Our kitchen faucet broke recently. S went to pull out the sprayer hose and the corroded metal tubing around the hose broke. Sharp metal next to rubber tubing also meant that we developed a small hole in the hose. A little duct tape held us over the weekend until we could arrange a plumber. On Monday I contacted our rental company and later that day a woman from the plumber's office called and said someone would be over shortly. I was happy to manage this in German. The plumber arrived and looked at the faucet and then left to go back to his truck to get the parts he needed. He left the work order on the counter and I looked at it out of curiosity to see how what I had told the rental manager had been translated to the plumber's work order. It was all in German, of course, and the problem description seemed accurate. At the end of the description was a line set apart from the rest of the text that said "Mieter spricht Englisch, gebrochen Deutsch." Tenant speaks English, broken German. I laughed. At least it is getting better.
The plumber replaced our old faucet with a new one. (In case you were wondering, I didn't watch the operation much but there was no apparent plumber's crack. This guy had well-fit pants and was a lean, mean plumbing machine). My favorite part is the happy red and blue dancing dolphins to indicate water temperature. The European market seems to have many more elegant solutions to everyday household appliances and functions. Among these is the integrated faucet and sprayer system.*
*Also available in the USA, with at least 191 variations. (See Anonymous hecklers in comments).
Last month we took a short trip to Italy to visit some friends and to celebrate our anniversary. Our first day there a group of us had lunch at an outdoor cafe. On the table with the other condiments was a small bottle of dark liquid. Pictures showed it being used on meats, cheeses, shrimp, strawberries and ice cream. Upon further investigation we discovered it is a balsamic vinegar sauce thickened and sweetened with a concentrate from grapes. We were all intrigued and tentatively tried it on salads and cheeses. Mmmm... that's good. 
Soon we were squirting it on everything on our plates. When the food was gone we squirted it into teaspoons and ate it. The next day our group split and 2 groups independently went grocery shopping. We both returned with various items for dinner and bottles of the delectable dark delight. It came at a price though, 4 euros (~$5) for a small 250g bottle. In Italy you can buy a whole bottle of decent wine for that price. That night we again indulged in the magical sauce and discovered that it does go well with just about everything, sweet or savory. Needless to say we returned to Switzerland with a bottle of the "Black Gold" in our luggage. Wondering when it would run out, I started searching our local grocery stores and discovered that it is sold here with slightly different packaging. I highly recommend trying it if you can find it in a store near you. Beware though, it is highly addictive.
