Sunday shopping in Germany

I dig german bread, at least it has a smidgen of nutritional value, not like that spongey white shit

Fuck German bread. I'm glad to be away from it. Mmm...Santa Cruz rosemary and garlic sourdough...mmm.

those cunning germans have got us anglo-saxons fighting each other now!


for some reason that made me laugh a lot. We miss you IPJ!

Hey IPJ. I have to agree with you there. That Sour baguette shit they have going over there is well nice

Oh how I miss sourdough bread! Just the thought of a nice sandwich made with 2 thick slices is making my mouth water! Do they sell sourdough in the UK? We're moving outside of London soon...

mmmmm, sourdough is good stuff. Have to admit though, aside from being deprived of sourdough, the germans generally kick america's ass when it comes to bread. I probably think that 'cause I hate the white, processed, tastes-like-wet-styrofoam standard that I was fed at school.

So what's the difference between sour dough and Sauerteig bread, which is available everywhere here?

The concept is the same, it's just the execution that's different. Sourdough is just -- tangier. Ooh looky found a site in German that offers SF Sourdough recipes! http://www.petras-brotkasten.de/Brotsfsd.htm

the pictures look right...

[img]http://www.petras-brotkasten.de/SD19.jpg[/img]

So buy German Sauerteig Brot and dip it in vinegar...

was in Stuttgart yesterday, one of the big department stores was open for business!

All stores have 2 optional Sunday openings a year...

I was just in an alehouse that I sometimes frequent for a much needed libation after the trials and tribulations of shopping and was absolutely gobsmacked to hear the locals whining and bitching about the lack of sunday shopping.

Seems it's not only the expats think it's dumb.

After shopping on a Saturday, I am really grateful the the DIY store is not open on Sunday. Otherwise I could just pop down and get those few thing I need and spend the rest of the day fixing things up around the house!!
I like the fact that I can do nothing (except relax and enjoy myself) and not feel guilty, because the law is on my side for once.

I meant to add that I long for those days, before langer Donnerstag, when stores closed at 18:30 sharp in the evening and 12:00 on Saturdays (except langer Samstag when it went on until 15:00)!!

The answer's a no-brainer.

Abolish all opening hours and let the shop-keepers decide for themselves when they open. You'll find that most would open when they would get the most business, which on Sundays would exclude most smaller towns - apart from the supermarkets, perhaps. But that's OK.

I'm self-employed, live alone and have to work some weekends simply in order to pay the bills. Which means I don't have the time to go shopping dfuring so-called "normal" business hours. It would be a boon for me if I could go shopping between - for example - midnight and 6.00 am.

And there are an awful lot of unemployed who would leap at the chance to work Sundays or public holidays. This talk about violating the Sabbath or whatever is hypocrisy. If all restaurants and pubs etc. here were closed on the weekend, there'd be a revolution.

It's all about customer service.

(However, I'm not so naive as to believe that all this is ever going to happen in Germany.)

My two $NZ00.02.

You know this for certain do you? Let´s get exploited while everyone else has the day off, great! I find having one quiet day a week good. I certainly don´t feel the need to consume every day. I used to work weekends in a biergarten, you can´t meet up with your mates or anything, you work while everyone else is going out enjoying themselves.

Stop complaining, this is the way it is in Germany. You can´t expect everything to be like it is at home. Get used to it.

How is working on Sundays exploitation, but working Monday through Friday isn't?

Anyway, I'm convinced that the laws will change here soon. As little as 18 months ago, nobody foresaw the smoking ban or imagined that it would be implemented in Germany. Well look how quickly that changed.

Hope you get used to the new Germany when it happens...

Presumably they'd only allow shopping in the side rooms of supermarkets while the main area remains non-shopping.

Maybe I'm being assimilated... but even tough at the beginning I've hated the no store open on Sunday policy, now I find it's somehow refreshing that I have at least a day when I don't have to work or go to shopping.

p.s. In Munich there are a couple of small groceries stores open even on Sundays, if you really have something urgent to buy.

I liked it in Cyprus where the stores are closed on Sundays but at least you have corner stores everwhere for those few things you forgot to buy. The service stations here have Drinks (beer), Cigarettes and munchies. Service stations in Australia have practical mini-supermarkets.

I lived seven years in Cyprus and it took planning to have enough food and beer for Sundays. As you siad the small kiosks were open Sundays the basics in a jam.

If you live anywhere close to the Dutch border: I often buy clothes on sundays.
The outlet in Roermond is open every sunday. It's pretty big! Good variety.

http://www.designeroutletroermond.com/start.php?lang=en

Monday – Friday 10.00 – 18.00 hrs
Thursday 10.00 – 20.00 hrs
Saturday & Sunday 10.00 – 19.00 hrs

Toko:

Now that's what I call customer service!

Obviously that means that your money is not helping the German economy, but the Dutch economy instead...

If you work sunday you cant drink on sunday. I rather have the latter than the former. Esp if Marshbot is serving. J/K Timmeh.

Freedom of choice is nice isn't it? For those who don't want to go shopping on Sundays, don't. For those of us who do and live close enough to Holland, vamanos a Roermond!
And for this whole arguement about Sundays being reserved for families and a day of leisure - waitresses, airport personnel, DB personnel, the people at power plants, ER staff and truck drivers have families too. Glad sales staff are a special lot.

Thanks, tirico.

I said it was a no-brainer.

I wouldn't mind shops being closed on a Sunday if I had family to hang out with on Sundays... OR if shops were open a little later on weekdays and allowed me to go shopping after work.

They're open till 8pm for christsake. If you're still at work at that time of night you must start late, so go before you go to work. If you're at work before the shops open, you're in the wrong job!

Yeah, I'm just too lazy to go to town after work... lol, I was moaning more than anything

You should fit right in here!

not everyone enjoys a cushy job where you can leave everyday at 5pm to enjoy three hours of shopping.

So go before you go to work, they're open a t 7:30. It always amuses me how some people asume because someone finishes late they must somehow work harder. Get your arse into work early in the morning and you can go home early.

Ahh, the mantra of the utterly unskilled office worker - "I am fucking useless, have no skills, so I'll work 12 hours a day, and hope that makes up for it."

But that would involve making minor changes to your life, which isn't easy for people who think the world revolves around them.

Heck, doesn't everyone have a freezer at work where they can store their frozen foods all day? And a fridge for the other stuff, plus a storage room. Or else you can go to the store, go back home, then go to work. Let's see... my first bus arrives... errr... yeah, no probs

The draconian socialist bullshit laws that prevent sunday trading also prevent anybody working over 10 hours a day, so unless you are a muppet who (illegally) works longer hours than this, then you should be fine. If you are the sort of jerkass who works longer than 10 hours a day, then you are probably either really shit at your job or the sort of twunt who is probably well into the "work hard play hard" falsehood, and no doubt also goes to that gayest of places, the gym. Stop going to the gym, or stop being shit at your job, problem solved.

I get the principle behind Ruhetag, I really do, and shopkeepers deserve a weekend day. But my wife has an odd work week, Tuesday to Saturday, so Sunday is our ony day together, and I'd really like to be able to enjoy a full day somewhere rather than scraping by on what's open on Sunday.

I lived in the States and was in the mood to go to the public library and the thrift store (second hand store) on Sunday. Unbelievable that there is a prime free day for most folks when the library is not open. And, of course, a lot of the charity shops are also run by religious organizations. However, I felt annoyed by their closure yesterday.

I'm also annoyed by the number of stores which don't open until 10 a.m. on a daily basis. I get up so early that that seems like half the day has gone by before the stores open. Besides, who is available at 10 a.m.? I guess they feel that the evening hours until 9 p.m. are open for working people. However, who wants to shop in the dark? I don't. I want to go home, have dinner, and not leave my house again, unless I am going out.

I for one am perfectly aware that the world doesn't revolve round me. Which is why I can't chose my hours. I work when required and that often involves getting in to work at 7am to to have a video conference with Beijing yet still not being able to leave before 8pm. Now, I'd be quite happy to spend some of my fat pay cheque on groceries but I can't if the shops are shut. So the REWEs, Tengelmanns and EDEKAs of this world lose out and the King Woks, Call-a-pizzas and Shivas gain. Strange that some businesses providing food are allowed to open late, yet others aren't.

oh and clothes shops in Germany generally lose out on my custom altogether as I buy most of stuff abroad when on holiday or on business trips since clothes shopping on a saturday here is pure torture.

These laws do not apply to shift workers who often work 12hrs a day and are paid overtime.

If a shift worker had to work from 0700-1900 (Lets figure in 30-45min travel time each way), then there is very littly or no time
to go shopping before or after work. These people must go on Saturday, and if the have to work on a Sat. too that week then their
screwed. Sunday Shopping needs to happen, and happen soon. Even if its only from 1200-1600.

Just when I had become used to nothing open on Sunday, yesterday was some sort of fest where everything was open, merry go rounds and such for the kiddies, and I have to admit it was pretty nice. I bought books and just walked around and enjoyed all the open air stalls selling all kinds of junk.

Small towns are allowed to open their stores on Sundays only 2x per year. They usually turn the event into a small village fair.

Yes, that's what it was. TONS of people there!

So you and your wife can only spend one day a week together, and you'd like to spend it in a supermarket?

@DK, actually, I think it's four times a year, but as you say, it has to be linked to some sort of event.

This does not apply to tourist resorts though, they can pretty well open when they went. There was a bit of a fuss a few years back when some stores in Berlin started opening on Sundays claiming that Berlin was a major tourist centre. Not quite sure what happened about that in the end, since I reckon they had a point!

Souvenir shops are allowed to open on Sundays, but not any old shop in a tourist resort. So a branch of, say, DM in Oberammergau could not open on a Sunday, whereas a shop selling Bavarian hats and other related shite could.

That said, it is indeed sometimes difficult to define a tourist shop. Hungary – like most of Europe – has the same laws on Sunday trading as Germany, but the whole of the main shopping street in Budapest is now open on Sundays, the argument being that only tourists ever go there anyway.

It's not just tourist shops. I used to live in Glückstadt (near the mouth of the Elbe, in SH) and while they have an organised opening of pretty well all shops on the first Monday of the month (even Lidl opens then!), quite a few shops, particularly the boutiques, open every Sunday. This is only allowed from March to November (although in practice the advent openings kick in then till Christmas), however, I'm not sure whether this limitation is local, state or national.

I completely agree , it's nice to be able to spend time with your family, friends etc. on sundays, but some people want to be able to buy something on a sunday, shouldn't they too be allowed to too?

It is actually more Christian in origin, not socialist, comparable to the Jewish Shabbat or the Muslim Friday. Of course it is enforced only incompletely, e.g. I don't see a need for anybody to drive a car on Sundays.

Maybe now with all the economic troubles it would be a good idea to introduce Sunday shopping. The shops are so damn packed on Saturday I really can't be assed going there then, so I just don't go at all.