Thursday, July 21, 2016

Ten random observations from Germany

1. Most shops are closed on Saturdays. All shops are closed on Sundays. Most stores are open between 9 am and 8 pm on the weekdays. Imagine, no grocery stores or shopping malls are open on Sundays. 

2. If you forgot your grocery bag, you need to pay to buy plastic bags.

3. I have seen green traffic lights change to orange and then red. Here, there is a one second of orange light before the red light changes back to green.

4. While filling visa forms (written in Deutsche, English, Arabic, and Russian), I had to write my parents' name for the first time in many years. In fact, I even had to write my mother's maiden name.

5. I is enunciated as E. So Ikea is Ee-kay-yah.  

6. J is enunciated as Y. And Y is also written as J. So "year" is written as Jahr (plural, Jahre), and "ya" is written as Ja.

7. The Cs as in cat and not chat are replaced by Ks. Klinik. Oktober. Kaffee with Karan. Kamera. Kanada (not Kannada). Kalkutta. Disko.

8. I haven't seen people hug so much here as a form of greeting. Instead, I have seen colleagues put their hands on my elbow sometimes when they speak. I must say, it startles me a little bit. 

9. Very few people take selfies here. They browse their phones all the time, but they seem to be far less obsessed with themselves.  

10. Long words in every day life. Andreasgaykstrasse. Auslanderangelegenheiten (foreign affairs). Begegnungszentrum (meeting center). Einbahnstrasse (one-way street).


sunshine 

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