Hello. Sorry for the delay in getting up the Berlin pictures. My parents are sending me a copy of their pictures in the mail and I thought I would wait to include some of theirs rather than adding them later.

In the meantime here is a little story...

Last Sunday Toby and I decided to go for a walk. The weather was beautiful and sunny and mild, which was a welcome change from the frosty temperature in Berlin. I grabbed our bag of recyclable glass bottles on the way out the door since we would be passing the glass recycling bin on our walk. The recycling bins here are sort of like the ones in Calgary. They are in a public place and you just dump your glass into the large bin. Often it shatters and makes a bit of noise.

I think it could be for that reason that you are not allowed to return glass on the weekend, but I don't know for sure. The thought crossed my mind as we were leaving with our glass that perhaps it wasn't allowed on a Sunday but we took the chance anyway.

We arrived at the glass bin to find that the compartments were very full, no doubt due to the extra wine consumed at Christmas (I think the "green" compartment was filled entirely of glühwein bottles) and proceeded to slide our glass into the compartments where we could find room. Meanwhile some children about 30 meters away were lighting off leftover New Year firecrackers.

When we were about halfway done a young-ish man in a jogging outfit came out of nowhere and started yelling at us. I say yelling but I guess he wasn't really "yelling". He was speaking in a loud, angry tone. Very loud. Very angry. I gathered that he was telling us that it was not allowed to return glass on this day. Can't we read?!! It says it everywhere! He points to where it says "werktags, 7-19".

Toby and I froze on the spot like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi, bottles in our hands raised in mid-air between our bag and the opening to the container. We didn't know what to say. He was right after all. We just didn't think it was that big a deal because we were being so quiet about it, especially considering the firecrackers going off around us (also illegal). I knew that I wouldn't be able to argue with him in German, and I didn't want him to hear my accent and so sully the reputation of other Canadians (or more likely Americans in his mind) as blatant law-breakers so I just stood there. And so did Toby. Eventually he stopped. I find that when Germans get going they usually stop for a minute, then get a second wind and do some more yelling. So we waited it out. Then he stopped and walked away.

When he gone far enough that we couldn't see him anymore, we continued, as if nothing had happened, to put our bottles in the bins. What were we supposed to do with them at that point? Take them home?! Then we moved on rather quickly.

We continued our walk around the neighbourhood, stepping over shards of glass and firecracker wrappers with almost every step. We were a bit shaken by the incident of course. We're just not used to that kind of confrontation. We talked about what we could have done or said to him, like most people do after a confrontation. And we compared it to what might have happened in Canada (most likely the same message would have been delivered in a more friendly tone "hey guys, did you know ..." type of thing. But I don't know if a Canadian would have bothered saying anything.) Anyway, we shook it off rather quickly. We are developing thicker skins. Thick, crusty, scaly skins.

When I told a Spanish classmate this story at German class he said, "you need to be careful, people will call the police about that kind of thing". I did remember seeing a police car cruising around the neighborhood on our walk. He couldn't have ... could he? Nah, I doubt it. I think police cars cruise our neighbourhood regularly. It would have been pretty crazy though to be taken in the charge of recycling on the wrong day.

Anyway, the situation gave me a lot to think about. It made me wonder what a German person would have done in the same situation. Perhaps Germans are more rule abiding and would never have returned the glass in the first place. (But if that's true, why is there so much glass and garbage littering the streets? Isn't there some kind of law against littering?) Would a German ever think, "aw screw it, I don't care if it's Sunday, I don't want this glass littering my house anymore, I think I'll slip it into the container today"? If they did, and if they were caught in the act, like we were, how would they respond? I'm guessing they would argue back, based on the arguments between strangers that I've witnessed here, and argued hard, long and loud. I wonder what that man thought of us? We didn't argue. We didn't respond. We didn't really even acknowledge his presence. Hmmmm...

Well, I know that some of you that check in on this blog are German or have lived in Germany. Do you have any thoughts on this situation? I would be interested to get some perspective...

Anyway, I will be posting some Berlin pictures soon, unless of course, I do anything illegal and outrageous in the meantime ... like j-walk.