Lunch in Germany

We went to Germany for lunch yesterday.

That is fun to say. :) ...and that is the main reason we did it.

My mom and I dropped the kids off at school and drove to Germany for the day. It only takes about 1.5 hours to get there so it sounds further away than it really is. Since things are so expensive here in Denmark that alot of Danes drive across the border into Germany and go to a "Costco-like" store. Soda, Diapers, Nutella... it's all cheaper in Germany so it's more fun to buy, and I used to enjoy looking at prices in Euros since it was more "regular" looking. (Bread costing 24,95 kroner just feels weird... 24,95 is too big of a number for a loaf of bread) But this time it was actually easier for me to look at the kroner price than the Euros!

When we were at the cashier to buy our things German cashier spoke ZERO English and she wasn't amused that I ONLY spoke English. I actually got the feeling she disliked me for no other reason than I was American and spoke English. When I tried to pay I gave her my credit card and my Danish CPR card because I knew I had to show her proof of residency in Denmark for some reason yet to be determined. She kept saying "pass" at me and pointing at her head, and then pointing at my cans of soda. I was really confused. Despite my knowing that she didn't understand a bit of my English I kept talking to her... and despite her knowing that I didn't understand a bit of whatever language whe was talking to me, she kept talking to me. It wasn't a real productive conversation but I wasn't leaving that store without my cheap soda and nutella! I finally decided she wanted my passport because it had my picture on it and she wanted to make sure I was me. I'm still not sure why she was pointing at my soda cans. I don't normally go shopping with a passport so I showed her my US Drivers License and after a phone call and a few nasty looks for good measure she allowed me to purchase my things.

I'm still not sure if I am allowed to buy the soda without Danish residency. ??? But I do know I had been saving my empty soda cans in bags around the side of the house for three months so I could take them back to Germany to redeem them for my 30 cents (They had to go to Germany because that's where we bought them.) I had put all the cans in a large garbage bag and we drove with them in the backseat the whole way to Germany only to find out after hauling them inside the store that I can't redeem them at all! So we drove the big bag of soda cans all the way back to Denmark. : ) Way more frusterating than it seems. But now that I think about it, I've never redeemed a can, only the plastic bottles - I wonder if here you don't get money for cans and only get money for plastic bottles; which would make perfect sense only because it's the exact opposite in America.

So while in Germany my mom and I did some shopping, ate our lunch, and experienced some Spaghetti Ice Cream. You really need to see a picture to understand what it was exactly. :) It was really cute and I wouldn't have known what it was if someone hadn't told me it existed. I had first saw Spaghetti on the menu and thought it would have been a good lunch for Scotty, but then I realized we were at an Ice Cream shop. -I just tried to get the picture from my mom's camera but it's not cooperating. It looks like someone squished ice cream through a play-doh noodle maker. ...but it's so cold it holds it's noodle shape. Then they put strawberry sauce all over it and flakes of white chocolate, which I just now figured out was the parmeasan cheese. It was yummy.

Okay I'm off to bed. I'm tired. :) Oh, and my spell check won't work so I'm not going back to proof-read this...