The majority of both sides of my family is German. I've been there several times. Overall, it always left a positive impression on me.
Things I like:
- History. Everywhere you go feels like it's been around for hundreds of years. And, indeed, it generally has. Compare that to Calgary, where he vast majority of buildings were built between the 1960's and now. Quite the contrast.
- Berlin. By far one of the coolest cities I've ever been to. If the opportunity arose, I would happily live there.
- The cars. Audi, VW, BMW, Porsche, Mercedes... all awesome. And, just the cars people drive. It's very refreshing to drive around and not be surrounded by pickup trucks, SUVs and minivans. A 5-door hatchback is considered family car there, not a 7-seater minivan.
- The Autobahn. Driving any car full out, as fast as it can possibly go, is an amazing experience. It's really nice to have that option. And, the highways in general are buttery smooth.
- Driving in general. German drivers are exponentially better than the idiots that roam the roads all over North America. Lane discipline! Signalling turns and lane changes! Right of way! Courtesy! These are all concepts German drivers seem to understand. There's a reason the Autobahn works. The drivers using it are actually capable.
- The music. Lots of awesome bands... Rammstein, Blind Guardian, Edguy, Equilibrium...
- The lifestyle in general. This could apply to a lot of Europe. Cities and towns are generally much more dense. The contrast between inner city and suburbs isn't nearly as dramatic. Everything is generally much closer, and the houses themselves are a lot nicer, with much less wasted space. I'm not a fan of North American suburbs.
- Public transit is well developed, well executed, and reliable. The ICE is also quite nice.
- The climate is more up my ally. Calgary is pretty extreme in terms of temperatures, and always quite dry.
- The people are generally pretty cool. And they LOVE Canadians, which works out well for me.
Things I don't like:
- The people can be a bit up-tight.
- For whatever reason, German kids tend to be absolute brats. At least the ones I was exposed to over the years.
- A lot more smoking goes on there than I'm used to. And pretty much everywhere. Could do without that...
- Things are generally sorta expensive there, relative to what I'm used to in Canada.
- In terms of roads, I do like that Calgary, and many North American cities and towns operate on a grid system. Makes things very easy to navigate. Older European cities in general can be quite a mind-fuck if you don't know where you're going.
- Mullets. Oddly popular among the Germans. Weird.
- Sauerkraut. Blech.
- The milder climate means a lot more spiders than I'm used to. And I really, really hate spiders...
- A lot of the "softer" pop music is just unbearable.
