Observations: Life in Bavaria

Some more observations about the Munich area of Germany (note that I haven't actually seen the "city center" of Munich, I've only been in the northern part of the city and the northern suburbs).

I have noticed that I see almost no American brand cars. I've counted. I've seen 6 Fords, no other makes, just Ford. And at least 4 of those are models I've never seen or heard of. Another American on assignment here told me he saw a Chevy yesterday, but it wasn't a model he recognized either. Very different from Texas, I bet I could count on one hand the number of pick-ups I've seen!

Through today, we've been on an Autobahn twice when there wasn't a speed limit. We get on an Autobahn several times every day between our hotel and my office in addition to John driving the kids around during the day exploring. Apparently because of the heat, they have speed limits - not because of a danger to motorists, but because it could cause cracking (?) on the roads. They're quite protective of these beautiful roadways! The Autobahns we have seen are all very nice and clean. I can't think of a time I've even seen trash on the side of any road.

One evening on an Autobahn without a speed limit, I told John that we should go faster! With some apprehension, we finally got up to about 190 kph which is about 115 mph. Even at that speed, there were several cars speeding past us on the left. Interestingly, people really do get to the right when they're going slower than anyone else. In fact, I think it's really not allowed to pass another car from the right. They take driving very seriously!

Incidentally, I do think they (generally) drive better here. I never see anyone texting, talking or not paying attention while they're driving, and that's not just when we're driving fast. Even in the surface streets, people are paying close attention to what they're doing instead of allowing themselves to be distracted.

The climate is dry here. Certainly it's not as dry as Lubbock, but it's not as humid as Dallas either. Today is a bit cloudy and rainy so there's more humidity, but it feels closer to a Lubbock rain than to a Dallas one. It's somewhere in the middle, but closer to Lubbock I would say.

Food: In restaurants, it seems pretty expensive. The supermarket doesn't seem to be quite as bad, but restaurants are certainly more. They do however, include tax (which is 19%) in the prices on menus, so that might be part of the reason. Also, we learned that they don't tip wait staff here like we do in the US. When we got here, we were taking the tax (at 19%) and rounding up as our tip. However, wait staff here make enough money without tips, so people generally will "round up" for good service, but not as much as we do in the US. For example, a check for €27.40, you would leave €30.

We haven't seen very many kids' menus in restaurants. There have been a couple, but really there haven't been a lot. Sometimes the kids' items are listed on the regular menu, or sometimes you have to ask for a meal in kids' portions. We've gotten by pretty well by ordering 2 entrees for the table and all sharing. The portions are reasonably large here (close to US standards I would say). I expected them to be smaller, but so far I haven't really noticed it.

Beer: yep, it's every bit as good as people say. YUM! I'm a fan of the Weiss (pronounced like "vice") and I think John prefers the Heller (I'm probably spelling that wrong, but that's how it sounds).

Cell Phone: John's cell phone plan really isn't all that unreasonable. It's less expensive than the US with a little less data, but still probably enough for him. I think the big cost for data comes when you leave your country of origin. The roaming fees are crazy, but you can add a €15 charge to your bill for a week and be able to use the phone outside of Germany too. It doesn't seem so bad. We haven't seen a bill yet, so there could be hidden charges we don't know about yet though.

We have seen one house available for rent. It seemed nice enough; however, it was new construction and not complete yet, so it was hard to imagine what it will look like in a month or so. We liked it okay, but in the area where it was, there were still quite a few empty lots, so if we lived there, we might have to put up with construction for the whole 2 years we're here. So we decided that wasn't the best location for us. Many people in this area vacation in August, so there isn't a lot to see right now. Hopefully we'll see more in a couple of weeks. I do think we've identified the area in which we'd like to live. In order to have just one car, we are trying to be close to some public transportation (which usually means closer to the center of Munich which is far from the kids' school) as well as close to the school. The area of "Unterschleißheim" is where we're looking if you're curious. (The ß letter is pronounced like an "s".)

The people seem to do everything very fast here. They walk fast, talk fast, drive fast, everything. So far, people are patient, we don't notice them getting frustrated with our slowness, but they do want us out of their way for sure. We see it walking on streets, in stores and driving as well. Apparently, we do move slow in Texas!

Here's an unusual observation: in public restrooms...the stalls are closer to walls than they generally are in the US. Also, they seem to usually have an indicator (like in an airplane?) when someone is in a stall. There is usually something red that appears when the person inside locks the stall. It's genius - I don't know why it isn't like that in the US. Incidentally, from what I've seen, restrooms are quite clean too. I haven't been bothered at all by one yet.

Best dinner so far (IMHO) was at an Italian restaurant in Haimhausen (where the kids' school is). I just had pizza and a glass of wine, but it was just so tasty!

The pizza is salami (b/c it's a better cut of meat - inside joke :-)), and the carafe next to my wine glass is the rest of what they served. Apparently wine by the glass here means something totally different than in the US. You can see John's bowl - that's lasagna.

After we ate, we walked right across the street for some gelato. Here's another area where they just do it better! This cup (the smallest, but plenty for me) is only €1!

That's about $1.30. In Dallas, that would probably be $3-$4 at Pachugo! And it wouldn't come with that cute cone piece! Wonderful!

I think this is enough for one post. Hopefully I'm not boring everyone to tears! We want to remember this stuff ourselves just as much as we want to share with our family & friends. Anything interesting someone wants to know? Leave a comment and we'll try to figure it out.