Balcony /Balkon

Germans are always keen to have a balcony, especially in this weather. (Indeed, the popular press often says they are saving money by spending their holidays in Balkonien).

balconyw2.jpg

7 thoughts on “Balcony /Balkon

  1. It’s not your balcony is it Margaret? I have just reorganised mine having dumped a huge satellite dish I never used, about 10 huge pots of barren soil and about 100 litres of defunct gravel from my aquarium. I now quite enjoy the air every evening in my “comfy chair” listening to neighbours moan about this and that and generally switching off for an hour or so. Balkonien is “great”. I wonder…is there an English equivalent of the phrase…?

    Paul

  2. No, it isn’t mine. I took the photo from the car park yesterday. You can see it again on May 14th (or click on the word Photos under the entry on the main page and you will see everything else I called Photos).

    My balcony is set into the house but is also very plain and metallic. I think it was in the servants’ quarters when the house was built in 1906. I never sit there, and actually I think the Hinterhof is not terribly cool, but maybe I should consider it. I would have to clear up some of the old flowerpots first. I suppose balconies are not such a big thing in England. All the houses left by the American forces here have had balconies attached to them. Must do a photo series some time.

  3. Balkanisation in Au means coachloads of ‘spree’ shoppers from Romania or Bulgaria – or suing the freeholders/ their (non-) insurers of our house for leaky terraces.

  4. That’s a new one on me – I only know Balkanisierung / balkanization as splitting into lots of small warring states. We do try to distinguish between Balkan and Balkon, although I suppose in Fürth this is not always possible.
    As for the spree shoppers, the Germans go to the Czech Republic rather than the other way round. But maybe they buy petrol in Austria?

  5. My Balconis/zation point was tongue-in-cheek.

    The East Europ. visa-exempt coachloads are not only spree ‘shoppers’ in Au. and certainly not into cheap petrol. A small, rampant minority get arrested for shop-lifting, pick-pocketing and even armed robbery and are deported straight back home – by coach or air – only to return a few weeks later for more booty.

    With too many esteemed colleagues in Eastern Europe, I’ll refrain from mentioning nationalities and joint-country prison-building programs, but they are well-documented by the Au. Fed. criminal statistics bureau.

  6. Sorry about that – too subtle for me. Yes, the Fürther Nachrichten once had an account of two shoplifters whose names were anonymized as Oleg and Olga. I somehow don’t think they were Germans (except in the wider sense).

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