Germany & New economic measures discovered by Bronni

As the economists amongst us well know, there are many measures available to ascertain the economic position of a community, state or country but seldom do tourists have this information. In a more simplified form someone development the Big Mac indicator to test the relative value of a countries currency based on the price of a Macdonald’s burger but if you don’t buy Mac’s either at home or on holidays this also is meaningless.

Bronni however has discovered a much simpler indicator. The quality of the toilet paper.

In the last 3 months she has observed Zimbabwe having no toilet paper; Italy and Greece, having a recycled super thin, totally none adsorbent grey paper (that you cannot use even to blow your nose) Germany using recycled ultra tough 50 grit and Switzerland having a super soft triple layer as the basic house brand in the supermarket. 

Debbie Roberts from Satara was also onto this during a cost cutting meeting when she thumped the table and said that from an image and morale point of view there were 2 things you don’t cut costs on. Toilet paper and coffee.

At the time I didn’t fully appreciate the economic signals we were sending but perhaps the female gender are a bit more sensitive to these issues.

….and the wheels just keep on rolling

Biking around the lake

Ah! The curb was bigger than she thought

After leaving Switzerland we spend a couple of days at Lake Constance, then onto the black forest before having the weekend in Frankfurt.

Frankfurt

We originally met Stephan and Eva some 12 years ago when a group of us were tramping the Milford track with our families and they played with the kids and taught them some new card games. After the tramp Stephan & Eva stayed with a number of us during their trip around NZ and we have kept in touch since. Now they’re the ones with a little kid and Lilly is an absolute honey. 

Not only is she a card shark but she is incredible gusty at challenging herself. We went swimming and her determination was amazing for a 5 yr old. Within 1 hr she went from being a drowning puppy to fish.

Playing maths with her she can add and substract  (in English) reminding myself of those great times with my own children and thinking I don’t mind doing this.

Watch out family Les is thinking “grand kids”

I told Stephan that when Lilly’s 18 send her to NZ and we can teach her to mountain bike, waterski and tramp and then I do the maths and work out that I’ll be 70..... oh I weep.  I dont think mobility scooter racing will really be the same.

Tonight we are in Weda (south of Berlin) seeing Bart before we turn west to Lille (France) to drop the car off on the 29^th.