In August of 2018 for 11 days myself and my good friend Wesley travelled across the world to Germany. Specifically we went to 3 cities/areas: Berlin, Munich, and Fussen. While travelling in different countries will always have some differences, these are some things I noticed which are just slightly different than what I was expecting, and not things you'd normally expect to be slightly different. As a caveat, all of this is just based on anecdotal evidence. We had limited time, primarily walked, so some things may be just because we were in certain areas and not other places.
1. Doors open inwards when entering building
From what we encountered, you push to go into most apartment buildings, and pull to exit. Unlike in Canada, where you pull to go in, and push to go out. We often ran into doors when exiting apartments because of this.
2. Locks are upside down
Keys are used upside down compared to Canada, at least in my experience. So the bitting/cuts of the key are downwards when putting keys into door locks, where as in Canada they are upwards.
3. Light switches are reversed
In Canada, unless it's a switch controlled by 2 switches, generally you press upwards to turn on a light and downwards to turn off the light. In Germany, it was the opposite.
4. Lack of Air Conditioning
During our entire stay we only encountered Air Conditioning in one store, which happened to be a very nice chocolate shop. This makes sense however when you consider the normals are 14-24 C (57.2 - 75.2 F) for August, with 60% humidty. Unfortunately, we arrived enountering a terrible hot spell of 30+ C (86+ F) with 37 C (98.6 F).
5. Dryers are not a thing
In all the places we stayed, you simply hung your clothes to dry on a drying rack.
6. Grocery stores are much smaller
Grocery stores are much smaller, however, they are within walking distance more-so than in Edmonton. From this I infer that most Germans probably get fresh food daily compared to Canadians.
7. Berlin has a lot of Graffiti
Coming from a place where Graffiti is often regarded as bad/tasteless, seeing how much graffiti is in Berlin may throw some people off at first. Residents of Berlin take pride in the Graffiti.
8. Public Washrooms are often paid
If you use the restroom while walking down the street, it will cost you some money. However, restaurants and some parks sometimes have free Restrooms.
9. Bathroom fans are not a thing
So expect a humid washroom if someone just had a bath/shower
10. Most windows, and some doors, can open multiple directions
Vertical opening, opening left or right is common. In addition to this, most windows do not have bug screens.
11. Liquor stores, and bulk purchasing of alcohol aren't very prevalent
I realize in Canada we have separate liquor stores (which is strange), however, most stores just had individual bottles of beer/wine. We only seen one or two places that had 6 packs of bottles of beer/wine.
12. North American chains are not very prevalent
North American chains, such as McDonalds and Starbucks are not that numerous from what we seen. They appear to be more in malls and touristy areas.