Welcome back to the Ameropean at Heart podcast, where we dive deep into sharing everything,
crazy travel stories, dating adventures, culture, fusions, and plenty of takeaways to entertain
and feed your inner curiosity and travel bug.
Good morning, afternoon or evening, whatever time of the day it is for you at this moment.
Here we are with episode number five.
I hope that you're feeling pumped and as excited as we are for our fun episode today because
we have Marco tuning in for us again.
I've gotten some very positive feedback about the what it's like being with a German episodes
with Marco in them.
So I'm more than happy to be having him here with us again.
I'm aiming now to get him in at least once a month, fingers crossed.
Today's episode topic about childhood experiences and growing up in Germany versus America that
we're going to be diving into shortly is literally one that I thought of in the shower.
As random as that sounds, I'm sure that you may be able to relate to this and I've done
the same thing yourself before.
I remember being a kid here in the U S and always wondering about life, school, food,
candy, shows, traditions, and so much more were like for other kids in other countries
and especially Germany.
Marco and I actually discussed the topic of school and school life so much in detail when
recording this that I've actually decided to leave almost all of that out for today
and create a whole separate episode because this one would have otherwise been longer
than an hour and I try to keep these episodes half an hour or less to keep them manageable
for you to take in hearing the details about a quote unquote European childhood from Marco's
perspective compared to an quote unquote American childhood that I had will be, I believe, fascinating,
insightful, entertaining, and may make you feel nostalgic about all the little things
from your own childhood.
I hope that you'll walk away from this episode being able to relate to many references that
Marco and I will be making and that you'll walk away with a fresher, more cultured perspective
about how early years are spent in different countries.
Without further ado, let's start our little trip back in time together and bring in Marco.
We are rolling.
Marco is now here live with us.
Are you excited to be back?
Thrilled.
Yeah, I know.
I see it in your face.
So there are so many things that I want us to really dive into today and I think you
already know because I prefaced you that we'll be talking about childhood and our experience
as growing up.
So the first thing that I want you to tell us about is a little bit about your life and
environment growing up in Germany.
So first and foremost, how would you describe yourself as a kid?
Like your personality, how you carried yourself?
I was a well-behaved kid.
I was not a troublemaker, but I was blunt.
So go into more detail about what you mean by blunt.
Well, sometimes maybe a little bit disrespectful towards adults.
Oh, I wasn't expecting that.
Wait, so tell us a story or give an example.
I can't give a specific example, but sometimes I lacked a little bit of respect and I made
weird jokes or whatever.
Doesn't matter if I was five or 15.
Not a whole lot has changed.
I mean, the thing is I was also really disruptive as a kid and a lot of people don't really
know that about me.
Like I was really naughty in school.
I can totally see that.
Oh, you can.
I mean, the thing is I got in trouble a lot, I think from the beginning of school.
So here in the US, that's kindergarten up until I think about fifth grade.
So about age 10.
Yeah, I got in trouble just a lot.
And it was so I really do understand where you're coming from with that.
Describe to us now where in Germany you grew up and about your home environment.
So did you live in a house?
Did you live in an apartment?
Did you live in a townhouse?
Did you live in a very big or small city?
So I mean, those kinds of details.
So I was born and raised in the east of Germany in a city, decently sized city by the name
of Chemnitz, not a very popular place to be.
But it was it was okay.
I mean, I didn't lack anything growing up.
I grew up in apartments my whole life.
So I didn't have a yard like Americans usually have, you know, any any American who who grows
up in kind of suburbia has a yard and basically kind of a separated isolated environment.
Whereas for me growing up, I guess that was more social exposure and a sense of you went
to a public playground somewhere in the neighborhood and you had your sandbox there and your swing
and, you know, your slide and whatever.
Yeah, you just met other kids from the neighborhood.
I guess that's maybe a big difference compared to to to how you grew up here.
Yeah, that is a big difference because I always grew up in a house.
I always associated apartments with young people and young people only.
So it wasn't until I actually went to Europe, as you know, that I realized, oh, this is
the way of life for everyone.
Yeah, I grew up in a house.
I grew up with my own sandbox, my own swing, my own everything.
But there are definitely pros and cons to both being more social in the apartments and
then being more isolated in your kind of house environment.
Yeah.
Also, even even for somebody in Germany who would grow up in like in a more rural area
or in a kind of in the in the outskirts of a city, Germany does not have the suburbs
the way they exist here in the US.
Go into more detail about that.
Well, I don't know if I know about that.
Just the whole way of the way those neighborhoods are kind of planned.
And for one thing, there's so much less space in Germany and it's not as you know, not as
planned.
Everything here is very planned and you know, the subdivisions and properties are bigger
usually.
And that's why most people here, I guess, can accommodate more stuff in their yard and
have basically a private playground, if you will.
And in Germany, I mean, I'm not saying that this doesn't exist in Germany, but I think
it's way more rare, I guess.
Yeah.
And I think there's way less home ownership, especially in the east of Germany.
I guess that's an overall difference.
I definitely want to make sure that we cover this next thing that I'm going to go ahead
and move us on to in Germany.
And I don't know about the rest of Europe, but definitely in Germany, there is this tradition
of every kid starting his or her first day of school, they get this massive, really cool
cone of stuff.
Marco, would you like to tell us about this tradition that is really popular in Germany?
Just describe what it is and what kind of stuff goes inside of this cone for a kid's
first day of school.
I must say, I'm not even sure where that tradition comes from and what it really means.
But yeah, what it is, is you get a, it's literally a cone.
What is the German term for it?
Sucrotüte, it literally is like sugar bag or something, because it's usually full of
little gifts and usually a lot of candy.
What kinds of candy go inside?
Can you remember what you got for yours?
Oh, wow.
I know that was forever ago.
I don't know.
I would assume just the regular stuff that you would have.
Anything that they sell, anything that was popular.
So the usual kind of brands of chocolate, gummy bears and...
Haribo?
Haribo.
You know what?
When I was thinking of this episode, I actually was thinking of the stereotypes of German
kids that I used to think.
I used to think that German kids would always be outside of school eating Haribo gummy bears
for some reason and wearing Leiderhosen.
Yeah, that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Yeah, so that's what I mean by stereotype.
I don't know.
It was just this really crazy image.
But anyway, I'm taking us off track.
I can't speak for Bavarian kids.
I don't know.
They might dress in Leiderhosen.
We might need to ask people in Munich.
Yeah.
I have never worn Leiderhosen to this day.
Yeah, so that says a lot.
So it's definitely a stereotype.
29 years and counting.
No Leiderhosen.
Well, that's going to change one of these years.
Other candy.
Is there anything else?
Kinder branded chocolate.
Oh, yeah.
I don't remember if we have that in the US, but I do know that the...
Yeah, you do.
Oh, but the Kinder eggs are banned.
The Kinder eggs are banned, yeah.
For some reason.
I don't remember.
Well, the reason is there's a little toy on the inside and America feels that it is way...
It's a choking hazard.
Yeah, it's a choking hazard.
It's way too close to the food and it kills children.
I know it's legal in Canada.
So the Canadians get it, but we don't?
The Canadians get it, but yeah, Americans don't.
Oh, wow, no.
Not as cool as we really thought.
Well, different priorities here.
I mean, Kinder eggs are dangerous, but guns aren't, I guess.
Oh, yeah.
That's a whole other topic.
And we're going to get to that in another episode.
Let's move on now to talking about food and candy and sweets and fun stuff.
Because I'm really curious, at least in terms of Germany and in terms of you growing up,
what are some candies and sweets that you remember loving and eating and enjoying as a kid?
Like certain German candies, German sweets, if you had some specifics that you ate a lot
of.
Well, I think it's kind of the same as we discussed earlier with the first day of school.
You know, those kind of...
So you need to remind us again what that is.
You know, gummy bears, chocolate in various forms, either just bars of chocolate or filled
chocolate or those Kinder eggs.
And I think that's the thing that we did have some American stuff, like anything that was
like Mars and M&Ms and stuff.
Is Mars American, though?
I thought that was a British brand.
I could be wrong.
I think Mars is...
I did not grow up with Mars.
Well, like this whole company, like Mars and Snickers and M&Ms.
That's one company.
And Twix and whatever.
Three Musketeers.
I don't know if you know that.
No, three Musketeers we didn't have.
Do you know Milky Way?
Oh, yeah.
Okay, it's kind of like Milky Way, except there is no caramel inside.
Yeah.
I ate way too much candy growing up.
I did too.
Way too much.
No, well, you know, I loved Starburst, which to this day, that is like my favorite candy.
We didn't have that.
Starburst are similar to Mamba, I guess in some way.
And I don't know, what else did I like growing up or what else did other kids like growing
up?
I mean, Hershey's is a chocolate brand here that's really popular.
But I know that you personally don't like it because you're like, this is not real chocolate.
Well, I mean, I don't want to.
German chocolate objectively is better.
Well, let's say European chocolate, not just German.
But yeah, I mean, I think if I can choose between some European brand versus Hershey's,
I would go with the European brand.
No offense, America.
What about your favorite snacks?
So when you'd come home from school or daycare, are there any snacks or foods that you remember
eating or that your mom would put out for you?
Having cake or pie in the afternoon was like a thing.
So I ate a lot of pie, like plum pie and chocolate pie slash cake.
That was a smattering of others.
So yeah, but there was a lot of pie growing up.
That is a very German thing, having cake and I guess either tea or coffee in the afternoon.
But as a kid, I guess you can't really have coffee.
We wouldn't have coffee, but we will tea.
Do kids drink tea?
Oh, yeah, sure.
Why would we not have tea?
I don't know, maybe just being here in the US.
I just personally don't remember children drinking tea.
So what did you drink instead?
Soda?
Yeah, it was either.
Yeah, it was either honestly, it was either soda or it was like I used to really love
milk with and sounds kind of gross.
You want to tell me?
No, kids can't cannot have tea, but they can have coke.
Oh, yeah, that's so much better.
Healthy.
But no, I mean, I personally didn't drink a lot of that.
But I always liked having strawberry milk in the afternoons, which it was just like
literally plain milk.
And I would put strawberry syrup in it and it would make this strawberry milk.
You had quite a sophisticated upbringing.
Oh, yes, I did.
Or chocolate milk.
I mean, look, I can't I can't I can't speak on behalf of 80 million people.
But on a general note, yeah, no, we.
No strawberry milk.
No chocolate milk.
Maybe maybe.
But I'm just saying for us like pies and pie in the afternoon.
Yeah, that definitely is not an American childhood thing that I remember.
I just remember coming home and I would eat fruit snacks.
Do you know what fruit snacks are?
Those little packets of fruit gummies.
And I mean, they're deemed to be healthy, but so it's not an actual fruit.
No, it's not.
I would eat that.
I would eat graham crackers.
I would eat chips.
I mean, I would have just had an actual apple.
How about that?
I think I had actual fruit, but I'm saying this is like what a lot of American kids eat.
Yeah, we're not the healthiest nation, obviously.
But that's no secret.
Speaking of unhealthy, every kid loves a fast food place or loves a certain place to go
out and play on the playground or go and eat some ice cream or have a happy meal.
So did you have a place?
McDonald's.
Yeah, McDonald's.
It was McDonald's.
And having a happy meal was definitely a thing.
Not just McDonald's, but other fast food places.
So did you grow up with any other fast food place?
Over the years, things have become more and more Americanized, but the only two that I
can remember growing up, and especially as a kid where I really liked going there, it
was either McDonald's or Burger King.
The two American places.
Well, that was the only fast food place, because there is no fast food otherwise in Germany.
The whole concept of fast food is American.
I don't think they do that anymore, but at the time, you could even have kids' birthday
parties at McDonald's and they had separate rooms where they had a big swimming pool full
of little plastic balls.
Oh, that!
Yeah, ball pit.
I remember that.
I remember that too.
I used to love that as a kid.
Oh, that was so fun.
Yeah, we were totally indoctrinated by America through McDonald's.
I think every country in the world, except for Bosnia.
Random fact, did you know that in Bosnia, there is no McDonald's?
McDonald's was never successful for some reason in Bosnia.
Yeah, kind of weird.
That's random.
Really random.
So I guess every country except Bosnia has adopted McDonald's.
They've had other issues, but not having McDonald's is not one of them.
I think.
I would agree with that.
Alex talked about holidays and vacations.
So whenever you had summer break, every year when you were a kid, where are some of the
places that you and your family would travel to?
Because here, being in Georgia, many families, if not like most families, just go to Florida
because Florida is not considered super, super hard to get to.
And also there are beaches.
And that's like the main place where everyone goes to.
People didn't go abroad 20 years ago.
How long was summer break?
That's a good question.
So summer break for us, I've heard these days it's getting shorter and shorter for kids,
and that's very sad.
But when I was in school, summer break, I think was two months.
So eight weeks?
About eight weeks.
For us it was six weeks.
But you did have a lot of other breaks.
We had breaks in between.
Our summer, so I mean, we would start earlier than the rest of the country.
So we would, our summer break started at the end of May and we would begin school again
at the beginning of August.
So I don't know what it is today, but apparently it's less time.
Going on vacation.
Yeah, usually during the summer, popular destinations, if it was within Germany, you would go to,
I don't think we've heard, we ever did that.
But many people would drive to the Baltic Sea, to the Baltic coast, or the North Sea
for that matter.
And other than that, yeah, you either drive or fly to places like Italy.
So not like the cities, but also kind of vacation kind of areas where you just have beaches.
Or Croatia is a popular one.
And then also Spain, especially the islands, Mallorca is like, may as well be a German
colony.
About to say Mallorca is basically like a, I mean, it's like a German island.
Why is it not Germany at this point?
Well, it's like half German, half English.
So the English felt like I was in Germany when I was in Mallorca.
The British also go there.
Oh, I know.
Oh, I know they do.
So there's like even, you could say there's territories, like very British and very German.
Anyway, so that is where you would fly.
So that's like a two hour flight to Mallorca.
So yeah, that's where you would go for like a week or two with your parents.
Also just like resort kind of hotels.
I wouldn't say much different from what people do here.
And also the other time you would meet your friends at like public city swimming pools.
Yeah, I guess that's that sums up the summer.
Just not thinking about school was always just depressing thinking, oh man, it's over.
I have to go back to school.
Yeah.
So aside from going to Florida and going, oh, I mean, I think we also go to South Carolina
because there are some beaches there too.
Well, given how big the US is, I think most people just stay.
They stay kind of close to where they live.
And also, well, in my specific case, my family has a lake property that has been passed on
in my family for a couple of generations, but that is not like a common thing for a
lot of people to have.
They don't just have a summer lake house to go swim at in the summer.
My impression is that here it is more common to have some sort of second summer property
than it is in Germany.
Now let's talk about some favorite TV shows that you may have had growing up.
So during your childhood, what were some of your favorite shows or cartoons that you remember?
Like age 10 and under is what I'm thinking.
I mean, generally speaking, by the time I was growing up, it was very heavily Americanized
already.
So anything, doesn't matter if it was movies or shows, most stuff was dubbed American cartoons.
What I loved, and I don't even know why I loved it because it's so stupid, but I still
loved it.
And I even watch it today sometimes is SpongeBob SquarePants.
SpongeBob, Bubbity Bob.
Yeah, really.
Thank you America for that stupidest thing ever, but it was good.
Or it is good.
Yes.
I also really love SpongeBob or yeah, loved and love present tense.
When I was, let's say five years old, maybe that kind of age, I liked Bob the Builder.
Bob the Builder was good.
And then there was this, and I don't know why I liked it so much.
I think that was an English, actually an English show.
Thomas the, whatever, how did you call it here?
I don't actually remember the proper name here.
It's like-
It was Locomotive, Locomotives with faces.
Yeah, it's Thomas the Choo Choo Train.
It's like a blue train and his name is Thomas.
I think that was English.
I think that was an English show.
It may have been.
I don't remember that specifically.
Now as for me, I liked all the really stupid shows.
I really was obsessed with the Teletubbies.
I hated them.
I like the Teletubbies.
We had them too and they were tremendously popular, but even at age, I don't know, four
or five or whatever, I felt my intelligence insulted.
I could not stand it.
Even as a kid, I was like, what is this?
What even is this?
Yeah.
No.
Like what am I watching?
I hated it.
I also love Barney the Purple Dinosaur, but I don't know if that ever made it to Europe.
That was a very big 90s.
Maybe.
I'm not sure, but I didn't want, no, I don't think I watched that.
Yeah.
I mean, there was that.
There was Kim Possible, which I used to play that on the computer.
I liked that too.
Yeah, Kim Possible.
Caillou, I think you've mentioned that to me before.
Also, one of the weirdest things to come out of Canada.
Disney.
Were there any German cartoons or any German?
Okay.
Aside from Bounce des Prod, which I want to ask you about in a minute.
We'll tell people about this.
Well, that is not a kids show per se.
If you don't know what Bounce des Prod is, it's a crazy cartoon.
Look it up.
It is a grumpy loaf of bread with limbs and a face.
No, it's more like a grumpy piece of bread with human hands as arms.
And it literally just flops and flops and it's angry all the time.
I'm like, why?
But it's not really a kids show.
But it's still like technically is shown on the kids channel at night time.
To kind of bridge the gap between the last show and the first show.
So yeah, but that's a whole different story.
That is so weird.
There were shows, American shows that were adopted, there was a separate German production.
For example, Sesame Street had a, I think certain parts of it were specially produced
for Germany with like German stuff.
But yeah, it was after all, it was still an American show.
So I think it was by, yeah, really when it comes to cartoons and kids shows, it was very,
very, very international already.
Didn't realize that.
Just dubbed.
Everything was just dubbed in German.
But you didn't have Mr. Rogers.
Like that was such a good kids show.
I mean-
What is Mr. Rogers?
Mr. Oh, what is that?
A day in the neighborhood with Mr. Rogers.
Okay.
He was this older man who would basically teach hard lessons to children through TV and
puppets.
About like science and stuff?
No, that was Bill Nye the science guy.
Okay.
No, no, you have to look up Mr. Fred Rogers.
We had a German accrual into that.
Yeah.
Like a guy who's teaching you the hard lessons of life to children.
And I mean, talking about divorce, talking about war, talking about stuff.
Oh wow.
Oh yeah, no, he talked about the real shit.
Of course Americans would be, would grow up with war.
Of course.
We did have a show that was kind of, what was it Bill, some science-
Bill Nye the science guy.
We had a similar one called Peter Lustig.
I've never heard of that.
What is that?
It was a guy who-
Peter Losen.
Lustig.
Which is a fake name.
Lustig means funny.
It was basically Peter funny.
I'm Peter funny.
Yeah.
And he-
Laugh at me.
And it was about science stuff.
Like how does, I don't know-
How do you build a chemical reaction?
I barely watched it, I must say.
Oh yeah, there was like one cartoon, but also kind of educational.
It was called Die Sendung mit der Maus.
I think it still exists.
Die Sendung mit der Maus literally means the broadcast with the mouse.
This is how creative we are.
Never heard of it.
And now I need to look that up later.
I think it still exists.
They still, it's also very educational.
They show how-
So a mouse teaches kids?
It's an orange, red, yeah, it's like an orange cartoon mouse.
We have our own fair share of weirdness.
Yes.
Now, one of the last things that I will ask before we start wrapping up today is what
are some things you miss the most about being a kid and being young?
Well what do you miss?
I don't know.
Like, I mean, I miss maybe sometimes just the lack of obligation.
Just you know, no, there's no real consequence.
You can just, you know, you're just lazy and play your video games and that's it.
Oh, I miss quite a few things actually.
I mean, I miss how innocent life was.
I miss how like you didn't care what anyone thought of you.
And if someone didn't really like you, then you just kind of went on about your life,
playing on the playground, recess time, having grandparents who were still alive.
Oh yeah.
Because I mean, yeah, it's just, you think of that time in your life when you still had
a grandparent or family member, my great grandparents.
I think about, yeah, my swinging on the swing, playing in my sandbox, playing catch.
I mean, I miss a lot of things as much as I love technology.
I do miss the times when people would actually speak more with each other and not pay attention
to their phones, stuff like that.
Yeah, I did like the world with, you know, that is not overly digitized.
Even though I was so big into video games and playing Game Boy and whatever.
I think like these days when you look at kids, every almost every infant has like a tablet.
Yeah.
And that's kind of sad in a lot of ways.
So we don't have that.
Yeah, kids aren't playing outside as much as they used to.
I played outside a lot.
I played outside very little, but that was because I was just such a homebody and just
playing video games.
But also, like, I mean, I had a yard and I had like, yeah, but still, still that was
to me, still there would have been so much opportunity to go out and play with neighbor
kids and whatever.
But I was always very reluctant to go.
I was always kind of playing video games.
I mean, I had a couple of neighborhood friends who I would play with, but and I would occasionally
have like someone from school come over and play like at home.
But otherwise, yeah, I mean, I didn't venture out that adventurously either.
Grounding me was not a punishment.
My parents would have, you know, I had to take take away my my video games.
That would have been a punishment.
But grounding me, you're not going outside.
That would have been a reward rather than a punishment.
You know, that's just that is just so funny.
Yeah, I didn't miss anything.
I I think despite the fact that, you know, I grew up in apartments that were not very
spacious, despite the fact that I'm a child of divorce, despite the fact that I grew up
in a city that's not the most popular and greatest city on earth.
I had a I had a pretty great childhood.
I did, too.
I also had a very fortunate sheltered childhood.
No drugs, no alcoholism, no abuse, no bad stuff.
So in that sense, yeah, we were both very fortunate.
Yeah, definitely.
This now wraps up our childhood and growing up in Germany versus America episode.
As I say at the end of each and every episode, if you enjoyed what you heard and took something
valuable away, please give this show a five star review and share it with anyone you know,
who you believe could use some Ameropian entertainment and insight in their day.
Please let me know additional feedback and suggestions on Instagram at Ameropian at heart
or on my host account at Mary Grace Crawford.
Thank you for tuning in with Marco and me today.
I look forward to being back here next Tuesday with you for another fun, adventurous episode.
Much love from the Ameropean at heart.