Sometimes I feel like we’re living in another decade in the past. The other day when I was looking at eltern.de, the website for Eltern (Parent) Magazine, there was an ad for the new Volkswagen Sharan model. The Sharan now has an electric sliding door. Although I’ve only recently submitted to the fact that minivans might be relevant to me, I seem to recall that this feature has been around in the minivans sold in the U.S. for a while now. This thought made me think about other aspects of our village life.
As I’ve blogged here before, my husband and I live in a small city in the southwest of Germany. I liken Aalen (population 66,503) more to a large village rather than a small city.
My family and I shop regularly, every Wednesday and Saturday, at the local market, where we buy our fresh vegetables, fruit and poultry. Often, we run into friends, acquaintances, and colleagues. We buy our meat at our favorite butcher, where we are greeted by name, and buy our bread, mostly at the excellent bakery closest to us. But if I need white bread to make stuffing, for example, or prefer the house specialty of walnut bread at another bakery, I’d go there or if I want to buy my kids organic soft pretzels and raisin rolls, then I’d go to yet another bakery. In this respect, we are spoiled for choice. And I think we are spoiled by the fact that these small shop establishments are still very much in operation. READ MORE »
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