- Beer, beer, beer! So many things related to beer! The drinking age for beer and wine is 16 years old. Cologne is the only city permitted to brew Kolsch beer. Kolsch beer trucks hook up a hose from their truck on the street to tanks in bar basements to refill (instead of using kegs). Beer vendors are in parks and outside venues with cases of bottled beer to sell on the street (can find beer pretty much anywhere, any time of day, and drink it wherever and whenever you want). The concert venue beer stands stay open to sell beer after the concert. They have carrying packs that hold 6 beer cups at a time in the concert arena. Beer bottles are left standing neatly next to garbage cans for people to collect who are looking to make extra money by returning the bottles. Love the beer hall tabs (servers mark the number of beers drank and the food costs on a coaster and at the end write the total).
- Graffiti and street art cover public transportation walls, bridges, and the exterior of many buildings.
- More people speak English than some of the other European countries we’ve been in (our friend, Tim, speaks 5 languages).
- People don’t jay walk.
- Drivers of vehicles are extremely respectful, patient, and honor pedestrians and bike riders.
- You hear fewer car horns than other cities.
- Great bike path system and bike share program.
- Fresh popped corn is sweetened (what a surprise when I was craving movie style popcorn and thought that is what I was getting!).
- One of the sound crew members from the concert was sharing the extra monitoring that they had to do to stay under noise thresholds outside the building to avoid a $50,000 fine.
2 responses to “Observations from Germany”
Love your observation posts, Sandy! They’re so fun to read and quite informative. <3