Why Germans are airtight

Some final random thoughts about Germany, from a German-descended Australian who's visiting his German wife's family.

Housing

Every German home I've visited is essentially airtight.

The doors aren't just a rectangular slab like ours, they have a proper lip around the edge and they seal very well against the frame.

The windows are the same. They also have two ways of opening, depending on how you turn the handle.

If it points up, the window hinges on the bottom, opening along the top - this allows some air through without allowing rain or thieves into the house.

If the handle points down, the window hinges along one side, opening like a door.

It gives you total control of the airflow through the house. And in the cold winter, it keeps the warm air trapped very effectively inside.

Germans also make better use of their suburban space, as virtually every house is multi-storey with a basement underneath.

There's just something very cool about having a basement!  It's the shed you don't have to leave the house for.

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Fun parks and recreation

We have spent the last fortnight in Celle, Germany, visiting with my wife's family.

It's a town of around 80,000 people in Lower Saxony, in the north of the country.

When we're not visiting with family, we're looking for "family entertainment", which in this part of the country means zoos.

First up was the Tier Park, which is where they train animals for media performance. If you see a lion on German TV, it probably came from here.

They say this wolf is the world's best at playing dead. A totally chilled animal.

The keeper spent three years visiting the cage daily - even on weekends and sick days - in order to be accepted as a member of the pack.

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Erse Park

(VIDEO)  We just went to Erse Park in Uetze, Germany.

This is a fun place with rides, life sized model dinosaurs, and a whole lot of truly weird shit.

German fairy tales are clearly meant to frighten children into silence at night...

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German observations

Thoughts on Germany and Germans, from an Australian bloke with a German name and a German wife.

The Roads

The Germans are much smarter than us about speed limits, which are slower in town and faster on the freeways.

Australians, myself included, get frustrated and angry in suburban 50km/h zones. But here everyone is totally cool about doing 30, and I have found that it encourages me to be relaxed about it as well.

Often in the middle of town the roads are made of old fashioned flagstones, which are indestructible but a wee bit bumpy and slippery. So you go very slowly indeed.

At this low speed, people just have more patience with local conditions.  We rode around Celle in a horse and cart today, causing about forty cars to slow down and wait for 5 minutes on a particular one-way road. There was nary a beep. They all just waited until we were out of the way.

Everyone double-parks if they need to pick up a passenger or drop off a package, and no-one else cares. You just go around them.

Here's a neato idea.

When you park in a time-limit zone, you put this little cardboard thing on your dash with the current time on it - how many minutes past the hour it was when you arrived. Then the inspectors know when you got there. (And if you don't have one of these things displayed, they book you.)

There are lots of people on bikes. The kids are legally required to wear helmets but virtually nobody else bothers.

There are dedicated bike lanes everywhere, sometimes on the road and sometimes marked out on the footpath.

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