Went to Germany for work....my impressions

[Beechwood]

Sorry you had a bad experience in Germany. Never been to Germany myself.

A company I worked at was bought by a German firm and we came to learn there seemed to be two distinct types of Germans. Some were overly nice and wonderful to be around. And probably the majority only liked other German people. Us Americans seemed to be the enemy for some strange reason.

What we used to joke as our German spy, the single German employe given a permanent office in our US building was a wonderful guy. The American boss of the company made a mistake though. He praised our German spy back at Germany HQ for being a wonderful, helpful, hard working employee, a great asset to the company. In Germany they fired the spy immediately, I kid you not.

 

[Nathan LaMontagne]

I grew up in Germany and lived there for 18 years (As a British army kid), and I always thought the people were really nice and polite in general. My German always sucked but I never really got any shit for it, and most of the time the people spoke decent English anyway. That being said, I haven't been there in decades now. My Dad has gone back multiple times and says it's completely changed from how it was back in the day

Same here though it was only 5 years and I was an american army kid.

People were very, very nice to me and my family.

I wonder what happened for it to change so radically?

Strangely, some of the friendliest people wver were in touristy parts of Paris.

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

Frankfurt is the "Brown People" Capital of Germany.

It has the highest percentage of non-ethnic Germans.

exactly

 

[Contempt]

While many criticisms about us are definitely warranted, this one is ridiculous. Of course we’re insular. They can travel for a couple hours and they’re in a different country.
I can drive for 8 straight hours and I’ll still be in th same state.

And also when I was in Italy, a bunch of people were waiting for the train. A Spanish couple was trying to figure out the train schedule and asking everyone “Habla Espanõl?”

I was the only morherfucker there who spoke enough Spanish to help them. All the other people were like, “What?” (Or however you say “what” in Italian). So I don’t know how much I believe their bullshit about knowing multiple languages. They know multiple languages the same way my brother in law “is fluent in Italian,” which means they know one or two phrases.

Except Australia is just as big as the continental US and way further away from most places and people don't say the same shit about Australians.

From personal experience, the international reputation of yanks is well deserved.

 

[Jack Reacheround]

Except Australia is just as big as the continental US and way further away from most places and people don't say the same shit about Australians.

From personal experience, the international reputation of yanks is well deserved.

I honestly don’t know what type of reputation Australians have. And the point is that it’s somewhat hypocritical for Europeans to call is insular when their countries are 5 miles wide and they can visit another country just be tripping and falling the wrong way.

But if Australians have that same criticism, then it isn’t hypocritical given their similar geographical circumstances.

 

[Contempt]

I honestly don’t know what type of reputation Australians have. And the point is that it’s somewhat hypocritical for Europeans to call is insular when their countries are 5 miles wide and they can visit another country just be tripping and falling the wrong way.

But if Australians have that same criticism, then it isn’t hypocritical given their similar geographical circumstances.

That's the thing, no-one calls us insular and we're quite knowledgeable about what goes on around the rest of the world. It really does appear to be an American thing to not know or care about anything else outside their own borders.

 

[Halge]

I wonder what happened for it to change so radically?

 

[Halge]

All i have to say is lol at the terrible observations on germany by people who speak about it with authority it seems.

I never take these threads seriously. Internet personas making up personal anecdotes about countries they may or may not have visited.

 

[Jack Reacheround]

That's the thing, no-one calls us insular and we're quite knowledgeable about what goes on around the rest of the world. It really does appear to be an American thing to not know or care about anything else outside their own borders.

Well, like I said, we deserve most of the criticism we get.

 

[lsa]

That's the thing, no-one calls us insular and we're quite knowledgeable about what goes on around the rest of the world. It really does appear to be an American thing to not know or care about anything else outside their own borders.

we have a few posters on here who bragged about never been outside the US.
Like it was some kind of achievement.

 

[empsim]

People in Germany aren't that bad.

There just isn't that fake "OMG so nice to meet you!" stuff like in some other countries so it may seem that way. Of course every place also has plenty of rude people so maybe you were just unlucky.

 

[Oeshon]

sounds exactly like Germany. It is even worse in Berlin.

Some of the rudest and most miserable people in earth, specially in anything service related.

 

[ThaiSexPills]

I was impressed with how there was beer everywhere. Munich was beautiful. I wish I wasn’t on a work trip when I went because I would have liked to explore more.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

I was under the impression that Europeans kind of had the idea that they were more multicultural and less racist than us. .

I think they have that impression because they really are more progressive in just about all other political issue like the economy, the environment, gender relations, religion, drug legalization, etc.

But when it comes to multiculturalism, I think they're more bigoted. I mean, they have far-right parties rising in power everywhere. As racist as Republicans in the US are, they're nothing compared to what these guys advocate for. They have entire parties made up of Steve Kings over there.

And all this because they can't stand their populations being 5-10% foreign or non-ethnic German/British/French or whatever. I mean, Britain chose to leave the EU and tank their economy because too many foreigners were being let in. Oh no, London is now 30% non-white British!

Meanwhile, just about every big city in the US has been less than 50% white for a couple of decades now.

 

[PaleMoonlight]

Sorry you had a bad experience in Germany. Never been to Germany myself.

A company I worked at was bought by a German firm and we came to learn there seemed to be two distinct types of Germans. Some were overly nice and wonderful to be around. And probably the majority only liked other German people. Us Americans seemed to be the enemy for some strange reason.

What we used to joke as our German spy, the single German employe given a permanent office in our US building was a wonderful guy. The American boss of the company made a mistake though. He praised our German spy back at Germany HQ for being a wonderful, helpful, hard working employee, a great asset to the company. In Germany they fired the spy immediately, I kid you not.

My friend was sent to Germany for work. He said the locals were friendly but once they knew he was from the USA, they stopped talking to him.

I guess some are still butthurt over WW2.

 

[PaleMoonlight]

That's the thing, no-one calls us insular and we're quite knowledgeable about what goes on around the rest of the world. It really does appear to be an American thing to not know or care about anything else outside their own borders.

Yeah, Americans aren't as cultured as the rest of the world but in our defense, USA is so big that it's hard to keep track of our current events here. I think some European countries are smaller than the state of Texas (it has 2 time zones).

 

[Ardaric]

My first experience was extremely negative - I get a taxi from the airport to the hotel, and the driver seems really angry (but speaking exclusively in German). I couldn't tell if he was angry at the traffic, at me, or something else entirely, but the guy spends the whole time screaming and banging his hands on the dashboard. We get to the hotel and I give him my credit card - keep in mind his window has a VISA/Mastercard sign in it.

He probably just saw you eyeing up the photo he had of his wife on the dashboard.

 

[Phlog]

The timing there is terrible as many staff will be temps and everyone's stressed. The euros is a big thing.

I'm part German and have been many times, it sounds unlike any of my experiences.

But I'm really fucking white..

And the bed thing is normal for Europe ime.

 

[kimocomplex]

Your first mistake was not filling the room with uppercuts

 

[fica]

With german you have to impress them for them to like you and if you do not feel.like you want to do it even better for them because they have no interest most of them to speak to strangers.some of them.are changing a bit but most are culturaly like they are