Hi Everyone!  Hope you’re all enjoying your weekend, I sure have….even with tough games for the Mustangs and Buckeyes.  I was still very glad to have a chance to watch both teams play over the internet…it was the first time I’ve actually been able to watch Kyle play this season, so it was a lot of fun even if the outcome wasn’t what we were all hoping for.

Anyways, I wanted to get a post up because I return to Ohio exactly one month from today…I can’t believe how quickly the last four months have gone!  I’m really excited to be coming home and to see everyone again, even though I’m not looking forward to leaving…I’ve made so many great friends here that I don't really want to say goodbye to.  I wanted to take this opportunity to look back on my trip so far.  I’ve visited so many amazing cities in Germany:  some of my favorites were Heidelberg, Hamburg, Munich, Bremen, Muenster, Cologne, and Duesseldorf.  I’ve also seen some great cities outside of Germany, including Amsterdam, Brussels, Vienna, and Dublin.  I still have plans to visit Berlin for sure with Christian, and hopefully also Trier and either Madrid or Barcelona, although those trips are still up in the air.

I’ve been able to meet people from all over the world, including many from Germany, of course.  I’ve also made friends with other students from England, France, Greece, Turkey, Latvia, Italy, Austria, Poland, Cameroon, Mexico, Spain, and Korea.  I’ve met other American students from Wisconsin, Colorado, Alabama, Indiana, California, Virginia, Iowa, Nebraska, and North Carolina.  It’s all been really great, and I’ve been exposed to so many new cultures and ways of life, which I’ve definitely enjoyed.

I’ve done a lot of things that I can cross off of my “bucket list”, such as drinking a pint of Guinness in an Irish pub, drinking a one-liter beer at Oktoberfest Munich, eating Wienerschnitzel in Vienna, eating a Belgian waffle in Brussels, climbing to the top of the Cologne Cathedral (5 times!), traveling over 100 miles per hour on the Autobahn (top speed so far, 140 mph!), attending the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, eating homemade German Schwarzwaldkirschtorte (Black forest cherry cake) in a small village in Germany, attending a 100,000+ person music festival, touring the Guinness Brewery, seeing the final resting places of The Three Wise Men and Charlemagne, standing on the Grand Place in Brussels, taking a lake cruise in the center of Hamburg, walking under the 15th century city gate in the Hanseatic League capital of Luebeck, attending the Sunday-morning Hamburg Fish Market and party in the Landungsbruecke.  This is just a small sample of what I’ve been able to experience while living here in Germany, and it’s been great every step of the way.

What I’d like to do in today’s post is write a list of some of the biggest differences that I’ve noticed between Germany and America…so here goes:

Biggest differences

· Vehicles are MUCH smaller (only seen two pickup trucks)

· All the beer is quite good (even the cheaper stuff)

· Alcoholic drinks can be taken outside with you…it’s legal to walk down the street with an open beer in hand

· Almost everything is paid in cash

· Paper checks are not used at all…everything is paid with electronic transfer between bank accounts

· The biggest meal of the day is usually lunch, with simple sandwiches being a staple for dinner

· Almost no buildings use AC (which is unpleasant during the summer when every day is in the mid-80s or hotter and there isn’t a cloud in the sky)

· Streets, buildings, parks, public transport, etc. tend to be cleaner

· Almost EVERYTHING is carbonated, even a lot of juices and basically all water

· When you buy a drink in a bottle, you are charged a fee that is refunded when you return the empty bottle to a store or café (8 cents for glass, typically 25 cents for plastic)

· It is legal for garbage men to refuse to take your garbage if you don’t recycle properly

· Almost no windows have screens, even though most are open all summer

· A lot fewer people walk around while talking or texting with their cell phone (try to find that on a bus, train, or around a college campus or city in the US!)

· Food at the grocery store is often cheaper, renting apartments or dorms is a little cheaper, public transportation (bus, plane, train) is typically a little cheaper, but EVERYTHING else is more expensive

· Everyone loves their football!! (what we call soccer)

· Bars don’t have a required closing time

· There are more small villages in the countryside that have a castle than small villages that don’t have a castle!

· Electricity-generating windmills are EVERYWHERE (Germany generates the most energy of any country in the world from solar and wind power)

· Grocery stores charge 10 cents for every plastic bag you use…Most people use cloth bags, backpacks, or simply no bags at all

· Germans like to drink beer mixed with something else to make it more refreshing…orange, lemon, or grapefruit juices, cola, etc.

· No one wears tennis shoes (always casual shoes, dress shoes, or sneakers!)

· Big cities and other countries are much closer together than in the US (purely a function of geography, but still)

· I haven’t yet seen one person use a credit card (debit cards occasionally, but not often)

· The escalators have motion sensors so they only run when someone approaches…saves energy!

· Refrigerators are significantly smaller

· Most people get their bread from a bakery, made fresh that day (I’m really going to miss this!)

· Fries are eaten with mayonnaise, and you get some really weird looks when asking for them with ketchup only

I’m sure there are more, but this is what I can think of off the top of my head.  One last thing I’d like to show you is a really funny video that I found on youtube.  It’s an advertisement for Berlin Airport, and takes a very humorous look at some common German stereotypes….just click on the link below to see it!  (I can’t post it directly on to the website as it is a licensed commercial that I do not own the rights to)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKO7KGFw6VM

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the look back at my trip so far!  Be back soon with another post!