Attention This Is A Heartbreaking Article!

Living in a Homeland!

We talked about the application process for a master’s degree abroad, the moving process and the first days in Germany.. In this article, we would like to talk about the difference between life in Turkey and life in Germany, and how living abroad has changed us.

The people we know a lot, especially recently, want to move abroad, and the reason why some of them haven’t done it yet is simply because of their courage. unable to. So let’s put it this way, attention ‘this is an encouraging letter’!

Before applying to schools for graduate school, we had never thought of moving to Germany.. But it was the best decision we made.. As we always say, Frankfurt became our home. In the meantime, we got married, established our family, established our social circle, found our job, and we feel confident enough to encourage our friends, friends and even you, whom we have never met, on this issue.

We are close to completing our second year in Germany and now we know that. Especially if you are young, roads exist in your life not only for walking, but also for stopping suddenly, turning back, heading in a different direction and enjoying the walk.. We, too, are happy with the ‘living abroad’ path we have chosen at the moment, and we do not plan to return to Turkey for at least a few more years.

Before we leave Turkey, I wonder if we can do it, where many of you live? Will we be able to have a friendly environment as comfortable as in Istanbul? Will we be struggling financially? Will we be able to adapt to the extremely quiet life of Frankfurt? There were dozens of questions like this and maybe not right away, but over time we saw that it was not customary to move to a new country without asking these questions and leaving the answer to time..

Where we are now, it’s not just education, work, family that binds us to living here.. We are happy here and adequately satisfy our need for love and production.. We still don’t feel ‘completely belonging’ to Frankfurt, but isn’t it important to be happy anyway…

So what’s different?

Germany or in general Let’s talk about what a view should be waiting for those who want to move to Europe.

German people vs. Turkish people

Imagine that we are a nation that keeps pace with those who are going to jump off the bridge, saying ‘jump if you can’, and life is tough. we are so used to living. The Germans are just as calm and uneventful.. Of course, there are also warm and affectionate ones, but in general, there is a coldness in their eyes and one cannot get used to it easily.. Of course, they don’t do you any harm when they say coldness, but imagine that when the person sitting in front of you on the subway sneezes, you habitually say ‘bless you’ and, without even thanking you in return, he looks at your face and bows his head again, such a coldness…

What is always said about the Germans, there’s a ‘myth’ about their hard work, forget it. Make sure they’re doing their job right, especially if you’re out of business at a bank or other government agency.. We explained the reason why we went through while trying to get our residence permit in the article below, you will agree with us when you read it.

We realized later that most of the people working in Germany socialize by drinking beer after work, and because this 1-2 hour beer pleasure is enough for them, They don’t have much need to stay up late or dance.. They also spend their weekends doing sports, cycling and cooking at home.. This calmness never feels monotonous to them and they continue to live this cycle every week, unless an important event occurs in their lives.

We will not talk about Turks (expatriates) living in Germany for a long time, as it is a very sensitive subject let’s talk about the madmen of Frankfurt instead! As we said, being a European brings some maturity as well as the coldness it brings, and while Europeans get used to not living hard life, they have learned to get used to change and differences, and to tolerate even if they are not used to it.. There are ‘mads’ you know, especially in two metro stations in Frankfurt, and when you least expect it, a madman can get on the train and start babbling or babbling.. Or I don’t know, while you are waiting for the subway at a subway station, another crazy person can stop and scream next to you.. Our Europeans ignore them completely and don’t even hear them.. No one is saying that someone should come and get it, they don’t look like they’re going away, they’re used to it.. Not every person has to be mentally healthy, Europans are aware of this too.. We love our country and of course we will return at the point where we think we have developed ourselves sufficiently.. But we can also make a comparison that our people have an underdeveloped human psychology.. Listen, listen, instead of speaking, instead of expressing your ideas in a civilized way and thinking about the arguments of the other side, there is a logic to take the stick in my hand, shout and call, and at this point we have to say that the Germans are much more civilized than us despite all their coldness.. Briefly and briefly, this is the difference between Turkish people and German people.

Anyway, let’s talk about more joyful things, such as food!

German cuisine and Turkish cuisine:

I hope no one gets upset if we write here a huge German cuisine = NONE…. Indeed, the food culture of the Germans does not exist, unless you count the pumpkin soup, Frankfurt sausage and the constant eating of potatoes.. They usually do their grocery shopping daily (they don’t have the habit of filling a shopping cart like we do) and cook meat in the evenings or eat frozen meals from the grocery store.. Well, we are Turkish people, at first we had trouble with what to eat in this country, but it didn’t take long for us to find Turkish markets.. If you consider that 44 percent of Frankfurt is not German, you can guess how many Turkish-Arab-Beirut-Indian markets are around.. So even if you don’t like German cuisine, it’s okay, we say bon appetit..

Living in Germany – Living in Turkey

Since we wrote this article at a time when we came to Istanbul to visit, our feelings may be somewhat biased.. Because when we are in Germany, we write longingly for Istanbul and become more emotional.. When we are in Istanbul, the city immediately makes us tired and we get bored.

Sometimes we think; Should life be as calm, safe, orderly, planned, without any unexpected setbacks like in Frankfurt, or should it go through a constant movement, movement and struggle like in Turkey and the like… We don’t know.

We don’t want to rush, we want to be calm Let’s talk, without shouting too much, we want to be in silence. But not when I’m in Turkey. Every moment must be full here, a simple life is thought to be an incomplete life.

Is Turkey always like this? Has life accelerated since we left? Were we not aware? Don’t people realize that this fast and noisy life is the cause of their tiredness, strain, intolerance to each other, dissatisfaction and sense of meaninglessness and even unhappiness? We do not know. as if we missed. Have we changed or is it the country?

We always said in our articles, we love Istanbul. We like that every place is open on weekends, the grocer brings orders to the house even if it is late, and we are in a constant activity, in a constant state of motion.. But on the contrary, one gets used to it quickly.

If you move to Germany, you will realize that life is extremely calm.. The largest markets and shopping centers are closed on Sundays as per the law.. The gin plays ball in the streets. If you did not do your grocery shopping on Saturday, you will eat whatever is at home on Sunday.. We say for Frankfurt, it starts to rain in September and doesn’t stop until July.. The weather stays at 0 degrees for months. Sunny weather is valuable, people go out when they see the sun.. They even take their newborn 10-day-old babies out in 5 degrees if they see the sun.. In fact, people are so used to bad weather that they go for a run at 0 degrees again.. Even if you stumble in the first months, you get used to this life over time and it feels like the ‘natural thing’. That’s exactly what happened to us, and we don’t stumble anymore, so we’ve calmed down.

There’s also the part of being away from family and friends, of course.. We lived with our friends throughout our student life and had an ‘extreme’ social student life.. When we moved to Germany, we had a hard time at first because we were away from our friends and social environment rather than the serenity of life.. Looking at us, you, and those around us, we realized that this feeling of ‘lonely’ is something that happens to everyone, and that it is a temporary feeling.. Our classmates, our acquaintances here, in short, everyone feels this loneliness, and as you get used to your new place, you also get used to your friends in your new place.. Some of your friendships in your old place end (unfortunately) due to mutual calling and asking, some of them stay and you also get a new environment in your place.. So does the feeling of loneliness. So if you’ve recently moved to a new country, don’t worry, it’s passing.

Hardwork and Business Life:

It’s okay if we don’t talk about it.. Because that was one of the things that disappointed us the most about Germany.. You know; When we say German, we think of things such as industriousness, discipline, strict rules.. Now you can forget about all this if you are ready! Yes, there is a certain order in business life, for example, if the work starts at 8 am, everyone is at work at 7.55 in the morning and if they need to drink coffee or tea to start work, they do it before the work starts.. But as far as we have experienced, the Germans never have an ‘internal discipline-work discipline’ as we think, and they do not see any reason to do their work at least as much as in our country.. We talked about the problems we experienced while getting Umut’s residence permit.. Let’s not repeat it for a long time here, but (in our opinion) we can say that the work discipline in Germans is zero.. There will be those who argue the opposite, as we always say, what we write here is only what we have experienced in our German life.

We will write a separate article about working in Germany, but let’s also say this.. As a requirement of being a ‘social state’, even if you start from the ‘junior’ level, you have approximately 24 working days(!) of annual leave and calculate how many times as many leave as we have here.. They owe so much traveling to their salaries and these annual leaves.. From this perspective, life is good for Europeans.

Time Perception and Transportation:

You will ask what these two titles have to do with it, let’s explain immediately 🙂 The perception of time in the West is very different.. For us, time is not a straight forward concept that can be divided and measured in certain mathematical measures.. The answer to the question “When?” changes according to the environment.. For example, like our concept of ‘dolmus’, this vehicle does not depart at a predetermined time, you know.. Like its name, it goes when it’s full. In Europe, however, such a concept does not exist; There are cornerstones that determine the time and the time does not change according to the conditions.

For example; Frankfurt has a terrible subway system and trains are broken down or delayed every day.. If a train arrives at 09:05, it will. If there’s been an accident or a breakdown, if it’s delayed, it’s not the same train anymore. He’s the next set trend. The 09:05 train has been cancelled, for example, the 09:22 train will arrive.. But there is no such thing as 09:05 train in our country, because the train sometimes arrives at 09:01, sometimes at 09:07 and sometimes at 10:35, and there is no criterion that determines this time.. So we wouldn’t even be surprised if the 09:05 train arrived at 08:58 and has already left.. this is how it is. time is relative. In Germany, trains are delayed at least as often, but since everyone has a plan, an officer immediately comes to the station where the train is delayed and makes a statement.. If you ask how did all this come to your mind, when we landed in Istanbul yesterday, we encountered a passport queue of about 2000 people.. That’s what we thought about for the 1 hour we waited during that passport.

As a shed-blog, we complain about the expensiveness of intercity transportation in Germany.. You know, intercity road is usually taken by bus or plane.. Bus is the cheapest option and airfare is a click (sometimes two) more expensive. Transportation by train, if available, is the cheapest route and takes longer. In Germany, and even in Europe in general, the intercity bus is not developed at all and there are very few bus companies.. For example, as of 2016, the bus company named ‘Flixbus’ bought all the bus companies in Germany and now continues its life as a monopoly.. As such, we had to say goodbye to the bus tickets we bought for 10 Euros between Frankfurt and Amsterdam and surrendered to Flixbus.. Flixbus also enjoys monopoly and has at least doubled its ticket prices.. We said goodbye to the journey by bus.

Let’s get to the trains; Germany’s train operator is called ‘Deutsche Bahn’ and it’s terribly expensive if you buy it excluding campaign times. For example, you pay 45-50 Euros one way between Frankfurt and Cologne, which takes only 1-and-a-half hour.. When this happens, people think that they can buy a plane ticket from Ryan Air for 10 Euros and go to Milan or something.. Deutsche Bahn we condemn you and we have prepared words for you. Anyway, train ticket stories are just that sad.

Of course, our other favorite option is cheap flight tickets.. As a ‘low cost’ airline in Europe, as you know, ‘RyanAir’ leads the way, and other than that, companies such as ‘WizzAir’ and ‘Vueling’ are often cheap.. If you live in a city with only one airport in Germany, you are lucky because RyanAir planes will also be leaving from here.. But if you live in a city like Frankfurt with two airports, ‘low cost’ airline companies will be taking off from the airport which is far away (as their taxes are cheaper) and will be able to pass the original one.. Let’s give an example, last year we bought Frankfurt-Venice flight tickets for 30 Euros per person from RyanAir, and while we were happy about how cheap we got it (!), we realized that Frankfurt Hahn Airport, where RyanAir planes take off, is not in Frankfurt( !) and a round-trip bus ticket from Frankfurt center to this airport is 30 Euros per person. It also drops you off at a very far airport in Venice, and that’s 30 Euros per person, round trip to the center of Venice.. So did it cost us 90 Euros per person! If we had bought it with Lufthansa, we would have gone cheaper… Anyway, that’s how it is… You got the point

Banking and Internet Shopping:

The European Central Bank’s And when you think that the German Stock Exchange is in Frankfurt, you would think that banking, internet banking etc. is also very developed, right? Here is another thing that Germany surprised us with! Using internet banking in Germany, at least in Frankfurt, is still something people aren’t used to and they love to go about their business the old-fashioned way! Bank passwords that come to your mailbox at home, not to your e-mail, waiting in line at the bank, filling out receipts to send money, things are still going like this and we gave up after trying to open internet banking from Frankfurt İşbank Branch for 5 months.. You get tired while talking about your problems at the bank and it may take a long time to get used to the German banking system.. Even to change a simple card password, they have to send a mail home, which means at least 3-4 days.. But you get used to this rule-non-regulation and internet banking? There’s no need, you’re in the mode we’ll take care of itJBecause people’s lives are also planned and programmed, waiting for a bank password for 1 week does not tire anyone and people are not impatient like we are.. You decide whether the technology in us or the Noah’s methods in the Germans is better..

While we’re on the subject, let’s also say this; We discovered the TransferGo app as a way to deal with the prophetic ways in Germany and it put us at ease.. We can now send free money from Germany to Turkey and it reaches the other party in one day.. For those who are looking for a solution for money transfer to Turkey like us, we leave the link of TransferGo here;

Lastly, we would like to talk about internet shopping, because (as you can guess now) they are different from us in this medium. and we almost realized this in our first year in Germany as a performer! How did we fuck?

Let’s explain it right away…

How is it with us? You enter the site on the Internet, add the product you like to the basket, pay at the end and wait for it to be shipped.. So no one will send you the product without paying for the product, especially if it’s a famous store.. The month we moved to Frankfurt, we downloaded the phone app of a famous clothing brand and just threw a few items in the cart.. Then we stopped buying the products and clicked on something we thought said cancel (or at least we thought so) and closed the app.. Since we did not speak German at that time and the application was only in German, we got bored and did not use the application again.. Afterwards, we received a few German advertisement brochures from this store in the mailbox of our house, but we weren’t very attentive and we always threw the brochures away (because in Germany, dozens of advertisements, brochures, promotions, envelopes, etc. are sent to the mailboxes of houses every day and you throw them away at the end of the day. ). After a while, an envelope came to our house from a law firm and we saw that this was our famous company’s name, some fees plus attorney’s fees on the envelope! We said heh, I think something happened to us(!) Turns out, while we were browsing the application that day, we clicked on ‘buy’ the products we threw in the basket and the men immediately sent them to their home address! Brother, wait, let’s pay, send it like that, right! Then, the products they sent boiled away in our mailbox, which was full every day during our new move, and we didn’t even notice! The men also put invoices between the advertisement brochures they sent for months, we were throwing out the invoices while we were throwing them out as brochures! Finally, they directed us to their lawyers for collection! Of course, when we got the letter, we paid hastily, and the 30 Euro tights cost us 150 Euros, including the lawyer’s fee… Thus, we learned that the men send the products without paying (!) and they say that you can put a bank account in it and pay here at some point.. Anyway, this is Germany…if you don’t pay, they pay…

Here’s how… we learned about the differences in life in the two countries, sometimes laughing, sometimes nervously, but over time and got used to it.. Is it better to live in Germany or to live in Turkey? If you say, believe me, we still don’t know either.. Sometimes Turkey dominates, sometimes Germany….  If you have a plan to move abroad but you don’t dare, don’t worry.. We all stumble, but one gets used to one’s new country in time.. Although there were times when we questioned this decision we made, we were always satisfied with the answers we gave ourselves and we are here for a while.

Another article is over.. We came, we wrote, we go!

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