SO. I dunno. What do people usually write about on these things? I've had a lot of beer. Seriously, they sell that shit EVERYWHERE. I went to a stand that was a joint ice cream/beer stand. I mean, that's the sort of thing people make up when they want to make fun of Germany. "Oh-ho-ho beer with breakfast, beer with vitamins, beer with ice cream!" As it turns out, quips of such a nature are spot-on. On the trains, on the streets, everywhere. In short, it's wonderful. My favorite so far is any kind of Hefeweizen, I had a big one of those two nights back and it was lovely. Followed by some absinthe WHAT DID HE JUST SAY ABSINTHE OH MY GOODNESS. Funny story with that: the bartender served up two shots of absinthe, one for me and one for a friend of mine, and said "Traditional recipe! One part absinthe, five parts water! Good for Americans FAWFAWFAW". Where is it traditional to serve one part great with five parts shitty diluent? Nah. He thought we couldn't handle it. Whatever, bald German man. I was hunky-dory.
Let's talk language mishaps. Goodness, there's been some of those, right-o. My worst one so far: I'm opening a bank account at Deutsche Bank. The lovely young blonde (god, I sound like an old man) helping me is being very patient with this foreign boy, so all is good. Then I want to ask how I transfer money from my TD account to this new one. Already a dumb question, cause of course I would be the only one able to do that. But in asking, I say: "Wieso kann ich mein Geld überweisen?" 'Wieso' means why, not how. 'Wie' means how. So I asked this poor woman, "Why can I transfer my money over?" She gave me a blank look and blurted out "uh...WIE?" (uhh...how?). I shoulda rolled with it and tried to get all existential or political with that initial question. Another example. A friend of mine here wanted to ask for the bill at a little pub. The word for bill is "Rechnung". Instead, she finds the word "Regierung". Which means goverment. So she gets to ask, "Können wir bitte die Regierung haben?" ie "Can we have the government?". Yea. Yucked it up over that.
Let's talk entertainment. Been to a couple of, shall we call them "social environments" in Berlin. Let me tell y'all, America straight destroys entertainment. I mean, we all sort of know and appreciate that, but like REALLY. All the movies and all the music. Especially music. Germany seems to be in a strange time-warp with music though. For example, we heard Christina Aguilera's 1999 classic "Genie in a Bottle" playing after such tracks as "Like a G6" and "The Time (Dirty Bit)". I was all over the dance floor for the former...not so much for the two latter songs. Now, per my Facebook status...Germans can't dance. Now I ain't no toe-tapping prodigy, but I swear, they would just rock tentatively back and forth like firm tall oaks swaying in the wind, fists up and closed tightly like Rocky prepping for a tussle. German girls were somewhat better, but pretty aloof. No story there; there was just no warmth in the atmosphere. Except these two crazy Asian guys for about 10 seconds. I feel like you find that stereotype everywhere, all smiles and no English. Alas. Opportunity missed. PS: Everything is unavailable on Youtube here. Anything that is anything. Perfect (sad) example: once Friday from Rebecca Black got too big (15+ million views), it got taken down in Germany. What the flunk.
There's a place in Berlin that's like straight-up fairy tale land. That place is called Museum Island, a little strip of land isolated from the rest of Berlin by a river. As the name suggests, five differently-themed islands are speckled across the island. I haven't been to any yet (we were a bit short on time), but the place was staggering to walk around. And please take that seriously; I usually give zero craps about scenic beauty and whatnot, but this place was out of a movie. I have some pictures on my Flickr account (look how trendy I sound!). Some of them, by the way, are from the dope "Third Reich" tour I took with a couple friends; these are accompanied by little summaries of the wonderfully-told stories our tour guide had. Horrifying stories mostly, considering the subject matter, but totally fascinating. I plan on taking quite a few more of those.
That's my photo collection so far. To be expanded with more elaboration on certain pictures, but there they are.
Assorted thought bubbles below:
1) Avant-garde sax-driven music does not suite a night club, no matter how freakishly hipster it is. Adding a rhythmic tambourine does not get people to dance.
2) When one of the highlights of the evening is meeting a Canadian and getting asked "Why did you guys elect George Bush for 8 years?!", the night must be questioned.
3) Pretty sure we got offered drugs by two cute German girls. We didn't understand though, and they apparently didn't know the English words for "HAVE SOME DRUUUGS". They did wish us a very pleasant stay-vacation in Berlin yes, though.
4) In the UK, notes don't have the same time-duration names. As in, a half note is a minim. A quarter note is a crotchet, eighth is a quaver, sixteenth = semiquaver, 32nd = demisemiquaver. One dares to assume a 64th would be a hemidemisemiquaver. That means a conductor might call out in a piece "AWRIGHT SO THIS MEASURE IS TWO QUAVERS FOLLOWED BY A CROTCHET TIED TO A MINIM, THEN REPEATING THOSE DEMISEMIQUAVERS,". Seriously, how do you get more British? Probably the best part of the Third Reich tour, learning all this.
5) I had a delightfully ridiculous conversation with an older woman in a phone store, where she spoke in broken English and I spoke in broken German. First time I've giggled with a random 50+.
6) Clubs are certainly not for me. Bars playing old Herbie Hancock tunes with cool lighting certainly are.
7) I'm starting to love the way German sounds to my ears. Really. A pretty young girl asked me if I had a bottle opener for her soda and I coulda died. She has no idea. Lol, right?
Well, off to Amsterdam in seven hours or so. Hope I don't die. Be back soon with pictures and more tidbits. Cheers.
No comments:
Post a Comment