What Germans taught me

If you expected that I would wax lyrical about life-changing experiences, sorry to disappoint. Currently I'm taken with mundane things such as these -

Eating burger with fork and knife: Why o why! There's a reason god gave us hands and not fork and knife. The first time I had a burger for lunch with my colleagues, I picked it up by hand while they dug in with their knives. I was embarrassed for a moment. Have I been doing this wrong my whole life? But apparently it’s one way of eating burger without making a mess, especially at formal meals. Well, it does spare the gymnastic efforts to keep the burger together and saves a few paper napkins. 

Blowing nose in public: I was in a meeting and this one guy loudly blew his nose in the middle of a discussion. I was alarmed. What may have caused this act of desperation! But nobody batted an eyelid and I understood, this is the norm. You blow in a paper towel of course and once done, fold it carefully and keep in the back-pocket for reuse. Now that might disgust you, but the Asian way of sniffling and swallowing mucus would attract the same level of disgust in Germany. Little cultural differences, ha!

Breaking rules sensibly: Germans love order. And so they like to follow rules, a trait rare to India. A German waits for the pedestrian light to turn green, even when the road is clear for miles. There might be some who cross nevertheless, because, we can all agree, they are also humans. But there's an unsaid rule. You never cross on a red light when there are children around. You don't want them to take the message that it's okay to break rules. I find it adorable.

Baring it all: My first time at a swimming pool. I opened the door of the changing room and immediately closed it in panic. Did I wrongly enter someone's private bathroom? No. People walking around naked in the changing rooms is common. In fact, in eastern Germany, nudism is slightly more popular. If you visit a scenic lake, you might see more sights than expected. Okay I shouldn't joke about this, because it is important to state that it feels so… normal. Nobody cares, nobody's ogling, nobody's judging, nobody's curious about you. It's normal business. I admire that, although I'm more comfortable with my pants on. But I did bare all a couple of times and felt liberated.

Now that I think about it, that last one is a life-changing experience, no? 

Till next time, tschüss!