Rations

It seems rather strange, but we're still on rations for some products here. If we want to buy liquor, coffee, or tobacco products, we need to show our ration card. I didn't know that until I tried to buy coffee without it, though. I have no idea where our ration card is. No biggie. We don't buy tobacco products, and we only rarely buy coffee and alcohol, and we just buy those at the German stores.

The big thing that's rationed is gas. We're able to buy 400 liters (about 106 gallons) of gas per car per month for an "average US price" which is currently around $3 a gallon. We can buy gas on base or at Esso gas stations in Germany. We have a little card that we have to swipe, and it says how much gas we have left for the month. If we go over that amount, or if we have to get gas somewhere that isn't an Esso in Germany, we have to pay the regular German price, which is currently around $8 a gallon. I'm really glad we have the card! You'll see on the picture that there isn't any regular gas here, it's all super or super plus.