Laurence Falconer

It's a Mediterranean vibe is what I would say almost, you know.

Geographically, I'm only around four and a half hours from Milan.

to kind of put it into perspective.

It's kind of down around Lake Constance.

I had never heard of that lake, but it's bloody lovely.

Huge lake there, borders Austria, Switzerland and Germany.

And it's absolutely a paradise.

So it's like basically stunning, stunning little towns everywhere, gorgeous architecture, clean, lovely, safe.

And the Germans themselves, I would say, were more German than I was expecting.

My experience with Germans was, as I said, Berlin and stuff.

But down here, it is much more socially conservative and they are more German than I think I was even expecting.

And I have family in Germany, so I'm going to be diplomatic here.

Well, let's say things like, you know, if you make any kind of mistake, they'll just instantly point it out to you.

If you park your car facing the wrong way on a street, they'll be very quick to stick a note in your car.

If they see you doing something wrong, if they see you putting the wrong bottle in the recycling thing, they'll just go, eh, eh, no, no.

from like, you know, like 10 meters away, they have no problem whatsoever basically upholding the rules of their society.

And at first I was like, Jesus, this is intense.

You know, this is, I was offended.

You know, I was thinking, oh, I was thinking they hate me.

This is, I'm completely out of my depth here.