h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Happy Birthday!
It was my wife's birthday last week and she took in cakes for where she works, but as she was feeling ill we didn't eat out in the end and stayed at home instead.
My birthday is in January and each year all the predominantly female staff in the office are still keeping their New Year's resolutions, plus there's a Vegan and someone in the room next door with an extreme nut allergy who cannot be in the same room as nut products. This meant that last year only the carrot sticks were eaten. Oh well, more for me!

<BB<

Thank you all for your good wishes.

We went out for a meal last night, to celebrate, so I could explain something about Germany today that I have often explained in the past, but I'm hoping people have short memories here.

In Germany, when you go out for a meal, or just a drink (which is rarer, far rarer than in the UK), you will be asked by the waiter at the end if you want to pay all together or separately. In most cases (except last night when I paid the whole bill because I had invited everyone) it is usual to pay separately. Everyone will pay for exactly what they ordered, and the waiter goes from guest to guest, ticking each item off the list.

The advantage for the waiter is that (a) she/he can hone their mental arithmetic and (b) every guest will round up their bill to include a tip, so the waiter will get more in tips.

That's another difference - you don't give a tip separately in Germany, you always round up when paying. Or not, if you don't think it's worth it, but approx 10% is the norm. So if your tab comes to 15 Euros, you may round it up to 16, 17 or even 18 Euros, however generous you are feeling. You then give them the exact amount, with the comment "Stimmt so" (that's the correct amount) or you can ask for them to give change for, say, 17 Euros out of a 20 Euro note.

And another difference when you're paying. Even in the posh restaurant (belonging to a hotel!) that we dined at last night for my birthday, they did not accept credit cards. The Germans are still very sceptical about plastic money.

Debit cards are usually accepted everywhere now, however. Except at my hairdresser's, but they're right next to the bank, so I can pop in there before getting my hair cut if needs be.

I paid for last night's meal with my debit card, but I still can't believe they wouldn't accept credit cards for hotel bills.

Forgot to change date.

That does seem strange…

Mind you, the barbers I normally go to doesn't take card – each of the ladies there has her own cash box so you pay the individual, not the shop itself. Sadly they don't sing when cutting hair, but instead always insist on asking me about where I'm going on holiday…

<BB<

"Forgot to change date." [TC]

It's a big world. It was still that date in California.

Which would explain why I didn't get a birthday text from there till the following morning!

Sometimes there's truth in the jests I make.

Today I have to decide whether to talk about little round things or German driving tests.

I'll do both. Today I brought a little something for my colleagues as a thank you for my birthday present. Value of "little something" equal to, if not more than the present, but never mind.

I ordered the Brezels from the baker's yesterday morning. Brezels come in 2 sizes. The normal size is about as big as a man's hand and is sprinkled with large salt crystals (which many people scrape off) or sesame seeds. They are made of a plain white bread dough, but it is first dipped in salt water, then baked, giving it the shiny brown colour. The other size is about the size of a man's backside - sold at fairs or for family outings.

Anyway, 15 of the normal size with, and 15 without, butter.

I put these out in the office kitchen and surrounded them with dishes of little round things. Olives, mini-tomatoes, mini mozzarellas and grapes. They seem to have gone down rather well.

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Now on to the driving licence thing. I've forgotten why I was going to talk about this, but it may have been inspired by a thread on Gransnet about "everyday things I have never done". So many of the grannies claim never to have driven on a motorway, and so many of them are scared of driving on motorways. This seems totally weird to me but that's a discussion for another day.

When I took my test in the UK I don't think there were many motorways, and it simply involved a little trip round Bury St Edmunds, (or was it Cambridge? Probably at least one of each; I took 3 tests) and a couple of questions once we'd arrived back at the car park.

When I came to Germany, I was allowed to drive for a while but had to have my licence translated and a German one issued within 9 months of living here. I didn't have to take a test, just send off for the translation. The licence came back with a few caveats - I am only allowed to drive up to 3.5 tonnes (a basic German licence will cover you for 7.5 tonnes) and it expires when I am 70.

When the little plastic cards were introduced, there wasn't room for such caveats, but the vehicle groups had been changed, so there was a space for the weight limit, but nowhere to put the age limit. So I will be able to drive for ever with my German licence now, unless they introduce an age limit here, too.

But what I was actually going to say was that, to be eligible to take your driving test in Germany you are not allowed private lessons, and have to do all your learning at a registered driving school. Of course, this costs a lot more than a few outings with your Dad on a Sunday morning.

The following types of lesson/test/experience are obligatory

A certain amount (I think 2 hours) of night driving
At least one lesson on a motorway
A theory exam

The theory exam is something I therefore have never had to do and am still not quite sure about priority at junctions, and various other things, although many I have picked up over the 43 years I've been driving.

I know quite a few people, including my 38-year-old sister, who have never driven on the Mainland, because everyone knows that mainland drivers don't drive properly and get frustrated when stuck in traffic behind a tractor moving at 20mph, which most journeys involve.
Consequently, they've never driven on the motorway as there isn't one on the Island, and only a short half-mile stretch of dual carriageway that leads from Newport to St Mary's Hospital that it is just about possible to get to 50mph on before you have to brake before the queue for the roundabout.

Mind you, if you had to have motorway driving experience, that would involve booking a car ferry (cost is seasonal, but let's say £50 each way) and the journey would take an hour each way, you would need to arrive at the ferry an hour before the one you are due to catch, so the lesson would take at least 4 hours before taking into account actually driving anywhere and probably cost a fair bit too...

Night driving makes sense - especially as the Island doesn't have streetlights outside the towns and so you do need to use full beam a lot, which many mainland drivers aren't used to.

<BB<

Road rage is something I have never understood. Even if stuck behind a tractor doing 20 kmh.

You're right. Road rage is entirely voluntary.

I had a light-bulb moment once while hesitating at a roundabout in Holland. A lorry was approaching at another entrance and I thought I might have right of way but wasn't about to claim it on my bike.

The lorry driver looked like any lorry driver I was used to, but his behaviour was a revelation. He simply stopped and waited for me to make up my mind. No trace of annoyance. No sign of interest. Just doing the job.

Good for him, and good for you!

It's my mother's birthday today. Her 97th. She seems to either be having loads of phone calls or hasn't put the phone back properly on the hook again, because I can't get through.

<- don't we have any other kind of vehicle smileys? Well, except and , I suppose.

Todays snippet about Germany which is different from elsewhere: If you get into a taxi, you normally sit in the front, next to the driver. As far as I know, you always sit in the back in the UK. Of course, if it's a London black cab, you're in a separate compartment at the back anyway, but the taxis in Germany are usually cream-coloured Mercedes.

Anyway, sitting in the front is easier for directing the driver to where you want to go, as well as holding a conversation and it's easier when it comes to handing over the money.

In other countries, I am often unsure of where to sit and have probably committed faux pas all over the Continent.

Oh blow! - missed another day.

Was out for dinner last night with the girls from work. There were 12 of us, and all the other tables were full with similar groups - it was like a chicken farm, only ten times louder. Nice lamb chops, though, and gorgeous Greek waiters.

I was going to explain about shopping in supermarkets. In Germany you don't get self-service tills, nor will anyone pack your shopping for you. Despite what I said in an earlier post, you usually can pay with a credit card as well as a debit card, but at busy times, you may be unlucky and the internet connection from the till system might not be working.

A German would be most put out if someone packed their shopping for them They wouldn't want anyone else touching it with their bare hands, nor would they trust a stranger to put everything in the bag the "proper" way, or even to put EVERYTHING in the bag and not to slip something small into their pocket. Then they wouldn't know whether to give a tip or not, so to save the embarrassment, they would refuse the help.

Occasionally boy scouts will come up to you while you are unloading your trolley outside and will take your trolley back to the trolley park for you, asking if they can keep the coin in the trolley for a good cause. Well, I say occasionally, I only saw this once - again, probably not a success with the untrusting German public, so never repeated.

So you have to do it all on your own. As you are warned by signs not to take your own bags into the supermarket, the procedure is as follows:

Choose your wares, place them in basket.
Arrive at till, place them on conveyor belt
Cashier picks them up and scans them.
You pick them up (for the third time) and place them in your trolley
You push the trolley (inevitably through a rainy carpark) to the car.
You pick the items up and put them ("properly"! ) into your bags which are in the car.
You get home, tote the bags into the kitchen and put everything away, picking them up for the fifth time. Those lettuces are now looking pretty limp and battered!

Why can't we just drive through the supermarket and scan things directly into the car? That would reduce the handling to twice only - once into the car, and once into the kitchen.

You mean the market doesn't provide any bags for you?

My experiences in Aldi in the UK are sort of like that in that you don't bag at the till. But there is an area along one wall with wide shelves for you to pack it so you don't have to do it out in the rain - that's just mean!

I've noticed the Iceland food warehouse near me seems to be operating the same - it means I have to take a trolley in even if I'm only picking up a few bits I could carry.

That thing with the scouts taking the trolley back wouldn't work for me as I have a trolley token attached to my car keys . This makes it awkward when another shopper intercepts me on the way back to the trolley bay with an outheld pound coin .

Supermarkets - if this was the petty hates conversation, I could go on for pages

Deb

I could match you every step of the way.....

Of course, some problems are my mistake, not theirs. They let you bring your own reusable bags, but I'm not organized enough to have a supply of those when I get to the store.

I don't have a car so I work on the rule that I will only buy as much as I can carry around the shop without a basket. If I can't carry it around the shop without a basket, it's too much for me to attempt to walk home with.

<BB<

Oh dear, skipped another day. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel now, trying to find little differences between the two countries.

We went to the thermal baths yesterday for a relaxing afternoon, massage etc - sort of my birthday treat. A difference that has very often been commented on between the Germans and the British (not necessarily here on hootoo) is that the Germans don't wear clothes in the sauna. This has always seemed perfectly normal to me (although I don't go in the sauna myself). I never could understand the fuss.

Anyway, I somehow had a sauna entrance ticket yesterday although I said I didn't want one, so I was in the sauna area and had a cup of tea with hubbie.

For a third viewpoint on the subject, the baths are very near the French border and about half the sauna and bath visitors are French. Although, I suppose the French are by general repute, not bothered about it either.

When we were on holiday in Iceland, one German in our group went to a public sauna and was chucked out because he didn't have any swimming trunks on. He hadn't even taken them with him, so he had to leave.

Well, that shut everyone up. Not a single comment. I expect everyone's Najo'ed out.

Will write today's journal this lunch time.