Comment by thomasjames

As an American living and working in Germany as an engineer for the past year or so (in a large city, at that), this really shocked me actually. I thought that maybe my landlady was cheap, but it turned out there were actually virtually no better options available. It seemed kind of out of phase with the image Germany tries to project. So many other utilities and services here are really much better than their counterparts in the States. This was kind of a shock.