Life in February. Germany V Australia

The silver windscreen protectors are being used in both countries.

In Frankfurt, Germany - to stop the ice forming on your windscreen...

In Perth, Australia - to keep the sun off the steering wheel to keep it cool

and save you from having to use your oven mitts to drive!

In Frankfurt, we are turning on the seat warmers as soon as we jump in the car...

it IS -4C outside...a warm bum is a happy bum in these temperatures!

In Perth, mums are putting bottles of frozen water in babies car seats...

so children don't roast in their seats and to prevent burns from seat buckles!
Air conditioners are ON!

In Frankfurt, we go the the supermarket, we get hit by a wave of hot air
as we walk in and breathe a sigh of relief. We buy ice cream and other frozen food.
After shopping, we can stop for a nice lunch in a quaint little half timbered pub,
linger a while before arriving home with everything still frozen an hour later.
If the beer isn't cold enough we can further chill by leaving outside, taking care not to let it freeze.
In Perth, an esky will be in the car and filled with ice bricks.
As you walk into the supermarket you are hit with a blast of cold air, you breathe a sigh of relief.
 The car is loaded from the trolley at record speed, cold stuff going into the esky
 and the car is driven the shortest, fastest possible route home.
Cold stuff will be unloaded first as another two minutes in the car will have the ice cream turned to milk. Of course the beer is shoved immediately into the beer fridge!

In Frankfurt, we put our rubbish into the wheelie bin when the lids are not frozen shut.
We separate paper, bio waste and general rubbish. We take glass to recycling areas.
We would NEVER consider putting excess rubbish in a neighbour's bin.
In Perth, any items that could possibly stink to high heaven an hour after being placed
in the wheelie bin, such as prawn shells, will be wrapped and put in the freezer until 'bin day'.
They will be forgotten until the rubbish truck is heard at 6am
and a mad dash from the freezer to the bin will happen.
If you have more rubbish than your bin will hold, you will, under the cover of darkness...
put your excess in a neighbours half empty bin!

In Frankfurt, you have to wear your Wellington Boots to walk over the lawn which
has turned to mush from all the rain and melted snow.
It  has so much water it will survive Summer without the hose ever being turned on.
In Perth you can only water on your rostered two days and your lawn,
if you still have one, will be a shade of brown.
Your neighbours will 'dob you in' if you water on the wrong day,
water is sacred and will not be wasted.

In Frankfurt it takes fifteen minutes to get dressed ready to walk out the door,
the layers, scarves, boots, hats and puffy jackets. You then have to remove it all
when you arrive at your destination and repeat when you leave.
Approximately two hours is taken up with dressing and undressing over the day.
In Perth you wear as little as possible, two minutes of the day is spent dressing and undressing.

In Frankfurt, you get home, kick off your shoes, sit in front of the fire
and crack open an ice cold beer.
In Perth, you get home, kick off your shoes, sit under the Air Con
...and crack open an ice cold beer!