Only in Germany

That SNCF post has taken us out of chronological order a bit, but jump back to Germany with me a moment, if you would be so kind.

If that post about King Ludwig and Neuschwanstein didn't convince you that Germany has been the home to some lovable oddballs, maybe this post will.

I didn't want to overgeneralize, since I actually haven't visited many different areas of Germany extensively at all, but then I got to Dusseldorf and found something there that certainly did not disappoint.

So won't you join me in celebrating the wonderful but undeniably and lovably weird country that is Germany?

1. This fountain basically taking a jab at the motifs of every other fountain ever.

It might be a little hard to see (damn night shots!) but the standing figure has his finger over the water spigot and is shielding his face from the spray forced out by the water pressure. The face is spitting sideways, because why not?

2. Well-dressed guy running errands whilst taking swigs from an open liter-sized bottle of beer. It was ten past ten in the morning.

3. Forgot to take a picture (darn it!) but the Munich Airport had a touchscreen survey in the bathroom asking you to rate your bathroom experience on a scale of colored smiley faces. (For the record, my bathroom experience would have been a broadly grinning green smiley. It was a lovely bathroom.)

4. The automatically-changing advertisement boards in the Munich Hauptbahnhof (main train station) blare out in all caps SHIT HAPPENS, with this phrase (in English) superimposed over various cartoons, one of which appeared to feature a couple of mice, and another an antelope being chased by a lion and saying presumably something cheeky in German. I have no idea what this could possibly be advertising.

5. The Englischer Garten in Munich has an artificial surfer's wave. Of course.

There's also a nude sunbathing area just through the trees.

6. This is a person. A real, living (green) person.

Fake statues are too mainstream. Munich is innovating.

7. I know that this is only odd to English speakers and within the context of a German-speaking country it doesn't mean anything, but it sure tickled my funny bone.

I don't...I can't even...