An American typically finds hundreds of odd things when he arrives on German soil. So the topic of tap water will come up sooner, or later. Bluntly, Germans don't drink tap water, period.
The reasoning? It's hard to say.
When you go to a restaurant or pub, and it's in the midst of a hot summer day....you'd really like some ice cold water to refresh yourself. A German does too.....but they will order a simple bottle of water....paying roughly a Euro for eight fluid ounces of water.
Now, I will admit....there's a wide assortment of water choices. Most Germans prefer water with gas (the bubbles). Typically, Gerolsteiner will be a high choice amongst Germans. It's a mineral water, and been around for well over 120 years.
I admit...some of this preference probably comes from German history and fear of 'bad' water. This was probably true back in the 1940s. But German today is about as pure as you get.
My advice for an American in German....on a hot afternoon? As you stop at the pub.....order the largest bottle of natural water that they sell, and just anticipate drinking most of it while you sit and refresh yourself. Don't expect any ice cubes in the glass.....that's another topic for another day.
As for use of tap water for making coffee at home in Germany? Well....yeah, they use regular tap water for that. I know it doesn't make much sense, but this is Germany.
Finally, a word to the wise about getting dehydrated and stopping at a pub to have a beer, instead of a glass of water. It's not a smart idea, and your body will soak up that beer twice as fast on a hot day....meaning that you will feel enticed to sip one beer, then a second, and then a third. It's not a smart idea.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Stau Season
Summer in Germany....brings on the subject of traffic jams. German "staus" are legendary. An American typically cannot imagine being stuck in a ninety-minute traffic jam....moving eight lousy miles (11 km) at best.
Why all the traffic on a weekend? Well....Germans want to travel and go places. To be honest, the current autobahn structure is made for ten months out of the year....not June or July. Even the concept of limiting truckers to six days a week, and forcing them off the road for Sundays.....probably hasn't helped that much.
Toss in the fact that if you are going to a week long house rental deal.....then they all occur on Saturdays to arrive to. This means you leave on Saturday morning and arrive at the house rental by that afternoon, and the reverse is true....the guy at the house rental right now....checks out by Saturday morning, and drives home on Saturday.
So I'm going to offer up simple advice on how an American can handle the stressful stau-business.
First, getting a head start is practical. I hate suggesting to get up at 3AM to start a trip but it helps. There is hardly anyone on the road until around 7AM, and traffic never builds up until 9AM. So you might just plan this in a way.....get six hours of driving out of the way, and rest for three hours around while the heavy traffic is running.
Second, the best places to stop along the autobahn in these situations....is typically your gas station and restaurant operations along the autobahn. I know the prices are outrageous and the food is typically two-star at best. But your only other option is to completely off the autobahn and plan some stop in a local town or city. Maybe there's a tourist spot to stop and see for three hours....and this makes sense then.
Third, I've noticed folks now get into GPS calculating. This leans toward you running into a lengthy autobahn stau, leaving the autobahn to travel on some secondary road at a lesser speed, and somehow coming out ahead in this driving game. I've tried this on five or six occasions. Frankly, it works if the stau is 20km long, but if's less than 10km....you'd best just stay on the autobahn.
Fourth, most staus start because of a car accident. Guys are stupid....driving 150kph and create a massive accident. You don't want to be a trigger to a stau, so I would strongly advise on getting a good ten-minute rest every two hours. It'd help to switch out drivers every two hours. It'd help to get everyone out of the car and make them walk a bit every two hours.
Fifth, once a driver gets really stressed out and acting weird from a lengthy stau....make the driver leave the autobahn and rest.
Sixth, staus typically come to a closure by late Saturday afternoon. You would rarely find one after 6PM. If you asked when the peak usually occurs....I'd say between 10AM and 2PM.
Seventh.....I'd like to say that staus occur more often near metropolitan cities, but that just isn't the case. You can't predict where a massive accident will occur and trigger a stau.
Eighth.....the stand-still stau. Over the fifteen years I lived in Germany....I came up against a absolute stau on three occasions. This is where nothing moves for at least thirty minutes. Typically....the cops are at the accident scene, with an ambulance crew, and digging folks out of a bus or several cars. If you figure you are such a situation, and the next exit is a km up the road.....see if you can wiggle yourself out to the right far lane and just exit the autobahn completely.
Ninth....the fog stau. I once drove from Munich back up toward Mannheim.....in early January. I ran into a fog bank where visibility was 200 feet at best. Traffic started to back up and we invented a massive stau.....but the positive was that we still continued to move along....just slowly. In a case like this....I'd strong advise you to find a rest-stop and just pull in for an hour....waiting for the fog to lift.
Tenth and final.....all staus eventually end, and traffic goes back into turbo, to make up for lost time. Sadly, this simply creates the next potential accident down the road. Don't go nuts to make up for lost time.
Why all the traffic on a weekend? Well....Germans want to travel and go places. To be honest, the current autobahn structure is made for ten months out of the year....not June or July. Even the concept of limiting truckers to six days a week, and forcing them off the road for Sundays.....probably hasn't helped that much.
Toss in the fact that if you are going to a week long house rental deal.....then they all occur on Saturdays to arrive to. This means you leave on Saturday morning and arrive at the house rental by that afternoon, and the reverse is true....the guy at the house rental right now....checks out by Saturday morning, and drives home on Saturday.
So I'm going to offer up simple advice on how an American can handle the stressful stau-business.
First, getting a head start is practical. I hate suggesting to get up at 3AM to start a trip but it helps. There is hardly anyone on the road until around 7AM, and traffic never builds up until 9AM. So you might just plan this in a way.....get six hours of driving out of the way, and rest for three hours around while the heavy traffic is running.
Second, the best places to stop along the autobahn in these situations....is typically your gas station and restaurant operations along the autobahn. I know the prices are outrageous and the food is typically two-star at best. But your only other option is to completely off the autobahn and plan some stop in a local town or city. Maybe there's a tourist spot to stop and see for three hours....and this makes sense then.
Third, I've noticed folks now get into GPS calculating. This leans toward you running into a lengthy autobahn stau, leaving the autobahn to travel on some secondary road at a lesser speed, and somehow coming out ahead in this driving game. I've tried this on five or six occasions. Frankly, it works if the stau is 20km long, but if's less than 10km....you'd best just stay on the autobahn.
Fourth, most staus start because of a car accident. Guys are stupid....driving 150kph and create a massive accident. You don't want to be a trigger to a stau, so I would strongly advise on getting a good ten-minute rest every two hours. It'd help to switch out drivers every two hours. It'd help to get everyone out of the car and make them walk a bit every two hours.
Fifth, once a driver gets really stressed out and acting weird from a lengthy stau....make the driver leave the autobahn and rest.
Sixth, staus typically come to a closure by late Saturday afternoon. You would rarely find one after 6PM. If you asked when the peak usually occurs....I'd say between 10AM and 2PM.
Seventh.....I'd like to say that staus occur more often near metropolitan cities, but that just isn't the case. You can't predict where a massive accident will occur and trigger a stau.
Eighth.....the stand-still stau. Over the fifteen years I lived in Germany....I came up against a absolute stau on three occasions. This is where nothing moves for at least thirty minutes. Typically....the cops are at the accident scene, with an ambulance crew, and digging folks out of a bus or several cars. If you figure you are such a situation, and the next exit is a km up the road.....see if you can wiggle yourself out to the right far lane and just exit the autobahn completely.
Ninth....the fog stau. I once drove from Munich back up toward Mannheim.....in early January. I ran into a fog bank where visibility was 200 feet at best. Traffic started to back up and we invented a massive stau.....but the positive was that we still continued to move along....just slowly. In a case like this....I'd strong advise you to find a rest-stop and just pull in for an hour....waiting for the fog to lift.
Tenth and final.....all staus eventually end, and traffic goes back into turbo, to make up for lost time. Sadly, this simply creates the next potential accident down the road. Don't go nuts to make up for lost time.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Guns and Statistics
It's an odd statistic that came out this week.
In 2011...German cops fired a grand total of 85 bullets in relationship to their job (not training). Of that 85 bullets....forty-nine were simply warning shots. The rest? Six folks were killed and fifteen were wounded.
We won't go into comparison about the American side of the statistics....because we can typically fire fifty or more rounds at just one guy....at one crime scene....and that's on just a good day.
Germans will quickly pick up on a story like this and chat on how America is so terribly wrong. We fire too many rounds. We react too quickly. We drive around with machine guns in police cruisers. We might fire off six hundred rounds of ammo at a pretty hostile situation.
Having lived in Germany.....I can offer these observations.
Typically, you don't have "death by cop" attitudes in Germany. You don't openly invite the cops to your front yard and entice them to kill you with their guns.
Typically, you don't have gangs around Mainz, or Munich, or Trier.....who openly carry weapons in public.
Typically, you don't have El Salvadorian gangs operating out of Wiesbaden and shooting up rival gangs on the street.
Typically, you don't three guys showing up at your front door and showing off weapons to get you to open up your wall safe where you keep your big collection of gold coins.
But there's something else you can take from this story. German cops are more likely to fire a warning shot....which I wouldn't argue against. It's also pretty likely after he's fired that one warning shot....if he has to fire one more round....he's going to hit you. Statistically, I'm only guessing here....but that's probably ten times better than you could get with any US cop.
I know Germans will twist this around and hint strongly that we just have too many guns in America....but the other side of this story is that we've also got alot of characters who just aren't friendly.....far more statistically than what any German community ever has to deal with. We could invite a thousand ways to retrieve or take away weapons.....but it's just going to be one group affected. These odd characters? They aren't about to play games and they'd retain their weapons.
Germans can talk all they want on this.....but at the end of the day....they should just be thankful they live in Germany and feel that safe. And they should be thankful that German cops don't waste ammo and always offer up a warning shot.
In 2011...German cops fired a grand total of 85 bullets in relationship to their job (not training). Of that 85 bullets....forty-nine were simply warning shots. The rest? Six folks were killed and fifteen were wounded.
We won't go into comparison about the American side of the statistics....because we can typically fire fifty or more rounds at just one guy....at one crime scene....and that's on just a good day.
Germans will quickly pick up on a story like this and chat on how America is so terribly wrong. We fire too many rounds. We react too quickly. We drive around with machine guns in police cruisers. We might fire off six hundred rounds of ammo at a pretty hostile situation.
Having lived in Germany.....I can offer these observations.
Typically, you don't have "death by cop" attitudes in Germany. You don't openly invite the cops to your front yard and entice them to kill you with their guns.
Typically, you don't have gangs around Mainz, or Munich, or Trier.....who openly carry weapons in public.
Typically, you don't have El Salvadorian gangs operating out of Wiesbaden and shooting up rival gangs on the street.
Typically, you don't three guys showing up at your front door and showing off weapons to get you to open up your wall safe where you keep your big collection of gold coins.
But there's something else you can take from this story. German cops are more likely to fire a warning shot....which I wouldn't argue against. It's also pretty likely after he's fired that one warning shot....if he has to fire one more round....he's going to hit you. Statistically, I'm only guessing here....but that's probably ten times better than you could get with any US cop.
I know Germans will twist this around and hint strongly that we just have too many guns in America....but the other side of this story is that we've also got alot of characters who just aren't friendly.....far more statistically than what any German community ever has to deal with. We could invite a thousand ways to retrieve or take away weapons.....but it's just going to be one group affected. These odd characters? They aren't about to play games and they'd retain their weapons.
Germans can talk all they want on this.....but at the end of the day....they should just be thankful they live in Germany and feel that safe. And they should be thankful that German cops don't waste ammo and always offer up a warning shot.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Parking "War"
Some time over Sunday....down in Augsburg....one neighbor got into an argument with another neighbor....over a parking spot. Things got overheated. One guy goes back and gets an ax....to attack the other neighbor. From the description of things....the ax guy wasn't happy and started whacking on the door. Cops got called, and quickly arrived. The ax dude then retreated to his apartment, where the cops came to knock on the door. The guy refused to open the door....so the cops knocked the door down. The guy had the ax in his hand and apparently made a threatening move....so the cops shot the guy dead.
Now, I would be the first to say that you don't typically have ax episodes or cops shooting folks in Germany over matters like this. However, I also have to admit that parking is a fairly serious business in Germany.
For an American arriving and getting into the apartment hunt business....some advice here. First, if you rent an apartment....before you sign....make absolutely sure about the parking deal. There ought to be a sign with your apartment number and indications of private parking somewhere around the building. If you can't get that positive indicator....don't rent the place.
Second, in most towns....there's some unwritten rules in each neighborhood. Parking understandings.....as I would put it. So you might want to ask about this....before you settle in. You really don't want neighbors getting a bad attitude about the new American...just on the first day or two that you move in.
Third, parking in most German neighborhoods is fairly important. Folks get unhinged if you take their spot. So you want to make sure about parking situation. Be apologetic if you screwed up.
Finally....I must admit.....there is going to be that small number of Germans out there.....who will overreact and go ballistic fairly easily. Maybe one guy out of a thousand. I'm not saying it's a typical German thing....but you might run into it. Anger management classes are something that most Germans have never heard about, and would likely laugh if you suggested they needed to attend one.
In this case....I'm guessing one neighbor is fairly distraught right now.....his former neighbor is dead....all over one stupid parking misunderstanding. It really didn't need to come to this.
Now, I would be the first to say that you don't typically have ax episodes or cops shooting folks in Germany over matters like this. However, I also have to admit that parking is a fairly serious business in Germany.
For an American arriving and getting into the apartment hunt business....some advice here. First, if you rent an apartment....before you sign....make absolutely sure about the parking deal. There ought to be a sign with your apartment number and indications of private parking somewhere around the building. If you can't get that positive indicator....don't rent the place.
Second, in most towns....there's some unwritten rules in each neighborhood. Parking understandings.....as I would put it. So you might want to ask about this....before you settle in. You really don't want neighbors getting a bad attitude about the new American...just on the first day or two that you move in.
Third, parking in most German neighborhoods is fairly important. Folks get unhinged if you take their spot. So you want to make sure about parking situation. Be apologetic if you screwed up.
Finally....I must admit.....there is going to be that small number of Germans out there.....who will overreact and go ballistic fairly easily. Maybe one guy out of a thousand. I'm not saying it's a typical German thing....but you might run into it. Anger management classes are something that most Germans have never heard about, and would likely laugh if you suggested they needed to attend one.
In this case....I'm guessing one neighbor is fairly distraught right now.....his former neighbor is dead....all over one stupid parking misunderstanding. It really didn't need to come to this.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
The Problem with Being Banned
A couple of weeks ago...I blogged up the situation with the German Nobel Prize-author....Guenter Grass. For those who don't remember....Gunter, getting up in his years....decided that he'd write up a piece of poetry which kind of slammed Israel for it's anti-Arab stance and nuke warfare might eventually trigger some event.
A blitz of sorts then occurred....slamming Gunter, and eventually....Israel wrote up a travel ban on Gunter. I kind of doubt that he cared. I would imagine that he's never been to Israel and probably at 84 years old....it's not a big thing to limit his travel opportunities.
I thought (as a typical American)....that things would die down and the Gunter episode would just go away. This week....Gunter came out....slamming the terrible ban put upon him. He reminded everyone that he'd also been banned from visiting East Germany (which has kind of gone away now), and Myanmar (formerly Burma for you folks with maps made before 1989).
Bluntly, Gunter hasn't exactly wanted to let the topic drop, and I suspect that everyday....someone around him brings up the subject and it just kinda rubs Gunter the wrong way. Not that he wishes he could travel....but that he's got this ban on him. Heck, he might even have a neighbor who just got back from a two-week beach vacation on the shores of Israel and bragged about the fine dining and buffet meals at the fancy hotel.
I sat and thought about this. Out of eighty million Germans.....the vast number....probably 99.99999 percent walk around and have no bans from any country on the face of the Earth. I'm guessing there's probably three thousand Germans banned from Turkey for bad behavior while drunk on vacation. There's probably a thousand Germans banned from Italy for bad behavior while drunk on vacation. There might even be sixty Germans banned from UK travel for bad behavior while drunk on vacation.
Gunter is in a rare German group.....one of the few Germans banned from three separate countries in his entire life. Course, one of them is now incorporated into Germany, and you'd have to believe that all travel bans dissolved when the DDR flipped over.
The thing about being banned....is that you tend to think twice as much about traveling to the banned area...after you've received the typical statement from some foreign office. It's like being kicked out of the village bar and demanding the next week to be allowed back in.
I'm guessing that Gunter will harbor this anger for a pretty long time. I don't think the Israeli government will flip their decision very easily. Gunter would have to write a pro-Israel poem.....which I doubt he really feels much like doing. Life will go on.....just without any travel opportunity to Israel.
A blitz of sorts then occurred....slamming Gunter, and eventually....Israel wrote up a travel ban on Gunter. I kind of doubt that he cared. I would imagine that he's never been to Israel and probably at 84 years old....it's not a big thing to limit his travel opportunities.
I thought (as a typical American)....that things would die down and the Gunter episode would just go away. This week....Gunter came out....slamming the terrible ban put upon him. He reminded everyone that he'd also been banned from visiting East Germany (which has kind of gone away now), and Myanmar (formerly Burma for you folks with maps made before 1989).
Bluntly, Gunter hasn't exactly wanted to let the topic drop, and I suspect that everyday....someone around him brings up the subject and it just kinda rubs Gunter the wrong way. Not that he wishes he could travel....but that he's got this ban on him. Heck, he might even have a neighbor who just got back from a two-week beach vacation on the shores of Israel and bragged about the fine dining and buffet meals at the fancy hotel.
I sat and thought about this. Out of eighty million Germans.....the vast number....probably 99.99999 percent walk around and have no bans from any country on the face of the Earth. I'm guessing there's probably three thousand Germans banned from Turkey for bad behavior while drunk on vacation. There's probably a thousand Germans banned from Italy for bad behavior while drunk on vacation. There might even be sixty Germans banned from UK travel for bad behavior while drunk on vacation.
Gunter is in a rare German group.....one of the few Germans banned from three separate countries in his entire life. Course, one of them is now incorporated into Germany, and you'd have to believe that all travel bans dissolved when the DDR flipped over.
The thing about being banned....is that you tend to think twice as much about traveling to the banned area...after you've received the typical statement from some foreign office. It's like being kicked out of the village bar and demanding the next week to be allowed back in.
I'm guessing that Gunter will harbor this anger for a pretty long time. I don't think the Israeli government will flip their decision very easily. Gunter would have to write a pro-Israel poem.....which I doubt he really feels much like doing. Life will go on.....just without any travel opportunity to Israel.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
The Right Time, The Right Place
Months ago.....you could tell that the German economy had quickly paced itself to come out of recent economic mess. They had made a number of decisions....some simply by long-term planning and some simply by luck. So they emerged ahead of most of Europe. They had this window of opportunity. Business and export went onto turbo stage. What Germany came to discover....was that they actually needed more manpower....smart folks, individuals with engineering talents, and scientists.
There was a great article this week by the New York Times discussing the matter. German companies got smart and started to recruit unemployed engineers and such.....from neighboring countries that had a ten-percent or better unemployment rate. They didn't care about the language difference or cultural shock. And the unemployed engineers didn't refuse the deal.
The numbers involved? Well....the statistics aren't that clear, but one would figure there's around 100k or more individuals involved in this turbo mode.
How long does this last? That's a question that the Times didn't answer, but it would be an interesting question to think about. My humble opinion is that we are looking at a five-year period....where most of European is in a screwed-up economic stage and recovery for most not coming until 2018. Eventually, there might be 500k "guests" in Germany. So you have to ponder.....if a Spanish engineer stays around five years and really likes the conditions....would he even leave when Spain recovered and asked him back. Maybe not.
You don't get attached to some place in twenty-four months and agree to stay on. Somewhere after four years.....you've gotten yourself usually into a boat-anchor situation. You like the local town. You have your favorite barber. You know the best restaurants. You know the company strategy. You start to feel it's all nice and comfy.
There's a fundamental shift in business and manufacturing going on. Germany has found this window of opportunity and making maximum use out of it. They have smart folks from all over European to their cities. I hate using the word unplanned technology renaissance period....but they end up with a secondary period behind the recovery period for Europe....where their companies are developing all kinds of technology.
There's an advantage being put together here, and you have to wonder where it carries Germany.
There was a great article this week by the New York Times discussing the matter. German companies got smart and started to recruit unemployed engineers and such.....from neighboring countries that had a ten-percent or better unemployment rate. They didn't care about the language difference or cultural shock. And the unemployed engineers didn't refuse the deal.
The numbers involved? Well....the statistics aren't that clear, but one would figure there's around 100k or more individuals involved in this turbo mode.
How long does this last? That's a question that the Times didn't answer, but it would be an interesting question to think about. My humble opinion is that we are looking at a five-year period....where most of European is in a screwed-up economic stage and recovery for most not coming until 2018. Eventually, there might be 500k "guests" in Germany. So you have to ponder.....if a Spanish engineer stays around five years and really likes the conditions....would he even leave when Spain recovered and asked him back. Maybe not.
You don't get attached to some place in twenty-four months and agree to stay on. Somewhere after four years.....you've gotten yourself usually into a boat-anchor situation. You like the local town. You have your favorite barber. You know the best restaurants. You know the company strategy. You start to feel it's all nice and comfy.
There's a fundamental shift in business and manufacturing going on. Germany has found this window of opportunity and making maximum use out of it. They have smart folks from all over European to their cities. I hate using the word unplanned technology renaissance period....but they end up with a secondary period behind the recovery period for Europe....where their companies are developing all kinds of technology.
There's an advantage being put together here, and you have to wonder where it carries Germany.
Monday, April 23, 2012
A Wolf Story
Back around 2006....a bear crossed over the German border and became the first bear seen on Germany territory in over 150 years. It was a big deal for about ten weeks...until Bruno the bear got hunted down and shot. A guy could write an entire book about this ten week period in Germany....half-fiction and half-fact....and probably make it to the top-ten books sold in Germany.
This week...it came out that a wolf was seen for the first time in 120 years. Well...he was seen, and shot dead. The Rhineland-Palatinate Hunting Association has done some fact checking and feels very sure about it being a wolf....beyond that....they aren't that sure about anything. The German press says the wolf was found dead off on some trail that walkers tend to use in the Westerwald area on Saturday afternoon. It's a male and an adult...based on comments (not a pup).
Who shot the wolf? Unknown.
All they will say is that it was a high-caliber rifle that hunters would typically carry. So where does this go?
It's an odd story. I worked with an American who was readily accepted in German hunting circles and might even be one of the top twenty hunters in the Wiesbaden region. Course, I'd also have to admit he is a fellow-Bama individual, and likely has a head start on most German hunters. Over the period that we worked together....I gained a good bit of insight about your typical German hunter.
There's this odd thing about German hunters....they are pretty organized and dedicated to their sport. If some German hunter came out and tracked some animal and it turned out to be the first wolf in 120 years to walk on German territory....he probably wouldn't shoot it and would rush back to brag about his discovery. He'd tell forty hunters from the local club, and none of them would really believe him. So he'd have to drag some back to the spot....show the trail and prints....and he'd become a legend overnight.
Days and weeks would pass....as this guy's legendary status built up and some media frenzy would occur over this wonderful discovery. Then some political folks would jump in and insist that the wolf had to be shot....with ten German thousand hunters all getting peppy about new political comment.
So, here's my thing. I don't think the wolf was shot there, or by some local hunter. I would suspect that some guy went down into Slovakia or maybe out to Russia....brought a wolf into Germany and just shot it as some news piece.
I think this was set up. Maybe I'm wrong on this. But I just can't see a typical German hunter taking this shot...and walking away without the wolf's body. It doesn't make sense.
UPDATE: An older gentleman (71) has come out and admitted that he thought it looked like a dog when he shot the wolf, and regrets the action. Hard to say if some law will be tossed at the old guy.
This week...it came out that a wolf was seen for the first time in 120 years. Well...he was seen, and shot dead. The Rhineland-Palatinate Hunting Association has done some fact checking and feels very sure about it being a wolf....beyond that....they aren't that sure about anything. The German press says the wolf was found dead off on some trail that walkers tend to use in the Westerwald area on Saturday afternoon. It's a male and an adult...based on comments (not a pup).
Who shot the wolf? Unknown.
All they will say is that it was a high-caliber rifle that hunters would typically carry. So where does this go?
It's an odd story. I worked with an American who was readily accepted in German hunting circles and might even be one of the top twenty hunters in the Wiesbaden region. Course, I'd also have to admit he is a fellow-Bama individual, and likely has a head start on most German hunters. Over the period that we worked together....I gained a good bit of insight about your typical German hunter.
There's this odd thing about German hunters....they are pretty organized and dedicated to their sport. If some German hunter came out and tracked some animal and it turned out to be the first wolf in 120 years to walk on German territory....he probably wouldn't shoot it and would rush back to brag about his discovery. He'd tell forty hunters from the local club, and none of them would really believe him. So he'd have to drag some back to the spot....show the trail and prints....and he'd become a legend overnight.
Days and weeks would pass....as this guy's legendary status built up and some media frenzy would occur over this wonderful discovery. Then some political folks would jump in and insist that the wolf had to be shot....with ten German thousand hunters all getting peppy about new political comment.
So, here's my thing. I don't think the wolf was shot there, or by some local hunter. I would suspect that some guy went down into Slovakia or maybe out to Russia....brought a wolf into Germany and just shot it as some news piece.
I think this was set up. Maybe I'm wrong on this. But I just can't see a typical German hunter taking this shot...and walking away without the wolf's body. It doesn't make sense.
UPDATE: An older gentleman (71) has come out and admitted that he thought it looked like a dog when he shot the wolf, and regrets the action. Hard to say if some law will be tossed at the old guy.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Leftover Mess with Greece
Spring is in the air, and you'd think that Greece....with it's huge budget issues and economic crisis would be feeling slightly positive over the upcoming tourist season. It would be the normal time that Germans and various other Europeans make vacation plans.....dumping billions into the Greek economy.
Well....according to new numbers that came out this week.....revenue from tourists over the first three months of 2012 was around seventeen percent LESS than anticipated.
When the Greek media went out last year.....blasting away at the Germans.....you just had this bad feeling about an eventual reaction. Germans have this ability to remember things, and this was a fairly negative period where things were said on a daily basis. All a German had to do....was turn the TV on or pick up a newspaper, and there was this anti-German rant.
So my advice to Greece? You might want to come out with a friendly-German advertisement. You might want to show that almost all Greeks have a positive feelings about German tourists. You might want to put things in a positive light. Because if you don't......then you've got half-empty hotels in May and June, which equals less revenue for the government, and less profit for the private individual.
Well....according to new numbers that came out this week.....revenue from tourists over the first three months of 2012 was around seventeen percent LESS than anticipated.
When the Greek media went out last year.....blasting away at the Germans.....you just had this bad feeling about an eventual reaction. Germans have this ability to remember things, and this was a fairly negative period where things were said on a daily basis. All a German had to do....was turn the TV on or pick up a newspaper, and there was this anti-German rant.
So my advice to Greece? You might want to come out with a friendly-German advertisement. You might want to show that almost all Greeks have a positive feelings about German tourists. You might want to put things in a positive light. Because if you don't......then you've got half-empty hotels in May and June, which equals less revenue for the government, and less profit for the private individual.
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