6 Months Living in Germany (as an American)
Working in Germany
I have now lived in Germany for 6 months and feel like this is a good milestone to document my thoughts and experiences. It has been a wild ride and I wouldn’t change anything for the world. To start, I still have a crappy manual labor job. It was the easiest and fastest job that I could find, since it required no language skills, or really no skills at all to be honest. It’s very physical and doesn’t pay well, about half as much as I was getting paid in America, but there are some benefits to it. Apart from the ease of being able to land the job due to needing no language skills, I also have a number of family and friends who work at the company who can help with any number of things from my day to do work, getting to and from work, or even helping with vacation and sick leave. This flexibility and support system has allowed me to look past the jobs shortcomings and stick with it thus far.
Traveling in Germany
Even on a limited budget we have still been able to travel quite a bit around Germany and even to Austria so far. Short day and weekend trips are easy, just hop in the car and go. Germany has a great culture of celebration. There’s always a new festival, parade, gathering, party or event to go to or even just stumble upon.
Politics in Germany
Another random plus to living in Germany is the lack of politics in the media and everyday life. It’s a noticeable and stark comparison to the norm in America, where the entire media industry seems to be dominated by political commentary. Germany obviously has politics, but it isn’t talked about on every news station, in every entertainment source, with all friends and family, by every celebrity, and so on. It’s been a welcomed break from feeling overwhelmed by the constant and polarizing barrage of political commentary in America.
Learning German
Learning German has been going well enough. I got to the point a month or two ago where I am able to form simple sentences in German. I can basically speak like a caveman, or a baby. It’s not pretty, it’s not correct, but it gets the job done well enough in most instances. It’s definitely not ideal, but I’ve stopped “studying” German since getting to this point. I have been focusing on learning German through speaking with others and listening to others through conversation. Ideally, I’d be combining this sort of practical learning with my previous studying as well for the most beneficial and efficient language learning. That being said, I just don’t have the desire to dedicate the time needed in order to do that right now. All of my free time has been going towards learning programming and content creation. I feel like programming and content creation will be more beneficial to me in the long run than learning German, though learning German would be more beneficial to me immediately.
Negatives of Germany
Not everything about Germany has been great so far. For starters, there are exponentially more Karen’s in Germany than there are in America. Now, don’t get me wrong, obviously most people in Germany are very nice and friendly and chill people. I mean, they practically MASTERED the BEER, how could they not be chill? I look at it like this, let's say hypothetically every 1 in 100 people in America are Karen’s, I’d say every 5 in 100 people in Germany are Karen’s. Those numbers are both probably pretty high, but just as an example. Like I said, a vast majority of people in Germany are very friendly and down to earth, but there is definitely a noticeable increase in Karen’s here in Germany when compared with America. Germany is also known for being very rules oriented as a nation. Everything has rules, regulations, licenses, mandatory classes, tests, documentation, etc. I think that this has some influence on the culture and somehow breeds more Karen’s. Just a working theory. At any rate, don't let this ruin your thoughts on Germans, like I said a vast majority are perfectly normal and chill people.
The other noteworthy thing, though there are many and I’ll probably post a separate article at a later date, is that I did have some negative run-ins with seemingly anti-immigrant individuals. There were only 2 incidents that I can remember or that I noticed, but I still thought they were interesting enough to be worth mentioning. These were basically times when I had interactions with people and, after hearing my poor German and knowing that I was clearly an immigrant, changed their tone with me and became very demeaning. It seemed as though they thought that I was some sort of second class citizen because I wasn’t from Germany. I personally didn’t care much because I know that I had a great upbringing, great education, great family and friend support system and so on. I did, however, care because some of the immigrants that I know in Germany are coming from 3rd world countries where they don’t have all of the advantages that I do in life. I came to Germany by choice, practically just for the adventure with Isa (my girlfriend), whereas many people come because they have essentially nowhere else to go. They’re driven from their countries for any number of reasons and wind up in Germany trying to make a better life for themselves. They don’t have the choices that I do, so running into a crappy person like this could look very different for them. Although, again, this was just two incidents in the 6 months since I’ve been here. Most Germans are incredibly welcoming, friendly, and understanding. This is likely just bad luck on my part, but I did think it was worth mentioning at least.
So, with 6 months down, I feel like I’m finally starting to get into the swing of things. If you’re thinking of traveling to Germany, or abroad in general, just know that it gets better. Things slow down and you find a way to figure it all out. Don’t be afraid of being uncomfortable, be afraid of being too comfortable for the rest of your life.