Our European Tour
<p>Hachenburg</p>
Silly Observations – Germany pt 2
(By Tracey- September 12, 2019)
  • Clean, bins are emptied, no street rubbish etc.
  • Recycling – Germans have an image for being good at recycling but I go to the bins with my recycling rubbish and find there isn’t a bin for most of it, so it gets thrown in the landfill bin. There only seem to take basic stuff. It’s like Huntingdonshire bins for 5 years ago.
  • Plastic bottles and cans have to be taken to a Pfand station, these are normally based in supermarkets. You throw in you bottles or cans and it gives you a vouches, 25 cents per item to be redeemed at the supermarket.   We dutifully do this and then forget to use the voucher, after all 30 mins can have past between getting the voucher and remembering to spend it. This system also means our van gets full of empty bottles and cans. To be honest I find it a really painful and ineffective system.
  • There are lots of cheap supermarkets – Aldi, Lidl and clothes shops, many more than we have.
  • Veggie and vegan food is available in most supermarkets (except aldi and Lidl), I’ve never had so much choice.
  • Cash – you use this instead of credit cards.
  • Lots of camping places, stellplatz as they call them.  Often free or small parking fee, but you have to pay for electricity and water. The problem with metered water is that it is €1 for about 50 liters, which is fine when we fill the tank but we don’t drink the tank water and to pay a €1 to fill one water bottle seems wasteful.  
  • Shop assistants, remind me of my mother when we had the shops. It is service time, they always want to help you, they try really hard to help you.  
  • Eat so early – about 6pm (18:00 to the Germans)
  • Fat – so many fat people, it is like being in Yorkshire!
  • Lots of cyclists and as above these are fat.  I end up singing “I want to ride my bicycle”(Queen) all day long.
  • No pasties or quiches or things like that to go with a salad for lunch
  • The high streets are like yesteryear, Woolworths and C&A are on most high streets
  • Germans are nice polite people. I started building this stereotype of Germans when I worked with Bosch, my key contact (Dirk) was really nice, I liked his attitude and his sense of humour.  No one I have met in Germany has amended my stereotype that I built up of Germans.

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