I've travelled a good bit, which has been a mixture of nice and exhausting, seeing new places (Sion, Bern) and revisiting ones I've seen (once) before (Paris, Amsterdam). I've tried to keep my tone upbeat, but when I've felt smooshed by life, I kept it to myself, which explains some of the blogging breaks which occurred even though I had things I could write about.
Since we all love lists, here are some lists:
Things that are pretty great here:
It's harder to fire people. So, people are not constantly stressed out about possibly losing their jobs. Which I think relates to higher job satisfaction, and people in jobs that one would see staffed by teenagers being instead grown adults who are pretty knowledgeable with what they're selling you.
Teachers are respected. I notice this as a trickle-up thing from the Kindergarten through highschool age range. Teachers here are treated pretty well, respected, and it's actually pretty difficult to get into school with education as your major, since they have so many applicants and can pick and choose. Example of teachers being treated well: I'm subletting from a guy who teaches Econ and Spanish. He is on sabbatical. It lasts a year. A year he is spending sailing around on his boat (with a break now during winter to hang out in Argentina, waiting for it to warm up a bit).
"Serious, 'bone-crushing' debt" from school (university) is, at most, something like 8000 euros (btwn 10 and 11k USD). We had a chat in my German class about debt and credit and student loans here, and I explained how I knew plenty of people with debt around 30-50k USD, and a few more like 200k USD (doctors, lawyers).
People here are not afraid of losing all of their money to medical bills.
This doesn't happen, and it's not something I can explain or justify about the US. In the States , there are so many "heartwarming" stories of people donating to various causes, but there is a sadness, too. That the "need" for these donations and fundraising drives is even there. That otherwise, these people would die or be extremely suffering.
Examples of what I mean:
- Boy wins $1000, donates to neighbor with Leukemia, "to help pay for the medical care ".
- Regretsy has had many fundraisers for people in awful situations, some involving medical-bills induced debt, etc. For example, a person who's "dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. Despite surgeries, aggressive chemo and radiation, it spread to his liver, spine, and brain. My mom became the sole income-earner for the family. Medical bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars were piling up, and somehow she still managed to sit with my dad 24 hours a day when he was in the hospital." Dad dies, family still has bone-crushing debt. Regretsy raised ~7k.
(Less seriously...)
- General multi-lingual-ness. There's a guy in one of my previous German classes who speaks, with some high fluency: French, Dutch, English and (now) German (he's from Belgium). This is pretty normal.
- bicycles! It's pretty normal for people to get around mainly by bicycle.
- There is surprisingly affordable watch repair, probably related to the fact that people here seem to tend to own (nice) watches.
- Cell phones are usually/often not locked to one provider. There is always a prepaid option.
- Fast food places at, say, the mall will have a sit down area and real silverware and plates.
- Taxes included in the price of things.
- Tipping not particularly expected. Not refused, but not assumed. My hairdresser was very surprised and a bit flustered when I tipped him 5 euros, and asked me if I was sure.
- No ice in drinks (which then means that you actually get the volume that you paid for).
- Cheap wine/alcohol. Lots of new and strange alcohols. Ginger schnaps is awesome. I am wary of the "Egg liquor" (which is, I think, rather different from eggnog).
- Staff in stores are almost always helpful.
- Things are generally safe. Related: normal people use public transit.
- Lots of random Holidays. Surprisingly large amount of vacation time.
- Leather shoes. Leather-soled shoes. These things are pretty normal. I think it would actually be hard for me to find non-athletic shoes which are non-leather, at least for the uppers.
Ways I've changed/things I've taken on:
Duvets and duvet covers. The european bed-linens are comprised of: a fitted sheet and a cover for the duvet/comforter that comes with one or two matching pillowcases. Takes some getting used to, but washing duvet covers are certainly a lot easier than washing comforters.
Anti-SAD lamp I've been feeling the cloudy days and finally broke down and got one of these lamps for the office. I find the light very soothing.
'Korn'y bread-- I'm not generally a big eater of bread, as I view it as empty calories. This bread is different. It's dense and heavy, full of seeds and similarly unprocessed/un-ground things and usually rolled in more seeds before baking, for good measure. Someone had to ferment the dough to make it rise at all, I'm pretty sure. You could probably beat someone up with a full loaf of this stuff. I think it's awesome. My current favorite is the "Fiticus Fladen" at "Dat Backhus". Here they are from the outside, and once you cut into them (not my pics).
Abendbrot(evening bread)-- The German model for meals is :
- small/no breakfast (or maybe a roll and some jam or coldcuts ("Wurst"))
- large, warm lunch
- small dinner, basically breakfast again. Thus the name "Abendbrot" (Evening bread).
Not wearing (so many) "funny" shirts. I'm kind of sad about this, since I stopped wearing them as they are not funny here, and instead cause general consternation.
Scarves! Germans love scarves. They are (as I see it) the poor man's jewelry. Also, much easier to see, and practical (since the weather is, counter to what Fox ''news'' would tell you, mostly overcast/cool). I've got my own collection of them. They're great.
 |
| From Germany 2012-2013 |
Things I'm still not used to:
Being called "Frau". If I can avoid it, I do.
Popcorn is always sweet, never savory. I haven't tried it, assuming it's like sweet popcorn in the states.
Movies, TV, everything from not-Germany -- dubbed. Not verbatim, though. They change the script to adjust for the sort of latent assumption that "everyone involved is German". Example: In Captain America, it's key that one of the characters knows (some) German and can therefore listen in on German radio transmissions and also help in figuring out the buttons to get a tank to start. This, of course, makes no sense when everyone is dubbed to be speaking in German. There's a comment (in English) that he took German class but switched to French because the girls were cuter. This got changed to him saying he was in mechanical engineering for a bit (which is why he knew how to start the tank) and switched to (something, can't remember) because the girls were cuter. Riiiiiiight.
and, of course:
German, the language. I'm much more fluent than I was a year ago, but still have a ways to go. I still think in English and translate everything between. It makes for some errors, and I also find myself grasping for words in either language, at times.
I find the struggles of Mark Twain inspiring. He gave a speech (in German) on "The Horrors of the German Language" in Vienna in 1897 (here, in German and with his 'literal' translation adjacent) and also had a bit to say after tramping around the country:
"A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language it is. Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp...Every time I think I have got one of these four confusing "cases" where I am master of it, a seemingly insignificant preposition intrudes itself into my sentence, clothed with an awful and unsuspected power, and crumbles the ground from under me." (Twain, "The Awful German Language", appendix to "A Tramp Abroad").
Fun things:
- There is no word in German for "pie".
- The word for "groceries" in German is Lebensmittel, which translates literally to "stuff you use/need to live".
- "Gymnasium" is what we might call High School (or maybe college-prep High School), whereas "Hochschule"(literally "High + School") is a general name for college/uni-level schooling.
- The slogan for Ritter Sport chocolate bars is "Quadratisch, Praktisch, Gut", which means "Square, Practical, Good".
- There's a word for yes-and-no. "Jein" = ja+nein.
- "die Schlabberhose" = baggy pants
- "brav" means "well-behaved" (e.g. a word you might apply to children) while "mutig" means brave ("Mut" is courage/bravery).
- All soft drinks are "Limonade". Which is apparently not confusing, since lemon = "Zitrone".
- "hamstern" = to hoard. I saw an advertisement for a bank or maybe a credit card that had the word "geldhamstern" (hoard money).
- Yiddish is, since about 3/4 of its words are pretty directly from German, listed as a German language, albeit written with Hebrew(esque?) script. Having spent many formative years in NY(not the city), I think I absorbed a fair about of Yiddish words into my English. It's funny running across these in German (where they can have rather different meanings).
"Schleppen" means to haul/carry/drag (like in Yiddish, "schlep").
"Klatsch" = gossip.
"phooey" from "Pfui" (German).
"Shtup"(Yiddish) comes from "stupfen" (German), 'nudge or jog'.
For more, see this list including etymology.
Things that are hard to find:
Brown sugar (or molasses). I think I have never seen this. Not 'proper' brown sugar (which is sugar+molasses). That have what I would call "golden" or "raw" sugar, and call that brown sugar.
Reece's peanut butter cups [I did find these at a video rental store in Berlin]. Or, any candy with peanut butter. Peanut butter itself is enough of a novelty that I can find it in almost every grocery store.
Tap water in a restaurant (outside of the Canadian-run breakfast/diner place, Mamalicious).
Good, very-thinly cut bacon. They have bacon (and label it as such), but it doesn't cook up as well as I'd like.
Decent Mexican food supplies. I saw masa harina at an indian grocery store and chipotles in adobo sauce at a store near a "Mercado", but...while a lot of grocers have an "international foods" section, the mexican stuff is generally lack-luster.
Metal water bottles, specifically made out of steel. I brought one back with me after christmas.
Pillows or even trash cans (that contain more than a liter) that cost less than 40 euros.
I'll leave you with a random picture. Me in my office, with a lazily-done braid. Another person on my floor called it a work of art, so I took a picture to get a look at it. Looks normal to me.
| ||
| From Germany 2012-2013 |
Things that are hard to find:
Brown sugar (or molasses). I think I have never seen this. Not 'proper' brown sugar (which is sugar+molasses). That have what I would call "golden" or "raw" sugar, and call that brown sugar.
Reece's peanut butter cups [I did find these at a video rental store in Berlin]. Or, any candy with peanut butter. Peanut butter itself is enough of a novelty that I can find it in almost every grocery store.
Tap water in a restaurant (outside of the Canadian-run breakfast/diner place, Mamalicious).
Good, very-thinly cut bacon. They have bacon (and label it as such), but it doesn't cook up as well as I'd like.
Decent Mexican food supplies. I saw masa harina at an indian grocery store and chipotles in adobo sauce at a store near a "Mercado", but...while a lot of grocers have an "international foods" section, the mexican stuff is generally lack-luster.
Metal water bottles, specifically made out of steel. I brought one back with me after christmas.
Pillows or even trash cans (that contain more than a liter) that cost less than 40 euros.
I'll leave you with a random picture. Me in my office, with a lazily-done braid. Another person on my floor called it a work of art, so I took a picture to get a look at it. Looks normal to me.
 |
| From Germany 2012-2013 |
