A Germanic Gripe

There is nothing like a bout of cold, flu, or some other such illness to make one homesick (and, as luck would have it, I seem to have picked something up over the weekend). For the most part, I am enjoying my time here in Göttingen, but there are a couple things I miss desperately. Aside from the obvious ones of my girlfriend, family (even though my family was still thousands of kilometers away from Toronto, it didn't feel as far), and not living out of a suitcase, there is one thing that I am just baffled by here. Why don't windows here have screens? What started as a weird cultural quirk has, in my state of headache and general uncomfortableness, been amplified into a profound annoyance. Flies buzzing around the room are incredibly annoying, and that is no different here than it is in North America.

Anyway, full-blown revolution or at least massive civil unrest seems to be going on in Iran, so griping about my fly problem seems a little petulant.