Alright I haven't done #emigrationtips for a while. Got sucked into a whole of too much work and also a game called Oxygen not Included. But I will be brief. I saw a meme once that said "90% of American cars are Automatic. 80% of Europeans drive stick."
And it's accurate. I've heard this from Immigrants to Norway, Sweden and #Germany ( that were not me ). Europe drives mostly stick. The Peugeot 107 my girlishfriend and I drive is stick. I thankfully learned when I still had my learner's permit and had everything from a Subaru Impreza to an Xterra in manual. I can drive clutch. It's terribly convenient because I would struggle a LOT in Europe otherwise.
Learn a stick if you plan to drive. If you don't already know, that is. Or come prepared to learn.
Also cars are tiny here. When I told @thatfrisiangirlish that I only had suitcases when I was getting off my flight, Ae told me "I hope it'll fit". I was like a cmon two suitcases will fit in any car. .... we were lucky they fit. Like I saw this GIANT ford in the grocery parking lot and I was like what is this horrible American nonsense. It was a Eueropean model F150. Then thought to myself "Oh gawd how times have changed". I had a friend with a F450. It would not fit on most European two lane roads. He'd block incoming traffic ffs.
Cars here are SMOL. Even the SUVs are closer in size to a Prius. They are generally more efficent too which is good. Gas here is usually around €1,80/L and it got worse during the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. That's a Liter not a gallon. Gas is EXPENSIVE here. I believe it should be even more so but that's a story for a different time. That's enough for now.
Tchüßis! So today on #emigrationtips I will talk about what I did on my short stay visa to Europe so you know what about what to expect. It was not easy and I made by the skin of my teeth. Remember to start ALL of this you need a passport. Right now the wait line is intensely long in the USA. Also I came here with a passport with my deadname and dead gender even if I had the paperwork for it. I got my new passport much faster in Germany than I could have in the US.
Do not make plans before you have a passport. YOU WILL BE DEPORTED. K? Let's continue.
So I get here and my girlfriend tells Ausländeramt because it's better to follow the processes of the country than try to get around them. So they obligate us to come in. They tell us I need to give them proof of education, get a full time job, go to Einwohnermeldeamt, get insurance, get a bank, I had an obligation to learn German so I would need to be tested and placed in a course, prove residence, update passport was an individual thing I would need to do. I would also need to accomplish all of this in three months.
Important note about Germany: if you are polite and comply and don't behave like an Amerikaren then every bureaucrat is the king of their individual hill. They can make the process harder or easier. Mine said he could hold off imigration for longer than 3 months but he could not do so forever. Or if they hate you or you are rude they can basically make it so you have to go home or are put on the bottom of the wait list.
Also an imporant note about Germany: most officials refuse to speak english even if they probably can. This is Germany. We speak German here. I have heard from plenty of Polish men and Croatian people that Germans patently refuse to speak English. Find a friend or a contact to translate for you if you can.
A third imporant note: When they say "X percent of people here speak English" they mean mostly these people learned it in Highschool equivalent. It was a school subject to them. You might have some luck but do NOT depend on the idea that people in Europe speak English. Most that speak english cannot hold a fluent conversation. You are moving to Europe, you will be expected to comply to their language and custom. Do NOT expect English Fluency from europeans. You are going to Europe, not living out the rest of your life as an American in another country.
So I gave them all my US based education papers, birth certificate etc etc. They needed corrections on some of them we did that as soon as possible. We went to Einwohnermedeamt like ... twice now. We went to AOK to get insurance before my job. During this time I was putting out resume after resume and doing random interviews MOSTLY in my horrible German. It was terrifying to be honest but quite the experience. We also had to drive all the way to Frankfurt which was the nearest US embassy to Germany that could do Passports. It's in a different State from us.
It was appointment after appointment and when I wasn't at an appoinment it was an interview. We also had a polycule member that decided to make our lives difficult at the time so I was also trying to support a distraught partner. It was one of the more stressful times of my life. Not THE most. I will get to that when I get to a post about Languages in another country but I finally got a job with only two weeks of my three months to spare. I am an intensely good cook and I still had a lot of luck.
So in sum you will be busy. You will be obligated to do things you are intensely uncomfortable with in a culture and a language that is unfamiliar to you. It is the obligation of every immigrant. Running from the US is not an easy experience. In fact in many ways it will be one of the most difficult things you have ever experienced in your life. Any country really but at least Americans can do it by plane instead of by foot fleeing from bombs like I know a lot of Syrians, Ukrainians and Palestinians have to. You'll unlearn that "People that flee have privilege" bs pretty quick. A lot of people have asked me for this but I have held off because Emigration from the USA is the highest it's ever been. I think it will need to be multiple posts over multiple days. I'll give it a good hashtag and maybe when all is said and done I'll make them all in one big sticky post.
Basic BASIC things first is don't get your hopes too high. A lot of Americans will make claims about how Europe is socialist. It is not. It is EXTREMELY capitalist. Like this isn't a fantasy land and every country has it's problems. Like the idea that the Netherlands is some sort of a socialist fairy tale? Yeah it's an overexpensive, xenophobic hell-hole and I see more stories of deportation than literally any other country. But it's better than America. Idolizing a country without observing any of it's flaws is what Lenin did and tried to turn an Argrarian Russia into the USSR.
If you are an immigrant, please please remember, you are NOT moving to paradise and where you are moving to likely has the same problems as where you are moving from just to a lesser degree.
Here's an important thing to note and another point that goes along with already said. The US passport is weakening, your respect is too. On a short stay travel visa you are obligated to furnish proof that you have the equivalent of €3.000. When I was at customs many Americans were obligated to provide that proof but I got my first taste of German racism at the same time as most of the people that were checked were brown. This does not mean you are not going to be checked if you are white, just that you still have privilege. Do not bank on this. This was a story of the grass isn't always greener, not a recommendation.
Here's another tip and then I will close up this post for the day. Insofar as funding I am a cook. My parents have not really provided any money for me since I came out... well my whole life really but like I have been on my own. The vast vast majority of the time that I was saving to leave I was making minimum wage and living alone with no aid with the same high rent every American has. I sacrificed weekends, holidays, even often eating. I sacrificied joy. Eventually I stopped living alone so I sacrificed autonomy as well and my friends told me with my crazy work schedule they sometimes didn't even know I existed. My longest work week was 4 weeks of 10 to 14 hour shifts.
Do not walk into this thinking that it is only for the wealthy and the privileged. If you need to flee, you will find a way. I provided for me. I worked myself to death. I gave myself arthritis. All of these were things I needed to detox from and hold the blame for myself. Stop putting this out of reach because you think it's only for rich white people in IT or with an advanced degree.
Also as a bit more of a closing tip, you will need to learn to accept shit regardless. I met a lovely spanish lady with a law degree and she worked in a fucking amazon warehouse in Germany, not the court room. You will come here and eat shit but it's better than the shit the US offers.
Anyways, I think that's long enough. Also remember I can only really accurately answer questions about #Germany, and the #USA and to a lesser degreee Europe. That's it for todays #emigrationtips 
Golden Retriever GF