Some things I've noticed

There are a lot of things in Germany that you'd anticipate are different than in the U.S. But, there have also been some random things that I've been noticing over time as I've been here. The little things. Here are a few.

• If you have a real job in Berlin, then you are in the minority. Berlin must have the highest number of photographers/writers/artists/muicians/other random self-employed things per capita of any other city. If you tell someone that you are not available to meet them at 2pm on a Tuesday because you have a job, and you have to go every day, all week long, then you get quite the funny look.


• Smokers. Just about everyone here smokes. It's just a matter of how often and in what contexts. There is a guy at my work who claims to smoke only on Wednesdays. It's possible that my calendar might be broken, because I've seen him smoking on all of the other days as well.


• Dogs. Almost all Berliners seem to own dogs. And they come everywhere. They are often unleashed and you'll find people "walking" their dogs by just biking down the sidewalk with their unleashed dog trailing somewhere behind. A lot of people also bring their dogs on the u-bahn, and they seem to lie there silently no matter what chaos is going on around them. I don't know if this is a matter of breed or training or both. But what kind of dog doesn't bark at you when you accidentally step on it?


• Doors. Of course there are two types of doors: the push kind and the pull kind. Often times they are labeled, but sometimes they are not. I've found that when they are not labeled, I guess wrong nearly 100 out of 100 times. At least until recently when I starting trying to think the opposite of what I want to think. Confused? You're not alone. I'm not sure what subtle clues I use in the U.S. that hint to me whether the door is push or pull, but whatever those are, they must be opposite here. Quite embarassing, depending upon the circumstances.


• In a similar vein, they put the light switches on the the outside of the bathrooms here. So, often an unsuspecting person such as me goes inside only to find that there's no light in there, and then you have to come back out and turn it on. It's not so bad, usually you can just open the door a bit and reach around the corner to turn it on. You'd think this would be easy for me to catch on to, right? Well, you'd be partly correct in thinking so. But, here's the problem. Somehow, I cannot categorically separate bathrooms from every other type of room in my head. So, when I got here I pretty quickly caught on to this bathroom trend. But then, I started trying to reach around and turn on the light when I entered the kitchen. And the living room. And the hallway.... I enter those other rooms more often than I enter the bathroom, so I had to switch myself back. By now, I'm all mixed up. Sometimes, it's easier to just pee in the dark.


• Whoever said that there was a bee shortage has not been to Berlin. I don't know if it is specific to here or general to Germany. But, I have noted it. There are bees and wasps everywhere. If you open a beer outside, they are quickly onto you. The other day, I was in my apartment and I opened a jar of honey to put on some bread I was eating. Then, suddenly a bee flew in my open window and noticed my honey and started to chow down. It sounded like "buzz buzz buzz", but, to a bee, that must sound like, "Holy crap, there's like 2 hives worth of honey sitting here. Come on everybody and join in the feast!" So, I had to fend off the bees with the feeble instruments I had at hand and defend my honey. Never happened to me before. This reminds me of another thing they don't have here. Window screens.


• Germans generally like to be well equipped for the tasks they have at hand. For instance, in the U.S., you might see someone out and about dressed in athletic clothes, and then ask them what they are doing that day. They might reply that they are going on a bike ride. This type of conversation is not often had in Germany. Here, if you are going on a bike ride, you are wearing biking shoes, biking socks, biking shorts, a special biking shirt/jersey, biking hat or helmet, and biking gloves. This makes the question unnecessary. Similarly, there are certain uniforms for certain jobs. If you are a custodial worker, you are wearing a set of grey overalls. Fix-it people wear blue ones. If you are a gardner, there is a very specific sort of green overalls you wear. There's no need to ask that guy what he does for a living. He's wearing green overalls, then he's a gardner.


• Here they are much more formal with greetings and with titles etc. There was a long booklet on regulations that I read when I got here and at the end, I determined that I do in fact meet the requirements to be called Dr. in the country of Germany. So, I am many times referred to as such. Not by my immediate coworkers or in informal settings of course, but on other occasions. For instance, I am allowed to label the mailbox at my apartment as Dr. As evidence, pictured below is my German bank card, complete with title. Funny.

World Championships

The track and field world championships have been going on in Berlin for the past couple of weeks or so. I haven't gone to any of the formal events in Olympia-Stadion. Apparently Bolt set another world record. Now, he's all over the gossip pages here about this and that. I haven't paid too close of attention really. But, recently they had the marathon events out in the city, and it turned out to be pretty cool (thanks Lars, for giving me the heads-up). Here is a video showing a bit of what it looked like. You can see the Fernsehturm to one side and the Brandenburger Tor to the other side. You can also somewhat hear fleet of helicopters above that were filming and monitoring things. Unfortunately, I was not able to capture on video the guy who vomited on himself while running, without breaking stride. I was quite impressed. Enjoy! Hopefully this video doesn't take up too much computer memory...

Thanks to Lars for his help with my video technical difficulties as well. Who knew that the answer was on my computer all along. Two thank yous in on blog post. I hope Lars actually reads this.

Hackepeter

Most of you know that eating is one of my absolute favorite passtimes. So, of course I have tried to eat and drink as many interesting things as possible while I am in a place with some foods that are different than I'm used to. The list of interesting things I've eaten is pretty long, but here is one highlight: Hackepeter. It is basically raw ground pork. You can spread it on bread like it's jelly or something and then just eat it. Here are a couple of pictures of the eating. And the verdict is...it tastes like....nothing. If nothing were cold, soft, and squishy, then that's what it would taste like. I think Germans sometimes put little chopped onions on top. I didn't, but if I had then I suppose it would have tasted like onions (nothing + onions = onions). The thing is, the Hackepeter doesn't really keep very long, so you're supposed to eat it all immediately, or cook what you don't eat. I didn't feel like cooking it particularly, and there isn't anybody to help me eat that stuff. So, I just sat down and ate that whole pile of raw meat. I'm not sure my stomach was certain exactly what I had just fed it. I'm not sure I particulary recommend Hackepeter, but it was definitely interesting to try once.

Die Simpsons

Ok, I felt like that last post was a bit negative, so I thought I'd post something a little more entertaining. There are a lot of things that are different here, but one thing that is familiar is the popularity of The Simpsons. In fact, I might venture to say that the popularity of the Simpsons here is maybe even greater than in the U.S. Everyone seems to know all of the characters and most of the episodes. Anyway, I caught an episode recently on German TV and here is an excerpt for your enjoyment. Must have been too hard to dub the singing. Also, "Aycarumba" must be untranslatable :).

So far

Howdy. Sorry for not posting in a while. I had gotten a bit busy and a little sidetracked recently. Hopefully, I can be a little more consistent going forward. Plus, I wasn't sure if anyone really read this, but a couple people have commented on my laziness of late, so there must be a few. :)

If I were to describe the beginning of my time in Germany, I'd say that the most prominent feeling is of isolation. I feel a bit disconnected from the things I'd previously beeen accustomed to. It's more difficult to keep up with the sports and news I found interesting or important before. I live by myself (which is a bit new in and of itself, since I'm used to having roommates) and I still really don't know any people in Berlin. Meeting people has turned out to be a bit more difficult than I thought. In my experience, Germans seem to separate work life from non-work life a bit more than in the U.S. So, I have met a few coworkers of course, but none of them have been too interested in helping me out or hanging out outside of working hours. Though, I do suddenly become quite popular when they need to submit a manuscript or important e-mail in English :).

Also, I can feel as if by myself even when there are other people around, because often they're speaking quickly and at a high level of German. My German has been improving (though not nearly as fast as I'd like), but it is somehow exhausting to try to understand these things for any length of time. So, after a couple of minutes, it just tends to blend in with the background noise. That is how lunches with my coworkers go most of the time, for instance.

In a related note, I feel like I can understand now how a non-native German speaker could move here and not bother to learn German. That always seemed silly to me, and partly defeating the purpose of moving abroad. But, though my German has been improving, it has only be marginally useful to me on a couple of occasions since I've been here. Most people will respond to your German question in English automatically (even if there are no grammatical mistakes) because they recognize your American accent. Then there are those few people who don't speak any English, and they are also difficult to talk to for different reasons. I'm still working to learn German because I think it's important and because I find the language inherently interesting. But, you have to work hard to manufacture artificial opportunities to practice, so I can now sympathize a bit with why a person wouldn't bother.

Ok, maybe this is enough complaining for now. I did find a regular pickup ultimate frisbee game recently, so that is a welcome addition to my life in Germany. Hopefully more to come :).