I hate Sundays in Germany

Off topic, but: Unless someone is illiterate, orthography does matter on a daily basis, and the protests were successful, since a nonsensical reform made by bureaucrats was re-reformed into something better. We'll see what changes will be achieved concerning the smoking ban. The right to shop on Sundays, on the other hand, is not a question worth of showing civil disobedience, I'm afraid.

You are right, it requires armed inssurection!

But that would require planning and forethought. Your inssurection is doomed by the very nature of the problem. You couldn't arm yourselves until the shops opened on sunday.

1.) Orthography, yeah, okay...something really juicy that affects us all...NOT. or..."why dont you speak english?" (only joking)
2.) There is no debate in the smoking ban. Smoking is bad for you, second hand smoke, etc. too much data on this that even supercedes the very powerful and strong tabacco lobby here in Germany. It will not be reformed, in fact: expect more restrictions coming (eurovol might protest that "smoking promotes social gathering...you know, at cancer clinics and hospitals):

I wasnt referring to sunday shopping...I was speaking in General.

Bahn Strikes, Stupid government waste and pathetic agendas that end up failing, unfair tax increases whilst cost of living increases, wages are actually going down...

too many juicy things people should be fired up about.

So will we see a Sunday shopping expat revolutionary movement soon?

I think people are fired up about them, however how do you protest lower wages?

The protests were successful? So they are no longer teaching the new spelling and grammar in the schools? I was under the impression that many newspapers simply refused to switch, but all government and academic institutions are now following the new rules.

And I still don't remember seeing thousands and thousands of people in Berlin and in every State capital protesting the language changes, while the anti-war protests were everywhere and in huge numbers. There was no demonstration in Balingen or Ebingen, for example, against the language changes, but the schools were even let out to allow the students to participate in the anti-war marches.

Actually theres quite a bit of debate, just go search for the numerous threads on the topic But lets avoid that issue in this thread.


Yeah, after I lead this glorious triumph over the opressors I want to be Che Guevarized and my image worn by young ignorant college kids' t-shrits.

Maybe they aren't against the policies that are in place as much as you want them to be.


IN YOUR OPINION! You are not German and you are not living in America!

I have lived here 11 years and Germans protest for and against a lot of things that are meaningful to them and maybe even meaningful to others, but to conclude it is all meaningless cause there isn't an uprising to be more like Americans and America and have 24/7 shopping is ridiculous.

Neither are you German, eurovol... but I do have German blood. So I figure that makes us about even... your 11 years compared to my 7 years + ancestry

And maybe they are afraid of being arrested by the all-powerful police. Given the limited freedom of speech here in Germany, I'm not surprised that many folks are hesitant to express their opinions openly. Plus you have to look at the historical perspective, where the Germans haven't really much of a history of democracy anyway. The people are used to accepting what they are told.

Um I don't know about that, leading up to the big event that we shall not mention Germany was a hotbed of political activity. A lot of philosophy and Reform has come out of Germany from people questioning everything. However I think if pretty much every time your nation is brought up it's mostly to discuss Hitler and Nazis you would start getting a bit overly sensitive about it too.

Anyone who thinks there was no debate over the smoking ban only has to use the search function

Perhaps sunday shopping has realy been banned to stop poeple buying and eating too much? 1 les day shopping, trollies only so big, next pay for the plastic bags and finaly car parks grassed over.

Result, buy as much as you like, in 6 days but you will sodding well carry it home

Perhaps a delievery service would help people who can't shop? Order online or over the phone (if you have no computer and/or cant speak german you are stuffed anyway) and have it delivered at the time you specify - I guess at a slightly higher price, especialy in the early hours.

You could staff the service with students!

hahahhahahhahaha, my profession makes me laugh out loud at you.

The protests (not masses on the street, but a public debate) brought about significant improvements of the orthography reform in 2004 and 2006. Now it is still not perfect, but there are sensible guidelines plus a lot of optional spellings.

You're a clown?

This exists at some places in the US, not sure if it caught on much though.

Man, we used to use this all the time in the UK. Tesco or Waitrose home delivery - fully refridgerated vans delivering a weeks worth of shopping at a time. I think it cost 5 quid extra or something.

That IS something I miss!

Considering how you can order delivery food on Sundays I wonder if you could do grocery delivery legally... Or is there some act in actually preparing the food that makes it more conducive to Mandatory Rest Day.

I am a scientist (molecular biotechnologist) and that was the lamest attempt to give more credence to one's opinion than I have heard in a long long time. By that logic, my blood/ancestry linked opinions on Ireland, Scotland, England and Germany (in that order) are my trump cards.

Yeah... and obviously you totally missed the irony that simply living here 11 years doesn't make you the know-all representative of all Germans

_{(you were very lame, I agree!)}

Its possible to get deliveries etc of shopping in the UK but I am not sure if its available over night.

Iceland (the frozen food shop, not the country :-) make you go in, get everything, take it to the checkout, pay, pack it in bags and then they put it in a freezer/cold storage room and it gets delieverd after 17:00 at the time you say (not exact, but after X o'clock etc).

Not perfect but ok if you are in town and cant be arsed to cart your shopping home. Its also free when you spend over so much.

To me, openeing up shops on sunday is just applying old methodology to the modern age.

I hate shopping, it pisses me off. I have to go to the shop, pick out stuff, wait in the queue etc. If you hate the customer service here, then you have to deal with that as well.

Much better to order it online and have it delivered.

Only problem points could be fresh veg etc but i try to get them from veg shops etc rather than supermarkets, the stuff there just donest seem to last as long before going strange.

I don't claim such a thing. I can only represent that my German friends and family aren't whining and bitching for Sunday shopping like the expats on here are. The real irony is that those whining and bitching for Sunday shopping aren't giving respect to the citizens of this country whose decision till this point is to not pay attention to the expat whiners and bitchers. If they hold a referendum and decide that it would be in their best interests to have more liberal Sunday opening laws then it will still be because they decided it for themselves regardless of the expat whining and bitching.

We are here to be a part of German society, they are not here to serve us and our spoiled needs! Again, as a scientist I have to say that adapting is part of evolution and some of you refuse to evolve and blame it on the Germans for not adapting to you. I find that absolutely hilarious.

How is your perception that our 'whining' is disrespectfull ironic, exactly? Do you know the meaning of the word?

But I forgot, once again if you move somewhere you must subsume your opinions to the general will. You are not allowed to dislike anything about your host nation or have a negative opinion or are you a selfish ungratefull monster.

Yeah, but I pay my taxes and I don't get to vote so whining and bitching's all I have

What if Germans are split on an issue, how do I decide what a respectfull opinion to have is?

Back on the subject of shops opening on Sundays ... it's something I've just gotten used to in London. When I first moved to central London, the weekends were relatively quiet and Sundays very quiet as far as traffic was concerned.

Sunday opening and the relative lack of parking restrictions mean two things now. Firstly, it was really convenient when I had a car as I could quickly drive to Oxford Street and load up with whatever I wanted to buy from the department stores. Secondly, it meant that central London on Sunday was full of traffic jams, as the roads filled up with people who were either lost or trying to park.

Then along came congestion charge and the traffic at the weekends increased even more. Now, I'm used to it and like the fact that my regular Sunday activity is to stroll down to Chinwtown, grab lunch, walk to Soho for a coffee, then hit whatever shops we fancy strolling around before going home.

So on arriving in Stuttgart a month ago the change is noticable, and I'd roll my eyes at everyone talking about "lovely family time" as most Germans seem to spend their Sundays with their faces pressed up against the (closed) shop doors and windows as they spend the day window shopping. Surely the best part of shopping is being able to see, touch and maybe even buy the stuff, not stare at it reflected off double glazing?

And now, a few weeks later, and I've adjusted again. I like the fact the streets aren't full of cars (why drive if you're not going to buy anything? Just walk and/or cycle), and the people wander at a slow pace, eating ice cream, look in windows, stop for coffee, chat to friends etc and I realise it's actually quite pleasant.
p
If I do screw up and suddenly realise that I'm out of milk (need my cuppa!) then I can quickly get to the main station, in the centre of town, and buy milk.

I've just registered for something called a Packstation. This means I can buy stuff online and theoretically it gets placed in a secure box near my apartment, I get SMS'd, and can pick it up any time day or night. I'm lucky in London in that all my neighbours are really friendly and take stuff in for me but ... would I swap Sunday opening hours for one of these 24 hour delivery boxes? Yes, I think I would.

So, personally, everything works out well for me here.

At least it's better than when I was in Frankfurt in 2002 when the central shops shut at 4pm Saturdays, the ones near me at 12 noon, and nothing re-opened until I was back in the office on Monday.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

If I went to Malaysia, and saw that everyone was a complete muppet and simply dumped all of their waste in a local stream, I'd say, "oy, malay bloke, nooooo. It might have been all well and good for your ancestors to throw a few coconut husks into the water to wash away, but plastic chairs and bits of engines is a completely different matter. Learn things".

Accepting something simply because the local populace does not know any better is NOT the way forward atall, whatsoever.

Immigrants should teach people things. Bet you any money than native Americans didn't have sunday shopping for example.

They also didn't have effing great casino's either!

I am actually not that bothered about Sunday shopping one way or another, I can shop on Sundays if I wish, but as a rule I don't & if I do run out of something, the petrol station normally has what I want.

This thread reminds me of a conversation I once had with my landlady:
Me (moved here from Switzerland) - It's so nice to have shops open until 8 o'clock!
Her - Oh, it's even better, the Rewe down the road is upen until 10. When they announced it couple of years ago, I thought: "Idiots! Who wants to go shopping so late?". And now I go all the time! It's SO convenient!

I expect it will be the same with Sunday shopping, whatever the Germans think now.

I should be asking you the same thing! Hint: think about what people are saying versus what the audience is hearing.

If you move somewhere then you must submit to the local laws. You are allowed your opinion, but insulting your host to promote your own opinion (which sounds more selfish than for the greater good) isn't exactly constructive and that is what a majority of this thread is doing.

Back home there weren't any beirgartens, but we have all adapted to that here pretty well without a peep. In other words, it is different here and that is good, maybe not what you are used to, but still good.

Want to change things then get a petition and have Germans sign it and get it moving in the political process. Let the Parties promote it and the German voters vote on it. There are enough of you to organize this and so organize and do it. It would be interesting to watch.

Yeah, back in Australia, I used to play sports on Tuesday nights and go grocery shopping afterwards (around 11pm). It was convenient for me and there was hardly anyone else at that time.

No, you do have other options. Get a petition going and do something. I would still start small and focus on population and tourist centers and answer the obvious anti questions in advance if I were you.

I'm not going to do that...I'm leaving the country at the end of the year.

I am saying that it is stupid and illogical to close stores on sundays, my audience (Toytown) is hearing that I think it is stupid and illogical to close stores on sunday.

Furthermore the Germans (not the audience of my rant) did not close on sundays because ex-pats bitch, they closed it because of archaic legal tradition, that is slowly but surely changing...

Sorry, no Irony.


Where have I insulted my host, other than stating that I don't agree with their laws. You are saying "your allowed to disagree but that is an insult". Ridiculous.


Different does not by default = good.


Im not going to try to enforce my will upon a populace that i will be residing with for 4-5 years, that would be insulting and arrogant - and I don't care that much. I do reserve my right to bitch on an expat forum about a law that I think is stupid.

Ah but there are Germans on here and people who tend to agree with the laws as they stand now. Your (yours and others) audience is a mixed bag. Also, I am not singling out any single person (unless obviously noted) when suggesting the "it is not like where I come from" and "Germans are so backwards" memes are self serving tripe. As for what is and what isn't irony, well that is for another thread but I still find a lot of irony in many of the previous posts not the least of which are the conservative v. liberal angles.

Rather than depending on informal and anecdotal polls of a handful of folks in your office, how about something a little more scientific?

Mehrheit für Freigabe des Ladenschlusses


rough transl:
Also because of the special opening times during the Soccer World Cup, customers were found to be in favour of late-night shopping. 60% of the total of 4711 Germans questioned indicated that they'd willingly have the possibility to shop evenings until 22:00. Two years ago not quite 50% wanted it (late night shopping), and in 2002 only 40%.

Not at a higher approval level in the last two years is the number who also want to be able to shop regularly on Sundays. The number is staying at around half of consumers.

Kabinett beschließt längere Öffnungszeiten 11.12.2002


rough transl:
According to an Allensbach poll, 55% of Germans are for complete deregulation of store hours, including Sunday.

Well... seems that once the Germans could experience the longer hours, many changed their minds and opposition to the idea quite quickly. Perhaps now that a few Sundays have become shopping days, Germans will have the time they need to get used to the idea and see that society won't fall apart. Will be interesting to see how it develops over the next few years.

A few late nights and a few Sundays being open are not representative of the overall effects on the local economies that will accompany deregulation. Let them experience a few weeks of what it will look like some 2-4 years post deregulation and then ask them if they are still in favor of it. It took about 18 months for the local neighborhood grocers to go out of business and about 4 years for the smaller discounters to go bust. In my home town (30k people), there are still strip malls (30 years later) that never recovered because the mom and pops just couldn't compete. In the larger cities (50k-300k), the downtowns were completely devastated as mega stores and malls opened up outside the cities. The only places that could be said to have benefited were the large cities of a million or more people. Even Nashville and Memphis (between 300k and 1m) had 10-15 years of decline in the downtown areas until revitalization projects costing millions of dollars were implemented and they still aren't what they once were. It was tried in Knoxville, but the decentralization had already taken hold and sprawl was unavoidable. The only thing that keeps the center of Knoxville alive at all is the university and that is also what helped Nashville and Memphis.

You want your local store to be open longer and on Sunday's, but with the change comes the inescapable fact that your local store may not be there anymore. Things would change more than you think. There are just so many consequences to be considered when you tilt the economy.

The urban decay of the 70s and 80s had alot more causes than shopping-hour deregulation. Considering there isnt massive white flight to the suburbs I think it might work a tad differently here.

Again...what local store? You mean the Tengelmann? It'll survive even if there's a huge hypermarket on the edge of town. Things are different here to the US - for one thing, a lot of people who live in the inner city (me included) don't have a car, which is not the case in the US, which makes those sort of places inaccessible to most...

EDIT: In fact, I think it's more likely the fact that some time in the 70's or 80's just about every person in the US got a car that caused the urban sprawl, not Sunday shopping

EDIT2: I actually can't think of how you're linking Sunday shopping with Mega stores on the edge of town - How did the advent of Sunday shopping contribute to this?

Perhaps it would be better to look at a few of the European countries where shopping hours have been liberalized, rather than comparing with the USA. I believe that Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden all allow Sunday shopping, just to name a few.

Deregulation of shopping laws had a direct effect believe me. It was a big enabler. It allowed larger stores to be profitable within the existing employment laws (compare it directly to Walmart here which couldn't make it and complained all the time about not being able to be open on Sundays). Even malls were not profitable until they were allowed to stay open late and open on Sundays and that was mostly because they were able to run their mom and pop competitors out of business.

Everyone has always had a car outside the large cities in the US which is why large cities felt more of the benefit as opposed to the problems. That is why I say large population and tourist zones could benefit and probably why Berlin is relaxing (but not lifting) the ban. Yes Munich is set up differently as it is heavily dependent on public transport, but things would still be effected.

Expanding the opening hours will not expand the consumer pool nor the amount of money they can and will be able to spend. The local stores will not be able to stay open 24/7 and so they won't. People will buy stuff at the larger stores that maximize sales and minimize employees (ie mega store). These are usually built on cheap land (ie outside the city) in order to help the bottom line. Buying stuff there on Sunday or late at night leaves less for them to spend at the neighborhood stores not open on Sunday and with more regular hours and the neighborhood stores will have to raise prices to compensate the reduction in income thus driving away the more loyal customers in a vicious cycle leading to the closing of neighborhood stores.

These mega stores and malls opening up outside the city allowed for sprawl communities to set up around the shopping areas. This allowed business to set up shop serving the people that followed the stores moving. People didn't move to the "Sprawl-Wood Communities" knowing that they had to drive 30 miles to go shopping. NO, they moved out there because that was actually closer to the new MegaMall that was open 9-11pm weekdays and 9-8 on Saturday and 10-6 on Sundays (now they are just open all the fucking time).

The boom right now in Germany is that more and more people are getting cars (figures on this just recently came out). That means they are less tied to public transport. This is definitely true in the neighborhoods that are only serviced by buses. Look at how many bus routes have been slashed and running times reduced in just the last few years.

We will see what happens. I hope it doesn't change (or at least not too much), but it is up to the German voters and I will live with or without Sunday shopping.

Don't you think this level of detail is a bit much for a public bulletin board. Perhaps best discussed with your nearest and dearest and / or medical professionals?

reasons why eurovols arguments are a load of crap:

1) allowing relaxed store opening in Germany doesn't mean we automatically get American planning laws (or lack of).
2) allowing relaxed store opening in Germany doesn't mean we automatically get more cars on the roads. New car sales are cyclical and the sales upturn in 2008 followed a good few years of below trend sales. Sales in 2009 will likely be lower. Germany is a saturated market and responds to the economic cycle (with a time lag).
3) People didn't generally move to where the malls were but more often the other way round. Malls are built close to existing suburban areas.
4) mom and pop stores are crap and over-priced. give me a mega super store open 24/7 any day.
5) whatever eurovol says is generally a load of crap.

Sunday: My favorite day of the week, hands down!

1) True
2) Prediction that doesn't count increase in absolute ownership only new car sales.
3) False, mall after mall (especially the discounted outlet malls) was built out in no-mans land only to be fully engulfed in apartments and houses and other businesses within a 5 year period while very similar areas outside of cities in other directions remained largely undeveloped. Malls had to get permission from the planning commissions to build and this being all public gave the developers the chance to take options on surrounding lands which were then put into development the minute the mall got the go ahead to build. Mega stores were a little different in their approach, but not by much. Of course this early model (70's/early 80's) has changed over the last 20 years as all the developers now work together in producing mini-cities as together they have more clout with County and City planning commissions.
4) Opinion
5) Typical OG inferiority complex

Yes, if were going to have this Ladenschluss, then the churches should have to keep their doors shut on Sunday as well.

And a related point: are Mosques in Germany allowed to have their muezzin call to prayer every Friday or whenever it is? And if not, why not?

And Buddhist temples should be allowed to strike a bloody great heavy gong for 15 minutes to call their followers to meditation. If the Christians are allowed to ring out wild bells - on a peaceful Sunday morning, then I dont see why it shouldnt be open season for all the other faiths to join in as well.

And nobody friggin honks on Sundays!!

Beep beep!

Hey, stop tooting your own horn.

And if the German working in the shop was going to get overtime pay for working on Sunday, maybe they would be more leapingly enthusiastic about it.

Any of you figured out what people are actually getting paid here? Any of you understand the tarif/nontarif system? When you do, that will be all the chill pill you will need to get up early and shop at the Penny Markt at 8am Saturday morning, and let the poor Germans sleep in ONE day a week...

Sure it has crossed my mind that in touristy areas, it appears that it would make sense for some shops to actually be open... In many touristy areas shops are allowed to open on Sundays. Plenty have opened, to test the waters, and have not experienced the sales that would make it worthwhile, so they don't open.

Anyways, all the best bargains are on Mondays and Thursday at 8am. Germany rewards early risers. :-) Damask duvet covers - Penny - Thursday... or for people in the know, Wednesday night at 7pm... ;-) (yeah, that's why all the really good stuff like saws and shelves are gone when you get there, even though you are the first one there Thursday morning...)