Differences Living In Germany

While it’s always super exciting to move overseas, at least for us, this is our first time we are having to actually live off base and live like the local culture and we’ve found there are quite a few differences! There are many differences living in Germany compared to Stateside life, even more so when you live off base. Living the authentic German lifestyle is very different that living in a house the US, so I wanted to share some of those differences for those of you who are curious 🙂

Size: Houses here in Germany tend to be much smaller than the houses in the US, maybe that is a sign that us American stock up on too much ‘junk’ and therefore need a place to put it all, LOL! For awhile I thought we were going to have to be crammed into a tiny house with no storage, luckily waiting 2.5 months paid off for us, and that is not the case. The house is big but does still lack storage, other than ‘rooms’ to put stuff in.

Utilities: These are super expensive here! Not sure why but water is expensive. No more long showers or needless running of water. A german told us that the water is so expensive that they refuse to ‘waste’ it to wash out the yogurt cups for recycling! Makes me appreciate the lower cost of it in the US for sure! Electricity is also expensive and we’ve been told to keep lights off your not using, unplug anything you aren’t using, and such. I used to be so annoyed when back in the US Mr. B would keep flipping off lights & unplugging stuff, guess it’ll come in handy here 😉

Trash/Recycling: This is quite the process to learn and I’ll be doing a post just to cover this topic soon! The things to know is that recycling is mandatory here in Germany. Trash and recycling pick up are few and far between, usually only twice a month! For large bulk items they pick up twice a year! After living here it makes you realize how wasteful Americans are but it also makes me realize how much easier it is to get rid of stuff in the US! We have also found that by recycling 90% of what would be ‘trash’ in the US we have way less trash. After our first week here we put out our small can and it wasn’t even full! Back in the US we had a large trash can out weekly plus 2 recycling bins. The bags in the picture are the recycling we generally have around 15 bags when they pick up each month.

Closets & Storage: There are none! Not sure why the Germans don’t have closets, although I did read somewhere that for taxes if they have a closet it counts as a room so maybe that is why? They also do not have built in storage, which I find very strange! The base provides 2 small wardrobes each for Mr. B & I and 1 for each of the kids, that is now way even close to enough ‘closet’ space for us. There are no pantries, hall closets, etc either so you have to get creative about storage here, thank goodness for Pinterest! We used what they called a bedroom and lined it with wardrobes and made it the Master ‘closet’ for us.

Garages: These are not common either here, thankfully we managed to not only find a house with a garage but a large one as well. Garages seem to be the norm for house in the US no days. If you don’t have a garage here…where do you park? These seem to be the options: On-street parking, where you park on the side of the street. Off-street parking, where you have a ‘spot’ to park normally in front of or beside the house. Carport, these are not as common as well but can be found. Or you luck out and get a garage. For us we don’t use the garage for parking (although we may when it freezes since we’ll have one) but we needed it for storage of our workbench, tools, etc. So if you don’t need a garage your options are much more abundant here.

Garbage Disposal: There is NONE, I never realized how much we actually use one until we no longer have one, and scraping your food into a trash that only gets picked up twice a week is not my idea of a great solution either! We also scored a rare double sink, although it’s quite small by American standards.

Kitchens: Are generally pretty small, don’t have a lot of storage, and have tiny appliances! You learn to maximize the space you have, create alternative storage, and function without much elbow room. Also many homes have multiple kitchens! Ours has 2.5 kitchens! Normally this is because they have converted several apartments into one home for Americans. I’ve heard this is great for holiday cooking though!

Cooking: The stoves here are interesting, normally they take a bit to heat up but once they do they get hot! And take awhile to cool down, I’ve made the mistake of touching a burner 15 minutes after it was turned off, ouch! The ovens also cook in Celsius so I’ve had to learn how to convert Fahrenheit temps to Celsius. The ovens cook from the top down like a broiler in the US, so far in 7 months I’ve only burned our dinner once, LOL!

Electricity: All the houses here off base are 220V compared to the 110V in the US. Yes, you can use transformers to run your 110V stuff but utilities are expensive and you need to decide if it’s worth the ‘cost’ to do so. Many times the easiest solution is to buy 220V appliances to use for your time here in Germany and sell them before you leave. Our first 220V purchase was a crockpot! Luckily we’re an Apple family and all of these are dual voltage!

Internet: This is an interesting and yet painful subject here, it deserves a post of its own (which I have posted here), but for a quick summary here: Internet in Germany is dog-gone slow! Getting internet at your house off base often requires lots of patience! You learn to cope with the Internet issues because there really isn’t much you can do!

Flooring: Generally there are no carpets in a house and the floors are tile or wood, sometimes with marble staircases and such. I’ve never been a fan of non-carpet flooring throughout the house so I’m having to adjust to that. I also despise mopping with a passion, guess I’ll learn to get over that soon!

Mold: With houses in the US you normally don’t have to worry about mold unless you have a water problem (leak, ect) that is not the case here in Germany! The houses need to be ‘vented’ daily, by opening your windows wide for 5 minutes each day, to prevent mold in the houses. We did not realize how quickly this could be come an issue until a week into our stay in the Wiedenhof, we were venting the windows on and off for a few days but by the end of the first week there was mold around the windows and on the ceiling of the master bedroom! They cleaned it up and after that we did the daily venting 5 mins a day and have had no issues. We have been in our German home now almost 6 months and have had no mold issues. I did go look at a house with a friend the other day and it was covered in mold! We got out of there quickly.

Yard Work: While many Americans like to do this on the weekends, Saturday & Sunday, here in Germany working in the yard is not allowed on Sundays, its a day of rest! Your not allowed to wash your car that day either! This should be interesting for Mr. B over the next 3 years! Although I do have to say I’ve seen some of our German neighbors washing their cars on Sundays so I think he ‘may’ be able to get away with that one since it’s pretty quiet.

Mail: Since we have an APO address (a US address that goes to a PO Box on base) there is no delivery of mail to your house, this is always something I look forward to when we move back to the States, home delivery! Yes, you have a German mailbox and address but it would be expensive for people in the US to mail stuff to you that way. It does however provide you the option to shop on Amazon.de and have it delivered to your house. You also need a key to get into your German mailbox so don’t lose it!

Laundry: Some houses in Germany can have either the American washer/dryer or the German ones, most are set up for only the German ones. Our house can have either so we’ve had to decide which to use. The American ones are bigger but they use hot water & higher electricity so therefor are more expensive to use. The German washers/dryers are smaller and take much longer to use. For instance a ‘normal’ cycle on a washer is 1 hour 39 minutes and to dry it takes 2 hours 19 minutes. In an American washer/dryer I can have them both washed & dried in an hour! The German washers also use cold water and heat the water up. It’s a toss up as which is best to use…because with a family of 5 we have so much laundry! We did decide to go with the German washer & dryer, partly for cost & water efficiency reasons and partly because we’ve been using German washers & dryers at the Wiedenhof for the past 3 months and it’s been fine.

Bathrooms: It is common for houses here to 1.5 baths. Meaning a full bathroom with a shower or tub, or if your lucky both, and one guest toilet. I have no idea how large families function like that. We had one bathroom in the Wiedenhof and it was not fun when someone is taking a shower and others need to use the bathroom. Or trying to get 5 people showered and ready to go. Other weird occurrences are you may find a house that has 2 bathrooms but only 2 showers, no bathtubs. There is also generally no storage built in the bathroom and Germans do not have master baths, something I had to sacrifice on and will be glad to get again when we move back to the US. The decor of the older bathrooms is very 80’s, nothing like having a tile Herron staring at you while on the potty!

So that sums up living in a house off base! Did I miss anything? What would you miss most from the US lifestyle? Mine is the internet, a garbage disposal, & being able to do laundry quickly!