Does Anyone Smile In Germany?

After a very long travel day (our train was at 9 this morning and we didn’t arrive until close to 4 this afternoon) we’re now in Germany!  Our first stop is Munich, in the Bavaria region of southern Germany.  The city is noted for having the greatest beer culture in the world (the famous Oktoberfest beer festival takes place here) and it’s motto is “München mag Dich” (“Munich Loves You” in English).  From what we’ve seen so far, we think they have a funny way of showing it!The first thing we noticed about German people, from the train ride here to checking in at the hotel, is that they don’t seem to smile!  Everyone walks around with frowns or serious looks on their faces, as if they were taught it’s impolite to smile at strangers or something.  I’ve read that people from Munich are generally very conservative, but can’t you be conservative with a smile?  Even when we checked into the hotel (another Ibis, this time at a pricier €59 per night), it seemed like the staff were less friendly than at the other Ibis’ we’ve been to. 

Because we got in so late, we didn’t have much time before Paul started working.  We took a quick walk around the block the hotel is on, and decided to get lunch/dinner at a Persian restaurant we found down the street.  We’ve had a lot of Turkish food so far this trip, and some of it has been similar to Persian food, but it’s never as good (I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but it’s true!).  This place, called Restaurant Persepolis, had some of the best koobideh (ground beef kebab) we’ve ever had, but their rice was too fluffy for basmati rice.  Using Paul’s blackberry, we sent a picture of our food to a Persian friend back home who first introduced us to Persian food when we moved to Vancouver, and he said it looked better than the Persian restaurants in Vancouver!  He also told us there are a lot of Persian people living in Germany, which was a surprise to us – this is the first part of Europe where we’ve seen a Persian restaurant!

Before going back, we went to grab drinks at a grocery store behind the hotel.  It was an interesting place, with four different stores in one building.  I couldn’t figure out if each store sold something different or if they all sold the same thing and competed with each other, but we headed into the store that had pop in their window display and found what we were looking for.  We decided to get 2 cans of coke and two large bottles of water, and when we went to check out we found out they have bottle deposit here – 25 euro cent per can or bottle!  So the 45 cent coke ended up being 70 cents each!  I’m all for recycling, but compared to our 5 cent deposit back home, this seems kind of ridiculous.  The cool thing here is you get your deposit back by sticking each bottle/can into an automated recycling machine which scans the item and at the end gives you a printout which you take to the cashier to claim.  I’m going to take my bottles back just so I can try out the machine