Life in a tiny Village
We've been in Germany for a almost three and a half years now. We decided to write down a few things about Germany that we thought might interest you. These are not meant to make Germany look better or worse than but just interesting info.
- The sales tax is Germany is 19%. Income tax in Germany is close to 50%.
- Germany, like most of western Europe uses the Euro (before it was the Mark). The Euro has been very strong against the Dollar since our arrival here (on average we receive about 70 Euro cents for one US Dollar. It's a missionary budget killer. =/
- Small fish bowls are forbidden in Germany! We went to buy a small fish bowl for Taylor but were told is was unkind for a gold fish to live in a small fish bowl and so they were no longer sold here.
- Tin cans are now very rare in Germany. They are very hard to find and when you do find them you have to pay almost 50% more (in addition to the cost) to cover a tin can fee.
- Tax em'! We have to pay a television and radio tax three times a year (about $75) just for having one - even if it's just in your car. We live in a valley and have absolutely no television reception, but are still required to pay the tax. The only exeption would be if the t.v. company came out and physically altered the t.v. so that it wouldn't be possible for it to receive any channels.
- Germany is a little bit smaller than the state of Montana (actually it's about the same size as South Dakota) and has a population of over 84,000,000 (Montana has 900,000).
- Germany has a population density of 234.9 people per square kilometer. Montana has 2.9 people per square kilometer and the U.S. has 29.77 people per sq. kilometer.
- The largest groups of ancestry in the U.S. come from England, Ireland, and Germany (Mexico to be added in the next 10-20 years).
Life in Mauchen
As we neared the end of our schooling we began looking for a new spartment that was bigger than one room. We found a great apartment in a tiny village half way between our school and our teams HQ in Germany. Our village is called Mauchen and it's surrounded by small rolling hills covered in vineyards, cornfields, and fruit tree groves. It's very different from the big city life of Los Angeles. Though it's very beautiful, we're both very used to the big city life and will have to get used to living here. Our town is so small we don't have any stores, offices, post office, etc. We do however have one B&B, many cows, and far too many insects. As time goes by, we'll be posting more and more pics of life around this village. For starters, here's a few pics of some of the views from our windows (not all of the views are very good but we gave you the better ones).
These were taken on a rare sunny day.
