Well, I haven't had any exciting adventures in the last week or so, so I figured I'd offer commentary on life here, rather than a slew of pictures. You know, mixing it up a bit. I will, however, be going to a conference in the Alps next week and staying for a few days after, so there should be some epic pics from that (and from the new camera that I got myself for my impending birthday-turning the big 3-0 in slightly less than a month).
Ok, one picture. This month is "China Time" in Hamburg, which is a big China-fest. I didn't realize it had (sort of) started already when I went to register my new address. Outside of the Rathaus (Town Hall) was a 'Chinese Market':
=======
Things Germans don't do:
Despite claiming to care about the environment (no nuclear energy, strict emissions standards), Germans individually don't do a good job of convincing me that they give a crap. Maybe it's just Hamburgers don't give a crap.
Example 0: Pfand (Deposits on Bottles & Cans)
Lots of things have 'Pfand' (a deposit) that you pay when you buy them, but the rules on what exactly has Pfand is kind of weird. Metal cans (e.e. Red Bull), multi-use plastic bottles and beer bottles all have Pfand (wine bottles don't). The idea was to encourage people to sell things in reusable bottles and for people to return said bottles. It works to some extent. There are some sad news stories about poor old people in Berlin supplementing their meager pensions by fetching and turning in these bottles which they find the trash.
However, a place only has to give you Pfand back if they sell the thing you're try to turn in.
Example: Say Aldi does not sell 1 L bottles of coca cola, but do sell 1 L bottles of sprite. If you bring in one of each, you will only get Pfand back on the sprite bottle.
So, you have to try to remember where the heck you bought everything, or you just give up on the Pfand and write it off as a lost cause. At 25 euro cents per bottle for some of these, that adds up.
Example 1: (Non-)Recycling
No, really. First, let's address the language. In the States "recyclables" are not a subset of "trash". The German word for recycling is "mülltrennenung" (trash separation). As a distraction, here's a
neat piece on recycling (and composting!) that was being done during the recent Olympic games.
Hamburg:
- Previous apartment building: We had two bins, one for trash (Restmüll) and one for paper and cardboard(Altpapier).
- If you wanted to recycle anything else, you had to walk ~8 blocks with your stuff. And I was lucky, since that location actually had plastic, metal, paper & glass recycling all in one place.
- Current building, we only have a trash bin associated to my apartment building. The closest 3 recycling collection spots have only paper collection or only paper & glass.
- I am under the impression that some amount of post-processing happens, before they burn the trash (much like Copenhagen, it fuels the ''Fernwärme''(centralized city heating system, which it really seems like not many people use).
Berlin: my friend's apartment complex has the following ''mülltrennung" bins (color-coded, even):
- Biomüll (compostable stuff),
- Leicht verpackung (packaging -- this includes stuff like plastic bags, yogurt containers, tin cans, and that annoying heat-sealed stuff that your new headphones came in.
- (Alt)Papier (paper/cardboard) and
- ''Wertstoff" (I have no idea what goes in here).
There's also "Problemstoff" like paint, batteries, whatnot but that's usually done at a central location or periodically throughout the year. You have to walk some distance to find glass recycling, and you have to separate these into colors.
Example 2: (Lack of) Reusable cups/mugs
I have not seen a single coffee shop here* which has a ''refill'' price for coffee. That is, if you bring in your own reusable cup, they don't give you a discount on the coffee. As a result, people go through a lot of plastic cups that they then don't recycle since, well. They don't recycle.
*(haven't checked at Starbucks, but I imagine US rules apply)
==============================
German Foods (some surprisingly tasty)
Liverwurst ("Leberwurst") is surprisingly delicious.
Specifically, the cart at the farmer's market nearby sells handmade liverwurst of three varieties (so far, I've only tried the liverwurst with little bits of liver, which was yummy).
Wurst in general is a toss up.
- "Kabanos" are the generic dried sausage, and they're ok in soup.
- "Kohlwurst" is sort of what I'd call "sausage" or maybe polish-style sausage.
- "Katzenwurst" (not made of cats) is dried, tiny, maybe the size of an average person's pinky finger, and sold in strings (or packages) of four or so. Doesn't agree with me, too greasy (at least the ones I had). Heartburn. :P
- This weak I bought some "Geflügel Jagdwurst" (bird hunter-sausage), which has chunks of meat in it, but is more of a coldcut and a squishy paste like liverwurst. It's ok.
Other German meat products:
- "Bayerisches Leberkäse", which is neither liver(Leber) nor cheese(Käse). It smells, looks, and has the consistency of….bologna. That was disappointing. Also, that seems to suggest that we have Germany to blame for bologna, not Italians.
- Schnitzel, pretty delicious. Whether it's ''standard'' (with pommes, which is pronounced "pom-mus" (rhymes with "hummus") here) or ''adulterated'' (Omas Apotheke makes bacon-covered Schnitzel which I have yet to try).
Other German food I like:
- Apfelrotkohl. (Here's a recipe)Take red cabbage and cook it down with, I think, red wine and apple cider vinegar and some sugar. Delicious. Good with a big slab of meat and some potatoes.
- Quark. Specifically, with Rote Grütze (red gruel, literally, but it's basically a bunch of berries, mostly currants, mixed together with some amount kind of mashed into a pulp.). Quark is, by the way, actually a cheese. But it has the consistency of super-strained yogurt.
Things I never cooked with before moving here:
Celery root ("Selerie" in German). The flavor of celery with the consistency of, well, a root vegetable (being a root). Great in soup. Standard soup veggies here are celery root, carrot and leek (a bit different from the US onion, celer (non-root) and carrot).
==============================
Recent thoughts on Language oddities:
There's nothing quite like learning a foreign language to point out the oddities of your own, and just of language in general.
Present Tense vs Present Progressive
For instance, we seem to never use the present tense in English, unless we mean something that we do habitually. Instead, we use a tense that German
doesn't have, which is the ''Present Progressive."
Example:
I am writing. (Present progressive)
(vs.)
I write. (Present)
When vs when vs when
In English, we use "when" for things that really have little to do with time.
In German, there are three words for the English "when", separated into use. These are
- "Wann" (Usually only a question word, the "when" from "When would you like to go?")
- "Wenn" (Conditional, either formal (an 'If...then' statement) or something that always happens. Examples: "When I push this button, it summons the elevator" or "Always when I go to the store, I buy more than what I intended")
- "Als" (Sort of a one-time conditional; "When I went to the store today, I saw so-and-so" or "When I lived in New Mexico, I went to the Balloon Fiesta").
Sarcasm
...is such an inherent part of my sense of humor. I finally learned the word for "Supposedly"
e.g. "Well supposedly it will happen" (it's "angeblich").
Dutch is a lot like German:
My officemate is Dutch (and has been learning German while here and is ~fluent), so we talk about Dutch and German and English and their (dis)similarities.
Here's an example of a text in German, Dutch and English (taken from a tweet during the Olympics. A spectator threw a glass bottle at Bolt, the Dutch bronze medalist in (women's?) Judo was sitting nearby and went over and got the spectator and waited for the authorities to come and deal with him).
German:"Ein betrunkener Zuschauer hat eine Flasche auf die Strecke geworfen. Ich habe ihn geschlagen...unglaublich"
Dutch: "Een dronken gast voor mij gooit een flesje op de baan!! IK HEB HEM GESLAGEN.... Ongelofelijk!!"
English: A drunken spectator threw a bottle onto the track. I beat him (up). Unbelievable.
Clearly,
voor mij = vor mir = before me (i.e in front of me)
Ik = ich = I
gast= Gast = guest
Flasche = flesje=flask,
schlagen (schlug, geschlagen) = slagen= to slug (someone)
Some weird words in English and where they come from
Humor me, and click on the little play button
here for this Dutch word.
Figure out which (American) English thing this turned into.
Hint. (turns out this
is the actual etymology)
Related: cauliflower, originally "cole florya", cole from "kool"(Dutch) and the "florye" was borrowed from Italian, meaning "flowering". So, flowering cabbage. In German, it's "Blümenkohl" (blooming/flowering cabbage).
==============================
Canal Tour of Hamburg
You made it this far? Well, I went on a canal tour of Hamburg a while back and forgot to post about it. So, here are some pictures from that :).
En route to the Alster to go on said tour, I looked up and saw a statue reading a book. I think it's nice and kind of cute when people put details in/on buildings that you'd have to be observant to notice.
I snapped a picture of this restaurant, on a beached/no longer functioning boat, with a stage or building or something made from half of another boat's hull.
Canoe/kayak rental is super popular in Hamburg on the few nice, sunny, summery days that we get:
and we witnessed a rainbow on the fountain in the middle of the Binnenalster (inner Alster lake)
