You can buy a few at the local grocery, but if you want Coke Zero (my husband does), you have to go to a beverage store. I can actually find Dr Pepper here (check out these prices!) and Mtn Dew (but no diet). Note that cans here are 330 ml, as opposed to 350 in America. Why on earth would they market a very slightly different sized can to other nations?
Please note that beverages are not cooled as a rule in Germany. If I wanted a cold beer, or a cold soda, I'd have to go to a gas station (*shrug*). Grocery stores do not keep beverages cool because that is an unnecessary expense, I suppose. If you go to a really fancy, large grocery store, they will sometimes have a little cooler with some products in it. In our neighborhood, you'd better just have ice in your freezer. I do!
Oh, that reminds me, we went to Burger King this month, and ordered meals that included beverages. The drinks were an inch shy of the top of the cup (due to the machine setting), and NO ICE CUBES! I said, "Um, ICE?" and the lady said, "Sure!" and scooped me up some. She said, very plainly for us, "98% of Germans do not want ice cubes in their drinks, so here at Burger King, you have to ask if you want ice." This follows my experience here so far, that ice makes drinks uncomfortably cold for them. (I was told it was due to the no-refills culture, that you get less drink if there's ice in the glass, but at Burger King, the machine is programmed to leave space for ice, so...?)
Below is one of our local beverage stores, and I believe it's proof there is little threat of earthquakes happening here. Stacked in the photo below is water - virtually all Germans buy bottled water although the tap water is drinkable. They like the carbonation and minerals. My first time to Germany, we shook the bottles to try to get the bubbles out, but now I am addicted to my mineral water. And it gives me calcium too, which doesn't hurt.
I parked my cart next to the Pfand machine. My cart is full of empties.
Until now, I refused to participate in this dreaded task, returning your bottles to the stores. I recycle, but the thought of bringing what I buy at the store back to the store was just too much for me; it annoys me that my house is full of empties, constantly. And the Pfand machine stinks like sour beer because there's no way to have a stink free beer container return system - people don't wash them before bringing them back.
That carload of bottles came to 14 bucks, I think, and funnily, sometimes if you buy stuff at the same time, the cashier has to give you money back, cuz your bottles are worth more than what you buy. I'm always thrilled when that happens (but still, annoyed that I have to drive my bottles back to the store). 
The Coke Zero bottles in the back seat of the car, going back to the store. Hard plastic bottles (like these) in Germany are scuffed up because they are washed and re-filled. No kidding, it's true. It took me a while to get used to buying a Coke that looked like it's been lying on the side of the road for a year. The sticker's new though - they resticker them and recap them.
For some reason, some glass must be brought to outdoor community containers. Not beer bottles, but every other type of glass has to come back here.
This is what gets me - there are "allowed hours" for dropping off glass, due to the tradition of quiet-time/naptime in Europe between noon and 3. (My feedstore is closed for quiet time too, it's really frustrating to arrive there at noon.) You can see from my watch that, yet again, I screwed this up, and I'm dropping off glass during quiet time. I don't know why but it seems that I'm always just inside the "consideration for your neighbors" time (as stated above on that sticker). It's just one of those things where I've got an answer rehearsed for when someone complains to me. "This does not register on my give-a-shit meter." Of course, I have no idea how to translate that.
I have to apologize for my complainy tone in this post - it's about one of my least favorite parts of living here, and life is pretty nice here all in all. I'm showing my inflexible side I'm afraid.
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6 comments:
Can you get Badoit bottled water? I can't here - it's my very favorite, made in France, best taste ever . . .
Germany has a LOT of rules lol.
I spent a few weeks there right after the Berlin wall fell. One thing I noticed, was if the pedestrian traffic light was red - no one would cross the street - period. Even if there were no cars moving anywhere in a mile radius. You must wait for the light to change.
As we free-wheeling Americans dared to walk to the other side, against the light, I could here the local ladies making cluck-clucking noises and no doubt our ears would have burned if we had only spoken German.
Sorry for the long comment - your post brought back my memories of culture clash... ;D
Dang I wish we had the plastic bottle returns in the U.S. I'm sure it would get really annoying and time consuming, but I throw away soooooo many of them. I would love to be able to recycle and save money at the same time. Oh well.
I hate ice in my soda so I would love that too LOL! I don't even like ice in my water most of the time. Cold drinks hurt my teeth.
Maybe I should live in Germany? Well other than my total lack of ability to learn a new language... for some reason I just suck at it lol.
My daughter in law shops a lot on base but many things are cheaper at the small grocery store in there little village.
Cans are typically 330ml in UK too. Drinks are rarely cooled. Sometimes there is a small fridge that has a few in for those who want to drink theirs straight away, usually has sandwiches and other "lunch on the go" items.
Fast food places here don't do refils either. Ice is typically already in drinks you can ask to have it ice free.
Very funny, Lytha. Interestingly, when I was a kid (oh, crap - I am getting old!), Coke and other soda brand bottles were still made of glass and reused. Back then, those bottles had the label embedded somehow into the glass (no glue on label). Sometimes you'd get a pretty beat up looking bottle that you knew had been well used! We loved returning those bottles as we made money on them. Once they were made of plastic, the incentive to return them wasn't as good.
My neighborhood FINALLY got blue bins for recyclables which is great as I can dump ALL recyclable material in it without needing to sort or haul it off. I keep a cardboard box in my pantry and just toss in my plastics, cans, bottles, newspaper, junk mail, etc. and every few days dump that into the blue bin. The bin gets emptied every other week. We put more in it than in the actual trash can!
We now have beverage only stores here. I've never been, but BevMo! is a gigantic store that just sells beverages.
Love this series of posts. :0)
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