I hate Sundays in Germany

I do not know if they are allowed or not, but the ones I know they do not do it. They even ask the people not to gather outside or make any noise in order to avoid conflict with the neighbours.

I'm guessing more than the 6 bucks an hour I got paid when I worked at a grocery store..

depends where they work , i know a few who work in bars and get about 6 an hour and some who work in the big chain s who over 8 an hour.

And if you are not organized and can't really get yourself around to focus on such trivial things as "toilet paper"??? Because, for example, you are busy saving the world or writing poems or music or whatever... what can you do?
Use paper tissues for a day, instead of the usual thing, I guess. Or, serviettes.


Right. If disorganized, at least be creative.

Borrow stuff from your mates - that's what I end up doing . I sometimes buy from cafes - a bit of cheese or milk etc - if there's something I really need or want.

Short of being incapacitated or caught short, I guess I could go to a public / cafe loo, or help myself to paper from, say, my gym .

I quite like nothing being open. I tend to do stuff that I could do anytime, so that I can free up the week to do stuff I can't do at weekends if you see what I mena - go to the gym or some sort of sport, German learning etc.

I did offer up this suggestion. But don't use the oak or ivy leaves as there's nothing worse than having poison oak or ivy on your butt.

Hey guys, I ran out of toilet paper. I had to take a shower after kacke-ing. I hate Sundays.

You don't have petrol stations in Berlin? Most of them have a little shop section where you can buy such essentials. I'm off to enjoy my Sunday, in the sunshine on a lake, lovely!

I can see it now:

"TT Germany, ass cleaning for the clueless since 2002"

How about: "TT Germany, never closed on Sundays"

I recommend a TT Sunday toilet tissue buddy share program for those who are most likely to run out on Sunday. We know who they are just from reading this thread.

So it would go something like this. You realize you don't have enough tissue for Sunday you will have two designated toilet tissue share buddies you can PM or call who live close by who are either willing to share a roll or give you some leaves. When they run out then you share with them. One good ass wipe deserves another.

"TT Germany, ass cleaning for the clueless since 2002"

Hey guys, i just decided i want to BBQ because I am that spontaneous but I do not have any meat. I hate Sundays.

That is exactly what I hate about Sundays, where do I get nice food if I decide to invite some people for dinner or to cook something special. I love to be spontaneous.
The other thing is, wherever you go on a Sunday there seem to be only the most boring people around. Also your neighbours expect you to be quiet because it is Sunday, so it's really hard to have fun on a Sunday.

Just as well. You probably would undercook something, catch a bad case of the runs, then find yourself short on TP...

Döner is open on Sunday, what more do you need? They can grill for you and they usually have a WC.

Didn't you get rained on?

I spent an hour just wandering around a US supermarket in awe of all the great stuff I could purchase with cheap dollars on a sunday morning, it was glorious.

Eurovol
Loving lazy Sunday's since 1997!

BTW, WaWi was great today and so was playing Putt-Putt Golf!

Hey guys, I have this videos here I reaaaaaaally want to return today but I can't. I hate Sundays.

I assume you are on base? Where is this US supermarket?

omg...this is the most depressing thread ever

but yes, I hate Sundays too...ZzzzZZzzzzzzzzzzzz

@gatzke - I'm visiting home, sorry to get your hopes up.

Just wondering what those people who enjoy picnics and skipping through the parks with their families on Sundays do when the weather's shit?

What about when the forecast is for a fine Saturday when you have to do your shopping and crap on the Sunday? Isn't it annoying that you can't just switch things around to enjoy the good weather and run errands when it's not...

But that would involve consulting a weather forecast, something that an amazingly low number of people actually do. What would actually happen is that everyone would run their errands on the Saturday as usual, and then when they get up on Sunday and see that it's raining, go to the shops again purely to kill time.

You do realise that it is possible to spend time with friends and family indoors as well as outdoors, don't you?

Sundays are great ! Just got back from another all day hike , going up and coming down the Benediktenwand and also walking along the ridge . Absolutly fantastic views , and it threw down one hell of a storm which saw us forced to take shelter in a mountain summit hut . The storm blew over as quickly as it came though . Great day out

Really? Then you obviously don't give the locals here a lot of credit - and if they were too stupid to figure this out for themselves, then that would be their own fault. If shops were open on Sundays and I had to buy a lot of things on the weekend, but also wanted to go to for a bike ride or something, then I'd definitely look at the weather forecast on Friday and choose the day with the better weather to go cycling - rather than spend a beautiful Saturday inside running errands, and then a rainy Sunday trying to think of some alternative way to spend the day doing something that I didn't really want to.


You do realise that it's possible to spend time with family and friends even if shops are open. Or do you believe we're all going to be subject to some sort of clocking in procedure like some people have in their workplaces and then we have to demonstrate that we've been to the shops for a certain amount of time every Sunday?

It didn't rain yesterday - I bet you would have been pissed off if it had chucked it down all day today...

Also, are you trying to suggest that if the shops were open today, that you wouldn't have done exactly the same thing? That you would have somehow have been compelled to go shopping? That's ridiculous...

The siren song of shopping can not be overcome, we must make sure that we can not succumb to it's insidious grasp at least once a week - it's not like we could make our own decisions.

If he worked at that store and had to work on Sunday, he wouldn't have been able to do the same thing. As far as I know opening times are there to protect the employee more than the customer.

I thought the limits on overtime were there to protect the employee? Opening on Sunday does not mean the employees all work an extra day... In a capitalist society, employee and employer would negotiate terms. Some places pay time and a half for weekend duty and overtime. But here, I assume terms are mandated by the government?

Again, I would rather work on Sunday when almost everything is closed. Especially if I could get OT pay!

Opening times and terms are government-mandated on union behalf representing the employee.

Germany isn't capitalist, it's ordoliberal. Even though the last four chancellors have put all they could into changing that >_>

True - then he might have had the Saturday off instead and been able to go when it didn't rain at all...

(I love Sundays in Munich, chance to sleep in, clean the flat, be lazy all day, maybe go somewhere to see the world go by, time for sports, friend, chatting on the phone, movies...)

How is that different to any other non working day?

That's nice for you.

I didn't work on Friday and I slept in, then made myself a nice fry-up breakfast. When I finished that, I called a friend and then my parents in Australia and talked for an hour or so. Afterwards, I met up with another friend who's here on holidays for coffee until late in the afternoon. When I got home, I did a load of washing and then chilled in front of the TV and watched the cricket.

I managed to spend the whole day doing pretty much what you described. Not once was I tempted to go to the shops and it didn't bother me one little bit that the shops were open for other people...

no need to run to shops because fridge is already full. no danger of shopping sprees just because you are bored. your friends have time as their errands are also done. (in my experience especially those with family, sunday is the best day to meet up with them.)

no need to run to shops because fridge is already full. no danger of shopping sprees just because you are bored. your friends have time as their errands are also done. (in my experience especially those with family, sunday is the best day to meet up with them.)

no need to run to shops because fridge is already full. no danger of shopping sprees just because you are bored. your friends have time as their errands are also done. (in my experience especially those with family, sunday is the best day to meet up with them.)

I give the Germans far more credit than that. I don't believe for a second that most of them can't control their shopping sprees and have to run to the shops every time they get bored. It would be a tiny minority with other issues that would fall into that category - but we can't be inconvieniencing everyone to save those poor individuals from themselves any more than we can ban the sale of matches to save arsonists from playing with fire.

Oh - and even in places where Sunday shopping is allowed, Sundays are still the best time to catch up with family and friends. At least it was in Australia for me - only difference is that you could organise a spontaneous BBQ and spend 15 minutes going to the supermarket to get some meat - an amount of time that still won't ruin your day. Do service stations here sell meat? I've never bought any from there and in any case, I'm not sure I'd trust ARAL sausages...

Hazza I totally agree with you.

Well, Sunday is the best day to catch up with friends even if shopping is allowed, provided you do not have to work in a shop.

15 mins to the shop wouldn't ruin my Sunday, working 8 hours would.

I had to work saturday, after 8 hours at the office I really was not in the mood for grocery shopping, but I did go, because I knew I would otherwise starve on sunday then.
I would have prefered to go shopping sunday instead on late saturday when I had no interest and the shelves were empty.

I work in a Dental office and we are open saturdays, evenings, heck, we are open longer than the shops are, we have had to adapt to the times, why cannot the shops?

Why is sunday such a special day for catching up with friends? I prefer saturday as it allows me to get shitfaced with them and then have a day of recovery afterwards

If sunday is forced closed, shouldn't we go back to a 5 day week and force the shops to shut on saturday too? What about all the poor people having to work saturday? EVERYONE deserves a full weekend to relax.

Firefighters, police, security staff, doctors, nurses, midwives, ambulance drivers, bus drivers, train drivers, train conductors, U-bahn drivers, tram drivers, MVV ticket inspectors, taxi drivers, pilots, airport check in staff, baggage handlers, flight attendants, Airline mechanics, air traffic controllers, fast food workers, waiters/waitresses, chefs, bar staff, service station attendants, Life-guards, Zoo staff, film projectionists, shop-keepers at the train station or at the airport, Sports field ground-staff, professional sportsmen/women, museum staff, parking inspectors, Sport "Platzwarts", Hotline call-centre staff, TV cameramen, newsreaders, radio DJ's, musicians, actors, etc, etc, etc all have to work on Sundays.

What makes the checkout chick at Tengelmann so fucking special?

Working 8 hours ruins my day Monday-Friday. Anyone working Sunday probably gets an extra day off sometime during the week and/or gets paid decently for the privilege.

I'm glad we've got plenty of shops able to open Sunday 'round here under the Bäderregelung, at least during the spring-autumn. Still crazy that they can only open 12-18:30 though - apparently the reason they're not allowed to open Sunday a.m. is so that they're not open at the time of the main church services!

She wears nothing under than disturbingly attractive white coat ?

And working "weird hours" is no excuse. A person works something between 35 and 40 hours a week, there is still plenty of time to buy the goods. If you have important commitments that prevent you from buying food, then you have a priorities problem.


I need to add my 2 cents work to the above comments. The German system is still largerly based on the wife staying at home, cooking, shopping and the husband going out to work. However since in many cases both partners work, this is not possible anymore.

I don't know of anybody in a real office job who works 35-40 hours a week. Most days in the week I do not get home till 20:00, which prevents me from shopping during the week and which leads to the mad Saturday rush as many people have commented. However if "god forbid" I have some important social function like a wedding or a social life with a weekend away with friends to attend then I am pretty much screwed as far as shopping is concerned as I will get home on Sunday afternoon and not be able to buy anything for the week.

Also I live very near to the Dutch border and they now have certain supermarkets/fashion outlets that are open every Sunday and ironically the majority of the cars that you see there are German cars...so much for the theory that Germans don't want to shop on Sundays. Hey I take my hats off to the Dutch, they are intelligent enough to see a gap in the market and are rightfully earning money that they German lawmakers don't want the country to earn.

I agree with an earlier post here that shopowners in Germany should have the right to decide whether they would like to open on Sunday and not be forced by law to be closed. Doesn't sound like a 100% free market to me...

Shops complain about extra costs of staying open longer, do what other countries do and use willing students to work on the Sundays or "late shifts". Students get money for there studies and shops have lower than normal costs for the extra shifts...but of course this simple solution is not possible in Germany, where everything is made as complicated as possible.

Neither do nurses. Doesn't excuse them from working Sundays...

I feel for them. I was in the same position when I joined the R.A.F. Imagine my suprise when I realised I had to work "unsociable hours". They must have been similarly shocked too. I was so thankful for Sunday openings as I found out that many people that held the jobs you have mentioned had starved to death due to the shops being closed on a Sunday.

Thank goodness the shops are open on Sundays or all of the aformentioned employees would be dead, through no fault of their own. Perhaps you should start a campaign, a boycott, in order to bring it to their attention that they will be expected to work unsociable hours and that they should only work in "civilized" countries where the shops are open 24/7 and hence increase their life expentancy.

Have you any links showing, conclusively, that the death rates due to starvation as a direct result of the shops being closed in any country on a Sunday are higher than those that allow 24/7 opening. We can study the results and choose our future job and location with full confidence.

Many thanks.

If there are shops open on Sundays in Holland they are few and far between, not only that but they shut a 6pm during the week too.