Beer, Cars, Efficiency

Aside from their rich history, Germany is best known for three things: their beer, their cars, and their efficiency. It's pretty much amazing that in the four short days I have been here, I was able to see, experience, and learn those three key aspects that make Deutschland uber guten!

Beer

My goal in every country we visit is to eat and drink whatever that country's specialties are. I've always heard that Germans love their beer, so I wanted to try it out for myself. I ordered a Lemke original in one of the German restaurants we went to for lunch. The verdict? Guten! That tall glass of beer went down pretty nice, considering I'd rather have a "girly drink/cocktail" than a beer! It was a pretty tall glass, as you can see below, so I may or may not have had a good buzz while touring Berlin afterwards. Haha, I may or may not be kidding ;) 

Bottoms up!

Cars

As in most of the European cities I've been to where fancy shmancy cars line up the streets, Germany proved to be no different. It is home to BMW and Mercedes Benz, after all. I had the privilege of riding a Mercedes-Benz bus (er, "coach" pala daw ang right term) on the way to Berlin from Hamburg. I didn't notice it at first, actually. I just thought it was a really cozy bus, with free wifi and a lavatory too! So convenient. Then my friend pointed out the Mercedes-Benz sign by the front of the bus. I was like, "duuude, this is legit". 

Mini! This clearly wasn't the bus we rode on haha but I just thought it was cute hehe

Efficiency

In 2008, the BMW in Germany faced a tough business crisis. It was a bad season, and their economy was obviously largely affected as well. When there is trouble in the business world, a lot of companies would usually be forced to layoff employees, causing the rate of unemployment to dramatically rise especially when it's the big companies that do the firing. But when it was BMW that was hit by major sales downfall 5 years ago, the BMW company gods decided not to layoff any of the workers, even when there is barely business to run. Instead, BMW made the working hours of their employees shorter (instead of a 40-hour work week, it was cut to 20), but made them go under specific professional trainings in different fields (marketing, engineering, PR, etc) during the rest of the hours of their typical work day and receive the same salary. The goal was to make sure that once business started booming again, all their workers were up and ready to maximize sales strategies, public relations, etc, in the best way they know how. They took a seemingly bad situation and turned it into an advantage for the future of their business. No time was wasted in the trainings they provided their employees. I personally thought that was a clear example of efficiency in the sense that they achieved maximum productivity to reach maximum prosperity. Now, largely because of BMW, Germany's economy is at its best.