I always imagined Germany was like straight out of a fairy tale. Oversized princess ready castles, long flowing rivers and trees that look they are in a permanent state Autumn. While some parts of Germany look like the above stereotype, Frankfurt does not. Known as a business district, filled with ‘sky-scrapers’ or its own ‘Mainhatten’ as the locals refer to it, it’s beautiful but didn’t quite fit the expectation I had of. From a glance, it looks similar to Melbourne. Tall buildings, people walking towards work, cafes filled with people. It wasn’t until we started exploring, and in turn starting working and therefore emmersing oursevles more into the everyday culture of Frankfurt that I started to notice the culture shock. This is not to say that all of the below are accurate for everyone that relocates to Germany, I might have been lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it) but the main culture shock that I’ve noticed, except the language barrier because that is sort of unavoidable, are things that I never would have expected.

Rules outweighing common sense
I think it’s a fairly common stereotype that Germans are organised. Overly organised. They thrive in structure, are direct and will follow direction. Sounds pretty good huh? Close. Sometimes the rule outweighs common sense. More than sometimes if you are a foreigner and you end up face palming on a day to day basis. That being said, we have met some of the friendliest people here (Germans and non Germans) that definitely don’t fit into the below. Below is an accurate transcript of one appointment with the registry office regarding our marriage license

Woman behind the desk: I need your German birth certificates
Us: We weren’t born in Germany, we’re both Australians. But we have our originals from Australia and certified translated copies.
WBTD: My form says you require a German birth certificate.
Us: We weren’t born in Germany,
WBTD: You’ll need to ask your country of birth for an original in German because my form says you need a German birth certificate.
Us: Australia will not issue an original birth certificate in another language. The website says a certified translated copy is required for those born outside of Germany.
WBTD: But my form says it must be a German birth certificate.

Rule 1, common sense 0. Luckily, a colleague could see our frustration and came and advised that in fact a certified translated copy is acceptable. Side note; this is the point Andrew and I thought ‘fuck it, let’s go to Vegas.’

Smoking and Alcohol
So I think any Australian that travels to Europe will notice this one. Not only in the drinking age in Germany younger than Australia but the ‘rules’ surrounding it are nowhere near as strict. A year on, I still double take to seeing people having a drink on public transport, having a drink on the street or just enjoying a picnic with wine sitting along the river. It’s not uncommon for outdoor beer gardens to have ‘pfand’ (roughly translated glass tax) so once you have finished drinking, you return your glass and get money back. I’m yet to see a fight here in Germany that is fueled by alcohol. We have left bars at 1am and walked home without seeing any sort of confrontation.
Smoking is Germany is common. You can smoke in most outdoor places and considering how cheap cigarettes are, it is no wonder. However, that being said, I find the smokers here come off as less self entitled than those in Australia. In Australia, I find that smokers feel entitled to smoke and therefore will give you attitude if you are outside eating and politely ask them to blow their smoke the other way. In Germany, you can sit outside, have lunch and smoke and I have never had a person blow smoke in my face. They seem to be more aware of their surroundings. That being said, I’m sure other people have had horrible experiences with the alcohol and smoking in Germany but we find it so well behaved considering the more relaxed approached compared to Australia.

Priorities
This one has been the biggest culture difference that I have noticed whilst living here. It has always been little things but once I thought about them all I realized there is a massive shift in perspective here and back in Melbourne. In March, we were back in Australia for a wedding and naturally we spent a bit of time stocking up on clothes and things that we had yet to find within Germany. I was shopping with a girlfriend and she was trying on a dress for a wedding she had coming up. She grabbed her usual size and it fit however she said it was a little snug around the hips. Nothing that anyone would notice except the person wearing it. She mentioned that it was a little snug and I suggested going up a size to see and she was horrified at the thought.
‘If I have to buy *insert one size larger here* then I’m not buying it. I’ve rather diet then have to buy *insert larger size here*’ At the time I didn’t think much of it, I used to have that mentality and would shop in stores were a ‘S’ would fit instead of a ‘M’ and simply refuse to buy clothes if they weren’t the size I wanted. Did it work? Yes. Was it healthy? No. To this day, I have never heard a woman in Germany refuse to buy something simply because it’s a size larger. (On a side note, how messed up are the sizes anyway? How can you be an 8 in one store, a 12 in another, S in one and a L in another? Two pairs of Zara jeans, one hails at a 36, one hails at a 40. Side by side. Same fucking size)

The clothing aside, the reaction that both Andrew and I have to had to our wedding rings has also cemented the culture shock for us. Not one of my colleagues (or Andrews) has asked where my engagement ring. Few have laughed that our rings came from Etsy and cost essentially peanuts (the fact they don’t match either causes some giggles) yet we have not heard a peep about my lack of diamond. Back in Australia (and yes I know it was a bit more of a secret back in Australia and a lot of people did think we had been secretly engaged) the most common question that followed was ‘do you have photos of the dress/ring’ I understand that is the natural response, hell I’ve said it to almost every one of my engaged/married friends. The follow up to saying, our weddings rings didn’t arrive in time and we decided to forgo a diamond, was met with ‘oh, don’t worry, he’ll buy you a diamond later. And because its late it’ll be even bigger.’

(Note from Husband: Nope, I’m not buying shit.)

Recycling
Plastic bottles here can be recycled. And not in the, take it to this place 100km away and receive 5c per bottle, but in the way that you pay .25c on every bottle you purchase and when you return them, you receive the .25c. Every supermarket has a machine that accepts the plastic bottles with the recycling symbol and bottles that are pfand approved. Turns out Andrew’s favorite 1€ beer have an .8c pfand. So instead of  paying .99c per beer we pay 1.07 and receive money back when we return them. Not every glass bottle has pfand and sometimes its hard to tell so occasionally you get caught behind someone trying to unload a trolley worth of bottles but the process is still incredibly fast. For the bottles that don’t have pfand (sadly most of my wine bottles are pfand free) they are separated into the color of the glass and put in the glass bins which are located on nearly every main corner and outside supermarkets. You can tell when an apartment in the neighbourhood has had a bender, when the bins are overflowing but the bottles are lined up outside the bins, in the colour groups of course. They are big on recycling, and separating cardboard and paper and everyday rubbish, which is nice. They care about their environment and all help to do their bit. It was a bit overwhelming to begin with, never sure which bin to use and being paranoid about using the wrong bin. Again, if you use the wrong bin, you will know almost immediately. I think Germany hires people to rubbish watch because as soon as you use the wrong bin someone ( a neighbour maybe, sometimes a complete stranger who has just seem you put rubbish in a bin) will tell you. And not in a friendly ‘for next time, it’s better to put cardboard in this bin’ way, in the ‘no you are wrong, read the bins better’ aggressive kind of way. The downfall of learning German is that I can now understand the curse words that have followed when we have used the wrong bin.

Customer Service 
In short, this is kind of non existent within Germany. Coming from a country that has ample small talk, where having a chat with the person at the register is almost a daily occurrence, this was a big one to get used to. The common ‘hey, how’s it going?’ it met with confused looks and occasionally people walk away slowly from you, holding deep eye contract, like a scene out of movie. There is no checking on your meals half way through, or asking you if you want anything else. If you want something, you ask. They won’t offer. I will never forgot being in London for a weekend and chatting with the man scanning our groceries. Asking if I wanted a bag, and replying that it should be alright in my handbag. In typical fashion, was not, so the entire contents of my bag ended up on the bench to make space for my groceries. Man at the register sees this, ‘Oh, it’s like a Merry Poppins bag, it’s bottomless’ In Germany, you would met with death stares because you have taken more than the allocated 5 seconds you have to pack your groceries. Never felt so much anxiety and shame than realizing I’m not going to have my groceries packed in time and will inevitable endure the death stares from the locals and feel the shame of failing such a simple, mundane task.  On the plus side, because they essentially ignore you when you eat at a restaurant, you can spend the entire night at one table and they will never try and move you on. Until they are closed. Then it’s, ‘we close at 9. It’s now 9. Go home’ Literally. No letting the customers finish up their drinks and closing around them. It’s very by the book. We close at 9, so we close at 9. The first few times we were kicked out of places was a bit, rude, to say the least and I still find it funny, but at least now I don’t take it personally and just have a chuckle and thing ‘oh Germany.’

Much love,
J x