Snow and sidewalks

We woke up this morning to discover the Copies had given us a parting gift: a few inches of snow, with nice thick clumps still falling. I left the apartment at dawn, hoping to catch some photographs of the snow while it was still in a pristine state. That's when the evidence became overwhelming and I could no longer deny that Germans are thoroughly obsessed with clean sidewalks.

The first signs were already showing this summer, when we would see people outside on beautiful Saturday mornings, sweeping their sidewalks with brooms. The debris didn't end up in the streets. No no, it was collected carefully, whisked with a hand brush into a dust pan and disposed of properly (in the compost? in the Restmuell? Does street dirt count as recycleable?).

Throughout the fall, people dutifully kept the sidewalks clean, raking, sweeping, or vacuuming up leaves and stinky ginkgo fruits with gizmos specially designed for the purpose. I almost got a photograph of someone vacuuming leaves yesterday, but he kept looking at me after he saw me get my camera out. I pretended to be contemplating the nearby houses instead and told myself I was making too big a deal out of a leaf vacuum.

This morning, half the sidewalks were already shoveled by the time I went out. Some were already undergoing a second round in the early dawn light. I can understand that the Altstadt was thoroughly plowed, shoveled, and salted by 8:15, given the bustling farmers' market; but that the residential sidewalks were also so well kempt, in the dark, on a beautiful snow-muffled Saturday morning, the first day of Winter Ferien (winter vacation), well, that indicates a certain devotion and industriousness I haven't seen before.