I'm American and have lived in Germany a lot. In the 1970's in California, we learned to write with pencils.
By the time I was in high school and used pens (mostly ballpoints, some felt-tipped) and also typewriters, I thought of myself as a pretty serious stationery nerd.
Then I went to Germany and everybody at school used fountain pens, which I didn't even know how to fill! People probably thought I was an absolute barbarian, sticking to my ball-points.
Then came university: in America, at the end of the 80's, you would be considered rather unserious if you didn't at least type up your assignments. Computers were an option but the minimum effort was to type things, libraries had lovely quiet-ish electronic typewriters for that purpose.
And back I went to Germany, where -- at University! -- everybody was writing everything with those same damned Füller!
And now, in 2020, at least the kids still are. Drop into any McPaper[0] and you will see a ton of cheap plastic fountain pens for the school kids. (Fortunately for me, the roller ball has also taken pretty firm hold, and people don't look at you funny anymore for not carrying around an ink bottle.)
I have a really nice fountain pen, a Pelikan[1], and I almost never use it because I can't commit to thinking about the ink that much. In the end, the Germans out-nerded me.
I'm American and have lived in Germany a lot. In the 1970's in California, we learned to write with pencils.
By the time I was in high school and used pens (mostly ballpoints, some felt-tipped) and also typewriters, I thought of myself as a pretty serious stationery nerd.
Then I went to Germany and everybody at school used fountain pens, which I didn't even know how to fill! People probably thought I was an absolute barbarian, sticking to my ball-points.
Then came university: in America, at the end of the 80's, you would be considered rather unserious if you didn't at least type up your assignments. Computers were an option but the minimum effort was to type things, libraries had lovely quiet-ish electronic typewriters for that purpose.
And back I went to Germany, where -- at University! -- everybody was writing everything with those same damned Füller!
And now, in 2020, at least the kids still are. Drop into any McPaper[0] and you will see a ton of cheap plastic fountain pens for the school kids. (Fortunately for me, the roller ball has also taken pretty firm hold, and people don't look at you funny anymore for not carrying around an ink bottle.)
I have a really nice fountain pen, a Pelikan[1], and I almost never use it because I can't commit to thinking about the ink that much. In the end, the Germans out-nerded me.
[0]: Really, there's a chain called McPaper: http://www.mcpaper.de
[1]: https://www.pelikan.com/pulse/Pulsar/en_US_INTL.Core.display...