Germany Ladies

[potatopie]

I have a friend that may be doing a stint (5 months) in Germany. Sounds like a pretty small town, Eisenach, about 150km away from Frankfurt. Any one know the area? Just looking to see if I can give her any ideas, like if it's a sleepy farm town or not. Also, how are Germans with English in the smaller cities? Any other German specific tips that might be helpful?

[poisonkisses]

I don't know about that town in particular, but I'm living in a very small town in Germany (3000 people, oh god). Where I'm at is very small but we're not far from some larger towns. One of the towns near us looks like it has a similar population to the one your friend is going to. We only went there once to go shopping but it looked like they had quite a few big box stores as well as a mall, then in the town centre there were a bunch of small shops and restaurants/pubs. Since we only went there once I'm not sure how much English there is in a town that size. In the towns I go to more frequently (which are smaller) there is very little English. There were a few times the staff at a store switched to English for us, but usually they just kept repeating themselves in German.

One thing I'm having to get used to is that stores close very early. Everything is closed on Sunday, on Saturday places are often only open until around 2pm or 4pm (large grocery stores are later), and most places close between 6pm-8pm Mon-Fri. Smaller shops are also closed for an hour around lunch time during the week. Bear in mind though, I am basing these times off towns that are smaller than Eisenach, so I don't know how much of that is a German thing and how much is a small town thing.