Kultur 4

I found these articles to be very informative and very true. From my short time in Leipzig, Germany, I learned some of these lessons the hard way, such as not stepping out in front of cars (especially rail cars!!!). Bicycles are indeed a very common occurrence, with lots of bikes chained up in the main square of a town or pedestrian zone. I have also witnessed a plain clothes officer on the bus with the tickets. Luckily, I had my own, but the little old lady next to me did not, and she paid the fine... I have never experienced any problems with ordering a ticket and the responses, but I can see how that would be an issue given the directness of the German culture. You asked a question, and they answered it as literally as possible. In a sense this is nice I suppose as you no longer have to question exactly what the meant by the statement. If you did not ask specifically for that, then you don't want to know about it. I do believe that there is some kind of big deal about the stop and walk people on the crosswalk signs in Berlin, but I cannot remember what it is about. Perhaps I'll save that for another blog post.