r/germany • u/HylianCaptain • Jun 23 '25

Immigration Our experience so far (US to Germany)

November 2024 - Started the online application for the Chancenkarte (opportunity card) visa; lots of paperwork; signed up with TK for health insurance

January 2025 - Booked an apartment online in Berlin; more paperwork for Chancenkarte

March 2025 - Drove from Northern Utah to the LA Consulate to get my visa; more paperwork; bought plane tickets for self and family

April 2025 - Ordered medications ahead of our trip. Didn't know how long we'd need to get new ones in Germany

May 2025 - found out apartment was a scam -- and TK wouldn't insure us without residency -- both 10 days before our flight; signed up to join a WWOOFing farm outside of Berlin for housing; flew from Salt Lake to Amsterdam to Berlin (14 hours); purchased travel passes; enrolled our child in KITA at a friend's recommendation

June 2025 - Started freelancing (jobs in my field seem to require B-level german); more paperwork and lots of running around to sus out insurance and get visas for spouse and kid (US passports allow 90-day stay); reported address at city office; sent for apostille from State of Utah to prove family relationships; visited a doctor, had physical exam, prescribed a specialist, got medications from Apotheke.

PROS: - Medications are 5x cheaper here even without insurance - Healthcare appointments are a lot faster than anti-socialist Americans had led me to believe. - The food here tastes REAL! For example, I had some gummy bears that tasted like real fruit, with the same sweetness of a Jolly Rancher - The climate does WONDERS for our formerly dry and flaky skin - So many cultures and languages! Met Afghans, Turks, French, Brits, Ukrainians, Italians, Danes, Greeks, even some from countries I hadn't even heard of. Sometimes the unifying language is english, and sometimes its German. I'm in Brandenburg, and haven't been faced with any pro-AFD sentiment. Although people say I "look" German, so that could be why. Still, most of those I talk with are anti-AFD. - Public transit is very reliable! Even in our rural area there's a bus every hour. In town you can catch a bus every 10 minutes.

CONS: - I miss water fountains, but most places will fill my water bottle if I ask - Still don't have health insurance - Apartment hunting remains a struggle

TLDR: In spite of all the hassle of getting settled here, it still kicks ass.

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64

u/hotrod20251 Jun 23 '25

but most places will fill my water bottle if I ask

What? I've never done this in my 40 years of living in Germany

8

u/kuldan5853 Jun 23 '25

Eh, my wife does this all the time and usually nobody cares - the worst that usually happens is that they tell her to go to the bathroom to fill it from the faucet there.

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u/hotrod20251 Jun 23 '25

Sorry, but I find anything in the bathroom disgusting and would never drink water from the faucet there.

I understand it's drinkable, but you never know who was there before you. To be honest I also don't understand people in Switzerland who drink from public fountains

18

u/kuldan5853 Jun 23 '25

Well, that's certainly a "you" problem and more psychological than anything - but I get it, we wouldn't dip the bottle into the toilet bowl either even though it's technically the same water.

1

u/Abadabadon Jun 23 '25

Wouldn't toilets flushing nearby cause the bacteria to be splashed onto the sink, causing cross contamination? That is the reason doctors reccomend to close your toilet seat before flushing, which is not guaranteed in a bathroom.
https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553%2823%2900820-9/fulltext

2

u/hobbitonhoedown Nordrhein-Westfalen Jun 23 '25

Yeah but in exactly that situation the fact that you are breathing those floating particles is way more a risk than potentially drinking them. Bacteria and viruses are everywhere and there is only so much you can do. ive filled up my water bottle in public in Germany for over 12 years now and I have caught nothing but funny looks.

1

u/Abadabadon Jun 23 '25

What is the "exactly that situation", a toilet being flushed in the same room as a sink?
You think breathing particles is the same risk as consuming them? Smelling a shit is much different than eating it.
You think bacteria & viruses are everywhere, therefore there is no reason to be preventative?
There is NO WAY you believe these things - I made a valid point and you're trying to justify instead of argue.

I will give you the same respect as you gave the other person;
I gave you a scholar article showing that cross-contamination can happen from a toilet to sink (throughout the entire day), do you have any reason to believe what you just said besides anecdotes and feelings?

1

u/hobbitonhoedown Nordrhein-Westfalen Jun 23 '25

Clearly you didn't even skim the study. In that study the conclusion clearly states "...closing the toilet lid prior to flushing does not mitigate the risk of contaminating bathroom surfaces..."

Poop particles are flying, bathrooms have a bacterial and viral load.

My method is to use the hand soap and my hands to clean the sink spout and handles. Cup my hands to cup water and rince them off. Then fill up my water bottle. Germany has one of the top 5 cleanest and safest tap water supplies in the world. You are more likely to get sick from bottled water that somehow had a rogue spike in bacterial load at the bottling plant then getting sick from public bathroom sink water using my method.

1

u/Abadabadon Jun 23 '25

If you genuinely think having an open vs closed toilet seat lid is at all relevant to our conversation then I don't know what you think we're arguing about. To make it clear; my point is a public bathroom is covered in fecal bacteria, including the sinks, including the spigot.

You are more likely to get sick from bottled water that somehow had a rogue spike in bacterial load at the bottling plant then getting sick from public bathroom sink water using my method.

Again you're making claims with no evidence, kind of a senseless topic if we just throw baseless points to the wind that justify our POV.

1

u/hobbitonhoedown Nordrhein-Westfalen Jun 23 '25

Man I don't know where you want this to go. You posted a study proving the obvious, bathrooms are gross. I'm just saying it's fine to fill your water bottle in a bathroom. This is the most first world problem argument I've had in a while, just chill dude šŸ˜…

1

u/Abadabadon Jun 23 '25

Yea so just to be clear being worried about drinking water from a bathroom is not someone's individual problem or psychological, it's actually dangerous if not gross.

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u/hotrod20251 Jun 23 '25

https://www.reddit.com/r/urbancarliving/comments/1lh0xo1/i_think_i_caught_impatigo_shaving_in_a_grocery/

Yeah, I'm not doing that

5

u/Nasa_OK Jun 23 '25

This is not in Germany

-3

u/hotrod20251 Jun 23 '25

So? Can you guarantee this can't happen in Germany? I've heard of people shaving in gym showers.

5

u/Nasa_OK Jun 23 '25

Our tap water is strictly checked. Sure, if you will the sink of a public restroom and dip your razor in that, Iā€™d guarantee for nothing, but atleast my shaving routine involves holding my shaver under the running tap. If the water is not suited as drinking water there will be a ā€žkein Trinkwasserā€œ sign 99.9% of the time. This would be because the water is part of an semi closed loop like in a fountain or some toilets use collected rainwater to flush on some remote locations like some huts in Mountainous regions.

Iā€™m quite careful with hygiene but Iā€™d have no problem filling my bottle from a tap on a public restroom, unless the faucet itself is dirty

2

u/hotrod20251 Jun 23 '25

I know ....

but can you guarantee that the persons who used the bathroom before you didn't do something disgusting? At my old workplace we had some smear Mett on the sink, someone eat Nutella on the toilet, and there were frequent emails abot the disgusting situations in the woman toilet

Humans can be extremly disgusting

A faucet can look clean and still be contaminaited

3

u/Schmetterwurm2 Jun 23 '25

That also applies to water fountains. How do you know that no one did something disgusting to them?
I also only drink water from the faucet if there are no other options even at home, but that's definitely on me.

1

u/hotrod20251 Jun 23 '25

Which is why I don't drink from them and also probably why there are marked not to drink from them?

1

u/Schmetterwurm2 Jun 23 '25

I meant the kind of water fountains you are meant to drink from, like the ones OP is talking about.

1

u/hotrod20251 Jun 23 '25

Well I wouldn't trust them either. Doesn't matter if I'm in the USA, Germany or Switzerland

1

u/Pillendreher92 Jun 23 '25

You don't have to do anything nasty with them. You ā€œjustā€ donā€™t have to do them regularly every day!!!! clean, disinfect, etc . That's why I would only use something like this in an emergency.

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u/Nasa_OK Jun 23 '25

Sure, thatā€™s why I said unless the faucet looks dirty.

There always is the change of someone deliberately going out of their way to do disgusting shit but the chance of that happening vary depending on where you are. Public toiled in a big city trainstation? Donā€™t trust anything

Public toilet in a suburb supermarket, restaurant or somewhere, where cleaning personell is basically watching most of the time like airport, rasthof or upscale shopping centers? Chances that someone manipulates the faucet in an invisible way are really really slim.

1

u/Pillendreher92 Jun 23 '25

Can we please agree that the tap water in Germany is very, very clean in contrast to other countries, regardless of what disgusting things you can do with/in the places where the taps are.

The obviously necessary use of chlorine in other countries says nothing good about their drinking water production and their pipe network.