This video is about sleeping differences in Germany and the U.S....like actually sleeping-sleeping;
not sleeping as a euphemism for having sex.
But wait! Don’t go!
It’s actually quite interesting!
Hey everyone! I’m Dana and you’re watching Wanted Adventure Living Abroad.
The actual act of shutting your eyes and sleeping seems to be pretty similar in the U.S. and Germany.
I haven’t really noticed any big differences there.
And the fact that you sleep on a bed is also the same.
But a lot of the specific details are quite different.
Let’s start with the bed, itself.
In the U.S. most of the beds that I can remember ever sleeping on were boxspring beds, so that
it actually kind of looked like you had two mattresses sitting one on top of the other.
But it’s not two mattresses, the one on top is a mattress, and then then one on the
bottom is the boxspring, giving support to the mattress.
Here in Germany, over the past few years I have started to see more and more stores
offering these kinds of boxspring beds, but I would say they’re still not as common
as the curved wooden slats.
The slats sit in the bed frame and then the mattress goes on top of the slats.
But I’m wondering if now that IKEA is getting more and more popular in the U.S., maybe these
kinds of beds will also become more common in the U.S.
And then while we’re on mattresses, until moving to Europe, I had never seen one bed
having two mattresses.
I didn’t even know that was an option.
In the U.S., as far as I ever saw, the one, single mattress stretched all the way from
one side of the bed frame to the other.
So did Mr. German Man’s bed in Germany.
But then we stayed in a hotel somewhere, and I was really shocked to find that our bed
was simply two other beds pushed together.
My first reaction, since I'd never seen this before, was to assume that the hotel had run
out of double rooms, and so as a last ditch effort they had gone into a twin room and
just pushed the two beds together. Voila one bed!
So I kind of rolled my eyes and slept there, you know, trying not to fall down into the
crack in the middle.
I didn’t really think much of it...until we experienced the same thing at another hotel
and another and another.
Okay, so in Germany some people do have one mattress, but then some people also have two
mattresses in one bed frame lying side-by-side.
At first I thought that this was so each person could have a softer or a harder mattress,
depending on what they needed.
And I thought oh okay, that's smart.
But then I met a totally single guy who bought a brand new bed, also with two mattresses,
so then I wasn’t really sure.
I can understand having two mattresses for two people, but why would you want two mattresses
if the bed is going to be just for you?
It seems like that crack down the middle would be kind of annoying.
Although I have since learned that you can get, like, a foam pad to put in the crack
to stop your leg from slipping down in there in the middle of the night.
Mr. German Man and I are actually thinking about buying a new bed right now, so I would
really love your take on this because I've noticed that getting the two smaller mattresses
side by side is a heck of a lot cheaper than actually getting the one large mattress.
So I would love to hear your pros and cons.
What's you're experience been sleeping with the two mattresses and having that, kind of,
crack down the middle? Thank you!
In both Germany and the U.S., on top of the mattress there is a fitted sheet.
Then in the U.S. there’s often yet another sheet on the bed called a top sheet.
Reasons for the top sheet vary depending on who you ask, and it also seems that in the
U.S. you either love the top sheet or hate the top sheet.
If someone sleeps with a top sheet that means that between them and the comforter is a thin
sheet like the one I just showed.
So it goes mattress, person, top sheet, comforter.
One pro of a top sheet is that if you get hot in the middle of the night, you can kick
off the thicker comforter, but still have the thin top sheet to sleep under, so that
there’s at least still something covering you, and it’s also great for sleeping in
the summer when it's hot out.
But the con of the top sheet is that it can get twisted up sometimes at night, just depending
on how much you move around in your sleep, I guess.
As I said, on top of the top sheet is a comforter, and there’s also a difference there when
it comes to the U.S. and Germany.
In Germany duvets seem to be, as far as I've seen, the most common kind of comforter on the beds.
With a duvet you have the inside stuffing secured in a kind of covering and then the
outside fabric can come off and you can put that part in the wash separately.
Some people in the U.S. do also use duvets, but some people do not.
The other common comforter in the U.S. is one that cannot be taken apart.
The inside stuffing is sewn directly into the main outer covering.
So you have a lovely outside covering, and it’s stuffed with the filling and then sewn shut.
You cannot open it.
If you want to wash it, you have to wash the whole thing.
That’s the kind of comforter that I had in the U.S., the kind that could not be taken apart,
but now that I’ve experienced the duvet, I realize it’s a lot easier to wash,
and just, kind of, makes a lot more sense to have an outside layer that you can actually
take off and change, kind of like a pillowcase.
And speaking of pillowcases...
We’ve tackled the mattress, the sheets, the comforter, now pillows.
In Germany I have come across two kinds of pillows, and I've seen these huge, square
pillows that are really big, but have, like, not very much support to them.
When I first encountered this kind of pillow, the only way that I could actually manage
to sleep on it was to fold it and create a now quite tiny but at least supportive little pillow.
But by the way, this is just the pillowcase, not the pillow.
It's not this unsupportive. This is just the pillowcase.
The other common pillow I've seen in Germany is supportive but quite small.
It's, ah, just a small, little rectangle.
But again, this is not the pillow, just the pillowcase.
You can imagine what the pillow would look like in here.
In the U.S. sleeping pillows are usually rectangular, and somewhere in between the size of the two
pillows that I’ve seen here in Germany.
And a question that I’ve gotten is: why do Americans have a bunch of decorative pillows
on their bed that they take off for sleeping and then put back on every morning?
And my answer is: I don't know.
Growing up, I never had that at my house, but I did have lots of friends with that.
Each night they would take all the pillows off their bed, and then the next morning there
would be a special place and way to put each pillow back on the bed so that it was just right.
I guess some people just like the way that it looks in the room, makes it maybe look more stylish.
Maybe it feels more inviting to them that way.
For me, I was all about efficiency.
It just did not make sense to me to be taking all those pillows off and then putting them
back on the next morning.
Just didn't make any sense.
But then, I didn’t make my bed either so...
So my question for you is: if you have a bunch of decorative pillows on your bed,
what do you like about it? What's the appeal?
Does it feel cozier or do you, just, maybe like the way it looks?
And what other sleeping differences have you noticed around the world?
Please let me know in the comments below.
Thanks so much for watching.
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Until next time, auf Wiedersehen!
And it's stuffed with the filling and then shown shut...wow!
Shown shut, sewn shut.
But I would stay there still...
Bed, bed, bed, bed, bed.
The slats sit in the bed frame and then the bed goes on top of the...the mattress goes
on top of it. Not the bed. It is a bed.
This video is about sleeping differences...