I've heard so many stories from so many people in Germany about their awful neighbors or the over the top rules. However, I must live in the Bermuda triangle of Germany apartment life. My neighbors are so very nice. Granted, life in Tiny town of B is in general nice, but it's like Disney World Germany here in my building.
I spent all day Saturday saying hello and good day as I run down to the laundry room or to take out the trash, as everyone else is also out and about. Perhaps because I am the one foreigner in the building I get a little extra leeway. In particular, when one of my expat friends was with me on the balcony and the downstairs neighbors are always chatty, I had internally cringed when expat friend used the informal 'you' in the conversation, as that is usually what he is using and it slipped out. (The more formal 'you' would have been preferred as they are older and we don't really know them, and it's also what I have heard other neighbors use this this couple.) However, they never blinked twice, and never corrected his usage or seemed in any way offended.
I've been pleasantly pleased in the past, at least four different neighbors in my apartment building have accepted packages on my behalf. It probably helps that three of them are retired so home all day when packages are delivered, but still.
Then tonight, I was out late, I had to zip down to Cologne for something. 10 minutes after I'm home the doorbell rings. My neighbor had accepted a flower delivery for me. She overlooks the parking lot, so she was peering out periodically until she finally spotted my car. She said had been worried that she would perhaps miss me tonight. How very kind.
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3 comments:
You're lucky. Most of my neighbors are alkies and I don't want to know them (even though we do Guten Tag each other while running up and down the stairs).
Nice to hear about your flowers.
It does make a difference which neighborhood you live in. In our first apartment in Cologne everyone was friendly from the first day... in my present place it was not so easy, but I found that making a determined effort to say a few things other than the obligatory "guten Morgen" got us on friendly terms after a while. Am proud to say that I can use the familiar "Du" form with everyone in the house now. (But in a couple of cases it took 10 years).
Neighbors aside, how sweet u got flowers! D rocks in my book!
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