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.