FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GERMAN & MY OWN CULTURE

Let me start by saying that some people desire what other repel.

Cultural differences between Colombia (my home country), USA and Germany. Let’s point out the obvious and is that they are three different countries (sarcastic laugh). Basically lets start with food. Food is far healthier in Germany and in Colombia than in the U.S.

The way people interact with each other is different, here they have a big concern about personal space (no to get to close to them), although once you know them that barriers seems to get shorter by the second. Talking to my German colleagues from IMK, they were telling me about how they got to interact, they had spoken to us because we came to their school in an exchange program, but besides that it would have taken a bit more time to meet, let us take into account that this example doesn’t account for women, since women in almost every society is approached by men. Once you get to know them, they are all very nice and very eager to help out in whatever they can (finding directions, translating etc).

Some of the differences also include liquor and parties, here the music they normally listen is not very updated (although is still very good), while in Miami is all about the latest in music and in Colombia we have different music genres (salsa and merengue). Also, now we are talking about nightlife, the liquor you normally find is not very common (at least to what I was used to), even though it is not bad (still prefer other brands), the prices here are vey low. For a beer in a bar is 2.50 Euros’ (3,01 dollars) while in U.S. is at least 10 dollars and in Colombia is 10,000 pesos (5 dollars), and if you prefer to get your drinks at the market it is still cheaper.

Public transportation, well, here in Berlin the public transportation system is pretty good, you can buy a monthly card and you are entitled to use bus, subway or metro rail. Lets not forget, that here they don’t check if you have your card with you neither there is a machine that you need to stick a ticket or anything, in a way it makes it easy to use transport for free, but I was told that if you get caught, you may pay a juicy fare. Besides that, trains are good, taxis are not out of reach while in the states they are excessively expensive, which also reminds me, taxis here are luxury brands, while in the states is a special division of ford and in Colombia are very popular and cheap cars with no trunk on the back.

Talking about transportation,  in the U.S. to rent a car is not as easy as you would think, in Colombia is really a rip off, here in Germany it is the most simple and cheap thing to do, and comes in very handy when traveling to other cities or countries, road don’t have speed limit (most part of it) because people do respect the fast and slow lanes, they always keep their left and know that if you are going faster than they are they will get out of the way, that is amazing and well

Educated. Other thing that amazed me, is that the majority of the vehicles here are diesel engines, so they do think in the environment and in their pockets, diesel engines give better mileage for the gallon and contaminates less than gasoline.

Other kind of differences is women, not because they are more or less pretty but because here they are a bit more liberal about their bodies and in a way (and forgive me female readers) don’t intend to sell the idea that they are prude when they are not, I am not saying that they are easy (for the very creative minds), is just that they are more open to show their body and the common male mentality is not as perverted as it is in the Americas.

So these are some of the cultural differences I have found so far, here I will leave you with also another difference and is with one of my colleagues from IMK, you can see it very clearly.

Best of luck,

Hugs,

Wally