7 Things I Had Never Seen Before I Came to the US [Pt. 2] | Feli from Germany

dude look at this I have a checkbook I feel so sophisticated now yeah you're going to need it to pay all your bills I don't get it what's so cool about that I've never seen a check before like this is like in the old [Music] [Applause] movies hello savos and welcome back to my YouTube channel my name is failey I'm originally from Munich Germany but I've been living here in Cincinnati Ohio on and off since 2016 it's been been a few weeks since I uploaded my last video on here and the reason for that is that my personal life has been really intense in the last few weeks Ben and I finished up a bunch of things in our house after we had some major Renovations going on the last few months and then a bunch of people were in town in August including a friend from Germany who stayed with us for a few days and then my parents were visiting and then Ben and I are actually going to Germany already next week but before we leave I'm going to prepare a bunch of content for you guys starting with this video in case you're wondering why my background looks a little bit different today I also got a new YouTube shelf this was my old one I got that one two years ago when I first rented out the dedicated room for recording at my old place and some of you probably remember that I asked you guys to send me decorations for the shelf that would then be part of my video background the idea was kind of to have you guys my community represented in my videos and you totally delivered and sent me so many cool things over the last 2 years many of you even sent me handmade things I mean that's just really really special to me so a big thank you for that and since I have a lot more space on this shelf now there's a bunch of room for new additions so I was thinking if you want to send me something too that you think would be a good fit and look cool in the background of my videos just send it to my PO Box the address is right here and you can also find it in the info box below and who knows maybe you'll see your gift in one of my future videos now let's get to the topic of today's video with my friend and my parents visiting from Germany recently I was kind of reminded of all of the the everyday things that are different here that I don't even really notice anymore after all this time like I found myself explaining things like no we don't need to return the shopping cart back to the store here because American stores usually have these cart return stations in the parking lot which a few years ago were all things that people had to explain to me when I first came here because there were a lot of things that I had literally never seen before and that's why today I want to share seven of those things with you that I had never seen before I came to the US now I had made a video with this title before and I covered some major things in that so make sure to watch that if you haven't seen it yet I'll link it up here and down below but of course there are a few more things on that list that I'll tell you about now starting with ads for prescription medication so the first time I was watching TV in the US and suddenly saw an ad for a diabetes medication I was totally caught off guard because even though I was used to ads for aspirin or wound healing creams I had never in my life seen an ad for a medication treating a serious illness like this trulicity is an injection to improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise ask your doctor about once weekly trulicity to me it kind of felt out of place to see that in the middle of a comedy movie and it almost made it seem somewhat untrustworthy in a way like my first thought was that this isn't something that you should advertise for as in oh look at me I'm laughing with my family in slow-mo while holding the medication into the camera like I felt like this should be a decision that you make based on evidence and depending on whether your doctors think that this could actually help you now the reason why this was so odd for me is that in Germany and in fact almost the entire world advertising prescription drugs to Consumers is actually illegal in Germany this is regulated in the so-called at gazettes the German Drug law only two countries in the world actually allow this the US and new New Zealand and there was and sometimes still is a big discussion about this here in the US but they did end up making prescription drug ads legal in print media in the 1980s and for radio and TV in 1997 if you want to learn more about this whole topic and the details of these regulations check out this really interesting video by Vox it gives a really great summary so I'll just put the link for you in the info box now even though I said that seeing these ads felt somewhat inappropriate to me and still does a little this is really a discussion with with a good number of arguments on the pro side as well it might motivate people to even go to the doctor about their health complaints for example so they're really pros and cons in this discussion one thing that's safe to say though is that it can be really funny when more than half of the ad is dedicated to nothing but possible risks and side effects of the drug some people have had changes in Behavior hostility agitation depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantings if you notice agitation hostility depression or changes in Behavior thinking or mood that are not typical for you or if you develop suicidal thoughts or actions stop taking chance and call your doctor right away talk to your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems which can get worse while taking chanics some people can have allergic or serious skin reactions to chanics some of which can be lifethreatening if you notice swelling a face mouth throat or a rash stop taking chanics and see your doctor right away tell your doctor which medicin you're taking as they may work differently when you quit smoking chanics dosing may be different if you have kidney problems the most common side effect is nausea patients also reported trouble sleeping and Vivid unusual or strange dreams until you know how chanics may affect you use caution when driving or operating Machinery chanic should not be taken with other quit smoking products we're going to stay on this whole ad topic for just a little bit longer because another thing that was completely new to me was seeing Regional ads even when watching a nationwide Channel now of course this is something that's completely normal to see on social media and when streaming things on Hulu or here on YouTube nowadays everyone is being shown different ads on the internet and part of that is that you might see ads that are targeted specifically at your city or general region like about an upcoming concert for example or a local business but on TV this is just not something that's common in Germany almost all of our TV channels in Germany are nationwide channels and correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that they show different ads to different regions like I'm pretty sure that every German viewer gets the exact same ads now we do have Regional channels and Regional Windows where there's like a 1-hour slot that's going to be specific to your area but that's really the minority of all of our TV channels in Germany now it does make sense that it would be a little different in the US given how big this country is I mean the continental US has four different time zones so when scheduling TV programs they have to put different times on the announcements Eastern and Pacific Time usually or I also often see them List Eastern and central time around here and then sometimes they actually rebroadcast things later for the people in the mountain and Pacific time zones so as you can tell the size of this country already makes broadcasting a way different experience and seeing Regional ads even when watching a big National show is part of that I specifically remember when I came to the US in August of 2016 shortly before the elections in November I saw a lot of political campaigns for local candidates and at first I was like oh this person's from Ohio I'm in Ohio what are the odds and there are a lot of election ads in the US compared to Germany even on Regional and City levels but that's a different topic let's move on to something much more enjoyable that was not a thing that I was familiar with growing up in Germany and that is flavored coffee creamer so this stuff I remember on our first USA road trip that we did as a family in 2011 they had these coffee machines in all the hotel lobbies where they had coffee and then they'd also have a dispenser like this one that would have regular creamer but also usually vanilla and hazelnut flavored creamer and guys I don't drink coffee I don't like it it doesn't wake me up but on that vacation 17-year-old me definitely had some coffee every now and then because with that sweet vanilla creamer in it it didn't even taste like coffee anymore it tasted like dessert of course I kind of overdid it with the creamer but if you look at the coffee culture in the US there's definitely lots of sweetness and flavors and this even starts with the coffee grounds when you look at the coffee selection at a German grocery store you'll kind of just have coffee I mean there will be different roasts and strengths and there will be regular coffee and espresso but it's very straightforward whereas in the US your coffee aisle usually looks more like this even the coffee grounds often come with a flavor and from what I've experienced here it's not very common to put regular milk in your coffee but it's usually coffee creamer often flavored creamer and we do have unflavored creamer in Germany as well kafana but I feel like it's just as common to use regular milk or whatever milk substitute you prefer but flavored creamer is not something I've ever seen in Germany again we're kind of staying on a similar topic and this is something that I hadn't even thought about in years but when my friend was here a few week weeks ago she saw this in her fridge and she just couldn't wrap her head around the fact that this even existed sweet cream cheese in Germany cream cheese is something Savory that we eat on bread or kard or maybe with pretzels and to be completely honest with you our cream cheese game is kind of on a whole different level compared to the us we have lots of different flavors different textures or whipping degrees and lots of different brands while in the US it seems like Philadelphia pretty much has the cream cheese Monopoly nowadays but what we don't have in Germany is blueberry flavored crepe cheese or honey pecan or strawberry or cinnamon those are very common in the US though plus I've realized that cream cheese is something that's mainly used for baking and cooking here or for eating on a bagel which of course is something that we don't really have either in Germany I mean we have all of our bread and bread rolls and you can find bagels in Germany if you look for them but they're not really a popular thing like you won't find Bagels at a regular German bakery and at least in Munich I can't think of a bagel shop or anything like that I'm sure they exist somewhere but I don't remember ever seeing one in the US though bagels are sacred especially in New York and bagels are what you put your cream cheese on I remember that my American roommates gave me a really weird look one time during my first few months here because I put cream cheese on a slice of toast even Ben thinks that this is weird to this day which I don't understand at all I mean a bagel is just another type of bread now of course there are Savory Bagels that people eat with plain cream cheese or onion or garden vegetable cream cheese and maybe some egg cheese and bacon but you also have your cinnamon bagels or blueberry bagels with blueberry cream cheese to be honest I don't really know what combinations people like the most I'm still not really into sweet cream cheese except for the honey pan one that one's really good but I don't exclusively put that on Bagels so maybe you guys could share your favorite sweet Bagel combos in the comments the next item is something that you'll notice as soon as you get off the plane in the US because you'll see them at airports malls public parks schools really everywhere but I had never seen one in my entire life in Germany water fountains to me they were one of those things that I had only seen in American cartoons and movies especially when they took place in a school setting like in Disney's recess for example or Lizzy Maguire or Kim Possible I remember that there was always a scene where kids mess with the water fountain so that the next one who uses it would get water all over them but I always thought it was kind of a weird concept to bent down to a little faucet to drink out of it like a dog instead of having a water bottle to drink out of to be completely honest I still don't really like doing that or maybe I'm just not talented enough to drink out of them without getting half of my face wet what I do really like though is when there's also a little station specifically for filling up your water bottle that's absolutely genius in my opinion I mean you can also fill up your your bottle at a regular water fountain but it's just so much easier with those water filling stations now you probably guessed it but in Germany water fountains aren't a thing instead at least that's what I always do is that I just refill my water bottle with tap water like in a public restroom for example we have really good tap water all over the country and unlike tap water in a lot of regions of the US like here in Cincinnati it doesn't have that chlorine taste to it so it's really a great alternative and I've personally never really felt like it's hard to find water in Germany but I do see how having dedicated drinking fountains with filtered water that people can even use without having a bottle on them is probably a better solution those of you who've been watching my videos for a while have probably heard me talk about this more than enough but it just has to be on this list because one thing I had definitely never seen before moving to the US is a check and to be completely honest I didn't even realize that those were actually still a thing in the US I have talked about this topic in my video on for example and in my video about everyday differences that surprised me in the US and I know that many Americans like to respond to this by saying what no you're wrong about that we don't use checks in the US anymore I haven't seen one in like 20 years and of course you can definitely get around checks if you try to and there might be Regional differences too like it's possible that they're more common here in the Midwest and I'm not talking about people paying with checks at the grocery store but fact is when I first moved here my landlord wanted all of his tenants to pay rent via check and get this mail the check to him so you write the check put it in an envelope and then send it via actual mail so that was definitely a culture shock for me because in Germany it's common to pay rent and all of your bills via bank transfer and I came here under the impression that the US is a lot more advanced in regards to electronic payments and stuff like that and this was kind of an issue for me because I didn't have an American bank account at the time and therefore couldn't write checks myself but this hasn't been my only encounter with checks since then I've had several other landlords that wanted their rent via check I received my own checkbook when I finally opened up an American bank account I'm not showing it from the front because all my information is on it I've been paid for freelancing work via check more than I have been paid via electronic payments even by big institutions like the university I've paid contractors via check I've paid my taxes via check and have received my tax refund from the government via check in the mail and every time I've been to production like for a short film or for the Cleo app everyone in the crew would get an envelope with their check in it a lot of Americans say that checks are so popular because of the skepticism towards online banking and because many people don't want others knowing their bank account number but I think in a lot of cases is also just convenience because Bank transfers aren't always super easy in the US especially if you don't have your bank account connected to a third party service like zel or PayPal long story short they definitely a thing here while in Germany checks haven't been a thing for a few decades now I've never even seen the option to pay VI a check on a form or something and I had quite literally never seen a check in my [Music] life and the last item on my list of things that I had never seen before I came to the US is this a screen door or storm door the reason why this came to my mind is that when my German friends stayed with us and asked what these are for I didn't really have an answer but it did remind me of how new these were to me when I first came here for the longest time I did realize that they had a little locking mechanism to keep them open and I always thought that this was so annoying that when you needed it to stay open for a while like when bringing in your groceries or something someone always needed to hold it or you had to put a chair in it but turns out I was just really stupid not all houses in the US have these but a lot of the places here in Cincinnati do and they're basically an extra door outside of the front door or also the back door that either has a buck screen in it or glass now when they have a bug screen I think the main purpose is that you can have your door open for ventilation but you'll still be protected from bugs flying in and if you have indoor pets for example it also keeps them inside while still being able to look out the door and smell and hear things outside when it comes to the storm doors with glass in them according to the internet they're simply there to help protect your main door from rain ice and snow so those were seven additional things that I had never seen before I came to the US now of course I want to know from you which things you saw for the very first time when you travel to another country let me know in the comments below before I wrap this up I wanted to address something real quick that has been going on in the comment sections underneath my videos in the last few weeks and months my team and I really try to stay on top with blocking spam and fake accounts but recently there's been like five new ones every single day so in case you have no clue what I'm talking about if you see a comment from an account with my profile picture but that doesn't have the same name as me so it doesn't have feely from Germany as the name or it has the same name but it doesn't have the little check mark after their name that is not me these profiles pretend to be me and then they ask people to message them privately on telegram or WhatsApp so please know that I would never ask any of you to message me privately and I'm also never going to share my phone number anywhere so please don't reply to these people don't message them and instead please report them here on YouTube thank you and to end this video on a more positive note as many of you probably know the Munich October Fest is starting next weekend in case you happen to travel to Germany for that Ben and I made a little video guide about dles and Leen recently and I also have a whole October Fest guide video on my channel from two years ago so I'll put both of those videos up here for you but in case you'd simply like to get some October Fest feeling at home or want to get a unique gift for a loved one I'm doing an Octoberfest sale on fa from germany. comom which means that all of my beer marks are currently 15% and off the one liter ones the half liter ones and also the personalized ones this sale is going to go all the way through October Fest until October 3rd so if you don't have one of these yet but always wanted one now is your chance with that being said thank you guys so much for watching you can also find me on Instagram Facebook and Tik Tok and if you want to support me in my channel you can do so on patreon kofi.com or by sending me a super thanks here on YouTube I appreciate every single one of you and I hope I'll see you next time cheers [Music]

Channel: Feli from Germany

Views: 168,133

Keywords: Germany, USA, America, Munich, Cultural Differences, Culture Shock, Kulturelle Unterschiede, Deutschland, München, Amerika, Kulturschock, Ohio, USA vs. Germany, Comparison, Expat, Living abroad, Move to Germany, Life in Germany, Move to Europe, Life in USA, U.S., Deutschland USA Kulturunterschiede, Unterschiede Deutschland Amerika, Feli from Germany, writing a check in the USA, prescription drug commercial, sweet cream cheese, bagel culture, screen doors, flavored coffee creamer

Id: Zvz5RRYf7iw

Length: 18min 40sec (1120 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 12 2022