It DOES take a lot of getting used to when you move to Europe. The amount of paperwork and bureaucracy can be dumbfounding if you aren't prepared for it.
Both my daughters got their first driver's licenses in the USA. The Germans said they both had to get German driver's licenses as well, even though the way Germans drive, a German driver's license is more like James Bond's license to kill.
In 1979, when a few German friends visited me in Massachusetts, where I was living for a couple of years, we visited my parents' home down south. They asked me in which place I was registered with the police. I didn't understand the question. They asked again, where was my residence was registered with the police? I said my residence wasn't registered with the police anywhere. They asked how that could be? I still didn't get what they meant. They explained that in Germany when you live somewhere, you have to register it with the local police, and when you move, you have to tell the local police that you are moving, and when you move, you have to register again with the local police, or at their agency at city hall.
I thought they were joking, and asked if they meant in East Germany, or were they talking about the Nazi era? They thought I was being stupid, and said, no that was the current law in West Germany, and what were the rules in the USA? I said that in the USA, if you want to move somewhere, you pack up your stuff and move. You tell the Post Office if you want your mail forwarded, not the police. They couldn't believe it. For my part, I couldn't believe what they were telling me, but when I moved here, I found they were telling the truth.
A German friend told me of the well-known (in Germany) tale of an engineering convention, where an American engineer and a German engineer were talking, and found that they both had almost identical projects to build a bridge over a small river in their respective towns. They made it a point to compare progress at the next convention, to take place in three years. Three years later, when they met up, the American engineer told his German counterpart that his project was completed. The German told his American colleague that he was finished as well. The American congratulated his German friend, and said his bridge had just opened for traffic two weeks ago, and what was the opening date for his friend's bridge in Germany? Confused, the German asked, "what do you mean opening date?" He said that in the intervening three years, he had just completed his paperwork. Actual construction on the bridge wasn't to start for another five years.
As for uniformity, that is a big issue in Germany. My elder daughter was sort of mobbed by some of the teachers in her high school. Her English teacher, in particular, gave her low grades as punishment for knowing English better than the teacher did, and sometimes called her prose incorrect, crossing out words that were correctly used, and correcting them using words so fake that even Trump would spot them as not English. I was furious, but powerless. She was in tears, and after graduation, vowed never to attend another German school. Several years later, she called me from her college in the USA, and asked what the word "valedictorian" meant, and why did it mean she had to give a speech in English in front of a couple thousand people? I explained, and told her that it was too late to play dumb now. She got a crash course in public speaking, and did just fine, by the way. A day later, I introduced her to Howard Dean and Al Gore, and reminded her there was nothing she couldn't do--exactly the opposite of what her German school had tried to tell her--, and not to let anyone tell her otherwise.
I have gotten used to Germany by now (more or less), but I will not be dominated by their conformist mentality. I play along with those aspects I find positive (and there are plenty), and try to steer clear of those I don't like--something I often fail at. American-born, American I remain, as you.
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