Kultur 1. Jack Fuller

Bargain Buys

Ich weiß nicht über euch, aber ich werde rather pay a little extra for my groceries than shop at Aldi. Ich denke, dass es hat less to do with the customer service than it has to do with things like moldy fruit touching clean fruit. I mean, I can hardly have foods touching on my plate, much less in the grocery store. Shopping in Germany my be hell for obsessive-compulsive shoppers.

As long as we’re blogging here, I feel the urge to rant. That is—after all—what blogs are for.

Self-check out is THE WORST INVENTION EVER. It takes forever, the screens are dirty, it takes forever to scan items, and it always claims that “your item does not match the weight.” I don’t know how much these cost, or if they make the store more or less efficient, but I do know that whatever number of pennies these save us in the end (if at all) does not outweigh their inconvenience. I’m buying food from your store, hire someone to scan my groceries and talk to me!

Kulinarisch

            Egg substitute. What? Is this like what they put in fast food sandwiches? Brueggers Bagels? Well I looked it up; egg substitute is essentially egg whites and egg flavoring. Basically, its 99% egg and a few other added flavors. Apparently there is no known German substitute, but should there be? If egg substitute is really just mostly egg white, then it’s actually a lot better for us. Egg yolks are high in cholesterol and fat and—although I could care less—a lot of people really monitor that.

            On finger sandwiches; why do they taste so much better? Are bite sized things always more appetizing? Anybody who doesn’t think shape and size matters in terms of food has obviously never eaten macaroni—everybody knows that cartoon shapes are 100% better than elbows. Maybe somebody should make cartoon elbows?

How not to die on German roads

Thoughts

            1-Cars driving 200+ km/h really drive on the same road with cars going 80 km/h? that seems rather risky

            2-Why do you die if you pass people on the right? That’s where people go slow.

            3-Giving people the finger and getting killed reminds me of that Curb your Enthusiasm episode. You should all watch it.

            4-BMW and Mercedes SHOULD have the right of way, they’re beautiful cars….unless they have an automatic transmission. What a waste.

            5-For the love of god, please cross the street if there aren’t any cars. This isn’t Orwell’s Oceana.

            6-I should hope that you would get a ticket for not using a signal. It’s ridiculous how dangerous that has the potential to be

            7-The “leaving your car running” part is pretty funny actually. That sounds like my old town of Burlington, VT. On the other hand, I would probably get angry if someone kicked my car—especially some self-righteous environmentalist from Burlington : ). Somebody on my backpacking trip once yelled at me for wiping my dirty hands on moss!

            8-I like how every description about ruled for the autobahn ends in “or you’ll die”

            9-Who ever wins an argument with a meter maid?

            10-Im not surprised that Germans have more drinking-and-driving rules. I also find it horribly hilarious that we’ve had to add a category called “super drunk”

What discipline?

            The linguistic analysis at the beginning of this article reminds me of the reasons that I like learning German in the first place. If anyone else finds this interesting, they should look into ancient Chinese characters (not used for speaking). 

            The unwillingness of Germans to wait in line astonishes me; Germany seems like the sort of place where not behaving in a line would get you—at the very least—a super mean stare or some scuffed shoes.