German Culture for the American Tourist

In My Humble Opinion
1

Germany SDopers, these may not be the typical questions, but can you tell me:

a) Are stores open on Sunday, and if so, do they close early?
By stores, I mean grocery? souvenir-type shops? general shopping? gas stations?

b1) Do grocery stores usually not provide bags at the checkout?
After one visit, I was in for a surprise. Luckily, I bought a small amount of foods to start.

b2) The grocery store I was in seemed quaint with perhaps a larger wine selection than foods! Is this the norm or an exception? While I don’t require a supergrocery, a little more selection would be nice.

c) At a Marriott hotel’s restaurant, I wanted a glass of drinking water. I asked “for some water”, and the waiter asked if I wanted “still” (IIRC) or “sparkling”? Thinking “still” means tap water, I asked for still. He rattled off a short list of bottled waters (in glass bottles, to my surprise - fancy!). Is this the norm? Is there a proper phrase or idiom for a glass of tap water, or is this not typical of a restaurant to provide gratis.

Thanks! Any other nuggets of knowledge I should know along these lines, feel free to inform me. (FYI: I won’t have time for sightseeing, hence the lack of more common touristy questions.)

2

And are there still always cows on every single patch of grass visible? Even your off-ramps on the highways?

I went in the eighties. There were cows everywhere it was even remotely feasible to have a cow. It was really weird.

3

I can only address c). Water isn’t a freebie like in the US. It’s a drink you would order, and pay for, just like a beer. Hence, varieties. Some are considered medicinal, others not. As far as I know, it’s not a safety issue, just a custom.

4

OMG you should swing by Georgia and take Quasimodem to Germany with you (he is German born). That would be the most awesome travel pairing ever, since Planes, Trains and Automobiles. :slight_smile:

Maybe we’ll send DMark with you to keep everyone in line.

5

a) Generally, stores are closed on Sundays. Exceptions are some supermarkets, bakeries, tourist shops and stores in airports and train stations. Gas stations are universally open (and provide very basic groceries for people who didn’t plan accordingly or for students with the munchies at 2 am).

b1) Yes, they should offer bags, but they’re not always free. You’re usually expected to bring your own bags, and the bags that you can buy (for 10-30 cents) are definitely sturdy enough for reuse.

b2) Obviously, grocery stores differ in size, but we don’t have the Wal Mart-type huge supermarkets that you are used to. As a German, every normal US supermarket feels ginormous. There are some bigger ones in shopping centers or in off areas, but your normal neighborhood supermarket is definitely smaller than what you expect from a supermarket.

c) Perfectly answered by No umlaut for U. Minor addition: you can try to order a glass of tap water (“Leitungswasser”) with your meal, and maybe you’ll get one. IMHO, German tap water is superior to US because of the lack of chlorine taste. It’s actually very drinkable, but you do have to ask specifically as mineral water is the default.

Have a great time!

6

Follow-up question (speaking as the Ignorant American who moved to Germany less than 24 hours ago): what is the etiquette surrounding bags purchased elsewhere? For example I have a bag I purchased at the local Netto, but they are of course not open today (the “closed on Sunday” thing is new to me). Since I am, naturally, therefore providing free advertising for said company, is it poor form to use this bag at, say, an Edeka?

7

Not a problem at all. Especially since you’re not going to carry it around the store anyway, are you? You only put your stuff in there after you’ve paid, so it’s even less of a problem. I really cannot imagine anyone taking offense or even giving a second thought to that.

Hope you like it in our little country despite the fact that you can’t shop on a Sunday.

8

Yup. Try “tap water”. :smiley:

9

:rolleyes:

Are you trying to be funny? “Tap water” is not really a German word, nor would a normal waiter in a restaurant necessarily understand what you mean. As I said above, “Leitungswasser” is what you want to ask for.

10

It takes a maximum of 6 days to get used to that — but it was a bit surprising for someone just off the boat, as it were. So far, I love it, although the advantage of being moved to a new country for work is that you have no choice but to like it! In any case, thanks to your advice, I have returned with bread and other provisions, so I’m happy.

Question d), if you’ll field it: it’s a little colder than I would’ve expected for what I still think of as summer. Is 18 degrees normal for Berlin at this time of year? When should I invest in a heavier jacket?

11

If you speak or read German, you could take a look at:

Alle Verkaufsoffene Sonntage in Deutschland

This website lists a lot of the Sundays when stores are open in a specific city. It must seem strange for Americans that such a secular people are reluctant to break with that Christian tradition but quite a lot of us value the social and cultural benefit of a day off for the majority of working people higher than infinite shopping.

You will still find glass bottles quite often and though many mineral water suppliers have switched to plastic ones in the past decade, it looks like glass might see a widespread comeback, and rightly so.

The number of studies are steadily growing that show evidence of the existence of endocrine disruptors in the water of plastic bottles and also other elements that (might) have an impact on health in the long run. The industry is currently fighting in Brussels to avoid regulations but the pressure of the science community and health organizations is growing.

“Leitungswasser”, btw, is the most controlled comestible in Germany; and depending on the region, it tastes better than bottled water.

12

This summer is just … :mad: You could think, we are back in the weird 1970s. Berlin in August is usually a lot warmer (six degrees warmer on average, when it’s currently 18°).

13

Thanks for the tips, Pitchmeister! The small grocery stores and clinging to tradition is PERFECT for me! America is so gluttenous and proof that bigger is NOT always better. I never had the drive to travel abroad, but it IS eye-opening. But, America as a whole is too stubborn to see value in any other way of doing things. Once upon a time, our stores were closed on Sunday, too. Sunday was family time. There’s a lot to be said about honoring traditions and what happens from the lack thereof.

14

You are literally one day too late - Friday was the hottest day of the year with about 32 degrees (no degree sign on iPhone keyboard, WTF?).
ATM it’s definitely coldish, but hang in there, I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of summer yet.

And you picked (or got assigned, whatever) the best city on the continent, of course.

Enjoy, and always happy to answer any Berlin- or German-related questions.

15

Okay, this is IMHO so rather than starting a new thread to ask this, I’ll ask this here: what, exactly, do you mean by all of that? Just because I can shop on a Sunday in the United States, I’m suddenly a valueless asshole compared to the Germans?

Of course right now I can’t shop during any day of the week in the United States, because I’m not currently there. I live in China now. I’ve lived in Mexico for years. I’ve lived in Germany for years. I’ve traveled to lots of other locations for extended periods. There’s no way I’d ever assign a relative value of those societies against each other, or against my native society. They’re all just different.

16

Yeah, and I can remember my German relatives telling me how lucky I was in America to have stores open 24/7. Having to schedule shopping trips around store hours was a big pain in the ass for them.

17

This is incredibly common for people (often Americans and others who have led sheltered, insular lives) who have never traveled to instantly glom on to one or two aspects of the new culture they are experiencing and proclaim it to be the height of civilization and sophistication, and to then deride their own country as a barbaric backwater stuck in the Dark Ages in comparison…
Then they hopefully grow up and realize that every place has it’s own idiosyncrasies, charms and annoyances, and that by comparing every small detail of one place to another, you miss much of the charm of travel in the process.

(For the record, I have spent considerable time bumming around Germany, on several different occasions—It is a lovely country, but having the supermarkets closed on Sundays was not one of it’s most endearing features to me)

Hopefully the OP will get a clue and not spend their entire trip telling themselves how absolutely perfect Germany is (and always has been) and how much the USA suxx.

18

You haven’t directed this toward me but since I have used the word “value”, let me elaborate a bit:

A day within the week that is, at least in thought, not built around shopping but instead is meant to be a day of recreation, to be spent with family and friends or by yourself or in spiritual community if you wish to do so, has its merits; it’s a reminder that culture is more than commerce.

There is something … hopeful in this antiquated state of affairs in a time when the economy, pardon, I should write: The Economy, has become such a dominating influence on society and its demands have almost the status of laws of nature – as if the rules were not our invention at all.

However, I think that a couple of specific relaxations of the restriction could be a worthwhile development; if local shops, controlled by independent owners and not store chains, were allowed to open business on Sunday, they would have a much better chance to survive despite all of their disadvantages compared to their gigantic competitors – it works pretty well in Brussels, for instance, and has made sure that the city has still far more diverse and attractively quaint shops than most other cities of an equal size.

I think, this would fit well into our tradition to support, well, what we call the “Mittelstand”, smaller businesses that don’t have the power of sheer size to influence or even control a market but instead rely on innovation, quality and service to find and hold customers.

The Mittelstand - and you will know this - is one of our big advantages but we have almost lost that kind of business within the retail sector – and an open Sunday might help them to gain a foothold once more.

In fact, I’d prefer to open the Sunday for all small businesses if the big ones where still restricted to work the other days and not more - that way, we will keep a day of relative rest while adding chances for local businesses to remain competitive and therefore secure jobs where we want them to be - within our economy and not somewhere else on the globe.

19

In larger cities, like Berlin, you can usually find a few stores open on Sunday but you have to ask where they are, as it is a rarity. That said, when you live there you get used to it and simply buy things for Sunday. (Yeah, it kinda sucks when you realize you forgot one ingredient for that recipe, but you could always ask your neighbor or trek across town to that one store that is open.)

Smaller grocery stores are the norm (but then again, NYC has lots of small ones as well), but the beauty of Germany is you go to the butcher to buy meat, to the produce store to buy vegetables, to the flower shop to buy flowers…it is not really necessary to have every single item in one huge store, and quite nice to have salespeople who know what the hell they are talking about and have a larger selection of items to buy.

Yeah, the water story is odd for Americans - it almost always comes in a bottle. Tap water just simply isn’t served unless you specifically ask for it. I used to work in a restaurant in Berlin and the only people who ever asked for tap water were - Americans (like me).

Unlike Walmart in the US that gives you 5,000 plastic bags every visit, most Europeans are a bit more ecologically inclined and are trying to get people to bring their own bags - thus they charge extra for each bag you request. Sure enough, people caught on and most bring their own bags/carts with them when shopping.

Heard the weather in Berlin has taken a cool trend today - whereas Friday was hot as blazes - welcome to Germany. One of the reasons I moved away (after 14 years in Berlin) was the crappy weather. Moved from Berlin to LA. How’s that for a change?!

Still, I loved Berlin and would move back in an instant. Not only do you learn to live with their quirky shopping hours and traditions, you learn to appreciate them!

20

Very Jealous I’ll not get to go there in this lifetime (or even back to Europe again…)