Hey guys!

How are you?

Today I would like to start a short series in the blog where I will tell you the pros and cons of the countries I lived so far, so if this is something you are interested, I can continue with the other countries I lived in 

In case you don’t know, I was born in Brazil, and when I was 21 years old I moved to the US, spent almost 3 years there as an AuPair (I have some posts talking about those years, unfortunately they are in Portuguese, but I can talk more about my AuPair experience in the future as well), after the US I moved to Italy for one year and finally, moved to Germany and have been living here for the past 2 years.

All those countries are amazing, and I would love to share my experience and tell you what I liked and what I didn’t like.

Before we start, I would like to state that obviously this is my point of view, completely based on my experience. What is a good point for me cannot be for another person and vice versa. So let’s have this in mind when reading it 

OK, let’s go! \o/

• THINGS I LIKE ABOUT LIVING IN GERMANY 

Security

Well, I think this is very obvious. Germany is a very safe country and my city – I risk to say, is even more due the fact is not a big city or the capital.

One of the reasons why I wanted to leave Brazil was because it’s a very dangerous place – unfortunately. So even after 2 years here, I get so surprised on how safe Germany is – of course that in bigger cities you will still need to be more careful, but nothing compared to Brazil.

The fact that I can walk alone at any time of the day and night, is priceless for me, and the main reason why I love Germany so much.

I can’t count how many times I walked back home from a friend’s house at 10/11pm or took the bus late night, or even the fact that I can go to an outside restaurant and leave my phone on the table without worrying that someone will pass by and take it.

Punctuality

Germans are very serious and compromised people – which I love. If you schedule something, make sure to be on time, because they will for sure.

And when I say on time, is exactly on time! If you think that arriving late is bad, keep in mind that arriving earlier isn’t good either.

Living is Germany made me a more punctual person and less tolerant with other people’s tardiness! lol

However, for every rule there’s an exception… In this case the trains are the exception, they are ALWAYS late! It’s very hard to buy train tickets where you need to change trains when in 90% of the time the train will be delayed. The delays can vary from 5/10 min to even 35min – 1 hour. – this is very frustrating and happens quite often in here.

Everything works

As I mention on the previous topic, Germans are very serious and compromised people.
Rules are 100% followed, for everything, they won’t even cross the street in a red light with no cars passing by, in the middle of the night. – silly example, but that’s how serious they take the rules here.

Germany is a very well structured country, everything works perfectly, and everything you need you will have a solution – or an insurance for it! lol

English is spoken more than expected 

German is not easy, trust me! But it’s amazing how you will always find someone who speaks in English, and even when they claim their English is not good, it’s always amazing and you can communicate perfectly.

In bigger cities is even better, you can communicate and find informations in English easily.

I’m planning on writing a post telling about how to live in Germany without speaking German, so I will save some personal experiences for this post! lol

The country is SO beautiful

Well, here I am stating the obvious again! Germany is beautiful, clean and full of churches! lol

Traveling around Germany is extremely satisfying, every city you go, you will find history, beautiful views, tons of churches and castles! There are so many castles around Germany and they are all so beautiful! I had the opportunity to go in some of them –Neuschwanstein Castle for instance is the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life.

You will not be disappointed when traveling around Germany 

– wow Lari, Germany is a fairy tail then, right? NO! lol it’s 95% perfect, but there are the cons, here they are.

• THINGS I DON’T LIKE ABOUT LIVING IN GERMANY 

The language

German is so freaking hard! Even tho it’s easy to find people who speaks in English, is still quite challenge to live in a country where you don’t speak the main language.

The grammar rules are very complicated and for most cases, they don’t exist! lol I used to live with a German girl and whenever I would ask her about a rule or why they would say something in a certain way, she would say “I don’t know, I just know that this is the correct way” lol

The preposition of words is always a fun game to play, you never know when is der, dieor das, and guess what, there’s no rule for that lol – well there are some rules, but they are not applicable in all of the cases.

Don’t think you can learn German by yourself, language apps helps a lot, but if you really wanna learn German, you will have to go to school and have some proper classes.

Weather

Being born and raised in a tropical country, I grew up not liking the heat (and I don’t blame myself, living in a country where the temperature is around 30 Celsius for the majority of the year, and humid is not always nice ok?) – so I was the person who would love winter (poor me)

I experienced a proper winter the first time when I was living in Italy and omg, it’s no fun.

Since I moved to Germany, the weather here isn’t the best. We have a lot of cloudy and rainy days and winter can be pretty bad too.

I’m writing this post in June and it’s 12 Celsius outside – not a very promising summer I would say.

The temperature itself is not the worst in my opinion, the houses here are very well prepared for winter and you can cover yourself with plenty of jackets when leaving the house. The issue in my opinion is the lack of sun during winter and autumn – and the fact the is dark around 4/5pm as well, it really gets me 

In another hand  I love when it’s summer and we have light until 10:30pm. \o/

Meeting new people

I am from South America, we scream, we hug, we touch –a lot. So it’s very easy for us to make friends or even just have a casual chat in the supermarket and never see the person again.

In here, I found it a bit difficult to have any of that, Germans are very respectful and mind their own business – which is good too! But it does make it a bit harder to create a deeper bond with them.

I wish they were more open to meet new people because they are amazing, but I find it very hard to approach them.

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Well, that’s it! I love living in Germany and everything that comes along with it! Do you like this type of post? Would you be interested in knowing about pros and cons about the US, Italy or Brazil? Please let me know 

bye bye!