Strange German Traditions

Last night, Latvian Friend's host parents basically shoved her out the door and said, "You are going to a bar, and you are going with Tina."  Which I found a perfectly acceptable plan, so we got all dressed up and headed into the city.  I wore really tight jeans, the lacy black shirt that remains, to this day, the only shirt random straight men have complimented me on on, and ridiculously sexy heels my sister made me buy that look like sex in a can.  Also, my hair (which has gone from Really Long to Really Ridiculously Long) down for full dramatic effect.  And did we get hit on even once?  No.  Because Germans are terrible at flirting.  The only people who even looked at us twice was a table of overweight Spanish men rocking track suits and mullets.  Also some random drunk man who tried to speak English at me.  Then, when we got home (and in typical graceful Tina fashion), my heel got caught in the bike pedal as I was getting off, and the whole contraption fell over with my leg trapped underneath it.  Now the handlebars are out of line with the front wheels, my knees are a flower garden of bruises.  So all in all, it was a pretty successful night, and we had lots of fun!

On that note, I'm going to hit you up with Strange German Relationship Traditions, that Host Mom broke down for me one day, while we were sitting at a cafe watching a random man sweep bottle caps off the street.  Which might explain while Germans are so terrible at flirting.

If you, a man, are not married on your 25th birthday:
Your friends put boxes on your roof.  To symbolize that you are unmarried and suffering from an excess of boxes.

If you, a man, are not married by your 30th birthday:
Your friends take you to the local town square, hand you a broom, and dump giant boxes of bottle caps on the ground.  Then lots of strangers gather around you in a big circle, drink beer, and throw the bottle caps at you.  And you have to sweep them up, sweep them up, and keep sweeping them up, until a virgin kisses you free. Usually this is a small girl child whose parents are all, "Go kiss the strange, old, sweaty man, Johanna, and I'll buy you an ice cream."

If you, a woman, are not married by your 30th birthday:
Your friends throw a party, and make you clean all the doorknobs in the house.  To symbolize that you are unmarried and thus in the mood to clean doorknobs.

If you, a man, are not married by your 40th birthday:
You are very sad because you have suffered boxes on your roof, and the indignity of sweeping things until small children kiss you.  And now it's even worse, because your friends rent a donkey and make you ride it backwards around town.  To symbolize that you are a) unmarried, and b) have terrible donkey-riding skills, which demonstrates how suave you are to all the ladies cleaning doorknobs.

The things you learn living with a family!