What is germany like?

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Sophie

Germany won't acutally be that foreign to Americans.

It all depends on what parts of the country you're in though. I'll go off of my personal experience and contrast between Western USA and Southwest Germany (Stuttgart). Having lived there, and interacting with people, it wasn't too much different from the Pacific Northwest. People aren't the most outgoing, and don't expect people other than neighbors that you know to give greetings. I found this odd, as I lived in a small town where I'd pass the same people everyday on the way to school and interact with alot of the same people at stores. They're really nice when they DO interact with you though, don't worry about your German, most people will understand what you're trying to say and will explain. Most of them speak at least a little bit of English if worst comes to worst. However I've been told that people are nicer up north.

The food in Southern Germany, well, boring and bland. Which is why alot of the good restaurants are Italian styled. If you want some local cusine, try a Gaststaette. They usually have the local specialties, for example Zwiebelrostbraten mit Spaetzle in Swabia. Snacks, or a quickbite for young people has ended up being a hamburger at McD's or Pizza, however something you should really try is the Doener Kebab. Its fairly cheap, (Usually 2,50 to 3,00 euros) healthy (loads of veggies on top if you want), fast, and tasty. German bread is excellent and any breadshop (Baeckerei) will have a large selection. Beer, well I don't need to elaborate too much on that. If you don't already know, you'll discover real fast. One thing, I found that beer was cheaper than Cola at restaurants about 90% of the time.

Now getting around. Don't go for a rental car unless you're prepared with Navi, hotels that have easy parking, weird roadsigns, terrible parking overall and most importantly a shake back into reality from the myth about the Autobahn. Yes you will be going fast than you normally do at home but don't expect to be cruising around all day at 100mph, theres simply too much traffic and too little distance between speed limit zones (yes, yes there are). It is a good experience, but if you want to sightsee, going by train and using day/region/city/weekend passes are alot more economical and stressfree, look it up in the Deutsche Bahn website (db.de). They have "Laender Tickets" which allow you to travel within a certain federal state for a certain amount of time on any train except for Intercity(Express)/Eurocity trains. It takes more planning, but is alot cheaper for groups and multiple stops. And usually each large city has its own day tickets, allowing for unlimited travel.

fliege52000

Germany is clean, organized, safe, friendly people, nice cities, many old cultural buildings, museums, forest, castles, lakes, mountains, good food, nice shopping places, cafes, restaurants, multicultural people, near to another European countries. You need to visit this place you love it.
Check on the web: www.germany.de

pinata

Yea I agree with Sophie and Alwin ( and therefore they got thumbs up) My opinion the best on Germany is the bred there is no better bred in the world like german.

Americans are fond castles here are some of the north:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Bergedorfer_Schloss.JPG
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:SchlossBergedorf.jpg

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Schlo%C3%9F_Reinbek_P4070049.JPG
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Schloss_Reinbek.JPG

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Schloss_Ahrensburg.JPG

If you do want more castles
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Schloss_in_Schleswig-Holstein

The most Amercans go to the south, visit the north!!! It is total different. Or visit the medium (Weserbergland) it is total different from the north or the south.
If you see the german state I am living in ( Schleswig-Holstein) west and east is totally different. The east and the middle is solid soil. That is aristocrazy land there you could use heavy amoured soldiers to surpress the people. The west that is very fertile swamp land. There you could not use no heavy amoured soldiers. The farmers ( and fishers) were rich and they were a farmers republic upto 1559. Yeah north Germany is very very different and so is the cuisine.
Come and enjoy!
Frohe Weihnachten from Hamburg,Germany
Heinz
ps: I have made a mistake: in the west of Schleswig-Holstein there you could use NO heavy amoured soldiers and therefore the people were free upto 1559.

hopebrendenply

All about Germany:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rls=GWYA,GWYA:2005-32,GWYA:en&q=germany

Facts about Germany:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rls=GWYA,GWYA:2005-32,GWYA:en&q=Germany+facts
Germany tourism:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rls=GWYA,GWYA:2005-32,GWYA:en&q=Germany+tourism
Germany weather:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rls=GWYA,GWYA:2005-32,GWYA:en&q=Germany+weather

Interesting info, I think
Hope

Alwin E

Hi, I'm German.

Don't understand why Sophie got a "thumbs down"; I gave her a "thumbs up" instead. The information in her post really is "Germany in a nutshell", so to say, and I can confirm everything.

Although Germany is a small country, it has a wide variety of different regions, dialects and customs, from the Frisian islands in the North to the Bavarian Alpes in the south, from the Rhinelandian vineyards in the West to the lakes of Mecklenburg in the east.

As youmay have noticed, there are some Germans here at Yahoo! Answers, so if you are looking for information on a specific federal state, just ask. I'm a Bavarian who lived and worked in Berlin for several years, so I can answer on both, but I don't know the Rhineland or the north.

Oh, one correction to Sophie: Deutsche Bahn's website now is bahn.de, the English version is
http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml

Taximom3

Germany is a beautiful and great place to visit. Many places to visit. The food is great.

Rancid Disciple

Germany is really warm and cute once you understand it.
I would stereotype Germans in general as nerds not in the traditional since though but whatever they do there really nerdy about it. Like the conformists will have huge negative opinions for those being different (yep its still Nazi Germany) and the non conformists go to Christmas dinner half naked without it even being warm and outside its frozen (I guess just to be non conformist) there's like no such thing as just little unless you mean the cups. The cups are all cute and tiny barely functional though. The best thing I know about Germany is the alcohol. There winter beer and wine is spectacular! Also the German Champagne is also very good I drank a brand Faber KrÃ¶nung I would recommend.

Oh and I wanted to add... Germany is expencive

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