Is Germany too civilized?

Thanksgiving is over, I am not going anywhere interesting, and now it's time to write about the mundane stuff that interests a foreigner like me. As familiar as a lot of things are in German culture - Christmas traditions, potato chips, Coca Cola, bad pop music - sometimes I realize how it's a little more civilized than what I am used to. Maybe too much.

In Germany there is universal health care, low unemployment, and shops that are closed on Sundays.  People wait for the light to turn green before crossing the street and might publicly chastise you for riding your bike on the left-side-of-the-rod sidewalk. Busses run on time and the passengers buy tickets even though they are seldom checked.  Sounds good, right? As we live here longer, I keep noticing little things that happen in a highly-organized, law-abiding society that would never work in a lot of places, including my homeland (which is still civilized, if slightly less law-abiding).

Hannover, like many other cities in Germany, has free bookshelves. In addition to the public library system, there are bookshelves out in public areas where passers-by can take a book home, bring it back later, or donate their old books. Here's some info from a 2011 AP article featured in The Guardian :

Associated Press= COLOGNE, Germany (AP) — Take a book, leave a book. In the birthplace of the printing press, public bookshelves are popping up across the nation on street corners, city squares and suburban supermarkets.
In these free-for-all libraries, people can grab whatever they want to read, and leave behind anything they want for others. There's no need to register, no due date, and you can take or give as many as you want.
"This project is aimed at everyone who likes to read — without regard to age or education. It is open for everybody," Michael Aubermann, one of the organizers of the free book exchange in the city of Cologne, told The Associated Press.
The public book shelves, which are usually financed by donations and cared for by local volunteer groups, have popped up independently of each other in many cities across Germany including Berlin, Hannover and Bonn, and also in suburbs and villages. 

Public bookshelf in Hannover

Cool idea, right? Way to make literacy accessible to everyone. Until somebody steals all the books. Except that doesn't happen. Really. People actually bring the books back or replace them with other titles. Except for my friend Kaska's mom, who is Polish, and took a couple of books home to Poland with the explanation of "at least I will USE them". In the U.S., the books would not always come back, even in a nice neighborhood. They'd turn up at someone's house or a used book store. But in Germany, that's not a problem.

Here's another example: public apple trees. One of the semi-country roads where Brian and I like to ride bikes is lined with apple trees. On weekend mornings in the fall, we would see people drive up to those trees in their cars, pull out their apple picker poles, and help themselves to the apples. The trees were so close to the road that they had to belong to the city. And people were openly picking them, for free. Brian and I were both amazed. "What is this place (this is the dialogue of us talking to ourselves), the land of milk, honey, and applesauce?"

But then maybe it goes too far. I learned in German class last week that in Germany, it is illegal to wash your own car in your driveway or the street. If you do and the police catch you, the fine is 500 euros! These people are serious about not washing your own car. The explanation that my teacher gave, and what I read online (translation = it must be true) is that the soapy, dirty, oily water can get in the gutters and go down into the sewer system. And no one wants that. Except, doesn't that happen when you go to the car wash too? Doesn't that happen when it rains? Is the rest of the world drinking contaminated water because they wash their own cars? Maybe this law a way to ensure that car washes stay in business.

As a foreigner, maybe I have the best of both worlds. I appreciate that busses run on time and you can borrow books off the street (not that I can read any of them, but it's a nice idea). I also know enough to realize that some rules are not really necessary, and that car washing is not the world's major source of water pollution. I do sometimes cross the street on a red light, to the disapproving looks of old ladies waiting on the corner. And next year, maybe I'll get an apple picker.