Germans want cash

If, in the US, one were renting a (third floor! what are we thinking!) apartment for a month, we would probably send a check or use a credit card to secure our reservation. And if someone asked for CASH in that situation, we'd run away, certain we'd nearly done business with a scheister.

But in Germany, you just say that you'll be arriving in four months, on a certain flight on a certain day, and the person who owns the apartment says, "Great! See you then! And bring cash for the rent!" And this is not shady.

What's odder is the German landlord's blind faith that we will just magically arrive on that day. It seems remarkably naive from a US perspective, although I'm not sure what my motive would be to lie to the landlord.

For us, there would be nonrefundable deposits and a great deal of entrenched mistrust throughout the transaction. But in all of my hundreds of financial dealings with Germans, this has been the case -- everything is done just by chatting about it, then putting down cash on the day of the deal.

This is so different from my experiences in California, where the option to flake out on plans or deals is always possible, and it always continue to surprise me. When someone says, "Yes, let's get together this weekend!" it sometimes doesn't mean "Let's get together this weekend," it means, "I like you, and I'm not sure how to end this conversation."

So I'm looking forward to the German way of doing things. It's straightforward. It's sometimes rather blunt, but it will be fairly refreshing after the mushy and unreliable world of California. Oh, and it will be cold, hard cash.