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They can be a bit too blunt sometimes, though.
Once a German I had met on vacation in Spain invited us home for a weekend visit, my wife and I. Very kind, no doubt about it. However the last day was marred by the fact that my credit card for some reasons didn't work, so he had to pay the restaurant's bill although I had told him I wanted to invite him. I promised I would make up for it later, but hence he was very cold and seemed very annoyed. Later on when we parted I told me how much we enjoyed the time we spent together and how friendly I found him he answered in an icy tone :
"I'm not your friend".
Germans are "special" for sure...
One experience and you paint an entire nationality?
How very interesting.
Should everyone judge all French by how you post?
My husband is one of the nicest guys I know and is definitely not fake. He actually has a very low tolerance for fake people. His niceness is very sincere.
When we moved to Germany for a three year military assignment, our first task was finding a house, so we drove through village after village on our house hunting ventures. My husband waved to each and every person we passed and we NEVER got a wave back. It actually was pretty amusing, as we not only didn't get waves but also got very mean looks. I told him to give it a rest but he said he couldn't, as that's his nature.
Over the three years we lived there, I met some very wonderful Germans but also met some very grouchy ones. After reading this thread, they would probably say they're not grouchy, just direct. The direct German personality-type was one I had a really tough time getting used to, although I love Germany and miss many things about it!
You were living in a military community.
Perhaps their experiences with the military community were not so good.
My big gripe about military communities is that they PCS and leave their animals for the local community to take care of.
It's a big problem in many communities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AreWeDoneYet?
Just a nice, "How's it going?" kind of wave. Nothing weird or out of the ordinary. It happens all the time here in the States but obviously isn't well-received in Germany.
This is the reason why it's good to learn a little about a country before you just trot off and think it's little USA, or that it should be.
Every base has an introduction to the culture that a new person is supposed to take within the first 30 days.
You become an ambassador for the US if you like it or not.
It's best to learn the local culture and behaviors - not judge the locals because they're not like you, the transplant.
The fact that I was sitting at the table and in the same room I thought meant I would be part of the conversation. They spoke German most of the time around me.
Outside of that, English ability was poor or non-existent outside of Berlin.
LOL - last time I was in Berlin we were leaving our hotel and on the way to the U-Bahn station when we passed a wino/tramp/bum/down-and-out who was clearly drunk as a skunk and ranting to nobody in particular in German. As we passed him he heard us talking English and immediately swapped to English and wished us a pleasant morning before continuing his rant to the heavens - in English! Now that is class.
Personally, on all my trips to Germany I found the German people I encountered to be nothing but warm, friendly and polite. I'm sure that rude Germans exist somewhere but like everywhere else in the world most people are nice and if you treat people with politeness and respect they will be polite and respectful back. Of course, even nice people can be having a bad day sometimes...
Germany is great , they have a very pragmatic attitude to education for example , they accept that not everyone is cut out for academia so apprenticeship type third level institutions are available for people who are more manually skilled , I like how Germany still values the manufacturing sector , something the uk appears to have left to rot
Eh, not really. Plenty of young people who take A-Levels have opted to not go to university but rather go straight into work, such as a factory for Cadbury's, which was recently on the news because it has taken on a lot of highly-qualified young people who have just taken A-Levels, and probably thought that university is too expensive to be worth it.
Perhaps you meant to say 'Ireland' instead of 'the UK'.
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