A Hotel Story

This is a story to keep in mind during these holiday parties you might attend in Germany.

Years ago, as a contractor....we had a party at a local German castle-turned-into-a-hotel.  They had several floors and it was well built.

My division chief was a gal who was married, and she felt this would be a special night....so she and the husband rented a room in the castle.

As evening advanced and the party started to wind down.....she told the husband that she was leaving for the room and he ought to be there in twenty minutes.

About halfway up the stairs ...up around the third floor, on her way to the fourth floor....she needed to use a toilet badly, and stopped in that hallway for a minute at the toilet next to the door.  One of the hotel folks came by and locked the toilet door, and the hallway door because this wasn't going to be rented out that night.  Naturally, they didn't check to see if anyone was in the toilet.

The husband advanced onto the room....finding no wife.  The wife was yelling and screaming in the toilet a floor below but no one could hear her.

The heat was turned off for the third floor....so the temperature started to decrease.

The husband went to the management after an hour....worried over the wife.  She wasn't to be found.  They checked the parking lot, and various locations.  I'm guessing they suggested that maybe she might with another guy (a natural Germany suspicion of things).

My boss sat there as the temp got down into the forties in the toilet, until around 6AM....when they unlocked the door.

She was peeved.  The hotel guys were sorry.  And the husband could never explain why he didn't make enough of an effort.

So bear all of this in mind for this holiday season....as you might attend an odd party or two.

A Moment of My Time

This is a blog written by an American....detailing perceptions that some Americans get....after a while of viewing German TV and German commentary. Basically, Germans won't naturally come up to your face and tell you that they hate you.  They kind of draw things out in a polite sense....that you (the United States, as if you are that actual figure)....have screwed up.

Its never anything personal....but simply a thing that bothers them about America and certain behaviors of America.

Naturally, you are a bit shocked, but then you realize...being an American....you generally have some dislike tendencies yourself....like you are from the south and have a dislike of anything from California, or you grew up in New York and make jokes over folks from Mississippi.  So maybe those Germans are just acting that way.

But they want to correct you on this. Its not like hating California or Californians. Nope....just not like that at all.

First, you must realize, that you Americans are gluttons. You waste so much. You drive 8-cylinder cars which are totally unnecessary. You run pick-ups around getting barely 15 miles per gallon. You are totally wasteful.

You have houses of 3,000 square feet and you cool it with a massive air conditioner. You have a freezer in the kitchen and a freezer in the garage, plus a second fridge in the basement where the guy of the house keep his cold beer. You have a front yard that is a full acre in size, which is totally unnecessary.

You have a car for your sixteen year old daughter or son, which is totally unnecessary.

You even buy 150 percent of the food necessary to survive. Then they start to pile on the wood and let you know the other bad things about Americans.

Patriotism is a bad evil thing....and you Americans are the worst at this. Your flag business, your national pride, your holidays to honor the military dead....make patriotism into a terrible thing. You allow some idiot country and western singer to write up a song and sing it proudly about "kicking butt" whenever necessary. These are all bad things.

They start to talk about the poor Americans and no health care....that you ought to redistribute your wealth from the rich to the poor. You ought to take care of everyone, from the employed to the unemployed. You ought to give away free health care. You have no compassion for your fellow citizens.

Eventually, they will come around to the death penalty, prisons and guns. They'd like to let you know that the death penalty is very uncivilized and totally the fault of having no real distribution of wealth to the poor in your country. Those people in the prisons.....half of them should not be there.

As for guns....its totally wrong for so many weapons to be in the hands of the public. There should be control....a process to be trained on weapons and a process to sell weapons and a process to secure weapons in a safe within your house. Americans are killing themselves with so many weapons.

They will toss in religious problems at some point. Americans are perverted in their nature of religion, with televised religion 24-hours a day. Religion controls so many of the laws and often harms the society at hand.

You Americans create a moral wave that hinders society and makes life miserable.

Finally....for general measure.....they will get around to Bush, Iraq, Afghanistan, New Orleans, and Hurricane Katrina.

At the conclusion of their hot-winded episode....they pause. They want you to respond. They want debate. They want you to attempt a feeble comeback so they can blast you a second time. They'd like to walk home that day and feel good that they proved their point yet again.

So you allow a long pause. Looking the guy in the eye....you make a brief but pointed statement.

We are sorry for taking in millions upon millions of people who left their homelands in search of a better life.

We are sorry for having a form of government that allowed them in the front door and allowed them to make their lives twice as good as they had in the old country.

We are truly sorry that their children grew up in such a society and became easily accepted as one of the locals.

We are sorry that that we didn't make language requirements to force these people to all speak one common language upon arrival.

We are sorry for maintaining a military capability that provide rescue relief to the entire globe and move a million tons of cargo per week if necessary for a country in distress.

We are sorry that folks in New Orleans wouldn't evacuate their homes for shelters far from the affected area.

We are sorry that we make too much money and squander on what things we don't deserve.

We are sorry for buying your Audis, your BMWs, and your Mercedes. We thought they looked pretty neat....though very expensive....but since you had some for sale...what the heck!

We are mostly sorry for being a bit patriotic and over-zealous.

We are sorry for being the crowd that can't grasp the word "impossible".

We are sorry for creating legends like Babe Ruth, Steve Jobs, Microsoft, Vince Lombardi, and Larry Bird.

We are sorry for waving flags...especially over the Normandy Beach on the 6th of June 1944. We are also sorry for waving flags over Nazi Germany in 1945.

We are sorry about the prisons that house criminals....we'd like to let our criminals roam free like they do in Germany. We'd like to apologize for our guns that we keep in the basement or the hallway closet. We had to fight off some British rowdies in the 1700s and just haven't gotten over that little episode where no military could cover our butt.

We are sorry for feeding 100 million outside of the US. We are sorry for growing way too much corn, wheat and soy beans. We are sorry for using all that fuel to grow all those crops. We are sorry for producing way too much cattle that end up on tables in Europe, Japan and Asia. We are sorry for having the transportation sector that can move a massive amount of cargo each week.

We are sorry for alot of things. We are a pitiful lot.

We have no Roman culture, no French works of art, no real German gourmet cooks, no fancy British castles, and no great Shakespeare-like writers. We don't have Irish pubs where everyone sits around and talks constantly day in and day out of their sad woes and sorrows. In fact....we don't even have folks sitting around thinking of what terrible folks Americans are.

We'd like to have a society like that in America...that could daily think and dream of various ways to talk down America....but we're a bit busy, and we really don't have time to squander. We'll put your criticism on our list of things to fix...but its likely to be around the second five hundred things we gotta fix.

So here is the final note....as you've tossed all this choice criticism onto us.  We are probably the only country around where folks would invite you back to our front porch....after you cut loose on your criticism.  We are a bit foolish and naive.  We probably aren't as charming or witty as you.  Maybe you'd eventually come to ask why anyone would be nice to invite such criticism and keep allowing such friends and guests to continually come back.

Life on the Fast Lane

ADAC is the German automobile association that does a lot of research on cars, the autobahns, roads, safety, and anything automotive.  They publish a monthly magazine where a hundred significant things are laid out in a usually interesting fashion.  Well...this week, they came out with a report on toboggans....those fine and fast sleds that Germans are thrilled to operate.

It's best to say that ADAC always comes down hard on safety.  In this case.....they went out and found around two dozen toboggan runs.  The majority had issues of safety.  Barb wire was even written into the comments....as being fairly close the run.

As an American who grew up in the south....I never had the thrill of toboggans.  Through my Germany years....I did it twice, on very short hillsides....which tend to be safe.

I would offer up this advice that if you've never done it and see an opportunity while in Bavaria or anywhere in Germany for that matter....it's best to pick a simple toboggan and a short hill to get some practice.  Don't rush out to buy one....because the lack of control might eventually dawn on you while on your first run.  It's not exactly something that you can stop easily with.  So borrow or rent one....and grasp the fair amount of risk involved.

As for ADAC's comments?  Well....if you read the magazine religiously....you probably would never use autobahn restrooms, eat at any restaurant on the autobahn, or ride any vehicle on a mountain pass.  That might say something.

The Gun Story

“This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!”

- Quote from Adolph Hitler in 1935 on The Weapons Act (Germany)

It's an interesting story out of Germany.....the nation is fairly close now to a national database of guns and gun owners.

To be honest, over the last fifty-odd years.....every community police station had a paper trail of gun ownership.  If you went to the chief of police and asked him to list all the owners.....he could pull out a paper listing (usually cards), and that made everyone happy.

Well....we've come to a point where a digital database was the German goal.  Sometime early in 2013, all of the six million privately held guns in Germany will be in a national database.  From this, the 551 local 'counties' in Germany can now draw a serial number of person's name.

Is it actually an improvement?  If you had a crime committed by someone with a certain type pistol....it might help start a nation-wide investigation.  However, this listing only has the owners who admitted ownership.  The guys who bought four guns from a mafia guy a decade ago?  No.....his weapons won't be there.  The guy who got a Russian hunting rifle last year from a private collector in Moscow?  Well...no, his weapon probably won't be in the database.

How many illegal guns exist in Germany?  No one is sure.  I'd take a humble guess and state it's probably over one million.  Some are guns left over from World War II and guys just stored them in their basement without ever saying anything.

I can understand the basis of wishing a database would help....but in this case....it's probably worthless.

The quote I put up?  Yeah, it's from Hitler.  The Nazi regime figured out early in the 1930s that private gun ownership could eventually be a problem.  They didn't want anyone coming out in the evening hours and conducting a vendetta.  So guns had to be controlled.

Some Germans will be proud over the event and say they are closer to a protective society.  Frankly, if they lowered the speed limit on autobahns to 90 kph....they'd save a thousand lives a year, but they don't want to take that measure under consideration....so there are limits to just how many folks you'd like to save and how you do it.

Leave is Leave

A court case wrapped up in Germany, and basically...there was a very big twist to life as it was accepted.  Generally, a German can call up the boss in the morning and state they are sick, and they are not going to show up today.  No note or such.  The second morning?  Typically, you need to go and get a note from a doctor to cover the second or more days necessary.  Well....a court case has determined that you just might need to have a note to cover the first day.

This is a bit of a twist because millions of Germans use the old rule of just taking a sick day here and there....maybe five to ten a year....without every going for the note.

If you go and talk to most German small businessmen....they will all admit that the 2nd of January, if it falls on a work-day, there's always thirty percent of your work-force who call and state they are sick.  It's a lousy day to conduct business for most companies.

How many sick-days does a German get?  Well...it typically doesn't work that way.  If a German guy needs forty days to recover from surgery....he gets it.  No discussion.  But there's a note from the doctor to detail that.  The boss cooperates with the notes provided.  If the doctor stops recovery period, then that employee needs to start back to work immediately.

This all brings me to my favorite "sick-German" story.

There was a BX-run Burger King manager who arrived and spent several months managing his Army post Burger King in Germany.  He knew the shift-managers, and the junior employees.  Somewhere around eight months after he arrived....he's come down to some paperwork on employees.  There's two Germans listed on the paperwork....who he is not familiar with.

So he asks....who are these two Germans?  He's never met them.

The HR folks basically lay out this little issue with his Burger King operation.  These two German employees have stress-related issues.  For roughly a year, they've both been in stress-related programs and under treatment.  The BX....because they are German employees....has been paying them their monthly salaries with full benefits.

The manager is standing there....looking at roughly twelve months of free leave that the BX had granted these two German employees.  He wanted an estimate on when his employees would return.  The HR folks couldn't answer that.  So the manager wanted to go through the process of letting them go.  Oh no, as the HR folks responded....there are German rules on this and you can't fire or lay-off a German employee under these conditions.

So weeks go by and this manager is peeved over the deal.  Nothing like this would happen in America.  You'd let the guy go if they were that stressed out.

So eventually, he went through the system and found this simple rule....you could move people around in the BX system.  So he worked out a deal where the two Germans were to move into a pizza operation run by the BX.  Same pay....same work deal....just half-a-mile from the Burger King.  The pizza manager was willing to carry two stressed-out Germans on his payroll.

Naturally, the HR guys try to stop this, and the Union gets involved.  Everything went into a simmering situation after that.

It's been around a dozen years since the episode.  I would imagine that the two Germans are still on stress-leave, still working for the Burger King on post, and the BX is probably still paying their monthly checks.  It's just the way that things work.

Explaining the 2013 German Election to an American

This is an odd election coming up in Germany in 2013.

First, the CDU is probably at a peak of popular sentiment, but it won't draw more than roughly forty-four percent of the national vote.  Some folks would even say it's closer to thirty-eight percent.  To "win" in the real sense of the world....you have to build a collation deal with at least one other party.  It's the German way, and it's been this way for well over 100 years.

Second, the Pirate Party had some momentum a year ago....today....likely will carry less than five percent of the national vote.  That means under the Bundestag rules....they won't get to enter the Bundestag and be part of any collation deal.  You have to have five percent of the national vote.....to get into the 'big-house'.

Third, the SPD has pinned it mighty hopes on a fairly good show for the liberal voters of Germany.  But their choice for Chancellor probably isn't a great magnet for massive votes. Polls are split on where they stand, but most folks think they might be lucky to pull thirty percent.

Fourth, the Linke Party and the Greens....might both pull at least ten to fifteen percent of the vote.  Nether the SPD or the CDU will work any collation deal with the Linke Party, but they are both talking up deals with the Greens.

Fifth and final....the FDP Party might have used up all their momentum four years ago.  Some polls show them to be lucky in getting five percent of the national vote.

So, for an American....it's a cliffhanger of an election, and you just don't know how things might form up at the end.

The End of the Fee

Just a couple of years ago...the Bundestag stood up and admitted that the bucket of money that everyone paid into....to cover health care insurance....was just not enough.

So a fee was put into place.  If you showed up at the doctor's office....you paid a ten-Euro fee for that quarter.  You could visit your German doctor as much as you wanted in that quarter, and you'd never have to pay again the quarterly fee.  But fresh into a new quarter, just one five-minute visit for a band-aide would trigger the fee again.

Germans had to do something to put a bit more cash into the pot.  Trying to suggest the percentage go up....wasn't going to work.

For the typical German....if you didn't go to the doctor much, the fee didn't matter.  For those of a senior age....this fee business was a source of various negative feelings.  Most folks were expecting the fee to increase every year or two....because of the cost trend.

This past week....with almost all parties in the Bundestag in agreement....they agreed to remove the stupid quarterly fee business.  Potential for it to return?  It's hard to say.

For an American, you have to come to realize that nothing is really free....even German health care.  You may have heard various comments via US media outlets that Germans enjoy free health care.  But that's all bogus in nature.  There's a price tied to everything.

In Prospective

There's this plan by the German government....to take down the nuke power plants in the years to come. There are a hundred issues with the plan, but this week....the government came out with a solution to one of the problems.  Replacing the power line transmission towers to lead from new concentrations of power production will cost money.  So the government is talking about this investment idea.

The idea is simple....create a opportunity for regular people to put their savings into helping the government  You put down your savings, and the government guarantees you five percent return each year.  The minimum?  Five hundred Euro.

You have to remember...it's only a plan.  Nothing has been implemented or really discussed in the Bundestag.

The curious point to this?  You don't get much of a return on German savings account....maybe one percent or a  bit over the top of that.  For a German bank CD?  Somewhere between two and two point five percent.

What the offer does....is make a fair number of Germans curious about the results.  How long does the money have to remain in the account....what extra rules are written over this....and is it tax-free?

For an American who has ventured into the Germany and seen the investment opportunities...this is a rare gem, if it is ever approved.  In today's market, you just can't find a guaranteed return like this.

The negative side to this deal?  Well...for you folks who do buy German energy....which is pretty much guaranteed thing....you can expect to pay more for what you get when the nuke energy is finally turned off.  You have to pay these folks their guaranteed five percent.  So there is a consequence in the end to this fine offering.  Nothing is ever free.  

That Customer Thing

There's a story over at the Local today....detailing a survey that basically says that Germans think (a German never thinks....he's absolute in his nature usually)....that customer service across the German countryside ...is going down drastically.

For an American, we are typically used to bad customer service.  We do realize when we've been dealt with in a professional manner and it was a good experience.  We remember that company, and go back to them again.  Bad companies....we tend to avoid and never buy again from them.

For a German, customer service can be fifty percent of the deal.  A German would be willing to pay 400 Euro ($500) for a really good coffee maker....if they knew the customer service branch works and if a warranty issue comes up....they know they will be handled correctly.  When the product arrives at the front door....they immediately take the receipt and the warranty paperwork.  There's a binder somewhere in that house and everything is maintained carefully.

In thirty-four months....if the item does break and there's still two months of warranty left....you can beat that customer service will be engaged.  You as a German business have to have your customer relations team working right.....or you lose customers permanently.  No German typically returns to a lousy business operation.

In all the years that I dealt with most German businesses....I'd give most a thumbs up.  German government offices?  That would be a totally different deal.  The government offices don't care if you feel hostile or angry over their services.  They know that you have no choice....but to return.  I'd say roughly half of my visits to a German government office left a negative opinion about the situation.

I sat and watched a license office strike down a application from a Swiss guy who had moved into the district....for the second time....because the picture was not correctly taken.  This was in this period when you had to hire a professional photographer to take license pictures.  The guy had wasted two trips and spent at least thirty Euro on two separate shootings, and still couldn't get acceptance.  The office handled the situation in a lousy way....they even had to call the cops because the guy just wouldn't leave.

The general thing I take home about German customer relations is that they tend to go by the book.  If the situation is X, the book says you take only this action, and the German customer relations guy goes exactly by the book.  It's hard to write a decent book of rules to cover every type of situation....so thing happen which aggravate people greatly.

The most negative experience I've seen?  It's probably these episodes where someone calls and is put on a minute-by-minute charge, and they don't come back to you for ten minutes.  You suddenly realize that even with 79-Euro cents....you've raced up 7.90 Euro and still not gotten a guy to respond to your question.  For a German, that 7.90 Euro wasted on empty space, and it just makes them start wondering how they could have spent the money....like chocolate or a slice of cheese cake.  So breeds hostility.

The Starbucks Story

Starbucks made a decision about six years ago....to finally establish itself in Germany.  They knew that it was a tough situation, and that it might take a decade to really say it was fully established.  At the start of 2012....they had roughly 150 Starbucks in operation.  It was fewer than planned, but it's been a tough market.

This week....it got out that they cleared 117 million Euro in 2011, and their final tax bill for the German government....was zero.  Reason?  Losses of significance: roughly 5.3 million Euro.

It's a fair amount of loss.  Most business operations would ask tough questions....look for a new profit strategy....dump a manager or two to emphasis change....and look for new places to expand out into.

The German response to the profit and tax situation?  Well....this gets to be interesting.  They can't understand how the tax bill can be zero.  Starbucks is totally prepared for some tax audit guys to walk in.  The general feeling is that high rental cost and high personnel cost (healthcare, pay, retirement, etc)....make Germany a very tough market to operate Starbucks.

So I'll offer some observations here.  Starbucks isn't the cheap place where you go for plain coffee.  Starbucks sells high-quality coffee....typically in a location that high volumes of people will be walking through or hanging out.  German real estate people aren't stupid....they know the volume locations and charge a fair amount of money.  Starbucks pays it....which typically, few other German coffee shops would be that stupid.

Do Germans pay upscale prices for coffee?  Well....that's another story.  You have observe Germans for years....to reach a conclusion that they demand absolutely great coffee.  They don't want the cheap stuff.  They will go an extra block to find a bakery that sells not only the right pastry or rolls, but the right coffee, and pull out an extra bit of cash for that four-star coffee.  Starbucks fits easily into this market.

The Germans might be terribly upset about a company making limited profit and not paying any taxes.....but here's the thing.  The German government made the stupid tax rules.  Starbucks hasn't hired some dimwit to do all the corporate taxes in Germany.  They likely went by the rules established, and the audit guys will sit there for weeks....finding few if any mistakes.  At the end....the audit will close with no change, and the political folks will just shake their heads.

What ought to infuriate Germans in general....a company has made a serious attempt to establish itself....spent millions....and over six years....barely shows any profit at all.  A normal German company would give up because you can't beat the system.  If you were making a hundred Euro a day, and then declaring five Euro in losses each day....you'd want to focus on some other model or question how you could make it long-term.

Starbucks simply stays focused.  We'll pay your high health insurance rates.  We will pay higher than average wages.  We will pay higher than average rental costs.  Eventually, we will have a significant number of Germans addicted to Starbucks and determined to stop by each day.  It may take another decade to establish Starbucks-addiction is part of German society, but it will come one day.

For the German tax guys....they have to be hoping other companies don't pick up this attitude....because you can't afford to have a bunch of companies in Germany paying no national taxes.  It'd destroy the current system.  Meanwhile, if you are are in the middle of Wiesbaden....near Kirchgasse 35....you might want to stop in and have some pretty decent coffee.  Thank the guy for running a unprofitable enterprise, and have a long sip of pretty decent coffee.

A Little Drug Story

For an American watching business unfold.....there was this interesting piece from yesterday.  The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper had an article over the Greek financial crisis, which connected back to Germany.

The German drug company....Merck....reached a point where trust in getting paid for deliveries....wasn't there.  So Merck told Greece.....there's an end to normal business.  If we were talking about suntan lotion or aspirin....no one would care.  This has reached the point where cancer treatment drugs....are now on a list of 'cash-only' situations.

If you are a Greek with cancer and were heavily dependent on the government health system to save you....this little additive has gotten into the system.  You only get four-star drugs....if you pull cash out of your savings and pay the local pharmacy to special-order the stuff.  Your beloved national health insurance....is worthless.

I'm guessing that Merck is prepared to Fedex the treatment drugs within minutes after a cash transaction has occurred, and the Greek pharmacy will likely have the drug within thirty-six hours.

The problem is that it's another occasion where trust in some government function is non-existent, and you have to make up for that with cash....out of your pocket or your savings.

I believe that the Greek newspapers will run with this....talking trash over the evil Merck folks, and the evil Germans.  The problem is that Merck only exists....if they are profitable.  If folks start a game to delay payment or stretch payment from weeks into months....then Merck isn't likely to survive long-term.

Germans will sit and look at the implications ...some poor Greek guy in terrible shape....dying of cancer, unless he gets fancy German drugs.  I imagine there's going to be hostile feelings directed internally at Merck by naive Germans.

Bottom line....if you live in a country with a one-star economy built by the political folks you elected into office....you will eventually end up with a one-star living environment.  Germans figured that out decades ago.

A German Discovers His Country

This week, we learned that a German guy, and his German wife....who had converted over to Islam....came to some vast discovery of reality.

The couple bought into the various propaganda dump, and eventually believed that they could be part of a great and wonderful revolution....in Pakistan.  So they pack up....swear an oath, become Muslims, and then discover that western Pakistan is some place that German just doesn't belong.

The jihad business, the camps, the nasty conditions, the extreme violence.....it was all way more than he ever imagined.

It took about a year to convince him that he and the wife had signed up for something that just wasn't going to work.  But the jihad guys came back and did some serious talking, and convinced the German guy that things might get better.  They didn't.  He mentioned in court testimony this week that drug usage around his Taliban buddies was becoming a serious issue.  The guys in charge didn't care.

At some point in 2010....they apparently came to this vast realization.  The wife was pregnant....the guy had hepatitis, and nothing looked worth fighting for.  So they ran over to Turkey....got across the border where they were promptly apprehended and held for almost two years by the Turks while they sorted through the stories and gathered intelligence.  Then they came back to Germany where they faced some charges.

If you put yourself into the mind of this guy.....he's probably kissing German soil every single morning.  He gets a standard schnitzel every other day in jail.  He probably listens to German pop music and has a top-ten list.

He's also probably thinking about all those guys sitting back in Pakistan....doped up....listening to some Mullah lead them prayers and then order them to attack some innocent villagers.  Some guys survive....some die.....and new recruits arrive each month.

If I were the German government....I'd offer him a free deal....an exit from jail and no prison situation.  You agree to make a two-minute advertisement to explain how you got doped (in the mental sense) by some Muslim clerics who don't really care about your or your welfare.  The Mullahs want you to be stupid enough to convert, dump Germany, and fly into Pakistan to be part of some big life-adventure.   Over the last ten seconds, you'd start to explain how you really screwed up.  There's something good about Germany and German culture....it just took a while in a screwed situation and miserable country....to figure that out.

The Boar Topic

From both the Local and various German news sources....there was a story over a wild boar attack in Germany, which injured four folks (even going to the hospital).

This kinda brings up this odd topic that most Americans might not face or think about if in Germany.....wild boar attacks.

Germany has done a great thing in pushing trails and paved walking roads out into fields and the wooded regions around towns and villages.  You can take a two-hour walk....lower your blood pressure, and feel like you are totally in nature.  The truth is....you aren't more than a mile or two from a significant road, a small village or a urban area.

They built these roads and trails around areas where wild boars like to hang out.  I would be the first to admit that in ten years....you might be lucky to see a deer once or twice, and maybe a fox on one occasion. Wild boars?  You might not see any.  Course, on the other hand....you might walk around the corner and be standing in front of a 200-lb wild boar.

If the boar hasn't noticed you....you might try to quietly back yourself out of the situation.  Plan B here is to assess which trees that you might be able to quickly climb.  The worst case scenario is the wild boar is a female with piglets around her, and she wants to protect them.

How many boar attacks are reported in Germany each year?  It's hard to say.  It usually might make the local paper but never the national news, and I'm guessing that the cops really don't care to collect statistics on this.

So I don't really want to frighten you because most Germans have walked for decades and never seen a single wild boar.  Most of these urban walking trails are close enough to society.....that you probably won't find any threatening boars.  On the other side of this....when you start to drive for an hour and do some walking way out in the boonies....don't be surprised about what you run into....in the German woods.

Pirate Party Ship Sinking?

This past week in Germany....things started to occur with the new German Pirate Party.  It's best to say that the party has taken on water, and sinking badly.  Six months ago....folks were talking about six to eight percent of the national vote in 2013 with the bold new German Pirate Party.  Now?  I doubt if they can clear two percent, which means they are a non-player in the 2013 Bundestag.

The truth to the matter?

It was an inflated balloon of youth voters....who just wanted to slam the major parties who had been around for decades and weren't talking over youth-issues.   The leadership in the Pirate Party?  That was a continuing issue for discussion. Most folks would say that they never had a true four-star person at the top.  For a brief time....the general opinion was that they could mount some marginally capable folks, and at least sneak by with no serious questions.

What happens now?  All of the major parties will reshuffle the deck and look at new polling numbers in December.  The Greens might benefit the most from the youth voters leaving the Pirate Party....but it's not huge numbers.

So we come to this sad tale.  The Pirate Party had potential and could have taken seven to ten percent of the national vote....just based on disenchanted voters and the youth vote....if they had simply one decent four-star candidate who could argue on the Sunday night political chat show.  It was a simple recipe for the party, and they just couldn't find that four-star character.  

My suggestion?  The Pirates need to go out and find some young business guy or gal...in their 30's.....who is angry over the direction of the government.  This person needs to talk about youth issues, and how a new direction for Germany is needed.  A seven-percent vote carves out a mess for either the SPD or CDU....with neither wanting to accept a Pirate partner.  But this won't happen now.  The ship has sunk.

The Beerfest Table

This is your typical-looking German beerfest table and seating.  The colors change, but the construction is always the same.

For an American, there are four basic observations that you will quickly make about the arrangement.

First, a truck can pull up and you can toss up a dozen tables in half-an-hour with just two people.  No buttons, no screws.....just physical labor.

Second, it looks weak....I admit that.  But you can typically seat three big heavy German guys on one bench, and it always holds.  Heck.....you could probably put six folks on a bench, and hit holds.

Third, they always look old....mostly because they are old.  No one retires their beerfest tables or seating until they are literally falling apart. Folks will brag that they've had their tables for twenty years.

Fourth and final.  Yes, they are a bit unstable....especially around folks who have been drinking substantially.  It doesn't take much for a guy to lean back a bit too far, and throw the balance of the seating off....tossing it backwards.

The worst thing about the seating?  My own personal view is that you can sit at a table like this for an hour or so....before your butt starts getting tired.  The idea of sitting for four hours?  I don't even want to imagine that.  I'd have to stand every forty minutes and move around....to survive a four-hour episode.

German Bomb Story

This week, the topic came up in German news of German states now wanting the German federal government to pay up and cover bomb disposal....which has typically been mostly a cost for each German state.

For an American, it's an odd topic....that you rarely if ever come across in the United States.

Over the years I spent in the Kaiserslatuern area, I can remember at least two episodes where WW II bombs were discovered while digging, and a massive episode unfolded.

Typically, Huns the back-hoe operator will come to a metallic like item in the ground.  There's three scenarios here.  First, he's hoping that it's just some old junk that got buried during WW II....from wreckage or garbage.  Second, he's hoping it's a water pipe that no one knows about but that's rarely the case because Germans are so particular about drawing their maps and knowing about all pipes in a town. The third scenario is that it's a leftover bomb from WW II.  Huns will usually back off upon this discover and call the fire department.

In an hour....a crew will respond and view the bomb from a distance.  They usually have one guy who has studied all the bombs and know the various types.  A plan will be devised at this point.  It's possible....a bit of digging by some dedicated men will occur and ensure the bomb is in full view.  A schedule is drawn up.....to detonate the bomb....which becomes a major news item in less than twenty-four hours.

The authorities will evacuate everything within the "zone", and blow the bomb up.  From most of these stories I've observed.....things tend to go as planned and rarely are buildings around the bomb damaged. The cost of an operation like this?  Well....it's hard to say.  I'm sure that the fire department charges for their services, and the bomb experts have a cost attached to them.  I would imagine each single episode costs a minimum of a million Euro by the end.

The argument over a state issue or a federal issue?  The truth is that the state gets it's revenue mostly by property tax and some money handed down from the federal government (via income taxes and the VAT).  State government spending generally have to stay within a certain limit, and if you had a sudden surge of twice as many bombs found as usual.....they'd have to cut state funds from someone to make up for the issue.  I could see the state government guys making a pretty clear argument on this.  The federal guys?  The problem is that you can't forecast very clearly each year how many bombs will be found, and that's something that bean-counters hate.

How many bombs are still sitting there in an active state?  Anyone can take a guess.  There could be ten thousand of them.  You just don't know.

Wiesbaden Bahnhof

I have an appreciation of German train stations.  They are an architectural bit of interest, and relate back to an era that we all have forgotten.

One of the finer ones to observe is the Wiesbaden Bahnhof....built in 1906.  If you happen stand out front of the building....there's some changes in the landscape, but it's basically the same structure as it was a hundred years ago.

Roughly 30k folks travel in and out of the station on a daily basis.  It's not huge....like the Frankfurt station....but there's around a dozen platforms in operation.

A hundred years ago....this was a major public works project and established a status symbol for the city.

For an American, there are few major train stations left today.  It's true....Union Station is still around....but most of the rest have been shut down and taken apart.

So if you happen to be around the central part of Wiesbaden.....stop in and check out the station.

A Deal

Occasionally, I hand out advice.  This time....it's chiefly aimed at Americans on a lengthy stay in Germany and want a new Euro-spec's car....for a cheaper price than the dealer can offer downtown.

There's this web site....Jutten-Koolen.de.....which you might want to know about.  Course, you'd have to accept some factors on this deal.

It's a internet company which deals direct with the car companies.  You agree with the deal via the internet.  Typically, you are saving around twenty percent of what any car company in Germany will offer on a deal.

Course, when you want to discuss matters with them...it's all in German.

A German typically goes over to the local dealer in his town...rides around in his choice of car....and negotiates with this guy.  It's a face-to-face situation.  The dealer is getting full-price.  He needs to pay the bills, the real estate he rents, and benefits of the employees.  He might cut 200 Euro here, and maybe 300 Euro there, but that's it.

The Jutten-Koolen guys tend to offer anywhere from ten percent to twenty percent off what any dealer can offer.  Yes, you can arrange to pick it up at the Jutten-Koolen shop, or go down to the actual VW or Audi factory.

The negative?  They sell only Euro-spec's cars, and for guys who want to feel good with a local dealer....there might be enough reasons to avoid an internet deal.

Ghost Driver

There's this term used by Germans, which basically means...."Ghost Driver".  For an American, it's an odd phrase, and needs some explanation.

To get onto a German autobahn....there's a entrance, and to get off....there is an exit.  Both have signs and it's more than obvious.

Well....there are Germans who typically drink a bit and aren't grasping the entrances.  So you have some guy who will enter an autobahn on the exit area, and then travel down the autobahn.  Sometimes....oncoming traffic will avoid the guy and things turn out ok.  Most of the time....someone crashes into the guy, and lives are lost.

As far as I know....there aren't statistics collected on this....or the cops just don't want to publish these.  If you asked me how often it occurs in Germany....I'd take a humble guess of six to ten times a year.

Are there people who commit suicide by ghost driving?  Yes.  This has occurred....once in fact by an American in the Kaiserslautern community.

So when you hear the odd phrase, and you've translated it over....to ghost driver....you know the general meaning.

This Thing About Soccer

Germans tend to have an obsession about soccer, and the Bundesliga (the national league).  For an American, you tend to notice this after a couple of months.

The truth here?  Out of eighty million Germans....there's probably twelve million (my humble number) that keenly watch the scores, the league, and the games.  

The current league was formed up in the early 1960s, and it basically runs an entire season with eighteen teams.  There's a second league below the big guys....which lesser teams survive, flourish, or get worse.  The thing is...at the end of the season for big league....if you were one of the three worst teams, then you get a ticket down to the second league, and in the second league....the three best teams get promoted up to the big-time.

All of this tracked....day by day.....and discussed by German men.  Out of a hundred German women....I doubt if more than two of them really watch or care about soccer.  So it's mostly a men's sport.

The survival of the whole thing today....is tied to the TV networks and what they will pay.  Naturally, you need the optimum package to watch every single game of the week....so you pay more.  During the week off free-TV?  You can probably catch three games a week.

Going to a game?  It's not a difficult thing.  You find the nearest team and schedule on the internet.  Stadiums are typically fixed up with public transportation so you get dropped off near the site.  Prices tend to run from forty Euro, on up to one-hundred-fifty Euro.  Prices for 2nd league are usually half that amount.

Problems?  Well....sometimes....Germans get to drinking at these games and start to challenge each other over various issues.  So fights break out.  You tend to see at least hundred cops around the stadiums as a minimum....but there could be 500 cops brought out for intense games....to protect the public.

It is a national topic, and folks do get into this.  Course, ladies tend not to be interested and it's best not to bring up the subject with them.

What an American should take home on this subject is that soccer is about as big as the NFL is in the US.  There's only one national sport in Germany....and this is it.  

That Anti-Nuke Feeling

There is an excellent article over at Forbes today....over Germans and the anti-nuclear energy situation.  In essence....whatever the cost of dumping nuke energy....will be borne by the working-class German.  The energy companies....as they get deeper into new technology energy....will pass the bill for this right along to the German consumer.  At the end of the day....there's to be less money in the pockets of a German.

For an American looking into the mindset of this "speed"....it relates back to the Japanese incident, where the nuclear power plants went down.  Journalists in Germany quickly went into turbo mode and laid out a scenario of similar proportions happening in Germany.  I would make a humble estimate that three out of five Germans quickly bought into the threat and agreed that nuke power had to be retired.

The curious thing to this mess....is that there was a growing trend in existence for new energy to come along and retire nuke energy.  It might have been thirty or forty years in the future....but it would have eventually come along.  This simply increased the process.

How much more will this cost Germans?  That's not a clear picture to the trend.

As Forbes says....Germans pay the higher amount of most Europeans....around 31 cents per kWhr, with the French paying around 17 cents per kWhr.  Almost double.  With the retirement plan in hand and looking ten years into the future.....a humble guy can only predict it getting closer to 50 cents per kWhr by 2022...maybe even 55 cents.

Where does this lead Germans?  If you check out the light bulb area of your local German shop....they all sell low wattage bulbs at a pretty high rate.  There are constant reminders on TV to retire your fifteen-year old refrigerator or freezer and buy a newer energy-saver refrigerator/freezer.  Every single device that you could possibly buy for your house.....has energy ratings on the side, and most Germans read them keenly.  If you look at the habits of a German within their own house.....every light is turned off when not required.  The habits flow over to business operations and industry as well.

I don't have much doubt that nuke energy will be retired now as quickly as possible in Germany.  I also have little doubt that Germans will whine a bit as the cost of energy gets up around 35 cents per kWhr, and they know they just can't cut consumption anymore (the max has almost been met).  Candles coming?  People trying to recharge their cell-phones at train-stations?  Freezers start to disappear from the German home?  Maybe.  A number of odd things will occur over the next decade as people realize the rising cost of going anti-nuke.  It won't be pleasant.

Ten Rules of Drinking in Germany

Americans typically arrive in Germany, and suddenly find this magical and mythical kingdom.... where consumption of alcohol reaches a level that we never dreamed of.  After a while....you have to have some understandings and rules about booze in Germany.

First, it's true....at age sixteen....you can consume beer and wine (no booze).  Don't ask the logic to this.  At age sixteen.....you can buy the beer and wine without standing around adults.  At age eighteen, you can consume anything your heart desires.  Now, all this said....are there issues?  Twenty years ago?  No.  Today, a majority of Germans think that the punks are abusing booze and there's a national problem with teenage drinking.  And yes, an American teenager visiting in Germany or a military-dependent kid.....gets the same privilege   You can imagine a 16-year old American kid arriving and finding this out.

Second, if you look kinda young....every single grocery will ID you at the counter.  Bars and pubs?  It might be a different story, and the majority will just smile as you order your brew and never ask for an ID.

Third, the authorities in Germany will rarely if ever....ban alcohol.  Now, that said....you might encounter a soccer match where the local cops have dictated all beer sales stop at the half-time point.  This is mostly done to prevent drunken brawls after the game.  If the beer tap stays open till the end of the game...it's usually the best time as an American to just stand back and watch drunk Germans battle each other over soccer scores.

Fourth, if the German cops pull you over and you fail the DWI exam....you are screwed.  Your insurance goes up....your license goes away for months....and the next six to twelve months will be absolutely miserable.  So if you want to drink excessively....drink around your house or apartment block....and walk home.  Don't take any risks because the cops don't have compassion about this stuff.

Fifth, beer can be served in 1-liter steins.  If you've never encountered a 1-liter stein....you might want to view it before ordering it.  A 160-pound adult can be reasonable drunk from just one stein in an hour.  If you move onto two steins in two hours....you are consuming a fair amount of beer.  My general advice is to stay at the half-liter stein level.

Sixth, wine consumption in Germany is a big deal, and you could sit and enjoy six to eight glasses of wine over an entire evening.  It's best not to consider driving, in a state like this.

Seventh, it actually gets hot in July and August in Germany.  You might stop at a outdoor situation, sipping down a ice-cold beer, and then go for a second in a hydration attempt.  My advice....order yourself a bottle of water to start, and then shift to the beer.  Beer is a poor choice for hydrating yourself.

Eighth, Germans tend to have a pretty low opinion of folks who drink excessively and throw up.  If you do something this stupid....try to immediately start speaking British phrases and acting English....make them think you are British (not American).  I admit, it builds up more anti-British sentiment, but it's not like they can ever deduct any negativity from the British image in Germany anyway.

Ninth, if you are in some downtown Frankfurt or Hamburg bar with buy-me-a-drink women around....be aware that they can choose a 60-Euro bottle of fancy bubble-wine, and your bar-tab could suddenly run up to two hundred Euro in just an hour.  Skip these bars.

Tenth, do not ever make the mistake of discussing American-brewed beer with a German, and trying to say that some American beers come close to the German taste.  They will feel insulted, and this brings on an hour-long argument about you being dead-wrong on this issue.  Course, you could sneak in a Pabst-Blue-Ribbon on the German during the argument, and they'd likely never notice.  Just be forewarned about this potential for an argument.

Quiet-Time

There is this odd German custom....which actually fits into most city and state laws of Germany....which dictates that you will be quiet between the hours of noon and 3PM.  Some areas have various differences on the quiet-time scheme....but it's basically two to three hours in the afternoon where you just can't make any real nose outside.

Examples?  Mowing grass.  Playing music. A party.  Construction work.

Some towns run this between 2PM and 4PM.....some between noon and 2PM....so it's a bit different where ever you go.

Enforcement?  This is the odd thing.  If you are in the midst of a construction project....you might ask your carpenters to take a lunch period for an hour out of this, and then go back to work....hoping that some old geezer in the neighborhood doesn't call the cops.  The cops reaction?  They usually don't want to screw with you, and would prefer to give you just a warning, and walk away.  You could violate the rule a hundred days out of the year, and the cops might never get sent out to ask questions.

My humble guess is that few if any tickets are ever given out in a normal year....for quiet-time violations.

Where'd this start?  The best answer folks can state is that the older generation folks came to demand this....so they could nap in the afternoon.  Political folks just kinda agreed, and it became a general law of sorts.

To be honest, there are a list of oddball laws like this: a ticketable offense if you run out of gas on the autobahn...for example.  Or there's the general law of offending some guy by calling them an "asshole" and having to pay 20 Euro for the insult (your wife could even take you into court if you uttered the phrase at her).  There's also that funny law about denying chimney-sweep guys access to your house, if he comes around asking for entry to check out your chimney (course, if you don't have a chimney, you can challenge the guy).

An American would be kinda curious over these odd situations and ask some stupid questions....mostly because we've never heard of such a rule.  After a while....we'd have a laugh, and try to avoid getting into trouble.  Note, I said we'd "try" to avoid getting into trouble.  It's just that we are usually magnets for trouble.

Converting to Metric

Years ago, if anyone had suggested to me that an American could assimilate themself, to the metric system....I would have had doubts.

I was introduced metric in high school, and it was generally a wasted exercise to get everyone into using various numbers to convert.  It had no real practical application.

After a two-year Germany tour in 1979 ended in my Air Force years....I would have suggested that it's complicated to fit into the metric system and you have to continually convert yourself from one system to another.

At some point in mid-1990s....after coming back to Germany....I suddenly started thinking at least in distance and liquids...in metric, with ease.  I could envision a .3-liter of beer, or a half-liter beer, or a complete one-liter stein of beer.  I could envision filling a gas tank up with forty liters and how far it'd carry the car.  I got to the point where I could look at distance and tell you this was 200 meters, or how long it'd take to drive 200 kilometers.  There was no more conversion for me....it was simply observing things and accepting them.

Issues?  Well....yeah....I've come to realize you do need a metric socket wrench set.  You can't make an English socket set work in every single case.

Yeah, I still have trouble with weight in the metric system....mostly because I rarely have to think over this topic.

So the truth here is that the only way you can fully appreciate the metric system....is if you live in it.  Otherwise, you will never get around to the system and accept it.

The world to eventually accept metric.....no.  It just isn't going to happen.  There's always going to be this split.  That's the simple truth.

The Doctor Strikes

To make some sense out of this German doctor strike business.....(for an American)....you have to understand how things work in Germany.

Everyone has health insurance, which the private citizen pays into and the company matches.  There are health insurance companies involved in the mess, which are dictated to provide "X" number of services as part of the overall program.  So these health insurance companies meet that goal, with the fee that is dictated by the government.  At that point, the companies can provide a few other services (like you have a semi-private room, which normally....you wouldn't have)....which makes each company slightly different and in some cases....better for certain people.

The other side of this....is that the fees are set in stone and doctors have to cooperate....as do clinics.  For years, they've been unhappy about the rates and this year....they threatened to strike.  A deal was worked out a couple of days ago, at the last minute, but doctors carried through their strike threat anyway (on Wednesday).  How many participated?  It might be a couple of days, but you can figure at least fifty thousand stayed home....to make their point.

The agreement?  Well....what happens in a year or so....will be increased costs that are passed onto the citizens in some fashion.  It might be a visit fee deal, or the monthly cost, or maybe even cutting some of the optional benefits that they provide currently.  Somehow, you have to lose in the end.

Germans will argue on both sides of this debate.  They know the doctors take in less than most American doctors, but they point out that this is a profession....not a business.  Course, the doctor will say that they pay taxes like every German, take vacations, and think they deserve a pay raise every couple of years (of substance).

The Channel One folks (ARD), have done a survey and shown that barely six percent of the population agrees with the doctors.  There's likely no support that makes further strikes of necessity.  Whatever the insurance companies agreed to....is likely the end of this story and the doctors are simply showing their power.  In four years, I would imagine that the doctors will come back to discuss the next round.

The bottom line?  There is no such thing as free health care, in Germany.  There's no such thing as cheap health care, in Germany.  There's no such thing as reasonable health care at a certain cost, in Germany.  The cost can only move upward, with speed being the only question mark.

German Butcher Shops

As an American, you tend to be a bit overwhelmed by German butcher shops as you enter the first dozen times.

You could probably buy a dozen fresh and different meats each week, and do it for six months before you've tried everything in the butcher display case.  Then you walk over across town to another butcher shop and discover that he's got another thirty-odd meats that you've yet to try out.

So, my tips.  Remember, everything is sold in grams.  A 100 grams tends to be enough for four or five sandwiches.  It's in bad taste to just ask for one or two slices....and you generally go for 100 grams or more when ordering.

All German butchers will offer up a slim sample of something if you just ask.  No, it's not part of the charge.

German butchers generally always slice everything, unless you ask them not to.

Some German butchers will offer a cheese selection although don't expect a giant selection like you'd see at the grocery store.

Your local German butcher will gladly build up a giant party order that you need for that night but don't walk in and do this with one hour to spare.

German butchers take pride in what they do and you will never get "bad" meat.  On the other hand....once sliced and taken home....don't expect that package to stay fresh more than three days.

You don't go to a German butcher for cheap deals.  If you want discounted selections, then go to a real grocery store and pick up the discounted package they have in the refrigerator area.  

Prices already include tax, and are fixed to the scheme of 100 kilograms.  Don't expect the guy to be that proficient in English, so you need to know the words "ein hundred", "zwei hundred", and "drei hundred".    If you are getting 300 (drei hundred), just remember that this is a fair amount of ham or salami....probably way more than you'd want for a week.

There are some German butcher shops which specialize in horse meat.  Pferdemetzgereien are shops that will be identified as such.  They are few of these in any German state.  If you ask a hundred Germans....there might be one out of the group which occasionally use horse meat in a dish.

Finally, after a while, you will feel that your local neighborhood butcher is the more preferred shop....although perhaps not the cheapest.  Most Germans would readily agree on this....wanting quality over cost.

A Taxing Discussion

There's a meeting going on over in Cottbus this week...of German transportation ministers.  Typically, there's not much that would come out of state transportation ministers, except road construction talk, speed limits, etc.  Well....this time, there's a discussion topic of a new tax.  A congestion tax.

The way this would work, if put into effect....you were a 'significant' city....we can only assume they mean a town of 100k or more, then if you want to get down into the center of this town....you'd pay a fee.  The topic fee right now....is 6.10 Euro.  A relationship to something?  Well....in most cities like Frankfurt and Berlin, this is the general cost of a all-day transportation pass on the subway and bus system.

The general ideas about how this would work....are debatable and probably would take at least a year to iron out various details....if these folks ever got serious about this.  You would assume that you'd declare an area as "city-centre", then have a zone, and then have a bar-code system (my humble opinion) which would detail you and charge your vehicle automatically.

Course, you'd pause over this and ask yourself several questions.  Wouldn't this trigger a bunch of folks into avoiding town-town areas?  Yes.  Wouldn't this trigger construction of parking facilities outside the zone where you'd just walk into the costly area?  Yes.  Wouldn't it trigger city and commercial operations to relocate eventually outside the zone?  Yes....maybe it'd take twenty years but a number of organizations would just give up.  Wouldn't new city halls (rothaus operations) eventually remove themselves from the down-town area?  Yes.

Who suggested this?  Bild says (that's where I gleaned the essentials of this story).....that the Green folks brought this idea up.  The odds of this getting serious attention at this meeting?  There will be some slides and brief talk before the group, and I would speculate it'd quietly be put down for more discussion in a year.  But no one really want to declare a forbidden area around city-centres in Germany.  It would drag up discussions over property tax situations.  It would be a huge fight between political factions over what cities would accept this and the ones which would openly decline it.

The odds of this ever happening.  From an American who has traveled around the country....I'd make a guess that it might be fairly acceptable in five years within Berlin and Hamburg.  I can't see it coming up as a discussion item in Frankfurt, and the Munich folks would just laugh about this discussion.

To be kinda honest, if you came to me and said I needed to work in Frankfurt, on a daily basis....the last thing on Earth I'd want to do....is drive into town, mess with traffic, and knock myself out at 5PM trying to go home.  An awful lot of folks utilize the subway system already, and at least get themselves five miles out of town where they walk to their car and head on home from there.  The massive traffic jams have educated Germans over the past decade.  Why fight it?

Live Debate Coverage

If you got up early in the morning there in Germany....turned over to channel two (ZDF)....you would have had this chance to watch the Romney-Obama debate.  The number of Germans eligible to vote in the US elections?  Zero.  It's a curious thing to sit and observe the German curiosity and intense interest in this election.

Based on various polls within Germany....it'd be safe to say that seventy percent of Germans would like to see President Obama win in the election.  The chief reason?  Well....it runs in various directions but you tend to get to the bottom line....they don't want the return of George Bush-mentality.  Beyond that, they grumble about the US economy, the lack of agreement between the two political parities in handling the national budget, and how Republicans allowed the housing market to collapse with a weird mortgage set-up (it's too confusing for Germans to grasp the fall of the housing market).

In the German mind....President Obama is the direction to continue the US government.  It comes across in media discussion, TV panel topics, and newspapers.

How many Germans got up at 3AM to watch the debate?  I'd sit and take a humble guess that roughly ten thousand Germans did get up and view the live debate on channel two.  They probably were a bit shocked after ninety minutes that it just didn't go the way they thought.  They probably felt the moderator didn't control things enough.  Maybe, in their mind....the President just wasn't having much luck in the debate.  You just don't know.

The remaining debates?  I believe channel two will carry them.  There might be a shift in German thoughts about Romney by early November, with a fifty-fifty split of German support at that point.  It's difficult to predict the outcome, and if Romney were to win in November....acceptance of an Obama loss might be more difficult than people think.

Bath Salts?

The Local carried the story, but only as an oddball story.

German gal down in Bavaria....near Coburg....gets into the car naked.....taking her daughter with her (kid was fully clothed).  Woman gets onto the opposite direction of the autobahn.....runs into another vehicle.....killing the naked woman, her kid, and the driver in the other car.  Cops act puzzled....mostly because they've never had a case like this before, where a naked mother drives a car down the opposite way of a autobahn.

I paused over the story.  If you had left all German details out of this....I'd say bath salts real quick.  If you look at almost every story you come across these days in America....anytime that an idiot comes out in public in a nude state....it's a 99-percent chance that bath salts is involved.

German cops would be quick to dismiss this....saying they don't have a bath salts problem.  I'd probably grin and say 'sure'....but the question of what triggered this will linger.  I suspect the autopsy will settle the problem in two to three weeks.

Bath salts is a fairly addictive way to go and do your high.  It's a high chance for hallucinations and paranoid behavior.  Clothing usually gets taken off....for whatever reasons you might dream up.  Folks will admit that bath salts have been around Germany for a couple of years.

East - West Day

I don't normally quote from a Bild article, but this item from today, has a twist to it.  Bild went out and discussed east versus west attitudes in Germany....since the wall came down.  Frankly, most Germans (especially from the western part of Germany), know that there is an attitude problem that has been brewing.  

Based on a survey, Bild says that one out of five folks in the western part of Germany admit they've never crossed the old DDR line....which split the country into two.  From the eastern side, it's one person out of ten who admit they've never crossed the old DDR line.  

So as an American, you'd first size up the country.  Germany is about as big as Montana.  You'd sit there and think over this size.....eventually thinking that most everyone would travel around the state of Montana and it's hard to believe that a significant portion of Germans haven't been to the "other side". 

Still a split country?  As an outsider, I'd humbly say that at least half of Germans in the western part of Germany have a fairly negative view of the old DDR or East Germany, and this united deal hasn't made them happy.  They see a vast government revenue bucket being used to take care of outdated bridges and roads in the east.  Folks in the east are mostly negative over a lack of jobs.  Companies didn't jump up and relocate into the eastern part of the country.  Most kids are smart to pack up and head to the western part of Germany....to get a stable job.  

Germany celebrates today....3 October....as a unity day.....when east and west parts of Germany united back up.  The truth is....the media hypes up the day and talks about the old days and how much things have changed.  The public?  It's simply a day off and folks might throw something on the grill or go visit relatives.  There's not much in their mind to celebrate.  Maybe in fifty years....this will make sense.  But right now....it's just a useless holiday that they accept and enjoy a day off from work.

The Science of Garbage

An American who arrives in Germany and is going through the top one hundred things of importance....eventually comes to prioritize the act of garbage as one of the top ten things that is difficult to grasp.  I'm trying to say it in a nice way....if some of you Germans take offensive here.

Years ago....Germans got all technical about recycling and handling garbage.  Recycling....is MANDATORY, and you will play the game correctly.  In almost every community, you get a little booklet toward the end of December or very early January....which lays out garbage pick-up for the whole next year, and it'll lay out typically twelve pages of general rules.

Bio-garbage is mandatory, unless you have a bin in the backyard where you compost everything.  Note, you can't usually put any citrus items in the bio....but you can put leaves, grass trimmings, vegetables left over from the refrigerator, etc.  You can dump coffee grounds into it, but not T-bone steak bones.  Typically, they come for your bio-can every three to four weeks....which means that your bio-can is pretty stinky and you usually can't stand to open the top cover.

The paper can (another totally separate device) is usually big enough to handle all the paper that a German family might accumulate in an average three to four week period.  For an American family....it probably does barely cover what they toss into the can.  Don't ask me why.....Americans seem to pick up more paper items than the normal German.  Everything....even the box that the new TV came in....must go to the paper can.  This means you have to smash everything flat and make it all fit.

The plastic garbage?  From state to state, it's a bit different.  Some states have a full-up can out front of the house, that you pay for as part of your garbage fees....and you dump all plastic into it.  Course, if there's some messy stuff on it....you are supposed to wash the item....before placing it into the can.  Some states mandate yellow plastic bags...which you dump your daily plastic collection into....there in the kitchen.  Some delivered item has paper and plastic?  Well....you should remove the plastic, for the plastic can....and put the paper in the paper can.

An old bookcase or old shovel?  Well....there's supposed to be a twice a year collection in each community.  You drag out old bulky stuff....putting it by the road or street, and the truck comes up.  You would notice the date of this in that little booklet that comes in late December.  Some states have dumped the twice-a-year schedule, and just say you can call to set up a reservation, with the truck coming by just for you.

Glass?  Beer bottles are simple....they go back to the store to get your deposit back.  Wine bottles are different...you usually tote those to the village site where a brown steel container sits.  There will be some identification that only green bottles go in this side of the container, and brown bottles in this other side, and see-through bottles in another side.

Regular garbage?  Well....yeah, there is a remaining can out front for it.  But it's a pretty small can if this is for just a two-person apartment.  So you end up being fairly picky about what goes to the regular garbage can.

Batteries?  They can't go to any can.....you end up toting those to some special location in your community to dump in a big container.  It might be at the local grocery, or somewhere on the outskirts of your village....but batteries are kinda special.

TVs or monitors?  You got to run down to the local county dump, where they have a big dumpster and toss it into that.  You will discover while visiting this county dump....various containers.  Some for refrigerators, washers and dryers.  Some for old furniture, etc.

Soda bottles?  Well.....the Germans eventually got around to mandating that they have to be recycled, but they even made this as difficult as possible.  Every single soda container....even cans....has a deposit.  So you end up at the local grocery where you hand back your items....to get your deposit back.  If you notice....buying a soda in a can these days in Germany isn't that simple.  Most all sodas come in a plastic bottle of sorts.

Garbage inspectors?  Well...yeah, the bigger communities have gotten around to inspectors who walk and check your garbage can on the day they are supposed to pick it up.  They can put a letter on top....declining your garbage, which creates a huge problem for you if they fail to pick it up.  This typically comes because they find coffee grounds in your regular garbage, fair amounts of paper in the regular garbage can, or batteries in the regular garbage can.  The sad thing is that smaller communities are hiring up garbage inspectors now....so you will eventually face them on a weekly basis.

Taking things to the extreme?  Well...after a while, you do understand the German mentality, but it's the fine details of this which tend to make you shake your head.  Every year, there is a tweak to the system, and something added to some special category.  Eventually, I suspect that ink pens won't be allowed in regular garbage, light bulbs will be extra special, and old telephone books will have to be handled at a special bin at the end of your village.  There is no end to the science of German garbage.

So my advice is this if you suddenly arrive and find this vast technical situation over garbage....sit down and analyze the stupid booklet you get in December.  Draw up a plan to remind of these divisions of garbage.  Make sure the kids play by the stupid rules too.  And do your best to act "German".  Don't worry, you will fail throughout the first, second and third years....but your German neighbors will come to help remind you that you've screwed up.  It's all part of the German mentality ...you need to get smart and pay by the rules....end of the story.

The Swimming Question

This is an odd story to introduce to an American...on Germany.  First, German states sit down and write up what they want to mandate for education.  To be honest, there's not much difference from state to state (16 total states).  Some states might emphasize more languages than the norm (like Chinese, Polish, Dutch).  Some states might endorse more religious instruction for folks for one particular year out of a kid's life than others.  And some states might mandate swimming as mandatory, with no opt-out option.

It came around in the Frankfurt region....that some Islamic young lady (twelve years old) just plain wasn't going to participate in the swimming episode because her religion forbid her from seeing young men in a topless situation.  Yes, men in a topless situation.  You see, Frankfurt's rule is that you must participate in swimming classes, in a joint atmosphere....young men and women.  So you'd take a class of twenty....toss them into a 90-minute class once a week for physical education....swimming...and they'd all be certified as swimmers by the end of the first semester.

The state apparently went down the rules....because Frankfurt has a fair number of Muslim young ladies. You have no choice but to be in a public school and participate in the various mandated classes.  You can wear a full-body suit...."burkini" would be the term to use for this....and avoid any display of your body except your face, hands and feet.  Bottom line....you will participate....by state rules.  The court came out, and said that was the final deal....no exceptions.

The only option left for the young lady and her family.....is to just say you are sick and avoid this class when it comes up.  That means you get a "zero" for the whole class.....failure.  When the end of the school year comes.....you can generally only afford one or two failures, or repeat the entire school year.  This is a fair risk for a kid.

So, you kinda stand and look over the situation.  You've got a growing number of Muslims who have arrived in Germany....falling into the local Islamic community....and trying to test the Germans at every angle to accept more Islamic rules into German society....pure and simple.  You lived in a perfect Muslim society before, where everything was absolute and pure Muslim.....and apparently, you were unhappy.  So you moved to a non-Muslim society....and brought your anchor with you.  Now, you expect things to fall back into that perfect Muslim society, and eventually.....be just as negative or unhappy as it was before.  Course, you never think much about why things got screwed up in the old country....they just were screwed up.

It's hard to see how a Muslim could ever put himself into the position of moving to such an advanced country like Germany.  Boobs might be flashed on TV.  Relationship discussions occur nightly on some news talk show.  There might be offensive posters on the bus or subway car each day they travel to work.  There's probably three hundred things on a daily basis that challenges a Muslim to stay on a straight and narrow path.  Why would any true Muslim stand up and leave a perfect atmosphere in a Muslim country....to be tested on a daily basis in Germany?  If you toss this at a German Muslim....they'd probably just stand there and stare at you.  They can't answer this.

My guess is that this young lady will skip the swimming class....get a full failure, and if she has a second class that comes close to failure....repeats the entire school year next year.  Maybe she's lucky....makes it, and never has to do another swimming class ever again.  Maybe twenty years down the road....her car runs off the road into some lake.....and she quietly drowns because she couldn't swim out of the lake to safety.  Stranger things have happen.

Just another odd day in Germany.

German Junk Food

An American can run into an interesting discussion item when the topic of junk food comes up with a German.  The conversation will typically lead off with all the various terrible junk food available in America.  The weight and size of Americans will fall into place quickly.  It'll seem like a one-side conversation for several minutes, and then you might casually ask....if Germans have junk food?  There's going to be this pause, and your associate will say 'yes' but not nearly the amount as Americans have.

So, you walk around in grocery stores in your German village or town, and then begin to build a list of German junk food.  There's usually sixty different types of chips at your normal big-name German grocery, with various flavors.  There's probably over one hundred different cookie options in your local German grocery, all loaded with calories.  McDonalds and Burger King?  Almost every town of 10k residents in Germany....now has a McDonalds, and Burger King keeps on expanding as well.  After a while, you kinda realize that junk food is pretty much at the same level in Germany.  Your associate may not like to admit that.....but it's truth.

The various bad health issues that Americans have?  Well....Germans might be a decade behind....but if you walk around and gaze at what folks eat while on the go....they are progressing toward the same health issues.  German kids are in the same boat as American kids.

Walk into any German train station, and gaze at the folks waiting for a train.  One out of ten are probably drinking a Coke, or eating some chips they bought out of the machine.

The junk food topic may start off down a one-way street....but the facts may invite more discussion.  Germans end up facing a moment of shock....that they might living on the same junk food level as Americans.

Bakeries on the Spiral

There's an interesting story out there....over the future of German bakeries.  The German Wholesale Bakeries association says that they are seeing a trend, and expect a drop of thirty to forty percent of bakeries.  It's not that they are unnecessary....it's just that you see an increase in bulk bakeries, which produce products for the smaller shops and stores throughout the country.

Years and years ago....every neighborhood and small town had its own bakery.  They made fresh bread six days a week, and prepared some great deserts which were the Sunday treat.  The small bakeries have met their match with these bulk bakeries, which can employ dozens of people and provide morning delivery to a hundred groceries across the region.  Mass production is taking on a major target.

Comparable?  No.  I've enjoyed small bakery products in Germany for years, and admit you just can't find anything better.  The bulk products?  About half as good, but cheaper than what the smaller bakeries can produce.

It's a trend that you know is happening and you can't stop it.  At some point in forty years, folks will talk about the great smell and taste of fresh baked croissant from the neighborhood bakery, which shut down years ago.  The bulk product that they buy?  It just doesn't have the same texture.

The statistic I find most interesting out of the various stories on the decline....is that they are around fourteen thousand bakeries in Germany today, which serve eighty million residents.  By the 2020 period, it's believed it'll be near eight thousand bakeries (from the Local.de).  Some bread will be trucked for an hour or two.....to be delivered to some small village of five hundred residents.

History will have been made.....sadly.

The New Women on the Board

It is an interesting turn of business management by the German Parliament.....a mandated position that the top thirty companies listed on the DAX.....must have forty percent of the board as women, period.  Not a recommendation, but a mandated situation.

There are two views to this.  First, most folks will admit that it's been a "boys club" for years in upper management, so this is a fair way of finally forcing the issue, via the Bundestag.  Second, some business analysts view this as something that the Bundestag shouldn't be getting into.....the mandate of who sits on boards of major German business organizations.

Who make up the thirty companies on the DAX?  Deutsche Bank, BMW, Siemens, E.ON, SAP, MAN, Heidelberg Cement, Volkswagen, RWE, Daimler, and BASF.....among the very top of the group.  The effect?  Well....no one is saying much on the business news area, but I'm guessing most companies will have to review the structure of their board....and look for a couple of women who have been within the company for twenty years....then hope that they fit well within the board.

For the women involved.....it might be more of a negative than a positive.  You get a move-up-to-the-top ticket, free of charge.  But there's bound to be more observation of your attitude and performance than you'd normally expect.  I'm guessing here....strictly on my own humble opinion....that half of the women promoted out of the initial group....will be resigning or retiring within two to three years.  The women who come up in a decade might face an easier crowd and appreciate what was done this week.

That Forest Kid

If you remember back about six months ago....there was this story in Germany of this kid who suddenly appeared in the Berlin area....claiming he had been living in the woods for years and years with his dad, when dad died.  So he'd come out of the woods.  He didn't know much of anything from his past.  The problem was.....he didn't really have that great of an ability with the German language, and none of his story really seemed true.

So months passed while he was in social care, and then they found out that he was simply a run-away kid from the Netherlands.

Well....the Germans have decided that there's some cost involved in this whole game....way over thirty thousand Euro, and they want the kid to pay up.  The kid?  Well....it's a funny thing....he's disappeared.

So the Forest Kid....as he is referred to in Germany....is on the run.  My humble guess is that he's probably out in the German countryside, and he's changed the color of his hair.  A year or two from now....he'll come up with some fake ID and claim to be some German kid.

I think Germany is kind of stuck with the Forest Kid.

The Junk-Mail Situation

There has been this issue brewing in the German court system....over the German postal folks and what they can be "forced" into delivering.  At the heart of the matter....is the extremist party....the NPD.  They produce a publication of sorts, and they wanted to get the publication out into the public sight.  The German Post stood up and said they shouldn't be forced into delivering it to households.

The court finally settled into the matter, and issued out a statement....mail is mail.  So the Post has to deliver the extremist publications.

The tipping point of this entire argument was that these publications were "unaddressed" (junk-mail, for the typical American).  The Post wanted to stop the delivery because people would end up getting this and possibly getting hostile toward the Post for such a delivery (my humble opinion).

For the most part, the NPD still survives on but most Germans just aren't interested in their position or their points.  The numbers of members?  There are ball-park numbers occasionally given out, but most German publications will agree that they aren't really sure about how Germans fall into this radical Nazi-group.  There could be 100k.....there could be 200k.

The Neo-Nazi Episode

In the last couple of months....Germans have woke up and realized that some Neo-Nazis were involved in a series of murders and robberies.  The cops, at least by my prospective, weren't able to link these episodes....some going back to 2006 until recently.

A massive episode?  No.  Based on everything the cops have presented....it looks like one gang only and it never went past that point.

The curious thing is that there's only one member of this gang still living (a woman), and the cops are fairly desperate at this point to dump as many charges on that remaining member.

The flip side of the episode?  Almost every single German political party wants to have various independent reviews of the cops, the Neo-Nazis, and just about anyone connected.  There could be tens of thousands of hours invested into the effect of a seven-year run of crime done by a small gang of Neo-Nazis.  The chief question would be why the cops never connected the dots.  The chief purpose?  Well....basically to get some public appeal that they, the political players, have helped to fix things.

At the end of this whole mess....the cops have to be thinking that there are various murders throughout Germany every single year, and then wondering how many more might be connected to a group or individual.

Ten Things on Volksmarching

From my many years in Germany and an occasional volksmarch.....I'll offer you some tips and advice.

First, they typically run about ten kilometers.  There's been a trend to offer up a twenty km volksmarch, but I wouldn't advise you to go beyond the ten range unless you've done it a dozen times.

Second, there are volksmarchs all over the countryside, from small towns to large ones.  Some walks go through urban areas, but most are in rural areas.  They can be on a all-flat surface, although hilly routes might be added for the "thrill-seekers".  The trails are typically a well developed surface or even a paved trail.

Third, weather plays a key part in volksmarchs.  If the temperature is up above thirty Celsius....I'd advise a morning march only.  If you want to march in the heat....carry liquids with you.  Yes, folks can get dehydrated and get the ambulance called out if they start to feel faint.  It's not a pretty picture if you get picked up.

Fourth, there are volksmarchs all throughout the year....even in December.  So wear the appropriate clothing.

Fifth, every single volksmarch has a fest tent set up and beverages offered...especially beer.  My advice is to skip the tent upon arrival and only attend it after you complete the walk.  If you are dehydrated....beer is NOT the best liquid to drink.  Neither is wine.  You ought to know better on that topic.

Sixth, there's a medal or trophy given at the conclusion...hence the reason why you pay some Euro to enter the walk.  So collect your item at the end of the walk.

Seventh, there are stations....typically every two km throughout the walk with water available.  If you think you need it....then get a cup and sip it.

Eighth.  Yes, there are volksswims.  They are fairly rare, but you can occasionally find a case where a village offers it as part of their big weekend.

Ninth, the stamp in the book business.  Some guys are fairly serious about this, so they start up a book.  They note their march that day, and get a stamp in their record book at the end of the walk.  These are typically guys who do twenty to forty walks a year....for their entire life.

Tenth, it's supposed to be fun and simply a day out in the sunshine.  It's not a race....so don't show up and pretend to set a strong pace.