The Honor System
Wednesday, November 21, 2012 at 22:01 There are some days where living abroad can just beat you down and you succumb to the frustrations of living somewhere with a totally different system and having trouble communicating.
But then there are other days when something happens and you are so thankful for the differences.
We bought some DVDs Saturday and then left the bag at another store. We tried to go back, but the store already had closed for the weekend.
In most cases and places, you'd just write off ever getting back your DVDs. But we decided to take the chance that someone had found it and turned it in to the store.
I'd prepared and rehearsed in my head what to say in German and tried to figure out how to prove that they were our DVDs without the receipt. And after all of that, it was about a 30 second exchange of "I left a bag with 3 DVDs here Saturday, do you have it?" and "Is this it?" "Great, have a nice day."
There are a million blog posts out there about how parts of Germany still work on the honor system (subway tickets, etc), so I won't rehash the details. But I will say how nice it is that somet days the system works in your favor and sometimes things are easy!
Frau A ... 2 Comments 
Reader Comments (2)
Yet, unlike the US, you can't just drop off your library books in a bin. You must go when they are open to turn them in. But not on Wednesdays.
Bopper - I had no idea about the library books! It's funny what is on the honor system and what isn't. I'm guessing back when video rentals were popular there probably weren't drop off bins!