KNITTING WITHOUT DOG HAIR IS NOT AN OPTION

Yup - that's Germany. Germans love their laws and to have their things in order... I'm in a bad mood today and I need to vent a little, sorry. It's not all pretty flowers and "Sound of Music" scenery over here.

I've made a lot of observations over the course of the 2½ weeks I've been back in Germany. One of them is how very unhappy Germans can be and how much they bicker about things.

For example - some time last week I was going from work to my roomie's apartment on the subway. There was an elderly couple sitting across from me and the man started ranting to his wife about a nearby guy who had brought his bicycle on the subway. This is allowed at certain times, but not at the time we were on the train. And the older man keep ranting and ranting and ranting - how the bicyclist should be fined and how he should be thrown off the train, yada-yada-yada... Bottom line was the subway car was half empty, the bicyclist was in the designated area where he can stay with his bike, and he didn't take up any space anybody else needed. BUT - there's a law and it has to be obeyed and people have to be punished. I know what you want to say, where to draw the line? Today it's taking a bike on the train at the wrong time, tomorrow it's robbing a bank. Well, you know, the old ranting guy didn't say anything to the bicyclist, but ranted the whole time to his poor wife, and I had to listen to him too. I think if he wanted to enforce the law, he should have said something to the bicyclist or try to find a conductor to enforce the law for him. But I guess that was too much work or would have involved having to actually confront the offender.

At least I had my knitting and my matra (knit 1, purl 1, Claudia...). But, gosh, this made me so-o-o-o angry... I've had to endure a bunch of similar things and I truly wonder what's going on with some of the people around here. I know it's not everyone, but there is a lot of bickering.

And since January this year Germany has a new law to enforce NO SMOKING. No smoking inside any public buildings. You can see all the smokers going outside for a cigarette break. There are also designated smoking areas at the train station. I couldn't help taking a picture of one:

You can see the yellow boundary painted on the stones. I didn't dare take a picture 5 minutes earlier - the yellow square was full of smokers. I think it's pretty funny that you have stand in that little square to smoke - it's so German. They all squeezed into the square - really!

And as a knitter you can imagine that I truly like the new NO SMOKING law. :-)