The title link today is dedicated to the Mizer, a poster on here who is quite possibly in a stranger land than I. It's a link worthy of the great Bob. Enjoy!
By the way, I passed the German driver's license test. Yay! You wouldn't believe what nationals here pay to get a license, what with Fahrschule (driving school - about 30 sessions or so) and the fees... over $1500 Euro. For a five year renewable license, I spent 3 hours and forked out ten bucks. It's almost embarrassing. I will try not to piss off the natives when I get behind the wheel.
Tschüss!
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
And she'll have fun fun fun...
Til' the Germans take the T-bird away...
Tomorrow I am taking the German driving exam. It's a little nerve-wracking, considering that I haven't taken a driving exam in oh, 15 or so years. There are a ton of new signs to know and the right-of-way here is very different.
German traffic signs and signals
The basic rule is that the guy on the right has the right of way, or "priority". In a parking lot or at a stop sign intersection this is straightforward and there's a sign that indicates priority at a particular intersection. Sounds like basic "yield", right? Well, yes, except you don't always get a helpful sign. More than once I've seen American drivers being waved to "Mach schnell"... (Ameri-translated: Take your freakin' turn already, idiot, you're on the right).
Roads can have priority. A yellow diamond sign tells you if your road has priority. If the road does not have priority, you have to yield to any driver entering from a road on the right side... unless it's from a private road or parking space.
And so on. I'll be studying all day. Wish me luck!
Tomorrow I am taking the German driving exam. It's a little nerve-wracking, considering that I haven't taken a driving exam in oh, 15 or so years. There are a ton of new signs to know and the right-of-way here is very different.
German traffic signs and signals
The basic rule is that the guy on the right has the right of way, or "priority". In a parking lot or at a stop sign intersection this is straightforward and there's a sign that indicates priority at a particular intersection. Sounds like basic "yield", right? Well, yes, except you don't always get a helpful sign. More than once I've seen American drivers being waved to "Mach schnell"... (Ameri-translated: Take your freakin' turn already, idiot, you're on the right).
Roads can have priority. A yellow diamond sign tells you if your road has priority. If the road does not have priority, you have to yield to any driver entering from a road on the right side... unless it's from a private road or parking space.
And so on. I'll be studying all day. Wish me luck!
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Shopping in Germany
Thinking back to the move to Fayetteville, finding resources here has not been much more difficult than with moving from FL to NC. Except for having to learn all new vocabulary for everything I need, from baby food to trash cans.
Buying baby food means having to learn the names of fruits and vegetables... I now have a cute little vocab spreadsheet for this. With fresh foods, I don't need it (a tomato by any other name...), but with packaged foods there is more to learn. I took food labeling for granted in the states, but here, it is hard to tell how much salt (?), sugar (zucker) and fat (fett) is in the packaged foods. I guess I always intended to eat more fresh foods, right? They seem to use a lot more SALT in the meat and cheese.
Without a basic knowledge of household vocabulary (names of rooms, for instance), cleaners (reineger) here are a nightmare to figure out. Even at home, I hate the endless variety of cleaners that promise to make every surface in your world sparkle with little effort. At least here I don't have to read the marketing crapola. It is a little unnerving though to not know for sure whether you've bought dishwashing tabs or laundry tabs. I know what you're thinking... but the pictures can lie, ok? Just ask Anna Cigolini... she understands. I do have the choice to go to the PX (or WILL when I have a car and a driver's license... minor details... ). But I am trying to learn all I can here, and this goes with it.
Marius Benson (see title link) doesn't seem to like Germany much, but I will have to agree with much of what he says about grocery shopping here. German shopclerks seem to be in a great hurry to get you out of the store, and seem aggravated, almost angry, if you are not fast enough with getting your items out of the cart for scanning, then back into the cart yourself (without bags), simultaneously juggling your wallet to get them paid quickly. They never say it, but inside, I know they are screaming, "SCHNELL, DUMKOPF!! SCHNELL!!"
Buying baby food means having to learn the names of fruits and vegetables... I now have a cute little vocab spreadsheet for this. With fresh foods, I don't need it (a tomato by any other name...), but with packaged foods there is more to learn. I took food labeling for granted in the states, but here, it is hard to tell how much salt (?), sugar (zucker) and fat (fett) is in the packaged foods. I guess I always intended to eat more fresh foods, right? They seem to use a lot more SALT in the meat and cheese.
Without a basic knowledge of household vocabulary (names of rooms, for instance), cleaners (reineger) here are a nightmare to figure out. Even at home, I hate the endless variety of cleaners that promise to make every surface in your world sparkle with little effort. At least here I don't have to read the marketing crapola. It is a little unnerving though to not know for sure whether you've bought dishwashing tabs or laundry tabs. I know what you're thinking... but the pictures can lie, ok? Just ask Anna Cigolini... she understands. I do have the choice to go to the PX (or WILL when I have a car and a driver's license... minor details... ). But I am trying to learn all I can here, and this goes with it.
Marius Benson (see title link) doesn't seem to like Germany much, but I will have to agree with much of what he says about grocery shopping here. German shopclerks seem to be in a great hurry to get you out of the store, and seem aggravated, almost angry, if you are not fast enough with getting your items out of the cart for scanning, then back into the cart yourself (without bags), simultaneously juggling your wallet to get them paid quickly. They never say it, but inside, I know they are screaming, "SCHNELL, DUMKOPF!! SCHNELL!!"
Home, at last. And connected!
Wow, it's been a while since I blogged. Here's the latest:
We have finally found a place to live. Here are the pictures. What a great place. I described it in an earlier post, so I won't go into detail now. Since I last blogged, John and I have moved to Leibelbach, visited Rothenberg, gotten a cell phone ("handy") and a house phone, and... finally... an internet connection. We took a German train to get to Rothenberg, and I took the bus to get to the Bruckencenter (it's basically a mall). There are stories with all of those things but Jacob is about to wake from his nap. Maybe another day!
We have finally found a place to live. Here are the pictures. What a great place. I described it in an earlier post, so I won't go into detail now. Since I last blogged, John and I have moved to Leibelbach, visited Rothenberg, gotten a cell phone ("handy") and a house phone, and... finally... an internet connection. We took a German train to get to Rothenberg, and I took the bus to get to the Bruckencenter (it's basically a mall). There are stories with all of those things but Jacob is about to wake from his nap. Maybe another day!
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