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Ziir posted:Why do Germans think it's totally cool and normal to just stand in the way of everything? They stand in front of doors obstructing the way in/out, they stand on the middle of aisles, they stand in the middle of crowded stairs when they see someone and start playing catch up instead of moving to the side and making everyone trying to squeeze around. Again, I have a hard time believing that this is a strictly German trait. Don't know if you've heard, but we're all about efficiency and being punctual 
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Sep 19, 2010 15:35
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I'm still waiting for the big "germans can't queue for poo poo" rant.
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Sep 19, 2010 17:27
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Ziir posted:Why do Germans think it's totally cool and normal to just stand in the way of everything? They stand in front of doors obstructing the way in/out, they stand on the middle of aisles, they stand in the middle of crowded stairs when they see someone and start playing catch up instead of moving to the side and making everyone trying to squeeze around. I notice this much more in America than I did in Germany. I was actually just thinking about it yesterday when I walked into the supermarket in Seattle behind a couple who decided to halt a couple meters in front of the entrance and figure out where they wanted to go in the store. By the way, these two perennial favorites on Toytowngermany, an Anglophone expat forum, are good to read: Strange German habits Thoughts on what German people are like They are both filled with grumpy expatriates claiming about how "All Germans do this and that and it's so irritating!" It's a perfect example for the psychological phenomenon of ascribing certain negative traits to a foreign culture, especially if it's the first time you've lived an extended time abroad. It's just how your brain deals with the culture shock. There are certainly some quintessentially German traits, but if one takes a step back, these can be found more or less in the same quantities as every other major city. Liface fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Sep 19, 2010 |
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Sep 19, 2010 17:59
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Since we seem to be linking blogs about How Things Are In Germany, this one's not bad: http://www.ichwerdeeinberliner.com. I particularly recommend the entries about soft drinks and supermarkets.
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Sep 19, 2010 18:12
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My Lovely Horse posted:Since we seem to be linking blogs about How Things Are In Germany, this one's not bad: http://www.ichwerdeeinberliner.com. I particularly recommend the entries about soft drinks and supermarkets. This blog is both hilarious AND accurate.
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Sep 19, 2010 18:50
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My Lovely Horse posted:Since we seem to be linking blogs about How Things Are In Germany, this one's not bad: http://www.ichwerdeeinberliner.com. I particularly recommend the entries about soft drinks and supermarkets. Excellent blog. I'm so glad I don't live in Berlin. Liface fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Sep 19, 2010 |
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Sep 19, 2010 19:25
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FLX posted:Again, I have a hard time believing that this is a strictly German trait. Don't know if you've heard, but we're all about efficiency and being punctual I dunno, my local German friends here agree that people here do it all the time and it annoys them too. Hell, last night I went with a group of Germans to an event here in the city and some people wanted to buy some Pommes, so we went and stood in line. When they got their fries they turned around and just started talking and chatting with the rest of us right there in the line for a few minutes. We were a group of five people and there were other people in line behind us but they just walked around like it was normal. Of course in the US people do it too, but it really wasn't this much of a problem. And you can't blame it on the young people being rude because old people and middle aged people do it all the time too. Maybe it's because I'm from a big city where we move a lot faster than this smallish city that I'm living in because I don't think I remember people doing this when I was in Berlin. elwood posted:I'm still waiting for the big "germans can't queue for poo poo" rant. I'm curious about this too. On my flight over here the nice German girl sitting next to me told me that I'm going to hate the way Germans wait in line. But she didn't tell me why and I haven't noticed it yet  .
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Sep 20, 2010 09:40
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Ziir posted:I'm curious about this too. On my flight over here the nice German girl sitting next to me told me that I'm going to hate the way Germans wait in line. But she didn't tell me why and I haven't noticed it yet We don't form lines, except if there are proper line markings, like at the airport. You won't find lines at the baker or butcher. People will just stand wherever, the shop assistant asks who's next and if you are not fast enough someone will cut in. It was always kind of interesting to see the differences back when we still had the rhine army summer show festival. You could always tell who was german and who was british at the beer stands. The british would form a proper line, the germans would just crowd the stand. elwood fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Sep 20, 2010 |
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Sep 20, 2010 10:52
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Hungry Gerbil posted:This blog is both hilarious AND accurate. Default Settings fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Sep 21, 2010 |
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Sep 21, 2010 14:45
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Default Settings posted:What really irks me about this blog is how he writes "Germans" every time he means "German hipsters". Makes me want to force this guy to spend some significant time in a Bavarian village, but aside of that it's hilarious. In one of the interviews he did he mentions he specifically doesn't mention the word hipster because "writing about hipsters was passé in 2006". However, why not just say "Berliner" or "scenester"? I don't get it. Now what I don't get is that in the same interview, he mentions he doesn't speak German. I wonder if that's an exaggeration, because I can't imagine picking up all these nuances of the Berlin culture without speaking the language.
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Sep 21, 2010 20:43
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Liface posted:In one of the interviews he did he mentions he specifically doesn't mention the word hipster because "writing about hipsters was passé in 2006". However, why not just say "Berliner" or "scenester"? I don't get it. I mainly get the impression that he's some kind of ultra-bitter double reverse hipster. It's very strange to read.
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Sep 21, 2010 21:06
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I got the impression that is is a massive hipster, and enjoys being a hipster tremendously but thinks it would be uncool to share that, so he has to think of a roundabout way to write about how much fun being a hipster is. Just sayin'.
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Sep 21, 2010 23:29
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Germans. I know nothing about your country except that you make bad cars and we kicked your rear end, but: how expensive would it be to stay in one of your country's cool cities for a few days while I look at cool stuff like a retarded tourist.
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Sep 22, 2010 05:28
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Liface posted:In one of the interviews he did he mentions he specifically doesn't mention the word hipster because "writing about hipsters was passé in 2006". However, why not just say "Berliner" or "scenester"? I don't get it. And even though it's now proven to be irony, his writing style still irks me - but that is intentional.
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Sep 22, 2010 07:49
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Autism Sundae posted:Germans. I know nothing about your country except that you make bad cars and we kicked your rear end, but: how expensive would it be to stay in one of your country's cool cities for a few days while I look at cool stuff like a retarded tourist. From almost nothing if you go the hobo route, to "holy poo poo this is expensive" if you go for the gold sprinkled currywurst (that is a real option by the way).
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Sep 22, 2010 10:29
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Autism Sundae posted:Germans. I know nothing about your country except that you make bad cars and we kicked your rear end, but: how expensive would it be to stay in one of your country's cool cities for a few days while I look at cool stuff like a retarded tourist. 2) In Munich you can live comfortably 30 to 50 € for a bed and 25 to 35 € for food per day. If you want it cheaper you can probably half that amount.
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Sep 22, 2010 10:33
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For finding hotels in Germany http://www.hrs.de is a helpful site.
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Sep 22, 2010 10:42
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Autism Sundae posted:Germans. I know nothing about your country except that you make bad cars and we kicked your rear end, but: how expensive would it be to stay in one of your country's cool cities for a few days while I look at cool stuff like a retarded tourist. This is the perfect attitude to have coming to Germany. Make sure you also loudly complain about there being no butter for the bread and how they should have Bud/Miller/Coors/etc Light instead of that poo poo that they drink, and ask everyone whether or not they still do the Nazi salute. Edit: Content You can get a hostel for about € 15 per day in Berlin. Food ranges anywhere from say € 3 for a Döner to maybe € 5 - € 6 for a meal at a fast food place, to who knows € 20+ for food at a real restaurant. Drinks can be as low as € 1 for half a liter of beer at the corner market. Ziir fucked around with this message at 11:11 on Sep 22, 2010 |
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Sep 22, 2010 11:05
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Just moved into a place that has a poo-shelf toilet. It was hilarious enough, even before every German I then discussed it with vehemently defended how impotant it is to be able to inspect your faeces.
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Sep 22, 2010 12:07
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I have looked at and inspected EVERY poop I produced since age 4. Edit: Poop-shelf is a p funny word.
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Sep 22, 2010 12:10
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Yeah it's pretty important that my flatmate be able to let me know via photographic evidence that he just shat out a literal CRAP OBELISK standing on end
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Sep 22, 2010 12:10
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freebooter posted:Just moved into a place that has a poo-shelf toilet. It was hilarious enough, even before every German I then discussed it with vehemently defended how impotant it is to be able to inspect your faeces. It's simple really: no more splashbacks (or wasting paper to counteract those) 
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Sep 22, 2010 13:07
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FLX posted:It's simple really: no more splashbacks (or wasting paper to counteract those) this! The amount of water in american toilets is mindboggling. You just can't evade the splashback 
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Sep 22, 2010 13:36
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freebooter posted:Just moved into a place that has a poo-shelf toilet. It was hilarious enough, even before every German I then discussed it with vehemently defended how impotant it is to be able to inspect your faeces. Strangely enough I have two Germans and an Austrian staying with me right now (in the USA) and we had this conversation last night. They seemed to think the poopshelves are a bit weird, but agree that a lot of people like to inspect their leavings, and that some even have scales built-in for careful analysis  I have used these toilets before, in Hungary, and it was a weird thing. I'd stand up afterwards and the toilet would be glaring at me, like LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. YOU HAVE LAID A SHAMEFUL POOP ON THIS NICE DRY PORCELAIN.
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Sep 22, 2010 17:39
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FLX posted:It's simple really: no more splashbacks (or wasting paper to counteract those) That happens like 5% of the time and is a small price to pay for having your turd instantly submerged in water so it doesn't stink up the joint. This wouldn't bother me so much except I just spent 5 months in Asia and, while squatting down like an animal to use their holes in the ground, always comforted myself with the thought of "once you get to Europe there'll be NORMAL toilets!"
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Sep 22, 2010 17:49
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The worst thing about the shelf is after a hard night out, it's really not something you should be confronted with first thing in the morning in a fragile state
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Sep 22, 2010 17:57
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The shelfs also make everything stink nicely for a long time. The general occurence and acceptance of bathroom and other stenches is way higher than in the US. I remember visiting a cube-shaped, airtight little bathroom building near Ciceroplatz in Wilmersdorf one summer day where you could basically cut little cubes out of the air which smelled of concentrated stale and fermented urine. There are also a lot of pedestrian tunnels in and near train stations which serve as Ersatz bathrooms. To add some observations and opinions that I haven't seen here: Mustaches are accepted to the point of being a must (get it? what a pun!) for some tiers of society (blue collar workers and police must have somewhat thin mustaches while intellectuals must have bushy ones). Off the top of my head, two particularly instructive examples of how droopy or pointless mustaches can round out German intellectuals' appearances are Günther Grass and Thilo Sarrazin. While the US generally has sizable portions of the population on every issue, I've often described Germany as the "98% society" to other people: On most issues it'll feel like 98% of the population are on the "reasonable" side, while 2% are on the other. Consequently, those 2% are seen as weirdos. Just ask people about many things that are hot button issues in the US, such as the death penalty, abortion or gun rights. In some cases it even affects the availability of brands. Up until at least ten years ago, it was a major feat to fine any Pepsi products as opposed to the ubiquitous Coke ones. While the 2% often really are weird and stupid, the general climate of consensus stifles many discussions. The autobahn sucks rear end in most places. It doesn't help you that you can theoretically go 500 km/h when there are only two lanes to choose from with the right one having all the trucks going 90 km/h (60 mph) and the left making you have a BMW illegally turning up their lights at you after about 30 seconds while riding you rear end. So unless you're an insane driver yourself, you'll be forced to switch lanes constantly. I made it a point to use trains instead whenever possible. There are also some positive things, but these are the things that just came to mind and which I hadn't seen mentioned yet.
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Sep 23, 2010 00:00
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flavor posted:Mustaches are accepted to the point of being a must (get it? what a pun!) for some tiers of society (blue collar workers and police must have somewhat thin mustaches while intellectuals must have bushy ones). Off the top of my head, two particularly instructive examples of how droopy or pointless mustaches can round out German intellectuals' appearances are Günther Grass and Thilo Sarrazin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO3QBSAlaWc#t=2m20s
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Sep 23, 2010 01:04
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In what kind of old-rear end flats are still toilets with shelfs? Haven't seen one of those in years.
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Sep 23, 2010 19:41
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east berlin, hipsters and lovely plumbing
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Sep 23, 2010 19:54
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Bullshit, it has nothing to do with East or West or hipster or not hipster.
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Sep 23, 2010 21:08
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I wasn't really being so serious, i lived in a bunch of buildings in the old east berlin and they all had lovely plumbing, either the sinks would constantly block or the water tasted funky and you had to drink bottled. And they all had shelf toilets, even ones that seemed to be fairly recently renovated. Maybe the plumbing thing is common, i don't know. Hipsters enjoy shelf toilets, but only ironically 
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Sep 23, 2010 21:20
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Ziir posted:This is the perfect attitude to have coming to Germany. Make sure you also loudly complain about there being no butter for the bread and how they should have Bud/Miller/Coors/etc Light instead of that poo poo that they drink, and ask everyone whether or not they still do the Nazi salute. Is the unreliable cars and you losing a war somehow not true, or do you folks just get upset very easily on a comedy website forum? Maybe contact tech support about a forum called "The Gas Chamber". Thanks for the helpful replies though.
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Sep 24, 2010 00:25
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I was positive we must be in East Berlin because of the plumbing, but I checked the map and we're just barely in the west (Gesundbrennen). As well as a shelf toilet we have a shower with no curtain and, get this, no drain on the bathroom floor. So every time I have a shower I also have to spend 15 minutes mopping up. This is particularly galling because after spending 5 months travelling through communist Vietnam, China and Mongolia (all countries where NOTHING works properly) I was really looking forward to the smooth and efficient infrastructure of germany.
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Sep 24, 2010 01:04
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Autism Sundae posted:Is the unreliable cars and you losing a war somehow not true, or do you folks just get upset very easily on a comedy website forum? Maybe contact tech support about a forum called "The Gas Chamber". Post Count -9898 das sagt ziemlich alles
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Sep 24, 2010 07:41
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Going to Oktoberfest today for the weekend. No hostels, no reservations, no plans, nothing. Just five guys, a minivan, sleeping bags, and roughly 650km of road between us. Even if it's too touristy and/or expensive, gently caress it, you only live once and I doubt I'll ever go back.
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Sep 24, 2010 08:02
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That sounds like hella fun, have a great time
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Sep 24, 2010 09:25
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Pretty sure the shelf toilets are on their way out but I bet there are a lot of them left in older Berlin apartment buildings. My bathroom was put in just a year ago and doesn't have one. Lucky me. Haven't ever seen a drain in the bathroom floor though.
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Sep 24, 2010 12:08
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My Lovely Horse posted:Haven't ever seen a drain in the bathroom floor though. Are you kidding? This is the first time I've come across one that doesn't have a drain the floor, even in stupid, stupid Asia. It's just common sense, in a water-oriented room. At the very least you need either a drain OR a shower door/curtain.
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Sep 25, 2010 14:53
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Oktoberfest is extremely overrated and I don't see why people would spend hundreds of dollars flying to Germany just to go. Plus I got forcefully thrown out of an outdoor seating area outside of a tent for some unexplained reason so gently caress Oktoberfest. No seriously, I finished drinking my first liter of beer and left the area to go piss, walked back into the area and then some douchebag security guy grabbed me by the arm and threw me out. I called a friend to come tell the rear end in a top hat that my poo poo (jacket and beer) was inside and that I just went to take a piss and was gone for maybe two minutes. He got thrown out too.
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Sep 27, 2010 09:18
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