This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Stephanie Bollmer, a 34-year-old freelance marketer from Sacramento, California about moving to Germany. It's been edited for length and clarity. , teaching English, when I met my now-husband in 2021. He works for the US military, and I'm a freelance marketer who also runs a travel blog. We're both originally from the US.
Our town is mostly older Germans, who don't seem to enjoy chatting about the weather with a beginner-speaker like me. One time, I was at a government office doing some paperwork for my first visa when the man behind the counter remarked that my German should be much better. I had been there for only a month.
While I do feel physically safer in Germany than in the US, which has seen a rise in anti-Asian violence over the past year, I feel distinctly less welcome. At times,Germany is beautiful. When we go for a drive, I look forward to the rolling green countryside in our town. What stings is the price of admission. I earn mainly US income from my freelance marketing gigs, and theFor example, gas is the equivalent of $7 to $9 per gallon in Germany, depending on what kind of car you drive.
In-person shopping takes forever because there aren't big-box stores, and online purchases take up to a week to arrive. Coming from the US and South Korea, where same-day or next-day delivery are more common, this has been an adjustment. And while food doesn't cost too much more, certain products, such as electronics, are considerably more than in the US. Taxes here are extremely high compared to Korea and the US.