starting to say "safe" in German AND in English conversations. I guess anything starts to make sense if you're exposed to it for long enough. I still think it's dumb though.

4.   German teens prefer tea over coffee. They are certainly not Starbucks fiends like the U.S. American youth.

5.   German teens are in touch with Internet culture, but sometimes it feels like like they're 5-10 years behind. They make Vine references, dab, and call things "cringe" in a deeply unironic way, which makes me want to take a long walk off a short cliff.

6.   German teens often come across to me as more independent and mature than U.S. American teens. After some consideration, I think it's because I associate some German social norms and cultural values with adulthood. For example, the German love affair with functionality and practicality seems to me like a set of distinctly adult values. Like, what kid is gonna be thinking about functionality? Yet, I bore witness to multiple conversations between German teenagers per day about any and all of the following topics:

• The inconvenience of the youth hostel shower doors opening inwards instead of outwards.
• The aesthetically displeasing grate-covered hole in the middle of our classroom floor.
• The salad in the cafeteria, stubbornly dry despite heaping spoonfuls of dressing.
• The best utensil for scraping all of the cream cheese out of a disposable plastic packet. 
• The poor air quality and overhead lighting in the dorm rooms.

Like, do these not seem like the complaints of someone a little more crotchety and withered with nothing better to thinking about? These are real conversation topics that took place between 19 year olds! I was worried about bunking with German teens because I thought they'd be rowdy and immature. Never in my life did I expect to be bored by them.

7.    German teens, like German adults, do not drink water. 

Culture Shock #9: German coffee isn't a health hazard

I know that caffeine is a drug. Of course, the amount of caffeine one ingests varies by drink. Many members of my family are green tea lovers, a drink that typically contains a mild to medium level of caffeine. Meanwhile, many members of my gay family favor chai, which typically has slightly more caffeine than green tea. 

And then there are the brave U.S. American coffee-drinkers in my life.

My use of the word "brave" to describe these people is entirely unironic. Like most things in the U.S., a cup coffee is (I can only assume) at least twice as big as a cup of coffee everywhere else in the world and probably four-times as lethal.

People warned me about getting peer-pressured into drinking in college. I thought they meant alcohol, but they must've meant coffee. Again and again, I tried to be a coffee drinker, often with disasterous results. Many of you can attest to this. My ex-roommates, for example, are deeply familiar with the graveyard of delicately-sipped and quickly-abandoned cups of coffee I scootched to the back of our fridge before booking it to the bathroom. Not to mention the humiliating panic attacks I've suffered due to my (albeit careful!) consumption of U.S. American coffee. I think my record was four sips of a small Roos Roast latte. Who puts two shots in a small latte?? I think I even called Michelle and had her talk me down from said coffee panic attack. She was the one who reminded me that caffeine is a drug that is rarely kind to the anxiety-inclined. 

I had no intention of drinking coffee when I moved to Germany. I figured I would be so hyped up on the fact that I had just moved to Germany that I wouldn't need it. Then I started working 40 hours a week. Suddenly I found myself googling how to say "cappuccino" in German ("cappuccino") and wondering if a cuppa would be worth the potential consequences. 

I'll cut to the chase here: it totally was! Cups of coffee in Germany are adorable. Little ol' me was absolutely delighted to experience a subtle buzz of energy without the side effect of Feeling Like I'm At Death's Doorstep. 

While I still don't intend on becoming a Coffee Person, it's nice to know that I can grab a cup with a pal every once and a while without writing my will first. 

Culture Shock #8: Cake is a German strength

One bone I've consistently had to pick with the U.S. is the inaccessibility of high-quality slices of cake. While it's relatively easy to find a decent scoop of ice cream, you'll rarely pass an establishment specializing in the cake-like equivalent. 

Enter Germany.

I'm gonna be honest, the biggest reason I decided to write this blog post is to tell you guys about the slice of cake I had yesterday. 

Fresh glazed raspberries generously piled atop a whipped raspberry cream and a delicately flakey (NOT SOGGY!) bottom. The best part? A sneaky layer of dark chocolate between the cream and the crust. Ugh. Perfection. I could barely pay attention to the conversation I was supposed to be having. 

A promise to anyone who visits me this year: Together, we will eat cake. I only ask that we prioritize the cake-eating over the talking. At least for the first couple minutes. 

Culture Shock #7: Germans kvetch like Jews

Trust me, I understand the weight of the comparison I'm making. I didn't think anyone could kvetch like The Jews could until I moved here. It took some time to do the math to figure out how this might even be possible. Here, let me show my work:

German Love Affair With Order, Efficiency, and Punctuality

+ 

German Tendency to Talk to Strangers

=

Older women in the grocery store coming up to me to complain that the check-out line is too long and the Christmas stuff is already stocked but there are no more tampons with recycled cardboard applicators.

Let it be known that I will do my best to defend the Jewish title of #1 Best Kvetchers, but lemme tell you, these Germans will not make it easy for me.

Culture Shock #6: Germans love to open and close windows

Yes, there is a formal German word for this practice. "Lüften", which basically turns the word "air" into a verb. "To air." This practice exists because German buildings do not automatically circulate fresh air into rooms, like most buildings in the U.S. do.

I have yet to demystify this manual air circulation practice. I still have no idea what factors determine whether a window should be open or closed, tipped from above or swung wide like a door, propped open, or locked. The following are patterns that I've slowly picked up over my past two months of living with Germans. I have no idea how many of these patterns are significant and how many are random coincidences. For all I know, they're all messing with me and none of these patterns mean anything.

1. Windows generally stay closed when it's dark out and the lights inside are on. I assume this is to prevent German Moths for taking up residence in our kitchen cupboards.

2. Windows are closed and locked when no one is home. I assume this is to prevent German Humans for taking up residence in our kitchen cupboards. 

3. Windows are opened in the early mornings. To welcome the new day with some fresh air? To rid ourselves of night demons? I have no clue.

4. Windows are opened in the evenings. To end the day with some fresh air? To rid ourselves of day demons? I also have no clue.

5. Bathroom windows are opened post-shower to encourage the drying of all surfaces. Importantly, one must remember to close these windows before rushing back into the bathroom to poop if one is not interested in half the neighborhood hearing and/or seeing them perform said poop. 

6. Classroom windows are opened when children's eyelids start to droop. I assume the fresh air is meant to wake them up, but it mostly just lets in a host of outside noise that distracts everyone for the next 15 minutes.

7. All of these patterns will fundamentally change as soon as we start heating our buildings. 

That's all folks! I hope to look back on this post and chuckle in lüften-fluency. But for now...I'll soldier on...enjoy your automatically circulated air, everyone.

Culture Shock #5: Germans are hardcore hobbyists

I got a preview of the German Dedication To Hobbies back in February, when I was learning how to craft a German resumé. Most of the elements of a German resumé resemble a U.S. American one (Education, Work Experience, etc.) but there were a few stand-out differences. For one, German resumés require a photo of yourself, which I find deeply problematic. Secondly, there is a section dedicated to Languages You Speak (yes, plural). The third and by far most delightful difference was the section of the German Resumé dedicated to Hobbies. 

It is expected here in Germany that you have at least two, if not far more, hobbies that you dedicate significant time outside of work towards (which, of course, is made possible here due to this thing called "Work-Life balance"). While interviewing for internships here in Germany, I spent more time answering questions about my hobbies than my work experience.

I've always associated the concept of a "hobby" as a frivolous activity one engages in if one happens to find time. But looking around at the people I've met in Germany, hobbies are anything but frivolous. My roommate makes jewelery out of avocado pits and walnut shells. A friend of mine goes on hour-long bike rides through the German countryside three times a week. He has also been an active member of his improv troop, The Carrots, for the past five years. Meanwhile, my collegue at work is a felting fiend and fashions mushroom fairies and bearded gnomes out of colorful felt to decorate our classrooms each season. When she's not felting, she enjoys dehydrating a wide variety of fruit and making soap from chestnuts using the abundance of chestnut trees on the school property. 

See what I mean? Like these aren't "I play the first three pages of Clair de Lune on the piano every couple months" hobbies (a self call-out, admittedly). These are hobbies that people invest a significant amount of thought, time, and care into. 

I especially appreciate that many German hobbies involve interacting with nature. Of course, the stereotypical German hobby is hiking, and while I can fervently confirm this stereotype, I have also encountered many hobbies that involve using items in nature as inspiration or tools for personal creative endeavors. (As a quick side note, I am just generally in awe of the knowledge base the average German has about seasonal fruits, vegetables, nuts, and foliage. Did you know you can make soap out of chestnuts? I didn't even know what chestnuts looked like.)

Meeting all of these wonderful people with hobby-rich lives makes me wonder what hobbies I might pick up, or deepen, this year. The fact that I've written six blog posts during four days of sick-leave makes me wonder if writing might be one of them. 

What do you guys think? What hobbies should I pick up while I'm here?

Culture Shock #4: Germans water their gardens more than themselves

Have you ever been made fun of for staying hydrated? WELL I HAVE. 

Don't get me wrong, I love a little senseless bullying. I've been known to pick on my friends for microwaving their tea or lousy parking jobs or being Christians. But staying hydrated? How did a bunch of Germans manage to shame me for drinking water?

Apparently, it is a ~distinctly U.S. American~ thing, to carry a water bottle around with you everywhere. And here I thought it was a ~distinctly Jewish~ thing, because I'd rather die than pay for water at restaurants.

Initially, I was very confused about what The Germans were shaming me for this time, because they are known for being super ecoconscious. Shouldn't they be pro-water bottle and against single-use plastics? 

Then, I realized my logical error. It isn't that Germans are anti-water bottle. They are anti-water. 

I don't think I've ever seen a German take a sip of water. At dinner time, my housemates never take glasses of water with them to the table. In the morning, it's tea or coffee. At night, it's (you guessed it!) beer. On the off-chance that a German gets parched midday, they might treat themself to a cold bottle of TV static water. But never. Normal. Tap water. I physically cannot comprehend how Germany isn't full of shriveled raisin people.

What I can get on board with is the German approach to showering - short and infrequent. I find showering every day absurd and unnecessary. Therefore, I am delighted to have finally found people to stink up a room with. 

Come visit me! 😀

Culture Shock #3: Germans hate airplanes

Last night I got ripped an absolute new one by my German friends for revealing that I would be flying - yes, with an airplane - to Vienna at the end of the month.

    "YOU ARE SO AMERICAN!" was my roommate's immediate response, which I found incredibly insulting. 

    "You guys fly everywhere..." , a friend chimed in, "You gonna take an airplane back to your bedroom tonight?" (We were in the living room.)

Needless to say, I was not expecting such a strong negative reaction from my new German pals. Their shock and disdain at the fact that I would fly anywhere, let alone within Europe, made me feel every emotion under the sun, from confused to guilty to angry. In fact, I believe my emotional reponse in this moment went something like this...

DENIAL: No, I am not "so American"! I am simply being practical! A flight from southern Germany to Vienna is 90 minutes! A train ride would be 10 hours and is just as expensive as flying! And a bus would be 14 hours! Aren't you guys the ones who worship efficiency anyway? I am not made of time!!!

ANGER: Who are you guys to tell me how to get to Vienna? I work 40 hours a week and I'd like to make the most out of my week-long break, you part-time job fucks.

BARGAINING: Okay, sorry for calling you guys "part-time job fucks." Maybe I'll look into taking the train in the future, when I have longer breaks. And I will absolutely make the most of the train for day trips and shorter journeys. I understand the impact airplanes have on the climate is a negative one. I just think you guys failed to consider the negative impact a 14 hour bus ride would have on my mental health and/or irritable bowels. 

DEPRESSION: Guess I'll just never see Vienna. Seems like any option I come up with isn't the right one. It's like they don't want me to go at all. Wait a minute...

ACCEPTANCE: It's not the airplanes Germans have a problem with! It's that I want to go to Austria! Now their reaction makes sense. I'd feel the same way if a friend of mine wanted to fly to Ohio. 

;)

P.S. I am still flying to Vienna like a proud American. And yes, I will send you all photos. 

Culture Shock #2: Germans shake it naked

I should've seen it coming. It took me twice as long to get ready as my roommates. Call me naive, but when I pictured a wholesome evening at the neighborhood swim spot, I didn't picture a lake full of naked people. There were maybe thirty people swimming that evening -- of all ages -- and I was the only one wearing a swim suit. The Germans did what they do (stare) and, this time, I stared back. How were these naked people making me feel naked for not being naked? Meanwhile, my roommates had already stripped off and jumped in the water. At least that answered my question about our apartment Pants Policy (in that, I probably wouldn't have to wear them). 

At the risk of inspiring a couple eye-rolls from my academically burned-out readers, I've gotta say that this ~formative~ experience genuinely challenged the way I've grown up thinking about nudity and purity. What isn't wholesome about nudity, exactly? Why did there being naked people at the lake mean that my evening was no longer wholesome? What does it mean to be naked? What does it mean to feel naked? 

I don't walk around Germany naked, or at least, not literally. Since moving here, I experience moments every day in which I feel naked - completely humiliated, vulnerable, and exposed. Like when I fell off my bike after attempting the slowest, widest left turn known to bike-riding-man. Or when I paid for my 3€ cappuccino with a 5€ bill and then asked for 3€ in change. Or when I pointed to a bunch of birds in a park and shouted a word that I thought meant "BIRDS!" but actually meant "FORNICATE!". I replay these moments at night in my head, feeling embarrassed all over again. 

I assume the times I feel naked in this country will decrease with time, as I get a hang of the culture and the language. And in that vein...maybe the times I am actually naked will increase.

Here's to being naked, not feeling naked. 

Culture Shock #1: Germans don't mind their own business

Since arriving here, I have noticed that strangers in public like to stare at each other for prolonged periods of time, which I find incredibly disarming. Living in the U.S. has made me a master of carefully avoiding eye contact with strangers on the street. Funnily enough, it seems everyone here in Germany has the exact opposite mission. Suddenly every public excursion is an improv game I didn't consent to participating in designed to teach players about the importance of eye contact: "Try to make eye contact with the one person who is trying to avoid it!!!!! Try it!!! It'll be fun!!! Yes, keep staring!!!! You will definitely not make this poor person think they unconsciously pooped themself in public and now the poop is everywhere!!!!"

I also often receive unsolicited advice from random strangers in public. For example, the woman sitting across from me on my train ride from the Frankfurt airport who told me I should stop cracking my knuckles, as this leads to arthritis in old age. I'm not sure what about my jetlagged, rashy, sweating, and shaking self said "Please Give Me Advice About Old Age!", but I know she was just trying to be kind.

Most of the time, I find the fact that Germans cannot mind their own business quite endearing. A couple weeks ago, I was swimming in the lake by my apartment, and a woman walking by called out to me, wanting to know if I thought the water was "colder, warmer, or exactly 21 degrees". I decided to combat her German desire for precision and accuracy with a dash of American spontaneity: "Jump in and find out!", I replied. She reluctantly tip-toed in, and we ended up swimming together for a bit. I still don't know how cold 21 degrees is, or why 21 was this woman's Magic Swimming Number. I figure, if she really wanted to know how cold the water was, she should've brought a thermometer with her. She'd probably just forgotten her swimming thermometer that day. 

Sometimes, the fact that Germans can't mind their own business can be dead useful. One time, my train ticket got stuck in the train ticket vending machine. Not ten seconds later, a German man was at my side, brandishing a fountain pen to stick halfway up the machine and dislodge my ticket for me. For these ten seconds, I was straight again.

Above all, the fact that Germans can't ever seem to mind their own business makes me feel seen. Although it can be a lot sometimes (see: "Did I Poop Myself?") or get on my nerves (see: "Advice for Old Age"), I appreciate that Germans want to interact with me. It makes me feel like a part of this community, like I belong here. I'd much prefer feeling seen to feeling invisible. 

Herzlich Willkommen!

Hello everyone,

As I have been recently struck by the black death (a viral infection), and the German healthcare system is actually a decent one, I am suddenly facing an entire week off of work to rest, relax, and recooperate. Anyone who knows me knows how good I am at resting, relaxing, and recooperating. Hence, the birth of my blog.

I figured I would use this blog to keep track of the strange and/or delightful culture shocks I experience throughout the year. I anticipate the number of culture shocks to be bigger than my lymph nodes, so particularly curious souls should check back in every once in a while for updates.

Without further ado, I present to you, my ongoing collection of Shameless Generalizations About German People.

Love,
Emma/Emmy