Die Bäckerei (The Bakery)

Before moving here, I always thought of a bakery as somewhere you could buy sweet pastries, cookies etc.. The German Bakery is an essential part of the German Culture. Fresh bread is a daily consumption. There is literally one in every village and on every city corner. We have one about 20 steps from our front door and it has been the best thing ever. I never even pondered the fact that our bread back home would last for over a week. Why did I never even question this fact? This is real fresh bread - which means it will harden over night (so you have to eat it fresh). The best thing too is that our Bakery is open very early - which means I can send my kids off to school with Fresh Bread each day. Did I mention - how reasonably priced it is?  I keep a little jar of change by the door and the kids go and order their bread each morning. It is funny too, because last week Bailey didn't come by until the afternoon, and the lady told her that she missed her that morning - so nice to be missed :-).

So here is the funny thing...when I passed my German Test, I thought that maybe I could get a job at the bakery each morning (it would be fun and work perfectly with Mia's schedule - I could work in the morning and then be home in the afternoon). Well, come to find out that in Germany, a bakery worker is a very respectable job and you need a 3 year practicum to work there. My little morning work opportunity went down the drain with that notion. That little difference is definitely part of the German work ethic and why they are often successful and accomplished at whatever they do. Of course the bakery worker would need 3 years to learn ALL aspects of working in a Bakery. You need to know about the various nutritional aspects, the different grains, the business aspect, the restaurant side of it etc.  With that said, Mia has decided that working at a Bakery would be her "dream job". She loves handling money and change, folding the little bag so that the bread doesn't crush (oh - she is good at this :-)), organizing the shelves so they constantly look full. All she wants is a little Bakery - so cute!

The fold to the bag is very important! This was one opened and then refolded (so not quite as nice looking as normal) :-)  Oh yeah - and the word Fuchs is: Fox (hope if you are reading this your mind didn't go somewhere else :-)