Living in Germany vs living in India

I was born, raised, schooled, even married in India. I had my own family and brought up my kids in India. But my husband then decided to change his job and move all the way to Germany. I have been living in Germany for over 8 years now. And I am now here to share my experiences and impressions which I had over the past 8 years. As the list goes on and on I hope some of you living abroad may relate to my experiences and some of you may find some new things in my blog.

The first thing that I would like to mention about living in Germany is that we get asked about our salary a lot by the people in India. The impressions of the Indian people are that we earn a lot of money in Germany and are pretty rich people. But the fact is not the same. When we tell our salary to the people in India, people ask us what do you do with so much of money? Or otherwise they ask if we have saved a lot of money living abroad. But the fact is that even though we earn a salary which is more than the salary we had earned in India, a big amount of the salary gets spent in the living costs. The rents in Germany are too high if we compare them to the rents in India. Most of our salary goes away in paying the rent. Another big amount is spent on food, entertainment and transportation. And if we do all the math, we neither save a lot of money nor are we earning so much that we may be called rich people.

The next thing that I feel is very different between India and Germany are the neighbors. Being a house wife I am mostly at home. And to pass my time at home I used to chit chat with my neighbors in India. But the Germany the things are so drastically different that in the past years I haven't even discovered who is my neighbor, let alone talking to them. In Germany people live so anonymously that we don't even get to know our neighbors. In India meeting and greeting neighbors is a daily routine. But in Germany that may a rare opportunity. The neighbors in Germany are also very quiet when compared to neighbors in India, who might get sometimes noisy.

Talking about quietness, the streets and the traffic in Germany is not as noisy as in India. In Germany everyone follows the traffic rules when driving on the roads or as a pedestrian. The cars drive in the lanes and maintain their lanes instead of changing the lanes to overtake. If the car is moving slow then the following cars also need to move at the same speed. And everyone in Germany sticks to the speed limits. The speed limits in city centers can drop to as low as 30 km/h and all cars do stick to the speed limits. There are no exceptions. India on the other hand is just the opposite of this when it comes to traffic and driving. The Indian drivers blow horns incessantly, which is very rare to find in Germany. Germans like to stick to their rules. In Germany there is a rule that wherever there are zebra crossings on the roads, the pedestrians have the priority and they have the right to walk across the crossing and all the cars on the street have to wait for the pedestrian to cross. In India even if there are zebra crossing, nobody pays attention to them.

Another thing about Germany that is worthwhile praising is the punctuality of the people, trains and buses. If it is about appointments, the people are punctual to their time. Even the buses and the trains run sharply on time, which means for somebody who just came to Germany from India has a high probability to miss a bus by just one or two minutes (if he/she is not punctual). We have missed the buses in Germany a lot, even by 30 seconds. So one needs to take time to get used to the high standards of German punctuality. Even when there is an invitation for a party or a dinner at friend's place, the guests arrive very punctually. But in India the guests arrive about half an hour to one hour late.

One more thing that I like about Germany is the clean air, clean water and the clean surroundings. In Germany even the tap water is so clean that I have spent the past 8 years drinking tap water only. In India the tap water is not drinkable and we have to use water filters. In Germany even the air is so fresh and clean that whenever I step out of the house I get a sigh of relief by breathing the fresh air. I have no such experiences of fresh air in India. Instead the air in India is more or less polluted by the heavy daily traffic at least in the city centers. Clean surroundings is also a thing to appreciate about Germany which is hard to find in India.

The spring time in Germany is from 22nd March until June. Spring time is a very pleasant weather. During this time people just go out of their houses in the mild sunshine, do barbecue parties and the streets become full of crowds.

Cherry blossom in spring time

The downside of Germany according to me is that there are no maids or no maid system where the maids come everyday to lend a helping hand in the household work. I used to employ maids in India who used to come everyday to my house to do the household work. Being a housewife it helped me a lot in my work. But in Germany I have do all the household work all by myself right from washing utensils to laundry to cleaning the house. There are no maids here. Even if there are maids, they charge hourly and come mostly only once or twice a week. And they charge heavily. There are very few people who employ the maids in Germany as not everyone can afford them.

Another big downside of living in Germany is that the taxes here are very high. Depending on one's salary one could have up to 40 percent of their salary being paid on taxes. But the good news is that the loans are free of charge. So, one can get free loans in Germany.

Another thing about Germany that I don't like too much is the weather. the weather in Germany is cold all the time, especially during winters when it can get unbearably cold. There are summers but only for about 2 months and the maximum temperature reached in summers is about 30 degree Celsius at the place where I live. So, living in Germany is only good for people who like winters and cold weather.

Chilly winters

Coming from India we are used to eating vegetable everyday in our meals. So, this means that there needs to be a variety in the vegetable that we eat. But this variety is very hard to find in Germany. As Germany belongs to cold climate many of the vegetables are available in India are not available in Germany and a very few vegetable actually grow here. Broccoli, cauliflower, egg plant, beans and mushrooms are the only vegetables that I see in the supermarket on a daily basis but there is no more variety. Vegetables for e.g. lauki, tinda, tori are not available in Germany at all. Even ladies finger is a very rare vegetable which can be found only in special stores.

Vegetables section in a German Supermarket

A strange trend in Germany among people is that the as the people retire and get old they start booking for their old age homes. There is no such trend in India as the younger generations take care of the older parents. Therefore I find this trend quite strange and it also shows that the Germans like to plan ahead of time. But this strange trend is coming up in big Indian cities like Mumbai as well.

An old-age home Germany

The public transport in Germany is very comfortable and as I mentioned earlier very punctual. We always travel by public transport and we never had a need to buy a car here in Germany for the past 8 years. Cars are also very expensive to maintain in Germany. When the public transport is so comfortable who wants to buy a car? The seats in the trains, trams and buses are very comfortable. In winters the buses and the trams are heated from inside so it is very nice and warm. Buses, trams, metros, regional and intercity trains all form a very close knit network of public transport all over Germany. There is a bus/tram/metro stop every 5 minutes of walking distance within a city. In case of train stations, there are electronic displays on each platform displaying information about each departing or arriving trains. The buses and the trams are always on time so one can rely on them.

Sundays in Germany are off for everyone. All the shops are closed on Sundays. So we need to plan on Saturdays what things to buy for the weekend. The reason why Sundays are off in Germany is that the Sundays are supposed to be family days, the days on which everyone spends time with their families. In contrast to this all the shops are open on Sundays in India so that the people could go for an outing together with their families. I guess the Germans and the Indians think in two different ways.

Germany is also a leading country in the usage of solar panels. Although the sunlight here is not as strong as in India but there are huge farms of solar panels installed in fields. In my opinions India should also follow the lead and make the most use of the renewable energy resource solar energy. This is something we could learn from Germany. Germany also invests in wind energy in the northern regions. Here is a picture of a solar farm in southern Germany.

Solar panel farm in Germany

The security in buildings and houses in Germany is also very good. In case of apartments in buildings, like the way we live, there are three doors that we need to unlock to get to our apartment. The first door is at the ground floor, which is also the entrance to the building. The second door is the entrance to the floor. Each floor has its own entrance door. And finally the third door is the door to our own apartment. Installing such high security in the building, one can be sure that the thefts are reduced, if not completely eliminated. In India we don't find such high class security in buildings or apartments.

In Germany even if one has a well paid job, one can still choose to commute by a bicycle. In many cases officers, students and kids commute by bicycles everyday here in Germany. The motivation behind this is not to save money but to protect the environment. And there is a good incentive for doing this. The bicycles have their own lane on the roads, so they don't have to worry about crashing through the cars. And when one is a parent of a small kid and they want to commute by bicycle - the Germans have come up with a good idea about that - there are small carriages for kids that can be put behind a bicycle!

A baby carriage attached to a bicycle

In Germany, the petrol pump stations are self service. Unlike India one can find no people standing on a petrol pump station ready to serve you to fill up your car. One needs to get down the car and fill their own car themselves. This also means that one can get no job here at a petrol pump station. In India one can find multiple people standing on a petrol pump ready to serve you. Germany is all about self service! Here is a picture from a petrol pump station in Germany.

In Germany Christmas and the Easter are the only two big festivals. In contrast to this India has very many festivals which people celebrate with joy and pride. Having very few festivals in Germany is also the reason why it can get boring here. And Christmas and Easter are only family festivals, which means that they are celebrated by the people only among the families. So, for us who are living away from their families, it can get very boring here without any festivals to celebrate.Another small festival that the Germans celebrate every year is the Carnival. Carnival takes place either at the end of February or the beginning of March. Carnival is basically a festival for children, but the adults participate as well. In Carnival parades in fancy costumes takes places. Even the audience are dressed in fancy dresses.

Carnival in Germany

The one last good thing that I want to mention about Germany is that the internet connections here are very good and it is only because of this reason that I spend a lot of time online and I have been able to make so many friends online which would not have been possible if I were in India. It is only due to this fast internet connection that I can talk to people over Skype or other audio or video calls and have made several friends.

That brings me to an end of a long list comparisons between India and Germany!