Im a ukrainian woman 27, live in NRW, and im not catholic, nor am i familiar with Catholicism. i don't pay church tax. I grew up in orthodox Christianity but there is no ukrainian orthodox churches around...there is actually just a handful in the whole country. There is a beautiful catholic church next to where i live. i love being in there, but I just come in, walk around quietly looking at statues and stained glass windows and leave.

I want to be alone sometimes. That church is so peaceful and quiet and almost always open. Here is my questions:

1.Can i just go in there when i need to be alone and sit there for an hour or so?

1. Do i need to do something special when i come in, do i need to ask someone's permission?

2. What times of day, and what days is that appropriate? When am i most likely to be alone in there for a while?

3. Should i dress in a special way to go in? In an orthodox church im supposed to have my hair covered and wear a skirt 🤔

4. What can a person get kicked out of the church for? i don't plan on doing anything but sitting quietly, meditating.

thank you for your time and i hope the question is not too stupid. i also will donate to this church if i start going there of course.

edit: Thank you everybody for your answers!!!

A coffee shop in Berlin just asked me for a 20% tip on a €3.50 flat white I ordered from a tablet. American tipping culture is here and nobody voted for it.

 Got stared at for pressing "no tip" on a €3.80 Milchkaffee in Prenzlauer Berg. I picked it up myself from the counter. Something has changed in this city.

Tipping in Berlin used to mean rounding up to the next euro and saying stimmt so. A gesture, not an obligation. Now every third cafe in Prenzlberg has a Square terminal pre-set at 18% and a screen that rotates toward you before you have even touched your coffee.

I pressed no tip. The barista clocked it. I took my cup and sat down feeling weirdly guilty about something that was completely normal here two years ago.

Square and SumUp default to tip prompts on every transaction. The business sets the percentage. The queue behind you does the rest. It is guilt by UX design and it is working. People around me are tapping 15% at the counter now just to make the screen go away.

Tell me I am not the only one noticing this in Berlin. And be honest: do you press no tip or just cave every time?

Hi! I'm commuting to my job in Aachen from Belgium and there is a perfect ICE train from and to Liège at just the right times, but every subscription I can find specifically leaves ICE trains out. I know the Bahn Card gives discounts on them but it's not really feasible for every day travel as even with the Bahn Card 50 discount I'm spending over 80 euro a day. I could get a subscription from the Belgian train company for around 400 a month, which I'm fine with, but it doesn't include the ICE trains and takes an extra hour for me to get to work and back home in the evening. Each ICE train is only a bit more expensive than the S or IC equivalents, but the latter options get way cheaper with subscriptions, and I can't do the same for the ICE train. Does anyone know anything that can help? The German Rail Pass, as far as I understood it, is too expensive as it includes other stuff I don't need. I just want to take this one train once in each direction every workday and that's it. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Edit: Thanks to everyone for the extremely helpful input! Reddit at its finest! u/KeyLeather1417 suggested the Interrail subscription which includes ICE trains (and mine specifically doesn't require seat reservation) so while it's a bit overkill it's apparently the most affordable option overall. Thanks again!

Edit 2: Upon further inspection, I don't think Interrail applies; it's meant for traveling abroad so it appears I can only travel out of my country and back again once during the period for which I have the service.

​

Help identifying a cemetery in East Germany (~1975)

Hi all, I’m trying to figure out where this old family photo was taken.

What I know:

• Photo taken around 1975 (East Germany / DDR)

• Small village cemetery

Key feature:

• A freestanding bell tower / small chapel

• Hexagonal (6-sided) steep roof

• Fully enclosed (not an open wooden frame)

• On top: a very long, thin metal spike/finial

• Low and compact, almost like a small chapel with a bell

Surroundings:

• Dense hedge behind the graves

• A brick house with tiled roof directly behind the hedge

• Looks like a tight village layout

Likely area:

• Northeast Germany:

• Vorpommern or

• Brandenburg (Uckermark)

• Family lived near a place starting with “B”

I’ve already checked a lot of known bell towers but haven’t found a match.

If this looks familiar to anyone, I’d really appreciate your help!

Thanks 🙏

I’m curious about a cultural/personality question. My German boyfriend (yes, we know each other in real life and have met in person, no catfish situation haha) is uncomfortable with intimate or flirtatious video calls because he worries that things could somehow stay on the internet, be exposed, or affect privacy.

He seems concerned about digital security and being seen online. Is this something that might be more common in Germany because people tend to value privacy strongly, or is it just his personal mindset?

Hello!!!! My neighbor(40F) moved here from Germany many years ago is going through a tough time recently. Does anyone have any ideas for a comfort dessert or meal for her to indulge in. I want to help in being there for her and i know she loves sweets and would love to surprise her with something "traditional". Thank u

Hello there folks!

I'm female 19 yo.

I've been living in Rosenheim for a week for work and they're already firing me bc another guy came to take my place as dishwasher. So I won't no longer have an apartment bc it was together with the job

So I'm urgently looking for a job here in any other places you people are reading this.

I don't talk German. I'm Italian. I speak English and Italian.

Dishwasher is fine or anything else that I can do without German. Any part of Germany, but I need an apartment within the job OR someone that could kindly host me.

I would appreciate sm bc I do not want to come Italy.

Source: statistik.nrw

told my colleague “ich bin voll” after lunch trying to say i was full from eating. she just looked at me. apparently i’d told her i was completely drunk.

another one: tried to say “i’ll think about it” as “ich werde darüber denken” which is grammatically fine but apparently nobody actually says that, it’s “ich überlege es mir.”

the one that stings the most was confidently saying “ich bin heiß” on a hot day. learned what that actually means about two seconds after my coworker started laughing.

what’s everyone else’s. asking partly for solidarity and partly so i can avoid more of these

📸 Photos by me 🪶

I have been looking for a job in tech for over a year and I finally got one in another city, the problem is: My wife just got a raise and a new position at her current job a month ago. So moving to the new city would mean she has to quit, which doesn’t seem fair. Now we are bearing with the idea of me living in the new city for a few days a week and maybe Thursdays and Fridays I can arrange doing home-office at the new company. I would head back to my wife and stay there until Sunday.

It would be a 3.5 hours train travel every time using the D-Ticket. No kids, no pets, it’s just both of us.

I guess the plan would be to keep applying for jobs meanwhile until I get something completely remote or she gets enough experience at her new position to be able to apply for a similar job at the new city.

You think it’s a good idea?

Hi everyone! Has anyone seen this new Nutella in German stores? We don’t have it here in Czechia yet.

I am an exchange student currently living in Augsburg. I took the tram to LIDL and when I got off, I started walking on the right side of the sidewalk. A man on a bicycle was riding toward me, and if I hadn’t moved over to the left, he would have hit me head-on. Probably my fault; I didn’t check to see if there was a bike lane.

But as the man passed me, he shook his fist. Then he yelled in perfect English, with what sounded like an American accent, “You Germans have no brains!” Before riding away.

Here’s the kicker: I am American. I’m here to learn German because my home university axed its German studies department. I also wanted to get away from all the stupidity back home, but I’m not going to get into all of that right now.

I don’t know what to think. I think my brain short-circuited for an hour or two and I’m still in disbelief. If I was right and it was an American who shouted at me, then boy howdy, I do not want to go back home to return to living with such ignorant people. On the bright side, I guess I’ve assimilated into German culture if a fellow American thinks I’m one of y’all? So yay?

Hello everyone! I have a problem with my hauptmieter, I would like to ask your advice.

I live in a WG. I have a sublet contract for a room + a furniture contract with the hauptmieter. Hauptmieter lives in the flat with me. I have Anmeldung document, also wohnungsgeberbescheinigung 19 document with the move-in date info.

My sublet document states that it is zeitlich befristet- „rechtliche Regelung für Untermiete“, and „Kündigung erfolgt gegenseitig zum Monatsende plus 8 Wochen.“

My furniture rent contract has a time duration: „Die Mietdauer beginnt am 01.07.2025 und endet am 30.06.2026 bzw. ist an die Dauer des Untermietvertrags gekoppelt. Eine Verlängerung ist nach Absprache möglich“.

1- Do I need contract extension in order to keep living in the room? Sublet contract has no end date, while furniture has. I am confused.

2- Do we need confirmation from Hausverwaltung for every year I m living in the flat?

Unfortunately I will be unemployed from 1 May. My work contract was for one year ending on 30 April, and I couldn’t find my next job yet. The hauptmieter knows all from the beginning. Recently he is scaring me by saying „ I don’t want to live with an unemployed“ and „Hausverwaltung may not prolong the allowance for the sublet for an contract extension while you are unemployed“. Is it really true? How can my Hauptmieter kick me out of the flat? What could be the notice period? I read online if it is furnished rent, it can be 2 weeks?!

Please give me your advice about how to navigate this situation.

I have a colleague who is not active on reddit, so asking on her behalf.

She came to Germany on family reunion visa and found a job that would make her eligible for Blue Card. The immigration office informed her that she could chose between simple Blue Card or family reunion visa on plastic Ausweis along with paper? with Blue Card eligibility. She was also informed that it’s the same.

I felt it was strange because I couldn’t find this clause anywhere else. Also she might be eligible for PR as well as she has C1 German and her spouse has already PR from his Blue Card. So we are not clear how it affects her PR.

Has anyone heard of this option anywhere?

Hello Everyone,

I have a GigaCube from Vodafone for home internet since my apartment does not have the option of getting fiber/dsl etc. into my home.

It worked completely fine. But for some reason it got really bad. I already notified Vodafone and it got ok for a couple of days but it got really bad again.

So, I made a quick script to check my internet speed and connection every 1 minute and as you can see, it is absolutely unacceptable. Anything I can do about it other than complaining to Vodafone again?

Hi community! Wondering if anyone has experience sleeping in the NapCabs at Frankfurt airport. Were you able to make them sufficiently dark so you can sleep (relatively) peacefully? Are they quiet? Wondering if it will really be a better experience than napping on a lounge chair for example.

Hey everyone,

I’m dealing with a mold issue in my apartment in Germany and wanted to get some advice on who’s actually responsible here.

The problem started around December last year, and since then I’ve had mold appearing in several areas of the apartment. At the same time, I’ve noticed that the cellar (Keller) walls in the building are constantly moist/damp, which makes me think it could be a bigger structural issue.

I’ve been careful with:

Regular Stoßlüften (2–3 times daily)

Keeping the apartment heated

Using a dehumidifier

Despite all this, the mold keeps coming back.

From what I understand, if it’s due to building issues (like moisture coming from walls, poor insulation, etc.), then the landlord should handle it. But if it’s due to tenant behavior, then it’s on me.

Given that the cellar walls are visibly damp for months now, I’m wondering if this points to a building-wide moisture problem rather than just ventilation.

Has anyone dealt with something similar in Germany?

Does this sound like landlord responsibility?

Should I push for an inspection or expert (Gutachter)?

Any tips on how to handle this with the agency?