In Bed

You've got to love the German system of covers.  The standard is a quilt (cleverly covered by a quilt bag) for each person which is not tucked in at all.  The genius of this arrangement is that you needn't share your blanket with anyone, even the person sleeping right next to you.   Another bonus is if your feet get too hot, you just stick them out the bottom -- there are no tucked in corners to fight with.  With the exception of 3 years in college and one year in Münster, I have always shared a bed, first with my sister, then my husband, and although I hate to admit it, I was a cover hog.  Since moving to Germany, I have my very own set of blankets and can cocoon myself in them however I wished.  It is heaven.  Only on our travels throughout Europe and on visits to the States do we still need to negotiate the blanket situation before retiring for the evening.  We tend to pull out the fitted top sheets and blankets before sleeping (causing, I fear, more than one maid to wonder the next day exactly what went on during the night), but alas it is no help to my husband, for in the morning I am generally wrapped snugly in all available blankets and Christof is left with the fringes to keep him warm.


German pillows are also quite different from American ones.  The most common size is 80cm by 80cm (you do the math -- I now think in metric) and although they are great to lie against while reading in bed, for the life of me I can not figure out how anyone can sleep with something so unwieldy.  We have a second set of pillows (40cm x 80cm), ingeniously hidden under the big ones, that we actually use to rest our heads on when we sleep.  Just the other day we bought two new pillows of the smaller variety, not the most expensive kind but still with the gentle curves for neck support that are all the rage over here right now.  They are certainly comfortable, but in the end, I generally end up throwing even that pillow on the floor sometime during the night, preferring to sleep flat on my back or stomach.


It is also common for bigger beds (king and queen sizes) to have two separate mattresses, a plus when putting on the fitted bottom sheet, but a minus if the mattresses are ill fitting and there is a crack in the middle.   Even worse are the old "Gasthäuser" where a double bed is made of pushing two singles together.  Haven't seen that in many years, possibly because they are outdated or more likely because we have moved up to nicer accommodations when we travel.  I still find it funny, though, that Germans always refer  to "my bed" when Americans would say "my side of the bed", but if you have your own mattress and quilts, I guess that is the more appropriate designation.  No matter, I am glad to have my own set of things, and it has to be a relief for Christof that he doesn't have to battle me nightly for the blankets.