We're at Bellevue Park, we're in Over the
Rhine right now, this is Old St. Mary's Church,
we're here by the river basically and I decided
to go to the campus of the University of Cincinnati.
Hallo, Servus, and welcome back to my YouTube
channel.
As you can see I'm in a different setting
right now and I'm here with my friend Katie.
I hope you can see it, there's the Cincinnati
skyline right behind us and this is the start
of my 100k subscribers special video because
I cracked 100k subscribers 4 days ago and
it's pretty crazy.
And I promised you guys that I would do something
different for this one.
So we have a fun day ahead of us because we're
gonna go through Cincinnati, go to our favorite
spots, typical Cincinnati spots, some German
spots in Cincinnatiand then at each of those
spots I will answer some of the questions
you guys have asked me on Instagram, in the
Youtube community tab, on Patreon, everywhere
really, in the comments.
I've collected them all and I'm just gonna
try and answer as many as possible.
So, right now we're at Bellevue Park.
There's a really nice view of downtown Cincinnati.
And this is close to the University of Cincinnati
and close to where I spent most of my time
in in Cincinnati.
The first question is, what is the strangest
American habit for you as a German?
One of the things is that Americans like to
cut their food first with the knife in the
right hand, and then when they're done cutting
it then they take the fork into the right
hand and eat it.
In Europe we always keep the knife in the
right hand.
Another thing is that Americans always claim
that they're so busy, in a hurry all the time,
they don't have time to eat, eating requires
half an hour in and out of the restaurant
or for lunch just get fast food really quickly,
but then when I'm at the grocery store or
walking somewhere people walk so slowly and
it really makes me aggressive.
Compared to Europe it's so slowly and also
the checkout process at grocery stores is
just so slow and it doesn't seem to make sense
because why, if you're in a hurry and you
have zero time, why would you then waste all
your time at the grocery store if it really
only needs to take 20 minutes but in the US
it often takes like an hour.
We also when we grocery shop, we grocery shop
for like three weeks.
Yes but people move slower.
I never noticed that.
And the checkout is so slow too.
At Kroger or Walmart compared to regular European
stores, at least in my opinion, I'd say it's
pretty slow.
I wonder if that's a Cincinnati thing too,
because we're in the Midwest.
Everything's a little slower.
And then one more thing that I've mentioned
before in some of my other videos is that
I don't understand why Americans use disposable
dishes for normal occasions, when they're
just at home by themselves or with their family.
And it's not a big group, it's not a party
setting, it's not a grill out it's just a
normal regular setting.
And instead of just using the regular dishes
and plates they use disposable dishes.
Even though they have dish washers.
The whole "we're lazy" argument I don't really
understand.
So that's weird to me too.
The pressure's on.
Should I ask one in German?
And butcher the accent?
You can try it!
Please translate it too.
She does not speak any German.
I know "Scheiße" and "Arschloch.
"I was wondering how tall you are?"
I am 163 cm tall and in feet it's 5 foot 4.
So I'm short.
For a German I'm short, for an American I'm
tall because I think the person also asked
if there's a difference between heights in
Germany and the US and there definitely is.
Germans overall are taller.
I think I'm actually taller than the average
American woman but shorter than the German
average woman.
The American average is 5'3".
What is your zodiac sign?
Pisces, Fische in German.
Ok let's do one more.
Do you enjoy a nice grilled cheese sandwich?
I do!!
Yes I love cheese and I love bread so everything
carbs with cheese is heaven for me.
So yes I definitely do.
Ok so we're gonna go to the next spot!
We're in Over the Rhine right now which used
to be a German neighborhood in Cincinnati,
on the other side of the German Rhein river,
because this was a German enclave so in the
19th century this entire neighborhood was
in German, it was German immigrants, schools
were in German, everyone spoke in German,
businesses were in German, church was in German,
street names were in German, everything up
until WWI.
And then there was an anti-German hysteria.
It's been gentrified which is good and bad,
there's a lot of cons to this.
There's still a lot of conflict.
But honestly I do enjoy it, the historical
parts of it.
But I also enjoy the bars and restaurants
and people are just enjoying themselves.
This is Graeters, we'll come back here in
a second because this is a Cincinnati original
ice cream place.
That AC feels so good.
I little wave of cold air.
It's pretty hot and humid in Cincinnati, as
always usually.
It's actually not as hot as usual.
But it's still hot and humid and you sweat
a lot.
Oh this thing over there used to be a German
beer garden.
Heinrich Willard I think and it still says
H.W. 1873.
Would you walk down this street alone filming
this?
No, that's why I brought you.
I'd feel so dumb haha.
So with Corona they started closing off a
bunch of the side streets here so that people
can dine in the streets.
I'm not sure do they do this during the week
too?
It's Sunday today.
Yeah it's pretty permanent I think.
OK.
It's so European feeling, eating on the streets.
Cause usually it's not as easy to do that
in the US because of the alcohol laws.
So usually restaurants can only have spots
like this, where you have a fence on the side
to make it clear that this is the sidewalk,
this is public, and this belongs to the restaurant.
But the typical curbside dining experience
like you have in France and Germany and everywhere
in Europe you usually don't have as much in
the US.
But now you do, which is cool.
Just wanted to show that there's German beer
on the menu, which is pretty usual.
Like, you'll find especially Weihenstephaner
and Schofferhofer Radler you'll find a lot
at American restaurants but they also have
Krombacher actually which you don't see a
lot.
Ok so I did get the German Schofferhofer Radler
which tastes exactly like it does in Germany.
It's not the best.
I usually wouldn't get that in Germany but
it's ok.
And she got a coffee.
Actually it's an iced cappuccino.
Katie's at the bathroom right now so I'll
just try and answer a few questions.
There's a car with a bunch of bass.
I don't know if you guys can hear that.
So the next question is was it difficult for
you to decide to move to Cincinnati?
And I have to say that it never felt like
I made this decision.
It was always a step by step progress and
to this day I don't really feel like I decided
"Ok, I'm moving to Cincinnati now permanently."
It's just like I always decided to stay a
little bit longer, stay a little bit longer,
come back and obviously I was lucky enough
to get a green card so now I have that freedom
that I can actually stay here for as long
as I want but I haven't decided that permanently
in my view.
So, I'd say it wasn't difficult for me.
Were you at a Gymnasium, Realschule, or Gesamtschule?
So these are different types of schools in
Germany and I went to a Gymnasium.
Ok and last one before we go to the next spot,
Favorite German TV shows or movie?
Ok favorite German TV shows or I guess not
TV but Netflix is definitely Dark, I think
I've mentioned that a few times recently on
my instagram livestreams and stories and stuff.
Dark is amazing I just finished season 3 it's
really good, I also really enjoyed Doctor's
Diary which has an English title but is a
German TV show, it's a comedy show.
Türkisch für Anfänger which was also by
the same writers I think, also a comedy show.
Movies, Victoria which you guys maybe know
I think it was 2015 a really impressive movie.
Beste Zeit which is actually a Bavarian movie,
Heimatfilm is the genre that it is by Marcus
H. Rosenmüller, love that movie.
Traumfrauen is just a Rom-Com, German Rom-Com
but it's one of my favorites.
And actually by the same people who made Dark,
the Netflix show, I really like the movie
(ok now there's a dog fight breaking out)
So by the same people who made Dark, the movie
Who Am I.
And there's Katie.
I just said hi to those dogs and immediately
they're like Grrr.
So we're at Graeters right now which is a
Cincinnati original, ice cream brand and ice
cream parlor.
I was gonna show the different flavors but
they don't have them here.
Let's go outside because it's too loud in
here.
Ok let's answer one question very quick.
Ok this is not an easy question, but What
do Americans think of Bavaria?
Oh, Katie what do they think.
We only know the Oktoberfest to be honest
and I think Bavarian pretzels but that's a
Cincinnati thing I don't think anybody else
in the country knows, No they do.
Really?
Ok.
Yeah good question I think a lot of Americans
just think that Germany equals Bavaria so
a lot of the German stereotypes are Bavarian
stereotypes but other than that I don't think
Americans have a lot of opinions on that.
A lot of people actually ask me about what
my plans are for staying in the US or moving
back, a lot of people asked "Are you planning
on moving back to Munich at some point?"
"Where do you see yourself in 10 years?"
"Are you gonna be in the US in 5 years?"
And I feel like I've answered this before
but I have zero plan.
So I'm here for now, I might be in Germany
in 10 years, I might be in Germany in 5 years
but I don't know.
I might be in Cincinnati or I might be somewhere
else in the US or somewhere else in the world.
I really have no plan, the great thing is
that I have the freedom to do that because
I have a green card so I can stay here but
I'm just honestly going with the flow, yeah
I am lucky, going with the flow.
So, yeah I'm really just doing what life throws
at me.
If anything happened back in Germany I would
definitely move back home like if someone
got sick or something I would move back home.
Longterm I kind of see myself at least living
in Germany partly because if I ever have a
family which I do want to have a family at
some point, I would want my kids to grow up
in Germany as well.
This is Old St. Mary's Church, die alte Sanktmarienskirche,
and it's from 1841 built by German immigrants.
And they actually have a German mass here
every Sunday at 11 i think and there's a pretty
big German community who comes here and they
also all celebrate afterwards and get drunk
every Sunday after mass.
So this is one of the typical German heritage
spots in Cincinnati.
And we'll answer a few more questions.
So if you could change something culturally
about the US and Germany, what would it be.
So, I would definitely make Americans a little
bit more direct.
And I would make Germans a little more friendly.
So I would have a mix, Americans are in a
lot of cases way too polite in my opinion
in some occasions, and they're not always
very reliable because they're not always very
honest with what they say.
Also not always on time.
So I would make it a mix of the two.
I would have Germans be a little more friendly
and open and polite, and Americans a little
more direct and reliable.
How many countries have you visited?
Over 20.
I think I sat down and counted them once but
it was definitely, no, another time.
Is there a book you recommend for someone
trying to learn German?
I've obviously never tried to learn German
myself as a second language.
I'm sure there are plenty of books for people
who learn it as a second language but I would
just recommend kids books like children's
books and some of the best children's books
in my opinion in German are from Erich Kessner
and Otfried Preußler, like for example Das
Fliegende Klassenzimmer or Die Kleine Hexe,
there's many more just google it.
That's how I learned French was reading baby
books, it was really helpful.
Well they're not even baby books they're just
children's books.
Yeah but even the 10 year old books were really
difficult to understand because it's a different
tense.
Like the past tense.
Do you have an irrational phobia that your
friends and family tease you about?
Ok, I thought about including this into the
vlog because it's such a weird question.
I don't really have any because I'm a pretty
easygoing person, I'm not really disgusted
by anything I don't have any weird ticks but
the one thing I do have, I'm kind of grossed
out by anything that's dead.
Like, I don't eat meat because I think it's
weird to eat dead creatures, dead animals.
And I'm also really grossed out by anything,
like I don't even kill mosquitoes.
If anything, I do it with a shoe.
But never with my bare hands.
So I think that's a thing.
I don't like to have anything dead around
me.
What software do you use for your Youtube
videos?
Adobe premiere pro.
This is not a sponsorship.
What was your major?
I got a Bachelor's degree in Germany in Communications
and my minor was Political Science and then
I got a Masters of Arts in German Studies
in the US.
Do you like the weather better in Germany
or Ohio?
Or are they pretty much the same?
Good question, I think I like them both.
They're not the same.
I'd say the winters are pretty similar especially
with how cold it gets and how much snow we
get, at least Munich and Cincinnati are very
comparable with that.
The summers in Cincinnati are way longer and
way more consistent than they are in Munich.
But it's also much hotter and much more humid
so that can be a little much, like today we're
both sweating our asses off.
It's a lot sometimes.
But I actually do prefer that over not having
any summer or like not being able to plan
ahead because you never know is it gonna be
summer this year?
Are we gonna have one week of summer or two
weeks of summer?
Overall I'd say Ohio has pretty short Fall
and Spring seasons, like the summer is really
long and the winter is long.
In Germany, the Spring and the Fall seasons
are a little bit longer.
Yeah, and over all it's a little colder.
But it doesn't get hot in Germany in the summer.
People are actually currently complaining
about the heat in Germany.
Do you have any cooking/eating habits that
could be considered controversial?
I think the example that the person put was
dipping pizza in ranch dressing.
What's my hair doing?
Bye hair.
And actually I think that's such a midwest
thing, right?
Yeah.
I started doing that.
But only with American pizza.
I do that with American pizza I wouldn't do
that with Italian style pizza.
So yes, that I do.
I also dip my soft pretzels that you get in
the US into beer cheese, which is an American
invention.
So that is definitely controversial for Americans.
And one more thing is I eat Nutella with butter.
But in Germany there's two teams, Nutella
with butter and Nutella without butter.
I'm Nutella with butter so.
Fell free to complain about that if you want.
Can I ask one in German?
Warst du schon mal in Österreich?
Oh that was pretty good.
So the question was have I ever been to Austria
before and yes, I'm from Munich which is really
close to Austria.
It's like an hour by car.
So yes, I've been to Austria many, many times.
I don't even know how many times.
Yeah.
To ski, for vacation, yeah.
It's hard to see.
Ok I'm currently filming on my phone because
my GoPro battery is getting low but this is
also one of the leftovers in Over the Rhine
in Cincinnati, one of the German leftovers,
it says "Deutsche gegenseitige Versicherungsgesellschaft
von CIncinnati" on that building so the mutual
insurance company of Cincinnati.
Ok so we're here by the river basically, so
you can see the riverfront right here with
a bridge.
And there's this famous sign behind us that
says "Sing the Queen city."
Queen city is a nickname for Cincinnati.
One other question that people asked me was,
Katie can you repeat it, "Where, if you could
live somewhere else besides Germany or the
US, where would you live?"
And did it say why?
I don't know.
And there was another person who asked "Which
English-speaking country would you want to
live in?"
And so I combined the two questions because
I don't even think that I would want to live
in a country that's not English-speaking.
Just because I'm not really fluent in any
other language.
And I do like the cultures in English-speaking
countries.
So I think it would be either Canada or Australia.
Ireland?
I don't think I would wanna move to Ireland,
just because of the weather.
True.
And a lot of people also asked me about my
longterm goals in life and with my channel.
And I have to say that I don't have any, and
this sounds kinda weird but I'm not really
the kind of person who has goals.
I think the only really life goals that I
have is that I wanna have a family at some
point in my life and one thing that has kind
of come to my mind recently is I kinda want
to produce audio plays for kids at one point
and I think I wanna adapt famous German audio
plays because they're super popular with German
children, like every German person who is
watching this right now probably listed to
audio plays growing up, like Die Drei Fragezeichen,
Bibi Blocksberg, Bibi und Tina, etc.
So I think one of my life goals is producing
those in English and possibly adapting some
of the ones that were super popular in Germany.
But I don't know if that's even possible.
Honestly besides that I am not the kind of
person that plans ahead, I'm not the person
who has huge goals I just go with the flow,
I do what feels right I'm a very, I'm a gut
person.
Is that something you can say?
I'm an intuitive person.
You follow your gut.
I follow my gut.
I guess with my channel I kind of set myself
a short term goal but it's not really a goal
for success it's just that in March I started
doing Youtube full time pretty much and I
don't see this as a long term career or anything
so I told myself that I'm gonna do it for
a year full time, committed, and then see
from there, like if I enjoyed it, where it
brought me, if I wanna keep doing it or if
I just wanna go back and do this as a hobby
on the side?
So I guess that's a short term goal that I
set for myself.
Ok so I'm down by the Ohio River right now.
So across the river is actually Kentucky,
not Cincinnati anymore.
This is the Roebling bridge which was built
by a German immigrant in the 19th century.
And this guy also, after he built this bridge
he went ahead and constructed the Brooklyn
Bridge in NYC but then died before he could
finish the construction.
We need a boat.
We need somebody who has a boat.
Do any of your followers have a boat?
And do they wanna take us on the Ohio River?
If you could go back in time to any point
in American history for a week where would
you choose and why?
Ok, so I thought about this before when I
picked the question and I would not wanna
go to the Wild West and I feel like a lot
of people are gonna say Wild West.
It was so lawless, like I wouldn't wanna be
part of that.
I think I would wanna go into the 19th century,
the 1800s, and actually possibly check out
those German immigrant enclaves and see how
it was for the German immigrants to live here.
And then I think I would pick the 1920s with
prohibition and everything going on, in NYC.
Yeah or even just in Cincinnati I think anywhere
it was a cool time.
It was big here!
We had all of the breweries and bootleggers.
Another question was when traveling to Germany
what German goods that are hard to find in
the states do you pack into your suitcase
on your return trip?
So usually products from dm, which is a German
drugstore and I know that a lot of German
Expats do that too and I actually recently
ordered a huge order from dm to the US because
I ran out of products and they have so many
products that are really, really high quality,
you can't find anything like it in the US
and it's really cheap.
Like some skin lotions, I've tried the really
expensive ones in the US, the cheap ones in
the US, and even the cheap ones are like 5
times as expensive and they're not even half
as good.
So dm products.
And then also Mate drinks.
Club-Mate is one of the brands, I've mentioned
it before in one of my videos.
The Mate beverages that they have in the US
are just not the same unfortunately.
And I really miss that.
What other parts of America have you been
to?
After the pandemic is there anywhere you haven't
travelled to yet that's on your bucketlist?
So I've been to a lot of places in the US,
I think I've been to over 20 states I wanna
say.
I've counted before but I forget.
But a lot of them I've only been to for like
1 night.
The driving throughs I didn't count, I counted
the ones where I've spent at least one night.
Some of the places that I haven't been to
yet that I definitely wanna go to are Oregon,
especially Portland, Louisiana, and especially
New Orleans, and Texas.
And then also Miami, Florida actually.
So four things I think are on my bucketlist
to visit next.
What's your favorite food?
What kind of sweets do you go crazy for?
I think my favorite food, I don't eat meat,
so anything without meat, but I love everything
carbs.
I love pasta, rice, bread, I love mac and
cheese and those kind of things.
I love everything with cheese too, risotto.
And the kinds of candy that I go crazy for
is mainly chocolate and Nutella.
Sind deine Zuschauer eher Deutsch oder Amerikanisch?
Are my viewers more German or American?
They used to be way more American, like I
think 80/90 percent American, but then in
March one of my videos kind of went viral,
the reaction video to the "Top 10 Reasons
not to live in Germany" thing, and that kind
of went viral with the German audience.
So then, my audience was way more German for
a while.
And now it's kind of evened out.
And it's like 50 percent German, 50 percent
American.
Which is honestly the ideal situation.
So that's really cool.
So we're in front of Mecklenburg Gardens right
now unfortunately they're closed today, which
we weren't aware of, but Mecklenburgs is one
of the places that totally remind me of Germany.
And one of the questions was, which place
in Cincinnati reminds me most of home.
And honestly not a lot of places in the US
and in Cincinnati remind me of Germany or
Munich in particular, really the only places
I'd say are like the traditional typical German
places and they remind me of the traditional
typical German places in Munich.
Not all Germany is like that, we're a modern
country.
But the beer gardens that we have here in
Cincinnati do remind me of the beer gardens
in Germany.
Mecklenburgs is actually the oldest German
restaurant in Cincinnati.
So this is like a meeting spot for a lot of
people from the German American community
in Cincinnati.
There's a Stammtisch here once a week usually,
there's people who meet up here to watch Bundesliga,
there's lots of events happening here and
in other German spots in Cincinnati.
This is a really nice spot because they have
a really nice beer garden and they have amazing
German beer too.
Ok so a little detour without Katie, it's
actually later in the day now and I decided
to go to the campus of the University of Cincinnati
and it's beautiful lighting right now and
this is the way that I always walked to campus
and I haven't been here in a few months so
that's kind of crazy.
Ok so this right behind me is where I got
my Masters degree, so I spent a lot of time
in there.
I had all my classes in there for my Masters
and I also taught German in there.
Yeah, weird memories.
This is crazy.
Ok so I sat down here, you should be able
to see the stadium behind me and a few other
buildings and hopefully the nice sky.
I love the Cincinnati sunsets they're so nice.
We don't really have nice sunsets like that
in Munich.
At least not as often.
In Cincinnati when it's not super cloudy it's
usually every single day.
So one of the questions that I haven't answered
yet is "Gibt es in den USA auch so viele unterschiedliche
und komplizierte Dialekte wie in Deutschland?"
"Are there as many different and complicated
dialects in the US as there are in Germany?"
And the answer for me is definitely no.
Because in Germany we have so many dialects,
there's many different numbers, some official
numbers say that there's over 50 official
dialects, some numbers say that there's over
100 or 200 dialects.
In the US there definitely is variation but
you could travel very very far and people
will still pretty much sound the same.
There's accents for sure but heavy dialects,
where the vocab is different and the pronunciation
is different entirely really not so much.
They do exist but it's not nearly as common.
I've never talked to anyone who I didn't understand
at all.
If anything they will have a heavy accent
but not really speak dialect like when people
speak Bavarian dialect very heavily people
from the North of Germany usually don't understand
a single word.
So it's not really like that in the US I would
say.
So that was the end of my 100k subscribers
special vlog.
Of course we did not get to see the whole
city, it's impossible to see the whole city
within one day or like in one vlog.
But we did check out a few important and interesting
spots I think.
We definitely had a great time and tried to
answer as many questions as possible.
So I hope you guys enjoyed this.
Make sure to give this video a thumbs up if
you did enjoy it, obviously subscribe if you're
not a subscriber yet.
If you're not one of the 100k people yet,
then you need to become one.
Join the club!
Join the family.
And of course check out all of my social media
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and you can also support me on Patreon if
you want to become a patron there's always
monthly Q&A sessions with me, so all the questions
that I didn't answer this time you can ask
me once a month in a live session on Patreon.
And you could also support me on buymeacoffee.com/ggia
if you just want to support me without any
long term commitments.
Just buy me a coffee or a beer or something
like that.
I definitely appreciate it, every kind of
support, whether it's a subscription or a
comment or a like or a direct message or just
watching my videos and telling your friends
about them.
Yeah so I hope everyone's having a great rest
of your day, and I hope I'll see you next
time.
Tschüss and bye guys!
Bye from Katie.
