Because it's apparently becoming something of a tradition with me to end the year with a song from Josh Ritter – still one of my very favorite songwriters after all these years – I leave you with these lyrics from the ever-wise Josh:
Don't let the things you hold onto ever outnumber the things you let go.
Don't let the things you remember ever outnumber the things you live for.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Books: a Year in Review
I don't know precisely why, but I've been feeling inspired to write a "top 5 books I read this year" type post – maybe because this year I went on a finally-reading-some-of-those-classics kick, so for once I feel like I have something of substance to say about literature?
Anyhow. Here are five books that had an impact on my year:
• Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
I'd have to say I had a complicated relationship with this book. The concept is fascinating (the real-life memoir of a professor of literature in revolutionary Iran who meets in secret with a select few of her students to read banned Western classics) but the execution is a bit muddy, and at times it really drags. I kept putting it aside, then coming back to it months later.
Ultimately, though, this inspired me to pick up many other books, classics I'd never read (The Great Gatsby, Jane Austen, Henry James...) and to look at others I had read before in a new light. Reading these works along with Nafisi felt a bit like being in a college English course again, and I really miss that. So kudos to her for getting me to think about "great" literature again.
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
I admit it – I'm one of those few girls who just never got into Austen as a teenager. The early 19th century is not really my thing. It was Nafisi who pushed me to finally give Austen a try (Persuasion, then Pride and Prejudice) and...I enjoyed it! I find it funny that in essence nothing "happens" in Austen's books (sample plot point in Persuasion: the protagonist goes to visit her sister; this event lasts about 100 pages), and yet I found myself engrossed. It helped that I had a fantastic annotated version of Pride and Prejudice that explained all those little cultural details that would usually go over the head of a modern reader, so I learned a great deal by reading it.
And I'm glad to have finally read this classic, the book that spawned pretty much every romantic comedy ever. I actually enjoyed it enough that I briefly toyed with the idea of writing a modern update (they were going to be theater folks, with Darcy and Bingley as big-city actors coming to a small town just for the summer stock season!) but then I realized everyone's doing it and dropped the idea. But it says a lot about how evocative the scenario is that people are still being inspired to do remakes.
• The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
As an extension of the above-mentioned classics kick, I ended up finally picking up this classic-of-the-modern-age. For some reason, somewhere along the way I'd picked up the impression that Holden Caulfield was an unlikable, obnoxious narrator and that I'd have to force my way through this book someday just for the sake of having read it, but wouldn't enjoy it at all.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I think I sympathized even more with Holden than I would have if I'd read this as a teenager. His disillusionment with the world and lonely confusion rang far more true for me now than it would have when I was a teenager and still quite an idealist. I loved the book, and it (unsurprisingly) reminded me of a more modern take in the same genre, Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," which I read last year and became an instant favorite.
• Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
Just because I've been catching up on the classics doesn't mean I can't still enjoy the occasional YA fantasy novel! I will defend to the end that "children's" literature quite often grapples with the deepest questions of all. I beg your leave to quote the great Philip Pullman on this point:
"One mistake that adults used to make about children's books, is to think that children's books deal with trivial things. Little things that please little minds, and little concerns about little people. And, so, nothing could be further from the truth. Quite the contrary, it's been my observation that a lot of highly praised adult books, or highly successful adult books, in recent years have dealt with the trivial things. Such as "Does my bun look big in this?" or "Will my favorite football team win the cup?" and "Oh dear, my girlfriend's left me, whatever am I going to do?". Whereas the children's books have dealt with ultimate questions: "Where do we come from?," "What's the nature of being a human being?," "What must I do to be good?" These are profound questions, very deeply important questions. And they're being dealt with. Largely, not in the books that adults read, but in the books that children read." (quote drawn from a "Harry Potter and Me" transcript)
Seraphina is a story set in a wonderfully creative world of dragons and quirky saints, but it's also a story of a girl taking up her fantasy-novel-hero role despite her many fears and insecurities, an in-depth look at both the brave, heroic image the world sees and the mess of confusion that often exists inside. Also, the author's conception of these dragons-who-live-among-humans (they're sort of like Vulcans – or Sherlock Holmes – in that they can mimic human emotion, but they don't really get it) is just stunning.
• Sunshine by Robin McKinley
I knew Robin McKinley is an amazing writer, but I guess I'd forgotten just how much so, until I picked up this book, on the strength of the fact that about a gazillion people had recommended it.
This is a vampire novel. Vampire novels are definitely not my thing. But this is a fantastic story. The narrative voice is long-winded and confusing, the ending leaves pretty much every single plot thread that you really wanted to know about unresolved, and no, there's no sequel in the works. And yet, it's so engrossing and original, you can't help loving it desperately, warts and all.
And here are the honorable mentions:
• Maurice by E.M. Forster
This would be up there in the top five if only I'd actually read it... Alas, I've only seen the movie (fantastic!) and when I went to the used bookstore hoping to pick up the book itself, they didn't have it, so I got E.M. Forster's "A Room with a View" instead. (Also good.) But wow, what a story. Just wow.
• Emma (Jane Austen) / The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton) / The Casual Vacancy
(J.K. Rowling)
Think these three novels don't have much in common? I beg to differ.
The first two I also saw in movie form (this was before I got on my Austen kick later in the year) because they happened to be lying around in the cottage we rented for a group hiking trip to Wales.
Watching them back to back, I was struck by how they essentially told a story of the same stripe (women trying to navigate their path through an extremely rigid and judgmental society) but with the fundamental difference that Austen's take on the subject matter is essentially sunny (literally – in Jane Austen's England, apparently the sun is always shining and there are non-stop picnics), while Wharton's is more realistic/tragic. Or compare Austen's Pride and Prejudice with Wharton's The House of Mirth: Elizabeth Bennet wants something greater than a humdrum marriage of convenience, and she wins her Mr Darcy. Lily Bart (SPOILER ALERT!) wants something much the same, and ends up socially ruined, then dead.
A few months later, when I read The Casual Vacancy (a.k.a. J.K. Rowling's first "grown-up" book), I was struck with the thought that this book is, in a sense, a continuation of those themes, simply in a modern-day setting – it's still about the tragic struggle against restrictive social circumstances. (At least, to my mind the particular female character I'm thinking of here amounts to the book's main plot line, though it's a book of many interwoven plots.) To draw that line from turn-of-the-19th-century Austen to turn-of-the-20th-century Wharton to turn-of-the-21st-century Rowling was fascinating.
• Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford
Again, can't count it because I watched it rather than read it, but I was noticing the other day (probably because of reading A Room with a View, set in a similar era) how much the characters from Parade's End have stuck with me. I'm starting to think the Edwardian era/early 20th century must have been a fascinating time – in some ways already surprisingly modern, or at least in the process of a massive breaking-away from tradition (women's suffrage movement well underway, etc.), yet still lacking that massive push toward modernity that, for better or worse, the two world wars would end up bringing.
Anyhow. Here are five books that had an impact on my year:
• Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
I'd have to say I had a complicated relationship with this book. The concept is fascinating (the real-life memoir of a professor of literature in revolutionary Iran who meets in secret with a select few of her students to read banned Western classics) but the execution is a bit muddy, and at times it really drags. I kept putting it aside, then coming back to it months later.
Ultimately, though, this inspired me to pick up many other books, classics I'd never read (The Great Gatsby, Jane Austen, Henry James...) and to look at others I had read before in a new light. Reading these works along with Nafisi felt a bit like being in a college English course again, and I really miss that. So kudos to her for getting me to think about "great" literature again.
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
I admit it – I'm one of those few girls who just never got into Austen as a teenager. The early 19th century is not really my thing. It was Nafisi who pushed me to finally give Austen a try (Persuasion, then Pride and Prejudice) and...I enjoyed it! I find it funny that in essence nothing "happens" in Austen's books (sample plot point in Persuasion: the protagonist goes to visit her sister; this event lasts about 100 pages), and yet I found myself engrossed. It helped that I had a fantastic annotated version of Pride and Prejudice that explained all those little cultural details that would usually go over the head of a modern reader, so I learned a great deal by reading it.
And I'm glad to have finally read this classic, the book that spawned pretty much every romantic comedy ever. I actually enjoyed it enough that I briefly toyed with the idea of writing a modern update (they were going to be theater folks, with Darcy and Bingley as big-city actors coming to a small town just for the summer stock season!) but then I realized everyone's doing it and dropped the idea. But it says a lot about how evocative the scenario is that people are still being inspired to do remakes.
• The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
As an extension of the above-mentioned classics kick, I ended up finally picking up this classic-of-the-modern-age. For some reason, somewhere along the way I'd picked up the impression that Holden Caulfield was an unlikable, obnoxious narrator and that I'd have to force my way through this book someday just for the sake of having read it, but wouldn't enjoy it at all.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I think I sympathized even more with Holden than I would have if I'd read this as a teenager. His disillusionment with the world and lonely confusion rang far more true for me now than it would have when I was a teenager and still quite an idealist. I loved the book, and it (unsurprisingly) reminded me of a more modern take in the same genre, Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," which I read last year and became an instant favorite.
• Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
Just because I've been catching up on the classics doesn't mean I can't still enjoy the occasional YA fantasy novel! I will defend to the end that "children's" literature quite often grapples with the deepest questions of all. I beg your leave to quote the great Philip Pullman on this point:
"One mistake that adults used to make about children's books, is to think that children's books deal with trivial things. Little things that please little minds, and little concerns about little people. And, so, nothing could be further from the truth. Quite the contrary, it's been my observation that a lot of highly praised adult books, or highly successful adult books, in recent years have dealt with the trivial things. Such as "Does my bun look big in this?" or "Will my favorite football team win the cup?" and "Oh dear, my girlfriend's left me, whatever am I going to do?". Whereas the children's books have dealt with ultimate questions: "Where do we come from?," "What's the nature of being a human being?," "What must I do to be good?" These are profound questions, very deeply important questions. And they're being dealt with. Largely, not in the books that adults read, but in the books that children read." (quote drawn from a "Harry Potter and Me" transcript)
Seraphina is a story set in a wonderfully creative world of dragons and quirky saints, but it's also a story of a girl taking up her fantasy-novel-hero role despite her many fears and insecurities, an in-depth look at both the brave, heroic image the world sees and the mess of confusion that often exists inside. Also, the author's conception of these dragons-who-live-among-humans (they're sort of like Vulcans – or Sherlock Holmes – in that they can mimic human emotion, but they don't really get it) is just stunning.
• Sunshine by Robin McKinley
I knew Robin McKinley is an amazing writer, but I guess I'd forgotten just how much so, until I picked up this book, on the strength of the fact that about a gazillion people had recommended it.
This is a vampire novel. Vampire novels are definitely not my thing. But this is a fantastic story. The narrative voice is long-winded and confusing, the ending leaves pretty much every single plot thread that you really wanted to know about unresolved, and no, there's no sequel in the works. And yet, it's so engrossing and original, you can't help loving it desperately, warts and all.
And here are the honorable mentions:
• Maurice by E.M. Forster
This would be up there in the top five if only I'd actually read it... Alas, I've only seen the movie (fantastic!) and when I went to the used bookstore hoping to pick up the book itself, they didn't have it, so I got E.M. Forster's "A Room with a View" instead. (Also good.) But wow, what a story. Just wow.
• Emma (Jane Austen) / The House of Mirth (Edith Wharton) / The Casual Vacancy
(J.K. Rowling)
Think these three novels don't have much in common? I beg to differ.
The first two I also saw in movie form (this was before I got on my Austen kick later in the year) because they happened to be lying around in the cottage we rented for a group hiking trip to Wales.
Watching them back to back, I was struck by how they essentially told a story of the same stripe (women trying to navigate their path through an extremely rigid and judgmental society) but with the fundamental difference that Austen's take on the subject matter is essentially sunny (literally – in Jane Austen's England, apparently the sun is always shining and there are non-stop picnics), while Wharton's is more realistic/tragic. Or compare Austen's Pride and Prejudice with Wharton's The House of Mirth: Elizabeth Bennet wants something greater than a humdrum marriage of convenience, and she wins her Mr Darcy. Lily Bart (SPOILER ALERT!) wants something much the same, and ends up socially ruined, then dead.
A few months later, when I read The Casual Vacancy (a.k.a. J.K. Rowling's first "grown-up" book), I was struck with the thought that this book is, in a sense, a continuation of those themes, simply in a modern-day setting – it's still about the tragic struggle against restrictive social circumstances. (At least, to my mind the particular female character I'm thinking of here amounts to the book's main plot line, though it's a book of many interwoven plots.) To draw that line from turn-of-the-19th-century Austen to turn-of-the-20th-century Wharton to turn-of-the-21st-century Rowling was fascinating.
• Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford
Again, can't count it because I watched it rather than read it, but I was noticing the other day (probably because of reading A Room with a View, set in a similar era) how much the characters from Parade's End have stuck with me. I'm starting to think the Edwardian era/early 20th century must have been a fascinating time – in some ways already surprisingly modern, or at least in the process of a massive breaking-away from tradition (women's suffrage movement well underway, etc.), yet still lacking that massive push toward modernity that, for better or worse, the two world wars would end up bringing.
An Acceleration of Pastries
I just learned that, at least in the Rhineland region of Germany, the word "Gebäck" (pastry) is only used for some sorts of pastry; Danish-type pastries that have fruit or filling on top (previously known to me as "Plunder," as in "Puddingplunder," "Kirschplunder," etc.) are regionally known instead as a "Teilchen" – a word that literally just means "small piece" ("Teil" = part, "-chen" = diminutive ending).
The reason this is funny, though, is that the word "Teilchen" in its more common usage means "particle" (think about it, "part" plus diminutive suffix "-cle") – as in particle physics or particle accelerator. The German word for particle accelerator, in fact is "Teilchenbeschleuniger" (particle + accelerator).
So I hope you're all with me now in picturing a massive, ultra-high-tech machine for accelerating pastries to very high speeds!
The reason this is funny, though, is that the word "Teilchen" in its more common usage means "particle" (think about it, "part" plus diminutive suffix "-cle") – as in particle physics or particle accelerator. The German word for particle accelerator, in fact is "Teilchenbeschleuniger" (particle + accelerator).
So I hope you're all with me now in picturing a massive, ultra-high-tech machine for accelerating pastries to very high speeds!
Friday, December 27, 2013
Naaa?
I'm visiting my friend Lisa right now, and we got on the topic of the German "Na?"
"Na?" (often stretched out into "Naaa?") is a sort of word/sound/interjection, an all-purpose greeting-noise-to-make-when-you-see-a-friend (this applies only to our generation, not to older Germans). It's kind of annoying, actually, because it's a question that has no real answer – all you can really do is respond back with another, "Na?" So the entire exchange goes like this, devoid of any content:
Person A: "Naaa?"
Person B: "Naaa?"
Lisa quite insightfully pointed out, though, that this is just the same as "How are you?" in English – it's (usually) not really a question that you ask because you're looking for an answer, it's just something you say in greeting.
This is a helpful thing to have pointed out, because Germans often complain that Americans are so superficial, they ask you how you are and then they're not even interested in hearing your answer! So next time I hear that complaint, I'll be able to explain it better by comparing it to the German "Naaa?" – it's not a question, but a greeting.
(Heading back downstairs after this conversation, Lisa suggested we test out the theory that "Na?" is only ever answered with another "Na?" So when we arrived in the kitchen, Lisa went "Na?" and her brother immediately looked up from the table and said, "Na?" And of course then we both fell about laughing, while everyone else looked baffled.)
Then her dad started telling me about the typical greeting exchanges people have in the local dialect here, with its syllables-clipped-off economy of speech. They apparently run something like this (roughly translated):
"How're things?"
"Good."
"Wife?"
"Good."
"Car."
"Runs."
Ha! This amuses me, because it's exactly like the exchanges people have in Senegal (and I think a lot of other parts of Africa), where you run through this whole litany of how's the wife, how's the family, how's the job, but it's not about asking for an informational answer (people just want to hear each other confirm that the social order as they know it is still in place, as far as I can tell) and the answer is always, "good, good, good." (Or in Senegal, "ça va, ça va, ça va.")
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Also, Lisa's parents were telling me about a new film, and how they heard a review of it on the radio. The reviewer played a sound clip from the film, then said, "Wie ihr hört, ist das wieder der Ben Kingsley" ("As you can hear, that's Ben Kingsley again").
...But this is hilarious, because of course they were playing the German dubbed version of the movie. (All movies here get dubbed.) So it wasn't Ben Kingsley at all, but the German actor who did his role in the dubbed version. But the thing is, each of the really big-name actors always gets done by the same German voice actor – so there's one guy who's always the voice of Brad Pitt, say. Or someone who's always the voice of Ben Kingsley. And because this is the case, a German listener can actually tell that that's Ben Kingsley – even though in point of fact it's not – because they recognize the voice of the guy who always dubs his roles.
"Na?" (often stretched out into "Naaa?") is a sort of word/sound/interjection, an all-purpose greeting-noise-to-make-when-you-see-a-friend (this applies only to our generation, not to older Germans). It's kind of annoying, actually, because it's a question that has no real answer – all you can really do is respond back with another, "Na?" So the entire exchange goes like this, devoid of any content:
Person A: "Naaa?"
Person B: "Naaa?"
Lisa quite insightfully pointed out, though, that this is just the same as "How are you?" in English – it's (usually) not really a question that you ask because you're looking for an answer, it's just something you say in greeting.
This is a helpful thing to have pointed out, because Germans often complain that Americans are so superficial, they ask you how you are and then they're not even interested in hearing your answer! So next time I hear that complaint, I'll be able to explain it better by comparing it to the German "Naaa?" – it's not a question, but a greeting.
(Heading back downstairs after this conversation, Lisa suggested we test out the theory that "Na?" is only ever answered with another "Na?" So when we arrived in the kitchen, Lisa went "Na?" and her brother immediately looked up from the table and said, "Na?" And of course then we both fell about laughing, while everyone else looked baffled.)
Then her dad started telling me about the typical greeting exchanges people have in the local dialect here, with its syllables-clipped-off economy of speech. They apparently run something like this (roughly translated):
"How're things?"
"Good."
"Wife?"
"Good."
"Car."
"Runs."
Ha! This amuses me, because it's exactly like the exchanges people have in Senegal (and I think a lot of other parts of Africa), where you run through this whole litany of how's the wife, how's the family, how's the job, but it's not about asking for an informational answer (people just want to hear each other confirm that the social order as they know it is still in place, as far as I can tell) and the answer is always, "good, good, good." (Or in Senegal, "ça va, ça va, ça va.")
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Also, Lisa's parents were telling me about a new film, and how they heard a review of it on the radio. The reviewer played a sound clip from the film, then said, "Wie ihr hört, ist das wieder der Ben Kingsley" ("As you can hear, that's Ben Kingsley again").
...But this is hilarious, because of course they were playing the German dubbed version of the movie. (All movies here get dubbed.) So it wasn't Ben Kingsley at all, but the German actor who did his role in the dubbed version. But the thing is, each of the really big-name actors always gets done by the same German voice actor – so there's one guy who's always the voice of Brad Pitt, say. Or someone who's always the voice of Ben Kingsley. And because this is the case, a German listener can actually tell that that's Ben Kingsley – even though in point of fact it's not – because they recognize the voice of the guy who always dubs his roles.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Language Ragbag Addendum
Two more linguistic things that tickled my fancy:
• I'm staying with a friend's family for Christmas (again, I don't actually celebrate Christmas, but apparently I celebrate "German Christmas") and today we were talking about the local Christmas market. The dad of the family mentioned that they strew straw about on the ground in the Christmas market, in and around the vendors' stalls. He reflected quite seriously, "Da hat man ein ganz anderes Gehgefühl." ("That makes for a very different feeling-of-walking.")
"Gehgefühl" – a specific way that it feels when you walk. One of my new favorite words!
• The same friend's father described his home office as "immer ganz messyhaft" – "always very messy," but by borrowing the English adjective "messy" and tacking on the German adjective ending "-haft" (something like "-ful"), so together I guess you'd say it comes out as "messyful."
!!
• I'm staying with a friend's family for Christmas (again, I don't actually celebrate Christmas, but apparently I celebrate "German Christmas") and today we were talking about the local Christmas market. The dad of the family mentioned that they strew straw about on the ground in the Christmas market, in and around the vendors' stalls. He reflected quite seriously, "Da hat man ein ganz anderes Gehgefühl." ("That makes for a very different feeling-of-walking.")
"Gehgefühl" – a specific way that it feels when you walk. One of my new favorite words!
• The same friend's father described his home office as "immer ganz messyhaft" – "always very messy," but by borrowing the English adjective "messy" and tacking on the German adjective ending "-haft" (something like "-ful"), so together I guess you'd say it comes out as "messyful."
!!
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Old Year, New Growth
When my neighbor moved away this summer, she left me a houseplant. A sadly leggy, overgrown houseplant absolutely bursting out of the tiny pot it had probably been growing in for years:
I did some research (hello, people on YouTube who make videos documenting everything they do! thank you!) and decided drastic measures were in order – I would chop the plant down entirely, replant the stalk, and just have to hope it had enough energy stored up to grow back. Here it is just prior to repotting, in all its straggly glory:
When I pulled it out of the pot...it turned out there was basically no dirt left. The whole thing in there was roots, roots circled around and around themselves, with nowhere else to go:
This is where the drastic measures came in – I chopped the plant to pieces. Based on the advice I'd garnered, I tried a few different things: repotting the bottom piece of the stalk (the one with the roots); planting the other chopped-up sections of the stalk in the hope they might also regrow; and placing the top piece of the plant in water. This was in late August:
Then nearly two months passed with no sign of life. I know the guy in the one YouTube video had said nothing happened until well after he'd given up hope...but still, I gave up hope. Then one day – two little green nubs on the original stalk! By late October, this was going on:
By a week or so into November, I decided it was time to clean house. The bottom piece of the stalk – the one with the benefit of roots – was doing well, but there didn't seem to be anything going on with the other sections, and the top bit I'd put in water had died off entirely.
So, all right, one plant sacrificed and one plant gained, that's still a success. But when I went to pull the other pieces of stalk out of their pot, lo and behold – one of them had rooted! I'd thought that scraggly bit at the top was just the top getting distorted as the stalk dried out, but apparently it was actually the beginnings of new growth. Look! Roots:
In the final tally, one plant sacrificed and two plants gained. This picture is from mid-December, and they're both doing great:
Moral of the story, if there is one: Plants are resilient and awesome.
Other moral of the story: Repot your plants! Don't make the poor things exist in a space many sizes too small.
I did some research (hello, people on YouTube who make videos documenting everything they do! thank you!) and decided drastic measures were in order – I would chop the plant down entirely, replant the stalk, and just have to hope it had enough energy stored up to grow back. Here it is just prior to repotting, in all its straggly glory:
When I pulled it out of the pot...it turned out there was basically no dirt left. The whole thing in there was roots, roots circled around and around themselves, with nowhere else to go:
This is where the drastic measures came in – I chopped the plant to pieces. Based on the advice I'd garnered, I tried a few different things: repotting the bottom piece of the stalk (the one with the roots); planting the other chopped-up sections of the stalk in the hope they might also regrow; and placing the top piece of the plant in water. This was in late August:
Then nearly two months passed with no sign of life. I know the guy in the one YouTube video had said nothing happened until well after he'd given up hope...but still, I gave up hope. Then one day – two little green nubs on the original stalk! By late October, this was going on:
By a week or so into November, I decided it was time to clean house. The bottom piece of the stalk – the one with the benefit of roots – was doing well, but there didn't seem to be anything going on with the other sections, and the top bit I'd put in water had died off entirely.
So, all right, one plant sacrificed and one plant gained, that's still a success. But when I went to pull the other pieces of stalk out of their pot, lo and behold – one of them had rooted! I'd thought that scraggly bit at the top was just the top getting distorted as the stalk dried out, but apparently it was actually the beginnings of new growth. Look! Roots:
Moral of the story, if there is one: Plants are resilient and awesome.
Other moral of the story: Repot your plants! Don't make the poor things exist in a space many sizes too small.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Language Ragbag
Every now and then I put together a "ragbag" post of all the bits and pieces that have caught my interest enough to jot down, but which don't really make for a full post alone. In this case, they're all language-related bits and pieces, either things I find amusing about German, or differences I find intriguing between German and English. Here we go!
• "Zusammen oder getrennt?" ("Together or separately?")
This is the standard question asked when a group of people goes to pay at the end of a meal, because in Germany, it's standard for the server to split the bill and for each person to pay separately – so convenient!
But also, as a French colleague recently pointed out, it makes for this awkward moment right after the question is asked, where you don't want to be the one to say "getrennt, bitte" because it kind of makes you sound cheap or overly obsessed with paying only exactly your own part...even though it's normal to do it that way here.
Do Germans feel awkwardness in that moment? I assume not, since they grow up with this.
(This conversation came up because, at the Middle Eastern place where my office-share colleagues and I often have lunch, there's one server who really loves languages, and likes to address us each in our own language. Then he learned that my French colleague is half Italian, so he tries to speak Italian to him. The colleague sort of gently complained to me, "He always asks me how to say things in Italian that you don't actually say in Italian." (Like "together or separately," which you wouldn't ask in Italy, where, as in the US, you get one bill and figure out among yourselves how best to cover each person's part.))
• "to go" – phrase that has become standard usage in German. As in, "Einen Kaffee to go, bitte." I guess it's understandable, since the equivalent would be the mouthful "zum Mitnehmen."
• "house-warming Party" is apparently now also in usage in German! A student of mine (middle-aged, intermediate English level) got invited to a younger cousin's "house-warming Party" (instead of the usual German "Einweihungsparty") and wanted to know what that means. Then she kept forgetting exactly what the word was and referring to it with slight variations. ("What was it? A house-heating party?")
• "Es weihnachtet!" – the same French colleague as above pointed out how lovely it is German the way you can create new forms of almost any word. "Weihnachten" (noun) means Christmas, and while "weihnachten" (verb) maybe doesn't technically exist as a word in the dictionary, lots of people would say it, and everyone would understand. "Es weihnachtet" is like, it's getting Christmas-y, it feels like Christmas, we're in a Christmas mood. But how lovely to be able to look around as a few flakes of snow start to drift down and declare the equivalent of "It's christmasing!"
• Another wonderful not-quite-real word:
The adjective "fremd" means "foreign" or "stranger," or also just "other/external/something that's not our own." So a "Fremdnetzwerk" would be a computer network outside my own company, say, but also "fremdgehen" (literally "to go foreign/other") means to cheat on your partner.
So, one day at the office one guy had made other plans and thus wouldn't be joining the rest of us for lunch as usual. Another colleague commented, "Er ist heute Fremdesser" – he's a "foreign eater," i.e., eating elsewhere and not with us!
• "jein" – this semi-made-up is a combination of "ja" and "nein," and does in fact mean the same as saying, "Well, yes and no..." Yes, people really say this.
• "Planungssicherheit" – this came up in a translation I did (about the history of Berlin nightlife and how it's changed over the decades) and oh my goodness, what a German word.
"Planung" just means "planning" and "Sicherheit" means security, so "Planungssicherheit" is like a secure, stable situation, a situation in which it's possible to plan ahead. Because Germans don't just plan, they also plan to plan.
• "Indian Summer" – sorry, but this is a pet peeve of mine that bugs me to no end. It's a classic case of "I do not think that word means what you think it means," where German borrows a phrase but borrows it wrong, so then you've got all these people saying something, in English, which they think is English, but is really not. In this case – I think because the kind of brilliant fall colors we get in the northeastern US don't exist here, and thus are a foreign concept that needs to be labeled with its own term – Germans have taken the American term "Indian summer" (i.e., a period of unseasonably warm weather that occurs after fall has already started) and apply it to all of American-style fall, with its changing leaves and all the other trappings that are a part of every year's autumn. Whenever a German eagerly tells me, "We're going to the US to see the Indian summer!" I cringe and try really hard to bite my tongue.
• I find it fascinating that what in English is called the "Middle East," in German is the "Naher Osten" ("Near East"). Because, if you think about it, geographically it really is a lot nearer!
• Also, I've been thinking lately about the subtle difference between the words "any" and "every" (and their related words, like "anywhere" and "everywhere," "anyone" and "everyone").
What "subtle difference" I imagine (/pretend) I hear you ask? What could be more different than "any" (pick one out of all the things) and "every" (have all the things)?
Well, in German – as was driven home to me while trying to teach this difference to a student of mine – there is no difference. "Überall" means both "everywhere" and "anywhere." "Jeder" means both "everyone" and "anyone." "Alles" means "everything" and also "anything."
My student is very intelligent and speaks very good English, but as a German speaker, she just couldn't get the difference between "everything" ("I'm so hungry, I'm going to eat everything in the fridge") and "anything" ("I'm not picky, I'll eat anything.") In German, both those sentences would be "Ich esse alles."
• Not actually a language thing, but I'll toss it into the ragbag, since it's something I was thinking about recently: It seems all Germans have electric toothbrushes. They're not something for people particularly concerned about dental health, or people particularly nuts about electronic gadgetry, or any other specific subset. They're just what everyone has. Personally, I think it's some kind of dentists' cabal, because even American friends of mine here have ended up bullied into buying an electric toothbrush by their dentists.
This is not because Germans are unusually concerned with dental hygiene (they don't even floss!) so I have to conclude this is truly just the German obsession with gadgets rearing its head once again. (Come on, a people who have a device in their kitchens for adding carbonation to tap water, to make their own sparkling water? Of course they're going to have an electric toothbrush.)
• An American friend was visiting here, learning some German, and pointed out (this is the kind of thing you don't notice anymore, once you know the language) just how hilarious the German word for "dinner" – "Abendessen" – is. Because it literally means "evening food." Lunch is the same – "Mittagessen," or "midday food."
But what takes the cake is the word for "breakfast": "Frühstück," or literally "early piece."
Ah, endless fun with deconstructing German words! (Though let's not forget to examine "breakfast," which literally is the meal in which you break the fast you have kept over the night while you were sleeping.)
• "hinterherhinken" is just generally an awesome-looking word. It means "to lag behind."
• I only just found out that "Dutzend" ("dozen"), unlike in English, is an archaic word that people don't really use anymore in German, a quaint-sounding measurement like "Zentner" ("hundredweight"). My personal theory about this is that "dozen" is still normal in English because it's standard for us to buy eggs by the dozen, and it's fallen out of usage in German because eggs here are bought in sets of ten!
• I also find it fascinating and strange that in German, while an adult has a "Schlafzimmer" (bedroom), a child has a "Kinderzimmer" (literally "child's room"). I guess it makes sense, since children also spend a lot of time playing in their rooms, not just sleeping?
Similarly, an adult's birthday party is a "Geburtstagsfeier" ("birthday party") but a child's birthday party is a "Kindergeburtstag" ("child's birthday"). Why aren't children allowed to have parties??
• Probably one of the worst words in all existence: "Lebensabschnittsgefährte." This means, not kidding you here at all, "my significant other during this segment of my life." Seriously, could there be anything worse than introducing your partner as "this is the person I'm not going to spend the rest of my life with"??
• Somehow it took me until this year (after 7+ years in Germany...) to notice that when people talk about that week between Christmas and New Year's, they say "zwischen den Jahren" – "between the years."
As in, hey, I'm visiting my family for Christmas, but I'm back in Berlin after that, so let's meet up between the years.
How strange and sweet.
• And did you know that German fairy tales end not with "And they lived happily ever after" but with a phrase that means, "And if they haven't died, they're still alive today"?
Isn't that strange and...fittingly German?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Also, rants I will spare you, by simply alluding to them in passing and thus heading myself off from working up to a full rant about them:
• People who are rude should not be librarians. Thus Germans, or at least Berliners (I know, I know, there are other parts of the country where people are somewhat friendly to each other), should not be librarians.
Librarians – though I know this might be hard to spot – are there to help people find books. Not to bite their heads off, or to sigh and look put out when they dare to ask a question. And I say this based not on one experience at one library, but on seven years' worth of frustration!
• German theater is crap. I'm sorry, I was trying to keep an open mind, but it really is just crap. (I say this as a person who spent years working in theater, and years writing plays, and who's been going to plays for as long as I can remember or possibly even before.)
Running around screaming, throwing things and trying to be as shocking and/or incomprehensible as possible is not theater. That's just crap. Call me old-fashioned (apparently I am old-fashioned, at least over here) but I prefer a play that actually has characters. Who interact with each other. About subject matter.
(A German acquaintance who seems to have similar taste to me told me about a couple of theaters in Berlin that still put on older works – you know, from the days when playwrights actually wrote plays – so maybe I'll check out those.)
And don't even get me started about the specific theater I recently attended that prompted this rant, where they didn't even open the doors to let the audience from the lobby into the theater until 5 minutes after the scheduled starting time; my friends and I (understandably, I feel) took this as our cue to go to the bathroom a last time, while the rest of the audience was filing into the theater. Two minutes later, when we entered the theater, the woman working the door hissed at us, "Wir warten allen schon!" ("We're all wait already!") Then, once all the audience was seated and the actors in place, the same woman realized she'd left the house lights on and had to walk back through the entire audience to go turn them off so the play could start.
Sigh.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And on that grinchly note... Happy solstice! Happy darkest day and longest night of the year! I'm off to re-read John Donne's marvelously depressive reflection on this darkest moment of the year, "A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day," in which he describes all the ways in which the world is dark and dead, then says, "yet all these seem to laugh/Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph."
John Donne, master poet of the 17th century and original emo kid.
Seriously, this is one of my favorite points in the year, this day of deepest, deepest dark, from which it can only grow lighter again. I love that so many cultures have holidays around now that celebrate light and life and greenery. I love that Christmas is pagan even though it doesn't realize it is. I love that today in Berlin the sun set at 3:54 pm.
• "Zusammen oder getrennt?" ("Together or separately?")
This is the standard question asked when a group of people goes to pay at the end of a meal, because in Germany, it's standard for the server to split the bill and for each person to pay separately – so convenient!
But also, as a French colleague recently pointed out, it makes for this awkward moment right after the question is asked, where you don't want to be the one to say "getrennt, bitte" because it kind of makes you sound cheap or overly obsessed with paying only exactly your own part...even though it's normal to do it that way here.
Do Germans feel awkwardness in that moment? I assume not, since they grow up with this.
(This conversation came up because, at the Middle Eastern place where my office-share colleagues and I often have lunch, there's one server who really loves languages, and likes to address us each in our own language. Then he learned that my French colleague is half Italian, so he tries to speak Italian to him. The colleague sort of gently complained to me, "He always asks me how to say things in Italian that you don't actually say in Italian." (Like "together or separately," which you wouldn't ask in Italy, where, as in the US, you get one bill and figure out among yourselves how best to cover each person's part.))
• "to go" – phrase that has become standard usage in German. As in, "Einen Kaffee to go, bitte." I guess it's understandable, since the equivalent would be the mouthful "zum Mitnehmen."
• "house-warming Party" is apparently now also in usage in German! A student of mine (middle-aged, intermediate English level) got invited to a younger cousin's "house-warming Party" (instead of the usual German "Einweihungsparty") and wanted to know what that means. Then she kept forgetting exactly what the word was and referring to it with slight variations. ("What was it? A house-heating party?")
• "Es weihnachtet!" – the same French colleague as above pointed out how lovely it is German the way you can create new forms of almost any word. "Weihnachten" (noun) means Christmas, and while "weihnachten" (verb) maybe doesn't technically exist as a word in the dictionary, lots of people would say it, and everyone would understand. "Es weihnachtet" is like, it's getting Christmas-y, it feels like Christmas, we're in a Christmas mood. But how lovely to be able to look around as a few flakes of snow start to drift down and declare the equivalent of "It's christmasing!"
• Another wonderful not-quite-real word:
The adjective "fremd" means "foreign" or "stranger," or also just "other/external/something that's not our own." So a "Fremdnetzwerk" would be a computer network outside my own company, say, but also "fremdgehen" (literally "to go foreign/other") means to cheat on your partner.
So, one day at the office one guy had made other plans and thus wouldn't be joining the rest of us for lunch as usual. Another colleague commented, "Er ist heute Fremdesser" – he's a "foreign eater," i.e., eating elsewhere and not with us!
• "jein" – this semi-made-up is a combination of "ja" and "nein," and does in fact mean the same as saying, "Well, yes and no..." Yes, people really say this.
• "Planungssicherheit" – this came up in a translation I did (about the history of Berlin nightlife and how it's changed over the decades) and oh my goodness, what a German word.
"Planung" just means "planning" and "Sicherheit" means security, so "Planungssicherheit" is like a secure, stable situation, a situation in which it's possible to plan ahead. Because Germans don't just plan, they also plan to plan.
• "Indian Summer" – sorry, but this is a pet peeve of mine that bugs me to no end. It's a classic case of "I do not think that word means what you think it means," where German borrows a phrase but borrows it wrong, so then you've got all these people saying something, in English, which they think is English, but is really not. In this case – I think because the kind of brilliant fall colors we get in the northeastern US don't exist here, and thus are a foreign concept that needs to be labeled with its own term – Germans have taken the American term "Indian summer" (i.e., a period of unseasonably warm weather that occurs after fall has already started) and apply it to all of American-style fall, with its changing leaves and all the other trappings that are a part of every year's autumn. Whenever a German eagerly tells me, "We're going to the US to see the Indian summer!" I cringe and try really hard to bite my tongue.
• I find it fascinating that what in English is called the "Middle East," in German is the "Naher Osten" ("Near East"). Because, if you think about it, geographically it really is a lot nearer!
• Also, I've been thinking lately about the subtle difference between the words "any" and "every" (and their related words, like "anywhere" and "everywhere," "anyone" and "everyone").
What "subtle difference" I imagine (/pretend) I hear you ask? What could be more different than "any" (pick one out of all the things) and "every" (have all the things)?
Well, in German – as was driven home to me while trying to teach this difference to a student of mine – there is no difference. "Überall" means both "everywhere" and "anywhere." "Jeder" means both "everyone" and "anyone." "Alles" means "everything" and also "anything."
My student is very intelligent and speaks very good English, but as a German speaker, she just couldn't get the difference between "everything" ("I'm so hungry, I'm going to eat everything in the fridge") and "anything" ("I'm not picky, I'll eat anything.") In German, both those sentences would be "Ich esse alles."
• Not actually a language thing, but I'll toss it into the ragbag, since it's something I was thinking about recently: It seems all Germans have electric toothbrushes. They're not something for people particularly concerned about dental health, or people particularly nuts about electronic gadgetry, or any other specific subset. They're just what everyone has. Personally, I think it's some kind of dentists' cabal, because even American friends of mine here have ended up bullied into buying an electric toothbrush by their dentists.
This is not because Germans are unusually concerned with dental hygiene (they don't even floss!) so I have to conclude this is truly just the German obsession with gadgets rearing its head once again. (Come on, a people who have a device in their kitchens for adding carbonation to tap water, to make their own sparkling water? Of course they're going to have an electric toothbrush.)
• An American friend was visiting here, learning some German, and pointed out (this is the kind of thing you don't notice anymore, once you know the language) just how hilarious the German word for "dinner" – "Abendessen" – is. Because it literally means "evening food." Lunch is the same – "Mittagessen," or "midday food."
But what takes the cake is the word for "breakfast": "Frühstück," or literally "early piece."
Ah, endless fun with deconstructing German words! (Though let's not forget to examine "breakfast," which literally is the meal in which you break the fast you have kept over the night while you were sleeping.)
• "hinterherhinken" is just generally an awesome-looking word. It means "to lag behind."
• I only just found out that "Dutzend" ("dozen"), unlike in English, is an archaic word that people don't really use anymore in German, a quaint-sounding measurement like "Zentner" ("hundredweight"). My personal theory about this is that "dozen" is still normal in English because it's standard for us to buy eggs by the dozen, and it's fallen out of usage in German because eggs here are bought in sets of ten!
• I also find it fascinating and strange that in German, while an adult has a "Schlafzimmer" (bedroom), a child has a "Kinderzimmer" (literally "child's room"). I guess it makes sense, since children also spend a lot of time playing in their rooms, not just sleeping?
Similarly, an adult's birthday party is a "Geburtstagsfeier" ("birthday party") but a child's birthday party is a "Kindergeburtstag" ("child's birthday"). Why aren't children allowed to have parties??
• Probably one of the worst words in all existence: "Lebensabschnittsgefährte." This means, not kidding you here at all, "my significant other during this segment of my life." Seriously, could there be anything worse than introducing your partner as "this is the person I'm not going to spend the rest of my life with"??
• Somehow it took me until this year (after 7+ years in Germany...) to notice that when people talk about that week between Christmas and New Year's, they say "zwischen den Jahren" – "between the years."
As in, hey, I'm visiting my family for Christmas, but I'm back in Berlin after that, so let's meet up between the years.
How strange and sweet.
• And did you know that German fairy tales end not with "And they lived happily ever after" but with a phrase that means, "And if they haven't died, they're still alive today"?
Isn't that strange and...fittingly German?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Also, rants I will spare you, by simply alluding to them in passing and thus heading myself off from working up to a full rant about them:
• People who are rude should not be librarians. Thus Germans, or at least Berliners (I know, I know, there are other parts of the country where people are somewhat friendly to each other), should not be librarians.
Librarians – though I know this might be hard to spot – are there to help people find books. Not to bite their heads off, or to sigh and look put out when they dare to ask a question. And I say this based not on one experience at one library, but on seven years' worth of frustration!
• German theater is crap. I'm sorry, I was trying to keep an open mind, but it really is just crap. (I say this as a person who spent years working in theater, and years writing plays, and who's been going to plays for as long as I can remember or possibly even before.)
Running around screaming, throwing things and trying to be as shocking and/or incomprehensible as possible is not theater. That's just crap. Call me old-fashioned (apparently I am old-fashioned, at least over here) but I prefer a play that actually has characters. Who interact with each other. About subject matter.
(A German acquaintance who seems to have similar taste to me told me about a couple of theaters in Berlin that still put on older works – you know, from the days when playwrights actually wrote plays – so maybe I'll check out those.)
And don't even get me started about the specific theater I recently attended that prompted this rant, where they didn't even open the doors to let the audience from the lobby into the theater until 5 minutes after the scheduled starting time; my friends and I (understandably, I feel) took this as our cue to go to the bathroom a last time, while the rest of the audience was filing into the theater. Two minutes later, when we entered the theater, the woman working the door hissed at us, "Wir warten allen schon!" ("We're all wait already!") Then, once all the audience was seated and the actors in place, the same woman realized she'd left the house lights on and had to walk back through the entire audience to go turn them off so the play could start.
Sigh.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
And on that grinchly note... Happy solstice! Happy darkest day and longest night of the year! I'm off to re-read John Donne's marvelously depressive reflection on this darkest moment of the year, "A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day," in which he describes all the ways in which the world is dark and dead, then says, "yet all these seem to laugh/Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph."
John Donne, master poet of the 17th century and original emo kid.
Seriously, this is one of my favorite points in the year, this day of deepest, deepest dark, from which it can only grow lighter again. I love that so many cultures have holidays around now that celebrate light and life and greenery. I love that Christmas is pagan even though it doesn't realize it is. I love that today in Berlin the sun set at 3:54 pm.
Monday, December 9, 2013
Sächsische Schweiz, Böhmische Schweiz
A couple weeks ago, I did a weekend-away-to-nature in Bad Schandau, a small town in a region of Germany called the Sächsische Schweiz. (Literally translates as "Saxony Switzerland" – because everything around these parts that's even vaguely hilly tends to get labeled "[fill in the blank] Switzerland.") It's a landscape of sandstone cut through by the Elbe River, very close to the Czech border.
I took a train from Berlin to Bad Schandau, where I disembarked and caught a ferry from the train station on one side of the river to the downtown on the other. Yes – I took a ferry as a normal link in the public transportation network! Sometimes I really love Germany.
There, I stayed in a youth hostel in a tiny, tiny village outside of Bad Schandau. During the days, I hiked in the intriguing landscape around there (pictures below) and in the evenings I caught up on a ton of reading, writing and sleep. Man, I should do this more often.
When I checked out of the hostel the last morning, the friendly older guy at the reception asked where I was headed next and I rather effusively told him I was going to Děčín, the closest city in the Czech Republic, which is just 15 minutes away by train – because how could I not, when it's right there??
(Some people climb mountains "because they're there." Apparently I go to other countries because they're there.)
I've lived in Europe a while now, but I don't think I'll ever get over how fantastic it is to be able to just pop over the border into another country for the day or even the afternoon.
I don't think the hostel guy quite got the appeal, though, seeing as he lives 15 minutes away from the Czech Republic all the time. Yeah, I go over there to go shopping, he said. At Tesco, for vegetables and stuff.
Ah yes, border-hopping shoppers are everywhere in Europe.
As for me, I hadn't been to the Czech Republic since my one and only trip there when I was 19, so I was seriously excited. And that excitement approximately quadrupled when I discovered I would be traveling there on the cutest little old single-car train! (Again, see pictures below.)
Border crossing buildings, former checkpoints (rendered obsolete by the Schengen Agreement that opened many of Europe's internal borders), tax-free shops with big signs, Czech gas station, roadside currency exchange place, stalls selling tourist bric-a-brac... And all this seen while I was still in Germany, because for a tiny stretch the border jogs and follows the river, so I was in a train traveling along one bank of the river, still in Germany, but looking across at the road along the other side of the river, which was already in the Czech Republic.
I said "Děkuji" (dyeh-KOO-yeh, "thank you") when I got off the train, and the nice Czech conductor smiled and said something I didn't understand in the least, but presumably meant "You're welcome." (Or maybe it meant, "Please, tourist, don't even try." But at least he smiled when he said it!)
I spent the afternoon walking in the woods outside of town (saying "dobrý den" to the people I passed and getting the same in response, fantastic!) then checking out a bit of Děčín's castle and downtown. Then, when I was too cold to stand it anymore, I repaired to a café to catch up on my travel journal and drink very strong Czech beer.
I arrived back at the station to find that the train did not go when I thought it did, and since it's winter and the days are very short, it was already dark out, in a not extremely populated neighborhood, so I was pretty much stuck in the station until the next train.
I looked around, eying the slightly tough-looking guys hanging around, contemplating the possibility of buying a coffee to have an excuse to sit down at some seats by a bakery inside the semi-cold of the station building – but then I would have to sit down near the slightly tough guys, since that's where the seats were. Luckily...
...there was also a restaurant in the train station. I pulled the door open cautiously, not even sure if it was open, and inside found a different world: an explosion of Christmas decorations, music blasting, the staff all young and laughing and seeming to be having a riotously good time back in the kitchen. I bought coffee (and then also tea, when the train was late arriving) with my leftover Czech change and spent a surprisingly pleasant couple hours, considering that I was killing time in the train station. And thinking, in Germany, it wouldn't be this pleasant. In another country, it might be pleasant, but it wouldn't be this cheap. Or laidback.
Then I got my full moon walk after all (it had been cloudy the night before, when I was out in the middle of the countryside and it ought to have been perfect for full moon viewing), strolling up and down the platform, waiting for the train. As I wandered back and forth, I sang Marketa Irglova songs to myself because she's the only Czech singer I really know, and I'm kind of a dork like that.
So. In summary, not only did I get to do some wonderful hiking in two different countries, I also devoured nearly all of a 400-page novel, did a bunch of my own writing and even caught up on sleep, because really what else is there to do at a hostel in the middle of nowhere, after the sun sets at 4:30 p.m.?
All signs suggest I should do this more often.
Pictures! Click on the image to go to the album.
I took a train from Berlin to Bad Schandau, where I disembarked and caught a ferry from the train station on one side of the river to the downtown on the other. Yes – I took a ferry as a normal link in the public transportation network! Sometimes I really love Germany.
There, I stayed in a youth hostel in a tiny, tiny village outside of Bad Schandau. During the days, I hiked in the intriguing landscape around there (pictures below) and in the evenings I caught up on a ton of reading, writing and sleep. Man, I should do this more often.
When I checked out of the hostel the last morning, the friendly older guy at the reception asked where I was headed next and I rather effusively told him I was going to Děčín, the closest city in the Czech Republic, which is just 15 minutes away by train – because how could I not, when it's right there??
(Some people climb mountains "because they're there." Apparently I go to other countries because they're there.)
I've lived in Europe a while now, but I don't think I'll ever get over how fantastic it is to be able to just pop over the border into another country for the day or even the afternoon.
I don't think the hostel guy quite got the appeal, though, seeing as he lives 15 minutes away from the Czech Republic all the time. Yeah, I go over there to go shopping, he said. At Tesco, for vegetables and stuff.
Ah yes, border-hopping shoppers are everywhere in Europe.
As for me, I hadn't been to the Czech Republic since my one and only trip there when I was 19, so I was seriously excited. And that excitement approximately quadrupled when I discovered I would be traveling there on the cutest little old single-car train! (Again, see pictures below.)
Border crossing buildings, former checkpoints (rendered obsolete by the Schengen Agreement that opened many of Europe's internal borders), tax-free shops with big signs, Czech gas station, roadside currency exchange place, stalls selling tourist bric-a-brac... And all this seen while I was still in Germany, because for a tiny stretch the border jogs and follows the river, so I was in a train traveling along one bank of the river, still in Germany, but looking across at the road along the other side of the river, which was already in the Czech Republic.
I said "Děkuji" (dyeh-KOO-yeh, "thank you") when I got off the train, and the nice Czech conductor smiled and said something I didn't understand in the least, but presumably meant "You're welcome." (Or maybe it meant, "Please, tourist, don't even try." But at least he smiled when he said it!)
I spent the afternoon walking in the woods outside of town (saying "dobrý den" to the people I passed and getting the same in response, fantastic!) then checking out a bit of Děčín's castle and downtown. Then, when I was too cold to stand it anymore, I repaired to a café to catch up on my travel journal and drink very strong Czech beer.
I arrived back at the station to find that the train did not go when I thought it did, and since it's winter and the days are very short, it was already dark out, in a not extremely populated neighborhood, so I was pretty much stuck in the station until the next train.
I looked around, eying the slightly tough-looking guys hanging around, contemplating the possibility of buying a coffee to have an excuse to sit down at some seats by a bakery inside the semi-cold of the station building – but then I would have to sit down near the slightly tough guys, since that's where the seats were. Luckily...
...there was also a restaurant in the train station. I pulled the door open cautiously, not even sure if it was open, and inside found a different world: an explosion of Christmas decorations, music blasting, the staff all young and laughing and seeming to be having a riotously good time back in the kitchen. I bought coffee (and then also tea, when the train was late arriving) with my leftover Czech change and spent a surprisingly pleasant couple hours, considering that I was killing time in the train station. And thinking, in Germany, it wouldn't be this pleasant. In another country, it might be pleasant, but it wouldn't be this cheap. Or laidback.
Then I got my full moon walk after all (it had been cloudy the night before, when I was out in the middle of the countryside and it ought to have been perfect for full moon viewing), strolling up and down the platform, waiting for the train. As I wandered back and forth, I sang Marketa Irglova songs to myself because she's the only Czech singer I really know, and I'm kind of a dork like that.
So. In summary, not only did I get to do some wonderful hiking in two different countries, I also devoured nearly all of a 400-page novel, did a bunch of my own writing and even caught up on sleep, because really what else is there to do at a hostel in the middle of nowhere, after the sun sets at 4:30 p.m.?
All signs suggest I should do this more often.
Pictures! Click on the image to go to the album.
 |
| Sächsische Schweiz |
Monday, December 2, 2013
A Song for Syria: Kap Writes Milo
My friend Kap (the one who took me with her to Senegal last year) wrote an article about my friend Milo (the one who wrote a wrote a beautiful song out of his frustrations with the situation in his home country of Syria) for the Exberliner, Berlin's English-language magazine. It addresses the wider issues of Syrian refugees in Germany, as well as Milo's specific story.
Here's the article. I'm super proud of them both!
(Oh, and that "dinner party in Prenzlauer Berg" where Kap and Milo first met? Yeah, that was my dinner party. I feel kind of famous now!)
Here's the article. I'm super proud of them both!
(Oh, and that "dinner party in Prenzlauer Berg" where Kap and Milo first met? Yeah, that was my dinner party. I feel kind of famous now!)
Friday, November 29, 2013
Berlin or Africa
This interactive quiz lets you test how fast you can identify the numerous Ortsteile (sub-sections of the city that are varyingly translated as districts, subdistricts or localities; no one seems to quite agree) that make up the city of Berlin.
You can do the "easy" (not really that easy) version that gives a random selection of 20, or the "difficult" one where you have to find all 96 Ortsteile, from the obvious ones like Mitte to the "that exists?" ones like Schmöckwitz (seriously, there are very few of Berlin's Ortsteile I haven't at least heard of, but that's one of them).
It's kind of awesome, if you're a Berlin nerd like me.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
But I first came across the Berlin map, actually, via a probably-more-relevant-in-the-wider-scheme-of-things map that does the same thing, but with Africa. (Interestingly, I can do the Africa map faster than the Berlin map. Again, probably a good thing, and more relevant in the wider scheme of things!)
I actually think this is a great way to learn Africa's countries, because you're not left to just guess at random here. The names of the countries show up when you run the mouse over them, so it's more a test of how quickly you can swing your mouse to roughly the right area of the continent to find the country you're looking for. That may sound like the easy way out, but I don't necessarily think so: As you're clicking and searching and racing the clock, you're also absorbing what you see and thus learning a bit of geography as you go. I promise you, I will never again forget where Gabon is, after the humiliation of my first go at the "easy" map!
Check it out here.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
PS: Last night, I spent Thanksgiving with a lovely (vegetarian!!) mixed group of nationalities, and learned that one of the main things that non-Americans associate with the word "Thanksgiving" is "people getting stuck at airports" – thanks to all the American movies that apparently feature this trope as a major plot device!
Ah, the things you learn abroad.
You can do the "easy" (not really that easy) version that gives a random selection of 20, or the "difficult" one where you have to find all 96 Ortsteile, from the obvious ones like Mitte to the "that exists?" ones like Schmöckwitz (seriously, there are very few of Berlin's Ortsteile I haven't at least heard of, but that's one of them).
It's kind of awesome, if you're a Berlin nerd like me.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
But I first came across the Berlin map, actually, via a probably-more-relevant-in-the-wider-scheme-of-things map that does the same thing, but with Africa. (Interestingly, I can do the Africa map faster than the Berlin map. Again, probably a good thing, and more relevant in the wider scheme of things!)
I actually think this is a great way to learn Africa's countries, because you're not left to just guess at random here. The names of the countries show up when you run the mouse over them, so it's more a test of how quickly you can swing your mouse to roughly the right area of the continent to find the country you're looking for. That may sound like the easy way out, but I don't necessarily think so: As you're clicking and searching and racing the clock, you're also absorbing what you see and thus learning a bit of geography as you go. I promise you, I will never again forget where Gabon is, after the humiliation of my first go at the "easy" map!
Check it out here.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
PS: Last night, I spent Thanksgiving with a lovely (vegetarian!!) mixed group of nationalities, and learned that one of the main things that non-Americans associate with the word "Thanksgiving" is "people getting stuck at airports" – thanks to all the American movies that apparently feature this trope as a major plot device!
Ah, the things you learn abroad.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
The Chicken or the Refrigerator, with Pictures
So, again about eggs and how they don't actually need to be refrigerated:
Here's a picture of a carton of eggs (yes, eggs come in 10s instead of dozens. Yes, it's weird. Actually, they come in either 10s or in 6s (as in, half dozens), which is even weirder!) to show the two "good until" dates.
The first part says that, just in general, these eggs are good until December 16; the second part says that starting on December 6, they should be kept refrigerated for the rest of the time:
Also, a bonus shot of the whole every-single-egg-is-stamped thing. First a number saying what kind of production the egg is from (organic, free-range, indoor or caged), then the country code, then an ID number for the specific egg farm:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Also, I mentioned recently how Germans have this frankly impressive ability to be outdoors – and enjoy being outdoors – in all weather. I went out just now to pick up some lunch from a little restaurant nearby that specializes in soups; I got there to find that despite the fact that the restaurant has indoor seating, there was also a group sitting outside at a table in front of the place.
Folks, it's 3° Celsius (37° Fahrenheit) out there. I think this might be a nation of people who are, on the whole, ever so slightly nuts.
Here's a picture of a carton of eggs (yes, eggs come in 10s instead of dozens. Yes, it's weird. Actually, they come in either 10s or in 6s (as in, half dozens), which is even weirder!) to show the two "good until" dates.
The first part says that, just in general, these eggs are good until December 16; the second part says that starting on December 6, they should be kept refrigerated for the rest of the time:
Also, a bonus shot of the whole every-single-egg-is-stamped thing. First a number saying what kind of production the egg is from (organic, free-range, indoor or caged), then the country code, then an ID number for the specific egg farm:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Also, I mentioned recently how Germans have this frankly impressive ability to be outdoors – and enjoy being outdoors – in all weather. I went out just now to pick up some lunch from a little restaurant nearby that specializes in soups; I got there to find that despite the fact that the restaurant has indoor seating, there was also a group sitting outside at a table in front of the place.
Folks, it's 3° Celsius (37° Fahrenheit) out there. I think this might be a nation of people who are, on the whole, ever so slightly nuts.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Monday, November 18, 2013
Which Came First, the Chicken or the...Refrigerator?
Huh, cool. I've wondered about this, too, though only vaguely and in passing, I admit:
"Americans – why do you keep refrigerating your eggs?" (Or, Why do Americans refrigerate chicken eggs, when almost no one else in the world does?)
(By the by, in Germany, just because Germany always has to have even more regulations than everyone else, a carton of eggs comes stamped with two "best before" dates – the first one is how long you can safely leave the eggs unrefrigerated, and the second is how much longer after that you can still keep the eggs, if you refrigerate them.)
"Americans – why do you keep refrigerating your eggs?" (Or, Why do Americans refrigerate chicken eggs, when almost no one else in the world does?)
(By the by, in Germany, just because Germany always has to have even more regulations than everyone else, a carton of eggs comes stamped with two "best before" dates – the first one is how long you can safely leave the eggs unrefrigerated, and the second is how much longer after that you can still keep the eggs, if you refrigerate them.)
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Trams, Trains, Dark Days and Warm Cafés
This morning I had to run various errands before starting work, so I took the tram. (Usually I would walk or bike to anything even roughly in my neighborhood, but with all the back and forth and all the things I had to carry, it just made more sense to tram it.) It wasn't until I was done and heading to the office, after 10:30 – closer to 11:00, even – that the trams first started to be really crowded.
Yes, Berlin, the city where rush hour doesn't really hit until 11 a.m. My kinda city!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Yesterday, I told you how it made my day to discover the existence of such a thing as a "Professor of Clinical Pig Medicine."
The day before, the thing that made my day was seeing an S-Bahn train driver honk and wave to a small child watching from the top of the train bridge at Prenzlauer Allee (which is for some reason a favorite train-watching spot of train-obsessed-small-children and their parents) just before the train passed under the bridge.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Meanwhile, it seems winter arrived with the changing of the clocks, two and a half weeks ago already, colder weather hitting just as that all-at-once loss of an entire hour drove home how short the days have gotten already.
Don't hate me for saying this, fellow Berlin-residents, but there's a strange way in which I actually kind of like the arrival of this deepest dark. (NOT the endless rain that will soon join it, making me want to abandon this city permanently in favor of somewhere that actually understands what winter is... No, I just mean the darkness itself.)
All the shops and cafés light up so warmly, making you want to snuggle up inside them with a warm drink and a few friends. Even walking by outside somehow feels cozy.
Plus, this is the time of year to witness one of my favorite things about Germans: Their willingness – eagerness, even – to be outside even in freezing weather. Give a German a nice, fuzzy blanket (most cafés keep them on hand) and they're happy to sit out on the sidewalk with their coffee or mulled wine, chatting away as if hanging around outdoors in winter were a completely normal thing to do.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
By the by, my friend Hannah wrote quite a brilliant riff on "ways Germany is better in the dark" over here at The Local. My favorite bits:
"You can't see the disapproving looks that many Germans will shoot your way when crossing on red. This is a huge benefit to the gloomy part of the year - it can almost feel like being in a normal country."
And:
"Going to the shops in the dark in Germany can be terribly exciting, because the gloom outside makes it feel like they're open late, and not closing on the dot of 8pm."
And:
"Also on the menu are roasted chestnuts, which you can buy on the streets from little carts where they're cooked on charcoal. Buying a paper twist of them can make you feel like you're in a Dickens novel."
True!
Also, Glühwein. Also, mandatory slippers.
Yes, Berlin, the city where rush hour doesn't really hit until 11 a.m. My kinda city!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Yesterday, I told you how it made my day to discover the existence of such a thing as a "Professor of Clinical Pig Medicine."
The day before, the thing that made my day was seeing an S-Bahn train driver honk and wave to a small child watching from the top of the train bridge at Prenzlauer Allee (which is for some reason a favorite train-watching spot of train-obsessed-small-children and their parents) just before the train passed under the bridge.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Meanwhile, it seems winter arrived with the changing of the clocks, two and a half weeks ago already, colder weather hitting just as that all-at-once loss of an entire hour drove home how short the days have gotten already.
Don't hate me for saying this, fellow Berlin-residents, but there's a strange way in which I actually kind of like the arrival of this deepest dark. (NOT the endless rain that will soon join it, making me want to abandon this city permanently in favor of somewhere that actually understands what winter is... No, I just mean the darkness itself.)
All the shops and cafés light up so warmly, making you want to snuggle up inside them with a warm drink and a few friends. Even walking by outside somehow feels cozy.
Plus, this is the time of year to witness one of my favorite things about Germans: Their willingness – eagerness, even – to be outside even in freezing weather. Give a German a nice, fuzzy blanket (most cafés keep them on hand) and they're happy to sit out on the sidewalk with their coffee or mulled wine, chatting away as if hanging around outdoors in winter were a completely normal thing to do.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
By the by, my friend Hannah wrote quite a brilliant riff on "ways Germany is better in the dark" over here at The Local. My favorite bits:
"You can't see the disapproving looks that many Germans will shoot your way when crossing on red. This is a huge benefit to the gloomy part of the year - it can almost feel like being in a normal country."
And:
"Going to the shops in the dark in Germany can be terribly exciting, because the gloom outside makes it feel like they're open late, and not closing on the dot of 8pm."
And:
"Also on the menu are roasted chestnuts, which you can buy on the streets from little carts where they're cooked on charcoal. Buying a paper twist of them can make you feel like you're in a Dickens novel."
True!
Also, Glühwein. Also, mandatory slippers.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Majoring in Clinical Pig Medicine
My day is now complete. In the course of my background research for today's translation (about antibiotic use in livestock farming) I've come across someone described as a "Professor of Clinical Pig Medicine."
!!!
Best of all, he's Danish, not German. (Despite it being the Germans who are known for their obsession with pigs in all forms, including in many standard idioms of the language.)
Update:
And another professor (German, this time) is described on the English version of his university's website as a "Swine Consultant."
!
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Remembrance
Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of "Kristallnacht," the 1938 night of pogroms (coordinated vandalism, arson, killing and abduction) committed against Jewish Germans and their homes, businesses and synagogues.
I know there were a number of events around Berlin in commemoration yesterday, for example a program of guided tours through specific neighborhoods, stopping at all the "Stolpersteine" ("stumbling stones"), tiny memorial plaques set into the sidewalks in front of buildings, bearing the names of Jewish individuals who lived there and then were deported and killed. There are a lot of these plaques around Berlin. Some of these tours were led by historians; many involved cleaning the plaques, with a suggestion that participants also bring roses to lay in remembrance.
Personally, attending an event of this sort didn't draw me. I guess I didn't feel like spending my day in an act of concerted group mourning with a bunch of contrite Germans? Don't get me wrong, I think it's very important that people do these things, and good that there are enough people in Germany who still care, even as this history slips into a past beyond the memory of most people still living. I guess I just prefer to mourn on my own time, and more privately.
Even just reading the event descriptions, though, gave me a very strange feeling. One tour started at Zionskirchplatz (location of one of my favorite cafés, so I pass through there often), then worked its way along the sites of former Jewish businesses on Brunnenstrasse (a street I used to walk along all the time, when I lived in the area).
You'd think I'd be used to this by now, but it's almost impossible to fathom that these streets I know today are those same streets. The streets with the former Jewish businesses, and the pogroms.
And walking through the neighborhood today, I found myself surprisingly moved to see roses laid at many of the Stolpersteine I passed. The plaques are so tiny, you have to bend down if you want to read the names on them, and they mostly get passed by, as simply part of the fabric of the city. It's good to see people paying attention.
Perhaps here is the best place to end this train of thought: As I'm writing this, I (an American Jew) am eating a bagel I bought from Shakespeare and Sons, the bookshop-and-café run by a Jewish American woman and her Czech husband. I'd dropped by there to ask if they're going to be hosting a Chanukah party again this year, and they said yes. And that's not even mentioning the synagogue and Jewish school down the street from my office, or the Jewish bakery around the corner from my apartment, or the yeshiva (religious educational institution) now located on that very same Brunnenstrasse.
So what I choose to take away from all these thoughts is that, 75 years after the Nazis tried to destroy it, Jewish culture is again flourishing in Berlin.
I know there were a number of events around Berlin in commemoration yesterday, for example a program of guided tours through specific neighborhoods, stopping at all the "Stolpersteine" ("stumbling stones"), tiny memorial plaques set into the sidewalks in front of buildings, bearing the names of Jewish individuals who lived there and then were deported and killed. There are a lot of these plaques around Berlin. Some of these tours were led by historians; many involved cleaning the plaques, with a suggestion that participants also bring roses to lay in remembrance.
Personally, attending an event of this sort didn't draw me. I guess I didn't feel like spending my day in an act of concerted group mourning with a bunch of contrite Germans? Don't get me wrong, I think it's very important that people do these things, and good that there are enough people in Germany who still care, even as this history slips into a past beyond the memory of most people still living. I guess I just prefer to mourn on my own time, and more privately.
Even just reading the event descriptions, though, gave me a very strange feeling. One tour started at Zionskirchplatz (location of one of my favorite cafés, so I pass through there often), then worked its way along the sites of former Jewish businesses on Brunnenstrasse (a street I used to walk along all the time, when I lived in the area).
You'd think I'd be used to this by now, but it's almost impossible to fathom that these streets I know today are those same streets. The streets with the former Jewish businesses, and the pogroms.
And walking through the neighborhood today, I found myself surprisingly moved to see roses laid at many of the Stolpersteine I passed. The plaques are so tiny, you have to bend down if you want to read the names on them, and they mostly get passed by, as simply part of the fabric of the city. It's good to see people paying attention.
Perhaps here is the best place to end this train of thought: As I'm writing this, I (an American Jew) am eating a bagel I bought from Shakespeare and Sons, the bookshop-and-café run by a Jewish American woman and her Czech husband. I'd dropped by there to ask if they're going to be hosting a Chanukah party again this year, and they said yes. And that's not even mentioning the synagogue and Jewish school down the street from my office, or the Jewish bakery around the corner from my apartment, or the yeshiva (religious educational institution) now located on that very same Brunnenstrasse.
So what I choose to take away from all these thoughts is that, 75 years after the Nazis tried to destroy it, Jewish culture is again flourishing in Berlin.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
This Is Halloween, with Pictures
Here's a picture (pre-carving) of the North American-style pumpkin I was able to find in a grocery store here, showing its label that totally cracked me up, because this variety is marketed specifically as a "children's Halloween" pumpkin – unlike Germany's usual Hokkaido pumpkin variety, which is marketed primarily for making soup.
And here are everyone's pumpkins carved that evening, all lined up in the dark – just before we watched "Hocus Pocus," for a true evening of American Halloween nostalgia.
Photos are thanks to my friend Anton!
Thursday, October 31, 2013
This Is Halloween, This Is Halloween...
Apparently there are some ways in which I get more American the longer I live abroad, because this year somehow I was really excited for Halloween!
Earlier this week, an American friend invited me to join some other Americans for an evening pumpkin-carving. It was sort of silly how excited I got about it, but it was so much fun! I hadn't made a jack-o-lantern in I don't know how many years.
Perhaps the funniest thing to me: I was in fact able to find a North American-style pumpkin in a grocery store (that's not a given in Germany, where the hokkaido pumpkin rules the roost) but it was clearly being stocked only as a Halloween prop. How do I know? Because it was marketed as a "Kinderhalloween Speisekürbis" ("children's Halloween" pumpkin):
(On the receipt, shortened to just "Kinderkürbis," or "children's pumpkin.")
Second funniest thing: As we were all gathered around the kitchen table, hard at work carving jack-o-lantern faces, a German friend walked in, looked around at all the pumpkins and lamented, "You could have made a soup with that."
...Because Germans' primary association with pumpkins is as the main ingredient in pumpkin soup. I don't blame them, frankly. Pumpkin soup is an integral part of the fall season here, appearing on menus at every café as soon as the air takes on that autumn chill, and it's one of my favorite German foods. For better or worse (worse, if you happen to want to bake pumpkin cookies) canned pumpkin doesn't even exist here. When you want to make a soup, you start by cooking the real thing, a whole pumpkin.
At the moment I don't yet have a picture of all our jack-o-lanterns lined up together and lit up inside (they looked amazing) but here's a shot of my own humble offering, by day:
So, Halloween in Germany.
I don't know if it's that Halloween has just this year reached a saturation point in Germany (it's a 100% American import, not something native to continental Europe) or just that I'm thinking about it more this year (see above re: excitement), but over the past few days I've found myself having the Halloween-in-Germany-is-it-a-good-thing-or-not? conversation a number of times with various people.
I have to say, I really love Halloween. I imagine at this point a lot of people probably associate it mainly with the commercialism thrust at us by candy and costume retailers, but for me as a kid, it wasn't about that.
(Admittedly, my hippie childhood may have played a role here... It was a point of pride for me that I – with parental help – always made my own costume, and wouldn't even have thought of buying one pre-made. And for years, I coordinated trick-or-treating for UNICEF through my temple's Sunday school (because, yes, I was that over-earnest sort of kind!) so it wasn't just about the candy.
Halloween was far more about the costumes, and the excitement of going around the neighborhood all evening with your friends after dark with the houses decorated and lit up; Halloween was pumpkins and apples and the crisp smell of cold air and rustling leaves underfoot – in short, all the things that make autumn so wonderfully autumnal. So when I see little German kids out trick-or-treating, I can't help but be excited for them, because, yay, Halloween is so much fun!
Still, though, why should they celebrate this random, imported American holiday? Who decided (ahem, retailers, ahem...) that suddenly Halloween is a Thing and now everyone in Europe has to participate? Adopting new traditions is fine, of course, but what about when they start erasing a country's own traditions?
In this case, the local holiday on which Halloween is unquestionably encroaching is the lovely St. Martin's Day, also largely a children's holiday, which falls less than two weeks later, on November 11. Little kids make lanterns and form processions through the streets, singing St. Martin's Day songs and I think sometimes getting sweets in return (sound familiar?). It's seriously cute, one of my favorite evenings of the year to be walking around the neighborhood. And there's no question that as Halloween ascends, St. Martin's Day declines, because the kids just did the whole procession-around-the-neighborhood thing not two weeks before. Global homogenization and loss of culture – sad.
On the other hand (I think that's three hands, now), a German colleague in my shared office told me her kids' preschool has deliberately replaced St. Martin's Day (a Catholic holiday, which frankly has no place in a public school anyway, in my own American opinion, but this here is a country that does not yet have a concept of separation of church and state...) with Halloween, because it's a non-specific, neutral holiday everyone can enjoy. Smart.
So, I have no grand conclusion there. Just some musings on the intersection of cultures, especially when one (the US, in this case) is particularly dominant.
On another (fourth) hand, I suppose you could also see it as an evolving tradition coming full circle... So far as I know, Halloween indeed began as Samhain, the Celtic harvest festival marking the start of the winter and the dying of the year – counterpart to Beltane (May Day), celebration of spring and rebirth. As so often happens, the pagan celebration got coopted by the Christian church as All Hallows' Eve (the evening before All Saints' Day), then spread to North America with immigrants there, then became a secular event celebrated by everyone, and now has arrived back in Europe in almost unrecognizable form. Much like Santa Claus and the hanging up of stockings on Christmas, which began as St. Nicholas and the setting out of shoes on St. Nicholas Day, with both traditions now oddly coexisting... but that would be another post!
Here, have a last picture of my jack-o-lantern, in the dark on my desk at work:
Earlier this week, an American friend invited me to join some other Americans for an evening pumpkin-carving. It was sort of silly how excited I got about it, but it was so much fun! I hadn't made a jack-o-lantern in I don't know how many years.
Perhaps the funniest thing to me: I was in fact able to find a North American-style pumpkin in a grocery store (that's not a given in Germany, where the hokkaido pumpkin rules the roost) but it was clearly being stocked only as a Halloween prop. How do I know? Because it was marketed as a "Kinderhalloween Speisekürbis" ("children's Halloween" pumpkin):
Second funniest thing: As we were all gathered around the kitchen table, hard at work carving jack-o-lantern faces, a German friend walked in, looked around at all the pumpkins and lamented, "You could have made a soup with that."
...Because Germans' primary association with pumpkins is as the main ingredient in pumpkin soup. I don't blame them, frankly. Pumpkin soup is an integral part of the fall season here, appearing on menus at every café as soon as the air takes on that autumn chill, and it's one of my favorite German foods. For better or worse (worse, if you happen to want to bake pumpkin cookies) canned pumpkin doesn't even exist here. When you want to make a soup, you start by cooking the real thing, a whole pumpkin.
At the moment I don't yet have a picture of all our jack-o-lanterns lined up together and lit up inside (they looked amazing) but here's a shot of my own humble offering, by day:
So, Halloween in Germany.
I don't know if it's that Halloween has just this year reached a saturation point in Germany (it's a 100% American import, not something native to continental Europe) or just that I'm thinking about it more this year (see above re: excitement), but over the past few days I've found myself having the Halloween-in-Germany-is-it-a-good-thing-or-not? conversation a number of times with various people.
I have to say, I really love Halloween. I imagine at this point a lot of people probably associate it mainly with the commercialism thrust at us by candy and costume retailers, but for me as a kid, it wasn't about that.
(Admittedly, my hippie childhood may have played a role here... It was a point of pride for me that I – with parental help – always made my own costume, and wouldn't even have thought of buying one pre-made. And for years, I coordinated trick-or-treating for UNICEF through my temple's Sunday school (because, yes, I was that over-earnest sort of kind!) so it wasn't just about the candy.
Halloween was far more about the costumes, and the excitement of going around the neighborhood all evening with your friends after dark with the houses decorated and lit up; Halloween was pumpkins and apples and the crisp smell of cold air and rustling leaves underfoot – in short, all the things that make autumn so wonderfully autumnal. So when I see little German kids out trick-or-treating, I can't help but be excited for them, because, yay, Halloween is so much fun!
Still, though, why should they celebrate this random, imported American holiday? Who decided (ahem, retailers, ahem...) that suddenly Halloween is a Thing and now everyone in Europe has to participate? Adopting new traditions is fine, of course, but what about when they start erasing a country's own traditions?
In this case, the local holiday on which Halloween is unquestionably encroaching is the lovely St. Martin's Day, also largely a children's holiday, which falls less than two weeks later, on November 11. Little kids make lanterns and form processions through the streets, singing St. Martin's Day songs and I think sometimes getting sweets in return (sound familiar?). It's seriously cute, one of my favorite evenings of the year to be walking around the neighborhood. And there's no question that as Halloween ascends, St. Martin's Day declines, because the kids just did the whole procession-around-the-neighborhood thing not two weeks before. Global homogenization and loss of culture – sad.
On the other hand (I think that's three hands, now), a German colleague in my shared office told me her kids' preschool has deliberately replaced St. Martin's Day (a Catholic holiday, which frankly has no place in a public school anyway, in my own American opinion, but this here is a country that does not yet have a concept of separation of church and state...) with Halloween, because it's a non-specific, neutral holiday everyone can enjoy. Smart.
So, I have no grand conclusion there. Just some musings on the intersection of cultures, especially when one (the US, in this case) is particularly dominant.
On another (fourth) hand, I suppose you could also see it as an evolving tradition coming full circle... So far as I know, Halloween indeed began as Samhain, the Celtic harvest festival marking the start of the winter and the dying of the year – counterpart to Beltane (May Day), celebration of spring and rebirth. As so often happens, the pagan celebration got coopted by the Christian church as All Hallows' Eve (the evening before All Saints' Day), then spread to North America with immigrants there, then became a secular event celebrated by everyone, and now has arrived back in Europe in almost unrecognizable form. Much like Santa Claus and the hanging up of stockings on Christmas, which began as St. Nicholas and the setting out of shoes on St. Nicholas Day, with both traditions now oddly coexisting... but that would be another post!
Here, have a last picture of my jack-o-lantern, in the dark on my desk at work:
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
A Canoe Is Not a Canoe
I am baffled and amazed.
This weekend I went with a French colleague and a couple German friends of his for a bit of a wander in a patch of woods at the edge of Berlin called the Tegeler Forst (and it really is a proper bit of actual woods, where you get entirely away from all signs of urban life, yet without even living the city limits – Berlin is fantastic that way, full of massive parks and actual woods) and I learned something that stunned my language brain...
Namely, that when a German says "Kanu" (a word which you would forgive me for assuming was, you know, exactly what it sounds like, the German spelling of "canoe") they may well mean not a canoe, but a kayak.
What??
Yes, yes, said the German I was talking to. A canoe is called a "Kanadier" (as in, "Canadian"). A "Kanu" can be either a canoe or a kayak, it's kind of a general term.
Well, then what do you say for a kayak? I asked.
Oh, a kayak is a "Kayak"...well, or a "Paddelboot"... though that could be general too, for anything that's propelled with a paddle...
"Paddelboot"?? But that should be a paddleboat, you know, the kind you pedal with your feet.
By this point we were both confused, getting more and more turned around the more we tried to pin these words down. Because apparently, Germany adopts North American boat types – and then reapplies their names at random.
So here, for my own peace of mind, is a list!
Kanadier = canoe
Kayak (oder Paddelboot) = kayak
Kanu = general for both canoe and kayak
Tretboot = paddleboat
Thanks, Germany, that's not complicated or anything...
(Then, while trying to determine which German words were specific to one type of boat and which were general terms, we also had a good laugh about the word "muskelbetrieben" – literally "muscle-powered" – as a way to distinguish non-motorized boats from motorized ones. Apparently the others had been canoeing (...or Canadian-ing...?) in the Spreewald region, southeast of Berlin, and seen a sign that labeled a particular waterway as being only for "muscle-powered" craft.)
I have plenty more thoughts, actually, about English words that get adopted into German but acquire a slightly transmogrified meaning along the way, but that'll be another post...
This weekend I went with a French colleague and a couple German friends of his for a bit of a wander in a patch of woods at the edge of Berlin called the Tegeler Forst (and it really is a proper bit of actual woods, where you get entirely away from all signs of urban life, yet without even living the city limits – Berlin is fantastic that way, full of massive parks and actual woods) and I learned something that stunned my language brain...
Namely, that when a German says "Kanu" (a word which you would forgive me for assuming was, you know, exactly what it sounds like, the German spelling of "canoe") they may well mean not a canoe, but a kayak.
What??
Yes, yes, said the German I was talking to. A canoe is called a "Kanadier" (as in, "Canadian"). A "Kanu" can be either a canoe or a kayak, it's kind of a general term.
Well, then what do you say for a kayak? I asked.
Oh, a kayak is a "Kayak"...well, or a "Paddelboot"... though that could be general too, for anything that's propelled with a paddle...
"Paddelboot"?? But that should be a paddleboat, you know, the kind you pedal with your feet.
By this point we were both confused, getting more and more turned around the more we tried to pin these words down. Because apparently, Germany adopts North American boat types – and then reapplies their names at random.
So here, for my own peace of mind, is a list!
Kanadier = canoe
Kayak (oder Paddelboot) = kayak
Kanu = general for both canoe and kayak
Tretboot = paddleboat
Thanks, Germany, that's not complicated or anything...
(Then, while trying to determine which German words were specific to one type of boat and which were general terms, we also had a good laugh about the word "muskelbetrieben" – literally "muscle-powered" – as a way to distinguish non-motorized boats from motorized ones. Apparently the others had been canoeing (...or Canadian-ing...?) in the Spreewald region, southeast of Berlin, and seen a sign that labeled a particular waterway as being only for "muscle-powered" craft.)
I have plenty more thoughts, actually, about English words that get adopted into German but acquire a slightly transmogrified meaning along the way, but that'll be another post...
Monday, October 28, 2013
Slapping the Brakeman
This...this is why plugging text into an online translator is just never going to be the same as giving it to an actual human.
I actually have nothing against translation websites – they're a great resource for getting at least a rough sense of something that's written in a language you don't speak at all. Often I'll plug a bit of text I want to understand from French or Russian or even Latin into Google Translate, just to get an idea of what it's even about.
But for actual, comprehensible news? Yeah, not so much.
Today I was translating a breaking news story for Spiegel Online; often on these things, it's helpful to me to search online for other occurrences of certain key phrases (or at least, my guess as to the English equivalent to certain key phrases in the German) so I can read up on the subject and be better informed when I then write/translate about it in English.
This news story was so new, though, that for a couple of the phrases, the only hits I got were for the original (German-language) Spiegel article itself – as well as an automated translation version of the article into English. (I could tell it was translated by a computer, rather than a human, because the first sentence began, "Chancellor Merkel presents itself...")
Such translations aren't much for the conveyance of actual news, but they can make for fun reading. My favorite here was the translation of the sentence, "Merkel schlug sich auf die Seite der Bremser."
"Schlagen" alone is a verb that means "to hit," but the whole phrase "sich auf die Seite von X schlagen" means "to side with X," while "Bremser" in this case means people who put on the brakes ("die Bremsen") about something – as opposed to people who literally have the job of applying brakes to a vehicle. So I translated the sentence as, "Merkel joined those putting on the brakes."
In the automated translation, though, it came out as, "Merkel slapped the side of the brakeman."
...And then I was sitting there in the office chortling out loud, because I was picturing German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a train, slapping the brakeman in his side as he works.
(If you're now curious, the final version of the article in English is here. You won't find that sentence quite as I described it above; in the final version the editors changed it slightly, to "Merkel also joined those applying the brakes.")
I actually have nothing against translation websites – they're a great resource for getting at least a rough sense of something that's written in a language you don't speak at all. Often I'll plug a bit of text I want to understand from French or Russian or even Latin into Google Translate, just to get an idea of what it's even about.
But for actual, comprehensible news? Yeah, not so much.
Today I was translating a breaking news story for Spiegel Online; often on these things, it's helpful to me to search online for other occurrences of certain key phrases (or at least, my guess as to the English equivalent to certain key phrases in the German) so I can read up on the subject and be better informed when I then write/translate about it in English.
This news story was so new, though, that for a couple of the phrases, the only hits I got were for the original (German-language) Spiegel article itself – as well as an automated translation version of the article into English. (I could tell it was translated by a computer, rather than a human, because the first sentence began, "Chancellor Merkel presents itself...")
Such translations aren't much for the conveyance of actual news, but they can make for fun reading. My favorite here was the translation of the sentence, "Merkel schlug sich auf die Seite der Bremser."
"Schlagen" alone is a verb that means "to hit," but the whole phrase "sich auf die Seite von X schlagen" means "to side with X," while "Bremser" in this case means people who put on the brakes ("die Bremsen") about something – as opposed to people who literally have the job of applying brakes to a vehicle. So I translated the sentence as, "Merkel joined those putting on the brakes."
In the automated translation, though, it came out as, "Merkel slapped the side of the brakeman."
...And then I was sitting there in the office chortling out loud, because I was picturing German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a train, slapping the brakeman in his side as he works.
(If you're now curious, the final version of the article in English is here. You won't find that sentence quite as I described it above; in the final version the editors changed it slightly, to "Merkel also joined those applying the brakes.")
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Government Down
Once again, the webcomic "Scandinavia and the World" cuts right to the chase, and all in cute bobble-headed cartoons:
"Government Down"
(Europe: "Please get up. We have things to do." America: "I don't care! Things are stupid!")
"Government Down"
(Europe: "Please get up. We have things to do." America: "I don't care! Things are stupid!")
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Briefly Highway 1
If it seems like I disappeared for a bit... I went to California for a close friend's wedding (I was a bridesmaid! I never in my life expected to be a bridesmaid!) That was all pretty crazy and full-on (but wonderful, of course), so afterwards I went away for a couple days alone, to a hostel by a little lighthouse just off Highway 1, on the dramatic California coast north of Half Moon Bay.
It was awesome. Here's an album with pictures:
It was awesome. Here's an album with pictures:
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| Hwy 1 |
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Cool Bleiben
In a German election campaign that has been relentlessly dull and unfailingly insipid; in which the biggest news story – seriously – was Social Democratic candidate Peer Steinbrück being photographed raising his middle finger in "Sagen Sie jetzt nichts" ("Don't Say Anything," a photojournalistic series in which public figures are asked to respond to questions using only expressions and gestures, no words); in an election season where everyone I've talked to, regardless of political affiliation, believes the challenger is a terrible candidate and the incumbent is guaranteed to win; in which the entire city is drenched in posters and billboards bearing candidates' faces, but no one seems to be talking about any actual issues, here's one of the very few things that at least struck me as clever:
It says, basically, "Keep calm and elect the chancellor" (but with the feminine form of "chancellor," so it's clear it means Merkel) and plays on both the ubiquitous "Keep Calm and Carry On" cultural meme and Merkel's iconic, omnipresent hand gesture. (The latter has provided endless fuel for fun, for example here.)
I just assumed the "Cool bleiben" poster was a spoof by someone else, that no one within Merkel's Christian Democratic Union would be creative or culturally savvy enough to have come up it, but it turns out it was actually created by the Junge Union, the CDU's youth organization. Well done, Junge Union.
Incidentally, I think this is my new favorite parody version of "Keep Calm and Carry On."
Incidentally incidentally, Steinbrück's middle finger has also led to endless photo-manipulation fun.
Incidentally incidentally incidentally (tying all these threads together), I also saw a pretty great image that juxtaposed the various "Sagen Sie jetzt nichts" pictures of Steinbrück, gesticulating wildly in response to the various questions the journalist asked him, with the same number of pictures of Merkel, captioned with the same questions but with every one of the pictures being an identical shot of Merkel with her implacable expression and characteristically interlaced hands. Can't seem to track that image down again, though...
It says, basically, "Keep calm and elect the chancellor" (but with the feminine form of "chancellor," so it's clear it means Merkel) and plays on both the ubiquitous "Keep Calm and Carry On" cultural meme and Merkel's iconic, omnipresent hand gesture. (The latter has provided endless fuel for fun, for example here.)
I just assumed the "Cool bleiben" poster was a spoof by someone else, that no one within Merkel's Christian Democratic Union would be creative or culturally savvy enough to have come up it, but it turns out it was actually created by the Junge Union, the CDU's youth organization. Well done, Junge Union.
Incidentally, I think this is my new favorite parody version of "Keep Calm and Carry On."
Incidentally incidentally, Steinbrück's middle finger has also led to endless photo-manipulation fun.
Incidentally incidentally incidentally (tying all these threads together), I also saw a pretty great image that juxtaposed the various "Sagen Sie jetzt nichts" pictures of Steinbrück, gesticulating wildly in response to the various questions the journalist asked him, with the same number of pictures of Merkel, captioned with the same questions but with every one of the pictures being an identical shot of Merkel with her implacable expression and characteristically interlaced hands. Can't seem to track that image down again, though...
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
The Merkel App
...with little note in the upper right that says, "This poster talks. Download the Merkel app now."
Download the Merkel app? Really? Maybe it's no surprise no one's taking the current election campaign very seriously...
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Senegal in Pictures: V
The final Senegal album! In which I rejoin Kap and Graham and spend a last couple days exploring Mbour, before traveling back alone to Ngor for a last evening sunset at the westernmost tip of Africa.
And thus concludes the photographic record of my trip to Senegal in January 2012.
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| SENEGAL V – Mbour (again) and Ngor (again again) |
And thus concludes the photographic record of my trip to Senegal in January 2012.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Senegal in Pictures: IV
In which we travel inland to visit a family making their living from a traditional goat-herding lifestyle (Kap met them because her friend Maniang gets the milk for his goat cheese from them), hang out with the family for a day at their rural compound, meet a lot of (human) kids and (goat) kids and learn just how big a baobab tree can be; in which, also, our intrepid heroine continues south alone to the beautiful Sine-Saloum Delta, land of salt flats and mangroves, wading birds and holy islands.
Next up: Senegal V, the final album, with a last few adventures in Mbour and back to Ngor.
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| SENEGAL IV - the goat farm and the Sine-Saloum Delta |
Next up: Senegal V, the final album, with a last few adventures in Mbour and back to Ngor.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Senegal in Pictures: III
In which our heroine rejoins the rest of the trio in Ngor, discovers a secret source of thiakry (millet) in the winding back lanes of the village, attends an international school party and a famous musician's concert, travels south to Mbour to stay in the home of an extended Senegalese family, visits a preschool, makes friends at the beach, discovers unexpected connections at a dance school and explores the business of making goat cheese. All that and more, right here:
Next up: Senegal IV, in which we make an excursion inland to meet the goat-herding family that produces the milk Maniang uses for his wonderful goat cheese, and then I continue on further south to the beautiful and tranquil Sine-Saloum Delta.
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| SENEGAL III - Ngor and Dakar (again) and Mbour |
Next up: Senegal IV, in which we make an excursion inland to meet the goat-herding family that produces the milk Maniang uses for his wonderful goat cheese, and then I continue on further south to the beautiful and tranquil Sine-Saloum Delta.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Senegal in Pictures: II
In which our heroine travels north to meet a friend from Ithaca living in St. Louis (that's pronounced like French, not like the American city of the same name), sees more pelicans than you can possibly imagine, goes to the Mauritanian border but does not cross over, watches as a significant portion of the country convenes on the holy city of Touba, meets a camel and makes it back to Dakar with only one major and one minor car accident behind her.
Next up: Senegal III, in which we continue south to Mbour.
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| SENEGAL II - Saint-Louis, Djoudj and Touba |
Next up: Senegal III, in which we continue south to Mbour.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Senegal in Pictures: I
I was honestly starting to think this would never happen, but:
My pictures from my trip to Senegal, in January 2012, are now fully sorted, edited, uploaded, organized, captioned... in short, finally ready to share! It only took 1 3/4 years, how 'bout that?
Here's "Senegal I – Ngor and Dakar" in which our intrepid heroine lands in Senegal, gets to know the friendly beachside village of Ngor, meets a lot of her friend Kap's friends, meets a lot of goats, plus photographs vegetables, juices, boats and a surprisingly number of colorful clotheslines.
More coming soon! Next up will be "Senegal II – Saint-Louis, Djoudj and Touba"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
As a curious side note, as I was putting my Senegal albums together, I also glanced back at the my photo albums from my trip to India in late 2010 and discovered that these two trips apparently generated precisely the same volume of photo-album-worthy photos. All together my India albums include 238 photos and my Senegal albums, once I post them all, will include 237 photos. Seriously! That struck me as a fascinating coincidence, which then caused me to wax a little lyrical about the ties that connect those two trips...
The trips I took to both India and Senegal were of similar length (about 3 1/2 weeks), of similar significance to me (a big trip to a very different place, a chance to get outside myself and my daily life and really experience something different, an amazing opportunity to visit friends locally and get to know people, not just be a tourist on a beach or something).
Also, though not by design, these two trips ended up forming neat bookends to what became my "Year of Travel" in 2011.
Between the big trips to India in December 2010 and Senegal in January 2012, I traveled to Switzerland, western Germany, England, the US, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Spain, Scotland, the Netherlands, western Germany again, Belgium, the Baltic Sea, Italy and western Germany yet again for German Christmas. Throughout, I experimented with working from abroad, orchestrating half-work/half-travel weeks that allowed me to stay present professionally despite being physically absent from Berlin. All together I was away and traveling fully 1/4 of that year.
And it was an awesome year, though the pace did eventually get tiring and I slowed down again. And entirely by accident, that Year of Travel slotted itself neatly between these two very different yet similarly resonant trips, to India and to Senegal.
My pictures from my trip to Senegal, in January 2012, are now fully sorted, edited, uploaded, organized, captioned... in short, finally ready to share! It only took 1 3/4 years, how 'bout that?
Here's "Senegal I – Ngor and Dakar" in which our intrepid heroine lands in Senegal, gets to know the friendly beachside village of Ngor, meets a lot of her friend Kap's friends, meets a lot of goats, plus photographs vegetables, juices, boats and a surprisingly number of colorful clotheslines.
 |
| SENEGAL I - Ngor and Dakar |
More coming soon! Next up will be "Senegal II – Saint-Louis, Djoudj and Touba"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
As a curious side note, as I was putting my Senegal albums together, I also glanced back at the my photo albums from my trip to India in late 2010 and discovered that these two trips apparently generated precisely the same volume of photo-album-worthy photos. All together my India albums include 238 photos and my Senegal albums, once I post them all, will include 237 photos. Seriously! That struck me as a fascinating coincidence, which then caused me to wax a little lyrical about the ties that connect those two trips...
The trips I took to both India and Senegal were of similar length (about 3 1/2 weeks), of similar significance to me (a big trip to a very different place, a chance to get outside myself and my daily life and really experience something different, an amazing opportunity to visit friends locally and get to know people, not just be a tourist on a beach or something).
Also, though not by design, these two trips ended up forming neat bookends to what became my "Year of Travel" in 2011.
Between the big trips to India in December 2010 and Senegal in January 2012, I traveled to Switzerland, western Germany, England, the US, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Spain, Scotland, the Netherlands, western Germany again, Belgium, the Baltic Sea, Italy and western Germany yet again for German Christmas. Throughout, I experimented with working from abroad, orchestrating half-work/half-travel weeks that allowed me to stay present professionally despite being physically absent from Berlin. All together I was away and traveling fully 1/4 of that year.
And it was an awesome year, though the pace did eventually get tiring and I slowed down again. And entirely by accident, that Year of Travel slotted itself neatly between these two very different yet similarly resonant trips, to India and to Senegal.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Germany Anniversary
Today is my German anniversary – I've been living here for seven years exactly.
It's a strange feeling. I've now lived in Germany significantly longer than I've lived any other place aside from the town I grew up in. I suppose I could also take this as conclusive proof I'm a grown-up, that I've lived for seven years in a place I first moved to after college?
It's a strange feeling. I've now lived in Germany significantly longer than I've lived any other place aside from the town I grew up in. I suppose I could also take this as conclusive proof I'm a grown-up, that I've lived for seven years in a place I first moved to after college?
Friday, August 30, 2013
Particle Land
Hi folks! I've been thinking today about particles.
That's particles in the linguistic sense, as in the little filler words that add shades of meaning to a sentence. These are notoriously ubiquitous in German, and notoriously difficult to translate (or to learn how to use any other way than simply through the osmosis of being immersed in the language on a daily basis).
I started thinking about this after seeing an election campaign poster that read something like (I don't remember it exactly) "Mach ja doch mal!"
Now, the only "actual" word in that sentence is "mach" – the command form of "machen," or "do." Everything else is slippery particles. But saying just "Mach!" would come off as inexcusably harsh, the equivalent of shouting, "DO IT!!!"
"Doch" has a gentling effect – it makes the command into "Come on, do it" or "Hey, do this." Or even, "Why don't you do this?"
"Mal" (short for "einmal," literally "once") also softens a command – it's the difference between "Smile, NOW!" and "Hey, give us a smile."
"Ja," though, I would say, has a strengthening effect – "Just do it!"
I'm not sure I could tell you what the combination of all three at once – "Mach ja doch mal" – gives you. Something that's at once cajoling, playful and forceful, perhaps?
In any case, I started thinking: Just how many particles could one reasonably cram into one single, non-complex sentence? (German has a LOT of particles – doch, ja, schon, halt, nun, nun mal, eben, also, also doch, aber, vielleicht, eigentlich, wohl, auch, bloß, denn, irgendwie, nur, zwar... and I'm sure that's only a partial list.)
The best I've been able to create so far is "Mach ja doch mal schon!" which would be something like "Hey, come on and just do it already!" And the only actual verb in that sentence is still "mach."
Anyone want to add to that?
(Wikipedia has a good explanation of German particles here (three form systems! languages with no words for "yes" and "no"! Aaaah, the rabbit hole of linguistic fabulousness!)
That's particles in the linguistic sense, as in the little filler words that add shades of meaning to a sentence. These are notoriously ubiquitous in German, and notoriously difficult to translate (or to learn how to use any other way than simply through the osmosis of being immersed in the language on a daily basis).
I started thinking about this after seeing an election campaign poster that read something like (I don't remember it exactly) "Mach ja doch mal!"
Now, the only "actual" word in that sentence is "mach" – the command form of "machen," or "do." Everything else is slippery particles. But saying just "Mach!" would come off as inexcusably harsh, the equivalent of shouting, "DO IT!!!"
"Doch" has a gentling effect – it makes the command into "Come on, do it" or "Hey, do this." Or even, "Why don't you do this?"
"Mal" (short for "einmal," literally "once") also softens a command – it's the difference between "Smile, NOW!" and "Hey, give us a smile."
"Ja," though, I would say, has a strengthening effect – "Just do it!"
I'm not sure I could tell you what the combination of all three at once – "Mach ja doch mal" – gives you. Something that's at once cajoling, playful and forceful, perhaps?
In any case, I started thinking: Just how many particles could one reasonably cram into one single, non-complex sentence? (German has a LOT of particles – doch, ja, schon, halt, nun, nun mal, eben, also, also doch, aber, vielleicht, eigentlich, wohl, auch, bloß, denn, irgendwie, nur, zwar... and I'm sure that's only a partial list.)
The best I've been able to create so far is "Mach ja doch mal schon!" which would be something like "Hey, come on and just do it already!" And the only actual verb in that sentence is still "mach."
Anyone want to add to that?
(Wikipedia has a good explanation of German particles here (three form systems! languages with no words for "yes" and "no"! Aaaah, the rabbit hole of linguistic fabulousness!)
Berlin's Best Bagels
Here's a great article about "Fine Bagels," newest project of Laurel, co-owner of the lovely local English bookstore Shakespeare and Sons.
(I've written about Laurel here and here, and about the truly abysmal state of the pathetic knockoffs that get marketed as "bagels" in Germany here and here.)
The article also delves a little, in the end, into the way Germans overcompensate for their history by trying to come off as ultra-supportive of anything that is in any way identified as Jewish:
"The times I mentioned the knishes on the menu were a kind of ‘Jewish dumpling,’ the sell-rate was near 100 percent," she said. "Though the Jewishness is, of course, irrelevant to the taste."
This is a whole other topic, and probably deserving of a blog post of its own, if not an entire blog!
(I've written about Laurel here and here, and about the truly abysmal state of the pathetic knockoffs that get marketed as "bagels" in Germany here and here.)
The article also delves a little, in the end, into the way Germans overcompensate for their history by trying to come off as ultra-supportive of anything that is in any way identified as Jewish:
"The times I mentioned the knishes on the menu were a kind of ‘Jewish dumpling,’ the sell-rate was near 100 percent," she said. "Though the Jewishness is, of course, irrelevant to the taste."
This is a whole other topic, and probably deserving of a blog post of its own, if not an entire blog!
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Germany Doesn't Care about Your Molars
I learned an interesting thing today at the dentist: German health insurance will cover fillings in your front teeth, but not in your back teeth. "Anything that can be seen," said the dental assistant, with a shrug and a roll of the eyes at what weird logic that is.
Now let me say first of all, I have few complaints with Germany's health care system. It works, it covers an amazing range and level of care, it understands (in most cases) that paying for preventive care now saves costs later, and everybody has coverage. No appalling gaps in care like in the US, no horrendous waiting times like in Canada, no being locked into one provider like in the UK (at least in my shaky grasp of that system, which I admit is only based on a sole experience of once having had to take a local friend to the emergency room in Scotland.)
In Germany, you have a choice of which doctor to see, you generally get an appointment within a reasonable time frame, and if it's necessary care you're receiving, your insurance pays for it.
How does Germany afford this? Yes, a hefty government contribution. (This is where the whole European high-taxes-in-exchange-for-high-quality-of-life thing comes in.) But also everyone's pays insurance costs that are a percentage of their earnings; for those who can't pay, the government steps in. The more you earn the more you pay, up to a certain limit, and then you're allowed to opt out and buy private insurance instead.
(This is my one major complaint, that it's two-tier system – everyone below a certain cut-off has regular, compulsory insurance; those over the cut-off can choose instead to buy private insurance at a fixed price, which at some income level becomes a better deal than the percentage-based compulsory insurance. This is problematic because private patients get preferential treatment – some doctors will only see private patients. Hard to propose a better alternative, though, when this is the natural result of an income-based payment system. Maybe keep the percentage-based payments, but have a certain cap to the amount any one person has to pay? But it does seem to me everyone should have the same basic coverage, and then optional extras could be, you know, optional: e.g., those who want to add on, say, full dental coverage have the option to do so on top of the basic coverage they share with everyone... /End of digression.)
Anyway, one of the system's little oddities I've been thinking about lately is that insurance will cover the cost of a consultation with a doctor – which includes the doctor writing a prescription – even if it doesn't cover the actual thing the doctor prescribes.
(For example: An ophthalmologist visit, including an eye test and a prescription for glasses, is free, even though the glasses themselves aren't. Consultation with a gynecologist about which birth control to use is free, but the birth control itself isn't covered. Emergency appointment with a G.P. for flu/bronchitis/whatever is free, but there's a copay on the medication prescribed. I'm not saying insurance necessarily needs to cover eyeglasses or whatever, it's just funny that it would cover the visit to the doctor who tells you that you need a specific thing, but stop short of providing the thing you need.)
The insurance is also a bit odd when it comes to dental care – two yearly check-ups are included, but a routine cleaning (something every person needs) isn't. Yet the exorbitant cost of treatment for gum disease (which you might well get if you never have a professional cleaning) is covered!
Ah well, coming from a country where generally no dental care is covered, I still think Germany is doing a great job.
How interesting, though, that while Germany wants to fill cavities in your incisors, it doesn't care about your molars.
Now let me say first of all, I have few complaints with Germany's health care system. It works, it covers an amazing range and level of care, it understands (in most cases) that paying for preventive care now saves costs later, and everybody has coverage. No appalling gaps in care like in the US, no horrendous waiting times like in Canada, no being locked into one provider like in the UK (at least in my shaky grasp of that system, which I admit is only based on a sole experience of once having had to take a local friend to the emergency room in Scotland.)
In Germany, you have a choice of which doctor to see, you generally get an appointment within a reasonable time frame, and if it's necessary care you're receiving, your insurance pays for it.
How does Germany afford this? Yes, a hefty government contribution. (This is where the whole European high-taxes-in-exchange-for-high-quality-of-life thing comes in.) But also everyone's pays insurance costs that are a percentage of their earnings; for those who can't pay, the government steps in. The more you earn the more you pay, up to a certain limit, and then you're allowed to opt out and buy private insurance instead.
(This is my one major complaint, that it's two-tier system – everyone below a certain cut-off has regular, compulsory insurance; those over the cut-off can choose instead to buy private insurance at a fixed price, which at some income level becomes a better deal than the percentage-based compulsory insurance. This is problematic because private patients get preferential treatment – some doctors will only see private patients. Hard to propose a better alternative, though, when this is the natural result of an income-based payment system. Maybe keep the percentage-based payments, but have a certain cap to the amount any one person has to pay? But it does seem to me everyone should have the same basic coverage, and then optional extras could be, you know, optional: e.g., those who want to add on, say, full dental coverage have the option to do so on top of the basic coverage they share with everyone... /End of digression.)
Anyway, one of the system's little oddities I've been thinking about lately is that insurance will cover the cost of a consultation with a doctor – which includes the doctor writing a prescription – even if it doesn't cover the actual thing the doctor prescribes.
(For example: An ophthalmologist visit, including an eye test and a prescription for glasses, is free, even though the glasses themselves aren't. Consultation with a gynecologist about which birth control to use is free, but the birth control itself isn't covered. Emergency appointment with a G.P. for flu/bronchitis/whatever is free, but there's a copay on the medication prescribed. I'm not saying insurance necessarily needs to cover eyeglasses or whatever, it's just funny that it would cover the visit to the doctor who tells you that you need a specific thing, but stop short of providing the thing you need.)
The insurance is also a bit odd when it comes to dental care – two yearly check-ups are included, but a routine cleaning (something every person needs) isn't. Yet the exorbitant cost of treatment for gum disease (which you might well get if you never have a professional cleaning) is covered!
Ah well, coming from a country where generally no dental care is covered, I still think Germany is doing a great job.
How interesting, though, that while Germany wants to fill cavities in your incisors, it doesn't care about your molars.
Monday, August 26, 2013
"Anhalten"
Another one of those little "German verbs, why??" moments:
The verb "anhalten" means both "to continue" and "to stop" (as in to pause, halt, or pull your car to the side of the road). In other words, two things that are exactly opposite.
Anyone out there care to explain??
(Also, one of Germany's 16 federal states is called Sachsen-Anhalt, so if you wanted to translate that super overly literally, you'd have to call it "Saxon-Stop"!)
The verb "anhalten" means both "to continue" and "to stop" (as in to pause, halt, or pull your car to the side of the road). In other words, two things that are exactly opposite.
Anyone out there care to explain??
(Also, one of Germany's 16 federal states is called Sachsen-Anhalt, so if you wanted to translate that super overly literally, you'd have to call it "Saxon-Stop"!)
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Ostsee Excursion: Zingst, Darss and a Dash of FKK
It proved easiest to be based in Zingst, part of a long, narrow barrier almost-island, and also the name of a hopping little tourist town with a stretch of sand beach and all the attendant trappings of a German seaside tourist town. (These consist largely of numerous iconic "Strandkorb" chairs, a kind of beach chair/shelter that can be rented for the day on windy German beaches.)
Here's the pier at Zingst in the early evening:
Zingst was not really the point, though; the point was the day I spent with a rented bicycle, crisscrossing the middle part of the peninsula, known as Darss, much of which is a national park.
First, out along the bike path that runs east-west atop the dike paralleling the dunes and the sea, then through the woods and out to the great, flat stretch of Nordstrand (North Beach) at low tide and high noon, where jellyfish lay stranded at the tide line and mussel shells crunched underfoot, the sea, sand and sky all flat as glass.
Then further on foot through the national park, a looping trail through marshlands and dunes that finally opens out to the wild, untamed beach at Darsser Ort. (I'd been here once before, in deepest winter my first year living in Berlin, and this spot where the path crests the dune and opens out to the sea is the image that has always stayed with me from that visit.)
Then, the afternoon at Weststrand (West Beach), reached by a path through the woods and cheerfully dotted with colorful beach tents and windscreens.
What I loved possibly the most about Weststrand was the way East Germany's well-established "FKK" (nudist) culture plays out here. On the more established, tourist-town beaches, there are posted signs for nudist or non-nudist beaches (the latter are called "textile" beaches, in a charming nod to how normal the non-textile alternative is), but at the more remote Weststrand, everybody mixed easily. About half the people were walking around with clothes on and half with none, and nobody cared in the least either way. As an American, coming from a culture that can still be insidiously Puritanical, despite the actual Puritans being centuries gone, that just seems like a very healthy culture to me.
(Equally charming was a boy of maybe 6 or 7 I saw playing on the beach, completely absorbed in some sort of driftwood fort he was building and just as completely indifferent to the naked adults around him.)
Then in the evening back to Zingst, and here, have a special bonus of an awesome playground near the school there. (That's a dragon, a unicorn and some sort of over-sized percussion toy/instrument, in case you can't tell. Someday maybe I really will make an album of all my pictures of awesome Germany playgrounds.)
Then back to Berlin late on Sunday, rested and soaked with sun and sea, and finding a weekend away very, very worth it.
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