Due to sheer laziness I have been absent from the blog world for the majority of this week, and I am not feeling all that more energetic this morning, so I thought I would share just a couple of the more humorous pictures that I have captured in my travels so far. At the top is a sight that is common to most every German public restroom that I have been in. Inside each urinal there is a soccer goal with a small soccer ball hanging from the top crossbar. Apprantly going to the restroom in Germany became too mundane, and so they decided to make it a bit more exciting. Sorry ladies, I hear there is nothing even remotely entertaining for you while using the restroom in Deutschland.
On the bottom is perhaps one of my favorite pictures so far, mainly for the jaw-drop factor when it occurred. If you recall that a couple of weeks ago I went out with some Americans to the large Biergarten in the Rathskeller. Well, as we were sitting enjoying the music and drinks we looked to the table next to us and saw two small children, and I mean really small children, something around 2 or 3 years old, drinking their parents' beers. As the picture illustrates, they were not sipping their glasses, they were drinking nearly the entire half-litre between them. It is a bad picture, because the parents were beginning to notice us staring, so I had to take the picture as nonchalant as possible. Needless to say, the children danced excitedly for the rest of their stay in the garden.
postscript: We wondered whether or not this was common practice, seeing as everyone drinks alcohol in every place and time imaginable, and so I have shown the picture and quizzed several people about their take on the incident. Thankfully, most were at least moderately surprised. Obviously Europeans are not nearly as puritanical about drinking as Americans, and perhaps for this reason I have only seen a handful of "drunk" drinkers, and I would bet half of them were tourists. From the time they are born alcohol does not have the same seediness associated with it as it does in the States, and so I think the abuse of it is not as alluring. Legal drinking age is 16, I believe, but many parents allow their youths to drink in moderation before that time. Very few, though, would let their 2 year old have a 1/4 litre, thank God.
Alcohol is very common in a German's life, that's for sure. Most parents / people would not even consider letting children drink alcohol though and if they do, this would happen at home and just to let them taste what the adults are having. On the other hand, you are in Bavaria, which is not really part of Germany, as you may or may not know...
Soccer goals in the restrooms must be a side effect of the World Cup, they disappear soon enough after the event is over - then again I wonder how many of them disappear during the event!?
I emailed the pic of the soccer goal in the toilet to many of my co-workers. There were chuckles heard all over the office. Thanks for the laugh Michael! :)