I have spent the last 5 weeks back “home” in the USA after over a decade living in Berlin. This is far from my first visit back. Typically I close down my German household and go back to my home state of Washington every year and a half, with parents visiting in between to make the distance not feel so very far away.

This all changed during the pandemic. I was fortunate that Corona-19 arrived just after an extended visit to the States where I introduced my second child to friends and family during Elternzeit (parental leave). But suddenly my home and the family that goes with it felt further away than an ocean and a continent. I am extremely relieved that none of my direct family was severely affected by the pandemic and my Berlin-based nuclear family all have a US passport so we could have visited even during the worst of it. Others weren’t so lucky as I heard about many cases where a German spouse couldn’t come with to see an ailing family member, or people who had given up their citizenship for German had to watch a loved deal with the sickness on their own.

Anyways, back to my current visit. We have been living out of suitcases, visiting my and my husband’s family on both sides of the Cascade mountain range, and even threw in a 10-day adventure through Oregon and northern California to really mix things up. It exposed my two older kids to lots of funny differences between their parent’s home and their home back in Berlin and sparked discussions on what “home” means. They are born and bred Berliners, but strongly connect with the English-language and American culture. This is both because of the mini-USA we still half-live in our house in Berlin, and the prevalence of US culture that finds its way into every nook and cranny around the globe. But still – there are things that are different. For my husband and I, native Washingtonians, this surprise of culture clash is reverse culture shock. For my kids, it is just culture shock. Here are some of their top observations from the trip and things they have found weird about life in the USA coming from Germany.

A typical toilet in Germany with the absolute bare minimum of water

“Why do toilets in the USA have so much water?!”

When we arrived at my parents house after very long flights, my 4-year-old son stepped into the bathroom to do his thing and gasped. “Why the toilet have so much water?!” He genuinely thought something was wrong. I looked, and laughed. “Nope! nothing is wrong. That is just how toilets work here.” I shrugged.

We have covered toilets in two separate posts on German-Way so the topic has been well covered (reference here and here if you need a little bathroom reading), but the short answer is a German interest in energy and resource efficiency. After getting used to the minuscule amount of water a toilet uses in Germany it feels scandalous to flush so much water every time you use the bathroom in the USA.

 Air Conditioning & Green Lawns

The last topic moves us right along to another way resources are used excessively (in my opinion) in the USA. My husband is from the east side of Washington State which runs very hot in summer. We kept cool in air conditioning as the weather beat down at over 100 degrees outside.

In Berlin, summer can be hot for a week or two at a time but never stays hot all the time. These respites theoretically make the heat bearable, but it can feel oppressive when there is no escape from days of sweltering, schwül (humid) weather. Few homes have the luxury of air conditioning in Germany so we lapped it up in the States.

However, at times it felt almost ridiculously chilly. My daughter and I took to bringing a cardigan around for grocery shopping as the contrast between weather outside and inside was a shock to the system. Germans would have been quick to say this is a dangerous condition, sure to make you sick. That is a little too far, but I still find it uncomfortable.

Almost as jarring are the picturesque green lawns next to dried out fields. Despite annual warnings of drought, people still dedicatedly water their lawn, pouring precious water right into the ground to complete the picture perfect look of their home. I find it bizarre, but that might just be the west-sider in me. I always found this strange, but it also caught the kids’ interest.

Forest Fires in the Northwest

Something that is different about my home state from when I grew up there is the presence of forest fires every summer. The tragic fires in Hawaii have saddened the world, but it is far from the only place to experience wildfires. The drier east side of my state always had some when I was a child, and California’s annual fires made the news, but it seems even the wet west side of Washington state now deals with fires and the whole northwest struggles through summers full of smoke.

We have heard about this in the news, but I couldn’t believe the murky haze that obscured views over Chinook Pass, or the blood red sun I saw last night through the smoke. My kids confused it with the harvest moon we saw a few weeks ago. My mom checks the forecast for rain, but also air quality before making plans. On our road trip that took us to Redding, California we saw evidence of forest fires everywhere and tried to explain to the kids that some degree of fire is natural and necessary, but we have far exceeded that and homes and lives are at risk every year. Especially in light of the abundant use of resources mentioned above, it seems something has to change here.

Grocery Shopping

Entry to the grocery store in Berlin PHOTO: Erin Porter

One of my favorite things to do in any foreign country is go grocery shopping. It is a window right into the heart – or belly – of another culture; a helpful insight into day-to-day life. In the USA, the grocery stores are supersized and options for every item can run in the dozens. The cereal aisle is a whole aisle with over a hundred options from healthy-branded brans to options that appear suspiciously like the cookies or treats they are named after in miniature. It is wild.

My kids gaze in wonder at these behemoths of everyday consumerism. That sweets are hidden in practically everything is a delight for my children, although you can tell their German upbringing in that they have deemed things like frosting “too sweet”. I don’t think those words every passed my lips as an American child.

Even my husband was a bit lost on proper grocery etiquette. Seeing a beer in a 6-pack he wanted to try, he pulled it out to buy individually. I told him I was pretty sure that wasn’t a thing in the USA, but he wasn’t convinced. We got to the register and of course I was right. Where in Germany it is common practice to open the plastic on a pack of Apfelschorle to grab just one or take a single beer, that is certainly unacceptable in the US.

We are entering our final week in the USA and I am treasuring all these little moments before we return “home” to Berlin. Which is truly my home? I’m not sure at this point. The place I live is certainly Berlin. But I am not sure if I will ever feel like I wholly belong in Germany, and these differences of reverse culture shock point out how much my perceptions have changed since leaving my country of origin. Myself and my third culture kids are caught somewhere ini between, into this growing community of people who have more than one home. Maybe we are the future and everyone will have ties to multiple places, allowing us to recognize the faults, follies and triumphs and improve on life in general for upcoming generations.