I have now seen and heard it all...

I am constantly surprised by the cultural differences that I encounter, however, this tops them all. I am in complete and utter shock.

Lutz, a good German friend of mine recently had leg surgery and has been in the hospital since Monday so I wanted to visit him today. I called another friend to make sure he was still in the hospital before I took the 40 minute ride to the visit him. My friend said yes, Lutz was still there and if I go visit him bring him some beer!! I yelled into the phone, “What??!!!”

You can drink beer in the hospitals in Germany. I know, this is insane, but it’s true. Perhaps you can do this other European countries too; I’m not sure, but definitely in Germany. I couldn’t believe it. My other friend said he brought Lutz a bottle of wine when he visited him. I’m in shock. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard! So, my little bag of goodies containing what you’d normally bring to someone in the hospital; a snack, a magazine, a plant (which I had to take home because it was a plant with dirt, not flowers and the dirt might be, uh, dirty) also contained 3 bottles of beer. You can consume alcoholic beverages while bedridden, but can’t have a plant in your room, go figure. Why stop there? He could save himself the effort and just consume the beer intravenously. He’s got one hooked up already.

When I expressed my shock to Lutz, his reaction was that in his experience, it is a perfectly normal thing to be able to drink beer in a hospital here. Normally you can purchase beer in the hospital cafeteria, but this hospital was only selling non-alcoholic beer. Lutz said he wasn’t sick so it’s acceptable for him to drink a beer or two. Ok, you can’t tie one on, they draw the line there, but as long as you’re not “sick”, I guess meaning internally, there’s no problem. I have a problem with this. He is bed ridden and in a hospital, but not sick. You used to be able to smoke in the hospitals, can you imagine?

In my opinion, Germany is very strict on certain things, but obviously much more lenient with others. They have the attitude, hey, you’re a grown up, your call, but it’s not our fault if you make the wrong decision. You’re responsible for your own actions. That’s the general attitude about a lot of things. I think we in the USA got away from that reasoning and now it’s getting out of hand, with everyone suing everyone for the smallest reasons. We’re missing out on a lot because of it. Maybe we should get back to being responsible for ourselves instead of placing the blame on everyone else. This is just my personal opinion.

Getting back to the beer, as I said, I have now seen and heard it all. This takes the cake. Hey, maybe hospital cafeterias will be the new hip place to hang out, unwind, and down a few with your friends.

It wouldn’t surprise me.