Bloody Germans

3. The German Shops

The shopping habits of the German people are truly amazing.

First of all, they don’t have Supermarkets as we all understand Supermarkets to be. They have these tiny little mini-stores with names like ‘Aldi’, ‘Pennymarkt’, ‘Spar’, ‘Lidl’, ‘Mini Mal’ -- to name but a few.

They are about as magnanimous as the little ‘Spar Shops’, or twenty-four hour stores that can be found dotted around UK.  Why they have so many differently named stores sure beats me, as they all stock practically the same thing and all appear so identical inside.

Unlike shopping for food in Britain, there is no variation out here where one can go to one store to only obtain certain select items; ‘Tesco’s’ for fresh meat, then pop over to ‘Sainsbury’s’ for tin foods and streaky bacon, ‘Waitrose’ for veg and ‘Asda’ for cheap biscuits and a lottery ticket -- or wherever for whatever. All these German food stores are totally universal with all the food they sell, so there is no real point in shopping around.

 

They are also universal in everything else I am about to tell you..,

A far cry from UK, and possibly anywhere else in the world; barring third world countries -- the German shopkeepers don’t seem to favour opening their doors to customers too often. While in the UK -- twenty-four hour, seven day week shopping just isn’t long enough for them, so they continually search for more tucked away hours they might have missed out on. But in Germany and on a Saturday morning, if I am not out of my bed at the crack of dawn and up that road with my trusty shopping trolley before 1 p.m. -- then I’m gonna starve ‘till Monday morning!

On a Saturday at one one-a-clock sharp -- all shops slam their doors tight and no doubt, they probably block them off even further with stacks of furniture piled up high against the inside of the main door.

The reason I have to be up at the crack of dawn to go shopping on a Saturday is because first, they don’t appear to make any special stock allowance for the busy weekend shoppers. So if I’m not there quick enough, I won’t even be able to get sausages in for the weekend lunch. It’ll be sauerkraut for us, or some other funny green stuff  they have that tastes very salty and resembles wet green grass-cuttings. The correct name for this strange dark green mixture is, Grünkohl.

Second -- because of the infrequency’s of the German normal weekly shopping hours; that function only when most people are busy at their place of work, it means that the whole of the hungry German populus will also be making their way to the shops on a Saturday morning before first light -- all at the same time and in mass droves!

Saturday morning, for most Germans is schnell einkaufen (pron: shnell eye’n cow-fun), which basically means -- quick or ‘speed shopping’. And from what I’ve seen of it, it’s more like Blitz-einkaufen!  I should however point out that this ‘Blitz-shopping’ relates more to the shoppee than to the shops themselves. It begins with an early morning wake up call, to a mad rush downstairs to grab all available shopping trolleys, baskets or other utilities -- and a speedy dash out to the car to join the hundreds and thousands of other similar shopee motorists in a ninety miles an hour; jump as many amber or ‘just turned to red traffic’ lights as possible -- dash to the stores.

So what do all the German shop managers, in all their well-known specialised field of organisation, do to counteract this sudden surge upon their stores?

Amongst four cash tills; three of which always appear permanently unmanned, they position one solitary staff person. The rest of the staff -- all two of them; the manager’s away on his sausage break -- start to push around wide trolleys of palleted goods that they have brought into the main store from the stockroom. This then slowly but surely proceeds to block up all the aisles and puts most display shelf products out of sight or reach. The situation then worsens as hoards of shoppers begin to remove items from their shopping trolleys and laden themselves heavily with their goods.  They then begin to abandon their shopping trolleys all over the store, simply because they can no longer pass through the narrow gangways that have been constricted even further with umpteen heavily laden stock trolleys, and dumped pallets of piled high; yet to be opened sometime next spring, boxes of stock.

The chaos is now all set to increase because with only one girl at the cash till -- the queue starts to get longer and weave its way from the till up and around the store -- up and down the trolley’d stock boxes, through each and every tiny accessible gap and out through the main door into the store car park. Now blocking ex-shoppers who desperately aspire to vault into their cars and engender rapid escape.

This long queue also denies further access for all shoppers in or out of the main shop doorway. Those who do manage to spot a passage through and crawl in on all fours -- cannot even see a display shelf, let alone gain access to select a product from one. All the shelved goods in the aisles have now become completely blocked up with umpteen laden stock trolleys and queuing people. Some, who might even be dead from suffocation but have no space in which to lie down, or others who fortunately whilst they were being slowly trampled to death, did manage to find a spot to lie and die in.  The rest; who by now are utterly miserable but still content to be on the survivors list and remain in full possession of all four limbs, carry or drop their pre-hoped purchases as they edge their way slowly towards the till and freedom. Interwoven and scattered in between all this, are the abandoned but now well disfigured, mutilated or de-wheeled shopping trolleys.

With less than an hour left of total German weekend shopping time, the person at the cash till now adds even more weight to the dilemma; they have disappeared completely. They possibly ran out of till roll and there’s nobody available to either aid or even get near them to assist. So the till person evacuates their position and struggles through the shopping mob en-route for the stockroom. By the time they finally make it there -- they’ve forgotten what they came for -- so grab hold of stock trolley loaded with more wet grass-cuttings and decide to fill up a shelf instead!

Woe betide me if I just popped in there for one little item and then discovered that they didn’t stock it. Or that they did stock it, but it was now sold out. I’d never get out in time to purchase it at another store. Even if I did manage to squeeze my way through the chaos to the front of the queue, now I’d soon discover that I cannot squeeze through the gap at the cashier’s till. Thanks to some extreme security measure, or maybe simple shop space-saving -- in between the queuing trolleys and adjacent till structures, the exiting access; that I’d just dream to quickly pass through, is only large enough to thread one thinly made cigarette paper. If I then sought to make my by now desperate escape bid through one of the many unmanned till sections, or go back to attempt ducking under the one-way entrance point barrier -- I’d be met and prevented from doing so by security measures far sterner than existed at the Berlin Wall!

 Opening Hours

During the week and not all that long ago, the larger stores -- not the Supermarkets, but those that sell electrical goods, computers, records etc., they used to open up around 9 p.m. and then, by the time they’d pulled down all the barriers, piled the furniture high up against the door and rolled out the barbed wire, it was around 5 p.m., when the shop was officially declared closed. But through some European ruling, I suppose -- they decided to make their shopping hours a bit more relaxed..,

They pronounced --

“Let’s open till late in the evening!”

At first I thought, “This is brilliant! Germany is at last catching up with the rest of the modern world -- I could, ‘shop till I drop’. Well, at least ‘till seven in the evening!”

But then, that was until one early morning when I decided I needed something for my computer or some musical pleasure. I forget which. I waited for the hours to pass and then left home in good time to reach the store just as it was opening around 9 a.m.

I do like to plan well.

But when I arrived at five minutes past nine, the main doors of the store were still shut tight. What became more of a concern to me was, “Where were all the other irritated customers who could have assisted me in thumping and kicking on the door?”

They were nowhere to be found because unlike me, they’d already figured out that if the store was going to add on a couple of hours into the early evening, making their new closing time later at 7 p.m., instead of 5 p.m.,. -- then that would mean they would also have to add on the same amount of hours to their 9 a.m., morning opening time -- designating 11 a.m., as their new but later time of unlocking the doors.

I had to wander around and waste most of my morning counting sausage eaters until I could finally enter the store at 11 a.m.

I could have had a long lay-in had I known that!

So that was Germany’s answer to their ‘extension of shopping hours’ -- the same amount of time, but just shift ‘em around a bit!

Christmas is the same -- no change in hours whatsoever for the Christmas period. And seeings the Germans celebrate Christmas Eve; it is their ‘Christmas Day’ as we understand ours on the 25th -- that means on Christmas Eve at one ‘o clock -- everything is shut tight until after the whole holiday period is over. And I won’t find any ‘24-hour’ or even little corner shops open anywhere over the holiday period either. So if I forgot to buy my turkey stuffing, then I’d have to shove a tin of that green salty grass-cuttings up it instead.  Though, I might have also decided to get in a chicken for Christmas -- I can’t think for the life of me why, as chickens in Germany are so small it would be like trying to stuff a budgerigar. But if I had bought a chicken as well as a turkey for Christmas, but then forgot to buy the stuffing, then my  problem would be easily solved -- I could just stuff the chicken up my turkey!

Another time, again on a busy Saturday morning, I decided to shop at one of Germany’s most popular large electrical; ‘all singin’ an’ dancin’’ stores. Only this time I got it right -- I was there dead on 11 a.m.

But it was still closed.

I waited and waited.

Half-past eleven and still it remained closed. Not one pushy salesman in sight!

Then suddenly, a few other people arrived and they too wondered why this was so. At least now I didn’t feel so alone in all this. It also confirmed to me that I was not being singled out in a conspiracy..,

“Look out.., here she comes.., shut the door quick -- everybody get down and keep quiet ‘till she goes away again!”

Then suddenly, this young guy in a white store coat opened the main door and was off on an errand; probably off to buy some sausages or look for his lost manager who popped out to the local food store three-weeks ago.

I asked..,

“It’s  gone 11 a.m., why isn’t this store open -- and when will it be open?”

“Not until Monday!” Came back his reply.

“Montag?”

(Sorry, I forgot to translate it for you)

“Monday?”

“Why Monday?” I said. “Normally this shop is open on a Saturday. I’ve come up here special to buy a washing machine, an electric iron, a TV and stereo system, a grandfather clock, a fondue set and a cuddly toy (sorry, I couldn’t help that), a full computer pack, including a web cam and me ME Windows, but now you tell me -- I have to wait until Monday..., Warum?”

(Sorry…, I mean..,)

“Why?”

“Ve, as a rule, are open on a Saturday -- but zis morning, ve are taking the stock!”

“You mean, you’re shoplifting?”

“Nein! Ve are doing zer stocktaking?”

“On a busy Saturday morning.., when most of Germany are free from work and are able to rush out and purchase their long hard saved and patiently waited for goodies! You are stocktaking?  On one of the busiest days of the week.., and at the end of a month when all pay cheques are in? Are you mad.., do you hate profit? Why not stocktake on a weekday -- at night-time even?”

“Nein -- ve always do zer stocktake around zis time und on a Saturday at ze end of zer month.., ven zere are no more days left!”

Then with a sickening smile that I just wanted to smack -- he skipped off happily to buy his sausages, or whatever.

You’d think somewhere along the line of management, in this twenty-first century of modern-day commerce, some boss somewhere in the whole of Germany would stand up at a board meeting and say..,

“ ’Ere boss -- vhy don’t ve all start doing our stocktaking at za much more sensible und convenient time for zer shopper? And not, as ve do, at a time zat could seriously lower our profits. I mean, if you really zink about it -- myself und my vife did zis veekend vhilst dipping our sausages into zer mayonnaise und mustard…”

“Vas! No Ketchup?”

“ -- If somevun comes to our store on za Saturday morning to buy an urgently needed product -- a birthday gift perhaps.., for somebody zat zay might know. Or maybe to replace something zat zey bought here yesterday und now it has turned into many pieces that are now broken. Or to repurchase an item zat has been taken avay vhilst being ge-stolen.., or because today is ze only day zat zey might have free und be at our store, because zey are not somevhere else…, and zen suddenly -- ve are closed for our stocktaking. Zen.., zere ist a good possibility zat zey might not say -- as ve alvays zink zey may say --

“Okay thanks.., I’ll pop back again the same time next month!” --

Aber instead -- und before you can say `Johann Robinschon'., zey purchase zeir much needed item from a similar store.., not too far down zer road. From next door in fact!”

“You know, Heinrich -- in all my ninety-six years as zis company’s Chairman -- I never thought about zat before. You’re ge-fired!”

 Market Day

At a town here in Hamburg called Rahlstedt, every Saturday morning they have their Market Day.

This considerably small town not only sports a large busy shopping complex, it also flaunts a ‘gigantic Euro-style’ Supermarket, that is about one and a half times the size of an average ‘Waitrose’ -- yet still sells nothing but the same version of products that can be found everywhere else. But in fairness, the place does call for a lot more stock trolleys to block up the aisles!

The Euro-markt supermarket sits right in the centre of the fairly large and trendy looking shopping complex, amongst several other types of open-style modern stores, cafes and hot food stalls. At both ends of this complex and stretching outside from each of the main doors, there are two long traffic-free shopping walkways, where even more shops, restaurants and ice-cafes can be found. This part of the shopping precinct has been brightly paved with light brown coloured brick stones, and has been further decorated with many small trees and beautiful flowers. In summer the scene is far more picturesque, when the whole area is bedecked with people sat in the open eating and drinking at tables and chairs that have been placed neatly along the thoroughfare. At the head of each precinct walkway, I can meander right into the town itself.

Rahlstedt is a quaint looking town, that although first appeared to my eye as being very up-to-date, on a far closer inspection at the buildings all around, I was quickly assured that much of its antiquity has still been retained. I was immediately reminded of an Olde Towne area at a place called Poole; next to my hometown Bournemouth, that has also been redeveloped in a comparable and just as delightful mix and match way. And just like Poole’s old town, Rahlstedt also possesses a railway level crossing with a similar automatic lifting barrier that frequently holds up the impatient crowds. The only difference is that in Poole, those who have no time to wait for the train to go by, have to trudge their way over the top of an old brick bridge. In Rahlstedt town, the people there have to choose their alternative route via a dark underground subway.

But be that as it may, every Saturday morning and right smack bang in the middle of all this -- it’s Market Day at this town, and despite all the glorious beauty that there is around, when shopping in Rahlstedt, I will still have to spend all morning rushing around like a lunatic from stall to stall and shop to shop. Because again, identical to ‘Cinderella’s Coach’ -- it will all turn into nothing but blowin’ tumbleweed come 1 p.m.. 

I kid you not!

Once, there I was stood in the middle of this fair but hectic market street, surrounded by an array of  busy jostling crowds. There was loud music and market noise from all and sundry that was everywhere around and about me. Street entertainers, who joyfully distracted the passing crowds, singing in stark competition with the market stallers who kept bellowing out the price of their wares. As I shuffled along, the sounds from them both blended over the top of each other; fading in and fading out, as I moved from place to place.

Excited children screaming out loud for sausages on a stick. Fish traders, constantly dipping their nets into large water tanks that contained live fish to be sold then eaten. Large wood, plastic and metal bins -- each containing an almost overflowing brimful of fresh fruit, fish or vegetables, that kept passing by and over the top of me as I travelled and weaved my way from stall to stall.

I only popped in the loo for five seconds but when I came out again -- it was all gone.

Not a soul in sight!

I thought the aliens had landed and felt so relieved that they had missed me. Not even a stray dog could be heard howling in some dark and distant alley and the beggars and drunks had also cleared off. A town that not too long ago was peppered with excited jovial people -- was suddenly reduced to a ghost village.

And all because it was one o’ clock.

And that’s how it would remain throughout the rest of the weekend up until Monday morning..,

Dead!

Unfortunately, Rolf and I got to learn the hard way in regard to the other quaint features of this freakish town, when we decided for the first time to do our Saturday morning shopping there.

Somebody told us all about the large Euro-markt supermarket the town had, plus the combining delights of the Saturday market-day itself. So we thought, just for a change we’d drive up there and take a look around. You know, make a nice day of it all!

On arrival at the town shopping precinct, we parked our car inside the basement section of the mall car park. First, we went to the large supermarket and did our main weekly shopping, then afterwards, we looked around a good few of the other stores  -- and finally had a trundle around the market.

 

Subsequently, we carted all our shopping back to the car and placed it all inside. Then we thought; as one does -- just to nicely round it all off, we’ll pop back to the precinct and nip into the Spielhalle (fruit machine gaming hall) to play for a bit whilst having a drink of coffee.

Rolf likes to have a little flutter when he can afford too.

Alas, sometime later when we came back out again, not only did we discover to our surprise that the streets were all forlorn, people-less and bare -- but not too long after that, we also discovered; this time more to our shock and horror than to our surprise, that our car had been sealed in tight behind the locked doors of the basement car-park complex.

I admit, we might have spent a tad longer in that Spielhalle than we first intended, but it was still only around 4 p.m., on a Saturday afternoon -- Godammit!

We came across a uniformed security guard who was loafing around the precinct and acquainted him with our predicament. But despite Rolf trying to educate him with a legion of tales apropos his pain, misery, suffering and heartache, should he not set free his imprisoned car that was laden with goods; some that were by now desperately crying out for the sanctuary of a refrigerator. Even when Rolf zealously pleaded to him that without our car, we would have to incur a long walk home and to a morsel-less abode -- there was still no way he could talk that dickhead of a security guard into opening that blasted gate.

He just raised up his bulging sausage ridden stomach in a no-care defiance and refused bluntly to open the gates and let us in -- then out again with our shopping laden car.

“Come back Monday!” He said, “That is, if ve’re not taking zer stock., ‘haw, haw, haw’ -- ve Germans have such a funny sense of humour -- Ja?”

In the end, we had to bribe him with a hundred Deutschmarks before he would open up the gates and allow us to drive out with our car. I don’t know what he spent our hundred Mark’s on -- but if it was sausages, then I hope they bloody choked him!

‘Bloody Germans!’