Customs duty regulations are easing up! Right before year-end, the customs office declared new import duty regulations for flight passengers entering Germany from non-European countries.

Under the old import duty regulation, purchased items were not to exceed € 175 per adult to remain duty free, but now this has been raised to € 430 per person (for people under 15 years of age,  the former amount still applies).

Another change is the now unlimited import of coffee, tea and perfume – it is no longer rationed.

Tobacco and spirits import duty regulations remain unchanged. But additionally, minors as of 17 years of age, may bring in 4 liters of wine and 16 liters of beer.

If you send anything to Germany via postal service, the following changes apply: Anything sent to Germany up to €150 in value remains exempt from import duty, but is still liable to import sales tax (19% MwSt. or VAT) if the value exceeds € 22.

More information in German at Deutscher Zoll.

It is about time this amount was raised. It does take German institutions a bit longer to react, but we are an habitual folk.

We had a very good night’s sleep and made it to breakfast closing time (by 10:30) just in time.

We took one last stroll through the old part of  Meiningen.

Church at the Marktplatz

The Deutsche Post in Meiningen

...with its old Reichspost symbol above the window

Having decided to take the scenic route back to Schweinfurt in Northern Bavaria, we were able to pull off the road and saw some interesting spots…

reaching the former border with its watch tower left standing

the guard tower - a remnant of the cold war

a place to contemplate our history

While looking up the tower and peeking over its partially walled-up entrance, I remembered a friend’s conversation. Peter, from the former East Germany, now a theatre director in Japan, had told us how he had to join the former East German military and how nearly everyone was most afraid of being placed at the border: To prevent an escape, each soldier would have to shoot his own countryman. Peter got lucky; he was not drafted into the border patrol.

...where fairy tales are made

This photo was taken about 20 paces away from the guard tower. In the distance you can see another white one perched atop a hill… This was a denuded stretch of No-Man’s Land, which the soldiers guarded to keep their fellow citizens from reaching the West. The neighboring hills and forests are very picturesque, and remind me a lot of the Grimms’ fairy tales. I wonder if the brothers once passed through here? Yet this area is not even the famous Thuringia forest, which lies about another hour north of Meiningen.

Thuringia is well worth another visit. It is a beautiful area in Germany, with hills and forests, friendly people and fairly low prices.

This past weekend we managed a little get-away from our weekend in Schweinfurt where we visited my siblings once again. We usually don’t get any further than Schweinfurt as there are so many people to see and things to do with my relatives in town.

This time we left our children with one of my sisters and drove to Meiningen, a quaint town in the southern part of Thuringia and former Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR). We had been there once in 1996, but besides its greyness, odd smell, and triste atmosphere, there was not much to remember.

Our drive on A71 to Meiningen was done with very little traffic and in plain surroundings (no ads, no fast food chains– just trees and plains). The road seemed to stretch forever. It was reminiscent of driving in Montana, but without the hills.

wide open spaces on the Autobahn

With its wonderfully painted houses around the Marktplatz, this city has gone through a major transformation. Of course, the means for that had to come from our beloved Solidaritätszuschlag, which seems here to stay. This money was invested wisely.

Marktplatz in Meiningen

But the two most significant points I observed were the inhabitants’ distinct friendliness (not just from service personnel in hotels and restaurants) and their lack of discernible dialect. The spoken German sounded very clear, with no trace of any regional expressions, and it was a pleasure to listen to. We Franconians – living less than an hour’s drive south in Schweinfurt, for example – must sound like Barbarians compared to these well-spoken Germans.

We had booked a night at Meininger Hotels mit Flair in the Hotel Schlundhaus, where we spent the night in a separate guesthouse called Rautenkranz. The room was good, with a bit of a rustique flair to it, and the price at €49.00 per person seemed reasonable.

Schlundhaus Hotel

We toured a bit of the city, but most shops closed at 4:00 on Saturday.

While walking around we got to see the infamous traffic light, which had been disputed over once when East and West Germany reunited. The Ampelmännchen was born in the former East-Berlin in 1961 and is becoming more and more popular also in the western part of Germany.

the little lamp man of the old East German crossing signal

the little green figure - with hat - symbolizing it is safe to cross

Museum in Meiningen

We then had dinner at the Schlundhaus Restaurant, and I tried their local specialty called Hütes, a special kind of potato dumpling, with my meal. After dinner we visited a  French Culture Café called Le Monsigny, which allowed smoking after 21:00. A lot of French was heard in our part of the café and the atmosphere was great! Well, a glass or two of local red wine helped, too. This place is great – if you don’t mind the smoke – and well worth a visit. The prices I found quite low:  €1.50 for a cup of coffee, € 4.00 for a Caipirinha, etc.

We left the café before midnight and only had to walk three blocks to get back to our room near the Marktplatz.

The most recent issue of the ADAC ran a short feature on its free check-ups provided to ADAC members.

At inspections stations and TÜV stations in Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, and Saarland, ADAC members can take advantage of getting their brakes, lights, and shock absorbers checked free of charge. Furthermore, these places also offer other tests at a charge.

For more information about locations and times, call: 0 180 – 5 10 11 12

or visit ADAC regional (in German).

As we’re heading into winter, it’s a good idea to get this free inspection done now.

On our flight back from J.F.K. New York – Frankfurt with Lufthansa, my sister and I had no monitors to watch movies or to play games. Everyone else’s was working, but ours. It took four inquiries and close to two hours to be told they were not working. In between we were told they were reloading, then resetting, then the colleague was going to check it once more and so on. The responses had seemed so lame.

Nevertheless, it was a long 7:30 hour flight without any kind of entertainment. I admit we have come to rely on being entertained a lot, but in my case – feeling claustrophobic at times – it is the best kind of distraction to keep myself in an enduring mode. And I don’t like to feel pushed aside, which was the feeling I got from the attendants. 

Of course, I was happy to arrive safely, but this sense of having been felt ignored for almost two hours still gnawed at me. So I took the time to let Lufthansa know. I am not the kind of person to complain, so choosing between “suggestions and feedback” and “complaints” was a tough choice to make for me. In the end I chose “complaints” as those matters get dealt with more efficiently.

Now if you have anything you would like to tell Lufthansa, then click here, click on Help and Contact in the upright corner, then another little window will pop up where you can choose. I clicked on compliments and complaints to state what happened.

I only stated the facts, I did not demand anything, and I just wanted to let them know how I felt the service was.

Two days ago, on Dec 6th, 2008, five days after I had filed my complaint ( I still have a disdain for this word), I got a very personal letter from Lufthansa with an apology for the inconvenience caused. It was very impressive to see how detailed they took my account. In hoping for our continued trust in Lufthansa, they will send my sister and me a separate wine selection and we will be happy to accept this gesture in redress for the negative service impression I had recently received. 

Yes, my trust is restored. They responded.

I could have easily shoved this issue aside after the trip. No, Lufthansa needed to know and I am glad I told them about this shortcoming.