Getting Along With The Germans

Someone at work gave Rick this book the other day, called "Getting Along With The Germans". 

Here are a few things that I found quite amusing and so true about Germany:

"Dogs are welcome in all public eating establishments, but your credit card might not be."
We were heavy credit card users in the US.  We put everything on our credit cards so we could collect points for either cash back or airplane miles.  (No worries, we always paid it in full every month).  So when we got here and found that most places don't accept credit cards, we had to get used to carrying a lot of cash at all times!  For example, we bought a washer and dryer for about 1000 Euro, and had to pay cash!!  Now we have found the "EC card" which is basically just a debit card from the bank, and a lot of places will take that.  No benefits other than convenience.  

"In every German there is a hidden Policeman"
Germans do not hesitate to tell you if you've done something wrong.  It doesn't matter if you've parked in the wrong spot, or forgot your child's hat on a chilly day, they'll let you know.  Luckily we haven't run into this issue yet, or maybe we have and just didn't understand because they were speaking German...oh well :)

"In Germany it takes ten times longer to pay for a meal as it does to order, have it prepared, and consume it"
After eating out probably 5 times, we have finally learned to ask for the check as soon as we're done eating.  You can put your silverware in the proper "I'm finished eating" position, you can be sitting outside in the rain (this actually happened to us) waiting for the bill, but unless you ask for it, they won't bring it.  In the US we used to complain that we would be rushed during a meal, here is the complete opposite!! 

"Of the 595,000 bags of potato chips delivered daily to grocery stores, not one single bag contains plain salted chips.  However, 594,999 bags contain "paprika-flavored" potato chips.  One bag contains cheesies, delivered by mistake."
Hilarious, considering how picky my husband is!  They even sell paprika flavored pringles!  Gross!!

Those are just a few of the "funnies".  I was cracking up reading this book, because there were so many things that I could relate to!