Why don't we start with the cars. Everyone drives a car or SUV, I haven't seen a single truck and for the most part the cars they do drive are tiny. Smart cars are as common as BMW's, Audi's, and Volkswagen's, which are all more common than a Jeep Grand Cherokee or mini-van (to name some examples). I guess this makes sense when you consider that Germany is the 4th leading automobile producer in the world, according to Wikipedia, and is home of Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Volkswagen.
As you know, it's also home of the Auto-Bahn, which I really thought was just some random long stretch of road out in the middle of the country where people could drive really fast because no one else was around. That is definitely not the case, stupid American! It's comparable to the I-5 on the west coast and is the major highway throughout all of Germany. According to word of mouth, about 30-40% of the Auto-Bahn has speed limits, while the rest is free game to go as fast as you'd like... but, most people keep it around 120km per hour (60-72mph). Now if I drove a fancy car, like mannny people do here... I would LOVE the Auto-Bahn. Unfortunately, life of a professional women's basketball player is really not so glamorous and here is our ride:
Nice I know. No power steering and it doesn't have more than 4 gears. P.S. the vast majority of cars here are manual.
Moving on... Why don't we talk about living.
- The doors never look like they're shut... Even though they are.
- The washing machine is just chillin' in the kitchen like it belongs there (in every apartment I've been to so far).
- People are eco-terrorists. There are bio, plastic, and paper bins in every apartment complex and everyone does the 3 R's (reduce, reuse, recycle!).
- The plugs are alien and are only two pronged so I need specific adapters to plug my 'Murican stuff into. (Thanks to my cousin Stefanie for covering me on that!)
Okay now how about out and about.
- Everyone in passing looks PISSED. But really, once you get to know people here they are actually quite nice.
- When entering a public common area like a doctor's office or gym locker room where people are kind of just waiting, it is polite to say "Hallo" and "Tschuss" when you leave (hello and goodbye)... yes, even if you don't know them or have never seen them in your entire life. Now people probably think I'M the mean one for never doing that!
- Smoke, smoke and more smoke. There are cigarette vending machines everywhere. On top of that, restaurant's set out ash trays for people to come have a cup of coffee and piece of cake while lightin' up a cig. Doing all three of those are very common here in the afternoon especially... and NO, it is not rude to smoke in a crowd of people, haven't they heard of second hand smoke?! Ain't nobody got time for that!
- When the little kids go to school they hold hands, it is ADORABLE. They also have these old-school lookin' bpacks that have a hard exterior. It's almost like they're packing around a mailbox on their backs.
- If you're walking on the wrong side of the colored pavement, you might just get run over by a biker. The bricks on sidewalks and in parking lots are either classic grey or a red to differentiate from the walking/biking path and different parking spots, respectively.
- Construction... can be on castles, but they also do a lot of work on the old school churches, the old timey buildings, and cobblestone roads. That's gotta be spendy.
- Lastly, and most importantly, beer is cheaper than water.
That's all I can think of/have discovered for now. Stay tuned for more. And if you're wondering how I fit into that car, please reference the following picture:
No comments:
Post a Comment