but in germany it started to bother me
to the point that i changed my behavior
[Music]
hey guys what's up it's kelly again and
welcome back to my channel
for today's video i'm going to talk to
you guys about some of the things that i
do differently
because i lived in germany so living in
germany had a fairly
sizable impact on me whether it be
because i think about things a little
differently than i thought about them
before living there
or maybe i've become more resolute in
the way i thought about something before
living in germany
but one thing is for sure there are some
behaviors
and habits that i have changed or
adopted because i lived in germany and
that's what i'm going to talk to you
guys about today
the first thing that i will tell you has
changed about me
since living in germany is that i am a
much
much better driver i think most germans
who have visited the united states for
any period of time
and have observed american driving
habits
will probably tell you that americans
are terrible drivers
and as much as i really want to get
defensive about this
yeah it's generally true in the u.s
americans will complain about drivers
from other specific states quite
frequently
for example in pennsylvania a lot of
people will complain about the drivers
from new jersey and in dc i hear
a lot of people complain about maryland
drivers
but let's be real collectively
we are not great drivers we're not as
bad
as the italians but we are a far
stretch from the germans so when i moved
to germany
i realized that my let's call it
style of driving wasn't going to fly
so after 13 years of driving
i started to really really focus on
improving my driving habits
now i didn't really notice just how much
my habits had improved while i was in
germany
until i moved back to the us and started
to drive here again
i quickly realized just how bad american
drivers are
and how i was driving a bit differently
than i had before
the next way that i've changed because
of living in germany
is that i have dramatically downsized
the
amount of that i own before i moved
to germany
i lived in a house that i had bought out
in washington
state i knew i would want to rent it out
when i moved again
and so i bought a sizeable house just
under 2 000
square feet in order to increase my pool
of potential tenants
and then i didn't really mean to but i
started to grow
to fit the space during the time that i
lived there
and then when i moved to germany i knew
that i wanted to live
in the city as close to the city center
as i possibly could get
and i really struggled to find an
apartment that was
where i wanted it and as big as i needed
it to be
to house all of my it was getting
to the point where i was having to
choose between the location of my
apartment
and the size of my apartment somehow i
did end up finding an apartment that was
big enough to
store everything that i had but i
decided
that because of this exhaustive search
that i had to do to be able to find that
apartment
that i needed to seriously focus on
downsizing how much stuff i owned
because
i never wanted to be in a position again
where the amount
of stuff useless stuff that i own
would be a dictating factor as to where
i could live
now of course you could argue that this
same exact thing would have happened to
me if i moved into a city in the us
a city like dc where i live now but in
the u.s
i feel that there is a culture that
pressures you to
wine buy a house and to buy a big house
now i think that this is starting to
change and it will change more and more
with each passing year so i'm kind of
curious about
what the american dream of owning a
house with a white picket fence will
look like in 20 years
but that culture exists now in the us
and i don't think
it exists in germany there are a lot of
germans who live their entire lives
renting out small apartments
and i didn't feel like any germans felt
pressured to
go out and buy a nice big fancy house
just to fill up with a bunch of stuff
and there also aren't any built-in
closets in the apartments in germany
so when i moved there i had to go out
and buy wardrobes or buy
portable closets so that i could store
all of my clothes
and i think this served as a really big
wake-up call for me
because i had to buy multiple wardrobes
just to be able to hang up
all of these clothes that i didn't wear
and definitely did not
need so all of these factors that i
experienced from living in germany
has led to me being able to move from a
2000
square foot house that i lived in by
myself
into a 670 square foot
apartment that i comfortably share with
my boyfriend and really i'm looking to
get rid of even more stuff i have
completely
changed the way that i shop for
groceries because
of living in germany and one thing that
i never ever thought that i would ever
do
is daily grocery shopping before i moved
to germany
i used to go shopping for my groceries
once a week
on sunday when i moved to germany all of
that
changed and not just because i couldn't
do my weekly shopping on sundays anymore
since
all the stores are closed on sundays in
germany but for many other reasons
in germany i did mostly all of my
grocery shopping
at the revei or aldi in the city near my
apartment
whenever i would go for my weekly trip
just like i was doing
in the us i started to notice that i was
the only one
buying large quantities of groceries it
seemed to me like everyone else
in line around me in these city grocery
stores were just buying a few
items i can't say if this sort of thing
would have really bothered me in the u.s
or not
because in the us i'm so used to there
being a fair mix of people
buying a lot or buying a little and
there being more checkout lines even in
city grocery stores
but in germany it started to bother me
to the point that i changed my behavior
so i would get in line with all of these
people who were buying just a few things
and i would bring up all of my items and
start putting it on the conveyor belt
and i could hear audible sighs
from the people standing behind me in
line waiting for
all of my items to get rung up by the
cashier and then for me to be
desperately bagging everything at the
same time
and then paying to leave so after a few
times of going through with that
i completely stopped with my weekly
grocery trips and i started going to the
grocery store
every day or every couple of days after
work
buying whatever i needed for dinner that
night and enough to get me through
the next day or so and i've maintained
that same behavior here in dc
i guess because it's become a habit and
also it's relieved me of the chore of
spending a good portion of my sunday
going to the grocery store
which i always hated now i need to
caveat this by saying that the only way
that i'm able to keep this
habit is because i live in a city like
dc
and i have three grocery stores well
within walking distance of my apartment
everywhere else i've lived in the u.s
and i've lived in seven different states
in multiple different houses in some of
those states
i lived no closer than a 10-minute drive
from the nearest grocery store
so the option of doing daily grocery
shopping
doesn't exist in any of the places i've
lived before here
also because i was always walking to and
from the grocery store for my daily
shopping trip
i didn't want to have to carry that much
stuff from the store
to my apartment and so that also worked
to decrease how much i wanted to buy at
the store
and to make sure that i didn't buy too
much for me to be able to comfortably
carry
i got into the habit of carrying a
basket around the grocery store instead
of pushing a cart
which also helped to control how much
money i spent at the store
and i still do that now the next one is
that i now
walk and ride my bike as much as i
possibly can
instead of driving so when i moved to
germany i very quickly
adapted to the idea of using public
transportation
or getting yourself places manually and
i loved how many bike lanes there were i
loved how german drivers
knew how to maneuver around cyclists it
made
riding your bike a very attractive
option especially compared to the us
and i lived about 10 kilometers away
from where i worked
and almost every day i would ride my
bike to
and from work and sometimes i would
actually even
run to and from work i loved
this and then the city that i lived in
like a lot of cities in germany
and really a lot of cities in europe it
was
really pedestrian friendly so i loved
being able to walk everywhere that i
needed to go like the grocery store
as i've talked about already now that
i'm back in the us
i still find myself trying to get
everywhere i need to go by either
walking
or riding a bike instead of driving just
as i did
in germany now of course i need to
caveat this again with saying that this
option is available to me because of
living in
a city but also because i live in a city
ubers and taxis are
incredibly accessible and extremely
convenient for me to grab
but i seriously resist doing that
one because i'm a little cheap and
also because i really just want to get
to places
manually instead so even if i'm meeting
friends
across the city for dinner i will get on
my little map
app and if it's too far for me to walk
there
then i will figure out how to use the
capital bike share system that we have
here in dc
to get myself there on a bike instead i
have a friend here who when i told her
that i was planning on walking to my
classes every day from my apartment
instead of driving
she laughed and commented about how you
can tell that i'm coming to dc
from europe because i'm wanting to walk
everywhere just as
europeans do because this isn't a very
common
american mindset the next way that i've
changed is that i am so much more
cognizant of
recycling and wastefulness than i was
before
living in germany before i ever moved to
germany guys
i always recycled i would pay extra
money for my trash service to provide me
with a recycling bin
and they would pick it up every week you
know it's not like recycling was this
foreign concept that i had no idea about
before i moved to germany
but i think everyone will agree with me
when i say that germans take recycling
very very very very seriously
and it very much becomes a part of your
life and your daily
habits and moving back into the u.s
i'm noticing how much more we are
lacking
in that department and i would actually
argue that dc is quite a bit better than
a lot of other places that i've lived
there are recycling bins out in the city
for you to be able to use instead of
just trash bins there are restaurants
here
that have multiple different bins for
you to be able to sort through your
trash and properly recycle
everything and my apartment complex has
a really great recycling program which
i'm able to use
and i'm grateful for but there is still
so much more that we could do
in the us and in dc to improve our
recycling programs and to reduce
waste and i think haley alexis talked
about this a little bit
in one of her videos and i completely
understood where she was coming from
because before i moved to germany i i
recycled like i said but i didn't really
give it
that much thought and then having lived
in germany and seeing
just how much more mindful they are
of the waste that they produce and
trying to do
everything they can to reduce that waste
to recycle different products
it's really frustrating to come back to
the us and see
just how wasteful we are and lastly guys
i now take my shoes off
as soon as i come into my apartment
before moving to germany i usually would
come home from wherever i was
and probably walk around the house a bit
as i got settled in
before taking off my shoes i really just
never gave the whole
wearing shoes inside the house thing
much thought then i lived in germany and
i went to a few different friends houses
where whenever i would come into their
home they would offer me
house shoes to be able to put on or
slippers if i didn't want to just walk
around barefoot or in my
socks and then especially when i started
living with misha
and he would never wear his shoes around
his apartment i started to get into the
habit
of taking off my shoes as soon as i came
into the apartment i did a whole video
where i talk about the inside shoe
culture in the u.s so i don't really
want to get into it
but because of living in germany i
really adopted the custom of taking off
my shoes
immediately when i come home all right
guys that's all i've got
for you today i hope that you enjoyed
this video and if you did don't forget
to give it a big thumbs up
if you haven't subscribed to my channel
yet make sure you hit that subscribe
button and don't forget to click the
bell which will notify you every single
time that i post a new video thank you
so much my patrons
you guys are awesome for the support
you've given me and i will see you guys
next time
[Music]
bye
[Music]
you