I saw this a couple of times before I
finally realized what was happening hey
guys what's up it's Kelly again and
welcome back to my channel I've talked
to you guys before about Mischa's
culture shocks as a German coming to
live in the United States and while I
reference some of them throughout my
videos I realized that I've never
directly talked to you guys about the
culture shocks I've experienced as an
American living in Germany but today is
the day I'm finally doing it and while I
could talk a lot about this and there
are so many different culture shocks
that I experienced I'm going to limit
myself to only seven so here are seven
culture shocks that I as an American
experienced while I was living in
Germany first up is how cheap everything
is I used to think that the cost of
living in Germany would be really high
because it's Europe and like a lot of
Americans when I hear the word Europe I
think fancy like the adjective European
is basically synonymous with the
adjective luxury and while there are
some countries in Europe that are
objectively expensive like Switzerland
and Norway aside from the cost of gas
and electricity I personally found the
cost of living to be cheaper in Germany
than anywhere else that I lived in the
US everything from food to rent to even
cars I recently came across an article
talking about how the rent prices in
Berlin have hit record highs and that
the government is starting to take
action to better control rent prices
which were being inflated by large
companies the record high rent is 10
euro per square meters in the city
specifically in the country's capital
where I think you could objectively
assume that the rent price will be the
highest my Ryan in DC is almost four
times that I pay about 35 euro per
square meter in my apartment and the
thigh of paying only six hundred and
twenty dollars in rent per month for my
apartment is unfathomable to me now of
course there are about a hundred
different factors to consider here as
difference in rent doesn't exist in a
vacuum income levels take-home pay after
taxes and the fact that our apartments
in the US come with kitchens are just a
few that make it impossible to directly
compare the rent of my apartment to the
rent of a seemingly comparable apartment
a German has in Berlin but the
overarching point is that I was really
shocked by what you could call this
sticker price for the cost of living in
Germany as being so much cheaper than
everywhere that I've lived in the u.s.
number two okay guys I saw this a couple
of times before I finally realized what
was happening so I would go out to
dinner at a restaurant and there would
be other patrons of the restaurant
sitting around me in pairs or in groups
and they would be eating their meals and
the first time that I saw this was a
group of about I think it was eight
people and they suddenly just all got up
out of their chairs and vacated the
table together at the same exact time
and what I looked at their table I
noticed that there was still some food
on their plates that there were drinks
half-finished and that there was even a
girl's jacket left hanging on the back
of one of the chairs and the server
wasn't coming over to the table to start
cleaning up the plates or anything
everything was left just as is and so I
didn't know what was going on where did
they all go are they all going to the
bathroom together in one giant group
that seems very strange
maybe there's a bar in the restaurant
that I didn't notice and they were all
going to the bar to get some drinks or
some shots together I couldn't figure it
out and then they all after about 10
minutes came back in and all sat down
together and finished enjoying the rest
of their meals and time together
honestly guys I saw this so many times
before I finally understood that the
reason why this was happening is because
they are walking outside and having
a smoke break I have never in my life
seen this happen before moving to
Germany and it really surprises me not
only because people are interrupting
their meal to go and have a cigarette
but also because I just can't believe
how many Germans are still smoking in
the u.s. of course we have smokers I'm
not gonna sit here and pretend like we
don't we do have smokers but I would say
that it's just not really socially
accepted anymore
and of course I've seen people in the
u.s. walk outside of a bar or a
nightclub to have a smoke break but
never I cannot imagine
people leaving their dinner at a
restaurant to walk outside smoke and
then come back I I can't imagine it this
was truly shocking to me number three is
how much more popular Android phones are
compared to iPhones whenever I first
started making friends in Germany and we
would exchange numbers they would
inevitably ask me hey what's your what -
app whatsapp of course referring to the
text messaging application and I at
first didn't think too much about this I
just assumed that people preferred
whatsapp because it claims to have
end-to-end encryption and it has some
other benefits to it but what I didn't
realize is that the preference for
whatsapp is largely predicated on the
fact that Android phones are so much
more popular than iPhones in Germany to
give you an idea as of September 2018
iPhone sales in Germany flopped at 16
percent whereas Android sales soared at
83 percent that is a huge difference and
in the u.s. those numbers are a lot
closer to 5050 although I will say that
it feels as though the overwhelming
majority of people in the u.s. own
iPhones there are even entire jokes in
the US referencing iPhones as being the
better or elite phone I've seen so many
tweets or memes making fun of androids
and I've seen screenshots of
conversations like this one where
someone gets a text from an Android
on their iPhone which means the text
shows up in green and then the Android
user gets promptly ridiculed there are a
couple of reasons why I think that
Germans are more apt to use androids
over iPhones but the primary reason I
think is because iPhones are just way
too dang expensive and Germans tend to
be a bit more frugal and they just don't
really care about luxury items but this
was strange for me as an American who's
owned an iPhone for I don't know over
eight years and everyone i text with in
the US has an iPhone too and then to go
to Germany and have the complete
opposite experience where pretty much
everyone that I texted with has an
Android number four is having to go
inside to the gas station to pay for gas
the whole time that I've been driving in
the u.s. I've always been able to pay
for my gas at the pump so to move to a
modern country like Germany and find
myself having to go into the gas station
to pay for my gas I was I don't know I
was really shocked by this if you're
German and you're watching this and
you've never pumped gas in the u.s. then
I will tell you that most gas stations
in the US will have a card reader and
PIN pad right at the pump ready for you
to be able to pay for your gas with your
card and there will even sometimes be
television screens playing
advertisements while you pump your gas
it isn't just the Germans who appreciate
efficiency Americans appreciate it too
and being able to pay at the pump is far
more efficient than having to go inside
and with the amount of miles we commute
and the long road trips we have most
people want to expedite their stop at a
gas station as much as possible I don't
exactly know why in Germany you don't
have the ability to pay for gas at the
pump I have the reasonable assumption
that it has something to do with the
cash is king culture in Germany which
requires a customer to cashier
transaction and then it might also have
to do with the fact that gas stations in
Germany sell gas as close to the market
value as possible so the profit margin
for gas is much lower and therefore to
make any money the gas station need
customers to come inside and pay for
products because that's the only way
they make any revenue number five is
swearing on the radio so I was in my car
in Germany be popping along to my radio
yeah I'll take a coffee thanks
thanks then and the song by Eamon came
on now I'm going to have to bleep out a
lot of what I'm about to say so just
know that every time you hear bleep it's
me saying the word this song by E mine
called Kate I don't want you back came
out in 2004 or 2005 and it is riddled
with the word in fact he says the word
20 to 15 times when you hear this song
playing on the radio in the US you're
hearing the radio edit version meaning
they've censored out everytime he sings
the word but in Germany there is no
radio edit version they just played the
original version and it was really
shocking for me to hear the word on the
radio like that I've always been aware
of the fact that censorship of words and
nudity in Germany is a lot more lacks
than what it is in the US and I
obviously have no problem with cursing
myself but it was still really shocking
to encounter this and I think that this
topic deserves way more attention than
what I'm able to give it in this video
but I find it really interesting as I
believe many people do to talk about the
somewhat contradictory nature of
censorship in US media for example we
have TV shows with very repulsive plot
themes and movies with extremely violent
scenes that will play on TV without any
sort of censorship and yet certain swear
words have to be bleeped out in fact
I've even seen shows where they bleep
out swear words said in other languages
where the majority of the audience
wouldn't even know what they're saying
and then to go to Munich Germany and see
some signs with the word written right
on them out in public without anybody
batting an eye it was just such a huge
dichotomy and culture so experiencing
what Germany does or in this case
doesn't censor out was really shocking
for me to learn coming from the u.s.
number six is Germans knowing u.s.
American songs better than me and this
one's just funny
there was an Irish bar in Mainz that I
loved going to it was creatively named
Irish pub and on Friday night they would
play I think it was Friday nights they
would play live music and it was always
such a blast for me because everyone
would kind of pack into this small room
and everyone would be dancing and
singing along to the band and sometimes
the band would play American music they
would play classics or they would play
more recent pop songs and I swear
everyone in the room regardless of the
song would be singing every single word
of every single song and this was just
shocking to me I think the first time I
saw it I just had this sudden
realization of just how much US pop
culture is propagated outside of the US
and some of you guys may know that I
lived in Turkey before I ever moved to
Germany and sure there were sometimes
music videos playing on the TV screens
in some bars or there would be some
American music playing in some of the
restaurants or bars but really not that
much and then traveling around to all of
the countries I've been to
I would see some indications of American
pop culture or at least the influence of
it but I guess I just didn't think that
Germans or people from any country for
that matter would be listening to
American music over the music of their
own country or at least to the point
where they know every single every
single word to every single American
song this was really shocking to me and
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number 7 the last culture shock that I'm
going to talk to you guys about is
brothels brothels are completely legal
in Germany and in the u.s. they are not
with some small exceptions in Nevada
there's a brothel right by the main
train station in mind that I must have
walked by over a hundred times when I
was living there before I learned what
it was because I didn't realize that a
building having red lights was an
indicator for it being a brothel of
course I had heard of the red light
district in Amsterdam and I understood
what that meant but I didn't realize how
on the nose the nickname for that
district was and it's not just seeing
the brothel that was so shocking for me
but also learning more about the culture
of it and understanding how and why it's
legal I don't want to get into all of
that right now but I think coming from
the US where I think we collectively as
a society really grapple with the idea
of seeing sex as a normal healthy part
of life rather than something that's
forbidden or at least that we shouldn't
talk about seeing this part of German
culture was really shocking for me all
right guys that's all I've got for you
today I hope that you enjoyed this video
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