Happy Easter

 

Last weekend was Easter which meant Friday and Monday off. Friday was "Karfreitag" (= good Friday) which is the day when Christians celebrate the killing of Jesus. Ok, "commemorate" is probably the more fitting expression. Sunday and Monday are Easter Sunday respectively Easter Monday. This is the time when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. We are not Christians, but having Friday and Monday off is enough reason to celebrate (especially at my current Job). I don't know many Easter traditions, but the one I like is of course giving out Easter candies - chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, etc. And this year we were able to revive another tradition - hiding the Easter candies to have the children search for them. This tradition was never dead of course, but without children it is not so much fun. And this year we had children - our son and his cousin. So my sister hid the Easter candies in our parents' garden, and then the kids went wild. I don't know what was more fun for the Kids - searching for the candies or eating them.

 



 

 

Another important Easter tradition in Germany - basically every little village comes  together to light a big bonfire - the Easter fire.

As with many Christian Holidays also many of the Easter traditions are not purely of Christian origin. Many of these traditions or at least parts of them have their origin in the pre-Christian times. When for example the Germanic tribes believed in all these more exciting gods like Wotan, Odin, Thor (who apparently leads a double life as a superhero).

Germany Is Not ....

... as clean and Germans are not as environmentally friendly as many people (like in Taiwn) believe and Germans often claim themselves. I don't know if that has changed since I grew up here, but nowadays you see garbage along the road everywhere. Not just little things like paper cups, McDonald bags, beer cans, etc. but also bigger items like on this picture a toilette seat or an ironing board.

Also almost every day, when I cycle to work, I can observe a roughly 10 km long traffic jam on the highway I pass, because people just really want to drive their car to work, despite the discussions about having to cut down on fossil fules, and despite the fact that gas is like 1.50 Euro/60 NTD per Liter (of course public transportation is quite expensive here).

Another thing people say about Germans and Germany that all is very orderly, people respect the laws etc. I believe they usually are just afraid of punishments and heavy fines. If they think they can get away with it, they break the rules like everyone else. All the trainstations are smoking free areas (sometimes with a designated smoking area), but no one cares, and people  just light their cigarette, whenever they feel like.
It is against the law to talk on the phone while driving a car, but all the time you see people driving their car with one hand, while holding their mobile phone with the other hand (and in a few occasions almost run me over).
And then there is the traffic - Westerners scoff about the traffic in Taiwan, and it can be horrid. But now I start to think the difference between a city like Taipei and the area I live in, Stuttgart, is the space (OK and the much higher number of scooters in Taiwan).  My experience here has been that the people in Stuttgart drive super aggressively, and try to bend the rules as much as possible. It always looks like as if everybody wants to be Michael Schuhmacher, while everbody else on the road is an idiot. OK people say that Stuttgart is a "car city" because after all this is the city of Porsche and Mercedes Benz, so perhaps people are extra "competitive."

The one difference I noticed between the traffic in Germany and in Taiwan - people in Germany actually stop at the crosswalk.

Spring Has Arrived

After months of temperatures of around 0 degrees it seems like spring has finally arrived. Especially here around Stuttgart the weather has been nice, sometimes temperatures even reached almost 20 degrees, and everywhere you can see the trees and flowers blossoming

Part of my way to work:

A picture taken from our bedroom window:

In front of our apartment building:

Time to put some plants on our balcony:

Yes, we are trying to get a small balcony garden going, with strawberries and tomatos for the beginning.