Germany.

Today, 4 years ago, we had our house warming party. That’s how long we have been already back in good old Germany.

That also makes 4 years living in Swabia (minus 2.5 years due to Covid). Well, we are still getting to know our old new home. Stuttgart is not a town to fall easily in love with. It takes a 2nd or 3rd trial. We keep finding our happy places. We love living in our old house, though. We love our garden and the fresh air (still appreciating after Shanghai).

Germany knows culture: Historically, Germany has been called „Das Land der Dichter und Denker“ (‘the land of poets and thinkers’).

We have our traditions: Oktoberfest and Christmas customs and usually the month of May is off, thanks to bank holidays & bridge days. Lol.

We are not the fastest, when it comes to digitalization (the pandemic has helped speeding up things a bit)… we are also not the fastest to finish up building airports (Berlin) or train stations (Stuttgart), but that’s another story.

Germany is culinary: 80 million Germans and I are convinced, we make the best bread in the world. Lol. I mean, who produces about 600 main types of bread and 1,200 types of pastries and rolls (Brötchen)?!?

Our national alcoholic drink is beer, of course! The German beer consumption per person: 110 litres per year and remains among the highest in the world.

We also have the most complex ticket machines… all you need is an Arbeitsanweisung (work instruction) and you are good to go!

*Arbeitsanweisung or Verpackungsdatenblatt are words all my international work colleagues know!

More fun facts about Germany:

Apparently our language is dead easy. You don’t need to learn vocabulary if you know how to play Lego. You just need to know a few words and you can create a lot more words: e.g. doc: Kinderarzt (child doc), Zahnarzt (tooth doc), Hautarzt (skin doc), Hausarzt (general doc), Tierarzt (Animal doc) – easy, isn’t it? Now you can make up your own doc. Practically, you can add as many words as you like and create nice (new) word combinations: Rinderkennzeichnungsfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz – yes, that’s one German word and makes 79 letters (it’s not the longest) and the meaning: a law for how to label & monitor beef meat.

Swabian dialect is even easier: you just add a „le“ after each word. And: it’s „Der Wasen“ (not die Wasen!!!) (Wasen = Octoberfest).

Well, to sum up: Germany is a great county and we love living here (the French border for weekend escapes is very close, lol) & Stuttgart is more than road work.