But there still are things that drive me crazy!
I'm going to air my Top 10 grievances about Germany. They are in no particular order, but rest assured, theses are the 10 things I will NOT miss about living abroad in Germany.
Let the great countdown begin!
1. German Emergency Sirens
My student "dorm" is located on one of the biggest and busiest streets in Tübingen. I'm right at the corner of the Altstadt with 2 bus stops and about 5 bakeries. It's a wonderful spot.
Except for the police cars.
And the ambulances.
And the fire trucks.
Usually about five or six drive by my window every day. Which would be okay, except for the fact that German emergency sirens sound like this:
Except for the police cars.
And the ambulances.
And the fire trucks.
Usually about five or six drive by my window every day. Which would be okay, except for the fact that German emergency sirens sound like this:
Oh, and the Doppler effect on these sirens in sickening. You can hear one coming and going for about 2 miles. (Just as I was writing this, one drove past. Ugh) It's especially annoying when you're walking along the street, trying to call someone, and then a police car drives by. It deafens you and the person you're calling. Good times.
2. Sorting the Garbage
The Germans are big on environmentalism. It's not just a choice, but a legally enforced way of life. This will be a major theme in the rest of the list too.
One of the ways the German government keeps environmentalism a top priority in homes is their complex and convoluted way of sorting garbage. Indeed, it's so confusing that we spent a whole class period during our orientation program learning where our garbage goes. Each household has 5 main separating systems:
- The Gelber Sack ("The Yellow Bag"): For clean plastic containers and other packaging
- Altpapier ("Old Paper"): Paper recycling
- Altglas ("Old Glass"): Bottles that don't have a deposit on it, like wine bottles or glass jars
- Restmüll: All other garbage
- Biomüll: All decomposable garbage, mostly food.
I'm okay with recycling and in reality, sorting the garbage isn't hard. But every now and then I just can't stand it. I live in a house with 9 other people and we generate a lot of garbage. Plus, every now and then you run into dilemmas as to where exactly something should go. I mean, think of foam packaging for something, say, like meat. WHERE DOES THAT EVEN GO?!
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| This is what I look like when I clean up after making food. |
3. Biomüll (Composting)
I'm not here to hate on composting. If you want to compost that's cool, but the German way of composting is just terrible. Everyone sticks all their food scraps and gross food into this bin - but there are no regulations, and people in my house and in the majority of other student buildings just stick in whole chunks of food in. The compost gets taken out once a week (or is supposed to be taken away) but by the end the week the stuff at the bottom has already been rotting for that time.
Which means the compost bin smells like death and often leaks everywhere. Taking out our compost bin to dump it out into the big garbage container that gets picked up the city is one of the most horrifying and nauseating experiences in my life. In my house, you have to climb down the stairs with the rotting, leaking, smelly container only to have to do a walk of shame past the bus stop. And then you have to walk down another set of stairs to reach our shady garbage shack (for lack of a better word), which I imagine was used in an episode of Criminal Minds as the home base for a serial killer.
I've had the good luck to have the compost take-away job on the hottest weeks of the year. The first time I took out the biomüll, I almost threw up into the bin with the compost.
If I can take out the biomüll without dry heaving, it's a good day. And if I never have to take out the biomüll again, it will be a day too soon.
4. Über Umweltfreundlichkeit (Über Environmentalism)
Tübingen is a "green city" with a Green party major. Add to that, it's a liberal university town with lots of people who love environmental causes. Unsurprisingly, lots of businesses have popped up that are making money off the "green" trend. Tübingen is filled with shops that sell "bio" foods, aka organic foods that are grown without pesticides or growth hormones. I usually don't go out of my way to buy the stuff specifically labeled as bio, because just like organic food in the US, it's expensive.
But even non-bio food is grown without pesticides or growth hormones, which means that everything you buy rots within two days.
I'm not exaggerating. Everything rots within two days. It's the most exasperating thing on the planet. You can't keep anything fresh - I'm so looking forward to going home and being able to cook with vegetables or fruits that I bought earlier that week not that day.
The other problem with living in a "green city" is running into pretentious environmentalists, who attempt to shame you for not living up to their standards. I've been scolded by my housemates for using chemicals (aka Mister Clean, who is called Mister Proper in Germany) to clean the kitchen or the bathroom instead of using this vinegar cleaner.
Ummm...Are we living the same house?!
If you had to live with my kitchen and my bathroom, you would understand why I want to douse the place in chemicals. If I could, I would take a flame-thrower to the house to purge the kitchen and bathroom of the god-only-knows bacteria.
So I keep using the chemicals despite the dirty looks from my housemates - sorry creepy-crawly bacteria, I don't plan on joining you until well after I'm deceased.
I've also managed to annoy my housemates by using the laundry dryer. We have a free washer and dryer and I'm all about using it. (It requires a bit of skill, since you have to juggle the schedules of 9 other people.)
Story Time, my children:
One day, I was doing laundry and someone already had clothes in the washer, which was had finished its job. After waiting for someone to pick up their clothes, I moved the soggy pile into the dryer, which I started, and I moved my stuff into the washer. This was nice of me - I could have left the clothes to mold on top of the machine!
Yet, amazingly, when I went to move my clothes from the washer and the dryer, one of my housemates was pulling their clothes out of the dryer with a sour look on their face. "Did you put my clothes in here?" They said angrily in German. I replied, saying that yes, I had and I hoped that was okay. She sniffed disapprovingly and said coldly: "I usually don't use the dryer. It uses up too much electricity and that's environmentally unfriendly." And then she stalked out with her now-dry clothes, giving me a dirty look.
I didn't have the heart to tell her that the washer uses up the same amount of electricity while also wasting water. But I guess she didn't want to go down to the creek and use a washboard.
I'm not here to hate on composting. If you want to compost that's cool, but the German way of composting is just terrible. Everyone sticks all their food scraps and gross food into this bin - but there are no regulations, and people in my house and in the majority of other student buildings just stick in whole chunks of food in. The compost gets taken out once a week (or is supposed to be taken away) but by the end the week the stuff at the bottom has already been rotting for that time.
Which means the compost bin smells like death and often leaks everywhere. Taking out our compost bin to dump it out into the big garbage container that gets picked up the city is one of the most horrifying and nauseating experiences in my life. In my house, you have to climb down the stairs with the rotting, leaking, smelly container only to have to do a walk of shame past the bus stop. And then you have to walk down another set of stairs to reach our shady garbage shack (for lack of a better word), which I imagine was used in an episode of Criminal Minds as the home base for a serial killer.
I've had the good luck to have the compost take-away job on the hottest weeks of the year. The first time I took out the biomüll, I almost threw up into the bin with the compost.
If I can take out the biomüll without dry heaving, it's a good day. And if I never have to take out the biomüll again, it will be a day too soon.
4. Über Umweltfreundlichkeit (Über Environmentalism)
Tübingen is a "green city" with a Green party major. Add to that, it's a liberal university town with lots of people who love environmental causes. Unsurprisingly, lots of businesses have popped up that are making money off the "green" trend. Tübingen is filled with shops that sell "bio" foods, aka organic foods that are grown without pesticides or growth hormones. I usually don't go out of my way to buy the stuff specifically labeled as bio, because just like organic food in the US, it's expensive.
But even non-bio food is grown without pesticides or growth hormones, which means that everything you buy rots within two days.
I'm not exaggerating. Everything rots within two days. It's the most exasperating thing on the planet. You can't keep anything fresh - I'm so looking forward to going home and being able to cook with vegetables or fruits that I bought earlier that week not that day.
The other problem with living in a "green city" is running into pretentious environmentalists, who attempt to shame you for not living up to their standards. I've been scolded by my housemates for using chemicals (aka Mister Clean, who is called Mister Proper in Germany) to clean the kitchen or the bathroom instead of using this vinegar cleaner.
Ummm...Are we living the same house?!
 |
| Have you looked around for a second, housemates? Not even mice want to live here! |
So I keep using the chemicals despite the dirty looks from my housemates - sorry creepy-crawly bacteria, I don't plan on joining you until well after I'm deceased.
I've also managed to annoy my housemates by using the laundry dryer. We have a free washer and dryer and I'm all about using it. (It requires a bit of skill, since you have to juggle the schedules of 9 other people.)
Story Time, my children:
One day, I was doing laundry and someone already had clothes in the washer, which was had finished its job. After waiting for someone to pick up their clothes, I moved the soggy pile into the dryer, which I started, and I moved my stuff into the washer. This was nice of me - I could have left the clothes to mold on top of the machine!
Yet, amazingly, when I went to move my clothes from the washer and the dryer, one of my housemates was pulling their clothes out of the dryer with a sour look on their face. "Did you put my clothes in here?" They said angrily in German. I replied, saying that yes, I had and I hoped that was okay. She sniffed disapprovingly and said coldly: "I usually don't use the dryer. It uses up too much electricity and that's environmentally unfriendly." And then she stalked out with her now-dry clothes, giving me a dirty look.
 |
| Seriously. |
5. Putzplans (Cleaning Plans)
I'm not a huge fan of communal systems. I was always the one in class who would repress a scream of rage when we had group work assignments, especially when you couldn't pick your group. Communal systems work best when: a) they're small, b) everyone knows everyone else, and c) everyone agrees to the same terms and goals.
Living in a house with 9 other people, requires some sort communal living guidelines. Unfortunately, my housemates lack the basic skills to live communally (or live in general) - that is to say, personal responsibility.
Now, they're all very nice, but they simply can't (or don't want to) clean up after themselves. For example, they think it's perfectly okay to leave dirty dishes, pots, pans, and glasses on the countertops and on top of our mini-fridges (which form more countertops). And after about a day, no one can (or wants to) remember who's pot or pan is who's. So they sit there on the countertops, festering and God-knows-what-else.
Luckily, in comes our cleaning plan - this magical chart that "rotates" chores among the housemates. You finish a chore, pass the little picture with the chore on it onto the next person. The worst chore on this rotation is undoubtedly Kitchen Duty. Not only does kitchen duty include doing everyone else's dirty dishes, pots, and pans, but you have clean basically everything: the sitting area by the sofas, the balcony, and the tv room, which are just as dirty as everything else. Adding to the frustration, half the stuff (like vacuums and mops) are either non-existent or on their last leg. It's a half day job which could be a less than hour if everyone just simply cleaned up after themselves.
Seriously, guys, it's not that hard. Just clean your damn pots and pans. Wipe up that stuff you spilled on the floor. Scrub down the stove after you used it. If something is broken or missing, go buy a new one! (We went for half a year without using a vacuum bag in one of the vacuums simply because no one wanted to buy one. Guess who did? This girl! And then it was broken again in a week.)
Another thing that bothers me about our cleaning plan is that it does not function properly. For example, both the kitchen and bathroom duties are supposed to be done by two people per week. However, I've cleaned the kitchen about 15+ times while being here and I've received the bathroom duty only 3 times.
Don't think about it too much - it's too disgusting to ponder.
No Air Conditioning
One of the things I will be enjoying when I head home will be air conditioning. Although my family does practice the tried and true method of "waiting-as-long-as-possible-before-turning-on-the-air-conditioning-since-we've-waited-all-winter-for-this-heat", I can honestly say: that air conditioning better be turned on by the time I get home.
Very few stores in Germany (and even fewer houses) have air conditioning. (And it's not just a German thing - France and Italy are also quite conservative in their air conditioning usage.) Luckily, I'm pretty tough when it comes to heat. Chicago has trained me well. Unluckily, I also live up on the 6th floor of a building and I get no breeze at all through my window. Fun times.
I'm just always baffled by the fact that German stores with air conditioning just leave their doors wide open, letting out all the cool. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?!
Also, I'm no longer surprised about the reports of elderly, homeless, or small children dying in European heat waves.
B.O.
With great heat waves, comes great body odors.
That is all.
Windows Without Screens
The German windows don't have screens. Of any kind. Which is a pretty terrible design flaw, especially in summer when you need to open your windows to let in some semblance of air circulation. Since I'm so high up, the worst situation is that bugs want to fly into my room. However, just last week a pigeon tried to fly in my room. Emily fights a constant battle against the rats of the air as they try to sneak in. And Rachel actually had a pigeon in her room.
Complete Lack of Customer Service/"Office Hours"
I'm no fan of the DMV at home. They're mean, rude, and obviously couldn't care less if you lived or died. But compared to German customer service, the ladies (and men, let's not be sexist) at the DMV are shining examples of customer service.
German sales associates show complete indifference towards you. After 5 minutes in the store, they might absent-mindedly say hello to you, as if you had always been there. They never smile nor do they ask you if you need help finding anything. At the grocery store, you really have smile at them to get even human response out of them. I'm almost taken aback when I experience "good" customer service anywhere.
Worst of all though is the baffling and endlessly irritating concept of German "office hours" - an idea that pervades most companies, the bureaucracy, and the university. Despite being the most hardworking and hour-logging countries in the EU, I seriously wonder how anything official gets done in Germany with their ridiculous schedules.
Walk up to any bureaucratic building and the office hours will look like this:
Monday: 9-11, 14-16
Tuesday, Wednesday: Closed
Thursday: 15-17
Friday: 10-11
Saturday, Sunday: Closed
Now trying planning to go there when it's most convenient for you. And watch as Germany laughs in your face.
Now imagine you need to speak with a professor. They only have office hours once a week. For exactly one hour. No more, no less. But what if you're running late (presumably because that bureaucratic office you could only visit every third Tuesday of the month at 2pm was finally open) and there are four other people in line before you? Tough luck. Come next week and be prepared to play in the Hunger Games: University Student Edition to get a spot.
I'm not a huge fan of communal systems. I was always the one in class who would repress a scream of rage when we had group work assignments, especially when you couldn't pick your group. Communal systems work best when: a) they're small, b) everyone knows everyone else, and c) everyone agrees to the same terms and goals.
Living in a house with 9 other people, requires some sort communal living guidelines. Unfortunately, my housemates lack the basic skills to live communally (or live in general) - that is to say, personal responsibility.
Now, they're all very nice, but they simply can't (or don't want to) clean up after themselves. For example, they think it's perfectly okay to leave dirty dishes, pots, pans, and glasses on the countertops and on top of our mini-fridges (which form more countertops). And after about a day, no one can (or wants to) remember who's pot or pan is who's. So they sit there on the countertops, festering and God-knows-what-else.
Luckily, in comes our cleaning plan - this magical chart that "rotates" chores among the housemates. You finish a chore, pass the little picture with the chore on it onto the next person. The worst chore on this rotation is undoubtedly Kitchen Duty. Not only does kitchen duty include doing everyone else's dirty dishes, pots, and pans, but you have clean basically everything: the sitting area by the sofas, the balcony, and the tv room, which are just as dirty as everything else. Adding to the frustration, half the stuff (like vacuums and mops) are either non-existent or on their last leg. It's a half day job which could be a less than hour if everyone just simply cleaned up after themselves.
Seriously, guys, it's not that hard. Just clean your damn pots and pans. Wipe up that stuff you spilled on the floor. Scrub down the stove after you used it. If something is broken or missing, go buy a new one! (We went for half a year without using a vacuum bag in one of the vacuums simply because no one wanted to buy one. Guess who did? This girl! And then it was broken again in a week.)
Another thing that bothers me about our cleaning plan is that it does not function properly. For example, both the kitchen and bathroom duties are supposed to be done by two people per week. However, I've cleaned the kitchen about 15+ times while being here and I've received the bathroom duty only 3 times.
Don't think about it too much - it's too disgusting to ponder.
No Air Conditioning
One of the things I will be enjoying when I head home will be air conditioning. Although my family does practice the tried and true method of "waiting-as-long-as-possible-before-turning-on-the-air-conditioning-since-we've-waited-all-winter-for-this-heat", I can honestly say: that air conditioning better be turned on by the time I get home.
Very few stores in Germany (and even fewer houses) have air conditioning. (And it's not just a German thing - France and Italy are also quite conservative in their air conditioning usage.) Luckily, I'm pretty tough when it comes to heat. Chicago has trained me well. Unluckily, I also live up on the 6th floor of a building and I get no breeze at all through my window. Fun times.
I'm just always baffled by the fact that German stores with air conditioning just leave their doors wide open, letting out all the cool. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?!
Also, I'm no longer surprised about the reports of elderly, homeless, or small children dying in European heat waves.
B.O.
With great heat waves, comes great body odors.
That is all.
Windows Without Screens
The German windows don't have screens. Of any kind. Which is a pretty terrible design flaw, especially in summer when you need to open your windows to let in some semblance of air circulation. Since I'm so high up, the worst situation is that bugs want to fly into my room. However, just last week a pigeon tried to fly in my room. Emily fights a constant battle against the rats of the air as they try to sneak in. And Rachel actually had a pigeon in her room.
Complete Lack of Customer Service/"Office Hours"
I'm no fan of the DMV at home. They're mean, rude, and obviously couldn't care less if you lived or died. But compared to German customer service, the ladies (and men, let's not be sexist) at the DMV are shining examples of customer service.
German sales associates show complete indifference towards you. After 5 minutes in the store, they might absent-mindedly say hello to you, as if you had always been there. They never smile nor do they ask you if you need help finding anything. At the grocery store, you really have smile at them to get even human response out of them. I'm almost taken aback when I experience "good" customer service anywhere.
Worst of all though is the baffling and endlessly irritating concept of German "office hours" - an idea that pervades most companies, the bureaucracy, and the university. Despite being the most hardworking and hour-logging countries in the EU, I seriously wonder how anything official gets done in Germany with their ridiculous schedules.
Walk up to any bureaucratic building and the office hours will look like this:
Monday: 9-11, 14-16
Tuesday, Wednesday: Closed
Thursday: 15-17
Friday: 10-11
Saturday, Sunday: Closed
Now trying planning to go there when it's most convenient for you. And watch as Germany laughs in your face.
Now imagine you need to speak with a professor. They only have office hours once a week. For exactly one hour. No more, no less. But what if you're running late (presumably because that bureaucratic office you could only visit every third Tuesday of the month at 2pm was finally open) and there are four other people in line before you? Tough luck. Come next week and be prepared to play in the Hunger Games: University Student Edition to get a spot.
 |
| Side note: Great movie, even better books. Read them. |
Endurance Entertaining
I don't even know how to begin this one. I have been shown the greatest hospitality and kindness from our various family friends here in Germany. I am forever grateful to them for helping me, listening to me, and feeding me. And I truly do enjoy my time with them.
Problem is - it's a lot of time. Traditional German families (and by that I mean, non-college students) practice what I lovingly have dubbed "Endurance Entertaining". Being invited over to a German family's home is quite similar to American customs: don't show up empty handed, but show up with an empty stomach. German families provide bountiful spreads of food and drink for their guests. Like in Games of Thrones, the more food you have to offer show how well off you are. You never just stay for Kaffee und Kuchen, but you invariably stay there for dinner. And then dessert. And then drinks after that. Things just snowball out of control - you arrived at 3pm, but you will probably not be set free until around 1am, slightly tipsy. You can never overstay your welcome with Germans, since they want you to stay there.
In many ways "Endurance Entertaining" is great - piles of food and gallons of drink - but after nearly 8+ hours of pure German being thrown at you, your brain gets tired very quickly. Especially in the evening. You spend most of the day after just recovering from the dinner.
Speaking of Endurance Entertaining...
Wow! You finished this entry! Go you. I figured that if I typed all my grievances out, then I would be less inclined to rant about them later. It's a win-win for all of us and it's cheaper than therapy.
UP NEXT: We go to Berlin (FINALLY!) and Ultimate Countdown: The Top 10 Things I Will Miss About Germany!
I don't even know how to begin this one. I have been shown the greatest hospitality and kindness from our various family friends here in Germany. I am forever grateful to them for helping me, listening to me, and feeding me. And I truly do enjoy my time with them.
Problem is - it's a lot of time. Traditional German families (and by that I mean, non-college students) practice what I lovingly have dubbed "Endurance Entertaining". Being invited over to a German family's home is quite similar to American customs: don't show up empty handed, but show up with an empty stomach. German families provide bountiful spreads of food and drink for their guests. Like in Games of Thrones, the more food you have to offer show how well off you are. You never just stay for Kaffee und Kuchen, but you invariably stay there for dinner. And then dessert. And then drinks after that. Things just snowball out of control - you arrived at 3pm, but you will probably not be set free until around 1am, slightly tipsy. You can never overstay your welcome with Germans, since they want you to stay there.
In many ways "Endurance Entertaining" is great - piles of food and gallons of drink - but after nearly 8+ hours of pure German being thrown at you, your brain gets tired very quickly. Especially in the evening. You spend most of the day after just recovering from the dinner.
Speaking of Endurance Entertaining...
Wow! You finished this entry! Go you. I figured that if I typed all my grievances out, then I would be less inclined to rant about them later. It's a win-win for all of us and it's cheaper than therapy.
UP NEXT: We go to Berlin (FINALLY!) and Ultimate Countdown: The Top 10 Things I Will Miss About Germany!
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