Although reserved, people in the street were friendly and willing to meet our gaze and return a smile.
Traditional German food in Huntsville seems just as good as in Bavaria. Perhaps traditional German food travels better than other ethnic dishes. Or maybe Huntsville restaurants do a better than average job of presenting it (Huntsville has a lot of traditional German restaurants due to the large number of German scientists who emigrated there following WWII).
On the shelf in a grocery store: Mississippi Barbecue Sauce. For those of us from the U.S., Texas would be a more obvious branding choice, or even Tennessee if you wanted something related to the deep south.
We were made a couple of times to feel a little foolish for asking questions in a store, compared to Alabama where the clerks would have apologized to us. “Do you have this in blue?” Germany: “If we had it in blue it would be on the shelf.” Alabama: “I’m sorry, we only have it in orange.”
The Munich subway works on the honor system. Although we didn’t experience it, there are regular control events when riders are checked and heavy fines issued for not having a ticket. As an observer it’s nearly impossible to tell how well this works. But Germans seem to be rule followers in general. And Googling indicates illegal ridership is pretty low.
You are expected you to know how things work or at least to read the signs. In short, they expect you to act like adults. I didn’t see anyone paid to simply stand around telling people which line to get into, as I immediately experienced upon returning to the United States.
