And they think the UK has crap weather?

Know what cracks me up about living in Germany.

My arbeits Kollege.
Last week they were having a go about the crap food and "worse weather" after my return of a short trip home to the UK.
Fine...I normally couldn´t give a rats arse.
Anyway, I was just thinking,its now mid March and its still f#cking freezing outside,the snow has just disapeared and it hasn´t stoped raining in Darmstadt for 3 days.Heidelberg has "hochwasser" and theres more rain to come.
Personally I can deal with the crap weather, its part and parcel of living in Germany but why oh why do they harp on about the shit weather in the UK?Sure its not the Med,but its no worse than here

I just called my Mum in Somerset and they have had 12 deg and nice clear blue skys for the past 3 days.
The trees in the garden are already starting to blum

I`ll get of me soap box now

Yep can confirm that the river has broken the banks & it is raining again!

Oh well it'll be dry in the pub while i'm watching the rugby..but then again maybe not!!

Leky...do you mean O´Reillys?
Went there once for lunch,keep meaning to go back.Rugby might be an excuse

don't mean to rub it in but its sunny and warm today high of 20, patios are all a hopping

I sure can understand why so many Germans and Brits move to Spain i can get used to this

Tim,...its sunny and warm 20 deg and your inside on the computer...are you mad mate

Yeah, like you carp on about smokers and smoking in Germany

Maybe he's sitting outside in the sun working on his laptop. That's the life ...

Mike I assume you have read the smoking thread?

Its had 5167 lookee see´s and 204 threads...out of the 204 threads I have maybe replied 5 or 6 times.
What does that tell you? There are a lot of pissed of non-smokers besides me. Some with much stronger words than me.

Pisses me off too.

Annoys me too. But Im working on it. Slowly educating the germans I come in contact with about the real facts. For example, that it rains more in Hamburg and Schleswig Holstein than in London. (Hamburg is far more to the north than London). Also the fact that we have a serious water shortage in the South East of England and London. Ever recurring. That one always amazes them!

It amazes me too. It keeps raining around here and yet they keep going on about this water shortage. makes you wonder what it was like before this 'drought'...

Just been announcing now with sirens and tannoys that the Rhine in Remagen is getting high . Can see by looking. Glad I don't live on the Rheinüfer (just round the corner and up a slight hill though).

Met a brit who moved to Munich who hated everytime he was told 'your British you should be used to the rain and crap weather' we it rains more in Munich than it did in London.

Spain has the opposite problem not enough rain, you notice that the dog piss never gets washed away.

The problem there though is that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.

Drove from Hagen to Kassel yesterday, drove in fog on the way there and in snow on the way back... Need I say more?

Yep O'Reillys, great pub...but a warning! A lot of people who frequent it smoke, so might not be your kind of place Having said that you are welcome to join us.

Queer today. Bright sunny day, a little nippy and the Rhine burst its banks during the night!

After 10 yrs in Germany I've come to the conclusion that one of the Germans' top evaluation criteria for anywhere beyond its own borders is FOOD.

Take them to the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Far East, skiing, sailing, what have you, and they always go on and on about the flipping food. aaaaagh. Not only are they obsessed with their guts and how often they can go to the loo (add to this the old German loos with a shit-shelf to inspect their performance), they're obsessed with what goes in it!!

They then laugh at me saying "well with British food being so bad, you're obviously not in a position to judge it" to which I reply, "no, we just focus on proper things like the people there, the countryside, the real parts of the holiday!!"

Most Germans have a story to tell about their first trip to the UK. It goes something like this:

1) I was 16
2) I was at a language school (generally somewhere on the South Coast)
3) I stayed with some family with 2 screaming kids and they put me up in a room the size of a broom cupboard
4) They gave me cheap food in the evening, generally baked beans on toast and overcooked veg.
5) After 3 days there I was so hungry I went to McDonalds.

When I explain that this was probably somebody on the dole who thought "great way to earn a bit of cash", that most people on the south coast are either old or not exactly in to stockbroking, and that what they saw of British cooking was not necessarily TYPICAL, they have their counter arguments of course. (But when would a German person judging the rest of Europe ever admit they might be wrong...

That was almost exactly my experience on my first trip, except:
2) it was a student exchange (and you wouldn't really expect anyone to try and learn English oop Nerth, would you?) and
5) on the third day I had terrible diorrhea and couldn't keep in any food at all

I still loved it and am still in contact with my exchange student today - nearly 15 years on. It also didn't stop me from moving to England for good. the only thing that really gets me down on a regular basis is the weather - sorry.

(just to explain: statistics measure percipitation, not rainfall. So when the statistics say that there is just as much percipitation in Germany as there is in England, they fail to mention that in England there are no seasons and it rains all year round while in Germany you get tonnes of lovely snow in the winter and tonnes of sunshine in the summer. By Germany I don't mean Hamburg of course - I'd never move to Hamburg.)


ah yes, the English are much better at judging the rest of Europe correctly.

Haha!

I said "admitting we were wrong" not judging Europe. We "Inselaffen" as we are fondly called by the people we fondly nickname "Krauts" are definitely isolationist enough to qualify as the LAST people to judge Europe from within!

Of course it does.

I know of about 50.000 People that say exactly the same, except they all complain about that they had to eat mint sauce with everything...

One german recounting to me - in english - about his one time obligatory school trip to England said he found it funny that the english put "wine" on their chips! (by wine he meant vinegar).

only in Yorkshire

Drives me nuts as well that everytime it rains I get 'You must be use to this being English' or 'Bet this makes you feel at home' One of these days it will tip me over the edge and I will rampage through the town brandishing my brolly

I don't! In fact, these are the ones who still put in a shopping order when I go over to the UK for things like tea bags and Frey Bentos pies (personally yuk but that's another matter ... :doh: ).

Our insurance guy told us in broken English that he had a "really nice time" in England when he was a young man. It turned out he was a prisoner of war over there and was "taken well care of" !

To prove that we do not all whinge and moan (a sideways reference to another thread)...my male German colleague loves an English breakfast...and a female German colleague loves Fish and Chips.

I understand why vinegar (essig) could be a little strange to Germans. When I first came here missing my Sarson's I bought some essig from the supermarket for my chips. Little did I know it would burn my mouth off.

Actually, there was a nice documentary about German PoWs on (British) TV a few months ago. Apparently a lot of them were invited into local families for xmas and had as good a time as you can possibly have as a PoW. Some even stayed for good (incl Bert Trautmann).

I had to buy bacon and baked beans for one of my colleagues for her and her family for breakfast on Sunday. They loved it.

It rain all the time in england..nonsense..far more in hamburg..drives me mad 'everyone' says that
and that english food lousy...they all remember the awful school trips to UK or being fed 'full english breakfast' in hotels thinking everyone has that at home..
and Jamie Oliver is on TV every saturday for 2-3 hours.

get rid of that (and the tedious...geoff hurst's goal in wcup story) then i have no moans!

The Friday before the Germany - England game in Munich (1-5 was the score I think) it was chucking it down with rain. The radio presenter was saying it would make the England fans feel at home. So I called up and they put me on air where I announced that Munich gets more rain than London. So the Müncheners really have no excuses.