This is my list of ten things that a non-German (mostly Brits and Americans) need to consider and remember on daily basis:
1. Germans spend a lot of time thinking about organization, connectivity, consequence, cohesiveness, clock-work, and bureaucracy. Whether it's agreeable or not, you need to fit your 'square-peg' into the 'round-hole'.
2. Just because they spent 400,000 Euro on a single ICE-railway car....does not mean that the toilet readily works or that the air-conditioning is functional in 35-C or more temperatures.
3. The German 'purity order' for beer (Reinheitsgebot) has been around since 1516, and says that only water, barley and hops can be used for pure beer. Anything else added, is impure beer to a German. Don't get confused and say any stupid crap about making pure beer better.
4. Germans offer criticism twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. Don't get nervous or hyped up if they suggest your attire is archaic, or that your suggestions are counter-productive, or that your car is wasteful of fuel, or that you might be xenophobic/racist. If you go back to the 1920s, German scientists were criticizing and condemning that wacky Einstein guy as well. The same land that builds cars for 120 mph speeds.....heavily criticizes extreme speed. The same cooks who design 3,000 calories dinners for each guest.....harshly criticize fat people. Just accept that fact.
5. There are Germans working around the clock to invent various new forms of taxation, and frankly....they have no idea what the new revenue money will do....just that you can't allow wealthy Germans to exist. In relationship to this....wealthy Germans are working around the clock....to hide their income, and pretend that they aren't quiet that rich. Just admire the two groups, and how they both pretend that this is all good for the general public.
6. If some authority German figure has signed some schedule for things to occur, it's about a 99-percent that the schedule will be pushed to the extremes to occur as 'promised'. So if it says the 7:03 AM train will leave each morning....it's pretty good odds that it will leave on time. But in relationship to that....don't go anticipating that things will work as planned, and some 10-minute delay might occur during the trip.
7. Don't get consumed over Germany being a fairy-tale land, or a Deutsche-Disneyland, or a Brothers Grimm story, or some WW II extended museum, or one giant metropolitan lusty sex-center, or a beer-keg kingdom, or a Modern Talking disco opera. It's simply a collection of people on a wild ride, and you need to hang on.
8. If you have a problem with rules, upon rules, upon rules.....with a quarter of the population dedicated to bureaucracy.....it's best to just move along (maybe just a mile over the edge of the French border would be fine enough for you).
9. If you seem to be around Germans who aren't extremely friendly (like locals that you'd encounter in Manchester, Daytona, or Melbourne)....just be patient. Eventually, three to five years down the road, they will utter 'du' in the conversation with you, then you can relax and feel accepted and as part of the inner circle. Also accept the fact that the vast majority of Germans have a max of three 'true' friends. Also accept the fact that Germans like for you to often mention how much more wonderful Germany is, over your country (even if it's true).
10. Germans (at least in this current era) may talk an awful lot about crime, thugs, drug dealers, and no-go areas. The problem here for you is that as bad as they might think of their town, or region might be.....it's probably three times worse than where you probably came from. Don't reassure the German about this....they need things to worry about and complain over.
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