Shhhhh!!!

It seems to be a reoccuring theme here.  First of all there's quiet hour every day from 1:30-3:30.  Everyone has to be quiet.  So if you're working outside making noise you have to stop between those hours.  Also, Sundays is quiet DAY so no making any significant noise outside all day.  They are serious too.  My neighbor was chastised on a Sunday because her kids were outside jumping on the trampoline.  The neighbors behind me told me that they are okay with children and it's okay if ours are outside but they really don't like the trampoline next door because it just makes the children scream and yell too loud and so they had to ask that it be moved.  The good news is that as of the 1st of June here you can no longer sue your neighbor if their kids are too loud.  The screams and laughter of children is no longer considered noise.  No wonder the average family only has 1 child.

Just to expand on my point a little, last week we were taking our tennis lesson and the man next to us came over to tell us that, "This is not normal."  not sure what he was referring to we asked him what he was talking about.  He told us that we shouldn't be talking on the court, that wasn't normal.  Even our german tennis instructor was a little shocked by that one.  We explained that we were taking a lesson but he still disagreed and went and told the manager that we were making too much noise and then came back and said, "No you are going to learn."  So what happens....they kick us off the tennis court with our instructor who works there.  Yeah, still amazed by that one.

Now it's okay for your dog to bark in a restaurant.  No one even turns their head.  First I had to get used to dogs and cats in the restaurant and then last week when someone's big dog started barking in the restaurant I thought, oh man, they don't even like kids to talk too loud, I wonder what's going to happen now.  NOTHING.  The dog kept barking and everyone kept eating.

Note to self:  Leave your kids at home but it's okay to bring your dog to dinner.