Currency Within Europe

This last week I was lucky enough to take a class trip to Prague with several other students for my Internationalization of Higher Education class. The city was breathtakingly beautiful, the people were kind, and my complete lack of Czech language skills never proved to great of a hurdle. I can now confidently recommend the city as a destination to anyone exploring central Europe.

Not only was visiting the city an amazing culture and historical experience, but it got me thinking a lot about international economics in Europe. Having spent so much time in Germany, I am certainly aware of certain financial issues with other Eurozone nations, but this was the first time I had visited a country that was not also on the Euro since leaving the United States. The Czech Republic, as you may or may not know, operates on the Czech koruna, or Czech crown. This sparked my interest, as one would think a growing, relatively stable, economy such as the Czech Republic has would be welcome into the Eurozone. As it happens, they were planning on adopting the euro in 2010, but these plans were cancelled in 2005. The crown is currently worth about 28-1 compared to the euro, and 24-1 compared to the dollar, creating a favorable exchange for my visit there. This does have an impact on the Czech economy though. Despite hopes that the different currency would decrease the negative impact of the Eurozone crisis, the heavy trade ties means the Czech Republic has felt it just as much. The crown was the worst performing currency in early 2015, mostly due to poor exports and the need for the central bank to create inflation.

It has been interesting learning about the compassion of economies in Europe both in and out of the Eurozone, and for that I am glad I took a trip to Prague.

Post 6: Home for the Holidays

           So for the holidays I made the decision to go back to the United States to be with my family and friends from home. It was a great time, getting to see everyone for Christmas. Everybody was so curious about how my time in Germany had been going. For me going home was a very eye opening experience. I had not realized how much I had become accustomed to the way of living in Germany.

            Although it was only for a short time I definitely had to adjust to being back in the United States. There were somethings that I totally had to readjust to that I had always taken for granted when I was back I the United States. The most common thing I would do was every time I had change when it was less than five dollars I would put away my wallet, only to realize I would be receiving one-dollar bills, rather than the one and two euro coins I had become accustomed to.

           I also had to get used to driving myself everywhere. Even though when I first came to Germany I missed my car, after being at home I realized how nice it was to be able to hop on a tram or bus anywhere in the city and not have to worry about parking or paying for gas. Another little unique USA cultural aspect that I had to remember was tipping, as well as sales tax. 

           Remembering these little things definitely made me realize how much I had grown accustomed to living in Germany. When I am living over there I slowly adapted, but coming home was a big culture shock just to see how much had changed.

Post 5: Christmas (and Christmas Shopping) in Germany

           Germany is one of the most enchanting places one can be for the Christmas season. The old city streets light up with lights, the Christmas markets in the town squares, the general warmth of the atmosphere, despite the cooling weather. The Christmas season in Germany seems to start even sooner in Germany than it does in the United States; there is no big holiday like Thanksgiving to stop November from succumbing to the Christmas spirit. Instead, almost as soon as Halloween has passed, Christmas lights go up and presents can be season lining shop windows.

            Just like in the United States, with Christmas cheer comes Christmas shopping. The streets lined with lights are also filled with stores and shoppers, eagerly preparing for the holidays. This means gifts, food for big holiday meals, and decorations for the festivities. Although there is no insane blitz on the shops comparable to Black Friday in the United States, there is still a strong feeling of consumerism in the air. Slashed prices, holiday deals, and end of year sales are all common sites during this time of year.

            My favorite part of Christmas in Germany has to be the Christmas Markets. Nowhere else can one feel more in the spirit of Christmas than when wandering through the cheery shops and restaurants in the old city squares. The best way to view these makeshift shopping plazas is at night, when the glowing lights of the city and the Christmas Market come together and people huddle over mugs of Gluhwein and munch gingerbread cookies. I cannot imagine a more festive place to enjoy the Christmas season.

Post 3: Transportation in Germany

Something that I have found interesting in Germany is the way transportation is sued and viewed. Germany is unlike the United States in that there is a large infrastructure of public transportation, both in individual cities and between them. Germany is also unlike most European counties I have visited, in that there is a strong car culture.

As an exchange student I obviously do not have my own car, but many students I know from Germany have their own car, and families almost all seem to have cars. The biggest difference I have seen between American and German car culture is the types of cars people drive. Obviously there is a preference for German brands over the American and Japanese brands that are so common back in the United States, but also just the type of car. Pick up trucks are absent, as are the large SUVs that dominate the US roadways. Instead there are lots of smaller cars, low vans, and sedans.

The public transportation in Germany is worlds away from the transportation in the US. Trains, trams and buses connect everything you need together, making not have a car a non-issue. I am lucky because my semester ticket from Univeristät Bremen allows me to travel for free in Bremen and to nearby cities, but even if one does not have free transportation, it is very affordable to travel.

It is very interesting to see the difference between Germany and the US as far as transportation is concerned.

Post 2: Apartment Hunting in Germany

So when I arrived in Bremen my original planned living accommodations did not work out as planned, so I suddenly found myself in need of an apartment. I looked all over for different places to living in Bremen. I searched for flat-shares, individual flats, dormitories and student houses. I was lucky enough to be able to stay with a student from Bremen who had studied at Hobart during this time, so I wasn’t stuck at a hotel, but it was still stressful not knowing where I would be living for the next year. Although I wouldn’t want to do it again anytime soon, this experience provided me with a valuable, and unexpected, lesson on life in Germany. Seeing as I have never apartment hunted in the US, I can’t compare, but there are some things about the process in a German university town that I really found interesting.

            First off, there are an amazing variety of choices and option available, and there are not that many that are really what you need, so most of the work is sifting through the many pages of ads for places to live until you can get some places actually worth finding. I had always heard about “apartment hunting” and I had imagined the difficulty would be finding any apartment, but it is really more about finding the right one amongst all the others.

            Secondly what was, to me, very interesting was that if I were going to be sharing a flat with people they would interview me first. We would go out for coffee or hangout for a while after they showed me the apartment, just to get to know me. I found this surprising, but I suppose it makes sense. If you are going to live with someone you want to know who they are first. One thing I found out after the fact is that they often hold these interviews with multiple prospective tenants, so they can pick who they want.

            In the end I decided to stay in a studentenwohnheim right on the University grounds. Although the Uni doesn’t own it there are tons of students living here, and the close walk to class is great. That’s all for now!

Post 1, Groceries in Deutschland

So the main focus of this blog is going to be on comparing the similarities and differences between being a consumer in Germany and being a consumer in the USA. Hopefully I will be able to use this as a vehicle to examine what these comparisons reveal about German and America culture. Seeing as this is my first real entry, I think it would be good to start with the most obvious things that one would notice upon coming to Germany, specifically buying groceries.

The biggest difference I have encountered it the fact that on Sundays stores are not open. At all. The only place one can find stores open Sunday is at the local central station, and they aren’t exactly equipped for you to get all your shopping done. This has main times been an inconvenience, but it really isn’t an issue as long as you are aware of it. During my first month, when I was in Munich I would often forget to go shopping and end up having to go find a restaurant that was open for lunch or dinner on Sunday. Now that I have been here for over a month though, it has just become part of the weekly routine.

Another thing that I was completely unprepared for was the fact that there are no baggers, or (free) bags for that matter, at stores. Everyone brings their won bags to shop, and as the worker at the check out scans one’s items they are expected to bag them themselves. I like the idea of bringing your own bag, but the pace at which the items are scanned and you are expected to bag can be rather rapid, especially when you aren’t used to it. I am not sure whether the decision to not provide bags is an economic or ecological choice by the grocery stores in Germany, but either way I think it a great practice, one people in the US could really learn from.

The third, and last difference in Germany is the bottle returns. Most people in the USA are aware that they can return most bottles and cans for about 5 cents a bottle in most grocery stores, however not many people I know do it to any great extent. In Germany it is completely different. Every bottle or can you buy will come with an extra cost, then when you finish you can, and everyone does, return the bottles or cans back at the grocery store to a machine similar to the ones in the US, where you will then receive a ticket for the money. This is another great idea that I think stores and consumers in the US could learn from. The process both encourages recycling, and also make it a more individual process, meaning that a giant recycling truck is not required to stop at every house to pick up the glass, but can instead go to one location, decreasing the costs for everyone.

Germany so far has been a great time, in some ways it feels very similar to America, but in some ways completely different. That’s all for today, thanks for reading!

Intro

Hello all, and welcome to my new, and first, blog. Now that the summer is over, and I am leaving for Germany in about 2 hours, I figured it as time to make my study abroad blog.

For anyone who doesn't know, my stay in Germany will be mostly spent in the city of Bremen, but for the first leg (about a month) I will be in Munich taking part in a language program there. I will be studying in Germany for the next twelve months, and I will be trying to keep this blog as updated as possible. This blog will serve two purposes, firstly, I will be using this blog to catalogue my cultural experiences in Germany as a consumer as a part of my Blocker project for school, but hopefully the tales of my exploits that I post will also serve to keep family and friends up to date with how everything is going.

Seeing as this is just an introduction, and that I have to go put my bags in the car, I will leave it with that. Thanks for stopping by and checking this out!

-Travis Crocker