some of you guys I know.. a bug just flew right into my eye! hey guys! what's up?
it's Kelly again welcome back to my youtube channel! and I've got some pretty
crazy news for you guys... I moved again. I moved from Germany to
Washington DC! I was offered the opportunity to attend a graduate degree
program at George Washington University which is here in DC and I took it! it was
an incredibly difficult decision for me to make because I loved living in
Germany so much and I didn't want to cut that experience short but I decided that
education is invaluable and while I might have the opportunity to live in
Germany again in the future, I don't think I'll ever have the opportunity to
attend a graduate degree program at this school ever again. leaving Germany was
like an emotional rollercoaster for me and I'm actually still on that emotional
roller coaster as I adapt to my new life here in DC which is such a massive City
and I've never lived here before. and really just getting used to living in
the States again and I know that might sound a little crazy because the US is
my home country but after being gone for so long there are some things that I'm
having to get used to again. there were a ton of things that I missed about living
in the US but now there are a lot of things I miss about living in Germany.. so
I thought that it would be cool if I made a video talking about five things I
miss about living in Germany and five things I missed about living in the US
and I'm gonna do that while walking around my new neighborhoods so you can
see a little bit about what my life is like now. so first up for Germany is the
Autobahn. I really miss driving on the Autobahn
and I'm not even talking about the speed limitless part of the Autobahn but just
the pure maintenance of it and I'll get to that in a second but first let me
just say that it took a while for me to get used to driving here. like a little
longer than I thought because like the laws are very different and driving
habits are very very different and like I was driving along
and I saw a speed limit sign that said 40 and I looked down at my speedometer
and I was going 70 and I freaked out and I quickly slowed down to 40 I was like
"oh my god I was going twice the speed limit!" and then all these cars are like
passing me and I'm just like you guys are gutsy like going this fast maybe
these are all locals and they know that there are no cops on this road and
then I realized I was looking at the kilometer per hour part of my
speedometer not the miles per hour part which is a little funny... the kilometer
per hour part is actually really tiny numbers and I've adapted to looking at
the tiny numbers while I was in Germany and now I'm having to get used to
looking at the big numbers. so instead of going twice over the speed limit,
I was actually now going half the speed limit and everybody hated me. anyway back
to the Autobahn. so it's just like nice, smooth, well-maintained roads. since I've
been back here I've driven in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina... and the highways are atrocious. there are potholes on the
highways! I mean it's not like every, you know, constant potholes but one is more
than you should ever have on a highway where cars are careening down going 65
miles per hour! like this is insane to me. there were massive cracks that were just
like covered up with crappy tar and like how is this a thing?? and I don't know
what if I just didn't notice it before or if I was so used to seeing it that I
wasn't even seeing it anymore or if I just didn't remember it.
but it is like shocking to me how horribly maintained our highways are. so
I really, really miss driving on the Autobahn... nice smooth well-maintained
roads. the next thing I really miss about living in Germany is the bread.
I've talked about this in one of my other videos but I don't think I could
talk about it enough the bread in Germany is amazing! it is so good. it's
better than the bread that I eat in my dreams. I don't know if anybody else is
dream eating, but I'm chowing down on some food in my dreams and even my
imaginary, self-fabricated bread in my dreams doesn't even compare to the bread
that's in Germany. I love it! and the bread here just does not it doesn't
compare. it's... it's basically like, I don't know, like watching HD quality TV for a
year and a half and then going back down to standard definition. like it does the
job...like this is a sandwich... but you just know that there's so much better out
there and it just like leaves you dissatisfied and I mean really I just
miss the German bakeries period and not just because of the bread but the
sandwiches. the sandwiches at German bakeries guys, it's so good! like you can
just go into any bakery, choose any sandwich, it's like a couple euro, and
know that you're gonna eat something good. and the sandwiches here are just not...
they're not good. they're not. I don't want to eat them. another thing I really
miss about living in Germany is how cheap and easy travel is. I will say that
I think there's a lot of underrated value in travelling in the US, but where
I was living in Germany which was close to Frankfurt I could get to entirely
different countries so easily. not just different states,
but countries. within just one day of driving, I could get to countries like
Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Italy,
Luxembourg... I could get to Poland, Czechia, Austria... I could get to all of these
countries just by driving to them and then I could take a plane out of
Frankfurt Airport to get like anywhere else. I lived in Germany for 18 months
and within those 18 months I traveled to 25 different countries and that's not me
bragging. that's me trying to show you how easy it is to travel across Europe.
people in the US will go their entire lives without getting to 25 different
states because it's considerably more difficult. just driving distance and then
our plane tickets are so much more expensive! I don't understand. we don't
have a Ryanair. our equivalent is Spirit Airlines and if you've ever flown on
Spirit Airlines then my sympathies because I know what you went through and
it was not fun. another thing that I really missed about living in Germany
are the bike paths and just like the overall bike friendly atmosphere.
I bought a road bike back when I lived in Texas years ago and I rode it in a
very limited capacity and always with the fear of death lurking in the back of
my mind. because a lot of drivers here just don't know how to deal with
bicyclists or they look at bicyclists as being like a personal hindrance on their
lives and it makes it really really dangerous to ride a bike in the US. I
actually almost got rid of that bike because of how dangerous it was and that
I didn't feel safe riding it but I'm so glad I didn't because I ended up taking
that bike with me to Germany and I really got to use it. I rode my bike to
work like every single day, I did excursions with a few friends on my bike...
I really just loved it! in Washington DC there are some bike lanes which is
actually kind of rare in the US. there are bike lanes but they kind of like
appear and disappear without any rhyme or reason and there are no signs like
directing bicyclists on where to go or what to do and coming from Germany where
bicyclists were like heavily regulated there were always signs telling you
where to go where you couldn't go what speed you should be riding at, it's kind
of like mentally overwhelming for me to have this like perceived liberty but I
actually just like I end up not feeling safe riding my bike because I don't
know if I should be here. for one last thing that I miss about living in
Germany and guys, these are not the only five things that I miss about living
there. trust me. there are so many more. but for the purpose of this video, one
last thing I miss about living in Germany it's the hookah bars. this
probably won't mean anything to some of you, but I love me some hookah,
shish, nargile... whatever you want to call it. and I'm well aware that it is not the
healthiest hobby but I got really into it when I lived in Turkey and I was so
excited to see how many hookah bars there were in Mainz which is where I
lived in Germany and it's probably because of their massive Turkish
immigrant population. and it was awesome to just be able to go around the corner
and enjoy a nice night of smoking hookah with some friends. so on to things that
I missed about living in the US obviously the number one thing I miss
about living in the US is my family. guys I only have one sister and then two
parents so there's only four of us and we haven't lived in this same time zone,
let alone the same country, in over 13 years. 13 years! that is a massively long
amount of time and it was really exciting when I got the news that
I would be moving back to the East Coast because we'd be able to call each other
during normal, sane hours and I would be able to visit them. and I already got
to visit them I got to visit my parents they had gotten a dog I hadn't met yet,
they took me to a bunch of brew pubs that had opened up in my hometown I'd
never seen before. and I got to visit my sister. my sister
has four kids you guys and she's a working mom. and I had never even gotten
to meet the two youngest kids. so it was awesome to finally get to meet them, see
how they all interact with each other. it was so cool. and then like Tristan, her
oldest son, taught me how to use a baseball mitt. I've never used one before
and then he would promptly heckle me every single time I dropped a catch. her
oldest daughter, Pippa, she like is so cute and I got to put her hair up every
morning before she went to this daycare school thing which was really cool and I
just realized how much I had been missing out on. another thing that I
really missed about living in the US is seafood. where I lived in Germany,
again near Frankfurt so like the south west side of Germany, there wasn't really
any seafood. I mean yeah, there was like fish and shrimp and some really good
sushi places but there were no like mussels and clams and oysters and my
favorite crab legs. I couldn't find any of this stuff guys and I missed it so
much. and sure, you can't find seafood easily everywhere in the US. like the
Midwest, for example, you're not really gonna find seafood that easily but I
moved to Germany from Washington State which is a huge seafood area and now I'm
living in DC which also has a huge seafood culture so I'm just really
excited to be back somewhere where you see crab legs and oysters for sale at
the grocery store and you see entire restaurants dedicated to seafood, you see
seafood dishes on the menus of other restaurants. it's just really
exciting. and speaking of restaurants another
thing I really miss about living in the US. is the free water at restaurants.
oh, the free water! I missed it so much. in Germany I was paying like 6 euro for
a bottle of water with a meal which really adds up but here the water is
free, whether it's carbonated or still, it's free water and that really, really
counts in a city like DC where the prices on menus guys, it actually made
my eyes like glaze over with how expensive food is here, well everything
is here, but definitely food. so it's really nice to have that free water
again. another thing I really missed about living in the US is being able
to pay for things electronically whether it's like an uber, putting money on your
MetroCard, going to the nail salon, going to some back-alley coffee shop, whatever
restaurant, a food truck, it doesn't matter,
they're gonna take either credit card or debit card and a lot of places even take
Apple pay guys. they'll even take Apple pay! in Germany I was constantly having
to go to the ATM because I don't like carrying huge amounts of cash on me and
you were always having to go to the ATM to get cash out because a lot of places
just don't accept cards and they definitely, I never saw a single place
that had Apple pay. maybe that was just me not paying attention but I never saw
it. it's just really liberating to be able to go somewhere and not have to
think like "oh my gosh. do I have enough cash on me to be able to pay for this
manicure? or this cup of coffee?" one last thing that I really missed about living
in the US is how outgoing people are here. I'll walk down the street and
people will be smiling at me, they'll be saying hi, asking how I'm doing, asking if
I'm enjoying my weekend, or wishing me a good weekend, wishing me a good day, have
a good night, whatever it is. and I really love these just little interactions that
might seem insignificant, but they make me really
happy so I really miss this part of American culture. alright guys! that's all
I've got for you today! I hope you enjoyed this video and getting to see a
little bit of my neighborhood. and a special thanks to all of my Kelly's Crew
Patrons. guys, thank you so much! I really appreciate your support. if you're
interested in my Patreon Campaign or want to become one of my Patrons, check
out the link I'll put it in the description below. you'll get access to
exclusive content and get to find out more about me! I'm gonna go find some
coffee somewhere because I got up at five in the morning to film this video.
so yeah... that's how much I love you guys! bye!