Out and About in Germany : November 2016

This is my Porsche :)

I feel so happy riding my bike to, around, from and through town. It gets me everywhere I want to go. I have no traffic to consider in planning the ride. I can spend 30-45 mins going to my destination and feel it was time well spent.

If I ride 60 minutes total per day zipping around town I can get so many errands done and have an awesome workout done for the day! I even get the best parking spots right next to the front door every time!

How many of you have parked this close to the mall before? Especially with Christmas around the corner? Awesome, huh?

Biking is popular here. The paths are great in and around town and there are people of ALL ages and stages of life riding.

Today I was leaving a cafe and found I had a flat tire. I felt a certain type of sadness I haven't felt before for a mode of transportation. My second baby was not doing well. I took my bike to the bike shop per bus and sat like a worried mother in the waiting room. The bike technicians in the shop found the culprit, a small shard of glass. Hooray! My bike was in excellent shape again and felt like a new car. Vrooom!! Vrooom!!

When I gripped the handles my smile and happiness returned and I was on my way again.

Doesn't she (Sweet Pea) look great with a baguette in the basket :)

"The refrigerators are smaller,” remarked my dad during a recent visit. Sooooooo much is smaller. The houses, refrigerators, food packaging, cars and toiletries, just to name a few, are all smaller.

Here’s our fridge all shiny and new and there is our fridge after going shopping.

This makes grocery shopping interesting, charming and entertaining. There are teeny-tiny packages of so many products. Even the bands at the registers where you place the food to pay are smaller.

Here is a photo of some baking soda. It’s a teeny tiny package with about 3 teaspoons in it. But that’s all you really need when baking a cake or loaf of banana bread, isn’t it?

Baking Soda

Here is a photo with some other baking supplies: 2.2 lbs of flour (Mehl), peanut butter (Erdnusscreme), baking soda (Natron) and baking powder (Backpulver).

Small packaging makes it possible to fit the food in the teeny-tiny fridges.

We are considering upgrading our current fridge to a larger fridge. Here are some of the options. I think that’s all we really need. One of those big beauties would be juuuust right :)

Refrigerators (Kühlschränke)

Smaller packaging may also be a way to reduce food waste. Food waste is a concern in Germany. Some buffet style restaurants are considering adding fees for food left uneaten. One restaurant in Stuttgart (a city in Southern Germany) implemented a 1 Euro fee (approx. 1.10 USD) to customers that don't finish everything on their plates. (1)

Here is an interesting food waste factoid published by World Resources Institute:

We estimate that if the current rate of food loss and waste were cut in half―from 24 percent to 12 percent―by the year 2050, the world would need about 1,314 trillion kilocalories (kcal) less food per year than it would in the business-as-usual global food requirements... (2)

Wow! By reducing food waste we can ensure adequate food supplies for so many years on a global level!

Wouldn’t it be nice to reduce household food waste by 30%? This would reduce the impact on the environment due to packaging, gas in transporting and production, energy in producing the food and potentially cut your grocery bill by 30%!!! It’s nice to contemplate.

Here are the sliced teeny tiny meat packages, delicious cheese options and a teeny tiny 1 Liter (approx. 0.26 gallon) of milk container.