Things I Don't Like about Germany

As much as I enjoy living here, there are a few things I don't really like about it either:

Shops close on Sunday

In Indonesia, weekend is the high time for retail business. No one would dream of closing their business on Saturday or Sunday. But here, nothing is open on Sunday. Including the supermarkets. So we do our weekly grocery shopping on Saturday, along with everyone else - and if you happen to forget to pick up something on your shopping trip, you'll have to live through Sunday without it.

We are expected to tip in restaurants

In Indonesia, we don't have to tip - service charge is already included in the bill. I prefer it that way, because I don't like to feel as if I'm judging the servers by the amount I tip them (Is it too much? Too little? Will they think that I don't appreciate them enough?). It's just making me socially anxious to decide and calculate these things. I much prefer to pay a fixed sum of service charge, usually 5% from the value of food and drinks we order, so we can just pay without having to calculate further.

Public transport is not cheap

I live about 30 minutes from Frankfurt am Main and it cost me € 4.80 to ride into the city (single trip). Then every time you take the U-Bahn (underground), it will cost you minimal € 1.85 just to get to the next station. Although I find it quite comfortable and reliable, but it does make me think twice about going anywhere, just because it costs so much to do so. My husband was right in saying that owning a car is the better option here in Germany.

Smoke, smoke everywhere

People smoke a lot here, both traditional cigarettes and those trendy e-cigarette things. There are no-smoking signs on train stations for example, but they mostly disregard it. It seems like the rule of thumb is that as long as you're outdoors, you're free to smoke. I have therefore suffered clouds of cigarette smokes in outdoor avenues of the mall, train stations, parks and roads. Even though everyone has the decent courtesy to put out their cigarettes when entering indoor buildings, I can still smell it on them if they're standing too close to me, since they usually only put their cigarettes out right in front of the door before coming in.

I had to endure 50 minutes of advertisement at the cinema

My husband doesn't like to go to the cinema, but we went anyway for Star Wars. The tickets said the film would start at 20.15, so we were there at 20.00, rushing through shopping, skipping dinner and foregoing looking around the cinema. The building itself is very nice, seats are spaced out way more nicely than the ones in Indonesia (maybe because we Asians have shorter legs? Haha) and you only get your ticket checked at the front gate before the studios. Being German and punctual as often stereotyped, the studio was packed already by 20.15.

But did the film start? NO. Advertisements began showing at 20.00, which is also common practice in Indonesia, and I can accept that. At least the people would have something to see while waiting, right? But then - 20.15 came and went, and the stream of endless advertisement still continued on. I was quite anxious to see The Last Jedi already, and it certainly didn't amuse me that until 20.30 they were still showing advertisements. I was so sure they would finally start at 20.30 at least, but NOOOO. Finally some cute animated Langnese ice creams told us to put our 3D glasses on, and I breathed a sigh of relief - this must be it. But did The Last Jedi start? NO. They just started showing advertisements in 3D. I was ready to scream at this point, but everyone around me looked so relaxed and accepting - it made me wonder, is this common practice here?

The film finally began at 20.50. Fifty minutes after I excitedly sat my arse in the studio. I was fuming already. I mean let's put it into perspective here: the film duration is 152 minutes. Fifty minutes of advertisement means a third of the duration of the film itself. Had they started at 20.15 as promised, we would've been out of there at 22.47, instead of 23.20 like we ended up leaving. It was a workday and my husband had a long work day before, plus he had to wake up early the next day for work too. You have to take into account also how punctual Germans are, and they made everybody just sit there to endure this extravagantly long advertisements after paying a good amount of money to see the film (the tickets were €15.00 each, that could easily buy you 4-7 tickets in Indonesia depends on when and where the showing is).

I don't think I'll be going to the cinema again soon... at least until the next Star Wars film come out!