GUEST POST: First Impressions of Germany

~written by Katherine Burgess

The following post was written by SPICE student Katherine Burgess, as part of her German Culture and Communication course. In this course, students are asked to keep a diary of their experiences in Germany. Faculty members Dr. Nick Bowman and Dr. Jaime Banks select a few passages of these dairies (with the student's permission) and share those here. 

Before discussing my initial interactions with Germany and German people and culture, I believe it is important to mention my expectations coming in. While I tried to keep an open mind, I knew Germany itself would be beautiful and fun, however, I worried that German people would treat myself and fellow students as sometimes people in America treat tourists. Sometimes people get annoyed and irritated with them, especially if they don’t speak English and some people have a mindset of “this is my country, and you’re invading.” Because of seeing this in America, I worried this would be a similar situation here in Erfurt. So far my interactions have been that sometimes people can get irritated with us (especially since we are such a loud group haha), but overall the people have been very kind and patient with us. They truly love their country, and many were excited to learn that we were from America and told us we were going to have a great time here. On our first trip into town with the group on the first night, I began talking to an older woman and she was at first hesitant to talk, but when we told her we were students from America she began giving suggestions of places with the city we should visit. She said, “Erfurt is small, but so much culture and diversity,” The kindness and pride for their city and country very much reminds me of West Virginia because as a state, the people are also very sweet and hospitable, with an underlying (not so hidden layer) of state pride.

There have been a few distinct, but small cultural differences such as the food is - in two words - better and more!! Everything tastes amazing, and they feed you well over here and don’t skimp you on portions! The also put much more emphasis on public transportation and just simply walking than back in the U.S. were we depend a lot of our cars and even getting a car at 16 is a right of passage whereas here, nobody has them! Also, small businesses and family owned places thrive here whereas in America it is almost exclusively chains and big corporations. Finally, one small thing that I was talking to a German student here about was (at least Erfurt) they really care about the members of the community and since they put so much emphasis on recycling here, you have the option instead of recycling the plastic water bottles yourself and getting the 25 cents, you can place the bottles on top of the trash cans or some places have baskets by the trashcan to put your bottles so the homeless population can take them and get some money for food. I just thought this was so wonderful, and thought it would be a cool idea to take back to Morgantown where the homeless population is so large and there are very few services available for them.

So far, I have been able to find more similarities between the people here and American people than differences. The differences are usually very small and honestly make more sense than whatever we have in America such as the car thing. Not everyone needs to drive and just a few bigger trains running through towns would probably making traveling easier and reduce pollution. Overall, I’m in love with the people and culture here and I can’t wait to learn and see more!