Sailboat musings. Had to clean the deck first (seagull toilet) Then reading in the shadow of the sail. I own nothing of those, it was just a friendly invitation to chill. And here it comes, the German word of the day: Herumgammeln. A noun that describes an action that essential means doing nothing, hence no action! It is composed of the word "herum" which means something like "about". Plus "Gammeln" which is a bit of slang for "to rot" or "to decay" or "turning into litter". A person who lacks personal hygiene is referred to as a "Gammler" making his/her lifestyle obvious by wearing dirty and worn clothes. Herumgammeln is half-slang for doing nothing, being chill, not working, aimless dreaming, easy living. Very un-German. haha!

German word of the day! Yay! Today we have: Leergutautomat. It is a noun made up of two parts: Leergut + Automat. Leergut itself is also made up of two words. Leer+Gut. 'Leer 'means empty and 'Gut' in that context means container, bottle, flask, can. It covers any sort of container to preserve and transport fluids. 'Leergut' is simply assorted empty containers, mostly used for drinks, like milk, wine, beer, juices, water etc. You might already have guessed what 'Automat' might mean. Automat is any automated vending machine. In this case it is a machine that accepts the return of empty bottles or other types of containers. Not only does the machine accept many shapes of glass bottles but it might also accept cans made from metal. Based upon the bar code on the label of the container it will detect what type of drink was inside plus the vendor and brand it will also find out how much money it will give you back in return for the containers. Usually your cashback will be in the form of a voucher. So this works like this: You buy a bottle of milk. The price contains a small sum used as a deposit for the container. On returning the container you'll get that deposit back in form of a voucher. That way many containers can be reused or recycled greatly reducing litter saving energy and being much more environmentally responsible. Leergutautomat. The machine that returns your deposits. In English it would be: Empty-Bottle-Deposit-Cash out-Machine? Haha! The word and the idea it represents provide a sneak peek into German culture too.