I hate Sundays in Germany

Supermarkets open here until Midnight

Berlin out of hours shopping

One, accross town, and they only sell Golden, and at twice the price of the Dinkel Acker I'd normally get. And somewhere along the long trek back, with a sack of over-priced crappy beer, I start thinking that maybe Germany is telling me I shouldn't be drinking on a Sunday. And I feel censored.

Don't rub it in, Deccie.

sorry...

Store it reasonably cool and dark and beer will last for months, so I'm not sure why shops need to open 24/7 because some people are too disorganised to store a crate of beer in their cellar. Similarly, if you were too disorganised to buy the ingredients for your roast dinner in advance, then just eat something else. It really is not the end of the world.

I'll add my voice to those wanting open shops on sunday, perhaps the 6hrs that England and Wales have. Saturday is too pressured. If you work long hours in the week, the only time to go shopping, big box or groceries is on Saturday. if you want to do something else; travel, sport, relaxing, too bad, you need to do your shop.

Quiet Sunday's are nice, but in London I could call up friends on Sunday morning (hangover permitting) and invite them for a Roast dinner. Head to the Supermarket and buy all I needed depending on who was coming. Here I'd need to invite people a few days before and buy everything on the Saturday. It all becomes much more formal.

Supermarkets open on Sunday would be a good start. Perhaps the 7 days of food idea, that people would not buy more is valid up to a point. However I believe I would buy more, especially last minute stuff on Sundays. Offering an alternative day off for staff would not increase wage costs and the Rewes, Aldis and Lidls may get that small % increase in sales.

thankyouplease

One more day of operation will not cost anything to the supermarkets. Oh yes, sure.

If they make a loss on that day, then they don't have to open, but it would be their choice. There is no law now that forces supermarkets to open 6 days a week now, is there? If a shop owner decided to just open on Tuesdays, then they are allowed to...Whatever they think will make them the most profit.

I love sundays here. No getting dragged to the supermarket to do shopping.

If you realy want to do your shopping on a sunday find a supermarket that is in a train station. they can open 7 days a week and most do.

How did everyone survive before 7 day opening in the UK?

Who would drag you to the supermarket? And why don't they drag you to the one at the train station now?

Its not a question about survival, people survived without electricity and indoor plumbing - it doesn't mean I prefer to live without them.

@Hazza

1). Old girlfriends.
2). I have not told the current one its open.

@LP - true but if plumbing and sunday opening were the same thing you could only crap inside during the week, on saturday and only until 8pm.

Plumbing/electricity are a little different from sunday shopping. You cant turn your tv on on saturday and watch the sunday programmes, you can however go shopping during the week.

I was going to say something about not showering on sunday (indor plumbing) but that seems to have all to often for some poeple even during the week

My point was simply that just because it is a luxury doesn't mean it should be legislated against. (Its amazing how many of the 'you should plan ahead' people have never run out of toilet paper or milk on a sunday, I must be a disorganized mess because I do not constantly have my future meal plans mapped out days in advance). Fortunately,Hamburg is not as bad as the weird southerners, If I am really desperate I can go to the reeperbahn to the one grocery store open on Sundays, as long as I don't mind sitting on a ubahn for 20 minutes each way and fighting through the whores, hobos, and people still out drinking from saturday night.

I honestly just don't understand why gas station stores, mcdonalds, most restaraunts, bars, train stop stores, currywurst vendors, hookers, doner places, etc. can all be open on Sunday but not an Aldi.

Cest la vive, when in Rome - but I still reserve the right to bitch about it..

I am glad another horrible sunday is over. The worst thing is a rainy sunday, and there is quite a lot of them in Germany.

If you work too many hours in the week to go to a supermarket, then quite frankly, the thing you should be bitching about is not opening hours, it is your fucking job. People accepting 50 or 60 hour working weeks should be executed, because thanks to them, "normal" working hours for everyone else are getting pushed up. I personally think if a government is going to pissball about and interfere with the economy, step1 should be a maximum working week of 35 hours.


By not having to work so many hours themselves.

Don't move to Munich, they are worse...they still dictate local legistlation and commerce regulation by popular Christian and local out of date custom beliefs.

Berlin has a lot to offer on Sunday...there are now many shops, stores, etc. open on sunday and some until 22:00 or even midnight other nights.

All museum bookstores are open...no admission, obviously.

Obviously cafés, restaurants, bars, clubs are going...Hauptbahnhof is always open, hosting shopping mall with variety of shops. The movies. All video stores I know are open (my fav, until 1am).

If you are looking something a bit more relaxing and peaceful, then the greenspace in the entire region in and around Berlin provides a bit of elbow room...as one pointed out, some spots more hot than others. Biking?

Grilling in the last few spots allowed...easy to organize and just do.

At least once a month, stores like Obi, Bauhaus, Ikea are open on a Sunday.

the whole "quality of life" bullshit is a moot debate...I feel there should be more open on sunday, allowing employers to employ more people...ask an unemployed person what their quality of life is. It takes time, but it's coming.

I enjoy locally now many supermarkets are open until either 22:00 or even some midnight...it allows people of all schedules, etc to also get their shit done. I am still amazed at all the uncommerce thinking businesses that open between 10 and 20:00...it totally avoids those that actually work and have the surplus income to spend in those stores...what the hell are they staying open for? Bank hours are an old fashion joke. So before you start bitching about the job you work and calling for a social uprising that allows you more hours in the day to run your errands during the day, think about if you would even have the same errands if you didnt have the job. Its an ever-changing world, love or hate it, perhaps old fashion german ideals about opening hours and hours of operation should be updated as well.

Working too much and not having time during the week is not my problem at all. I just have no idea of what I want to eat on any given day until that day. I don't plan my dinners days in advance. When Monkstown spoke of roasts yesterday morning, I thought "what a good idea". But of course, that plan was at an end the moment I looked on the calendar...

If I'm willing to buy something and someone else is willing to sell me that something, why should the government make that illegal based solely on the particular day we want to conduct this transaction?

Why not get a freezer if you can't or don't want to plan meals in advance, then you can buy a joint and if you decide you don't want it just freeze it for another day. I know frozen isn't as good as fresh, but it would solve the problem of not being able to have a roast.

And stick it where? I don't even have enough space in my flat for a washing machine...

Why can't I just conduct business with someone willing to conduct business with me, without having to look at the calendar?

Sounds like our local police substation. Open three days a week 9 - 11:30 am.
Got something to report? Too bad. Come back later or call an emergency number.

The Basic Law's Sunday protection clause was inherited from the Weimar Constitution. Sunday closing laws were strengthened in 1939, and it is these laws which were passed down to modern Germany.


source: The Economics of Germany’s Shop Closing Hours Regulation

as Bipa pointed out, a very good reason to revisit changing this stupid regulation. Obviously "the old regime" had a few things wrong to begin with...

Bear in mind that Germany is hardly unique in this regard. Most of Europe is closed on a Sunday and most of the world is closed on their respective day of rest. Sunday trading is largely restricted to the English-speaking countries of the world (i.e. America and her subordinates), which isn't really a society that I personally feel the urge to replicate here.

I don't see how Sunday trading would make Germany like the US.

They have Sunday trading in India. India is nothing like the US...

ha ha ha, more american hating...hasnt this past popular trend in old fashioned, struggling europe yet outwashed itself? or is the sub-culture alive where those remain critical without experience?

Haha, more paranoid jumping to conclusions. Hasn't this past popular trend outwashed itself yet?

Edit: What the fuck does "outwashed" mean?

presumptuous disposition: for those lacking experience, knowledge and having naiveté...lol.

"outwashed/out-washed...purposely inverted "washed-out" (fading, lacking color, brilliance) to conduce unworthy, fading, cliche, lacking originality"

however, nice to see the vocabulary and vernacular of scholars ("fuck") make a good showing.

Chat, in case you aren't aware i.e means (basically) for example, and the USA is a very good example.

Anyway I think all the wannabe Sunday shoppers esp. Americans should be given Sunday passes to the US bases, then you can shop all you wan't

Personally on nice Sundays I like to sit in my Garden & do the weeding without cars & lorries racing down the street.

Try living in a little town, Christ some places are closed for lunch,Mondays wed. afternoons and anything else they dream up

Shouldn't you be going to Church and then sitting quietly at home studying the Bible?

???

i.e. means "that is to say; in other words" or which is...
e.g., for example.

funny thing, most americans are the ones vertical climbing, cycling or grilling (along with the aussies)...but when a german store opens on a sunday or irregularly late, amazing how crowded it gets with 99% Germans. It seems the Germans are more consumer happy than anything Ive ever experienced. Im a New Yorker and am appauled that people dont use their free time to unwind. If I had a Garden (i have a rather large balcony terrace, but not the same) I would be doing the exact same thing...except the weeding thing...prefer just to watch em grow with cocktail in hand...

yeah, good point, but what about all the freelancers who have to adjust their hours of work to the demand of several clients in order to survive. They sometimes have to work 60 hours a week and they have no chance to refuse working on sundays.

It's precisely cos i no inglish innit that I object to made-up words. "Outwash" is a noun, not a verb. Having spent around 8-9 months in America and Canada, I also object to your post on grounds of factual inaccuracy. I've been shopping in American supermarkets at all times of the day and night on every day of the week. Do I need it here? No, absolutely not.

amen to that.

Well cutie-pie, you know I don't want to make you cry, but Germany is rapidly becoming more and more Americanised whether you like it or not. In fact I'd say Germany is aping the U.S. at a rate and with an enthusiasm that far exceeds many if not all of her European neighbours. I'm not particularly pleased about it myself -- hell, I moved out of the U.S. to get away from the U.S. -- but after I saw the biggest effing KFC I've ever seen in my entire life in Munich I knew I'd just have to accept it. Sunday trading ought to be the least of your worries.

Do YOU personally need it? Do YOU personally need Hartz IV? Do YOU need diamonds? Do YOU NEED a car? Im sure the list can go on. However, convenience in a world that now requires both partners to work, or heaven forbid you are solo and cant pick up your dry cleaning, do any sort of personal banking, get the last pick at the supermarket, etc. is somewhat poor quality of life...as when you do, do your errands, its full of stress and time contingency. In an abstract comparison, in a perfect world communism is ideal, it's just never existed.

PS for a "made-up word", it certainly has made its appearence in contemporary literature, articles, etc.

KFC, mmmmm

if they could just get those buttermilk biscuits!!!

I wonder what German's acceptance of Hardee's would be?

Church oh yeah, I sometimes go on a Sunday & have lunch, my church is called O'Reillys, if anyone in Heidelberg wants to join, they do a very nice Sunday service, they had an early service last Saturday too, even singing "swing low" (didn't help!). Bible, whats that? Can you get it on DVD??

made butternilk buscuits at home, now my wife is hooked on them and french toast and suasage gravy.Its my mission to bring good ol USA eatin to germany

It offends me that a pub is open on sunday, the noise might interrupt someones gardening.

Precissimo...just walk into those factory outlets in Netherlands on Sundays...or the 'Plus'es closing at 9 pm in Berlin...

And damn...thats one helluva KFC...is that so huge or the photograph makes it look so?...Its like some one took Sam's Club or Costco and KFCized it...Special offer 'Juicy Wings' on aisle 4!!

What about the noisy cows in the fields, disgraceful.

yeah a few things from american southern cuisine (my mother was originally from Ga.) that i have introduced to some germans has been met with extreme enthusiasm...REAL bbq, cornbread, biscuits, grits (shrimp and grits, etc.)..REAL pancakes...

Cows aren't particularly noisy, nor really present in urban environments, nor are they business establishments. But other than that, spot on analogy - gold star.

@Chat_Capone.. when a shop opens on sunday it gets filled with 99% germans..

Comic answer.. What is a 99% german?

However, perhaps the shops get so full with germans as there are a shit load more of the around as this is germany.

If a shop opened up on sunday in Austria I would expect it to be full of austrians.

Comment about india having sunday shopping at staying the same are only relevant if sunday is the indian holy day. Otherwise thats like a jewish shop keeper saying 'the christians all open on monday and they are ok'..

If you are freelance then you work as you have to, there is no way to get around that. However why should shop workers have to work sundays because you work long hours during the week?

I would allow sunday shopping on the old english nursery system (at least where i went to nursery) , your kid comes to this nursery, you work here 2 afternoons a week.

IE... if you want to go shopping on sunday, in that month you have to have worked a sunday in a shop. Not sure about the rest of germany but in this little part of the world the shopping centre is open until 9pm. If you have not had a chance to go shopping that would mean you have been working from 10:00 until 20:30 - 6 days a week.

If you are working 10.5 hours, 6 days a week you are working to much. If you are self employed then thats just part of your job. It is not (as of yet) part of the job of shop workers to work sunday.

Lets not play the fox without a tail here. How do you know you won't end up working for a business that opens on sunday and then they expect you to work sunday as well?

It is the largest KFC in the world. It's at the Euroindustriepark, across from the Real, and yes it is seriously huge.

Kentucky Fried Chicken comes to Munich

No one is suggesting people have to open on sunday, simply they should not be prohibited from it.

?!? Eh? Is that a bit like barbers spoiling the cheese?

Well, what do you expect BEING IN GERMANY? The shop to be full of Nigerians?

@DR.. its a greek fable...about a fox who loses his tail...