Grayson’s Blog

After looking at tonnes of houses we came across a town house outside of Munich. We had a look and liked what we saw.

Ever seen milk in a carton that doesn’t require refridgeration? In Germany it is very popular. It is called “Haltbarmilch” which means, it keeps. I don’t much care for it, but I use it in my coffee since there is nothing else at work. I’ve also been searching for what we call half and half. Since I don’t really know what two ingredients half and half is made of (half cream, half milk?) it has been difficult to find. Here they use condensed milk as a coffee creamer.

When it rains, Germans always set their umbrellas open on its side on the floor. The reason for this (I asked) is to pevent mildew from forming. It is printed in the instructions (you’ve read your umbrella’s instructions, right?), and Germans of course follow these instructions. So you can imagine when I come to work on a rainy day, the floors are covered with umbrellas, open, laid on their side. This goes for the appartment building as well.

Pizzas in Germany are rarely served pre-cut into slices. You have to request that they slice it when you order it. Also the toppings are different than in the US. Germans love tuna on thier pizzas and believe it or not, there is no sausage! Other strange toppings include corn, brocholi and seafood. If you order black olives, they come whole with the pit still in them! Not a pleasant surprise when you bite into it for the first time. Another note, when a group of people orders pizza, each person usually oders his own, rather than ordering one large one to share. The pizzas here usually come in two sizes - single and really hungry

Air-conditioning is not very popular here. Most businesses don’t have any. Most of the buses also are without A/C, which isn’t so bad, except there are hardly any windows and to make things worse, rarely does someone open them. Germans hate drafts, even when it is 90 degrees outside.

In Germany (and most of Europe I believe) a comma is used to separate the decimal instead of a decimal point. The decimal point is used to separate the thousands mark. So, for example in the US one would write $32,864.51 and in Germany $32.864,51 Confusing isn’t it?

Germans count with the thumb first, not with the index finger. From 1 to 5 they use - thumb, index finger, middle finger, ringer finger, then pinky.