Saving energy

Though I have always leaned towards the conservative side of things (ok, more than leaned...), I have certainly noticed a large shift left over the last 5 years in my political and personal views. As part of that, I have found myself making more of an effort to conserve energy and recycle, especially here in Germany where recycling is a big deal and everyone has several sets of trash that only certain products may be thrown away in. However, there are times I don't make the effort, largely when the effort inconveniences me. For example, we were in France this weekend and had to replace the batteries in my kids Leapsters. Rebecca insisted on bringing all the batteries back home (in addition to already having more than we really needed for an overnight) to recycle them there instead of throwing them away in the hotel. I would have thrown them away in the hotel. And there are some times when the effort to conserve energy seems to go just a bit too far here. In particular, lights in certain rooms and bathrooms are programmed to shut off if no motion is detected in a certain amount of time. And that time is WAY TOO SHORT. When you end up using the bathroom and are there for greater than 3 minutes, it is quite an issue to be stuck in an unfamiliar stall in pitch darkness with the motion sensor near the doorway. Absolutely ridiculous.

Closed Sundays

I may have written a bit about this before but the whole issue arose once again in our weekend trip last weekend. When we first arrived in Germany, the concept that all stores (except restaurants, bars and gas stations) were closed on Sundays was very difficult to get used to. It meant that all shopping for the weekend (and school lunches on Monday) had to be completed before the stores closed Saturday. And since Germans shop daily typically (as they cannot fit anything more than a days worth of food in their tiny refrigerators and there are not preservatives in food), everyone else was at the stores on Saturday too. (It actually has gotten alot better since I lived here in 1989 when stores were open once or twice a month on Saturdays and only until lunch time).
As time went by and we got used to getting the shopping completed and spending Sundays as Germans truly intend - united as a family, not distracted by mundane household stuff - and actually liked the idea of not shopping Sundays. Rebecca went so far as saying that she wanted to bring the concept back to the US with us when we moved back. I am not quite convinced but understand why she likes it.
However, this weekend we went to Strasbourg, France and Baden-Baden, Germany for the weekend just to see the cities as we had heard positive comments. We had a great day in Strasbourg, only to find that when we wanted to grab dinner at 5:30 (the kids go to bed at 7, especially after an afternoon of swimming like Saturday). Nothing opened prior to 7 pm and even that would have been hard to find according to the hotelier. So...off to McDonald's we went, not happily but far better than experiencing the meltdown of going to a French restaurant 90 minutes later, not finding anything our picky kids would eat and enjoying the meltdowns of the kids....
The next morning we got up, me out the hotel door to find a bakery for something to eat. And, alas, according to the hotel, absolutely nothing is open on Sundays except restaurants later in the day. So frustrating...especially for those of us being used to being able to run out at whatever whim we have to eat, shop, anything....so we ended up at a below average buffet at the hotel for only $27 per person...I am no cheapskate, but this just seemed to ridiculous to me when a $2 croissant would have sufficed.
People ask me why I like the US better and what I won't miss about Europe and this is a huge one - what I perceive as better customer service and availability of things when I want them. That is all so restricted around here...