The German Difference

A beautiful nearby oversized pond/mini lake. (above)
Taken on the other side of
the hill behind our house. (below left)

Our house is on the other side of the trees
where you see the dot on the right side. (below)

Last weekend we drove around exploring our area. Shawn had to go to a motorcycle shop to have his VAT form taken care of. VAT = Value Added Tax. There is 19% sales tax here. When we make purchases outside of the base (on the economy) we are paying this tax. Having the VAT form we can have this money reimbursed to us. We have to be careful because not every business will acknowledge this form. It’s the business that is refunding this money to us. I’m sure that it gets reimbursed to them somehow in the end. It’s kind of confusing how it all works basically what I know is that it’s not like in the states where the sales tax is added at the register. The tax is included with the price that you see. That also makes it easier to figure out how much something is because I can look at the price and deduct 19% and that’s what I’ll be paying in the end. This is really only worth while with any purchase over $50. So with small purchases we don’t worry about it.

Another thing that I’ve learned here is that when you go to McDonalds or Burger King off base they sell beer and wine to go along with your burger. Kind of interesting! Shawn and I went to see the new Star Wars a couple days ago and they had Heineken and some other beer with the refreshments. Thought that was funny too. You don’t have to sneak the booze into the theater over here! Ha ha! Just kidding! Beer and popcorn what an unusual combination.

One huge thing over here is that the Germans recycle EVERYTHING! When you go to a concession stand and buy a soda, and once the drink is gone you can take the bottle back to the concession stand and they will give you 2 euro back for returning the bottle! Same with the grocery carts, you get euro back for returning your grocery carts. Not sure how that works yet as I haven’t gone shopping at a local grocery store yet. This is a good thing, but also a pain because we have to divide up our own trash. We have three bins in the basement: glass, plastic, and paper. Anything that is not any of those three things is trash. This has totally opened my eyes to how thriftless I was. I would say that 98% of what we use on a daily basis is all recyclable or compost. It’s pretty interesting. It does create a lot of extra work for us having to divide it all up. We really don’t have a choice since our garbage can is so small. We have been assigned a little tiny garbage can consisting of a 2’x2’x2’ space that we can throw away our trash. The garbage man comes around every other Monday to empty the garbage can. Then the other Mondays that it’s not “garbage” day it’s recycle day. We are allotted as many bags of recycled stuff as needed.

The Germans are very clean and take care of their country. Every Saturday they go out and sweep their section of the sidewalk and street. Then every Sunday is quiet day. We are not allowed to mow the lawn or do anything that is noisy. And everyday after 7pm is quiet time as well. By 10pm on our street you can hear a pin drop. This is quite a change for us after living 2 blocks from Division for the last 3 years. It is definitely a nice change.

All of these pictures I’ve posted were taken within ¼ of a mile from our house. I’m not exaggerating when I say we live in a beautiful place!