America vs. Deutschland

Hey,

All is well here in Germany and i am just popping in the write a little bit about some of the differences between America and here that I have noticed thus far. I am not quite sure if I remember what I have already written and since I am too lazy to go back and read it all, so we will just see.

Ok, first of all, I have learned to LOVE the public transportation here! I never thought I would be saying that, but I totally understand now how convenient it is. That is basically how we were able to see everything in Berlin and not spend enormous amounts of money on taxis and whatnot. Also, here in Marburg, it is how I get to most places that are a little too far to walk. From my host family´s house to school it is probably a 15 min. walk which is not bad and I have done it several times. With the bus, it takes about 4 min. The same with the main city center called Rudolphsplatz. I could take a nice half an hour walk and get there, but it is so much simpler with the bus! It is also very clean for public transportation and easy to use. We Wartburg students have a monthly pass that enables us to simply hop on the bus as often as we want throughout the day to get us to our destinations. It also seems much more eco-friendly than everyone driving everywhere in their separate cars. Speaking of the environment...

So far it seems as if the German society takes pride in taking care of their world. They have many different types of recycling bins located in the train stations for people to sort their trash so certain materials can be reused. Also, in grocery stores, most places do not give customers plastic or paper bags, but people have their own cloth bags or baskets which they bring with them to the store to use. I have seen some places with brown paper bags, but of course they are biodegradable to some extent. One more thing about stores is that the prices of goods appear to have tax already factored into thier price, so you do not have to worry about how much more your purchase will be once tax is added on!

Going back to the public transportation for a second, I have learned not to take the bus around 1-2:00pm beacuse there are kids everywhere! In Germany, students only have classes in the morning until about 1:00ish when they can go home and do homework and whatnot. Therefore, the buses are packed with children and teenagers around that time of day.

Other points of interest that I have noticed concern the bathroom. Now, don´t laugh, but there are some differences. For one thing, Germany does not have many public restrooms readily available to use in department stores or other places. For example, at the train station they have a bathroom, but you must pay 50 cents to use it... Also, they conserve water by taking really short showers. Several of my fellow students were instructed by their host families to go in, get wet, turn off the shower, shampoo your hair and whatnot, then turn the water back on and rinse off. I suppose that makes sense, but it is just not something that I am used to doing.

Hmmm . . . nothing else is coming to mind right now except for locking doors. At my host family´s house, they have keys in all of their doors so that they can be locked from the inside. Not just any plain old keys, but more old-fashioned type looking ones. This makes it fun sometimes to get it to lock, because if I move them out or in a little bit I can never quite get them to work right. . .but I am working on it. :)

In other news, we are keeping up with our studies at Speak+Write and are looking forward to our trip to Munich this weekend, now that we have recovered from Berlin! We are leaving Friday afternoon after classes and will get back to Marburg Monday night because Monday is a German holiday called Pfingstmontag, or Pentecost Monday. Yes, not only do Germans have a Pentecost Sunday, but they celebrate Monday as well. This does not mean that all Germans are really religious. . .they just have another day off of work and school. Therefore, we will not have to miss any classes at school, which is probably a good thing.

Well, that is all I have for now. Hopefully, I will find time tomorrow to drop a line and tell a little about what we will be seeing in Munich, so you know what our plans are!

Ciao!