Almost every piece of "Welcome to Germany" literature include a part about how you must sort the garbage correctly or someone will come and scold you fiercely. And it is true, there are several closets in front of our apartment (that hold cans) and they are all labeled (in German) to tell you exactly were to put your waste. This is a good summary.
But what if you cannot read or understand (gelber Sack?), well you just take a look inside each can. And then you see a yellow bag (gelber Sack) with more German about what can or what cannot go in it. So then you examine the yellow bag very closely. (Turns out most packaging goes in - but not glass.) And then your new neighbors walk by - so you say "Hello." However, they do not respond. This makes sense, because also in every piece of "Welcome to Germany" literature it says that Germans may walk by people they know even very well without saying anything. (Although for a midwestern not saying hello is so rude - you have to keep repeating to yourself they don't hate me, they are just German.)
On the next occasion we ran into those neighbors I did not say anything. The woman said, "Hello, hello... Do you live below? We saw you and your son and the garbage."
"Oh..."
"Yes, we thought you were someone else. Someone in the garbage?"
Oh, you thought I was some delinquent digging through your garbage. Delightful, what a great first impression.
(Not that we don't dig through the garbage or that we have not seen lots of German dig through the garbage. We saw a bunch of old ladies picking through a pile of furniture on a corner and had to take a look - we found Ben's booster seat there and a German measuring tape. We just would not dig through our own garbage.)
2 comments:
We all wondered about the cupboard looking structures being trash. This makes sense now. Those crazy Germans.
Weird right - you have to buy your own closets and your kitchen even if you are renting. But your trash cans are enclosed by the building.
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