Living in Germany: 10 Differences compared to home

Here are ten differences I find between Germany and Malaysia. I'm not complaining, please do not take it the wrong way. I know a lot of Malaysians are not very 'patriotic', myself included, but then again, when you are out here in a foreign land, we are a lot more proud of our national identity, really. It's just when you get back home and people started to differentiate you according to the color of your skin or your race that irk me, but then that's not what I want to talk about. Here goes:

• More coins
  Here in Germany, the price most groceries and daily use sundries are still in cents, for example, ​a liter of milk costs about 60cents, a tub of yogurt costs about 99cents, shampoo is about €1.55 etc. I don’t normally carry coins in Malaysia, but here, coins come in handy at times.
  Not to complain and not talking about cost of living, just about using a lot more coins here. If you're interested to know the difference between the costs of living in both countries, you can check them out here

• Food
  In the past, I thought about the German pork knuckle and sauerkraut when I think about Germany, well, honestly, the German pork knuckle we know of in Malaysia was a Bavarian delicacy and aren’t so popular else where. The staple food here is potato and bread and they had a wide variety of potato dishes here in Saarland, not to mention bread variations.
  Potato dishes like:
  a)Dibbelabbes, in Saarlandish German (dialect) literally meaning “enormous pot”, it is an oven-baked potato-leek hash, prepared from grated raw potatoes, bacon or pork belly and leeks in a Dibbe (pot) and baked in the oven. Dibbelabbes (Dibbe = Topf, Labbes = riesengroß) was once a typical dish for the washing day!
  b) Grummbeerkieschelscher, yeah, I still can’t pronounce it, it’s a crispy potato pancake, much like the potato rosti.
  c) Hoorische and Gefillde, with Hoorische, translates as "hairy ones" and Gefillde translates as “filled”. It’s sort of like dumplings, but made from potatoes, stuffed with meat and/or sausage. The texture is a bit like our tapioca steamed cake (sweet), but this one is savory la~
  Of course the German eat a noodles/pasta as well as rice too from time to time, but still, potato and bread are their staple food. The Saarland German has a saying (not sure about the rest of Germany) that the house should not remain overnight without bread, that’s how important bread is to them as is rice to us.
  Then there are the sausages, all kinds, I can’t cover them all there, maybe later.
  Fruits are abundant in the summer; apple trees, berry bushes as well as cherry trees here. Not to mention a big walnut tree outside the house where I stay :) I’m waiting for the walnuts, but apples are abundant right now, so are plums and nectarines.

• Four Seasons
  Most of us living in the tropical countries dream of experiencing the four seasons. I got here to Germany in the middle of winter. It wasn’t snowing when I got here, but sometimes it’s unbearably cold, but I enjoyed it! Soon it snowed, I was excited but no, I didn’t build any snowman, not enough snow this year it seems.

Then spring came~ I was away for most of the spring, but got back just in time to catch sight of this great sight.

Soon it was summer, yesterday was the hottest so far, 30ºC, usually it was between 18ºC - 24ºC, I heard there’s plenty of rain this summer, maybe I’m lucky :) I never liked the heat. One of the days where I mowed the lawn, the flowers were so pretty I took a video first before I ran the lawnmower over them haha.

When you're having fun, even the weed look pretty (gardening on a Sunday).

Autumn would not be here for at least another 2 or 3 months, but I experienced autumn back in 2002 when I holidayed with my parents here in Europe so yes, I finally experienced all 4 seasons.

• Waste management
  While we are not very familiar with trash segregation, here you can’t just throw rubbish the way you like (unless you’re outside), but at home, trash must be separated, plastics are thrown in yellow bags, non-recyclable trash and kitchen waste are in black bags (mark me if I’m wrong), of course, glass bottles are thrown in collection bins for green and white color glass. Papers too, in big collection bins. There are big collection bins for used shoes and clothes too. Different trash is​ collected on different days. More or less like the Japanese, but honestly, not as meticulous as the Japanese haha, still, something we could really learn to adapt.
  Plastic bags are not provided for shoppers, we either take empty carton boxes from the supermarket (then recycle the paper boxes) or bring our own bags.

• Mindset
  Europeans are not so ‘sensitive’ with age, life often is still very much lively for Europeans in their 60’s and 70’s. I’m sure the Asians are catching up, we have lots of the elderly still very ‘happening’ in bigger cities like KL, but it is the same here in smaller towns, villages, I hear about 75-year-old men finding new love, couples getting married in their 80’s, it’s common. I guess in the developing countries, people are too busy working and surviving to even think about everything else, so yeah, there is a difference in the mentality.

• Foreign language
  Most of the people in this small town do not speak English, the elders usually speak in Saarland dialect, which is different from the generic German (gasp). So I was literally deaf and dumb here… until I learned enough skills to survive with minimum German and body language.

Like this tiny flower blooming in the middle of the road, surviving against all odds.

• Drinking water
  It is safe to drink water from the tap in Germany, but they made my stomach gurgle, very loudly. At first, I thought it was gas from the sparkling mineral water I drink (when dining outside), but after Googling, I found that Chlorinated and/or fluoridated water could also be the cause. After avoiding tap water for a few days (surviving on sparkling mineral water), the gurgling stopped, that’s it. I have avoided it since haha. But German being German, alcohol is like water for them. People drinking as early as breakfast (yes), and it is common for people to drink alcohol with meals, on work days, such thing would not be allowed in Malaysia huh? haha. It is common for Germans to drink about 6 to 8 beers a day, on average, EVERYDAY… well, at least to the Germans I have come in contact with.

• Air quality
  No haze. End of story hahaha. Air is so, so, so fresh here.

Everything is clear. #nofilter

• Sunrise, Sunset
  The sun is the same at home or abroad. So are the sunrises and the sunsets. But in the summer, sunset occurs at 9:30 pm, earlier on at 10:00 pm… it is rather odd to be walking around at 9:00 pm​ and the sky still bright. Sunrise is as early as 5 am​, but it’s not too uncommon for me. The late sunset is tiring sometimes (sometimes you lose track of time and kept on working, way past office hours). I didn't get to see the solar eclipse recently, the clouds were nasty, the closest I got to see​ it was this...

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• Traffic
  No traffic jam, well, that’s because I’m in a small town and there ARE traffic jams in bigger cities. However, there are no drivers who use the emergency lane to cut the line. Everyone waited in line, everyone followed the rules, well, almost everyone because the radars are there, although not as crazy much as in the UAE. Common speed limits within towns/villages are 50km/h, elsewhere on trunk roads are commonly 90km/h, school areas, ​and town centers 30km/h. On some stretches of​ the highway, the limits are 100km/h to 120km/h, while the rest is limitless. (yay!) Although on the highway there are no upper limits, there are the lower ones too, it is said that vehicles that cannot go above 60km/h are not allowed on highways, so tractors, certain cranes and electric cars are not allowed on the road, my dad's old kapcai would definitely not make it haha.

My favorite traffic sign would be this, means no limits hahaha. Credit