when I first saw kinderwurst in the grocery store in Germany I had to do a
double take because I didn't believe what I was actually looking at.. hey guys
what's up it's Kelly again and welcome back to my channel I lived in Germany
for 18 months and I moved back to the US about eight months ago and just as when
I was living in Germany and noticing the absence of a lot of American things I
was used to seeing now that I'm back in the US I'm noticing the absence of some
German things so for today's video I'm going to talk to you guys about eight
different German things that I never see in the US first up is Spezi I learned
when I was living in Germany that Germans are not shy at all about mixing
drinks together even when it comes to their beer and while this isn't unheard
of in the u.s. the Germans do it way way way more and with so many different
types of drinks for example I've never seen an American mixing two different
types of sodas together unless it's some kid going ham at the soda fountain
machine at a restaurant while his mom isn't paying attention but Germans will
mix orange soda with coke and that's exactly what Spezi is and Spezi
isn't even the only type of mass-produced drink with this
combination. Coca Cola also makes an orange and coke mix called Mezzo Mix
and then there's a bunch of grocery stores that have their own generic brand
versions usually called Cola mix. I bought this Spezi at a German specialty
store near where I live in DC in fact you can tell that it's an imported
product because it has this label to translate all of the German that's on
the can into English but you wouldn't be able to walk into a normal grocery store
in the US and buy Spezi or Mezzo mix or Cola mix at all because we don't have
it. in fact I'm willing to bet that if I walked outside and talked to the first
hundred Americans I see and ask them hey do you know what Spezi is I would get a
hundred people telling me no I don't know what that is and also why are you
talking to me?
i don't know.
the second German thing that you never see in the u.s. is a TV tax. in Germany every single household
has to pay a special tax that goes towards financing Germany's public
channels. back before I think 2013 only Germans who owned a TV or radio had to
pay this tax but it became too difficult for the government to track down who
actually owned a TV and a radio and then with the popularity of personal
electronic devices like smartphones and tablets and iPads and so on it became
too difficult for the government to accurately tax people so they just kind
of did a broad stroke tax and now every single household has to pay whether or
not you even use the public channels. the flat fee is 17,50 euro a month which
comes out to 210 euro a year. we don't have a TV tax in the u.s. most of our
content on TV and radio is commercialized and so it is funded
through advertisements. we do though have the Public Broadcasting Service or PBS
which is public programming and while it does ultimately receive funding from
Congress every year through our taxes we don't pay a Direct TV tax like you have
in Germany. when I first moved to Germany I was told that I needed to buy a
parking disc and I had no idea what that was. this is a parking disc and you need
it to be able to park in certain time restricted areas in Germany. you
basically park and then set this wheel to your arrival time and you're able to
round up to the next half hour, then you set it on your dashboard or you hang it
on your windshield with these little suction cups like I have on mine and
then you have to leave the parking space within the maximum amount of time you're
allowed to park there plus your arrival time so if you show up to a parking spot
at 8:00 and that's what you set your little wheel at and the maximum amount
of time you're allowed to park in that parking spot is two hours you have to
leave by 10:00 because 8 plus 2 is 10. I was really thankful for the person who
told me to get a parking disc because I used it all the time not just in Germany
but all throughout Europe as I was driving around
and if I remember correctly you didn't have to pay to be able to park at these
specific types of parking spots so the accountability for making sure that you
leave within the max permitted time was through the disk. we don't have parking
disks in the u.s. we usually only have parking meters or pay machines that give
out dashboard tickets with the time you must leave I printed on them. okay there
is a thing called kinderwurst in Germany which I have never seen in the
u.s. kinderwurst is basically sliced meat that is shaped in two different
forms like a smiley face or a bear and it's done to appeal to children. when I
first saw kinderwurst in the grocery store in Germany I had to do a double
take because I didn't believe what I was actually looking at. I've never seen
something creatively done with sliced meat before and it seems to be pretty
popular given how much of it is in stock in the stores and Misha told me that
there's a German comedian who even referenced kinderwurst in one of his
jokes where he was talking about how his girlfriend still had someone to talk to
when she's in the kitchen and looking in the refrigerator because all of the meat
smiley faces looking back up at her. I feel like the way I just explained it
made it sound even weirder than it already is.
we have all different kinds of sliced meats in the US but I've never seen meat
be dressed up like this. for another meat centric topic - Germany has a dish called
Mett which is essentially minced raw pork often served on a roll with salt and
pepper and some other seasonings and often onions and this was strange enough
but it got stranger because there is a thing called a Mettigel which is a Mett
Hedgehog which is exactly what it sounds like. you take this minced raw pork and
you form it in the shape of a hedgehog where you have either onion slices or
pretzel sticks as the spikes of the Hedgehog and then the eyes and the nose
are formed with olives. I've never seen anything like it before in my entire
life. in fact I've always been told never ever
eat raw pork so the whole concept of mett just completely bewildered me so much so
that I never tried it. I'm sorry to admit it but I just never could mentally
commit to trying mett. it took me 30 years to finally try scrapple which is
coincidentally another pork dish and it's really popular where I'm from in
Pennsylvania. so I think by hesitancy and weariness for
trying Mett could be assumed. but I'm gonna try it guys I promise I'm going to
try Mett when I go to Germany here shortly and I'm putting it out there on
the internet so that I absolutely have to follow through with it because
everybody knows that's the healthiest way to be held accountable. I've talked
about this in a few of my other videos but it is something that we don't have
in the u.s. which is a national ID. Germans have a national ID and it is
compulsory starting at the age of 16. it can be used as almost like a passport
for Germans to be able to travel freely throughout most of the countries in
Europe as long as they have their national ID and even a few countries
outside of Europe. it includes basic information about the holder like their
name and their birth date and their address and then there's also some
physical description of them like their eye colour and their height. we don't
have a national ID in the US. the closest thing we have to a national ID is our
passport but most Americans who don't travel outside of the US aren't going to
own a passport, so our driver's licenses are usually
what people will show as a form of identification. there are some other
forms of ID that you can get in the US like just a plain photo ID but again,
it's not compulsory and it's not uniform across the country so it's not like this
national ID like you have in Germany. we also don't have a quiet law in the u.s.
it varies from town to town in Germany but generally speaking on Sundays you're
not allowed to do noisy activities like mowing the lawn or using a really loud
vacuum cleaner or washing your car except for in
designated areas and I've even heard of some people getting complaints from
their neighbors for holding a barbecue or a grill party. this also extends to
nights on weeknights not just Sundays and then also on holidays. fortunately I
never had any issues with the quiet law but I have some friends and their
experience tell me that Germans take this very very seriously. in the US we
don't have this quiet law. maybe the least of your apartment specifies quiet
hours or your homeowners association has quiet hours or maybe the hotel you're
staying in will specify some quiet hours, things like this but nationally we don't
have you know any sort of law or regulation or even social expectation
for you to be quiet on a Sunday. in fact, I would say that Sunday is a really
popular day for people to go out and get some lawn work down and do chores so
this whole quiet law thing is something you would never see in the US. all right
last one guys kindergeld is something you would never see in the u.s. kindergeld
is an allowance that Germans who have children are entitled to and I
think it's about an average of 200 euro that they're paid monthly depending on
how many children and it's deposited right into their bank account. in the
u.s. we don't have any sort of child allowance. the closest thing we have to
kindergeld is a child tax credit. so you can claim your children on your annual
taxes and it can reduce your federal taxes by up to $2,000 per child. all
right guys that's all I've got for you today I hope that you've enjoyed this
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