Just a Moment on German Mustard

Down from the heavens....God brought mustard to the Germans, and it was blessed.

To be honest, as an American....you really don't know mustard until you've sat down and used a bit of German mustard.

There are various brands, and my favorite is from the Thomy crowd, but there's another dozen close behind them...almost as good.

The key thing when walking through a German shop and looking at mustard will be those little phrases, which I will pass onto you.

First, mittelsharf is really middle of the line mustard which is fairly spicy and not for ultra weak.  I tend to pick this one up the most often.  It's not mild or ultra spicy....so it generally fits for my style.

Second, there's süßer senf....which is mostly light spice and mild....maybe even having a honey taste to it (sweet maybe).

Third, there's scharfer senf.....which is the hottest of the choices.  Don't offer it at the table unless you warn folks.

Now, two other observations with German mustard.  Since the 1950s (maybe even earlier)....they put mustard typically into glass containers which German women will remove the wrapper at the end of use....wash the glass down, and use it for regular water drinking in the house.  You might notice your older neighbor having a dozen of these near the table and ask where to buy it.....she'll just laugh and tell you to buy and use mustard.

The other observation....Germans use mustard an awful lot.  They mix into various dishes.  When you detect some spicy taste to something....odds are....it's the mustard.

So take care to pick and use the right type.  And when the container says sharfer senf.....it means hot and spicy.

Just An Observation

It's not an item that will appear far and wide.....but this past week....the German federal police came out and admitted in public that they had this little computer error that had occurred.  Somehow, in the process of doing a transfer of data....the functionality of "delete" came into play.  At the end of the computer process, there was a significant amount of data which was deleted, instead of transferred.

The type of data?  Two months of data which had bugging info, e-mails, and text messages, for 2011.

The German cops won't really admit publicly just how many cases are affected, but you can figure several cases will be pretty much dropped entirely because of the lack of evidence.

Knowing the German mentality of avoiding errors....I'm betting at least a dozen analysts are looking over the entire event and trying focus on how such a thing could happen.  At the end of this....I'm just guessing here, but they will suddenly come to realize that the primary guy who would have run the software program....probably started up his summer vacation, and it was the junior guy in charge.  Maybe I'm wrong, but the timing here makes you wonder.

Germans and Summer Vacation

There are a number of things that an American would tend to notice after a while....when it comes to Germans and the summer vacation period.

First, a lot of Germans take a minimum of two weeks off in the summer....sometimes even three to four weeks.  It's kind of tied into the schedule of schools being off.  If you noticed....each state in Germany has a slightly different period for schools shutting down.  So the parents work up their schedule and take off from work.

It would be a correct assessment to say that when you start to conduct business with a German office....whether public or private....the odds are that the one guy who could answer your question....might not be there in July when you call.  The response will be that you need to wait two weeks until Dieter returns.  For an American, it's an odd response because you'd assume that offices would never allow vacation periods to extend out like this.  But they do.

Second, Germans have two views of the vacation period.  If you have money.....you actually go somewhere.  Maybe France, maybe Italy.....maybe off to some island or to Turkey.

If you don't have the money....fine, you end up buying a card for the local pool and you spend every afternoon at your local town pool.  You might do wall-papering while on vacation, but somehow....there's going to be some relaxation involved.

Third, if you tend to watch German TV.....you start to notice reruns of various shows from five to twenty years ago.  A crime drama from Sweden might suddenly appear on German prime-time TV on Sunday night.  Some lesser known US comedies might suddenly appear for a couple of weeks.  The truth is that the TV networks know that fewer viewers are around....so why waste their effort?

Fourth, politics suddenly stop.  For roughly six weeks.....you just don't see much in terms of politics.  There's bound to be a interview or two with some four-star speaker for a party, while vacationing on the Rhine River.  It'll be a softball question type of situation....nothing difficult.  For all practical purposes....most politics shutdown and the political players all go off to drink and goof-off for their summer period.

Fifth, stores tend to run with three quarters of the normal employees.....so you don't see that many sales going on.  Vacations are in full force......so why bother with a sale to have a bunch of folks show up....when you can't really handle that?

Sixth and final.....maybe it's my own personal observation and just an odd thing.....but you just don't observe strikes by anyone in July and August.  The train guys always prefer the other ten months of the year for a strike.  The airport guys are the same.  The garbage guys are the same.  Strikes just don't seem to happen in the summer period.  My assumption is.....the guys are happy and sitting at some bar in Ibiza....drinking and discussing future strike plans.

Germans and Chocolate

To stand in your local German grocery, and view the chocolate shelves.....you feel like there's ten thousand choices of chocolate.  Frankly, you might be right.  Germans take chocolate serious, and there's various brands and types of chocolate that you might run into.  Some examples?

First, there's alcohol-laced chocolate (typically seen around November and December primarily) which tempts you with some liquor added into the center.  The Asbach brand is the one that you might spot more than others.  The odds of you consuming the whole box of twenty-four squares and getting drunk? If you slammed them down in two minutes....you might get some percentage of booze into your system, but you would have missed the perfect taste of alcohol and chocolate combined.

Second, there's Kinder Chocolate, made by Ferrero folks in Germany.  It's rich in milk and chocolate, and typically the type that six-year old kids would consume.  Reasonably cheap and generally consumed in vast quantities.

Third?  The Ritter Sport choice.  Ritter makes around forty different chocolates.    If you had to pick the adult choice for pure chocolate....Ritter is the one.  A guy stopping in the late afternoon for gas....with a low energy level....will eyeball the choice at the cash register, and likely buy it.

Fourth, Milka Chocolate.  The Milka folks offer up at least a dozen choices, but it's the white chocolate bar that typically is craved by people.

Fifth and final, the Alpia Chocolate Company.  They make several types of chocolate, but most revolve around nuts of some type or raisins.

After the top five....you've probably got another fifty odd companies which make chocolate.  Usually with the top five choices...you can't go wrong.

Saving on German Travel

For an American traveling around Germany.....you can shake your head at times over the cost of enjoying the German countryside.  So I'm going to offer a few tips during the summer travel season on how a guy can save some bucks, within Germany.

First, the German Bahn guys offer up a special discount ticket....a saver (Sparpreise) ticket can run around 19 Euro, which enables you to travel 250 Km or less (second-class).  There group tickets where two or three or four people can band together and get heavily discounted tickets.

Second, bed-and-breakfast deals still exist in Germany.  Some are pricey....mostly because of the high-end house or 'mansion' that you end up staying at.  These all include breakfast, and typically are a good deal for the average traveler.

Third, some German hotel chains come to a point in the middle of summer...where rooms haven't been reserved at the rate they hoped....so in the midst of summer, they suddenly offer up 10-percent or even 30-percent discounts.  So last minute planning might lead you to stumble onto heavily discounted hotel in Berlin or Stuttgart.

Fourth, in some major cities....the significant hotels that you might stay at....will offer one "extra" in the package....a city-pass.  You might notice this in the advertising.  The city-pass is a card that allows you to use the local city trains and buses free of charge (only within the city limits).  Going for a weekend?  That free city-pass might be worth roughly $15 each (in Euro), for a couple.

Fifth, some major cities offer a discount card to enter all local museums.  An example, the Stutt-Card (available in Stuttgart) runs around ten Euro.  This card gets you into roughly a dozen museums in the local area and you might save forty Euro if paying at each entry as you walked in.  Some research for each region might dig up two dozen such cards around Germany.

Sixth, and final....an American family of four on the cheap....can pick up a dozen brotchens and salami in the early morning hours, and just have a quiet cheap lunch by the river, instead of spending forty Euro at some restaurant.

Nothing in Germany is truly cheap....but you can save a few bucks, if you plan ahead.

Germans and Heat

This week for me....I had to endure 100-degree (39.5 C) temperatures here in the DC area.  Germany has a slightly different temperature range....on normal days in the summer.  Of course, from year to year....there's always that "wild card" where a German daily temperature might rise up to high 30's (C).

I came to realize over the years that I lived in Germany....that Germans had a general plan for surviving summer heat.  In a country where ninety-nine percent of the population doesn't have air conditioning....there's a different attitude about heat.  In the old days (the 1990's no less), there just wasn't any AC usage in most businesses.  Today?  Well...most all major stores will have chilled air (it won't be cool, but it won't be awful hot).  Even as you go into smaller stores and bakeries.....most will have some kind of chilled air to entice customers.

A German dresses for hot weather....even at work.  Most business operations will look the other way and allow everyone to wear shorts.  Shoe selection?  Well....it won't be flip-flops, but sandals are generally acceptable.  Guys on pavement crews will be removing their shirt and soaking up the sunshine, while wearing shorts and work-boots.  Light and transparent clothing are standard.

The drink of choice?  Chilled mineral water....with a cube or two of ice (not the traditional sixteen cubes that an American would ask for).  Down the line would be ice tea or some fruit-laced drink.  And of course, chilled beer (not cold, but chilled).  Germans aren't stupid about drinking lots of beer in the afternoon....but after work....three or four chilled beers generally will cool off a German.  For an American, this avoidance of cold liquids is unusual.  Even a slushy would be turned down by a German.

The best place to sip beer in the afternoons?  Well....around most towns, there will be a pub which has an outdoor area with a cover, or a group of trees for shade.  So you sit there....with a hope of a faint wind at your back....sipping the beer and wiping what little sweat remaining on you off.  The shade tree would be a perfect spot....if it weren't for all the bees that come to visit and forcing you to toss your arms around every thirty seconds.

The introduction of AC?  Day by day.....some folks are quietly going out and buying smaller units to cool up a living room or a bedroom.  The problem is that your neighbors will notice the introduction and quietly criticize you over AC usage and power consumption.  Another eighty Euro for the month of July for eighty hours of AC usage (a small unit)?  Yeah, and enduring this criticism is really the worst part of the deal.  

Some folks will try hard to drag the unit into the house under the cover of darkness....and hook up the exhaust hose in some fashion that it won't be seen by any neighbors.  But then the neighbor notices no windows open on one side of the house and gets suspicious on how you could survive without any airflow in such drastic heat.  Eventually, your secret gets out, and you are looked down upon....because you just weren't "strong enough" to make it.  In essence, you've "Americanized" yourself, and that's not a good thing.

Finally, Germans tend to run off in the summer period for their summer vacation.  Two weeks.....sometimes three weeks....and they vacation while the heat blasts away at the house.  The locations they escape to?  Well....Spain, Crete, Greece, Turkey, and Italy.  All hot of course, but hotels all feature AC units.....so folks smile as they quietly sit in the hotel room with chilled air blasting on them. When they come back from this big trip....they will talk for hours about the buffet food area, the beach, the booze, the party atmosphere, and the various cultural things they saw.  Never a word will be uttered about the terrific AC unit that they enjoyed in the hotel.  It'd be a moment of weakness to admit you had to AC yourself.

So, an American can sit and observe this situation.  There's not a lot that you can learn....other than just accepting the heat and be strong.  It's the German way.

Just Blow

So this is for Americans....who live in Germany....and kinda had this wicked idea of venturing out into France.  The French got this swell idea of doing something about drinking and driving....so they've mandated that everyone.....not just French drivers in France, but German drivers in France, and even American drivers in France.....have to carry this simplified breathalyzer kit in your car.

Now, you'd naturally ask about this "kit" and what the heck it does.  Well....you blow into it when you think you might have had too much to drink, and there's this chemical reaction if you are drunk.  It probably has a little color scale and just says you are safe or you are drunk.  You can buy this plastic baggy at a drug store, super-market, or gas station.  It's like like those condoms you see at the counter....except in this case, it's mandatory that you have it.

So you ponder over this.  An American had to get used to the three key items in every car which had the German registration.....the first aid kit, the fancy-but-cheap reflective vest, and the warning triangle.  Now, there's the fourth item....if you think you might venture over into France.  The cost of the single "kit"?  Roughly $1.80.  If you get caught without one in your car, by the French cops?  Roughly $14.

To put this in the right prospective.....most Germans are laughing over this baggy requirement.  First, you will likely shove this into the first aid kit which is deep in the guts of the trunk.....and the odds of you even remembering you have the stupid baggy and maybe using it when you had three or four glasses of wine while visiting France....is virtually zero.  And if you were completely wasted.....would you even comprehend the color on the warning scale?  And what if you were color-blind?

The problem I see here....having been off into the French countryside...is that most French folks drink a glass of wine with lunch, and dinner.  In fact, they might guzzle two or three glasses just at lunch, and they might find a hearty moment at dinner to guzzle down five glasses of wine.  The odds of a French guy having fifty of these breathalyzer kits in their car and continually use them?  Virtually zero.

Somewhere down the line....some French plastic company came up with this idea and I suspect they bribed enough folks to make this a requirement for people to buy them.  You can figure at least five hundred million of these stupid breathalyzer baggys being sold per year as a minimum.  Along the way, some idiots will make fake baggys and sell them for half the price.....getting cops all upset as they argue with a drunk that the fake baggy just doesn't register anything....even if you guzzle six bottles of wine.

At some point, a drunk German guy is going to get stopped by the French cops.  They will ask about his plastic breathalyzer kit, and he'll drag out this forty-liter garbage bag and make up some story about he'll huff and puff the bag full to show them he's ok, then about half-way to filling the forty-liter bag....he'll pass out.  The French cops will just shake their head....call an ambulance, and forget about the entire mess. The German guy will wake up in some French hospital and wonder what happened, and ask if they have any decent beer to drink.