Juergen Rueckwardt experienced cultural differences when moving from Germany to Washington, DC

Before my arrival from Germany to Washington, DC, I thought I would come across many new experiences, but I didn't think I would have the ones I am going to discuss. After 6 months, I'm still discovering that some differences between life in Germany and the US have more influence on my life than I had thought. I thought those differences would not be that important for daily life, but these differences in customs and the ways of using idiomatic expressions in special situations have come to have a great influence on my life.

For example, some months ago I met with a friend for dinner in Adams Morgan, a trendy neighborhood in DC full of diverse people and restaurants. We chose a diner, a typical type of a casual American restaurant. Jeff, my friend, warned me that we might have to wait in line, but we were surprised to find that there was a table available. Jeff ordered chicken wings with French fries, and I ordered a ground steak. I wanted to eat a really good, big American steak. When the waiter served our food, I was totally surprised as I looked at my plate. Instead of getting a juicy beef steak, I was looking at a hamburger beef patty. I spoke to Jim about my order, and he explained that a ground steak wasn't a beef steak, but ground beef. So the expression "ground" was new for me.

The next new experience I had was when I made my first trip to the Outer Banks, North Carolina, a coastal vacation spot not far from Washington, DC.  I was surprised how long it took to get there. It is well known that the US has a good highway infrastructure, and it was true the highways were in good condition. But I was surprised about the speed limits of between 55 - 65 miles/hour everywhere. Throughout the whole journey I was dying to drive faster than allowed because of the good highway conditions and the empty highways.  I think we kept an average speed of around 55 miles/hour: in Germany, my average speed on a highway is around 100 miles/hour, so it is a big difference!  It felt as if we were crawling instead of driving the whole way!   

The third new experience was the following. When I lived in Germany, I used to meet many friends in the evenings during the week. We would sit on the porch drinking beer, have a picnic in a park or at the river and drink a bottle of wine, or cycle to the next "biergarten", a typical Bavarian type of outdoor restaurant, for a beer from the tap. We met each other in the evenings, regardless of the day (Monday through Sunday), without paying attention to the fact that we all would have to work on the next day. Here in Washington, DC, my friends' behavior is very different. For one thing, drinking alcohol in public is not allowed, whereas in Germany it's allowed. This has changed a lot of my habits because I'm not allowed to sit in the park and drink alcohol or to sit on the banks of the Potomac River and have a picnic while enjoying a bottle of wine. At street festivals, you are also only allowed to drink alcohol in fenced areas. But those fenced areas sometimes look like a dog cage, and this environment doesn't quite inspire me to have a beer. But in getting back to my friends here in Washington, from Monday to Thursday they go to work, hit the gym after work and then head home. The typical days to see my friends are only on Fridays and Saturdays, and that's it. Many of my American friends live close to the city center, like in neighborhoods such as Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan or Georgetown, so the distance can't be the reason for not meeting each other. The result of my experience is that it's easier to arrange a meeting in the evening during the week with ex-patriots than with my American friends.

So overall, my stay here in Washington, DC has been very thrilling, and we will see what new adventures the future will bring. 

Juergen Rueckwardt studies at the International Center for Language Studies in Washington, DC