Germany Unfiltered

Well, our three weeks in Germany has ended and what a great time we’ve had. If you haven’t been to this part of the world, I highly recommend that you do.

As has become tradition, below is a summary of our experiences and observations … in no particular order.

We loved:
Schnitzel
Radler (Beer shandy)
Weisswurst, Bratwurst, all wursts
Leberkäse rolls
Pretzels – both types
Wasabi Peanuts (used to get these in Australia – can’t find them anymore)
Flammkuchen
Spaghetti Ice-Cream (see pic below)
Obazda (thanks for the introduction to this Chris) – cheese and paprika dip, served with pretzels and raw onions
Wine – all of it lovely and Tom introduced me to Müller-Thurgau
The charm of the Altstadts with their cobbled streets
Church bells
Towns on the Romantische Strasse
Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Cochem
Schwerin
Regensburg
Bodensee
The architecture and colourful buildings
Chris & Tom
The extensive use of renewable energy – esp solar panels
Colourful flowers in hanging baskets/planters on practically every home, office, restaurant – everywhere.
Their acceptance of their past and the effort they have gone to to remember those who lost their lives under the Nazi regime.
The countryside, the vineyards, the mountains, the lakes and waterfalls.
No speed limits on certain stretches of motorways
Live “Christmas Trees” that have the perfect shape (see pic below)

Not so much:
Trucks, trucks and more trucks on the roads
Trucks overtaking trucks (Chris tells me it’s called an Elephant Race)
Road Works – everywhere (speed limits down to 60 and even 40kms/hour on motorways)
Speed limits changing 10 times in 200m
At lot of historic buildings under construction (ruining our photos)
Sauerkraut
Unsalted butter – no, no, NO!! This should be against the law
A lot of smokers – and smoking allowed in outdoor areas in cafés and restaurants
The atrocious service in restaurants – never in a million years would I have expected this in Germany!
Wine not chilled enough (to my standards anyway) and no ice in soft drinks (and rarely cold enough either)

Scratching our Heads
No sheets on beds (just feather duvets – even in 30 degree heat)
Usually only one large pillow (again feathers – ie: flatten when you lie on them 😊)
No aircon and no fans (generally)
Duvets tucked in at bottom and one side like a blanket
Even double beds made up with two single duvets?
Could not get our heads around all the umlauts and remember how to pronounce them 😊
German words are long (eg: Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft). Try and get your head and tongue around that one!

Gross Generalisations (or maybe not 😊) of Germans. They:
Love beer – even for breakfast
Love ice-cream – have entire restaurants that serve only a thousand varieties of ice-cream sundaes and they eat ice-cream, morning, noon and night
Love pork, pork, pork and more pork
Stare … a lot! And shamelessly! We read about this before arriving and unfortunately found it to be true.
Contrary to what I’d always heard and believed, they are not sticklers for following rules!
It seems the default speed that Germans like to drive is 120km/hr – irrespective of whether the speed limit is 80km or unlimited.

Daily Giggle
Thinking that “Frei” parking meant “free” – actually means there are available spaces in the car park!
Lost in Translation