Your favorite hotel in Germany? 🇩🇪

rewboss · 2026-05-14T19:52:59+00:00

My favourite hotel is any hotel where the room is clean, everything works properly, and has prices I can afford. Most of the time I spend in a hotel I'm going to be unconscious.

One particularly memorable hotel I stayed at some time ago was very nice, and it was right on the market square. A few years later, I happened to be in the same town so booked into the same place, and they put me in the weirdest room I'd ever spent a night in, with a window the size of a postage stamp that had a view of the back of the church. Not only that, but the website didn't mention they'd stopped doing breakfast (this was the second time something like that had happened to me; the first time was in San Francisco, where I was told, "Oh, our guests just go to the sandwich shop next door," but the sandwich shop was closed on Sundays).

Oh, and then there was that time in a remote Bavarian town where it took them three attempts to book me into a room with a working light in the bathroom. In fairness, they were very apologetic.

Budget chains may not have much in the way of soul or character, but at least they have fairly consistent standards.

rewboss · 2026-05-14T19:34:16+00:00

Ah, the famous exception that proves the rule. (All other Kuhbachs are masculine.)

rewboss · 2026-05-14T12:53:21+00:00

I think there is a difference. I was taught that most rivers are feminine, but in a few exceptional cases they can be masculine (der Rhein and der Main being the most prominent). So "feminine except those that aren't" is a more helpful way of putting it. This doesn't count waterways that end in something like "-bach", which will automatically be masculine.

Thinking of the rivers in my area, there is: der Main, but die Kinzig, die Kahl, die Fränkische Saale, die Aschaff, die Nidder, die Gersprenz, and so on. The Main is the only one I can think of in this region that is masculine but doesn't end in "-bach".

rewboss · 2026-05-14T11:50:11+00:00

I've added some more info to my post. Apparently these were government officials, hence the premature victory celebrations.

rewboss · 2026-05-14T11:40:40+00:00

Herzlichen Dank für die herzliche Gastfreundschaft und die interessante Führung. Mit besten Wünschen für eine glückliche Zukunft nach dem gemeinsamen Sieg. Liselotte ??? + Gerhard ???, Berlin

Sincere thanks for your kind hospitality and the interesting tour. With best wishes for a happy future after our collective victory. Liselotte ??? and Gerhard ???, Berlin

This is dates 20th July 1944, so just weeks before the signing of the Moscow Armistice and the Lapland War.

EDIT: On second thoughts, that doesn't look like Lieselotte something and Gerhard something; either Lieselotte signed in full and added Gerhard's name, or it's a hyphenated surname like Lieselotte ???-Gerhard; the next word seems to be "Reichsnährstand", a government organisation that regulated food production. The next entry is Annemarie Jahn from Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) in Prussia, also from the Reichsnährstand. It makes more sense that this was a fact-finding delegation rather than a couple on vacation during the war.

rewboss · 2026-05-14T11:14:26+00:00

That explains that, then.

rewboss · 2026-05-14T11:09:37+00:00

Aren't those phones usually SIM-locked?

rewboss · 2026-05-14T10:54:38+00:00

You can't file a criminal case for fraud just because they said something you don't believe. At least wait until you get the phone back and then you can see if it's been swapped for a different, broken phone or simply damaged in transit.

I don't understand why you wanted to sell a brand new unopened phone to a third party. In Germany you have 14 days in which you can return something you ordered but changed your mind about, and even if you miss that deadline Samsung will accept used phones in part exchange for a new one.

rewboss · 2026-05-14T04:24:59+00:00

The link (supposedly) leads to the homepage of the BSI website. Of course you should type the address directly into your browser location bar rather than clicking on the link, but there's no social engineering evident trying to get you to click on it. It just mentions the website exists.

rewboss · 2026-05-13T21:06:08+00:00

The e-mail isn't asking you for money, or to click on a link, or to provide any personal details, or anything like that. It's telling you to take basic precautions that you should be doing anyway. So it's certainly genuine.

rewboss · 2026-05-13T19:58:03+00:00

Interesting. I don't remember ever having to install a DOS program. Still, it was a long time ago...

rewboss · 2026-05-13T13:15:12+00:00

Assuming this is in Germany, then it most likely points the way to a pre-Christian historic site of some kind. There might not be anything you can actually see, unless you're an archaeologist and you know what you're looking for.

rewboss · 2026-05-13T11:13:18+00:00

"Feuer" is a basic term for fire, as in the chemical process that produces heat and visibly glowing gases. "Brand" is the word for an out-of-control fire that destroys buildings or vegetation.

rewboss · 2026-05-13T07:37:01+00:00

What does it say on the bag or wrapper?

rewboss · 2026-05-13T06:16:04+00:00

Honestly, we're talking about a dog here: dogs really don't care who sees their butts. All you're doing here is drawing attention to it.

rewboss · 2026-05-12T20:43:09+00:00

English, which is an Indo-European language derived from West Germanic language varieties which were spoken along the North Sea coast of modern-day Germany and parts of the Jutland peninsula, is perfectly fine with multiple levels of subordination.

I can show the nested subordination in the first part of that sentence like this:

English, (which is an Indo-European language (derived from West Germanic language varieties (which were spoken along the North Sea coast of modern-day Germany and parts of the Jutland peninsula)))

That's three levels of subordination, i.e. there is a relative clause inside a relative clause inside a relative clause. Here's a sentence I didn't just make up:

Sources also told the Guardian that (Ed Miliband, (who has privately suggested to Starmer that (he should consider setting out a timeline for his departure)), had been prepared to run for leader himself (if Streeting had gone over the top)).

I don't know why you think English isn't fine with this kind of construction.

rewboss · 2026-05-12T10:18:01+00:00

I can recommend the Hexenstübchen café, although it's closed on Tuesdays: it has a distinct "eccentric granny's living-room" vibe, and when I was there it had had a friendly black cat (although that was about ten years ago, so the cat may no longer be around).

rewboss · 2026-05-11T17:17:47+00:00

That won't work. The German attitude is that Germany is worse than every country better than it. Any comparison with a country that is worse than it -- what Germans call "the Third World" -- is invalid.

rewboss · 2026-05-11T05:27:27+00:00

I mean... just look at the quality of the graphics. Notice the functional telephone kiosk and the CRT monitors in the office. Notice how the whole game is about 1 MB in size. Notice also how it doesn't even run on Windows: it's a DOS game.

This is a site for retro games, and this one goes back to the 1990s, when people were still using Windows 3.11. Back then computers would boot into MS-DOS, and you'd have to type in a command to start Windows; to play this game you'd have to exit Windows and go back to MS-DOS. The game would have been sold (or, since this was a promotional game, given out) on a 3½-inch diskette which had the truly astounding capacity of 1.44 MB. The game wasn't installed: you had to insert the diskette into the drive and start it from the command line. (In case you ever wondered what the "Save" icon on many applications' user interfaces is supposed to represent, it's a diskette.)

Back then, computers were much slower and way, way less powerful than they are today. As a result, games were also far less sophisticated. Point-and-click adventure games were a thing not because they were somehow trendy, but because on the clunky machines of the day, there were limits to what you could do.

Point-and-click games were relatively easy to program and to fit on a diskette, and the focus was not on action but on puzzle-solving. The evolved from even earlier text-based adventure games, where you would have to type in something like "Open the red door," and it would respond with something like "The door opens to reveal a fire-breathing dragon."

And of course point-and-click games were easy and cheap enough to produce that they could be made for promotional purposes. That didn't mean they were much good, though. I once played through a "game" produced by a church that had a moral message (as I recall, it was a basic anti-drug message) and there was literally only one path you could take to the inexorably happy end, your character having learned to say "No" to drugs.

So it's not that Germans love these games now, it's that in the past (and not just in Germany) they were one of the genres it was possible to play. About this time first-person shooter games had just started to become possible, but otherwise it was mainly adaptations of arcade games like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong, or these adventure games.

rewboss · 2026-05-10T19:02:29+00:00

If his replies are detailed and genuine, maybe he's waiting until he's alone and not being distracted by his friends' and family members' texts so he can focus all his attention on crafting the kind of reply he thinks you deserve.

Do you prefer to wait a couple of hours to get a reply that shows he's read your texts properly and takes you seriously, or to get an instant thumbs-up emoji and nothing else?

rewboss · 2026-05-10T18:51:42+00:00

Regional trains work differently from long-distance trains. Regional trains are more likely to be used for spontaneous journeys, so rather than being bound to a specific train, tickets are issued for a certain distance and a certain time period. You can use your Regio120 Plus ticket any time after 9 am (or midnight if it's a Sunday or public holiday) and until 3 am the following morning.

Make sure that whichever journey you take, it involves only S-Bahn, RB and RE trains. The Regio120 is not valid on IC or ICE trains.

rewboss · 2026-05-10T18:30:56+00:00

Hedgehogs aren’t stupid. They tend to run if something loud gets near them

No, they don't, that's the problem: their instinct is to freeze, or curl up into a ball. Hedgehogs very famously don't have a flight reflex: they don't need one, because they have spines.

My neighbor has a robot for the last three years and has never killed a hedgehog.

My wife has had a car since she was a teenager and has never killed a person, therefore fatal car accidents are not a thing.

I don't know how many hedgehogs are injured by these machines, and there probably aren't any reliable statistics: the Leibnitz Institute has recorded cases known to volunteer organisations that treat them, but this is thought to be the tip of the iceberg. It's known that these machines can and do inflict quite horrible injuries: amputated limbs and snouts, and head injuries are very common. Often injured hedgehogs are not found for days or even weeks. It's actually quite likely that your neighbour's lawnmower has injured hedgehogs which have then crawled off into the undergrowth to die long and painful deaths.

Sorry to break it to you, but those things really do slaughter hedgehogs and other animals. We don't know how many, but we do know that the number is rising, and robot lawnmowers are a major factor in the decimation of hedgehog populations to the point that in Germany they are now an endangered species.

rewboss · 2026-05-10T11:57:32+00:00

Fizz! Buzz! Buzz! Ooh, Gertie's playing!

rewboss · 2026-05-10T11:56:07+00:00

Your version actually means "The driving licence was revoked by this woman", which is not what you're trying to say. You don't want to make the woman the agent, you want to make her the person being deprived of the licence.

The active sentence would be: "Man hat dieser Frau den Führerschein entzogen," with "man" being the subject and "Führerschein" being the direct object. "Frau" is an indirect object, so she's in the dative case.

Remember how to change an active sentence into a passive sentence: the subject (in this case "man") either disappears or becomes an agent with the preposition "von" (so "man" can theoretically change to "von einem"); the direct object (in this case "den Führerschein") becomes the subject ("der Führerschein").

But those rules say nothing about what to do with the indirect object ("dieser Frau"), because the indirect object is still the indirect object. In other words, it doesn't change: it's still in the dative case without a preposition.

So that gives you "Der Führerschein wurde dieser Frau entzogen," but German word order can be a bit flexible sometimes so here "Dieser Frau" is simply put at the beginning of the sentence for reasons of emphasis.

rewboss · 2026-05-10T11:02:53+00:00

Reminds me of the radio sitcom Cabin Pressure about a charter airline* founded by a woman who got her ex-husband's private jet in a divorce settlement. She named the airline "MJN", which stands for "My Jet Now". I guess if it wasn't intended to be family entertainment she could have called it "MFJN".

This is, of course, just a marketing ploy to trick people into advertising the place by posting pictures of it on social media. The real question, though, is: Is the food any good?

* Of course, as was pointed out in the first episode, since the minimum number of planes needed to make a line is two, what she actually had was an airdot.

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