let's see how many I can get together:
- complain about British bread while praising the mostly black and chewy concoctions of their homeland, in some instances taken to the extreme of acquiring a breadmaker
- being punctual for a dinner party, surprise the host having a shower and in a certainly not appropriate state to welcome fully dressed guests
- cycle in Glasgow
- stand in awe at lack of mixing units for taps
- overtake terror on German motorways - as if going at 100 mph isn't fast enough, the Mercedes behind you is sure to be only centimetres away from your tail lights, flashing you to move over. Now.
- general misery and complaining about everything
- in this vein: complain about Rabenmutter who doesn't put socks on her wean, although the reason for this is that wean won't have socks on feet.
- jump queues. Complain about people jumping queues who aren't actually jumping queues, in order to jump queue themselves, or justify such behaviour.
- Let door fall into person behind them (outch)
- insistence of English interpreter at German wedding ceremony in spite of spouse being aware of what a wedding ceremony is about and also well able to understand German and say "Ja".
- ability to support football teams which are not German. For fear of being seen as nationalistic, or for living out patronising tendencies misinterpreted as charitable inclination (when the country supported is small, African or not known at all)
- Bärlauch Brotaufstrich
Sorry, I could go on. Me: German, but managed to flee the country. To proliferate German oddities in Scotland...
 

Oh, I like Baerlauch Brotaufstrich.
 

At the risk of derailing this vital cultural contribution you're about to make, I looked up Bärlauch in the Oxford Companion to Food and found that it had the most awful names in English, one of which was Stinking Jenny. I myself spit it out the first (and last) time I encountered it, and I'm wondering if it's an honest-to-god genetic thing. Maybe Apfelrotkraut is, too, for that matter.

Lots of Sauerkraut on my blog, of course, and some from the Krautmeister himself, who, if he hadn't just become a father, I'd refer over to you here.
 

Send him over anyway!

Baerlauch = bear's garlic, bear's leek. Or just "wild garlic." I picture bears in the wild, munching on leaves when they want to add some Italian flavor to their raw salmon or trout. This seems to have occurred to the Romans: Allium ursinum in Latin, Ail des Ours in French.
 

Where to start? The staring, the constant staring, maybe worse if they can't pigeonhole your ethnicity (so they can propery apply stereotype). The fear of the draft, it will kill you! On that topic, in Muenchen, the Foehn- who cares if you can finally see the Alps, it is a draft, and it will kill you! Reiteration- queue jumping, when I can finally say "the line starts back there," I will regain 5 years of my life. Then, the bump-and-glare. Cheery supermarket kauferin, and the speed at which one must pack up one's groceries. Tchibo-mania. General busybodyness (http://desylwood.blog.com/551180/). And my favorite: Toaster-victims! z.B. those that overbake in the tanning salon, old and young, for the sake of WELLNESS. Everything for the wellness (which apparently doesn't include stopping smoking.)

But there is good here- assigned seating at the cinema, bike lanes as part of the sidewalk instead of the street, and...I know there's more.
 

Ah, yes! The Wellness Paradox. Salami and cigarettes for breakfast, then a spot of yoga and herbal tea, topped off with a go in the Prolo-Toaster. Marvellous.
 

Oh there are so many.... but a good job has been done so far. I have a few to add:

- Builders who start drilling in your block at 7 am on the dot and then stop at about 9 (when there is no way of getting back to sleep) to "go and get some bits" and then never return until 7 am the next morning to start the process over again.

- The way the parcel delivery people look at you like some freak if you are still in your pyjamas at any time from 9 onwards.

- The obsession with seperating rubbish and the seperation of everyone else's rubbish - including washing out glass that will be smashed and washed anyways.

- Sausages with mustard, and pickled veg being considered a healthy snack.

- "Ostalgie"

- Listening to music in foreign languages, not understanding the words but singing along anyways.

- General nudity.

- Insisting on speaking in terrible english as soon as any native english speaker makes one tiny grammar mistake.

Thats my start.... more to follow when I think of them.
 

And more....

- Holding the life long ambition to go and live on Mallorca.

- Schlager and "Volksmusik" in general.

- The customer is always wrong.

- Paying taxes to the church when you only have to write "no religion" on the tax form to avoid doing so.

- Making all young school children wear the same box shaped rucksack.

- Enjoying the Simpsons in German.

- The fact that you can only buy simple medications from an Apotheke. E.G. Driving with a headache you cannot stop at the next services and buy some paras as only a pharmacist can sell you those. You can buy crates of beer and bottles of vodka though on a motorway.

- Where the 80s as a fashion is having a come back in Europe, it never left in Germany.

- Not having any stores anywhere where it is possible to buy nice cards or small gifts for someone on their birthday.

- The belief that Berlin is a big city.

- The disappointing lack of live comedy or live music.

- Considering "Spiegel" to be a high brow magazine. (Sorry but I had to say it)
 

"Lack of live music", Andy?

Not in Berlin. "Lack of expensive overpriced live music and occasionally international stars in "cosy" establishements playing live for the same price as a London cinema ticket" is I think more what you meant, surely?
 

you need € 25.000 and an expensive Gesellschaftervertrag to form a simple Ltd.
 

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