Archive for April, 2008

Germans eat 1.7 times faster than Americans

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

Germans are the kings of efficiency and this extends into the realm of eating lunch. If you work at a big company in Germany, you will almost certainly have a cafeteria to eat in which serves up great subsidized meals. Because Germans want to spend as little time as possible at work, they limit their lunch breaks to exactly 45 minutes. That means you have 45 minutes to walk from the office to the cafeteria, get served up a nice meal and a tiny drink with no ice (and no free refills), talk about the latest episode of the emigration reality show, a soccer match, or what would have happened if some battle in a war 95 years ago would have turned out differently. After that you need to return your dishes and take a 10 minute walk the long way back to the office.

When you subtract the walking times and time needed to buy your lunch, you actually only have about 10 minutes to eat your meal while discussing 1 reality show, 1 soccer match, and 1 alternative outcome to a historic event. You as an American cannot pull it off. Do not attempt to participate in the conversation, focus solely on eating as fast as you can. The cards are stacked against you in this for the following 2 reasons:

  1. You likely haven’t mastered the super-efficient German style of eating, whereby you scoop everything onto your fork in your left hand with your knife that’s in your right hand. Maybe you are becoming adept at using the fork with your left hand and are gaining speed, but it won’t be enough.
  2. You must constantly try to remember the gender of every noun you want to say, then figure out whether the prepositions you want to use require the accusative, dative, or genitive case. Then you have to match the gender with the case to figure out the needed definite article in a table in your head you learned in German class, and you are almost there. Now you just have to figure out the adjective ending based on the definite article and you have part of the sentence you want to say completed. Now figure out where the verbs go in the sentence, conjugate and you are ready to add your mustard to the conversation. Unfortunately by the time you have your witty sentence about the reality show constructed in your head, the topic has already moved on to the Bundesliga.

Not only did you not get to say a single word about the first topic, you wasted your first 3 minutes of valuable eating time. You are still working on your soup, while your German colleagues have already finished their Maultaschen and are getting ready to dig into dessert.

Once again its going to be one of those days where the only thing you said all lunch long was genau one time, and your colleagues are still going to have to wait for the slow American to finish lunch.

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Little known fact: Germans are better Capitalists than Americans

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Although Germans are accused of being socialists just because they pay 19% sales tax nationwide, 67.578% income tax, church tax, and the East Germany gets the good roads tax, as well as having to pay extra every single month for owning a TV, radio, car radio, and/or computer monitor, Germans are actually better capitalists than Americans. Yes, Germans pay something like $10 in tax per gallon of gasoline to drive to work, but German businesses have latched onto capitalism much better than American corporations.

Aus ge zeich net
One of the principles of capitalism is that resources that aren’t directly paid for by individuals are wasted. For example, when you go grocery shopping in the United States, you are generally given about 25 extra plastic bags, because the cashiers bag each item separately, but you don’t argue with them, because the bags are free. The cashier gives every customer extra bags to avoid the one odd customer who might complain that her eggs will break if bagged with the bread or something. Since neither the cashier nor the customer bears the cost of the plastic bags, they are wasted.

Not in Germany. In Germany you have to pay a few coins for a bag, so you either bring one with you when you shop or try to stuff one week’s worth of groceries into one bag. (Be careful not lose any coins in Europe. American coins are pretty much worthless, but Euro coins can actually buy you stuff, or at least let you get a grocery cart.)

In Germany nothing is free. Everything costs a little, whether that’s using a restroom or getting a little extra mayonnaise for your french fries. Although it is pretty annoying to be nickled and dimed every time you turn around, overall it is a more efficient allocation of resources.

Well done Germany. Except seriously, Soda costs next to nothing. Stop charging €4 for a tiny 0.2L cup of Coke with no ice and no free refills!

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Why it always rains in Germany

Monday, April 28th, 2008

When you arrive in Germany, one thing you will notice first is that it seems to always be overcast and rainy. The reason for this is simple: When Germans don’t eat all of the food on their plate, the sun doesn’t shine the next day. It is quite a feat to get 80 million Germans to all eat their plates completely empty on the same day, let alone all of the tourists there, who don’t know the rules.

Schnitzel mit Pommes
Now, when you go to a restaurant in Germany, be sure you finish up everything on your plate, not only because you’re not going to get a doggie-bag, but because if you don’t the waitress will come and yell at you for not finishing your meal. Even though you are still full from a big breakfast at the hotel of fresh baked Brötchen and cold cuts, or scrumptious butter-filled pretzels, you must eat every last bite of your meal, because otherwise your waitress is going to have to spend your tip at the tanning salon, since once again the sun won’t be shining tomorrow.

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Open Letter to German Pizza People

Friday, April 25th, 2008

Americans don’t like corn on their pizza. We love corn, that’s no secret, but actually no American has ever put corn on his pizza. That’s where the pepperoni goes (not the vegetable, the little red slices of sausage only found on pizza).

Pizza con Carne

I’m pretty sure no American has ever made chili con carne pizza before… but I guess if you’re going to put corn on your pizza, you might as well dump a whole bowl of chili on there. Hmmm, that actually looks pretty good. I’ll have to try it next time I’m in the Fatherland.

So stop selling pizza with corn on it as “American Style”. Maybe in turn we’ll quit calling vanilla pudding in a donut “bavarian creme”.

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Germans hate Root Beer

Friday, April 25th, 2008

Root beer float
100% of Germans hate root beer. They think it tastes like cough syrup, despite the fact that root beer is indeed delicious.

In America we enjoy the unbeatable combination of root beer and vanilla ice cream, the tasty root beer float. This is the worst nightmare for a German, a combination of overly sweet, rich ice cream swimming in a sea of medicine. Germans hate things that are sweet, except for popcorn. Those weirdos put sugar on their popcorn instead of salt and butter, like God intended.

On the subject of sweets, every German in America will have the same experience as every American in Germany. The foreigner will spot a delicious looking piece of a cake at a diner or bakery and think they must try it with great anticipation, only to be let down that the cake is completely wrong. The cake in America is of course way too sweet, the cake in Germany is naturally great looking, but completely void of that sweet cake taste that everyone else in the world enjoys.

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