Turning off the air-conditioning

January 3, 2008 By Leave a Comment

The first success story of the year!

Last year I noticed that the air-conditioning was turning itself on every time I started the engine. I thought this must increase the amount of fuel that I use unnecessarily.

Well, after I went to the bio-ethanol petrol station today I asked the person who sold me the car – and they had the answer!

The air-conditioning only turns itself on if the air-ducts are set to blow only on the windscreen. This is apparently to help clear the windscreen quicken in winter.

So now I’ve change the setting and I hope to notice a difference in the bio-ethanol usage.

Filed Under: Bio-Ethanol, Temp Tagged With: ,

Parking charges in Oberursel

January 3, 2008 By 5 Comments

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I was in Oberursel today and was shocked to see that the parking charges in the city centre have risen by 50%!

Until last week, it cost 1EUR to park for an hour – today it cost 1,50EUR. And the silly thing is, that the ticket machine still takes the 1EUR and gives you 40 minutes for it instead!

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On the positive side, you can park almost all day for 2,50EUR, which I guess is a very good offer, but that doesn’t help me when I pop into the town to the copyshop like I did today.

Does anyone else think that it quite a steep increase?

Filed Under: Cars Tagged With:

Did prices rise in 2007?

January 3, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Ever since the Euro was introduced, people in Germany have claimed that everything is more expensive. This came to be symbolised by the term “Teuro” and just after the changeover TV shows went looking for restaurants and shops that had simply changed the currency sign and not the price – effectively doubling the amount to be paid.

Others (including one of my favourite stands at the Frankfurt Christmas Market) showed their prices in both currencies, to prove that they had not used the opportunity to put the prices up.

Last week, the Tagesschau news reported that although prices for food have gone up, the average wage has risen even more – meaning that in real terms food as got cheaper for most people.

Most importantly, the price of food items has risen in 2007 by 5.8%, with some items such as butter and milk going up by 46% and 28% respectively.

But it is an interesting comparison, that in 1980 a manual labourer had to work 21 minutes on average to earn enough for 250g of butter, but in 2007 this was down to 4 minutes.

So put quite simply – yes, we had to spend more, but we also earned more.  It wasn’t just our imagination after all!

Filed Under: Food & Drink

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