Friday, January 29, 2010

More on driving

I thought I would give you a little more insight to what it is like for driving/going on a trip here.
When you go to the gas station to fill up you have choices like back in the states (back home whether you want regular, super or super plus - i think the octane ratings are 87, 89, and 91 or something like that). Here they are a little bit different as the have different levels here. Here the octane levels are 95, 98 and some gas stations even have octane ratings in the 100's. Not sure if the number means the same here in Germany as it does back home, but if it does I think the 100 octane stuff would be like jet fuel.

Another thing that is different. Here when you are on a trip (on the autobahn) and need to pull off at a gas station/food place to go to the bathroom, you have to pay .50 euro to get into the bathroom. Then when you come out they give you a little voucher for .50 euro, so if you get something to eat you can use that (these places are called serways). They are nice places but it stinks when all you have is a 5 or 10 euro bill and you need .50 euro.
This is also the same at many other places. When we were at Oktoberfest there is a table outside the bathroom and a dish with a note that says to leave .30 or .50 euro. I think it is for the people that clean the bathroom as pretty much every place you go to asks you for this and has someone waiting outside the bathroom next to the dish/table it sits on. When we visited one of the Cathedrals they had a guy waiting by the bathrooms and when we went to the Frankfurt Weinachtmarkt (Christmas Markt). I know small bars and restaurants dont have them so maybe it is just at bigger events.
Speeding. Here in Germany they have speed cameras, but not set up on lights or at intersections like they did in Melbourne. Here it is a portable speed camera. When the police want to target an area they set this speed camera up. What it does is: when you go past it and you are speeding, these lights flash at you and it takes a picture of you. It not only records your speed and take a picture of your liscence, but actually takes a picture of you in the car so there is no way you could possibly try and get out it. So here if you say "I got flashed today" it doesnt mean you were at Mardi Gras or something like that, it means you will have a ticket coming in the mail. I have to say we have been lucky enough up to this point not to have gotten flashed. Hopefully it will stay that way until the end of the year.

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