Miscellaneous

These are just some random things that I did not really know where to place, but figured I might as well mention somewhere.

Manners in Germany are a lot more serious, like you are supposed to know how to hold a fork and all that stuff Americans make fun of elitist Europeans for doing. While I have not met any Germans (or Europeans) that actually really seem to care about those kinds of things, they do notice and it is easy to spot that Americans by the way they eat. You will fit in better if you take the time to learn the rules and such, but do not take this to mean it is that big a deal, just one of those strange things you happen to notice.

Students Germany also dress more formally and often more what Americans imagine again as a bit more ‘elitist’ style of dress for students. This means Americans are generally pretty easy to spot based on their dress and can stand out a bit, so being a little more formal than back home can make it a little less easy to be one in the crowd. Of course there are some people who do not mind that. As I have previously mentioned buying clothes can be a lot more expensive here so I would not expect to come here being able to get a whole new wardrobe. I found this out the hard way as I was hoping to be able to buy some clothes here so that I did not have to carry an obscene amount across the Atlantic.

I guess I should also make some sort of a quick note on flying. Personally so far I have only made the flight here, which I elected to do as a direct flight to Frankfurt, which was naturally more expensive. There are several cheap airlines you can take once you get to Europe, most notably Ryan Air, but when you take Ryan Air be prepared to bring only a little carry on luggage, have to go out of your way to get to the airport (most are former American Airbases that Ryan Air now uses), and the service is far from good. Fortunately there are other options as far as cheap airlines are concerned. One could also just use the train for a discounted rate within Germany as well by getting a Bahn card (25 or 50 percent discounts).

The internet has become a basic necessity for American (and German) college students, so I figure that deserves a little time as well. When you get here, you are not allowed access to the University’s network (unless you are living in a former American barracks, (go USA). That means your only option is to find somewhere that sells wifi, which is not hard, there are plenty around, but forewarning it does take more than a week to get internet here and when you finally do, you get an impossible to use instruction paper. While I have been here my dorm has also lost Internet once for a day and another time for a week. This is an extreme nuisance for pretty much everyone I know regardless of nationality so I thought it might be worth mentioning. Once it is working, the internet here is actually quite fast (probably more so than UMass) and other than those outages the entire network is more reliable.

I guess that is it for my add on end segment, so thanks again for taking the time to read this and I hope it was of some help. Best of luck in your adventures.