After battling with a persistent flu for over a week it is time for a small blog post. I actually tried to write something before but no coherent thought was possible with constant headaches, running nose and coughing. Enough of my excuses and I present you here again some fun fact about Germany.
Sunday shopping sounds not too strange for most people. Well, Germany is a bit different. Here we have the “Ladenschlussgesetz/ Shop Closing Law” which determines when retail stores have to be closed. Sundays and public holidays is a dead zone in the cities, Monday through Saturday stores need to be closed before 6 AM and after 8 pm followed with the tricky December the 24th where shops needs to be closed already after 2pm. Sounds stupid and in fact the law was a bit changed in 2006 when the different German States got the power to decide themselves how the law is applied. Because of this the different States have different opening hour regulations. We live in Schleswig-Holstein where shops are allowed to be open at any given time from Monday till Saturday so we have it pretty good compared to conservative Bavarians who still follow the old Shop Closing Law.
Now coming to the Sunday Shopping. As Germany has a predominant Christian population and is one of those old creepy countries, work is by tradition and religion prohibited on Sundays. Okay this sounds a bit harsh, it is not prohibited but nothing is opened on Sundays so you better get all shopping done by Saturday. However cities are allowed to have this thing called Sunday Shopping which they may have up to four times a year. As they are so rare most cities try to make together with bigger shops some kind of event out of it. We had the first Sunday Shopping of the year on the 5th of February in my hometown and we decided to check it out. No not because we wanted to go shopping but to see what the event would be like.
In the market square was a small stage with live music, a fire to warm up and the volunteer fire department were presenting themselves in order to recruit for their youth division. There were also some artists and a fire show which we kind of missed each time it was on. One of the artist was walking on stilts with an interesting costume making her look like some kind of firebird/phoenix . Nathan was at first amazed by her but then he realised that she was just too tall so he decided that running away is the best option.
The reason why we missed the fire show was because we were busy eating cakes in a new cafe. This cafe just open recently with the great name “Layali Lebnan – Köstlichkeiten aus 1001 Nacht/ Delights of 1001 Nights”. As you might guess from the name it is not a German cafe and that is also why it is so great. The cakes and pastries were just amazing and so different compared what the standard bakeries here are offering. Even my mother who is always so annoying with food enjoyed it so it must be pretty good. I know that this cafe will be visited more often this year by us.
So that was it, our first Sunday Shopping (more like Sunday cake eating) in 2017. I actually do look forward to the following Sunday Shopping dates this year as they seem to be interesting with their special events and artists.
What are the opening hours in your country?
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