If you live outside of Germany, you are in the right place! Here are some tips you could you use before visiting or moving to Germany.
- Recycling. There is whole system for recycling the trash in Germany. There are mainly 5(it can differ place to place-more or less). It consist of blue, yellow, red, black or gray and green. Blue is usually for the paper, black or gray is for normal trash(restmüll), red is for the glass or plasti , green is for the metall. Of course the colors may change so be carefull before recyling.
- Pfand system! Before you go to the cash register you may calculated your total and after you are done you may realize it’s 25 cent more. How?! So in Germany, when you buy a drink in plastic bottle you have to pay 25 cent. However, after you use it you can go any market in your area and take your refund and you can use it in your grocery shopping. This is for to take under control the usage of plastic. Moreover, glass such as beer bottle is 7 cent. You may see glasses around the street bin. German people do that to help homeless people and thus with that way they can recyle and get money out of it.
- (Only if you think to live in Germany!)Anmeldung. This is for the residence permit. It is really important if you are an exchange student (or even regular student). Be careful about renting a place with Anmeldung. With anmeldung, you can pay your taxes. Your tax posts will be delivered to your Anmeldung adress.
- (Only if you think to live in Germany!)Rundfunk as known as broadcasting fee. So apparently if you have any sort of cable to connect Tv or internet (even though you are not using any) you have to pay around 17€ for that. The good news is, if you live in a dorm, let’s say 7 people in one floor, the fee will be diveded to 7.
- If you smile a lot, German people will be thinking you are flirting with them. No yes seriously. If you are curious about that topic you can search for Walmart and why it was unsuccessful in Germany. The cultural difference is inevitable.
- Don’t ever ever ever ever forgt to validate your train ticket! When you buy a train ticket, there will be a possible sign that says ‘validate your ticket’. Sometimes it is at the end of the ticket, sometimes it cannot be readable but if you get a day ticket don’t forget to validate it right next to the ticket machine. Or you have to pay money penalty for that. In addition to that, you can use your ticket for S-bahn…
