In this post we are telling some differences between Finland and Germany and also other things we have observed here during our stay! This is going to be a loooong post (just to warn you)....
No streetlights. In Finland every street has streetlights, so when it is dark you can also see something! But here, in the evenings the streets are really dark, only light is coming from cars and from the windows of the buildings.. In the beginning it felt a bit weird and also kinda scary but nowadays we are used to it. And here in Köln you really don't need to be afraid. We have never experienced anything scary here.
Traffic lights. Here in Germany the duration of traffic lights is really long! If you just miss the green light and need to stop, you need to wait like 5 minutes (at least it feels like it :D) before the lights turn green again. And German people are really diligent: all the people are standing and waiting the lights to turn green, even though there are no cars anywhere and you could cross the street. In Finland you just walk if there is no traffic, it doesn't matter which colour the traffic lights are.
Cars. Cars in Germany are in general really new and expensive. In Finland you see all kinds of shitty cars but here every other car is Porsche or something you would think as "special" in Finland. Of course people drive only German cars, so the streets are full of new and lovely BMWs, Audis, Mercedes-Benz and so on. We think it is because of the taxation in Finland: people basicly just don't have money to buy that nice cars. Here it is totally different case.
Taxis. All the taxis here are the same colour, like for example in New York City! In Germany all the taxis are beige, cream or how can you define the colour.. But they are really easy to notice because other cars are never that colour. In Finland you cannot differentiate a taxi from a "normal" car, the only thing is the taxi-sign on top of the car. Furthermore taxis are super cheap here compared to Finland. The starting fee is 3 € and it doesn't matter if it is weekend or night, the price is always the same. Of course we have been using taxi only in the city area, but we have never paid more than 10 €.
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| And surprisingly all of them are Mercedes :D |
Emergency vehicles. Ambulances, polices and fire trucks are really loud here! Of course you can hear them in Finland too, but here when they put the siren on you really need to cover your ears, because the sound is so loud.. We think it is a little bit too much. It really destroys your hearing :D
Sundays. Every shop is closed on Sundays. In Finland you cannot really differentiate whether it is Sunday or just a normal day, because all the grocery stores and clothing stores and so on are open. Here on Sundays only couple of cafes and kiosks are open. Everything else is closed. On Sundays people just gather to pubs and cafes to hang out :)
Kiosks. In Köln there are the biggest amount of kiosks in relation to amount of people. And you can really see that! In every street there is a kiosk. They sell similar products than kiosks in Finland but also wine, vodkas and other alcohol. It is really easy to drop by a kiosk if you need something small, because they are everywhere (believe us, everywhere). In Finland it is totally different. Of course we have R-Kioskis in every town, but here there are like hundreds of them.
Backwerks. Meaning shops where you can buy fresh sandwiches, pretzels and sweet pastry. Germany is full of them! German people apparently love to grab something small on-the-go. We really couldn't find a translation for that word so we always call them Backwerk. It is actually only one brand, there are of course many companies having the same business idea. And these you can also find from every block! Have to admit that it is really handy to go and grab there breakfast if we were too lazy/busy to eat at home. And sandwiches there cost approximately 2 €, so it is not bad for your wallet either ;D
Clubs. We will write a separate post of night life in Köln, but in this post we wanted to tell you that the clubs do not close here! :D In Finland it is super super strict that they don't sell alcohol after 3.30 and everybody needs to be out at 4 in the morning. It is the law that clubs cannot be open after 4. Here on the other hand clubs close when people leave :D Only club (as far as we know) is Roonburg, which closes at 4. Others keep their doors open as long people want to party! It is great but not so great is that too many times we have been home somewhere around 6-7 in the morning...
Alcohol. Price of alcohol is here in Germany ridiculously cheap compared to Finland. In Finland the prices are approximately double than here. We don't really know how we can afford drinking alcohol in Finland after staying here this autumn :D Also in Germany it is allowed to have alcohol discounts and offers, such as "buy 3 pay for 2 drinks". In Finland that is illegal because you cannot set incentives to buy alcohol. Haha luckily you don't need to tempt a Finnish person to drink alcohol :'D
Also one thing to mention is that you cannot get cider from Germany. Nobody knows what is cider and when we try to explain it, people are really amazed and do not even understand what kind of a drink it could be :D Exception is only one Irish Pub here in Köln where you can get apple cider!
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| Just a basic grocery store in Germany! |
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| In Finland Bacardi costs 25,90€..... |
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| In Finland Smirnoff costs 21,90€ and Absolut 22,80€ |
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| Also non-alcoholic drinks are super cheap here! (In Finland that is about 3€) |
Bottles. Nobody in Germany drinks from cans. In Finland you cannot really (that much) get anymore alcohol drinks in bottles, everything is put into cans. But here in Germany they drink from glass bottles! We haven't even seen beer in a can here.
Finnish people, do you remember those old thick lemonade bottles? Nowadays in Finland plastic bottles are much thinner because of some recycling law or something. Here the lemonade bottles are exactly like in Finland 10 years ago! :D
Smoking. In Finland you cannot smoke in bars or clubs. It is illegal. Here in Germany it is not regulated by law so you can do it if the club itself allows it. Illegal also in Finland is to advertise cigarettes. We were quite amazed and also amused when we saw the advertisements here the first time! Yeah, there are a lot of cigarette advertisements in streets, tram stops and so on. And the slogans are so hilarious in them! :'D For example: "Marlboro, when you want nothing less." "The intelligent choice" and so on.. Also they have discounts of cigarettes in Germany! "Buy now, get 20% more for free". Totally illegal in Finland, in the country of laws and regulations :D
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| Clevere Wahl= More clever choice :'D |
Cash. German people love to pay cash. In many restaurants and actually also in many grocery stores and for example pharmacies you cannot pay with card. In Finland it is totally different: people tend to pay everything with card and actually only old people use cash nowadays. So when traveling to Germany, be prepared to pay cash where ever you go :D Here in Germany they also use 1 and 2 cent coins. In Finland the smallest coin is 5 cent and we round the sums to the nearest 5 cents when paying. Those small coins are really annoying because you always get them (of course everything costs 1,99 or smth) and at least we are often too lazy to pay with them.. It takes such a long time to count them! So the result is that our wallets are full of those small useless coins.
Nature. By this we mean that even though Germany is not THAT much more south than Finland, there are millions of different trees that don't grow in Finland. And earlier we never thought that trees are small in Finland, but after coming here we realized that they are tiny :D Trees grow here so much bigger.
Homeless people. Sad but true. Of course we have beggars in Finland too (mostly in Helsinki though) but people are not living and sleeping in the streets. Here it is everyday life: When you walk around the city you can see that homeless people are sleeping in their sleeping bags in the streets, it doesn't matter whether it is cold or raining but apparently they don't have a choice. It is really sad.
Phone booths. Though we have never seen anybody to use them, there are phone booths still at least in Köln! From Finland they have disappeared a long time ago.
Hopefully you found this interesting :D At least for us this has been!
Next post is going to be about night life in Köln! Actually we are just about to go and do a bit more research about that topic ;D
Bis später,
Maiju&Jenna
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