The Rules

A little venting about Germany- hopefully no one takes this personally.

Before I even moved to the 3rd Reich, I learned quite about about the people, culture, and who knows what else. The really important stuff, let us say. It seemed like there were so many laws and rules governing everything I could think of in Deutschland, i.e. codes for construction techniques and results, how food had to be produced, what you do with your garbage, consumption of energy, cannot think of any more.

I will not be addressing all the things above, but maybe.

I remember when I first got here, actually it was in Holland, but the law seemed to apply to anywhere in Europe. We all know the pedestrian walk and don't walk signals for crossing streets, as the Europeans do too. It was made implicitly clear to me that crossing when that light was red was FORBIDDEN. Of course, in the US we have "j-walking", but anyone who has ever been cited for that must have really bad luck. Anyway, it turns out people do it all the time, as do I if it is safe. But let me tell ya, it always feels weird when you go on a red, and there are a bunch of people who were probably part of the 3rd Reich, if you catch my drift, just waiting there for way too long when there are no cars in sight. On top of that, I was told that nothing even happens if a cop stops you for this.

The yellow sack are reserved for recycling of pieces of garbage. The rule seems very strict about only putting these out for collection before 7am that day, but with a week until the next collection, I have already seen a few gross piles of the yellow sacks around town. If people cleaned the pieces of trash as it says on the bag, they probably wouldn't be so gross.

I guess the whole U-bahn, or subway system here became totally no smoking about 2 months ago, but still people are smoking in there. Mostly the lepers and other untouchables of society, who actually don't seem to care for the society or the rules that come with it, but as long as they can read, I would expect them to abide, especially in Germany!

There isn't a rule about this, but just some pet peeves about peoples' etiquette in the gym. I guess this happens everywhere, but I don't see why someone smokes a cigarette right before or right after working out at the gym. I especially love when they smoke right outside the door that is being opened intermittently by people coming and going, and therefore letting in some awesome smoke right into the room with all the cardio machines. No one puts the free weights away when they are done with them, except me of course. And last but not least, I love it so much when people work out with their cell phones at their sides. I think there should be a rule about talking on your cell phone in between sets, I mean what kind of zone is that person in if they are taking phone calls. ANNOYING!!!

That is all for now, but I am sure there will be more to come.