6 Comments

  1. Dina VagabondQuest
    December 28, 2010 @ 6:51 am

    That reminds me when I was in Germany 10 years ago. That very early closing time was frustrating indeed… And that was not even the holiday season yet. Coming from big city where things in general closed at 9-10 pm, having stores closed at 5-6 pm was annoying indeed (regular week day).

    • Andrew
      December 29, 2010 @ 6:42 pm

      Yeah, that was normal 10 yrs ago. It is nice from a shopkeepers point of view, I guess. To have more time off, but for the office workers it makes things hard. I once thought it was all designed so that men had to get married early and women had to stay home in order to get anything actually done. Dunno if it true though.

  2. Jen
    December 26, 2010 @ 12:34 pm

    Funny, but when I lived in the U.S. Sundays were my quiet days even then. I rarely went shopping on Sunday, and I like that in Germany you are “forced” to not shop that day. But still, like you say, it is annoying to have such limited hours on other shopping days, and it just makes the shopping more crowded and intense. One definitely has to learn to plan ahead here!

    • Andrew
      December 26, 2010 @ 12:57 pm

      And thus is the point of it all.. to instill the proper German value of planning.

  3. Sabina
    December 25, 2010 @ 3:33 pm

    Stores are still closed on Sundays in Germany?! That’s great! They were in ’98 when I spent a semester there, but I figured they’d moved out of that mindset. I’m glad to hear they haven’t. In the US years ago stores were closed on Sundays. I guess it was the first Sunday after I came back from Germany, I was driving by a KMart. I need to go and thought to myself oh, I’ll go there tomorrow. Then all of a sudden I realized hey! I can go today! I really do get sucked into other cultures very quickly.

    • Andrew
      December 25, 2010 @ 4:23 pm

      It is slowly changing. The grocery stores are open longer than they used to be. Certain stores are able to get exemptions,including things like flower shops on Mother’s day. Ive read of a fight in Berlin to allow department stores to open. I think it will come eventually, but it could be a long time. The church still has a lot of control here for one. Secondly the labor laws are fairly strict and the argument will go that by opening on Sunday you force people to work more. And it wouldn’t raise sales, just spread them out. In the end, I don’t know how I feel. Yes I would love to be able to have a second day to get stuff done, but without a car it would mean perhaps a second day running all over town to buy stuff I don’t need.
      I agree with you, I’m happy sometimes that they haven’t changed that mindset. I’ll take my day off, but I would like evening hours to be extended please.