The first and as I hope the only post without a single picture
It's not a secret that Europe is not a heaven on Earth. Here lives the same people who has a lot of daily challenges just like the rest of the world do. Children study in schools then go to universities, parents worry about their children even more than children carry about their own (as usual though (: )
Just people here see some problems in other way. That's the main difference. People here are more resilient
Local government decided to replace water system for one my colleague. Well. They collected some money from city budget, companies around and even from citizens (I can't imagine that :) ). During the replacement they corrupted electricity line, cut the internet connection and phone land line. Just perfect. Ah. Of course there was no water during the replacement. Only TV cable worked (who needs it without electricity though).
There are many people who dressed good (even in suit) and they are hanging around and collecting empty bottles. Probably cause Germans have a lot of machines to exchange bottles for money. Exchange rate is quite high, to be honest. Once I saw a man on a bike in really nice suit, yellow gloves who checked all the garbage collectors on his way to collect the bottles. I didn't get either it was one of white collar who didn't receive enough money on his work, either it was a homeless guy who earns enough on "bottle business" to buy a bike and a suit :)
The central street in the city Zeil in the late evening is full of homeless people. They calmly sit around and may be discuss daily business. Some of them even try to beg money. Though there are just a few guys like this. You can often meet there some police guys who's just checking things around. Probably that's because in the evening in Zeil you can meet not just homeless people, but underground groups as well. However I didn't see any fights there or something.
Mathias (one of the most sociable colleague during this trip) told me that there were a lot of changes in the country for the last 20 years. According to him 70s were something like 90s in Russia (well probably a light version of it). Bank staff was really in danger. It was quite common to read about another shot economist in newspapers. As for now it's calm and safe here. Germans are friendly to arriving immigrants (the immigrants flow is getting bigger last years)
So as you see, there are downsides as well here. Therefore your opinion will depend on what you see more here (the bad or the good).
Tomorrow I will upload some photos =)