for the ice cream we have to thank the Italians who came over 50-60ish years ago. There were gelato places in Germany since the early 20th century but Italians popularised gelato here, and Italian gelato is good.
Just to point out that Italians have migrated to the UK since the 1920s. Go check out the West of Scotland (which has some ace ice cream parlours as well)
In Belgium too we had a massive Italian immigration wave after World War 2 and throughout the 50's, and they brought their awesome cuisine with them so now we have gelato shops and Italian restaurants everywhere and it's so good !
The ice cream artisans for the largest part were (and sometimes are) families from the Val di Zoldo in the Belluno region in the Alps. Traditionally they ran their parlour during summer and moved back in winter. So this was independent from more typical migration movements, more a business idea of this specific region which presumably used to be poor before. Once arrived and loved in Germany, the ice cream culture spread and nowadays very good parlours are run by people without any Italian background, too.
Aaaand another instance where I had wished a rewboss video to be at least twice, better four times as long and cover 10 or 20 instead of 5 points. This goes for the very likely-to-come followup video of x things that are better in Britain as well.
I used to live in Dusseldorf and grew up just north of the Danish/German border. Traffic: No joke on driving on the wrong side of the road - I've tried driving in UK, Germany and Denmark, and Germany is a dream to drive in. An average morning commute is pure bliss in a large city like Dusseldorf. Lane changing just seems like a gracious ballet. Self-service checkouts: German store service is almost legendary IMO. Staff do a lot to make you feel welcome. On that note, I can understand why the adaptation of self-service checkouts is a bit slow. On the other hand, it seems important for Germans that things (especially technology) actually *work* - if there's too much hassle in the process, toy're more than keen to take the "old-school" route rather than relying on half-broken technology. Germans are generally wary of adopting new tech - to a Dane like myself, it sometimes feels like they're halfway stuck in the stone age. However when they DO stand in front with a given technology (especially cars and machinery), it's almost guaranteed to be solid and reliable. "Less technology - Less things that go wrong" is also a mindset I share, even as an IT guy :) Plumbing: We did have separate taps in our bathrooms when I grew up (the house was rather old), but my parents changed the taps (and toilets) in order to save on water when I was still a toddler. It helped..... a lot. Ice cream: German ice cream is very good - even the store-bought versions. Try Spaghetti-Eis regardless of if it's a store version or at a parlor. Also their million varieties of yoghurts and "kvark" that you can get in any supermarket. In general, food is of a high quality, and there's a lot of brands and varieties to choose from even in relatively small stores. Meat is very notably better compared to stuff from Denmark and often has more taste and better texture (for literally half the price). Alcohol culture: Much more relaxed on the surface - but just you wait until there's an excuse to go all-in (*cough*Karneval*cough*). Play drinking games with Germans at your own risk! :D Though, as he says, it's usually much more relaxed than in many other places. Rowdiness is 9/10 times usually caused by foreigners or immigrants...
About the Ice Cream: It really depends on who is selling it. In my hometown here there is 1 near the center of the city where you taste every artificial ingredient :( However, just 2 streets further away there is one that might be the best around 20km or something ... just with a horrible location for business, which is quite a shame^^
I had a long reflection and only found that it is often easyer to pay anything via smartphone - like the ultra rare and expensive park places in the City. But ok, they are so expensive and who has that amount of coins in his wallet - so online-paying is essential.
Alistair Bannerman Good, as long as you dont work there as a sales man with a family. Other ways your kids would ask you some day who are you - you seem to be a family member - but in wich exact relationship.
+Alistair Bannerman Especially for the well paid people working there. Also Germans work less hours a week on average, so the Sunday isn't really needed. I wouldn't call it a thing that's better but rather a thing that is a result of something that's worse
There are self service checkouts in Germany, but not everywhere. I live in Berlin and the grocery store nearby has self service checkout alongside normal cashier lanes.
Self service checkouts will be everywhere soon. Its not just in Britain, and it will become common in Germany too I am affraid, you can not argue with the lower costs for the supermarket (and that is in the end all they care about). But its funny you mention the drinking thing. I am Austrian and I lived in the UK for a while, and while I generally like the pubs, the country, the people and of course the nice Bitters, its was allways very strange to me how many british really manage to down 8 or 10 beers in two or three hours just to be quite drunk at 11... Most even drinking lager beer although it is rather horrible in the UK and the Bitters are very nice, just because its a bit cheaper... Its not like we dont have that kind of people, but its not usually that kind of targeteted group effort, rather a side effect of a nice evening in good company....
The reason they have self-service checkouts in Britain is that that way they get the customers doing work for the supermarket for free. They need fewer checkout assistants so they fire the surplus ones and get the shoppers to do their work for no pay, increasing their profits.
Well, as far as my experience goes, this (the toilet sucking cold water from the shower) often is the case in Germany as well, but there are things like a 'Thermostat' device in your shower that automatically mixes cold and hot water to get the desired temperature.
Ein britischer Musiker (mir fällt sein Name gerade nicht ein), der in Deutschland lebt hat mal etwas sehr interessantes gesagt: "Wenn ein Brite sagt "besuch mich doch mal", und du tatsächlich da hin gehst kann es sein, dass er sagt "wer bist du eigentlich?". In Deutschland dauert es viel länger, bis man zu einer Party eingeladen wird, aber wenn du dann hin kommst, bist du auch wirklich willkommen." Außerdem findet er es cute, dass die Deutschen ihre Glühlampen Birnen (pear) nennen. :)
Very interesting points and well made. I would agree. Give me the Dusseldorf Altstadt any busy night to UK city centre or even Temple Bar in my Irish home city of Dublin.Much more fun and I feel a lot safer. However I have seen a growing sense of rowdiness creeping into the Altstadt over the last 30 years or so Or maybe I am just getting older :)
Well even though I can't look back on that many years living on this planet, it's still pretty safe to say something like that about the Altstadt. Some parts of the younger generation seem to have a similar relation to alcohol as some (or even a lot of) grown-up Brits. I think many older people from Düsseldorf dislike that attitude and find it antisocial to go out to the Altstadt to sit down somewhere with a beer bottle.
+InTerAct I think if young Germans drink too much, quite often it's rather done by mistake. At least I don't know anyone who says "having a great evening and a lot of fun and relaxation is boring, I want to fuck it up and drink as much as I can". Because if you get really really drunk, you come to the point where you become sentimental, angry or insanely awkward, speak out secrets, talk nonsence do some bullshit things and then suddenly feel really sick for an hour, finally puke like liters, fall asleep on the floor and when you wake up, you can't remember anything and realize everyone had a great night except you and everyone laughs about you while you feel like someone is constantly hitting your head with a massive hammer. And if you really fucked it up, you recieve a letter from a lawyer and a bill from the fire department. I can't imagine anyone really wanting that. Often it's rather like "had enough beer let's try some wodka - fuck where am I".
John Kramer That's true, I'm still thankful for all the others that know their limits good enough to at least not puke on the floor. Anyway it's still pretty dumb and probably not worth it to drink as much that you feel nauseous the next day.
Regarding Nr.5 oh well... this mostly applies to pre-afternoon/midnight times. During the summer and on weekends, any location where the mininmum of at least 1 bar/club is present, you'll find a multitude of persons o so eager to either try to force more liquor down their throats or on the other hand, perfom some harsh emergeny evacuations of their interim beer storage tanks. If i had to guess, a better view of difference would be to check, where the piss and vomit leftovers are found. On the pavement or in the front yard. :)
The real-Markt here does have self-service checkout. Much to my surprise... Hated the two taps system in England. It's either freezing cold or scalding hot water, there is no in-between!
#2 Isn't a good thing in my books, I love self-service tills. No one uses them so there is never a queue, you can scan and bag your items at your own leisure, you don't have to make small talk, you can chuck all your loose change in them. The rest I agree with.
@@Fragenzeichenplatte the supermarket chain "real" had self-service checkouts, but unfortunately real is no longer on the market. “Kaufland” has abolished the self-checkout in my shop. The queues at the cash registers are longer now.
@@galdavonalgerri2101 Edeka and Globus here have fully automated checkouts, you can scan your items directly in the store and just go to the checkout and pay - without needing to pull out all your stuff again. That's so convinient as you can put all groceries into bags already in the store. And actually, at least half of the customers use that here.
The food is generally way better in Germany. I remember living in London and I even managed to buy pasta which tasted bad! Now I live in Australia, still very much a British colony, and the food is just terrible. I am so looking forward to visiting Germany this Christmas to get some decent food! The Brits and Aussies really don t know what bread is.
Gulliver the Gullible Really I dont know when you were in London or where you shopped but your comment is totally untrue. There are shops that cater for every nationality. Italian delicatessents which make their own pasta along with all their other specialities and butchers that sell all kinds of meat poultry and game and fish not just 90% pork. I was in Munich and went to the food market very nice but only 2 choices of what you call hard cheese and all the butchers I went In did not have the variety of meat and game I had In London. In London we had loads of choices and also cheese from Italy Germany Switzerland Holland, France etc. The choice of quality food in Waitrose and Marks and Spencers never mind Harrods and Selfridges and John Lewis plus our African, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Bengali, Pakistani, Spanish, French, Swiss, Swedish, Polish, Caribbean, Greek, Turkish etc shops and restaurants which served food from many countries in the world. I have now lived in Germany for 3 years and have yet to see the choices I had when I lived in London and I have been to many cities here. Did you go to the Beigel bakery in Brick lane? Or for the huge variety of bread they have in Harrods and John Lewis's food department or Waitrose where they sell German bread. Outside of London in the country they have Farm shops some that sell a variety of organic breads and a range of produce produced in the county where their shop is. So you could get butter from Cornwall, Somerset, Devon, etc and the same with cheeses. Tracklements a wonderful selection of pickles and jams made in Wiltshire, clotted cream from Devon and Cornwall. Your statement applies to the old days. My brother who came to Germany in 1979 and never left was gobsmacked when I took him round to show him all I have described in our visits to the UK. He spent ages in the big quality Supermarkets and lingered in the butchers and the delicatessents. I see here it's mostly Aldi Lidl and Netto. I go to Edeka and if I want a Guinea Fowl or a whole Duck the butcher has to order it because it's nearly all pork with a little bit of chicken and a tiny bit of lamb so you have to go to a Farm that has a shop that does Lamb and Beef or to the market where the Farmer sells their produce.
3 years later, #2 is obsolete. Many supermarkets have those self-checkout lines now, to reduce costs (because it only needs one employee to supervise 4 checkout registers). I hate those things and only use them when I am in a hurry and the line at the self-checkout is shorter than on a normal register.
@@wohlhabendermanager Bavaria, Landkreis Ebersberg. Maybe the supermarkets are too small here so the number of custumers is not sufficient. The supermarket in Erding also had no self-checkout line, AFAIR. Perhaps there is one in the "Riem Arcaden" mall in Munich or in my home region of South-Westphalia, but I visit both only rarely.
I can totally agree on the alcohol consumption thing. I'm in Glasgow for 10 weeks now ( ok, Scotland, not England, ...) and I see totally drunk people all the time and way earlier than in germany. Of course this has sth. to do with the closing hours of pubs, but i don't think this would change a thing. A lot of them drink with the pure purpose of getting smashed, instead of having a good time. It's crazy and it really surprised me.
When I was young, a British friend visited Hamburg for the first time. Normal for us at the weekend was to prepare for the night of celebration with a few beers and to party hard from midnight in clubs and bars until sunrise. He drank every beer in the evening quickly and on ex. At around 11 p.m. the good guy was so drunk that the news that the partying was just starting hit him very hard :-))
I forgot to ask you about the beers. I could hardly stomach the British beers while I was in London. Must be due to Lucas refrigerators (I know it's old long-running British joke coming from the 1970s). On my return flight to Munich, Lufthansa had misfortune of running out of German beers (probably due to Germans drinking all of free German beers prior to landing in London). I was understandably grouchy. After alighting in Munich, I made a mad dash to the restaurant in the aeroport for a half Maß of cold German beer before continuing home.
As a German having grown up in Britain there are five things I sorely miss: 1. A good cup of tea. German tea just doesn't cut it. Thankfully many Chinese shops now carry Tetley's and PG Tips. 2. Crisps. It is astounding to see how many different crisps' flavours there are in Britain and how few there are here in Germany. Prawn cocktail, smoky bacon, Monster Munch! (I loved those). 3. Good sandwiches: if you've ever had a freshly made bacon and egg sandwich with the yolk oozing all over the soft squishy bread (and your fingers), then you know how good they are. And you could get them on almost every street corner. 4. Proper queueing: A sad fact: Germans can't queue. If there are 4 registers in a shop, they form one huge line instead of four short ones. I do not understand why they do it, it really is quite mistifying. 5. Pies: I love pies, not matter if they are sweet or savoury. Getting a delicious Cottage or Apple Pie here is next to impossible if you don't make them yourself.
Sad Eva You can get pies and all foods including many varieties of teabags from the britishcornershop and marks and spencers tea and many varieties of crisps from the britsuperstore.
I'm surprised at you no. 4. Actually it's the other way round. If there are 4 counters, Germans will form 4 queues (and sometimes calling it a queue is an exaggeration). That's stupid and unfair because it's a matter of luck if your queue is fast or slow. And if one counter closes all queues get rearranged, sometimes the people who arrived last will end up first or vice versa. Whereas in Britan there is always one queue, and whoever is first in line will go to the next open counter. That is the most rational system, and Britain does that better. [The only place in Germany who do this is Deutsche Post]
I know that there is that thing called "binge drinking" but I also know that Britain has as long long culture of pubs, most similar to German Kneipenkultur. I assume that not every person who drinks beer, wine or anything else does is just to get drunk but rather to enjoy the feeling of drinking?
The separate tabs thing really confused me when I was in Britain. Why would anybody still want to have it like that? I didn't even know how to wash my hands and face.
If it were only for the separate tabs. Every shower has it's own system and gadget to activate the hot water. Pull the string here, press the knob there, turn the dial in that direction. You need a doctors degree to shower in the UK.
It was neccessary long ago when the hot water came from cisterns and wasn't neccessarly safe to drink, while the cold water, directly from the main, was.
ich war bisher zweimal in england (bristol und edinburgh). das was mir am meisten in erinnerung bleiben wird, sind die massenhaften alkoholleichen zu bestimmten zeiten.
@@martinwilliams9776 - den Fehler habe ich dort mit 16 mal gemacht, und wurde sofort berichtigt. Nicht unfreundlich, aber doch so dass ich es nie wieder vergessen habe ;)
Until a few decades ago, water for washing and cleaning was stored in a tank in the loft: that way, even if the water supply was interrupted, you still had a reserve. But the tank could easily become contaminated, so it was unsafe to drink without boiling it. Drinking water was drawn straight from the main water supply. It was necessary to keep cold (drinking) water completely separate from water from the tank to avoid any chance of contamination, hence the separate faucets. Modern houses no longer have these water tanks, but old habits die hard.
Hey thanks. I didn't know how it came to pass. But what came somewhat as a surprise to me, last time I visited the UK was that even when there is only one faucet, it is internally separated up to the front.
I drove in Scotland and it was not bad. I drove through France and I like it to, but here in Germany they all try to drive as fast as possible. and this makes it not smooth. Yes it works great.
German driving is not anymore on the level as it once was, but compared to most other countries driving in Germany is still better. UK is not hell, there is much much worse than UK driving. Say China. Or Australian drivers are actually pretty good driving the 10 minutes to the pub or grocery store, but not a few fail once they reach a city. I consider German driving better because of two reasons: 1. The driving education is taken more seriously. The UK driving tests sound similar on paper but in practice are easier to pass than the German ones. 2. No blanket speed limit. You can experience yourself how the car and you react in certain situations. It is easier possible to learn how it feels to brake hard from high speed for example, or if you have to turn sharply, etc. You are more alert bcs speeds and flow in traffic changes. Over years people simply get a better level of practice and newcomers have get along and learn similar skills.
I agree that German drivers aren't particularly good drivers. I would rank European drivers as follows from worst to best: #6 Poland #5 Germany/Italy - these two are on par for me. In both countries you will have cars coming flying at you from every which directions, trying to overtake you, trying to cut in front of you, going over the speed limit, tailgating you, parking in the middle of the road to go shopping. Germany's infrastructure is worse, on a side note, due to the lack of the general speed limits on motorways/autobahnen, the outdated traffic guidance and horrible, horrible bicycle infrastructure. #4 Netherlands #3 France - traffic is very dynamic, but road users are very considerate to each other. no one minds bumps and scratches on their cars. motorways/autoroutes are well maintained for the most part. countryside roads can be unsafe at nighttime. #2 Switzerland - pleasant, modern roads, reasonable speed limits, reasonable drivers, driving is made unattractive by low number of parking spaces with high, high fees... resulting in less congestion #1 Denmark/Sweden - great infrastructure for cars, bicycles and pedestrians. skilled, friendly and composed drivers.
Hi, Andrew. Ich war Anfang August in London (Ich habe dir auch eine Karte geschickt...) und kann deine Ausführungen bezügllich Autofahren und Alkohol bestätigen. Einen Abend habe ich eine Runde durch ein Kneipenviertel gedreht und hab mir nur noch an den Kopf gefasst, wieviele Schnapsleichen unterwegs waren. Und der Straßenverkehr? Naja, reden wir nicht drüber... -)
Agree on all that except the self-service checkout tills. There were a lot of kinks when they first came in in the States but that's been pretty much ironed out and it's much more convenient and faster. I can't imagine the Brits are worse drivers than Americans.
Well half of the points you already told in the "5 thing I would (not) miss, if I had to leave Germany" video. (Which is great by the way. It´s one of my all-time favourites)
I never feel threatened when driving in Germany. You have the feeling that everybody is concentrating on driving and not gadgets (as in Holland), and not keeping one eye on the hard shoulder for speed cameras (as in Holland).
Of course you get into car accidents, if you drive in England. They all drie on the wrong side :-) 3. is great :-D 4. Margaret Thatcher invented your ice cream. I'm not kidding!
Germans don't drive better. They live in the constant fear of dents and scratches on their beloved cars. So they drive more carefully in order to prevent them. (If you'd ever seen the war dance they start, when they notice a microscopic scratch on their Volkswagen, you'd know what I mean.)
One question concerning British houses: I recently got a book "Terrible Estate Agent Photos" as a birthday present full with - well - terrible estate agent photos in it. Of course, the aim of this book is to show the far side of estate adverts, but there are five photos of a toilet bowl in a kitchen (different kitchens of course!) and one photo of a toilet bowl in a bedroom. Might this be a British thing?
Well, I have seen things like that here in Germany too in my time in technical customer service. Mostly in lower class / shipyard worker's City houses from around 1850...1920. A fellow college student of me had such a flat in a house from 1904: The toilet was shared with the entire floor (3 parties I think) and had two doors. The shower was retrofitted into the kitchen and had those old dark green tiles that never look clean (to me, at least.). Heating was one (for 3 rooms) brown coal stove. I didn't even know that was possible in post 2000 Germany. But he was happy. ~140€ or so rent for 45m² (modern flats that size starting from 5-600€ in that city) (Years later, that very house made it into the news for housing ~15 or so illegal immigrants per flat for horrendous high rent. ^^) I guess some time ago when one-toilet-per-party (or inside toilets for those having an outhouse in the past ) became the norm, the owners just installed the toilets wherever was space because the houses weren't built with that in mind.
I'm not a fan of Britain but most of this felt like he lived in Britain in the 80-90s and is comparing it to modern Germany and it turns out the Germany has a higher percentage of road deaths then the UK.
First of all, the number of road deaths is somewhat difficult to come by because of Germany being in the middle of Europe. A lot of accidents happen because of tired truck drivers that are mostly not German. And even if it wasn't for trucks, there are a lot of foreigners on German roads that don't really get how it works. It's possible that those things don't matter at all in those statistics, but we just don't know. So it's hard to make an assessment given the data you most likely considered. If you think it holds, please send me a link because that would be interesting. Britain has one of the lowest road deaths in the world, I can't help but wonder if it's because of the island situation. Driving in a foreign country is always a challenge and from my experience, people get into a lot more accidents there than at home. Anyways, you really can't say save driving = good driving. It's more that good driving = save driving + x. Don't need to explain that x, but from his description, that's what he meant.
It's hard to have an accident at 60kph, being monitored by average speed cameras. Got a word for you: Autobahn-Tourism. Foreign drivers, especially those who come to push their car to the limit on the Autobahn, have frequently caused accidents. A great source for accidents are also long distance lorry drivers and reckless cyclists.
Britain is not - like Germany - Europe's transit country no 1! I guess there is lot more foreign traffic on the autobahns than on the british motorways!
Cheering to a drunken fight has more to do with not having restraints rather than alcohol poisoning. The last time I got massively drunk, I wanted to puke and disappear from existence rather than move my body at all.
In Germany quality of life can be quite good as long as you don't have anything to do with bureaucracy and that includes needing to see a doctor for a nasty cold.
äh sorry. Aber bei Real und Decathlon gibt es auch self Service Stationen, zusätzlich. Ich kenne das so auch aus Neuseeland . Wenn es beides gibt finde ich es in Ordnung
Und wir hier in Rheinberg waren die Versuchskaninchen > de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_(Handelskette)#Extra_Future_Store :-( Wie gut das es Extra nicht mehr gibt :-)
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Don't diss hot and cold taps. What if you want a nice, cold drink of water? With a mixertap you have to run it for about thirty years first. I'm sure separate taps save water.
From my experience, the best german ice cream is usually made by italians. I know some pretty damn great ice cream parlors around. You really taste the difference between a mass produced cheap product and something that has been carefully made by experienced hands. I'm not really a fan of american ice cream, like Ben & Jerry's? With cookie dough and chocolate in it? That stuff is disgustingly sweet. Unless it's little of pieces of chocolate in my stratiatella, I prefer to not cew on big chunks of god-knwos-what in my ice cream. Italian ice cream is shockingly good. I personally think we germans are pretty close, though. Not as good, but close.
1. Having seen some dashcam footage from the autobahn I'm not entirely sure that's true. It seemed to me like the drivers of German cars drove like...drivers of German cars. In cities they did seem very reactive to mistakes though. 2. There are self-service checkouts in Germany, at least now. But yes, they are annoying 3. I'm pretty sure modern British building code requires two separate pipes (hot/cold) but I've yet to see a *new build* without a unified faucet. I have seen many, many older houses with separate taps though; it's a holdover from when only cold water was available. That said these days most people get unified faucets when remodeling unless the pipe work is difficult to change or they want an old-style Victorian bath. 4. Wow, you must have either been in really old houses or ones with plumping issues. Moden houses aren't like that and ones which were usually either have the cold water tank (if fitted) fixed or modified or a pump for the shower / power shower. 5. I like icecream and to be honest the best is made at home. That said Cornish is usually very nice although frozen milk with a little cream (i.e. cheap ice cream) is not. And I include most commercial formulations of Italian Gelato in that group. 6. Alcohol poisoning isn't a good night out for most people here either, unless you live in the Northeast (suposedy twinned with Dresden) or Scotland. Or maybe come from an area where there are lots of young people partying.
Oh my god, he said that Germans are good drivers - i guess some Germans got an orgasm when hearing that. :P Germans and their cars. A love story... By the way: I heard actually often that British drinking habits are terrible. Is it really that bad?
Ever since I had to live in Ireland in 2004 for a short while I have hated the separate water tabs. Born in Germany in 1955, I actually had never come across this outdated technology on the continent before, not in France, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, nowhere. UK = 64.596 mio people, Germany = 82,175 mio people. With more people and being the transit country number 1 in central Europe, of course Germany has a higher death rate. In spite of the high speeds I, too, feel safer on German roads than everywhere else because Germans normally expect higher speeds and can deal with it.
Sorry, we do have self-service checkouts here in Germany. IKEA has them just to annoy the customers endlessly and relentessly. Ditto for Edeka supermarket somewhere in Munich. They're as tempermental as the hungry toddlers... I feel the same when driving in the United States, especially Texas and California. My American friends who have never been to Germany cannot imagine us driving at 100-plus miles per hour. No matter how much explaining about the difference between German and American driving laws, etiquettes, cultures, etc...
Yes, some stores have them (I remember "Globus", for example), and I *really* like that they exist. You just have to be smart about it. Alcohol that requires an age check? "Wobbly" things that are hard to scan? Buying special offers and reduced price items? Go to a cashier. Only pre-packaged goods? Not *that* many items? Self-checkout might be faster. Oh, and the "mute" button is the first thing i push, always.
Most of these are probably very subjective and also depend on where in Germany you are, but the "drinking to have a good time" part I think is mostly true (except for some teenagers). Germans are used to drinking recreationally instead of making it a contest. Drinking to relax, not to pass out. And having a beer or two with your meal is considered normal.
As a disabled person, no self-checkouts is def not smth i consider a better thing. I rly dont want to deal with other ppl for a lot of reasons, but mostly cuz im gonna be slower and im gonna feel like im a burden for holdin up the line and all the rest esp given i cant hear a word anyone is sayin without them repeatin it multiple times. I much prefer havin like a 10% chance of things goin wrong and needin to talk to someone to fix it, instd of a 100% chance of havin to talk to someone and be rly close to other ppl the whole time. Self checkouts are **NOT** a bad thing, just like self-selection of groceries wasnt a bad thing and yet ppl got up in arms about how it wud mean the loss of jobs for folk who prev wud get a list of groceries from a person and then find the groceries at some pt durin the day and bag them so the person can come pick them up or pay more for delivery... The diff is the old system then was the more disabled friendly system, so ofc that had to be scrapped for a more abled friendly system by insistin folk needed to be able to individually pick out which groceries they get so they nvr get an inferior product. And only in recent decades have we seen a resurgence of such grocery orderin systems with pickup and often even delivery bein available most everywhere by now. The system may not yet be perfect, but ill take an imperfect system over a system that is actively harmful and more energy intensive for disabled ppl Just bcuz its better for you doesnt mean its better for everyone. Even the autobahn case is smth where many disabled ppl wud nvr feel safe drivin on such a road no matter how safe everyone is bein just bcuz we dont have the same reaction times as yall. I personally dont drive at all bcuz i dont trust my drivin ability to be consistently adequate the whole time im drivin; given my sensory processing disorder which can cause sensory overload and my dyspraxia which lessens my fine motor control, which means i oft will overcorrect or undercorrect. And thats just the tip of an iceberg of reasons why id nvr feel safe drivin, let alone drivin on a road without a spd limit where im expected to be drivin at spds which i wud not feel safe drivin at given id nvr feel safe drivin at highway spds even. And no one wants someone goin 50 kph on the autobahn...
uztre6789 I don't know the word for it, sorry. I just know the Italian word gelato, and that it's different from regular ice cream here in America. But Fenrir above has used Eiscreme. Danke.
I'd say it very much depends on how good the place is where you get your ice cream. I had average and excellent ice cream in either country. I'd say if you go to a special ice cream parlor you will usually have a pretty good Eiskreme / Gelato... And the whole "Eisdiele" (German for ice cream parlor) thing in Germany really took off with the huge waves of Italian immigration to Germany in the 50s and 60s, so the kind of ice cream you'll find is pretty similar. Some differences in the available flavors I guess, but the way they are made and the quality standards are very very similar or even identical.
Regarding Drinking: Seems like you have not seen the seedier parts of Germany yet. What you describe does happen in Germany all the time as well. Idiots can be found everywhere.
How do you know? Do you have any statistics on this? I grew up in Siegen, NRW, but now I live in Australia,, essentially a British colony still. In both places I have seen an awful amount of stupidly drunk people getting into fights and shit like this. I do get it that misbehaving while drunk is part of British culture, but I am not so sure that Germans are generally better behaved when drinking. Statistics tell us that Germans consume more alcohol.
Hi, as a German, I think your are wrong. Coming back to Germany from the UK I had a real problem on the supermarkt counter. I is NOT possible to speak to anybody, you have to be quick. Very quick. And the ice cream, I gess you mean an Italian ice cream and not a German ;)
Why would you want to talk to anybody in a supermarket? I say 3 things there: Hello; card please; have a nice day! In that order and usually within a minute. Plenty of talking, I think. ;-)
Well but thats because the cashiers in German supermarkets seem to want to win a speed competition or something like that... They only take 3 seconds to scan your 100 € groceries.
Somer are very quick, especially in discounters like Aldi. Once I was the only customer, but the cashier still scanned so quickly that I ended up with a big pile one the counter. When she ran out of room, she just pushed my stuff from the counter into my basket witout even looking. ^^ It's usually not as bad in an Edeka for example, at least in my experience.
uztre6789 You don't get it. Italians moved to Germany in the early 20th century. There we're already gelato's here, but Italians popularized it and Italian gelato's are good :)
Allow me to counter with things Germans don't understand (coming from a 2nd-gen Portuguese from the Netherland): 1. Beds: why the chasm in double beds? why two douvets? Why these huge flat things they mistake for pillows? 2. Crisps: and no, those horrible peanut things or salt sticks don't count 3. Money: it's 2018. There are debit cards. Often I can use those in Germany. But more often, not. 4. Tea. Tea shouldn't be black.
separate bed sheets are better. wait after you're married for more than 20 years. salty crisps together with a beer. try it and you will see whether you can stop eating them. cash is king. yes, you're right. tea in friesland or northern germany isn't black for most of the time. try it, it's close to your country. anda ver as coisas boas do teu vizinho
Some of these are very apposite (and I completely agree about self-service checkouts) but if your shower runs hot when someone flushes the toilet then you're not living in the UK, you're living in an American comedy from the 1950s.
The reason why ice cream tastes better outside of Britain is because British ice cream, unless it has the word Dairy in its name, is not legally obligated to contain any milk. Instead it can contain bleached, deodorised, hydrogenated vegetable oil. So, ice cream van ice cream and soft scoop can legally not contain any milk at all Fun fact of the day
I have only ever holidayed in Germany, I agree with everything Andrew says. Here are the things I think the British do better. 1 Queues - Germans cannot queue, seriously at the bus/tram stop it's all elbows and shoving, no order at all. 2 Tea - I have only ever been given a decent cup of tea by an Englishman in Germany. He has his tea sent in. 3 Driving on the correct side of the road. I've clocked up about 3500km driving about Germany, Austria and France too and i don't find making the switch too much trouble even in a right hand drive car but really, driving on the left is much safer as most people are right hand and right eye dominant, this is borne out by the countries which have switched such as Sweden who switched the wrong way. 4 Puddings. Really a country which is famous for its patisserie can't do puddings. What are you people doing? 5 Plug sockets. German sockets have no switch which means they're always live, and have bit's of metal sticking out. I know the contacts connected to the earth and there is no way they could become live...unless the connection to earth was broken, the same goes to the French and the Belgians with their scary earth pin sticking out of the socket.
In most bars and clubs the music is too loud late at night, but before you get to that point (or if you stay in a quiet pub) you can have some really interesting conversations which you wouldn't have realistically been able to have otherwise. I'd say it's something worth trying once or twice, as long as you're a responsible drunk (i.e. you don't end up passing out in the middle of nowhere because you stay >just< sober enough to get home), but if you do it too often it's expensive and wrecks your liver.
Here's a couple points against Deutschland: 1. If you're not at home or a friend's place, expect to pay money every time you want to take a piss. 2. At the place I lived in Germany if someone turned on a tap, you'd still get either scalded or frozen if you were taking a shower. I must remark on how much I hate the first point, sure you can argue that you contribute to operation of the plumbing, but really that's bullshit and if the business is profitable, e.g. most highway side petrol stations, they really should provide a free place to take a dump, unless they want it on the side of their building. It just feels rude, and it's really just rent seeking, like how people try to privatise the water supply. They see something that *everyone* needs to do, and can do for free, then they find a way to make people pay to do it. It's a brilliant scam that benefits no one but the perpetrators. Good video anyway.
I like all your videos sir, however, I disagree with your last point regarding alcohol. I am sorry but I see mote drunk people in Germany as compare to UK. I just saved a young man last week when he just stepped on to the road since he had lost control and a car was about to hit him. I hardly managed to pull him back to the footpath.
natürlich fühlt man sich unsicher wenn alle auf der falschen Seite fahren
+phrasel14 ich denke mal dass das daraufbezogen war, dass man in Großbritannien links fährt, und nicht auf Geisterfahrer
+SimonHellinger
Ich glaub das war ein Witz.
Und kein schlechter xD
ein echter Klassiker halt😂
Don't be so single minded. Everybody has his own way of driving. Some drive on the right sight, and some on the wrong side!
Das erklärt, warum die mich alle angehupt haben in Dover.
for the ice cream we have to thank the Italians who came over 50-60ish years ago. There were gelato places in Germany since the early 20th century but Italians popularised gelato here, and Italian gelato is good.
Yes, i am so glad. That is actually one of the most precious things immigration brought us. :-)
Immigration rules !! Hah
Gelato in France and Austria is also very decent, UK is the only major european country that doesn't get their gelato and coffee right.
Just to point out that Italians have migrated to the UK since the 1920s. Go check out the West of Scotland (which has some ace ice cream parlours as well)
In Belgium too we had a massive Italian immigration wave after World War 2 and throughout the 50's, and they brought their awesome cuisine with them so now we have gelato shops and Italian restaurants everywhere and it's so good !
The ice cream artisans for the largest part were (and sometimes are) families from the Val di Zoldo in the Belluno region in the Alps. Traditionally they ran their parlour during summer and moved back in winter. So this was independent from more typical migration movements, more a business idea of this specific region which presumably used to be poor before. Once arrived and loved in Germany, the ice cream culture spread and nowadays very good parlours are run by people without any Italian background, too.
Aaaand another instance where I had wished a rewboss video to be at least twice, better four times as long and cover 10 or 20 instead of 5 points. This goes for the very likely-to-come followup video of x things that are better in Britain as well.
I used to live in Dusseldorf and grew up just north of the Danish/German border.
Traffic: No joke on driving on the wrong side of the road - I've tried driving in UK, Germany and Denmark, and Germany is a dream to drive in. An average morning commute is pure bliss in a large city like Dusseldorf. Lane changing just seems like a gracious ballet.
Self-service checkouts: German store service is almost legendary IMO. Staff do a lot to make you feel welcome. On that note, I can understand why the adaptation of self-service checkouts is a bit slow. On the other hand, it seems important for Germans that things (especially technology) actually *work* - if there's too much hassle in the process, toy're more than keen to take the "old-school" route rather than relying on half-broken technology.
Germans are generally wary of adopting new tech - to a Dane like myself, it sometimes feels like they're halfway stuck in the stone age. However when they DO stand in front with a given technology (especially cars and machinery), it's almost guaranteed to be solid and reliable.
"Less technology - Less things that go wrong" is also a mindset I share, even as an IT guy :)
Plumbing: We did have separate taps in our bathrooms when I grew up (the house was rather old), but my parents changed the taps (and toilets) in order to save on water when I was still a toddler. It helped..... a lot.
Ice cream: German ice cream is very good - even the store-bought versions. Try Spaghetti-Eis regardless of if it's a store version or at a parlor. Also their million varieties of yoghurts and "kvark" that you can get in any supermarket.
In general, food is of a high quality, and there's a lot of brands and varieties to choose from even in relatively small stores. Meat is very notably better compared to stuff from Denmark and often has more taste and better texture (for literally half the price).
Alcohol culture: Much more relaxed on the surface - but just you wait until there's an excuse to go all-in (*cough*Karneval*cough*). Play drinking games with Germans at your own risk! :D
Though, as he says, it's usually much more relaxed than in many other places. Rowdiness is 9/10 times usually caused by foreigners or immigrants...
'Fresh, crisp cup of deliciousness...'. Love that one
Haha that was good. You have a refreshing and humorous way of telling things. :)
Subscribing
About the Ice Cream: It really depends on who is selling it. In my hometown here there is 1 near the center of the city where you taste every artificial ingredient :(
However, just 2 streets further away there is one that might be the best around 20km or something ... just with a horrible location for business, which is quite a shame^^
There's a lot I miss from the few years I lived in Germany as a child. Social items aside proper seasons were a great thing to have.
And now Germany even has its own rewboss - Andrew Bosson has become a citizen of Germany, too! Congratulation!
Waiting for the other way round now^^ What's better in the UK?
I had a long reflection and only found that it is often easyer to pay anything via smartphone - like the ultra rare and expensive park places in the City. But ok, they are so expensive and who has that amount of coins in his wallet - so online-paying is essential.
1) The tourists
Shops are open on a Sunday (short hours, but still better than nothing).
Alistair Bannerman Good, as long as you dont work there as a sales man with a family.
Other ways your kids would ask you some day who are you - you seem to be a family member - but in wich exact relationship.
+Alistair Bannerman Especially for the well paid people working there. Also Germans work less hours a week on average, so the Sunday isn't really needed. I wouldn't call it a thing that's better but rather a thing that is a result of something that's worse
There are self service checkouts in Germany, but not everywhere. I live in Berlin and the grocery store nearby has self service checkout alongside normal cashier lanes.
Our local REWE in Munich Schwabing introduced self-service checkouts about 2 years ago. I never use them.
Self service checkouts will be everywhere soon. Its not just in Britain, and it will become common in Germany too I am affraid, you can not argue with the lower costs for the supermarket (and that is in the end all they care about).
But its funny you mention the drinking thing. I am Austrian and I lived in the UK for a while, and while I generally like the pubs, the country, the people and of course the nice Bitters, its was allways very strange to me how many british really manage to down 8 or 10 beers in two or three hours just to be quite drunk at 11... Most even drinking lager beer although it is rather horrible in the UK and the Bitters are very nice, just because its a bit cheaper... Its not like we dont have that kind of people, but its not usually that kind of targeteted group effort, rather a side effect of a nice evening in good company....
The reason they have self-service checkouts in Britain is that that way they get the customers doing work for the supermarket for free. They need fewer checkout assistants so they fire the surplus ones and get the shoppers to do their work for no pay, increasing their profits.
No, no. It's called "staying competetive." Yes, I know it's a euphemism.
At the very least, having the Toilet suck cold Water from the Shower makes for a very nice comedic Effect on Film
No, no it is for keeping the healthness. It is the british version of the effect from the Finnish sauna.
Freebird fly to Sky
still no excuse for British and American Plumbers to be lazy
Well, as far as my experience goes, this (the toilet sucking cold water from the shower) often is the case in Germany as well, but there are things like a 'Thermostat' device in your shower that automatically mixes cold and hot water to get the desired temperature.
Ein britischer Musiker (mir fällt sein Name gerade nicht ein), der in Deutschland lebt hat mal etwas sehr interessantes gesagt: "Wenn ein Brite sagt "besuch mich doch mal", und du tatsächlich da hin gehst kann es sein, dass er sagt "wer bist du eigentlich?". In Deutschland dauert es viel länger, bis man zu einer Party eingeladen wird, aber wenn du dann hin kommst, bist du auch wirklich willkommen."
Außerdem findet er es cute, dass die Deutschen ihre Glühlampen Birnen (pear) nennen. :)
that last bit made me burst out in laughter!
Very interesting points and well made. I would agree. Give me the Dusseldorf Altstadt any busy night to UK city centre or even Temple Bar in my Irish home city of Dublin.Much more fun and I feel a lot safer. However I have seen a growing sense of rowdiness creeping into the Altstadt over the last 30 years or so Or maybe I am just getting older :)
Well even though I can't look back on that many years living on this planet, it's still pretty safe to say something like that about the Altstadt. Some parts of the younger generation seem to have a similar relation to alcohol as some (or even a lot of) grown-up Brits. I think many older people from Düsseldorf dislike that attitude and find it antisocial to go out to the Altstadt to sit down somewhere with a beer bottle.
+InTerAct I think if young Germans drink too much, quite often it's rather done by mistake. At least I don't know anyone who says "having a great evening and a lot of fun and relaxation is boring, I want to fuck it up and drink as much as I can". Because if you get really really drunk, you come to the point where you become sentimental, angry or insanely awkward, speak out secrets, talk nonsence do some bullshit things and then suddenly feel really sick for an hour, finally puke like liters, fall asleep on the floor and when you wake up, you can't remember anything and realize everyone had a great night except you and everyone laughs about you while you feel like someone is constantly hitting your head with a massive hammer. And if you really fucked it up, you recieve a letter from a lawyer and a bill from the fire department. I can't imagine anyone really wanting that. Often it's rather like "had enough beer let's try some wodka - fuck where am I".
John Kramer
That's true, I'm still thankful for all the others that know their limits good enough to at least not puke on the floor.
Anyway it's still pretty dumb and probably not worth it to drink as much that you feel nauseous the next day.
I expected "bread" to be on the list.
it's really nice to hear something good about my home.
Regarding Nr.5 oh well... this mostly applies to pre-afternoon/midnight times. During the summer and on weekends, any location where the mininmum of at least 1 bar/club is present, you'll find a multitude of persons o so eager to either try to force more liquor down their throats or on the other hand, perfom some harsh emergeny evacuations of their interim beer storage tanks.
If i had to guess, a better view of difference would be to check, where the piss and vomit leftovers are found. On the pavement or in the front yard. :)
The real-Markt here does have self-service checkout. Much to my surprise...
Hated the two taps system in England. It's either freezing cold or scalding hot water, there is no in-between!
#2 Isn't a good thing in my books, I love self-service tills. No one uses them so there is never a queue, you can scan and bag your items at your own leisure, you don't have to make small talk, you can chuck all your loose change in them. The rest I agree with.
There are self-service tills nowadays. I've been using them frequently because it's often more efficient than to interact with a cashier.
@@Fragenzeichenplatte the supermarket chain "real" had self-service checkouts, but unfortunately real is no longer on the market. “Kaufland” has abolished the self-checkout in my shop. The queues at the cash registers are longer now.
@@galdavonalgerri2101 Edeka and Globus here have fully automated checkouts, you can scan your items directly in the store and just go to the checkout and pay - without needing to pull out all your stuff again. That's so convinient as you can put all groceries into bags already in the store. And actually, at least half of the customers use that here.
@@kruemelfelix That's also how they do it in the Netherlands. I hope this system will prevail here as well.
Number 5 was the best, I could almost visualize the scenes you described.
The food is generally way better in Germany. I remember living in London and I even managed to buy pasta which tasted bad! Now I live in Australia, still very much a British colony, and the food is just terrible. I am so looking forward to visiting Germany this Christmas to get some decent food! The Brits and Aussies really don t know what bread is.
Gulliver the Gullible
Really I dont know when you were in London or where you shopped but your comment is totally untrue. There are shops that cater for every nationality. Italian delicatessents which make their own pasta along with all their other specialities and butchers that sell all kinds of meat poultry and game and fish not just 90% pork. I was in Munich and went to the food market very nice but only 2 choices of what you call hard cheese and all the butchers I went In did not have the variety of meat and game I had In London.
In London we had loads of choices and also cheese from Italy Germany Switzerland Holland, France etc. The choice of quality food in Waitrose and Marks and Spencers never mind Harrods and Selfridges and John Lewis plus our African, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Bengali, Pakistani, Spanish, French, Swiss, Swedish, Polish, Caribbean, Greek, Turkish etc shops and restaurants which served food from many countries in the world.
I have now lived in Germany for 3 years and have yet to see the choices I had when I lived in London and I have been to many cities here. Did you go to the Beigel bakery in Brick lane? Or for the huge variety of bread they have in Harrods and John Lewis's food department or Waitrose where they sell German bread. Outside of London in the country they have Farm shops some that sell a variety of organic breads and a range of produce produced in the county where their shop is. So you could get butter from Cornwall, Somerset, Devon, etc and the same with cheeses. Tracklements a wonderful selection of pickles and jams made in Wiltshire, clotted cream from Devon and Cornwall.
Your statement applies to the old days. My brother who came to Germany in 1979 and never left was gobsmacked when I took him round to show him all I have described in our visits to the UK. He spent ages in the big quality Supermarkets and lingered in the butchers and the delicatessents. I see here it's mostly Aldi Lidl and Netto. I go to Edeka and if I want a Guinea Fowl or a whole Duck the butcher has to order it because it's nearly all pork with a little bit of chicken and a tiny bit of lamb so you have to go to a Farm that has a shop that does Lamb and Beef or to the market where the Farmer sells their produce.
The food is bad in Australia? Ha! You're joking right?
3 years later, #2 is obsolete. Many supermarkets have those self-checkout lines now, to reduce costs (because it only needs one employee to supervise 4 checkout registers). I hate those things and only use them when I am in a hurry and the line at the self-checkout is shorter than on a normal register.
I only know self-checkout lines from Ikea.
@@Astrofrank Where do you live? I am in Northern Germany (Niedersachsen, to be exact) and there are a few supermarkets with self-checkout lines.
@@wohlhabendermanager Bavaria, Landkreis Ebersberg. Maybe the supermarkets are too small here so the number of custumers is not sufficient. The supermarket in Erding also had no self-checkout line, AFAIR. Perhaps there is one in the "Riem Arcaden" mall in Munich or in my home region of South-Westphalia, but I visit both only rarely.
As an American who has lived in Germany and currently lives in Britain - SPOT ON!
don't know how I landed here, but I really enjoyed your video, greetings from Rhode Island, usa
I can totally agree on the alcohol consumption thing.
I'm in Glasgow for 10 weeks now ( ok, Scotland, not England, ...) and I see totally drunk people all the time and way earlier than in germany. Of course this has sth. to do with the closing hours of pubs, but i don't think this would change a thing.
A lot of them drink with the pure purpose of getting smashed, instead of having a good time. It's crazy and it really surprised me.
This gave me more information about the UK than about Germany. Then again, I am German. XD
When I was young, a British friend visited Hamburg for the first time. Normal for us at the weekend was to prepare for the night of celebration with a few beers and to party hard from midnight in clubs and bars until sunrise. He drank every beer in the evening quickly and on ex. At around 11 p.m. the good guy was so drunk that the news that the partying was just starting hit him very hard :-))
I forgot to ask you about the beers. I could hardly stomach the British beers while I was in London. Must be due to Lucas refrigerators (I know it's old long-running British joke coming from the 1970s).
On my return flight to Munich, Lufthansa had misfortune of running out of German beers (probably due to Germans drinking all of free German beers prior to landing in London). I was understandably grouchy. After alighting in Munich, I made a mad dash to the restaurant in the aeroport for a half Maß of cold German beer before continuing home.
As a German having grown up in Britain there are five things I sorely miss:
1. A good cup of tea. German tea just doesn't cut it. Thankfully many Chinese shops now carry Tetley's and PG Tips.
2. Crisps. It is astounding to see how many different crisps' flavours there are in Britain and how few there are here in Germany. Prawn cocktail, smoky bacon, Monster Munch! (I loved those).
3. Good sandwiches: if you've ever had a freshly made bacon and egg sandwich with the yolk oozing all over the soft squishy bread (and your fingers), then you know how good they are. And you could get them on almost every street corner.
4. Proper queueing: A sad fact: Germans can't queue. If there are 4 registers in a shop, they form one huge line instead of four short ones. I do not understand why they do it, it really is quite mistifying.
5. Pies: I love pies, not matter if they are sweet or savoury. Getting a delicious Cottage or Apple Pie here is next to impossible if you don't make them yourself.
Sad Eva
4. Actually that's because we have 10 registers but only 2 are open. The others are for decoration only.
Sad Eva
You can get pies and all foods including many varieties of teabags from the britishcornershop and marks and spencers tea and many varieties of crisps from the britsuperstore.
I'm surprised at you no. 4. Actually it's the other way round. If there are 4 counters, Germans will form 4 queues (and sometimes calling it a queue is an exaggeration). That's stupid and unfair because it's a matter of luck if your queue is fast or slow. And if one counter closes all queues get rearranged, sometimes the people who arrived last will end up first or vice versa. Whereas in Britan there is always one queue, and whoever is first in line will go to the next open counter. That is the most rational system, and Britain does that better. [The only place in Germany who do this is Deutsche Post]
No 1.: Probably true in general, but don't forget there is one region in Germany with their own tea culture: Ostfriesland
I know that there is that thing called "binge drinking" but I also know that Britain has as long long culture of pubs, most similar to German Kneipenkultur. I assume that not every person who drinks beer, wine or anything else does is just to get drunk but rather to enjoy the feeling of drinking?
Self-service-checkouts are introduced in supermarkets in Germany currently.
Viel Spaß! ;D
The separate tabs thing really confused me when I was in Britain. Why would anybody still want to have it like that? I didn't even know how to wash my hands and face.
If it were only for the separate tabs. Every shower has it's own system and gadget to activate the hot water. Pull the string here, press the knob there, turn the dial in that direction. You need a doctors degree to shower in the UK.
IntyMichael You're right, I was faced with that, too. It was really confusing.
It was neccessary long ago when the hot water came from cisterns and wasn't neccessarly safe to drink, while the cold water, directly from the main, was.
Well, we do have Self-Checkout e.g. in IKEA but there are always more or only normal checkouts
Self-service checkouts are becoming a thing in Germany, though! But they're usually an addition to the old-school staffed ones, not a replacement.
ich war bisher zweimal in england (bristol und edinburgh). das was mir am meisten in erinnerung bleiben wird, sind die massenhaften alkoholleichen zu bestimmten zeiten.
Aber Edinburgh ist in Schottland. Nicht England.
@@martinwilliams9776 - den Fehler habe ich dort mit 16 mal gemacht, und wurde sofort berichtigt. Nicht unfreundlich, aber doch so dass ich es nie wieder vergessen habe ;)
@@steve1978ger ok thanks for that.Have a nice day.Oder auf Deutsch:schöne Tag noch👍
I'll never understand why British water faucets separate hot and cold water up to the front. I mean, it's really hard to manufacture this.
Until a few decades ago, water for washing and cleaning was stored in a tank in the loft: that way, even if the water supply was interrupted, you still had a reserve. But the tank could easily become contaminated, so it was unsafe to drink without boiling it. Drinking water was drawn straight from the main water supply. It was necessary to keep cold (drinking) water completely separate from water from the tank to avoid any chance of contamination, hence the separate faucets.
Modern houses no longer have these water tanks, but old habits die hard.
Hey thanks. I didn't know how it came to pass. But what came somewhat as a surprise to me, last time I visited the UK was that even when there is only one faucet, it is internally separated up to the front.
Old habits die hard. That is why German toilets even in new houses often have the light switches on the outside - and are always good for pranks.
Andreas Martin
That's so annoying. Luckily in our house we have the switch inside. 😂
Most modern British taps (faucets) are mixer types. I much prefer separate hot and cold taps.
if germans are supposed to be better drivers, well then britain must seriously be hell
The thing is, you're always expecting you're own country to be the worst in anything because you're used to it.
Deutsche Bahn aaalways too late ;)
I drove in Scotland and it was not bad. I drove through France and I like it to, but here in Germany they all try to drive as fast as possible. and this makes it not smooth.
Yes it works great.
German driving is not anymore on the level as it once was, but compared to most other countries driving in Germany is still better. UK is not hell, there is much much worse than UK driving. Say China. Or Australian drivers are actually pretty good driving the 10 minutes to the pub or grocery store, but not a few fail once they reach a city.
I consider German driving better because of two reasons:
1. The driving education is taken more seriously. The UK driving tests sound similar on paper but in practice are easier to pass than the German ones.
2. No blanket speed limit. You can experience yourself how the car and you react in certain situations. It is easier possible to learn how it feels to brake hard from high speed for example, or if you have to turn sharply, etc. You are more alert bcs speeds and flow in traffic changes. Over years people simply get a better level of practice and newcomers have get along and learn similar skills.
I agree that German drivers aren't particularly good drivers. I would rank European drivers as follows from worst to best:
#6 Poland
#5 Germany/Italy - these two are on par for me. In both countries you will have cars coming flying at you from every which directions, trying to overtake you, trying to cut in front of you, going over the speed limit, tailgating you, parking in the middle of the road to go shopping. Germany's infrastructure is worse, on a side note, due to the lack of the general speed limits on motorways/autobahnen, the outdated traffic guidance and horrible, horrible bicycle infrastructure.
#4 Netherlands
#3 France - traffic is very dynamic, but road users are very considerate to each other. no one minds bumps and scratches on their cars. motorways/autoroutes are well maintained for the most part. countryside roads can be unsafe at nighttime.
#2 Switzerland - pleasant, modern roads, reasonable speed limits, reasonable drivers, driving is made unattractive by low number of parking spaces with high, high fees... resulting in less congestion
#1 Denmark/Sweden - great infrastructure for cars, bicycles and pedestrians. skilled, friendly and composed drivers.
No mention of public transport? I'm surprised!
Hi, Andrew. Ich war Anfang August in London (Ich habe dir auch eine Karte geschickt...) und kann deine Ausführungen bezügllich Autofahren und Alkohol bestätigen. Einen Abend habe ich eine Runde durch ein Kneipenviertel gedreht und hab mir nur noch an den Kopf gefasst, wieviele Schnapsleichen unterwegs waren. Und der Straßenverkehr? Naja, reden wir nicht drüber... -)
Für mich wärs schon ne krasse Umgewöhnung, auf einmal links fahren zu müssen. ^^
Agree on all that except the self-service checkout tills. There were a lot of kinks when they first came in in the States but that's been pretty much ironed out and it's much more convenient and faster. I can't imagine the Brits are worse drivers than Americans.
Well half of the points you already told in the "5 thing I would (not) miss, if I had to leave Germany" video. (Which is great by the way. It´s one of my all-time favourites)
I never feel threatened when driving in Germany. You have the feeling that everybody is concentrating on driving and not gadgets (as in Holland), and not keeping one eye on the hard shoulder for speed cameras (as in Holland).
Of course you get into car accidents, if you drive in England. They all drie on the wrong side :-)
3. is great :-D
4. Margaret Thatcher invented your ice cream. I'm not kidding!
Germans don't drive better. They live in the constant fear of dents and scratches on their beloved cars. So they drive more carefully in order to prevent them.
(If you'd ever seen the war dance they start, when they notice a microscopic scratch on their Volkswagen, you'd know what I mean.)
Few self service check outs exists. Ikea has some, I found it in Real self service departement stores too.
That one touristic location I know in Denmark is just ridicolously good, I miss it a bit in my beloved Germany
One question concerning British houses: I recently got a book "Terrible Estate Agent Photos" as a birthday present full with - well - terrible estate agent photos in it. Of course, the aim of this book is to show the far side of estate adverts, but there are five photos of a toilet bowl in a kitchen (different kitchens of course!) and one photo of a toilet bowl in a bedroom. Might this be a British thing?
Well, I have seen things like that here in Germany too in my time in technical customer service.
Mostly in lower class / shipyard worker's City houses from around 1850...1920.
A fellow college student of me had such a flat in a house from 1904:
The toilet was shared with the entire floor (3 parties I think) and had two doors.
The shower was retrofitted into the kitchen and had those old dark green tiles that never look clean (to me, at least.).
Heating was one (for 3 rooms) brown coal stove.
I didn't even know that was possible in post 2000 Germany. But he was happy. ~140€ or so rent for 45m² (modern flats that size starting from 5-600€ in that city)
(Years later, that very house made it into the news for housing ~15 or so illegal immigrants per flat for horrendous high rent. ^^)
I guess some time ago when one-toilet-per-party (or inside toilets for those having an outhouse in the past ) became the norm, the owners just installed the toilets wherever was space because the houses weren't built with that in mind.
regarding toilets: having the wastewater pipes outside of the house is a british thing. ive seen it in many places, and it really does look ugly
I think it's not done in Germany and other parts of the world because the pipes might freeze in winter.
The second fact isn't true there are self service check outs. For example in some kauflands or rossmann
You certainly have a distorted view of the two countries. But you are entitled to your view!
It's so true about the ice cream! 😁
I'm not a fan of Britain but most of this felt like he lived in Britain in the 80-90s and is comparing it to modern Germany and it turns out the Germany has a higher percentage of road deaths then the UK.
First of all, the number of road deaths is somewhat difficult to come by because of Germany being in the middle of Europe. A lot of accidents happen because of tired truck drivers that are mostly not German. And even if it wasn't for trucks, there are a lot of foreigners on German roads that don't really get how it works. It's possible that those things don't matter at all in those statistics, but we just don't know. So it's hard to make an assessment given the data you most likely considered. If you think it holds, please send me a link because that would be interesting. Britain has one of the lowest road deaths in the world, I can't help but wonder if it's because of the island situation. Driving in a foreign country is always a challenge and from my experience, people get into a lot more accidents there than at home.
Anyways, you really can't say save driving = good driving. It's more that good driving = save driving + x. Don't need to explain that x, but from his description, that's what he meant.
I'm not talking about the number of road deaths. I'm talking about my subjective feelings in traffic.
It's hard to have an accident at 60kph, being monitored by average speed cameras. Got a word for you: Autobahn-Tourism. Foreign drivers, especially those who come to push their car to the limit on the Autobahn, have frequently caused accidents. A great source for accidents are also long distance lorry drivers and reckless cyclists.
Britain is not - like Germany - Europe's transit country no 1! I guess there is lot more foreign traffic on the autobahns than on the british motorways!
Germany have more people than the uk, also a important fact
Cheering to a drunken fight has more to do with not having restraints rather than alcohol poisoning. The last time I got massively drunk, I wanted to puke and disappear from existence rather than move my body at all.
0:18 i live in constance near the boarder to switzerland and we always make fun about swiss people often not being able to drive.
I need a longer list.
In Germany quality of life can be quite good as long as you don't have anything to do with bureaucracy and that includes needing to see a doctor for a nasty cold.
Well the self service checkout is on the march in germany as well now.
Du hast die Fenster vergessen, die sind in gb eine Katastrophe.
äh sorry. Aber bei Real und Decathlon gibt es auch self Service Stationen, zusätzlich. Ich kenne das so auch aus Neuseeland . Wenn es beides gibt finde ich es in Ordnung
Und wir hier in Rheinberg waren die Versuchskaninchen > de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_(Handelskette)#Extra_Future_Store :-(
Wie gut das es Extra nicht mehr gibt :-)
nie gesehen
Bei Real und Ikea gibt es die Selfservice-Stationen nach wie vor. Und ja, sie sind ineffizient.
die "Extra"s sind nun "Rewe"s ):
Ich mochte die Selbstbedienungskassen (bes. wenn man nur wenig hat) in - nicht ganz England - Nordirland
... und Rewe hat gleich umgebaut :-)))
btw: im FutureStore gab es Scanner am Einkaufswagen und fast ausschließlich Bezahlautomaten!
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Don't diss hot and cold taps. What if you want a nice, cold drink of water? With a mixertap you have to run it for about thirty years first. I'm sure separate taps save water.
I did experience having to let the tap run for eternity before it gets cold in Germany but I thought it was something deeper in the plumbing system
From my experience, the best german ice cream is usually made by italians. I know some pretty damn great ice cream parlors around. You really taste the difference between a mass produced cheap product and something that has been carefully made by experienced hands.
I'm not really a fan of american ice cream, like Ben & Jerry's? With cookie dough and chocolate in it? That stuff is disgustingly sweet. Unless it's little of pieces of chocolate in my stratiatella, I prefer to not cew on big chunks of god-knwos-what in my ice cream.
Italian ice cream is shockingly good. I personally think we germans are pretty close, though. Not as good, but close.
The other side of the fence is always greener! I know Germans who desert Germany for Britain for similar reasons!
1. Having seen some dashcam footage from the autobahn I'm not entirely sure that's true. It seemed to me like the drivers of German cars drove like...drivers of German cars. In cities they did seem very reactive to mistakes though.
2. There are self-service checkouts in Germany, at least now. But yes, they are annoying
3. I'm pretty sure modern British building code requires two separate pipes (hot/cold) but I've yet to see a *new build* without a unified faucet. I have seen many, many older houses with separate taps though; it's a holdover from when only cold water was available.
That said these days most people get unified faucets when remodeling unless the pipe work is difficult to change or they want an old-style Victorian bath.
4. Wow, you must have either been in really old houses or ones with plumping issues. Moden houses aren't like that and ones which were usually either have the cold water tank (if fitted) fixed or modified or a pump for the shower / power shower.
5. I like icecream and to be honest the best is made at home. That said Cornish is usually very nice although frozen milk with a little cream (i.e. cheap ice cream) is not. And I include most commercial formulations of Italian Gelato in that group.
6. Alcohol poisoning isn't a good night out for most people here either, unless you live in the Northeast (suposedy twinned with Dresden) or Scotland. Or maybe come from an area where there are lots of young people partying.
The self-check-outs are the least German part of British Aldi, because they only take cards.
Although I'm a Hungarian living in Britain I can relate :D
Self-service checkouts bit is false. Plenty around in supermarkets in NRW.
Firstly, why is NRW third world?
Secondly, what does supermarket checkouts have to do with something being third world?
Oh my god, he said that Germans are good drivers - i guess some Germans got an orgasm when hearing that. :P
Germans and their cars. A love story...
By the way: I heard actually often that British drinking habits are terrible. Is it really that bad?
I'm aware the question is 4 years old, but I took my time to gather all the evidence required. Now I can answer it: Yes. Yes it is.
Probably worse in Australia, unfortunately 😔
#2 is not true any more. There is self-service checkout at real and Kaufland for example.
When it comes to drinking: Actually we have those dipshits too. Maybe they don't cross your path... :D
Ever since I had to live in Ireland in 2004 for a short while I have hated the separate water tabs. Born in Germany in 1955, I actually had never come across this outdated technology on the continent before, not in France, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, nowhere.
UK = 64.596 mio people, Germany = 82,175 mio people. With more people and being the transit country number 1 in central Europe, of course Germany has a higher death rate. In spite of the high speeds I, too, feel safer on German roads than everywhere else because Germans normally expect higher speeds and can deal with it.
As a Brit, I have always hated ice cream cones. Stale cardboard is surprisingly accurate.
Sorry, we do have self-service checkouts here in Germany. IKEA has them just to annoy the customers endlessly and relentessly. Ditto for Edeka supermarket somewhere in Munich. They're as tempermental as the hungry toddlers...
I feel the same when driving in the United States, especially Texas and California. My American friends who have never been to Germany cannot imagine us driving at 100-plus miles per hour. No matter how much explaining about the difference between German and American driving laws, etiquettes, cultures, etc...
The Real supermarket in my area tried to establish the self-service checkouts. But they didn't succeeded.
We have it particular shops in Germany. But it is not standard in EVERY shop as it is nowadays in the UK
Yes, some stores have them (I remember "Globus", for example), and I *really* like that they exist.
You just have to be smart about it.
Alcohol that requires an age check? "Wobbly" things that are hard to scan? Buying special offers and reduced price items? Go to a cashier.
Only pre-packaged goods? Not *that* many items? Self-checkout might be faster.
Oh, and the "mute" button is the first thing i push, always.
What's up with hot water tap and cold water tap? I'm lost.
But, what about the weather??
0:51 That's basically my job lol.
Most of these are probably very subjective and also depend on where in Germany you are, but the "drinking to have a good time" part I think is mostly true (except for some teenagers). Germans are used to drinking recreationally instead of making it a contest. Drinking to relax, not to pass out. And having a beer or two with your meal is considered normal.
As a disabled person, no self-checkouts is def not smth i consider a better thing. I rly dont want to deal with other ppl for a lot of reasons, but mostly cuz im gonna be slower and im gonna feel like im a burden for holdin up the line and all the rest esp given i cant hear a word anyone is sayin without them repeatin it multiple times.
I much prefer havin like a 10% chance of things goin wrong and needin to talk to someone to fix it, instd of a 100% chance of havin to talk to someone and be rly close to other ppl the whole time.
Self checkouts are **NOT** a bad thing, just like self-selection of groceries wasnt a bad thing and yet ppl got up in arms about how it wud mean the loss of jobs for folk who prev wud get a list of groceries from a person and then find the groceries at some pt durin the day and bag them so the person can come pick them up or pay more for delivery... The diff is the old system then was the more disabled friendly system, so ofc that had to be scrapped for a more abled friendly system by insistin folk needed to be able to individually pick out which groceries they get so they nvr get an inferior product. And only in recent decades have we seen a resurgence of such grocery orderin systems with pickup and often even delivery bein available most everywhere by now.
The system may not yet be perfect, but ill take an imperfect system over a system that is actively harmful and more energy intensive for disabled ppl
Just bcuz its better for you doesnt mean its better for everyone.
Even the autobahn case is smth where many disabled ppl wud nvr feel safe drivin on such a road no matter how safe everyone is bein just bcuz we dont have the same reaction times as yall. I personally dont drive at all bcuz i dont trust my drivin ability to be consistently adequate the whole time im drivin; given my sensory processing disorder which can cause sensory overload and my dyspraxia which lessens my fine motor control, which means i oft will overcorrect or undercorrect. And thats just the tip of an iceberg of reasons why id nvr feel safe drivin, let alone drivin on a road without a spd limit where im expected to be drivin at spds which i wud not feel safe drivin at given id nvr feel safe drivin at highway spds even. And no one wants someone goin 50 kph on the autobahn...
Personally, I am not sure about #1, but the other 4 make sense ...
And now, for my shortest video yet...
Is German ice cream as good as Italian gelato?
If you're going to use the Italian word for ice cream, why not use the German as well?
In my (limited) experience gelato is generally a tad sweeter than Eiscreme. Both is good tho,..
never tasted british ice cream...
No its not. Like its very good but the true italian ice cream cant be reached.
uztre6789
I don't know the word for it, sorry. I just know the Italian word gelato, and that it's different from regular ice cream here in America. But Fenrir above has used Eiscreme. Danke.
I'd say it very much depends on how good the place is where you get your ice cream. I had average and excellent ice cream in either country. I'd say if you go to a special ice cream parlor you will usually have a pretty good Eiskreme / Gelato... And the whole "Eisdiele" (German for ice cream parlor) thing in Germany really took off with the huge waves of Italian immigration to Germany in the 50s and 60s, so the kind of ice cream you'll find is pretty similar. Some differences in the available flavors I guess, but the way they are made and the quality standards are very very similar or even identical.
Regarding Drinking: Seems like you have not seen the seedier parts of Germany yet. What you describe does happen in Germany all the time as well. Idiots can be found everywhere.
Sure, but it is a question of quantity. And here, different from football, England wins, even without a "penalty drink out."
How do you know? Do you have any statistics on this? I grew up in Siegen, NRW, but now I live in Australia,, essentially a British colony still. In both places I have seen an awful amount of stupidly drunk people getting into fights and shit like this. I do get it that misbehaving while drunk is part of British culture, but I am not so sure that Germans are generally better behaved when drinking. Statistics tell us that Germans consume more alcohol.
You forgot bakeries!
Hi, as a German, I think your are wrong. Coming back to Germany from the UK I had a real problem on the supermarkt counter. I is NOT possible to speak to anybody, you have to be quick. Very quick.
And the ice cream, I gess you mean an Italian ice cream and not a German ;)
What are you on about? If it's sold in Germany, it's German ice cream. Also, if it's a self-checkout machine, who are you talking to then?
Why would you want to talk to anybody in a supermarket?
I say 3 things there: Hello; card please; have a nice day! In that order and usually within a minute. Plenty of talking, I think. ;-)
Well but thats because the cashiers in German supermarkets seem to want to win a speed competition or something like that... They only take 3 seconds to scan your 100 € groceries.
Somer are very quick, especially in discounters like Aldi. Once I was the only customer, but the cashier still scanned so quickly that I ended up with a big pile one the counter. When she ran out of room, she just pushed my stuff from the counter into my basket witout even looking. ^^ It's usually not as bad in an Edeka for example, at least in my experience.
uztre6789 You don't get it. Italians moved to Germany in the early 20th century. There we're already gelato's here, but Italians popularized it and Italian gelato's are good :)
Allow me to counter with things Germans don't understand (coming from a 2nd-gen Portuguese from the Netherland):
1. Beds: why the chasm in double beds? why two douvets? Why these huge flat things they mistake for pillows?
2. Crisps: and no, those horrible peanut things or salt sticks don't count
3. Money: it's 2018. There are debit cards. Often I can use those in Germany. But more often, not.
4. Tea. Tea shouldn't be black.
separate bed sheets are better. wait after you're married for more than 20 years. salty crisps together with a beer. try it and you will see whether you can stop eating them. cash is king. yes, you're right. tea in friesland or northern germany isn't black for most of the time. try it, it's close to your country. anda ver as coisas boas do teu vizinho
Some of these are very apposite (and I completely agree about self-service checkouts) but if your shower runs hot when someone flushes the toilet then you're not living in the UK, you're living in an American comedy from the 1950s.
cool video
The reason why ice cream tastes better outside of Britain is because British ice cream, unless it has the word Dairy in its name, is not legally obligated to contain any milk. Instead it can contain bleached, deodorised, hydrogenated vegetable oil. So, ice cream van ice cream and soft scoop can legally not contain any milk at all
Fun fact of the day
Also, people in Germany speak much better German than people in England.
subtile please
Can confirm. It’s all true.
Where is the banter?
Your not a real Brit.
Sure, mate.
lol
You might want to wait a while before going home again! LOL
I have only ever holidayed in Germany, I agree with everything Andrew says.
Here are the things I think the British do better.
1 Queues - Germans cannot queue, seriously at the bus/tram stop it's all elbows and shoving, no order at all.
2 Tea - I have only ever been given a decent cup of tea by an Englishman in Germany. He has his tea sent in.
3 Driving on the correct side of the road. I've clocked up about 3500km driving about Germany, Austria and France too and i don't find making the switch too much trouble even in a right hand drive car but really, driving on the left is much safer as most people are right hand and right eye dominant, this is borne out by the countries which have switched such as Sweden who switched the wrong way.
4 Puddings. Really a country which is famous for its patisserie can't do puddings. What are you people doing?
5 Plug sockets. German sockets have no switch which means they're always live, and have bit's of metal sticking out. I know the contacts connected to the earth and there is no way they could become live...unless the connection to earth was broken, the same goes to the French and the Belgians with their scary earth pin sticking out of the socket.
British night out sounds fun tbh
In most bars and clubs the music is too loud late at night, but before you get to that point (or if you stay in a quiet pub) you can have some really interesting conversations which you wouldn't have realistically been able to have otherwise. I'd say it's something worth trying once or twice, as long as you're a responsible drunk (i.e. you don't end up passing out in the middle of nowhere because you stay >just< sober enough to get home), but if you do it too often it's expensive and wrecks your liver.
Elfmeterschießen nach 90 bzw. 120 Spielminuten!
tastes like plastic?
In manchen deutschen Großstädten, z.B. in Köln, gibt es mittlerweile leider auch Selbstbedienungskassen.
muss schrecklich sein :(
Ich kenne das nur vom Ikea in Fürth.
Dazu braucht es keine Großstadt um so ein blödes Ding aufzustellen :D
~80k Einwohner nebenan reichen EDEKA um das auszuprobieren.
EDEKA an Einsteinstraße in München hat diesen Kassen. Sage und schreibe problematisch...
+InTeCredo Supergeil! ;D
Hoffen wir mal, dass so eine scheisse nicht in den Osten kommt ;D
Here's a couple points against Deutschland:
1. If you're not at home or a friend's place, expect to pay money every time you want to take a piss.
2. At the place I lived in Germany if someone turned on a tap, you'd still get either scalded or frozen if you were taking a shower.
I must remark on how much I hate the first point, sure you can argue that you contribute to operation of the plumbing, but really that's bullshit and if the business is profitable, e.g. most highway side petrol stations, they really should provide a free place to take a dump, unless they want it on the side of their building. It just feels rude, and it's really just rent seeking, like how people try to privatise the water supply.
They see something that *everyone* needs to do, and can do for free, then they find a way to make people pay to do it. It's a brilliant scam that benefits no one but the perpetrators.
Good video anyway.
I like all your videos sir, however, I disagree with your last point regarding alcohol. I am sorry but I see mote drunk people in Germany as compare to UK. I just saved a young man last week when he just stepped on to the road since he had lost control and a car was about to hit him. I hardly managed to pull him back to the footpath.
Maybe a regional thing? Where are you?