Germany Ja!

CONTRIBUTED BY KARI MARTINDALE When you get to Germany, you’ll see a lot of signs with a red A with a pharmacy symbol inside it, and the word Apotheke. “That looks a lot like apothecary.” Yes. It does. The Apotheke is the German pharmacy, and you’ll go there for your OTC medical needs as well [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY BREA  The way a German home looks, feels and even operates is much different from an American home. I love our German row house (townhouse) but every so often I find my thoughts wandering back to our home in the U.S. and thinking of some of the conveniences I miss. In Germany, though, [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY LINDA MENCH Try-it Thursday is my attempt to encourage the boys to try something new and is secretly my desire to homeschool them!  Try-it Thursday (named by my son) really seems to apply to just about everyday here in Germany, lately. We ran down to the train station in our little village with [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY SARAH FORTE Trash – who would have thought it could be so complex? Gone are the days when you simply threw everything in the garbage, set it out on the curb and forgot about it. Germany had “Germanized” its trash system. Like other German things, there is a pretty firm set of rules [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY LIZ MYERS 10 Things I Learned AFTER I Got To Germany   Here are just a few things I’ve learned AFTER moving to Germany. Please feel free to post any questions you may have about living here or add any information that you have learned. 1. Appliances. I was told to put ALL [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY SARAH FORTE Weihnachten is the German word for Christmas, and Germany has been celebrating Christmas for longer than the United States has existed. Many German Christmas traditions are very familiar to Americans. In fact, many of our traditions started in Germany. Some, however, didn’t make it to America and are new and different [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY LAURA SNYDER So often I hear Americans living in Germany say, “there’s nothing to do on Sunday, everything is closed.” Someone else then replies, “You’ll get used to not doing anything on Sundays, it just takes time.” I think this may end up being one of my biggest pet peeves. Can I just [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY AMANDA PAPENFUS One of the cool things about living in Germany is the chance to try different products I may not have been exposed to otherwise. I can even get many of the German items I like in the commissary on post. I had planned to post about this a little later, but [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY MERIL CHICKINI Usually end of the year can be dark and maybe even somewhat stressful with all the preparations for Christmas. But no worries, Germans have found a wonderful way to keep their cities decorated and in Christmas lights from the middle of November ’till the end of the year with Christmas markets. [...]

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‪ ‬‬CONTRIBUTED BY KAYLA LEADINGHAM AND MICHELLE KING Tax on the German economy is 19%. Yikes! That can add up fast. Luckily, for military service members, or any DOD (department of defense) employees, and dependents stationed in Germany, there is relief. It comes in the form of a carbon paperwork packet called a VAT form [...]

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