So I set up Google Pay last night out of interest and.. is it any good? The thing that bothers me with it is that apparently it pretends to be mastercard when you link your PayPal, and a lot of stores here only take maestro so that might be a problem for me

I use g-pay all the time, linked to both my main bank account and to my day-to-day card. Sometimes it doesn't work, but that's rare these days. Certainly I encounter more "cash only" places in Germany than I encountered places which took contactless but not g-pay.

What do you say to the employee? Socially anxious me is scared of that. I usually say "with card, please", but I can't say that if I'm not using a card. Do I say "contactless, please"?