Why living in Germany doesn't suck!

The term “American Expat” was made famous and fashionable by some very notable expats, the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain and Scott Fitzgerald to name a few, who all created a vibrant community of expats in Paris. Although I really enjoy their writing, especially that of Mark Twain and Hemingway, I did not know that they were expats until I became an expat myself. I will refer to two books by these two authors that have been very inspiring for my expat life, and partly my muse to start writing these blogs. If you want to get an insight into the romanticized life of these famous expats in Paris I will highly recommend watching the movie “Midnight in Paris” by Woody Allen.

Why Europe and why Germany? I have been asked this question countless times since making this decision and to be honest I don’t have a clear answer. My first motivation to start thinking about living in Europe was a backpacking trip with my best friend in 2010. I was very inspired by the beautiful sights, the long history and more importantly the life style of most Europeans; even though this was a trip of just a few weeks it felt like I really belonged here. Second, it will be my career; I am a scientist (immunologist), which basically means that I can move to any country that uses a big portion of its GDP towards research, and Europe in general and especially Germany invest a lot of money in research. My PhD mentor was a huge career-related influence as well, she had performed her postdoctoral studies in Japan and then moved back to the US to have a very successful career as a scientist; having her as a role model I thought doing something similar would be rewarding for me even if I only managed to accomplish half the things that she has done. So, why Europe? Why not! I had everything and more that I could have in the US career-wise and really nothing to lose. Why Germany? Simple actually, they offered me a postdoctoral scientist position at the famous German Cancer Research Center in the fairy tale-like city of Heidelberg and they spoke German, I really wanted to take this opportunity to learn a third language (Spanish is my native language).

Celebrating my first month in Germany!

So making the decision was not too hard, moving here and adapting to the German way of life was a bit harder but fully rewarding. Actually becoming an American expat in Germany is very common given the vast number of American military bases still active in Germany that are here since the defeat of the Nazi’s by the American forces in WWII. However, I think that the experiences that most of the military personnel have and mine are quite contrasting, and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong or if I have been misinformed. Most of the military expats in Germany, don’t leave the base too often, get paid in dollars, have Taco Bells and American movie theaters inside the base, don’t bother to learn German and more importantly don’t care to assimilate the German culture, which is much more than just drinking beer and eating sausages. Of course there are some exceptions that I have met while living in Heidelberg, but based on my experience and the experience of those soldiers that were the exception, most Americans in Germany, sleep within its borders but don’t really live here.

First German winter!

I moved here knowing no German and knowing no one, both of which made my first few months in Germany some of the toughest in my life. Yes, most people speak some English but you cannot go to a bar to socialize or even to a soccer field to play soccer if you don’t speak German. At the beginning I thought learning German would be easy for me, after all learning English was not too troublesome, but I was of course wrong and most people that have learned or attempted to learn German can tell you this: German makes no sense and follows no rules, the grammar is horrible and everything has a gender (male, female or neutral). What gender a noun is, makes no sense at all, i.e. a little girl is an ‘it’ (das Mädchen) while a lamp is a ‘she’ (die Lampe); it particularly doesn’t match other languages that only have 2 genders, like the romantic languages, in fact, the genders are often the opposite, the key word being ‘often’, hence you can not always assume it is the opposite because there are always exceptions in German (examples of this are the sun, in Spanish (he) ‘el sol’, in German (she) ‘die Sonne’, and the moon, Spanish (she) ‘la luna’, German (he) ‘der Mond’. To make this more complicated German grammar has 4 very defined cases, nominative, accusative, dative and genitive, and depending in which case the noun is, the article for this noun changes, sometimes in a contradictory way i.e. a female noun will change from nominative ‘die’ to dative ‘der’, both cases are used very often, what complicates this is that for a male noun the nominative is ‘der’, the same as the female dative; do you get my point here? This is the perfect place to reference the first book from one of my favorite American expats, “The Awful German Language” by Mark Twain. He actually wrote this book while living here in Heidelberg, where he attempted to learn the language and I think he managed. He was definitely one of the many people responsible for the romanticized image of this city and the reason why it is visited by so many tourists.

The Awful German Language! Great book and a funny read!

In sharp contrast to the language, live in Germany is very organized and makes a lot of sense. From a professional point of view they prefer quality over quantity, and when something is done, it should be done perfectly or not at all. They really adapt to the proverb, work hard and party harder, even if not literally. What I mean with this is that Germans have perfected a socio-capitalistic government: yes taxes are high, but this is not to bothersome when you know you have a great health insurance (which everyone and not just the elite have), you have a great retirement plan, amazing unemployment insurance, and more than anything 44 paid vacation days per year (30 just normal vacation days and 14 holidays); that means that you can take more than 2 months off per year of paid vacation. What has surprised me immensely is that even taking those two months off per year, an average German worker is much more efficient than an American worker that works 12 months a year. I personally have noticed a huge improvement in my motivation and productivity that arises from always having a fresh mind and knowing that a hard two months of work will be followed by two weeks of vacation. There is a paid maternal and paternal leave both of which could last up to 2 years and just a great emphasis on the quality of life. In summary, the quality of life in Germany is only matched by the quality of the products that it exports, and the quality and strength of its economy; maybe an example to follow for many governments in the West.

I would say that most of the cultural clichés about Germans that you have probably heard are for the most part accurate:

 They love beer, although the variety of beer found here is very small compared to the US and its new booming market of craft beers. In fact, the term craft beer is unknown to much Germans and they are so used to the taste of their 5 varieties of beers (Pils, Helles, Weizen, Export, and Dunkles), that their taste buds are not accustomed to any craft beer, that doesn’t fit within these categories i.e. an IPA or Chocolate Ale.   The German beers have been brewed the German-way for many centuries now, most were first brewed in monasteries by monks that had nothing better to do, and are now a big part of the German way of life. As most people know, drinking age for beer and wine in Germany is 16, although I really like the liberal stand of the German-government on this, I think 16 is a bit too young; in fact often I see drunk kids that are not even 13 on the train stations and streets, and I think that at this age they are more likely to do something stupid than an 18 year-old would. Somehow, there is not a lot of alcohol abuse as people learn there limits very young and Germany ranks as one of the countries with the lowest alcoholism rates in the Western world; then maybe allowing kids to drink that young is actually a good thing.

I will conclude with what is my favorite aspect of the German culture and one that, until I moved here, I never thought that it was a German stereotype: for them traveling is a necessity, not a luxury. Again this is only possible because of how well their government and system-as-a-whole works, given that in order to travel two aspects are absolutely required, time and money. Having a socio-capitalistic government, there are not extreme differences in wealth between most people, yes there are extremely rich people, like Dietmar Hopp the founder of SAP or the Quandt family that owns BMW; however, even the cleaning people at my institute have enough money and paid vacation time to plan a yearly vacation. It is probably not surprising to all of you fellow travelers to always find Germans anywhere you go, this is because there are 80+ million of them and as far as I know, every single one of those 80+ million will plan a vacation every year, even if it is just to Italy or France for a week. I have assimilated this aspect of their culture (not that I didn’t like to travel before) and now I always look forward while I am in lab to my next paid vacation, which come here way more often than they did in the USA. Finally the second reference to my other favorite expat, Ernest Hemingway. He started a ‘new school’ of travel writing, to take this genre from a travel guide to a work of art; the best example of this, in my opinion, is his book ‘The sun also rises’, which describes his travels in southern France and northern Spain. A must read!

A masterpiece of travel writing