What is cheap in Germany

It's pretty expensive to live in Europe, but lots of things are cheap in Germany. Read about some examples, if you dare! For this post, read 1€ as $1.33. Also keep in mind that Germany bizarrely has a 7% tax on food (which is included in the supermarket prices--it's a VAT). Taxing food at the grocery store seems mean-spiritedly regressive, and it puzzles me.

Cheese: I bought 134 g of Burlander cheese to-day for 1,04€. This actually works out to about 3,-€ a pound, which is not actually cheap, but the point is I can buy a very small amount, which is actually all I need. This way I can try many different new and exciting cheeses at low cost (this part is where Huy is jealous and Jeremy is completely indifferent.)

Yoghurt: -,25€ per thing! Wow!

College: Studiengebühren (a fairly new obligation for German students) are either 500€ or 1.000€ per semestre, I forget which. Anyway, I'm exempt by treaty from those fees, so like whatever. The Semesterticket, which gets you free public transit throughout Berlin and the state of Brandenburg (meaning I can effectively go to Poland for free), costs 250€. Room rent for me is 215€ per month, and that's kind of at the high end. Pretty sweet.

Bread: Half a loaf of delicious and nutritious whole grain break costs -,49€! And if that's not good enough for you, you can buy fresh baked rolls at the bakery that seems to be just outside every grocery store for -,07€ a piece! Et cetera!

Spices: I bought some cumin and some ginger to-day, in non-tiny quantities, for a total of about 2,70€. That's cheap, right? They had a bunch of little cyclinders of spices for -,99€ a piece, which was completely unexpected to me.





Spraypaint: It must be cheap, because every available surface (even in the absolute middle of nowhere) seems to attract it quite lavishly. And it's not even as if anyone makes an attempt to do a nice job with it. Spraypaint must be really cheap. Voici:

Alcohol: You can buy a 750 ml bottle of wine at Kaufland for 1,15€. What? On second thought the wine I saw may have been Weinschorle, which would mean wine mixed with sparkling mineral water, but I'm pretty sure Weinschorle goes for less than 1,15€ a bottle.

Ido classes...why?  This poster claims that Ido is not actually as artificial as often assumed.  Who is making these assumptions?  Who has actually heard of Ido, besides me?  And of course it's artificial; it's an artificial language.

Also I love that the word for yellow is "flava."