Food, Beer, Trains, and other Stuff—interesting or not

 As I mentioned in my last blog, we were gone for three weeks. It was enjoyable most of the time. We ate plenty of good German food and drank a liter of beer every day. You can buy beer in every grocery store and from every vendor that sells sausage and other fast food.

I paid one Euro for half a liter beer in a small store at the train station. I also bought a Salami sandwich for one and a half Euros.

I wish liqueur laws were not so restrictive in Canada and beer not so expensive. Our government is just too damn greedy. They could make just as much money if the prices came down. People would buy more; I know I would. Instead I make my own beer which is time spent I could use to do other stuff. Even though beer and wine is so much cheaper in Germany and so readily available, we never saw any drunks.

I was quite happy to get away from the Tim Hortons, the A # W’s, the McDonalds, the Burger Kings, and other similar junk food places. However, our last breakfast in Berlin at the airport was at a Burger King, because I didn’t want to pay nine Euros for a Croissant and a cup of tea at those other places.

Why are these places at the airports so greedy?

I have to inject here that I don’t care much for our new Winnipeg Airport. In the old airport I used to take a sandwich and a soft drink to the airport to have for breakfast. They had tables and chairs before you had to go through Security. Not so in the new airport! You can’t take any liquids through Security to the other side, which means you are forced to pay exuberant prices for food and drinks. We paid $3.00 for a bottle of water—in Canada! That bugs me.

Speaking of water, in Germany you don’t get water in restaurants—not for free, anyway. A bottle of water costs nearly as much as a bottle of beer, which made the choice what to drink quite clear.

One peculiar thing we found in Germany is the fact that employees behind counters, be it in a store, a restaurant, a train station, or even at a government outlet, can be quite sarcastic, bored and even rude. I had my first experience with that in the Hamburg airport.

I asked a female attendant how to get to the ‘Hauptbahnhof’. She just laughed and said, “That is twenty minutes away.” I said, “I’m aware of that, but where do I board the train?”

Attendant:  “Downstairs.”

Me: “How do I get there?”

Attendant: “Down the stairs.” Gives me a strange look.

Me: “Where are the stairs?”

Attendant: “Outside.”

Me: “Where outside? Which exit do I use?”

Finally, with obvious boredom, she points me in the right direction.

Another incident happened in a store when I asked the saleswoman how much a certain item cost. She said, “If you would raise your eyes you could see the sign with the price at the top of the shelf.”

At a fast-food place I changed my mind about a fish-sandwich I bought. I saw one that looked better.  The guy behind the counter was totally annoyed about that. When I told him I was going to eat it there, he got all flustered because now he had to take the sandwich out of the paper bag he had shoved it and put it onto a paper plate. No smiles from him.

It may possibly have something to do with the fact that in Germany nobody leaves a tip; not in restaurants or anywhere else. You just round it up to the next Euro.  By the way, before we left on our trip, I checked out the internet about tipping in Germany and I got completely wrong information. This guy suggested to leave 5 to 7 Dollars a night with the maids in the hotel and 10 to 15 percent at restaurants. False information. Nobody tips. 

About traveling in Germany. In Winnipeg we don’t have streetcars, not anymore; we don’t have a subway, and nobody uses the train. I don’t remember when I used a bus for the last time. My mode of transportation is a car. So getting around in Germany presented some problems at first. Our first trial began in Hamburg. We had to buy a ticket for the train on a ticket dispenser. You have to punch in where you want to go and it tells you how much it cost and then you put in your money and it prints out your ticket. Sounds easy enough but it isn’t. They have zones with different tariffs and we found it confusing.

We speak fluent German, which is a good thing but can also be negative at times. Asking for help with certain things Germans do on a daily basis might earn you strange looks. A young man finally helped us with buying our ticket.

Actually, you can buy tickets at counter where you talk to a live person and that made future purchases easy.

In Hamburg we went on a city tour and also on a tour around the harbor. We learned how to use the ‘U-Bahn’ (Subway), and the train. Once we knew how it wasn’t all that difficult. By the way, all the trains, the street cars, and the U-Bahn run on electric power. No pollution there and they are silent.

In Schwerin, our next stop, we got a Tourist card from our hotel, which allowed us the use of any public transportation system. We used the street car a lot.

On the island Rügen we received a Tourist card from our hotel, also. There we used the local ‘Beach train’ to get around in the city and the bus to travel to nearby small communities.

In Berlin, again with a free Tourist card, we used the train to get around, but we also did a lot of walking. Walking was good exercise and kept us from gaining weight from all the Schnitzel, the Pork hocks, and the delicious fish we consumed and those gallons of beer we drank.

People in Germany walk a lot and they use their bikes. There were hundreds of bikes chained to bike stands by the ‘Hauptbahnhof’ and also at one of the outdoor markets we visited. People on bicycles where everywhere. They have special bike paths in many places. Evidence that people are physically more active was the fact that we saw no obese and very few severely overweight people. Some a little heavier maybe, but many were slim and trim-looking.

On the whole, people were dressed nice and clean and not sloppy. We only saw one guy with his crotch down to his knees and his pants on the verge of slipping down; he was probably a foreign traveler. Some old men were dressed a little too flamboyant for my taste. My wife thought it was refreshing and interesting, but she won’t get me to dress like that. Tattoos were also evident but not common and we saw the odd girl wearing torn jeans; fewer yet with blue or purple hair or crazy haircuts. I don’t remember seeing any guys wearing rings or diamond studs in their ears. I’m sure they exist; there are odd and strange people everywhere. You can’t get away from them, no matter where you go.

One thing I found annoying and that was all the dogs. Germans seem to have a love-affair with dogs, and not only small dogs; some are quite large. They take their dogs into the bus, into restaurants, and to the beach. Some people have more than one dog.

The other day on TV they showed some kind of convention where people showed off their dogs, doing tricks and stuff like that. I don’t know where this happened. It doesn’t matter, anyway, and I wasn’t that interested. Okay, I admit, dogs are pretty smart, loyal to their owners, and good company for a lonely person, but let’s remember that they are still only animals and not people. Dressing up a dog like a person or a baby is going too far. Come on, if you want a baby than have one—a human one.

I’m not a dog-person.

To be continued…