Dealing with money is quite different in Germany, and trying to pay my bill in a restaurant is no exception. I have to access my money differently, I spend it differently, and I struggle to keep track of the cash flow. I’ve been able to use our US credit card in more places than expected, but frequently I only have the option of using our German debit card or cash. In the US we almost never used our debit card (since it […]
Category: Life in Germany
How Germany is different than the USA:
Differences Between Germany and the USA.
Grocery Shopping in Germany (Compared to the USA).
Our Cost of Living in Germany Compared to the USA.
17 Ways the German Restaurant Experience Is Different Compared to the US.
12 Differences I Experienced While Going to the Movies in Germany.
An American Goes to the Doctor in Germany.
How Holiday Park (Germany) Is Different from American Theme Parks.
On life in Germany:
50 Things I Miss from Germany.
A Day in the Life: Expat in Small Town Germany
“Why Would You Wear Lederhosen?” and Other Things We Don’t Say in Germany
You might live in Germany if
Trying to Pay My Bill in Germany
American Food According to Germany
12 Facts about Christmas in Germany
15 Times Google Translate Failed Hilariously on the German Amazon Site
Expat Living in Schweinfurt, Germany.
On moving to Germany:
Meeting Our New Home in Schweinfurt, Germany.
An Expectation of Silence
Our First Week as Expats in Germany
Our German Home
8 Things I Love About German Home Design
Coming Home to Schweinfurt
Things you might see in Germany:
Love Locks in Germany
Street Art / Graffiti in Germany.
40 Things I Saw on the Deutsche Bahn
Blog Roll:
Love Locks in Germany.
Germans aren’t exactly known for being romantic, but all the love locks throughout the country would suggest that there is plenty of romance going on in the land of beer and sausage. The tradition of love locks has been around for a century or so but Europe didn’t start seeing them in large numbers until the early 2000’s. While they are meant to be a sweet gesture or symbol of lasting love, the locks have caused quite a controversy in some places. Fortunately we’ve […]
How the German Restaurant Experience Is Different Compared to the US.
I was a bit overwhelmed the first time we went out to eat at a restaurant in Germany. The combination of having a language barrier, not being able to translate all the words on a non-English menu, and my lack of understanding about the process in general resulted in an intimidating situation. We still experience confusion sometimes when we go out for a meal, but we’ve definitely got a better idea of how to act and what to do after […]
15 Times Google Translate Failed Hilariously on the German Amazon Site.
We started purchasing products from Amazon.de pretty much immediately after we moved here. Amazon was all we knew – we had used the US site faithfully for several years before we moved and it was our go-to for just about everything. We’ve since learned how to shop in Schweinfurt and and use online sites other than Amazon, but there are times when it’s still our best option. Thankfully they have an English version so we can search for items and […]
Our Cost of Living in Germany Compared to the USA.
I’ve been asked a few times how much it costs to live in Germany compared to America. That’s a hard question for me to answer completely because we don’t pay for housing or utilities in Germany nor did we pay for them in the USA after college. (Mr. Meena’s company has provided us with free housing for two and a half years.) But I have kept an extremely detailed budget since we’ve been married, so there are some comparisons that […]
A Typical Day in Our Hotel.
Have you ever lived in a hotel? We’re seven months into our stay in one and it’s testing my sanity a little bit. This is how a typical weekday goes. 5:30am: Mr. Stomp Stomp, our upstairs neighbor, wakes up and begins stomping back and forth in his bedroom, directly above my side of the bed. I wonder what he is doing. 5:45am: Mr. Meena’s alarm goes off and he slowly wakes up (he is not a morning person at all). I […]
12 Differences I Experienced While Going to the Movies in Germany.
We’re really not big movie goers in general. We like using Netflix and usually we have enough patience to wait until a movie is released on Google Play so we can rent it for just a couple bucks. We used to have a great setup for watching movies at home before we sent all our stuff into storage and moved to Germany. Even when we did go see one it was usually in the afternoon (matinee prices!) and a week […]
You might live in Germany if…
We’ve learned so much about Germany over the past seven months and we’ve picked up a few strange habits along the way. Here are some things that we’ve observed to be true about life in Germany. You might live in Germany if: You know that the autobahn is not as much fun as most foreigners think it is. You have lots of insurance policies. You have very little patience. Maybe none at all. You’re a boss at conserving electricity. And […]
Street Art / Graffiti in Germany.
I expected to see strange things during our life in Germany, but I can’t say that prolific graffiti was one of them. At first it was startling to see street art and/or graffiti on nearly every surface. The paint isn’t just on the buildings and walls, it’s on the streetlights, the electrical boxes, even the commuter trains. According to the The German Way, the issue of graffiti in Berlin alone causes 35-50 million euros of property damage annually. Some cities actually provide […]
American Food According to Germany.
I often wander around my local German supermarkets struggling to remember what the German words are for the foods I need. I stand in the aisles trying to use my translator app on words that don’t always translate and usually end up confused. But every once in a while I’ll see a food with “American” splattered across the packaging and I’ve just got to try it. Not only do I miss American food items that we can’t find in Germany, […]