9 things I wish I knew before moving to Germany

thinking of moving to Germany I'd rather to have a better quality of life or unlimited access to pretzels and beer then here I present to you things I wish I knew before finding the perfect long-term apartment for reasonable price if you don't speak German can be really tricky nonetheless if you're looking for the cheapest price AKA unfurnished Apartments beware that they are empty it is a common practice to clear the place out as much as possible no curtains nor shelves no light fittings nor toilet seats and most importantly no kitchen which is nice if you

want to start the whole apartment from scratch and not so nice if you don't want to spend money installing a whole new kitchen and as mentioned many times before if you're looking for second-hand furniture or a cat eBay Kleiner tiger is your new best friend if you're looking for a job in Germany there are three types of employment full-time part-time and mini job a full-time job in Germany is between 36 to 40 hours a week usually seven to eight hours a day with a 30 minute lunch break and it is illegal to work more than

10 hours a day a part-time job in Germany involves less than 30 hours a week and finally a mini job is a 10 hour work week where you can earn no more than 520 Euros a month compared to the other two options at the mini job you get your money tax-free however you are not provided the Universal Health Care that comes with paying taxes moreover working minimum wage in Germany can be as unorganized and sketchy as it is in other countries so far I do not have good experiences starting from under the table pay not

having health insurance when I thought I did employees working more than 10 hours multiple days in a row and just not getting paid for the whole month of work so my advice make sure to have a signed contract by you and your employer and keep track of your working hours the same way Sundays are a rest day and they take it pretty seriously so retail stores and most bakeries will be closed this is due to the store closing law which forbids stores opening on Sundays although this partially takes religion into account as the day honors

God it is also an opportunity to give the workers a break each week except if you work in a restaurant Cafe or a gas station moreover it is generally frowned upon to do any noisy housework on Sunday this includes mowing your lawn or otherwise you'll get a loud angry knock at the door or a quiet little fine in the mail so therefore Saturdays are full of people doing their weekly shopping however not all Sundays are the same some Sundays are open a rare and unusual sight to see shops working on Sunday making you think twice

if it is actually Sunday and finally quiet hours are also important to respect those are somewhere between 8 pm and 7 am from Monday to Saturday and basically all day on Sunday the quality of drinking water in Germany is good so it is safe to drink tap water other than tap water Germany is a big fan of sparkling water spoodle so much so they mix it with fruit juices and call it Shola or with ciders and wine and say it tastes good plus they have a not so sparkling sparkling water if you're just starting off

your sparkling water Journey love it or hate it we produce a lot of trash and it all needs to go somewhere and Germany is a big fan of recycling the German recycling system uses different bins classified according to the color system firstly yellow for plastic and soft Metals if like me you don't have yellow bins you have to use these plastic yellow bags that you can find in the city hall or a pharmacy that you can find around the corner for free then the blue stands for paper you can't just leave your cardboard boxes laying

around they need to be either ripped to shreds or folded and stuffed into the bin green and brown bins that not all houses have are used for organic and Bo waste basically the leftovers you convince yourself you're still gonna eat even though it's been a week so they go in that bin black or gray bins are used for everything else except for Batteries light bulbs and electronics those can be disposed in some drugstores and grocery stores when it comes to Glass like wine bottles oil bottles and small jars those are thrown away in these bigger

containers found somewhere around your neighborhood and they are also separated by color brown white and green glass moreover when you buy a drink in a glass plastic bottle or a can be aware of the front deposit you pay extra for the drink and to confirm it you can find a little emblem on the back this deposit can be reclaimed in most grocery stores and used at the cash register everybody is throwing around this phrase that cash is King and yes I think compared to other countries Germany is still fond of carrying some cash and coins

in their wallet you can still find some places that accept only cash and coins are pretty useful if you're planning to use a public bathroom at some point however slowly but surely paying by card is slowly becoming more and more popular for example at the Christmas Market it wasn't a problem to pay by card plus so much related to the topic but not really Germany is very slowly incorporating self-checkouts in some grocery stores cost of living is reasonable although prices are going up gradually Germany is still one of the most affordable European countries to live

in of course it also depends on where you're planning to move because for example Munich is considered to be one of the most expensive cities in Germany and Berlin is having a housing crisis at the moment so but I did make a whole video about this topic so if you'd like to you can give it a watch and give it a little like while you're at it if you don't have a car or a driver's license Germany has plenty of public transportation to choose from as fun the fastest form of public transportation uban Germany's version

of Metro buses usually link more isolated towns and are a second option when the train stops working Regional trains there are either Regional van which has multiple stops and Regional Express which is faster and have fewer stops although Germans are well known for their punctuality the same could not be set for trains in my experience around 50 of the time the train will be late or delayed especially if it's a long trip in this situation the DB navigator app is very useful if the train has a significant delay looking for alternative routes is key especially

if you have a one-way ticket you're more than allowed to switch routes if the train is not on time and for frequent Travelers I would suggest subscribing to a bond card that will give you train ticket discounts then Germany is ranked among the top 5 bicycle friendly places in Europe some are better than others plus each City town and state have different laws concerning bicycles and the laws are strictly enforced the healthcare system is great the German government offers free health care for all its citizens which is funded through taxation roughly 87 percent of people

in Germany use public health insurance and it covers almost all Medical Treatments the one issue with German Healthcare is that you need to find a doctor and finding a doctor can be difficult if the clinic doesn't accept new patients so be prepared to make more than a few phone calls here it is mandatory for all residents whether employed or unemployed to have some kind of health insurance this especially applies for Freelancers and self-employed people because they need to sort this out themselves otherwise after six months you'll get a letter saying that you need to pay

for the previous month you haven't been insured and it can all add up to quite some amount and that's it for the video [Music] if you're wondering where my previous video went well it got copy straight I was expecting it to get copyrighted but not copy striped so yeah