You are being watched!

From Day One in Germany, I knew that I was being watched. It was 1966 and I had just crossed the Rhine from Strasbourg to visit Kehl, Germany and I was being watched. I entered a cafe, discovered the fabulous taste of German coffee and as I was sitting there, I felt eyes upon me. True, I was with another American and she was wearing a kerchief around her hair, a rather noticeably un-German thing to do. A couple of old women were staring at us. I kept thinking I had been taught that staring was rude. But apparently in this hotbed of European culture, staring was just fine. Staring back didn't do any good so I just let it go. Then just recently a friend here told me that people are particularly interested in what you put in your trash. Needless to say it has taken a while to puzzle out how to sort out my debris. In 2003 as my first Fulbright began it must have been six weeks before I felt fairly confident in my discarding skills. Here in Münster I have the book in front of me. There are still a few things which perplex me however: Let's take the typical teabag since I seem to be consuming lots of tea here. There is a small paper tag, fastened perhaps with a metal staple, string (who knows from what material), what looks like biodegradable paper with tealeaves inside (perhaps even a few bits of fruit). Am I prepared to dissect this confused mess of ingredients?! What's more, will my neighbors check the bins? These are the bins you can choose from: the blue paper container: most common paper, cardboard, egg cartons, etc., the brown biodegradable container: egg shells, wilted flowers, Kleenex, cooked meat and napkins; the yellow recyclables bin: for stuff like yogurt cups, styo-foam, aluminum foil, cans, (but be sure these are clean and dry because this stuff is going to sit around for a while in your kitchen), the gray leftovers container for the rest of the stuff such as: leather, diapers, cigarette butts, bits of raw meat..... If you have glass you must make the trip on your bicycle down the street to the big recycling containers where glass is sorted by color and be sure you aren't dumping that noisy glass after 20:00. Believe me, I am timing my trips to the dumpsters not only to coincide with my usual trips down the many flights of stairs but also with the times when I think no one might be looking.
Just the other day, I spied a red squirrel watching me from his perch high up on a tree outside my living room window. We just stared at each other for a while. I have been told this little fellow may actually enter my kitchen window for a bit of fruit.
There is another way that I know that I am being watched. When I am on the bicycle, I often escape unharmed but just barely. People here seem to be very skilled at knowing where you will be one moment from now. I have had cars pull out at full-throttle the very moment I have passed by their driveway on my bike. If for any reason I had slowed down or wavered from my forward progress, I would have suffered greatly. It may be true that on the Autobahn you cannot pass on the right as is common practice on California freeways. But here in the bicycle lane you just may be passed on the right by a fellow cyclist. It is a bit scary. When I hear the little bell ringing behind me I freeze up, slow down and move to the right and just hope they are not planning to pass on the right. Actually I have become especially sensitive to the sound of this little bicycle bell. I can sometimes hear it from blocks away. At school, walking down the corridors or up and down the stairs, people simply instinctively are not in each others way. It is eerie! Fifth graders are especially speedy when they are fooling around during the five-minute break between teachers. They hang around the stairwells, peering up and down, playing tag with their classmates. So far, none of them have knocked me down. There rarely is a collision. This maneuvering oneself around with agility in a crowded land has been fine-tuned by those who've been here for a while, i.e. the Germans. I am beginning to catch on.