That's what I miss. I'm not Sikh (the guys that wear Turbins. Sadly, they were subject to racial attacks after 9/11 because people didn't know the religion was formed as a direct antagonist to Islam and they don't cut their hair until the world is free of Islam), but I used to think from the news hype that there was some racism in the US. Of course there is, but at the same time, on a one to one basis, those same people will give people a chance as an individual. So my perspective has drastically changed as my living situation has somewhat worsened, personal rights/freedoms are restricted, and those who encouraged this move to Germany (germans) didn't seem to be forthcoming about the massive socio-economic problems here. In fact, I don't think it was malicious. I think it's part of the thinking of how everything is so great here and everything else is bad. In fact, before I moved, I found an article on German toilets. Some toilets actually have a shelf (a link will be below) so you go and do your business on it. In my experience before even seeing the article, Germans I know from the US would complain about American toilets, which is exactly outlined in this article! Even with a normal German toilet without the S-shelf, one has to flush several times, and brushes are even next to public toilets because you leave a skid. That's pretty savage, as far as I'm concerned. The problem is with even normal German toilets, the engineers didn't really meet with the Green people during the design. First, you flush, it's not clean. So it's acceptable to brush, then you have to flush again to rinse that water out and the bits off the brush. So now you've actually used 2x the water of an American toilet (as indicated by water meters we have over the taps). On top of that, the shape of the back wall allows a direct hit, while the water jets actually pass OVER it, not through it, so now you have another reason to clean and waste more water. When I informed my gf and her family of that when they were making fun of the US, there was no answer to why 2x the water needed to be used to flush a German toilet, even one without a sh*tshelf.
Article 1 from spiegel:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,406547,00.html
Article 2, a horrifying exploration of the German toilet's reality:
http://www.asecular.com/~scott/misc/toilet.htm
Luckily, I vetoed three apartments with the shelves. No way am I going to play with my ****. I'm not exactly happy about how it's ok to do what I'm doing on a regular toilet here that wastes more water than an american toilet.
And don't get me started on the smell here. Unless you've been here, on a train, or in a supermarket, you can not imagine the odor. I've been on trains in India during the summer and it doesn't compare to one or two people walking around a store and filling it.
If you are a business customer you can also deduct the 19% sales tax since you practically don`t have to pay it so in the end it`s not too bad. oh and i looked at the SO site to find a 80mm wrench but snapon doesn`t make one ??? How i can work on my ship diesel then ??? 
I sure dig that style.
