Notes About Germany

Today we said our fond good-byes and dropped Mr. and Mrs. Puppy off at the airport in Dusseldorf. We had plans to go back to Monschau, but the weather today is cold and rainy, so we decided to chill at home instead. I am going to take this opportunity to mention a few random things about Germany, in no particular order.

*SuperNova Random Thoughts and Observations:

• There are bike paths everywhere here. I had heard that the Netherlands were very bike friendly, but I hadn't realized that extended to Germany. There are beautiful, paved, smooth bike paths everywhere you go, well off the streets with their own directional signs. If you spend any significant time in Germany, rent a bicycle. There's none of the certain death you find in Amsterdam, just beautiful scenery.
  
• Europe does not believe in screens or air conditioning. If it is hot in the summer, you open the windows and deal with whatever comes in with the breeze. These past days at Puppy's it seems that certain bugs prefer certain days - Friday it was mosquitoes, Sunday it was flies, Monday was mosquito eaters . . . If you are bug-phobic then when you arrive in Europe, either bring some bug spray or drink enough beer to relax because the Europeans are not changing their ways any time soon and the bugs are here to stay.
  
• There is no such thing as a "light lunch" in Germany. I am definitely used to the idea of a light lunch and a heavier dinner, thus enabeling me to function during the day. There aren't really many sandwich shops or things of a light lunch type here. Everything in Germany has fried pork and fried potatoes with your choice of thick, creamy, fried sauce. You are expected to clean your plate. You are expected to drink beer with this meal because here, beer is cheaper than water. I have NO idea how Germans go back to work after lunch. It is a particularly difficult cuisine to get used to when it is also very hot out. If you are looking to avoid death by bratwurst and want something light and quick, look for a bakery. They will sometimes have sandwiches.
  
• Germany is still very much a cash society. If you come thinking that you'll just use your credit card, you will starve. Today I went to a huge electronics store to by a hair-straightener (I figure I come here often enough to make purchasing one that works in Europe worth it) and I couldn't even use my credit card there. However, you can easily pull cash out of the plentiful ATMs, so don't worry about traveling with lots of cash either.
  
• German is really interesting in that certain words will look funny, but once you try pronouncing them, they are almost exactly the same as English. Haus, for example (house), or katze (cat), which leads you into a false sense of feeling like you have a good handle on German, until you bump into words like ausfahrt and double over laughing while receiving curious looks from Germans wondering why you are laughing at the "exit" sign. Crazy Americans . . .

*SuperNova Travel Tip: Become comfortable with the word "toilet." You don't have to worry about not knowing the language wherever you are traveling to. In high school Spanish class I thought that the most important phrase I could learn would be, "Where is the bathroom?" I couldn't think of a phrase that would be more useful, except for perhaps, "Where is the ice cream?" However, my mass traveling has taught me that EVEYONE understand the word "toilet." They may pronounce it a tiny bit differently, but when accompanied by that certain look of urgency, they will understand. Do not waste valuable brain space learning "bathroom" in other languages. We Americans seem to think of the word toilet as vulgar, but I assure you that if you ask for a "bathroom" in Japan, you will hear the Japanese person mutter quietly, "You want to take a bath?" while being shown to a room with only a shower and a sink, as the toilet is in a totally different area. Just use the word toilet and you cannot go wrong.

*SuperNova Travel Tip: Do make an effort, at least learn "thank you." Every where I have traveled to, I have received a much friendlier response from strangers when I at least attempt to say hello or please in their native language. They really seem to appreciate the effort and are much more likely to help. Any time I travel, I always try to learn "hello" (hallo, guten tag), "please" (bitte), and "thank you" (danke), and then I have "toilet" (toilette) at the ready.

• And speaking of toilets . . . In Germany and the Netherlands you actually have to pay to use the bathroom. This is a horror story that I'd heard about, but never experienced. It generally costs 50 euro cents to use a bathroom, public or not, even at the gas station. Why? I have no idea. If there's a person collecting the money, they're not really doing anything, in fact at the gas station, when you flush a tiny brush pops out of the wall and the toilet seat spins around while the brush shoots cleaning liquid on it, so they're definitely not cleaning. It's one of those things where it is the way it is, fussing about it won't change it, that time is much better spent figuring out which coin is the 50 cent coin.

Well, I think I am caught up for the moment. I leave on Thursday for the Norway/working portion of my trip, so we'll see what we can squeeze in before then!