Setting the scene: Biking home after work, approx 9pm. I bike past the usual place I buy phone credit and the signs are still outside. I need phone credit, thats strange I think, I thought they closed at 7pm.

Lock up bike.

Check times on door, should have closed at 7pm.

me: Guten Arben

german phone credit retailer man (gpcrm): Hallo, (come on people if i’m bothering to guten arben, have the decency to not offer me a Hallo, i’m supposed to be abroad)

me: I thought you closed at 7pm? (why I feel the need to start these little conversations here as well I dont know, I guess I’m just chattier than I realised)

gpcrm: No, we close at 8pm in November and December

me: (non-verbal, think quizzical eyebrow movement) ?

me: Its 9pm now though?

(pause)

gpcrm: yes.

(5 second pause, Im waiting for further clarification)

me: (giving up) Well I’ll have a 15eur eplus card then please.

gpcrm: sure.

I love german people. It reminds me of the old days (circa 2000) when you used to only be able to send one text message at a time. So the phone would display remaining characters and u wud find smrt wys 2 reduc wrds 2 save £. Sometimes when talking to some german people it reminds me of that. That conversation is displayed in the german brain as a series of text messages (or sms’ as they would call them), and the aim is to reduce all communication into just the bare, efficent minimum to save verbal costs or something, maybe chit chat costs 12p a go here and no-one has told me.