Why?

* Why is it impossible to buy malt vinegar or fruit squash in Germany (except in English shops which don’t count)?

* Why are the people on my floor incapable of learning that the crappy wooden cooking implements we have do not belong in the dishwasher?

* Why is my bosses dog obsessed with my shoes?

* Why do days and months go by so fast while hours crawl by at tortoise speed?

* Why are these sour cream and onion flavour stacker crisps so addictive?

* Why was fizzy bottled water ever invented?

* Why is every single bar of Cadburys chocolate available in German shops (except the Curly Wurlys in Rewe) some weird American type that doesn’t even exist in the UK; where Cadbury’s was invented?

* Why are Americans so obsessed with peanuts? There are peanuts in almost every one of the aforementioned chocolate bars!

* Why is love not enough to make some people happy?

* Why does the nice bit of autumn where it’s still vaguely warm and all the leaves are pretty colours only last about 30 seconds?

* Why do I keep checking Amazon for new book recommendations when I can’t even afford to buy the ones that are already on my list?

* Why is eating healthily so expensive? For the price of a packet of tomatoes I could buy 5 chocolate bars!

* Why did I just write this list?

Questions over questions as my boyfriend would say.

Advertisement

The rain never stops in Gross Britannien

I’m annoyed this morning. When I went to make my breakfast I found that nobody had set the dishwasher away last night and there were no knives in the drawer. I had to wash one before I could butter my toast. Grr. I supopose things like that are to be expected when you live with so many people (16 of us on my floor, and we have less becasue the caretaker has one corridor) but it’s happening a little too often lately. I object to having to wash the dishes before I’ve even started cooking!

I think I must have complained too loudly about being hot yesterday after all – it’s raining now.
Whenever I complain about the rain here some “Hilarious” German feels the need to say “but shouldn’t you be used to this, coming from England?” or “doesn’t this weather make you feel at home then?”. Do you think they’ve noticed that Great Britain is an island. It’s surrounded by sea. If it really rained as much as people here seem to think we’d have been washed away by now!

Here are some other stereotypes that the Germany have about English people:

• British people can’t cook. We also don’t know what spice is for, so all our food is boring and bland.
• We’re obsessed with “peppermint” sauce and eat it with everything.
• We have ham and eggs for breakfast every morning (I blame the school text books for this one… especially the “ham” part. Would it really so difficult for the kids to remember the word bacon??)
• We eat fish and chips all the time. With lots of vinegar, which makes them taste disgusting. (Actually if we used the kind of vinegar they’re thinking of it probably would taste disgusting. They don’t seem to do malt vinegar here…)
• We drink lots of tea, all the time. Several hundred cups a day. And we put milk in it. (This one’s partially true. I know people that actually do drink (what seems like) hundreds of cups of tea every day. But try getting a German to believe that not every English person likes tea…)
• We’re crap at football (actually I can see why they think that. Which team isn’t in the European cup this year again? That’d be England I believe…)
• All English people have ginger hair, pale skin and freckles. (I actually almost fit this stereotype – I have pale skin and freckles and my hair is reddish, but not ginger)

That’s all I can think of right now, and I have to get ready for work anyway. If anyone would like to add any more stereotypes to the list please comment. Maybe some stereotypes that people in countries other than Germany have about us? (And any Germans reading this please don’t take offence. It’s just for fun! I actually really like Germans and love living in Germany.)