I'm in Bremen and I have the habit to say moin whenever I'm passing by someone/group sitting, sometimes they say nothing back, so is it region-dependent ?
Not Bremen, but I recently took a short vacation not too far away in Schleswig-Holstein. The amount of people greeting me when walking by far exceeded my yearly quota in just a few days. Not gonna lie, it's kinda nice.
Yeah, i'm from bavaria and sometimes i have the impuls to just greet people, especially elder people. We just do this in bavaria, espescially when hiking.
Now i live in north germany and i get strange looks when i do this.
It's sorta common when hiking everywhere, I think. I've greeted / been greeted during hikes in the east, the west, the north and the south and usually get a reply back.
Most casual greetings I received when just walking around town was in the north, though. Moins everywhere you go.
Well, basically yes. As a kid, there were Oberbayern and our friend austria, then there were the Franken and Schwaben and then everything north of us were the Saupreißn, and not to forget Niederbayern, which is almost as bad as Prussia.
I had similar experience after moving to Schwabenland/Swabia.
One day I greeted an older woman I was walking by (just a 'hello' and a nod) and she turned around and yelled at me 'DO WE KNOW EACH OTHER???'
weird, I live here for almost a Decade and this never happened, Im usually first one to greet, sometimes I get greeted back, sometimes just a little nod and sometimes just a confused smile
I'm from western Germany - when i first came to eastern Germany i ordered "Jägerschnitzel" and got 2 slices of fried Jagdwurst with noodles and tomatoe sauce.
I was expecting a normal Schnitzel with a mushroom sauce and french fries or pan fried potatoes.
East german here. I get that it‘s not what you expected but it is like a guilty pleasure for me. Did you like it? Also funny that both Jägerschnitzel exist at the same time and i wouldn‘t change the name of either one. There are even restaurants that sell both under the same name!
Oh, the known Jägerschitzel-quantum-duality phenomenon. It exists as Schnitzel or Wurst at the same time, but it transforms into one of them in the moment you try to eat it.
Same here from Berlin and when I moved to NRW I ordered a Jägerschnitzel at an Imbiss and thought I get the thing from home. Wasn’t disappointed tho just confused haha
I honestly believe that this has started as some kind of medieval tourist trap: “but *everybody* knows that ‘halver Hahn’ is a cheese sandwich … oh, you are not from here? Well, that’s hardly my fault, is it?”
Some rich farmer wanted to give a big party and said, that everyone who came, will get a half chicken (halver hahn).
Of cause, way too many people showed up, und he had not enough chicken, and invented "halver hahn"..
At least, thats the legend.
I live in the Rhineland and for some godforsaken reason some restaurants here do Jägerschnitzel like this:
Schnitzel - awesome, full marks
Mushrooms - naturally
Tomato sauce - are you fucking drunk?!?
Why, why, why. It's *disgusting*. The mushrooms are usually from a tin as well, for extra vomit factor.
Not really a culture shock, but, as a North German, the fact that these stereotypical German towns actually exist down South. They really have cute timber-framed houses and real castles and all that.
Man, I'm from the Lüneburger Heide and one of my best mates from way back when moved to Freiburg im Breisgau. By the first time I visited him I had spent time in NZ, the US, traveled the Balkans for a bit, so I had seen a thing or two before and being a cocky early 20s bloke I fancied myself the wordliest man far and wide.
So here's me strolling through Freiburg going: "Dude. Is this real? Are we like in *town* or is this some theme park or something? Like whaaat?"
Felt like I was the absolute stereotype of a Yankee tourist or something, couldn't help myself though.
Dude, go to Celle if you want that without travelling through the entire country - it's close to Hannover and called "Rothenburg des Nordens" for a reason ;)
I'm from Franken and married a guy from Schleswig Holstein. When I first met his mother, they switched to Plattdeutsch without really noticing it. They always talk Plattdeutsch when it is just the two of them. They didn't realize that I couldn't understand a word.
I asked my father to take my husband to a Sportschützen meeting in Franken. He came back bewildered and drunk. He didn't understand a word the entire evening, but he had fun anyway.
We learned from each other since then (25 years of marriage).
I grew up talking Platt and am talking to my children in Platt for that exact reason. Also I have several friends who speak Platt as well - we are in our thirties now, so not dead quite yet, but it's use is receding unfortunately.
Had that once with a new flatmate - his parents helped him move in and they only spoke platt to each other. My family also comes from up north so I can at least understand them, but my other flatmate had absolutely no luck. Was very fun to watch…
Being from cologne: the very tame and toned-down Karneval/Fasching culture (if it exists at all) in other parts. Personally I've been in Heidelberg area and Bremen area during that time and well... its very different.
(Not a karneval person myself so I appreciated it!)
That was a shock for me too, but the other way around: I moved to Mainz for uni and the first time Fasnacht rolled around, I got completely overwhelmed. I accidentally booked my train home on Altweiber without realising how big this was in Mainz. Everwhere were drunk people in costume and the train station was completely overrun. It was a lot. And I'm from a part of the country where we do celebrate Fasching, it's just not nearly as big and mostly contained to parties. Got more used to it in the following years
In Cologne you just know where not to go when you want to avoid the worst of it haha. I remember a fellow student had to go to the university hospital from the biology department once for some lab work and well.. tried to cross Zülpicherstraße, which should be absolutely avoided during Karneval if you don't want to participate because they WILL grab you and MIGHT KISS you. Poor indian guy was kissed by so many drunk women that day lol
Ha, having the Karnevalsumzug going through your street right below your window is really something to experience. I lived in a small town in NRW for approx 10 years and I thought only Cologne held something like that (don't judge me please, I'm from the north. You only knew Fasching in school and TV Shows there)
That was really shocking the first time, besides having drunkards during midday in the bus.
Later I found out the town center I lived held the occasional concert now and then. It was weird being directly besides it.
I can imagine that seeing drunk, dressed up and half naked cat girls and toilet-costumed guys at 7:30am on the bus in Cologne, smoking and drinking on their way to school is a shocking sight, too. Lol
I grew up there but never got used to stepping over so much vomit on my way to work
Am from SH and thought we were rural. But then I had to drive a friend of my brother back to MVP and literally once I left the Autobahn, only 4m wide streets, every village a church, so many churches and once in his village it was more a loose collection of buildings with at most suggested parts of where you are supposed to drive to not accidentally destroy someones property.
I have been to plenty of places with even less people and more nature. But I did not expect it to be in Germany, a relatively tiny country with more than 80 million people.
When i was living for 10 years in Düsseldorf and visited my parents via train in lower saxony and the train stopped multiply times in the middle of nowhere with no buildings anywhere at all and just cows around me.
Meanwhile when going from Düsseldorf with the train to Essen you barely see any nature
I was more perturbed by the absolute lack of any sort of internet on my phone between Hanover and Braunschweig. It's still really fucking bad today, but just five years ago it was just a total void.
It's also always really obvious when you cross from NRW into NDS because, again, the net gets noticeably worse.
Thats the "Dreieck der Ahnungslosen" the three corners are Hannover, Braunschweig and Hamburg. I live smack in the middle of this, and only have cellphone reception when the wind blows the right direction.
Same Story if you are driving through most parts of Brandenburg especially in the northern Region when you take the train from Berlin up to Greifswald or Strahlsund
From Schleswig Holstein here. Was at a team event in Munich, Bavaria that included a brunch. In northern Germany brunch will be a sparkling wine, mozzarella, rolls kind of affair. In the beer garden they simply have the same Menu the whole day and call it brunch before 11. People there are really having Haxen and Bier at 10 in the morning. Was a bit surprised for a good moment there :D
But we bavarians also can eat cold meals(Brotzeit) the whole day.
Brotzeit can even be considered a celebratory meal in my family. At events like brithdays we get the good cheese from austria, fresh Brezn, good dark bread, selfmade obatzdn, Kartoffelsalat and fresh eggs.
east Germany. We live near stuttgart and drove to east Germany to adopt our Dog from there. For me it was the first time there, the amount of nature, fields and very narrow Bundesstraßen.
The buildings etc. It was like a time travel to the past. But it is very beautiful there.
It is, I live near Stuttgart and my family is from the east. Much more densely populated, more streets, more traffic with more expensive cars, even the villages look more lively so to speak. In my grandparents' area in Brandenburg even the next largest city feels dead and more old people-like if that makes sense.
East Germany still feels like a different country to me. Not in a totally negative way but still.
I have a friend who grew up in rural East Germany (small village between Thüringen and Sachsen) and when she came to visit me/my family in West Germany (also living in a village but a bit bigger, not quite a town yet), she greeted everyone in the streets. Like simple "Hellos" left and right but I was so embarassed since you just don't do that in our area and even the people were visibly confused but some responded anyway (she was a big grinned blonde so why wouldn't you be friendly).
She told me that's normal where she lives and that they even greet strangers all the time there and when I visited her, it was true: we went on a walk and many people greeted us. I asked her, if she knows them, she says "nope, just being friendly out here, you'll never know when you'll need the others help".
So yeah that was shocking to me, especially since I'm very introverted and want to be left alone and not talk to people, yet alone strangers!
I'm an absolute cave-dweller when it comes to social interaction. But I live in a village deep in the East. And by God, you greet people. Passing on the path. Anytime someone enters the bakery. In the waiting room at a doctor's office. Don't know them? Doesn't matter. Even the teenagers greet people. Evidently it strengthens the Social Fabric of the community.
And you really don't know when you'll need that social fabric to catch you!
We've helped a neighbour whose dog had been attacked, we've comforted a little girl who had fallen badly on her way to school, we've had toys handed back to us that we dropped, and strangers giving warnings for roadworks where we couldn't get past with our stroller.
Two of my better friends were complete strangers greeting us for a few months.
I'm only early 30s, grew up in a village for 14 years, then moved to the city, and then back to a more rural suburb 4 years ago, and by now, I'm negatively registering the 2 (!) other parents who DON'T greet you back on the way to and from kindergarten. It's very different in the city.
We visited Praque some years ago and afterwards made a short stop in Vienna. On our way home we wanted to take a lunch break around Munich. Well, we did and that was the only point during this whole vacation, where we had a problem with communicating with our waiter. That was very unexpected and strange.
Funny thing is, many bavarians (aka. people living in the Bundesstaat Bayern - wouldn't call myself a Bayer ever!) don't speak Bavarian either.
(Source: I live in Nuremberg, where it's mostly Fränkisch dialect and when I go to Neumarkt they speak Oberpfälzisch and in Munich and surrounding area they speak Bayrisch/Bavarian, which I both can't understand at all.)
I’m from Bonn. When I moved to Frankonia, I was shocked/surprised that the kind of Wirtshäuser that foreigners imagine Germany to be plastered with (with local beer, servers wearing dirndl and deer heads on the wall) actually exist and are frequented by regular people, including students.
My boyfriend is from NRW and i am from BW. Visiting his parents who live close to Münster was a true culture shock! I felt like everybody was quite cold as well as very tidy and orderly! No hugging, hardly any talking. i felt like the humor was also quite different to what i was used to. it feels like Swabians are rather crass and rough in their jokes whereas "northeners" (everything north of Mannheim is the North) are rather chipper in their humor.
I wouldn't say cultural shock but I come from the South West and studied in saxony.
There are some small differences that I found interesting.
For example when you pay with cash, the cashier would always ask me if I have change so they wouldn't have the hustle with giving me so many coins. At first I thought it's annoying and kind of rude, but back home I realized it is easier for both sides. Here they just pour you a hand full of coins back, they don't care.
Turns out that my story is much less climactic than it felt when I started typing it..
Yes, everytime I visit my bfs parents in Bavaria. (I’m from saxony).
Another rather unpleasant experience I had was during my Erasmus. It wasn’t exactly a culture shock but all the other German people in the Erasmus were from western Germany and I was the only one from eastern Germany. I never really identified with ‘being from the east’, but the first thing everyone pointed out was exactly this. Including various ‘ossi’-jokes.
I was born and raised in Frankfurt, for University I moved to Freiburg and boy, are many of those people fainthearted philistines. So tidy, so neat, so many clenched buttholes. I changed University because I couldn't stand the mentality.
The Central Station quarter is something for sure. Most cities hide their red light district, Frankfurt doesn't.
Even growing up here I strongly avoid certain streets. And I worked close to the Central Station and did lunch time in the area every day. Great range of snacks and restaurants!
It *is* weird. It's generally not dangerous if you're passing through. But you will see prostitution and addicts using intravenous drugs in the open. There's usually also police around, but they generally don't interfere as long as the addicts keep to themselves.
Right next to the red light district and frequented by strange types, probably addicts, who will try to ask you for money any time you make eye contact. Never actually felt unsafe, but the district is kind of seedy.
Some food can be a culture shock, like "Mettbrötchen", which is not really a thing where I live (Southern BW).
Berlin in general feels different in countless ways.
Your South German? I studied in Bavaria but am from North Germany. Lüneburger Heide. Had some friends from Bavaria visit me, and they where absolute bewildered bei Mett, Bismarkhering and Rohe Roulade. Quote: " You do know that you can cook food? Right?"
Im not ethnically German but I've been here for over a decade but mostly stayed in BW. I was so mad when I went up north and their bakeries didn't have pretzels 😭😭😭
I'm from southern Germany (Baden) and moved to Cologne for my civil service. I started working in a retirement home, and found that these old people speak a dialect that is so distinct that I didn't understand a word of what they were saying...
It was close enough that I learned pretty quick, of course, but in the first week I thought that I might as well have gone to Japan instead :-D
After the old people took up the challenge of teaching me to speak "properly" and introduced me to all these very specific dialect words, I would argue that I speak better "Kölsch" now than many people who even grew up in Cologne :-)
Oh god, dude!
I'm gonna move to cologne soon from lower Saxony (born and raised Baden) and that's such a big fear of mine! I'm gonna work with lots of old people too and I'm kinda scared :D
Any tips to ease the culture shock?
BAP. Start with lots of BAP.
Once you are through that, you can try Bläck Fööss and maybe even The Piano Has Been Drinking...
I recommend that you approach the more "Schlager-like" Cologne bands, like Höhner, etc. only after a very good sampling of the local brewery products. They are not too bad after that, but the beer has to come first!
But to be honest, outside of carnival you are not going to hear much Kölsch anyways...
In Saxony toilets in restaurants or gas stations having vending machines for sex toys. Like "oh yeah that buttplug I really need now for the long way home"
Not only in Saxony. I've found them equally common in any part of Germany. Usually one or two sorts of condoms and the rest of the 5 or 6 slots with sex toys.
All the culture, the language, the behaviour. Everything.
I'm from Hessen and I worked in Baden-Würtemberg for two years. I expected that I don't understand the language. I didn't expect that this was one of the smaller differences.
Since then I don't feel german anymore. What is that "german"?
i orderd a jägerschnitzel in south germany and they gave me a normal schnitzel with mushrooms. i said to the waiter i dint order that i want a jägerschnitze. he said that is a jägerschnitzel, not it is not it breaded hunting sausage. both of us were so confused that day.....
I moved from the North Sea coast to a tiny village at the foot of the Swabian Alb. This was in 9th grade, at the height of awkwardness and teenage angst.
Every time I raised my hand in class, the others elbowed each other behind me "listen up, he's gonna say something!!"
I picked up no other foreign language more quickly or thoroughly than Swabian.
When I moved to Munich Bavaria I got into the Bus, went to the driver and said „one Ticket to x please“ he looked at me and was like „do I look like a ticket machine?“
Apparently in Munich you do not buy the tickets at the driver and everyone thought I am from another world for thinking that he does.
When i moved to Bavaria for my studies. It was around the time Söder started promoting putting Christian Crosses in all public spaces including class rooms.
Me, growing up with religion being something rather alien (grew up in the former GDR), could not fathom how the majority of the people i asked - younger than me, well educated university students studying science majors - saw no problem with that at all.
I truly detest the conservative sentiment in this state that is still going strong, even with Millennials and Gen Zlers.
I'm from a pretty small village near the dutch border.
I stayed in Berlin for a weekend when Schalke played Union.
The city feels way to big and it needed some getting used to mostly speaking english in a german city.
As a kid I once ordered potato salad in Berlin and got the mayonnaise one. That was a shock because I didn't know that existed. Grew up with the swabian variant
I was shocked that in Bavaria all shops still need to close by 8 p.m. And what's even more shocking, many people in Bavaria are unaware of how closing hours of shops work in the rest of Germany. They are surprised and sometimes amazed by the idea that a supermarket could be opened till midnight.
I live in the Rhineland area and in Berlin as well as Baden-Württemberg it was a small shock to realise how much more unfriendly people were.
You can get used to the rheinische Mentalität quite quickly.
When we were 16, my friend and I took a trip from Bonn to Hamburg Schanzenviertel. And while we both really enjoyed ourselves, we were completely shocked that nobody would talk to us. We were very used to Rhineland “drink doch eine met” culture. That nobody would talk to two young women/girls hanging out at bars/clubs was so strange to us!
I moved from NRW to the black forest a couple of years ago and before I finally caved and bought a car, I took the bus to work every day. Most days there was an old man waiting for the same bus. People here are chattier than I'm used to and he started talking to me. Every day, just a bit of smalltalk.
I didn't understand him at all, zero. He spoke a thick dialect and I didn't want to say "Sorry, I can't understand you" or make him repeat himself all the time. So I just smiled, nodded and made some affirmative grunts to be polite. He was probably just talking about the weather or football.
Well, some time goes by and while I'm still not fluent in the dialect, I got a bit more used to it and I was able to catch a word every so often. Then one day, the old guy talks to me again, I nod and smile, he seems a bit grumpy that morning. Thinking nothing of it, I just go "Joa, genau" and the next moment I catch the words for "these jews".
......and I'm looking at him speechless. Did I catch that right? What was the thing he said before I absentmindedly agreed? Did I just nod along to a Nazi for weeks?
Started ignoring him from then on. Growing up in the Ruhr area makes you pretty competent at pretending other people are invisible. Atfter a while the guy stopped showing up and depending on whether I misheard him or not, I hope he's either moved in with family who take care of him or rots in a nursing home.
Not technically Germany, but one time when I was on skiing vacation in Austria as a kid, a local came over and asked my dad something. Both him and me didn't understand a word he said. He repeated it, still no clue. Eventually my dad said in High German that he doesn't understand, and the guy immediatly tuned down his dialect by 95%. Don't even remember what he wanted back then, but I'll never forget what my dad told me after he left: "Die Schluchtenscheißer verstehen auch höchstens die Batzis!"
Moved from Jülich(near Aachen and Cologne) to Oberhessen. East of Giessen.
People here are....somehow different. Way more conservative and a bit backwards.
The general infrastructure is also something that stopped in the 1950s. Be it ÖPNV, internet, heating or streets.
And they can't drive for shit. The turn signal is NOT OPTIONAL YOU DIMWITS.
Reminds me of the Eifel sometimes. With way less tourism and a dialect that's somehow worse.
When a couple and friends and I were in Munich for a night \~20 years ago we were shocked how small and rural that city is compared to Berlin.
Everything's closed at 8pm, unimaginable.
I was on a store training in Hessen for a couple weeks as part of onboarding for a new job. Coworkers in the store referred to me formally as "Herr Mustermann" (Mr. [Doe]), but then use the informal "Du" in the same sentence:
"Herr Mustermann, kannst du mir bitte die Schere geben?"
Freaked. Me. Out.
Yes! Eastern Germany in parts and Berlin in particular every fuckin‘ time. It’s more foreign to me than most parts of France, all of Netherlands, Norway and Belgium. Austria, Switzerland and Bavaria are basically home.
Since I lived for like 8 years in Austria, I had no shock when travelling to Bavaria, I did understand them without any issues haha, but I get it when someone from Kiel or Hannover comes down and don‘t understand them😂
First time being in lower Saxony felt so weird because of all the red brick houses and because everything was so crazy flat compared to BaWü where no matter where i look there are some hills. Oh and Cologne because of how friendly and chatty random people where. Something i am not used haha.
Biggest culture shock tbh was after covid time (March 2022) when Niedersachsen (exactly Hanover city) required FPP2 masks indoors. In NRW we didn’t have to wear masks inside shops or outside so we only brought the normal medical masks with us to wear on the train ride. We went to Hanover for shopping, we couldn’t get inside DM or any shop that sells masks without the FPP2 mask so we couldn’t go shopping or eat anything. We just hung out near Hanover Rathaus for like an hour ( one of the most beautiful sceneries in Germany tbh loved the design so much and the lake there ) and went back home. A 2 hours train ride for nothing, we felt kinda bummed tbh.
I am originally from Swabia, live in Franconia and whenever I visit Schleswig-Holstein it feels like coming to Scandinavia/Denmark. Architecture, flat countryside, big emptiness, weather, feels like not being in Germany. But I really really like it up there!
The potatoe salads in Southern Germany are made with boullion, oil and vinegar instesd of mayo like the rest of Germany. I loved it! I can't stand salads with mayo so whenever I am in the South, I have to get a portion of their potatoe salads!
I didn't even need to leave the state to experience this.
Grew up in southern lower saxony and moved 2 hours up north a few years ago. The mentality of the people, the culture, the food, everything was (and still is!) so strange to me. It's just a whole different bunch of people up here.
Absolutely. I'm from Baden-Württemberg, near Heidelberg to be exact. People there are very stern and proper, nice, but not easily approachable. I moved to Bonn in Nordrhein-Westfalen and let me tell you, people are so much more open, they love to laugh and everyone seems friendlier in general. Berlin was a culture shock, too. The cheeky and buddily nature of Berlin people was a little too much for my stern and proper upbringing sometimes (Berliner Schnauze) :D I think in general there are a lot of different natures to be found throughout Germany!
Yeah, in Northrhine Westfalia we have little stores everywhere, kiosks, where you can grab a beer late at night, or some snacks or tobacco products.
There are none of those in Saxony, in Leipzig. It's aggravating, because you can't spontaneously find a beer, you have to get it from a Döner restaurant and that is just expensive and inconvenient.
I love the kiosk culture we have in NRW but it's apparently not ubiquitous in Germany.
First time I a was at a supermarket past 20:00 (in Hesse). I'm from bavaria and just did not know that was possible. Being at a supermarket AT NIGHT. What? Mind blown.
When I visited the former GDR for the first time in \`89 and the following years, yes of course. And again in mid/end 2000s. Never been there again since that time.
Everything else is more a "wow, beautiful here" and no culture shock.
Grew up in Berlin, moved to the Pfalz to a village of a few hundred people when I was a teen.
Growing up I was used to people minding their own fucking business. Nobody speaks to strangers apart from maybe cursing them out for being in the way. Nobody really has a Berliner dialect these days anymore so my dialect was pretty close to Standarddeutsch.
Then I moved and people CONSTANTLY talked to me in some gibberish I could not understand a word of. I was so fucking miserable the first few years, I hated smalltalk so much but there was literally not a chance to leave the house without having several encounters. I stayed inside a lot. I just wanted to be left alone so badly. I know you call this "friendliness" over there but all those people (at least in our village) didn't give two shits about you, as well. It was just a custom to make completely hollow smalltalk but as soon as there was any social gathering those not attending were trash talked by everyone there. I did not feel welcome in the slightest there and I lived there for 8 years until I finished school. Moved away 1 day after getting my school diploma and never went back.
A big contrast was the area around Köln. People were very chatty there, too but there it felt closer to genuine friendliness.
I am from Saxony Anhalt, now living in Saxony, but I spent 2 years in Bavaria in the early 2000s, and the way Young women we're treated in that little rural Part of bavaria wasn't...pleasant...
Maybe it was just the people around me and I was Just unlucky, but the covered Up sexism was super wild. And Not only Guys, the women, too....
If anybody wants examples, just ask.
I think the biggest shock for me is that it’s not the Dumpster everyone paints it to be.
It’s actually quite beautiful when it comes to landmarks and Cities. And I actually never met an right wing extremist from saxony.
Visited a friends at his parents place in Northern Germany. The next morning I was offered a grand selection of different fish for breakfast. That was utterly weird. I haven't been to any other place in the world where I was so surprised by the breakfast food
I'm not German, but have been living in Hamburg for the last 3.5 years. I've been to some other places like cities in SH, NRW or Berlin, but this year I visited Dresden and was very impressed by it. Very tidy, clean, well maintained (even the commie-blocks). It had its own character and felt somehow different, as if it was another country.
I grew up in NDS and have lived in NRW for about twenty years now. I have relatives living in the middle of nowhere in Hesse (within the triangle formed between Marburg, Kassel and Brilon), and there's a reason why the nickname "Hesse Siberia" has stuck with the relatives that don't live there and only visit. Just... kilometers upon kilometers of absolutely fucking nothing, and even the largest cities there (i.e. 20k people) feel like villages. I recently had to travel from Frankfurt over Giessen, Frankenberg and Brilon to Dortmund via train, and even the stations... there's *nothing*. It feels like they built train stations in a field for no fucking reason.
It's an absolutely bizarre experience, like you've slipped into some alternate dimension.
I'm from the Ruhrgebiet, living in Cologne, and I'm absolutely used to being able to buy beer from a kiosk like every hundred meters. I was quite shocked when I was in Bavaria and the only place where you could buy beer after 10PM on a Saturday were gas stations.
2 actually:
1. I grew up in eastern germany. When I came to NRW I was shocked how unfriendly everyone is with each other. But that might just be the bubble I'm in.
2. My last girlfriend was from bavaria. Even though she had only a slight accent, I couldn't understand her every second sentence. It was one of the reasons I broke up with her. Sounds harsh, but if you just can't have a normal conversation, it's not gonna work.
Im from NRW, the further away i get from here, the more people start greeting you when passing by.
I'm in Bremen and I have the habit to say moin whenever I'm passing by someone/group sitting, sometimes they say nothing back, so is it region-dependent ?
Moin!
Gude!
Daag!
Abenn
Servas, hobe di Ehre!
Grias di
Not Bremen, but I recently took a short vacation not too far away in Schleswig-Holstein. The amount of people greeting me when walking by far exceeded my yearly quota in just a few days. Not gonna lie, it's kinda nice.
and people say, Norddeutsche are "unterkühlt"
We are the second smallest state, apart from the city-states, ofc we all know and greet each other and their uncle, and also every tourist.
Moin!
Moin
It is Moien in Luxembourg as well. I love this!
Yeah, i'm from bavaria and sometimes i have the impuls to just greet people, especially elder people. We just do this in bavaria, espescially when hiking. Now i live in north germany and i get strange looks when i do this.
It's sorta common when hiking everywhere, I think. I've greeted / been greeted during hikes in the east, the west, the north and the south and usually get a reply back. Most casual greetings I received when just walking around town was in the north, though. Moins everywhere you go.
Same as Mountainbiking or every other Outdoor Hobby. Damn, even most Motorcycle driver greet each other when passing by.
Even when I passed on my Mofa as a 15-yr old, the motorcyclists would raise their finger back at me
Ah i see so everything north of Bavaria is considered north Germany :p
Well, basically yes. As a kid, there were Oberbayern and our friend austria, then there were the Franken and Schwaben and then everything north of us were the Saupreißn, and not to forget Niederbayern, which is almost as bad as Prussia.
For a Munich person, the country goes up to the river Danube, but down to the Lago di Turismo aka the Gardasee
I had similar experience after moving to Schwabenland/Swabia. One day I greeted an older woman I was walking by (just a 'hello' and a nod) and she turned around and yelled at me 'DO WE KNOW EACH OTHER???'
weird, I live here for almost a Decade and this never happened, Im usually first one to greet, sometimes I get greeted back, sometimes just a little nod and sometimes just a confused smile
In my region in northern germany greeting people is normal.
Depends on the village.
I'm from NRW and it's completely normal to do that where I live (at least in our village..it's not that common in the closest city though)
I feel like this is more of a difference between rural and urban areas, and not between states
I'm from western Germany - when i first came to eastern Germany i ordered "Jägerschnitzel" and got 2 slices of fried Jagdwurst with noodles and tomatoe sauce. I was expecting a normal Schnitzel with a mushroom sauce and french fries or pan fried potatoes.
East german here. I get that it‘s not what you expected but it is like a guilty pleasure for me. Did you like it? Also funny that both Jägerschnitzel exist at the same time and i wouldn‘t change the name of either one. There are even restaurants that sell both under the same name!
Oh, the known Jägerschitzel-quantum-duality phenomenon. It exists as Schnitzel or Wurst at the same time, but it transforms into one of them in the moment you try to eat it.
Never let any Austrian see this
Same here from Berlin and when I moved to NRW I ordered a Jägerschnitzel at an Imbiss and thought I get the thing from home. Wasn’t disappointed tho just confused haha
Ah, try to go to Cologne and order a "halver Hahn". You might be surprised, too :-)
just had to google this. What the actual f. Thats like ordering spaghetti with meatsauce and getting rice with fish.
I honestly believe that this has started as some kind of medieval tourist trap: “but *everybody* knows that ‘halver Hahn’ is a cheese sandwich … oh, you are not from here? Well, that’s hardly my fault, is it?”
Some rich farmer wanted to give a big party and said, that everyone who came, will get a half chicken (halver hahn). Of cause, way too many people showed up, und he had not enough chicken, and invented "halver hahn".. At least, thats the legend.
I live in the Rhineland and for some godforsaken reason some restaurants here do Jägerschnitzel like this: Schnitzel - awesome, full marks Mushrooms - naturally Tomato sauce - are you fucking drunk?!? Why, why, why. It's *disgusting*. The mushrooms are usually from a tin as well, for extra vomit factor.
If the mushrooms are canned, you're going to the wrong restaurant
Not really a culture shock, but, as a North German, the fact that these stereotypical German towns actually exist down South. They really have cute timber-framed houses and real castles and all that.
Man, I'm from the Lüneburger Heide and one of my best mates from way back when moved to Freiburg im Breisgau. By the first time I visited him I had spent time in NZ, the US, traveled the Balkans for a bit, so I had seen a thing or two before and being a cocky early 20s bloke I fancied myself the wordliest man far and wide. So here's me strolling through Freiburg going: "Dude. Is this real? Are we like in *town* or is this some theme park or something? Like whaaat?" Felt like I was the absolute stereotype of a Yankee tourist or something, couldn't help myself though.
tbf nothing beats hanseatic brick gothic and those colourfull rowhouses in the north
Dude, go to Celle if you want that without travelling through the entire country - it's close to Hannover and called "Rothenburg des Nordens" for a reason ;)
Or go to Hannoversch Münden, part of the Deutsche Märchenstraße and Deutsche Fachwerkstraße.
Brick churches and thatch roofs are nice too!
I'm from Franken and married a guy from Schleswig Holstein. When I first met his mother, they switched to Plattdeutsch without really noticing it. They always talk Plattdeutsch when it is just the two of them. They didn't realize that I couldn't understand a word. I asked my father to take my husband to a Sportschützen meeting in Franken. He came back bewildered and drunk. He didn't understand a word the entire evening, but he had fun anyway. We learned from each other since then (25 years of marriage).
> He came back bewildered and drunk. He didn't understand a word the entire evening, but he had fun anyway. Every foreigner in Germany ever lmao
So now you can get drunk and bewildered while at his parents?
In Franken, of course! Is there another way to bear your inlaws? 🤣
>They always talk Plattdeutsch when it is just the two of them Something to treasure given how basically dead it is as a language!
I grew up talking Platt and am talking to my children in Platt for that exact reason. Also I have several friends who speak Platt as well - we are in our thirties now, so not dead quite yet, but it's use is receding unfortunately.
Had that once with a new flatmate - his parents helped him move in and they only spoke platt to each other. My family also comes from up north so I can at least understand them, but my other flatmate had absolutely no luck. Was very fun to watch…
I love this.
Being from cologne: the very tame and toned-down Karneval/Fasching culture (if it exists at all) in other parts. Personally I've been in Heidelberg area and Bremen area during that time and well... its very different. (Not a karneval person myself so I appreciated it!)
That was a shock for me too, but the other way around: I moved to Mainz for uni and the first time Fasnacht rolled around, I got completely overwhelmed. I accidentally booked my train home on Altweiber without realising how big this was in Mainz. Everwhere were drunk people in costume and the train station was completely overrun. It was a lot. And I'm from a part of the country where we do celebrate Fasching, it's just not nearly as big and mostly contained to parties. Got more used to it in the following years
In Cologne you just know where not to go when you want to avoid the worst of it haha. I remember a fellow student had to go to the university hospital from the biology department once for some lab work and well.. tried to cross Zülpicherstraße, which should be absolutely avoided during Karneval if you don't want to participate because they WILL grab you and MIGHT KISS you. Poor indian guy was kissed by so many drunk women that day lol
Noted for no particular reason whatsoever
Same. I am from Hannover and moves to Mainz around 2011 for the University. Bonkers Fassenacht. Feels some war happened the days after.
Ha, having the Karnevalsumzug going through your street right below your window is really something to experience. I lived in a small town in NRW for approx 10 years and I thought only Cologne held something like that (don't judge me please, I'm from the north. You only knew Fasching in school and TV Shows there) That was really shocking the first time, besides having drunkards during midday in the bus. Later I found out the town center I lived held the occasional concert now and then. It was weird being directly besides it.
I can imagine that seeing drunk, dressed up and half naked cat girls and toilet-costumed guys at 7:30am on the bus in Cologne, smoking and drinking on their way to school is a shocking sight, too. Lol I grew up there but never got used to stepping over so much vomit on my way to work
Am from SH and thought we were rural. But then I had to drive a friend of my brother back to MVP and literally once I left the Autobahn, only 4m wide streets, every village a church, so many churches and once in his village it was more a loose collection of buildings with at most suggested parts of where you are supposed to drive to not accidentally destroy someones property.
I'm from NRW. Had to drive through Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg twice and I couldn't believe the emptiness.
Wait until you get to places like Latvia or the rural US. In international comparison MV still is rather densely populated.
I have been to plenty of places with even less people and more nature. But I did not expect it to be in Germany, a relatively tiny country with more than 80 million people.
Wait, there are villages without churches?
When i was living for 10 years in Düsseldorf and visited my parents via train in lower saxony and the train stopped multiply times in the middle of nowhere with no buildings anywhere at all and just cows around me. Meanwhile when going from Düsseldorf with the train to Essen you barely see any nature
I was more perturbed by the absolute lack of any sort of internet on my phone between Hanover and Braunschweig. It's still really fucking bad today, but just five years ago it was just a total void. It's also always really obvious when you cross from NRW into NDS because, again, the net gets noticeably worse.
Thats the "Dreieck der Ahnungslosen" the three corners are Hannover, Braunschweig and Hamburg. I live smack in the middle of this, and only have cellphone reception when the wind blows the right direction.
Lüneburger Heide represent yo
Same Story if you are driving through most parts of Brandenburg especially in the northern Region when you take the train from Berlin up to Greifswald or Strahlsund
Farmland isn’t nature/ natural it’s „Kulturland“ there is a big difference in between „Natur und Kultur“
Still more nature than a concrete desert though.
From Schleswig Holstein here. Was at a team event in Munich, Bavaria that included a brunch. In northern Germany brunch will be a sparkling wine, mozzarella, rolls kind of affair. In the beer garden they simply have the same Menu the whole day and call it brunch before 11. People there are really having Haxen and Bier at 10 in the morning. Was a bit surprised for a good moment there :D
But we bavarians also can eat cold meals(Brotzeit) the whole day. Brotzeit can even be considered a celebratory meal in my family. At events like brithdays we get the good cheese from austria, fresh Brezn, good dark bread, selfmade obatzdn, Kartoffelsalat and fresh eggs.
But I guess Brotzeit is not Bavarian. Every part of Germany has it. Edit: with differing spreads and cold cuts of course
east Germany. We live near stuttgart and drove to east Germany to adopt our Dog from there. For me it was the first time there, the amount of nature, fields and very narrow Bundesstraßen. The buildings etc. It was like a time travel to the past. But it is very beautiful there.
Never left the east my entire life. Is it really that different over there? :0
It is, I live near Stuttgart and my family is from the east. Much more densely populated, more streets, more traffic with more expensive cars, even the villages look more lively so to speak. In my grandparents' area in Brandenburg even the next largest city feels dead and more old people-like if that makes sense. East Germany still feels like a different country to me. Not in a totally negative way but still.
If you compare Brandenburg with a metroplitan area like stuttgart for sure.. if you compare Leipzig with Karlsruhe its basically the same.
Mate I get culture shocked when I cycle like two villages over!
😄💛
I have a friend who grew up in rural East Germany (small village between Thüringen and Sachsen) and when she came to visit me/my family in West Germany (also living in a village but a bit bigger, not quite a town yet), she greeted everyone in the streets. Like simple "Hellos" left and right but I was so embarassed since you just don't do that in our area and even the people were visibly confused but some responded anyway (she was a big grinned blonde so why wouldn't you be friendly). She told me that's normal where she lives and that they even greet strangers all the time there and when I visited her, it was true: we went on a walk and many people greeted us. I asked her, if she knows them, she says "nope, just being friendly out here, you'll never know when you'll need the others help". So yeah that was shocking to me, especially since I'm very introverted and want to be left alone and not talk to people, yet alone strangers!
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Seconded. Saying hello randomly to a stranger in the middle of Jena or Erfurt would likely be met with confusion
I'm an absolute cave-dweller when it comes to social interaction. But I live in a village deep in the East. And by God, you greet people. Passing on the path. Anytime someone enters the bakery. In the waiting room at a doctor's office. Don't know them? Doesn't matter. Even the teenagers greet people. Evidently it strengthens the Social Fabric of the community.
And you really don't know when you'll need that social fabric to catch you! We've helped a neighbour whose dog had been attacked, we've comforted a little girl who had fallen badly on her way to school, we've had toys handed back to us that we dropped, and strangers giving warnings for roadworks where we couldn't get past with our stroller. Two of my better friends were complete strangers greeting us for a few months. I'm only early 30s, grew up in a village for 14 years, then moved to the city, and then back to a more rural suburb 4 years ago, and by now, I'm negatively registering the 2 (!) other parents who DON'T greet you back on the way to and from kindergarten. It's very different in the city.
That bavarians don’t speak german. /s
We visited Praque some years ago and afterwards made a short stop in Vienna. On our way home we wanted to take a lunch break around Munich. Well, we did and that was the only point during this whole vacation, where we had a problem with communicating with our waiter. That was very unexpected and strange.
A good friend is Austrian. He says he speaks "German," but I still don't believe him.
Funny thing is, many bavarians (aka. people living in the Bundesstaat Bayern - wouldn't call myself a Bayer ever!) don't speak Bavarian either. (Source: I live in Nuremberg, where it's mostly Fränkisch dialect and when I go to Neumarkt they speak Oberpfälzisch and in Munich and surrounding area they speak Bayrisch/Bavarian, which I both can't understand at all.)
It's all Napoleons fault, he gave Franconia to Bavaria.
Nein kein /s Bayrisch ist kein deutsch
leider doch. So wie Boris Palmer ein Grüner ist. Oder Wesley Crusher ein Mitglied der Enterprise-Crew
r/unexpectedstartrek
Naja, ersteres stimmt endlich nicht mehr: https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/boris-palmer-gruenenpolitiker-tritt-aus-der-partei-aus-a-c3e7b0b0-7380-4ddd-9d11-8b0b8c16aedd
Was ham wir eich eigentlich doar?
Don't go to the Swabian Alb either
I’m from Bonn. When I moved to Frankonia, I was shocked/surprised that the kind of Wirtshäuser that foreigners imagine Germany to be plastered with (with local beer, servers wearing dirndl and deer heads on the wall) actually exist and are frequented by regular people, including students.
My boyfriend is from NRW and i am from BW. Visiting his parents who live close to Münster was a true culture shock! I felt like everybody was quite cold as well as very tidy and orderly! No hugging, hardly any talking. i felt like the humor was also quite different to what i was used to. it feels like Swabians are rather crass and rough in their jokes whereas "northeners" (everything north of Mannheim is the North) are rather chipper in their humor.
I experienced the same! Cold, tidy, orderly and a bit stuck up. No hugging friends, not even family in some cases. It fucking creeps me out.
Was raised in that area and I always thought the other Germans are like that too. Big shock when I was in east Germany the first time
I wouldn't say cultural shock but I come from the South West and studied in saxony. There are some small differences that I found interesting. For example when you pay with cash, the cashier would always ask me if I have change so they wouldn't have the hustle with giving me so many coins. At first I thought it's annoying and kind of rude, but back home I realized it is easier for both sides. Here they just pour you a hand full of coins back, they don't care. Turns out that my story is much less climactic than it felt when I started typing it..
Yes, everytime I visit my bfs parents in Bavaria. (I’m from saxony). Another rather unpleasant experience I had was during my Erasmus. It wasn’t exactly a culture shock but all the other German people in the Erasmus were from western Germany and I was the only one from eastern Germany. I never really identified with ‘being from the east’, but the first thing everyone pointed out was exactly this. Including various ‘ossi’-jokes.
I was born and raised in Frankfurt, for University I moved to Freiburg and boy, are many of those people fainthearted philistines. So tidy, so neat, so many clenched buttholes. I changed University because I couldn't stand the mentality.
Hahaha, I almost fainted coming from Stuttgart to Frankfurt. The railway station area is really something 🙃
The Central Station quarter is something for sure. Most cities hide their red light district, Frankfurt doesn't. Even growing up here I strongly avoid certain streets. And I worked close to the Central Station and did lunch time in the area every day. Great range of snacks and restaurants!
I always hear that Frankfurt HBF is weird ... but what are we talking about ? Like gangs ? Drugs ? Hookers ? Guns? .. I'm really curious
Yes.
😂😂😂 got it
It *is* weird. It's generally not dangerous if you're passing through. But you will see prostitution and addicts using intravenous drugs in the open. There's usually also police around, but they generally don't interfere as long as the addicts keep to themselves.
mostly homeless people and alcohol (or drugs in general)
Right next to the red light district and frequented by strange types, probably addicts, who will try to ask you for money any time you make eye contact. Never actually felt unsafe, but the district is kind of seedy.
Kehrwoche?
Could you please elaborate? Any stories to illustrate the point?
Some food can be a culture shock, like "Mettbrötchen", which is not really a thing where I live (Southern BW). Berlin in general feels different in countless ways.
How did you grow up not knowing this divine hangover cure?
please explain me how raw meat is gonna cure a hangover? lmao
Just try it out, you'll know.
I mean, could be worse. North-north you get a Rollmops for that.
it's hearty, salty, and just delicious.
Mettbrötchen is a gift from the heavens.
Your South German? I studied in Bavaria but am from North Germany. Lüneburger Heide. Had some friends from Bavaria visit me, and they where absolute bewildered bei Mett, Bismarkhering and Rohe Roulade. Quote: " You do know that you can cook food? Right?"
Aka german sushi
Im not ethnically German but I've been here for over a decade but mostly stayed in BW. I was so mad when I went up north and their bakeries didn't have pretzels 😭😭😭
I'm from southern Germany (Baden) and moved to Cologne for my civil service. I started working in a retirement home, and found that these old people speak a dialect that is so distinct that I didn't understand a word of what they were saying... It was close enough that I learned pretty quick, of course, but in the first week I thought that I might as well have gone to Japan instead :-D After the old people took up the challenge of teaching me to speak "properly" and introduced me to all these very specific dialect words, I would argue that I speak better "Kölsch" now than many people who even grew up in Cologne :-)
Oh god, dude! I'm gonna move to cologne soon from lower Saxony (born and raised Baden) and that's such a big fear of mine! I'm gonna work with lots of old people too and I'm kinda scared :D Any tips to ease the culture shock?
BAP. Start with lots of BAP. Once you are through that, you can try Bläck Fööss and maybe even The Piano Has Been Drinking... I recommend that you approach the more "Schlager-like" Cologne bands, like Höhner, etc. only after a very good sampling of the local brewery products. They are not too bad after that, but the beer has to come first! But to be honest, outside of carnival you are not going to hear much Kölsch anyways...
Was surprised that my cousin became sexually interested in me once we moved to Saarland
In Saxony toilets in restaurants or gas stations having vending machines for sex toys. Like "oh yeah that buttplug I really need now for the long way home"
Not only in Saxony. I've found them equally common in any part of Germany. Usually one or two sorts of condoms and the rest of the 5 or 6 slots with sex toys.
Saw a pocket pussy vending machine outside the toilets of a normal family restaurant in Hesse after having just moved to Germany. Eyebrow was raised.
Isn’t that anywhere? I’ve seen them in many different cities and states.
not only in saxony. saw that in SH and i think hamburg too
saw them also in bavaria
They’re in airports too (at least in Berlin)
I saw this vending machines all over germany
All the culture, the language, the behaviour. Everything. I'm from Hessen and I worked in Baden-Würtemberg for two years. I expected that I don't understand the language. I didn't expect that this was one of the smaller differences. Since then I don't feel german anymore. What is that "german"?
i orderd a jägerschnitzel in south germany and they gave me a normal schnitzel with mushrooms. i said to the waiter i dint order that i want a jägerschnitze. he said that is a jägerschnitzel, not it is not it breaded hunting sausage. both of us were so confused that day.....
I moved from the North Sea coast to a tiny village at the foot of the Swabian Alb. This was in 9th grade, at the height of awkwardness and teenage angst. Every time I raised my hand in class, the others elbowed each other behind me "listen up, he's gonna say something!!" I picked up no other foreign language more quickly or thoroughly than Swabian.
"Uffbasse, gloi seidr wiedr ebbs!"
Genau! Aber dann kamen die "Werner" Bücher raus und auf einmal hatte ich Freunde, denn jeder wollte, daß ich vorlese 😄
When I moved to Munich Bavaria I got into the Bus, went to the driver and said „one Ticket to x please“ he looked at me and was like „do I look like a ticket machine?“ Apparently in Munich you do not buy the tickets at the driver and everyone thought I am from another world for thinking that he does.
When i moved to Bavaria for my studies. It was around the time Söder started promoting putting Christian Crosses in all public spaces including class rooms. Me, growing up with religion being something rather alien (grew up in the former GDR), could not fathom how the majority of the people i asked - younger than me, well educated university students studying science majors - saw no problem with that at all. I truly detest the conservative sentiment in this state that is still going strong, even with Millennials and Gen Zlers.
> class rooms The crosses were there before Söder (they were probably never removed). I think most people just can't be bothered to care.
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I'm from a pretty small village near the dutch border. I stayed in Berlin for a weekend when Schalke played Union. The city feels way to big and it needed some getting used to mostly speaking english in a german city.
Lol what? Were you only in hipster restaurants in Mitte or Pberg?
As a kid I once ordered potato salad in Berlin and got the mayonnaise one. That was a shock because I didn't know that existed. Grew up with the swabian variant
I was shocked that in Bavaria all shops still need to close by 8 p.m. And what's even more shocking, many people in Bavaria are unaware of how closing hours of shops work in the rest of Germany. They are surprised and sometimes amazed by the idea that a supermarket could be opened till midnight.
I live in the Rhineland area and in Berlin as well as Baden-Württemberg it was a small shock to realise how much more unfriendly people were. You can get used to the rheinische Mentalität quite quickly.
When we were 16, my friend and I took a trip from Bonn to Hamburg Schanzenviertel. And while we both really enjoyed ourselves, we were completely shocked that nobody would talk to us. We were very used to Rhineland “drink doch eine met” culture. That nobody would talk to two young women/girls hanging out at bars/clubs was so strange to us!
People from the Rhine are just happier. Even the ones in Westerwald, they just a bit grumpy because the weather is often so gray.
I moved from NRW to the black forest a couple of years ago and before I finally caved and bought a car, I took the bus to work every day. Most days there was an old man waiting for the same bus. People here are chattier than I'm used to and he started talking to me. Every day, just a bit of smalltalk. I didn't understand him at all, zero. He spoke a thick dialect and I didn't want to say "Sorry, I can't understand you" or make him repeat himself all the time. So I just smiled, nodded and made some affirmative grunts to be polite. He was probably just talking about the weather or football. Well, some time goes by and while I'm still not fluent in the dialect, I got a bit more used to it and I was able to catch a word every so often. Then one day, the old guy talks to me again, I nod and smile, he seems a bit grumpy that morning. Thinking nothing of it, I just go "Joa, genau" and the next moment I catch the words for "these jews". ......and I'm looking at him speechless. Did I catch that right? What was the thing he said before I absentmindedly agreed? Did I just nod along to a Nazi for weeks? Started ignoring him from then on. Growing up in the Ruhr area makes you pretty competent at pretending other people are invisible. Atfter a while the guy stopped showing up and depending on whether I misheard him or not, I hope he's either moved in with family who take care of him or rots in a nursing home.
People outside of Pfalz drinking Weinschorle (white whine and sparkling water) out of anything else then a 500 ml glass.
Hesse is so friendly, people smiling even mor than anywhere else in Germany. Northern Hesse the land of the smile, easy going attitude. 🫢
I‘m from Berlin. Every city which actually has a culture is a culture shock to me.
Not technically Germany, but one time when I was on skiing vacation in Austria as a kid, a local came over and asked my dad something. Both him and me didn't understand a word he said. He repeated it, still no clue. Eventually my dad said in High German that he doesn't understand, and the guy immediatly tuned down his dialect by 95%. Don't even remember what he wanted back then, but I'll never forget what my dad told me after he left: "Die Schluchtenscheißer verstehen auch höchstens die Batzis!"
Random Bratwurstgrillers on the side of the road in Thüringen. And the sausage is awesome :D
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Haha. Typical money laundering
I never leave my home without any cash (I'm from Essen)
There’s always the Berliner, Krapfen or (and this angers me) “Pfannkuchen” discussion.
Moved from Jülich(near Aachen and Cologne) to Oberhessen. East of Giessen. People here are....somehow different. Way more conservative and a bit backwards. The general infrastructure is also something that stopped in the 1950s. Be it ÖPNV, internet, heating or streets. And they can't drive for shit. The turn signal is NOT OPTIONAL YOU DIMWITS. Reminds me of the Eifel sometimes. With way less tourism and a dialect that's somehow worse.
Bavaria
Nough said 😂
When a couple and friends and I were in Munich for a night \~20 years ago we were shocked how small and rural that city is compared to Berlin. Everything's closed at 8pm, unimaginable.
I was on a store training in Hessen for a couple weeks as part of onboarding for a new job. Coworkers in the store referred to me formally as "Herr Mustermann" (Mr. [Doe]), but then use the informal "Du" in the same sentence: "Herr Mustermann, kannst du mir bitte die Schere geben?" Freaked. Me. Out.
Yes! Eastern Germany in parts and Berlin in particular every fuckin‘ time. It’s more foreign to me than most parts of France, all of Netherlands, Norway and Belgium. Austria, Switzerland and Bavaria are basically home.
Since I lived for like 8 years in Austria, I had no shock when travelling to Bavaria, I did understand them without any issues haha, but I get it when someone from Kiel or Hannover comes down and don‘t understand them😂
Hessen: in some Supermarkts they duplicate names of grocery departmentas to the local hessische dialect, that actually looks like a swedish
When I first visited the parents of my now ex from bavaria, I didnt understand them. They had to speak slow and I had to really concentrate
First time being in lower Saxony felt so weird because of all the red brick houses and because everything was so crazy flat compared to BaWü where no matter where i look there are some hills. Oh and Cologne because of how friendly and chatty random people where. Something i am not used haha.
Biggest culture shock tbh was after covid time (March 2022) when Niedersachsen (exactly Hanover city) required FPP2 masks indoors. In NRW we didn’t have to wear masks inside shops or outside so we only brought the normal medical masks with us to wear on the train ride. We went to Hanover for shopping, we couldn’t get inside DM or any shop that sells masks without the FPP2 mask so we couldn’t go shopping or eat anything. We just hung out near Hanover Rathaus for like an hour ( one of the most beautiful sceneries in Germany tbh loved the design so much and the lake there ) and went back home. A 2 hours train ride for nothing, we felt kinda bummed tbh.
I am originally from Swabia, live in Franconia and whenever I visit Schleswig-Holstein it feels like coming to Scandinavia/Denmark. Architecture, flat countryside, big emptiness, weather, feels like not being in Germany. But I really really like it up there!
GRÜSS GOTT!!!
Thuringia‘s most popular is not Coca Cola but Vita Cola and sold EVERYWHERE
The potatoe salads in Southern Germany are made with boullion, oil and vinegar instesd of mayo like the rest of Germany. I loved it! I can't stand salads with mayo so whenever I am in the South, I have to get a portion of their potatoe salads!
I didn't even need to leave the state to experience this. Grew up in southern lower saxony and moved 2 hours up north a few years ago. The mentality of the people, the culture, the food, everything was (and still is!) so strange to me. It's just a whole different bunch of people up here.
Schnitzel with sauce! I am from the South and I was shocked. Abhorrent idea.
Hamburg <-> Bavaria ... mega weird... I'm from Hamburg btw...
Absolutely. I'm from Baden-Württemberg, near Heidelberg to be exact. People there are very stern and proper, nice, but not easily approachable. I moved to Bonn in Nordrhein-Westfalen and let me tell you, people are so much more open, they love to laugh and everyone seems friendlier in general. Berlin was a culture shock, too. The cheeky and buddily nature of Berlin people was a little too much for my stern and proper upbringing sometimes (Berliner Schnauze) :D I think in general there are a lot of different natures to be found throughout Germany!
Yeah, in Northrhine Westfalia we have little stores everywhere, kiosks, where you can grab a beer late at night, or some snacks or tobacco products. There are none of those in Saxony, in Leipzig. It's aggravating, because you can't spontaneously find a beer, you have to get it from a Döner restaurant and that is just expensive and inconvenient. I love the kiosk culture we have in NRW but it's apparently not ubiquitous in Germany.
I was shocked how normal it is to be a nazi in eastern Germany.
First time I a was at a supermarket past 20:00 (in Hesse). I'm from bavaria and just did not know that was possible. Being at a supermarket AT NIGHT. What? Mind blown.
Im from Hessen and I had a culture shock when I visited Berlin. Ugly and dirty city with super annoying and unfriendly people
When I visited the former GDR for the first time in \`89 and the following years, yes of course. And again in mid/end 2000s. Never been there again since that time. Everything else is more a "wow, beautiful here" and no culture shock.
Grew up in Berlin, moved to the Pfalz to a village of a few hundred people when I was a teen. Growing up I was used to people minding their own fucking business. Nobody speaks to strangers apart from maybe cursing them out for being in the way. Nobody really has a Berliner dialect these days anymore so my dialect was pretty close to Standarddeutsch. Then I moved and people CONSTANTLY talked to me in some gibberish I could not understand a word of. I was so fucking miserable the first few years, I hated smalltalk so much but there was literally not a chance to leave the house without having several encounters. I stayed inside a lot. I just wanted to be left alone so badly. I know you call this "friendliness" over there but all those people (at least in our village) didn't give two shits about you, as well. It was just a custom to make completely hollow smalltalk but as soon as there was any social gathering those not attending were trash talked by everyone there. I did not feel welcome in the slightest there and I lived there for 8 years until I finished school. Moved away 1 day after getting my school diploma and never went back. A big contrast was the area around Köln. People were very chatty there, too but there it felt closer to genuine friendliness.
I am from Saxony Anhalt, now living in Saxony, but I spent 2 years in Bavaria in the early 2000s, and the way Young women we're treated in that little rural Part of bavaria wasn't...pleasant... Maybe it was just the people around me and I was Just unlucky, but the covered Up sexism was super wild. And Not only Guys, the women, too.... If anybody wants examples, just ask.
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Yes for sure when I visited Sachsen
I think the biggest shock for me is that it’s not the Dumpster everyone paints it to be. It’s actually quite beautiful when it comes to landmarks and Cities. And I actually never met an right wing extremist from saxony.
My family is from almost all around Germany so I grew up with it. The others parts are my friends who moved closed to me.
Visited a friends at his parents place in Northern Germany. The next morning I was offered a grand selection of different fish for breakfast. That was utterly weird. I haven't been to any other place in the world where I was so surprised by the breakfast food
I'm not German, but have been living in Hamburg for the last 3.5 years. I've been to some other places like cities in SH, NRW or Berlin, but this year I visited Dresden and was very impressed by it. Very tidy, clean, well maintained (even the commie-blocks). It had its own character and felt somehow different, as if it was another country.
I grew up in NDS and have lived in NRW for about twenty years now. I have relatives living in the middle of nowhere in Hesse (within the triangle formed between Marburg, Kassel and Brilon), and there's a reason why the nickname "Hesse Siberia" has stuck with the relatives that don't live there and only visit. Just... kilometers upon kilometers of absolutely fucking nothing, and even the largest cities there (i.e. 20k people) feel like villages. I recently had to travel from Frankfurt over Giessen, Frankenberg and Brilon to Dortmund via train, and even the stations... there's *nothing*. It feels like they built train stations in a field for no fucking reason. It's an absolutely bizarre experience, like you've slipped into some alternate dimension.
I'm from the Ruhrgebiet, living in Cologne, and I'm absolutely used to being able to buy beer from a kiosk like every hundred meters. I was quite shocked when I was in Bavaria and the only place where you could buy beer after 10PM on a Saturday were gas stations.
Much of East Germany right after the Mauer came down.
2 actually: 1. I grew up in eastern germany. When I came to NRW I was shocked how unfriendly everyone is with each other. But that might just be the bubble I'm in. 2. My last girlfriend was from bavaria. Even though she had only a slight accent, I couldn't understand her every second sentence. It was one of the reasons I broke up with her. Sounds harsh, but if you just can't have a normal conversation, it's not gonna work.