Saturday, April 7, 2012
Aprilwetter
As I write this, outside my window in Berlin it's both blindingly sunny – and hailing. Last week, we had a day where it rained, sort of slushy-snow-rained and then also hailed, but all interspersed with periods of bright sunlight.
In German, fittingly enough, they call this "Aprilwetter" – April weather. When my students try to use the phrase in English, I tell them we don't exactly use that phrase, but might just call it typical spring weather.
Anyone care to weigh in on whether I'm correct? This is the kind of thing where, the longer I live away from the U.S., the less I can claim to be 100% sure about what we "actually" say.
(Or, in Ohio for example, we just called it typical Ohio weather! I'm sure in England, Scotland, etc. they say the same but, you know, for England or Scotland or etc.)
In German, fittingly enough, they call this "Aprilwetter" – April weather. When my students try to use the phrase in English, I tell them we don't exactly use that phrase, but might just call it typical spring weather.
Anyone care to weigh in on whether I'm correct? This is the kind of thing where, the longer I live away from the U.S., the less I can claim to be 100% sure about what we "actually" say.
(Or, in Ohio for example, we just called it typical Ohio weather! I'm sure in England, Scotland, etc. they say the same but, you know, for England or Scotland or etc.)
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Lisbon Layover
Well, it's still going to be a while before I get all my Senegal pictures together, but it the meantime allow me to present: the Lisbon Layover!
On my friend Kap's advice, we flew Air TAP to Senegal, through Portugal. This was supposedly cheaper than anything we could have got from Berlin, though once you factor in the trains to and from Hamburg (the city we flew out of) and the time spent in Lisbon on our layovers, I'm not sure if it's strictly true.
But it doesn't matter, because between the length of the layovers (about 6 hours when we first flew through together, and a full 12 hours when I flew back in on my own after Senegal) and the fantastic, fast bus link into the city from the airport, this meant – I actually got to see some of Portugal! A place I'd never been before.
On our first layover, we took the airport bus into the city and wandered up to the Alfama (Lisbon's old town, and conveniently the only thing I even knew about Lisbon beforehand), poked around, then had dinner and the obligatory famous pastry, the pastel de nata, before heading back to the airport for our late evening flight to Dakar.
On the way back, I had even more time, a full day, so I took the bus into Lisbon but then continued on straight out of town by train. Kap had recommended the town of Sintra, which is apparently a top day trip destination out of Lisbon.
And with good reason, because Sintra is home to the coolest castle I've ever seen. And remember, I'm not even particularly a castle person. (Except in Scotland.) This place – the Moorish Castle – was just fantastic. Like an enormous stone playground (please don't consider me historically insensitive when I say that...) but better, way better. Words don't do it justice and pictures probably don't either, but here are a few:
Click on the image to go to the album!
On my friend Kap's advice, we flew Air TAP to Senegal, through Portugal. This was supposedly cheaper than anything we could have got from Berlin, though once you factor in the trains to and from Hamburg (the city we flew out of) and the time spent in Lisbon on our layovers, I'm not sure if it's strictly true.
But it doesn't matter, because between the length of the layovers (about 6 hours when we first flew through together, and a full 12 hours when I flew back in on my own after Senegal) and the fantastic, fast bus link into the city from the airport, this meant – I actually got to see some of Portugal! A place I'd never been before.
On our first layover, we took the airport bus into the city and wandered up to the Alfama (Lisbon's old town, and conveniently the only thing I even knew about Lisbon beforehand), poked around, then had dinner and the obligatory famous pastry, the pastel de nata, before heading back to the airport for our late evening flight to Dakar.
On the way back, I had even more time, a full day, so I took the bus into Lisbon but then continued on straight out of town by train. Kap had recommended the town of Sintra, which is apparently a top day trip destination out of Lisbon.
And with good reason, because Sintra is home to the coolest castle I've ever seen. And remember, I'm not even particularly a castle person. (Except in Scotland.) This place – the Moorish Castle – was just fantastic. Like an enormous stone playground (please don't consider me historically insensitive when I say that...) but better, way better. Words don't do it justice and pictures probably don't either, but here are a few:
Click on the image to go to the album!
 |
| Lisbon Layover |
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Moderate Climate and Unsophisticated Cuisine
Aw... The "International Placement Services" at Germany's Federal Employment Agency try to entice skilled workers to Germany with a description that begins thus:
"Moderate climate, a regionally diverse cuisine (though not exactly renowned for its sophistication), a varied landscape with coasts and mountains, any number of famous historic and natural monuments..."
Just makes you want to up and move here, doesn't it??
(The translation crossing my desk today is about skilled workers from countries-in-economic-crisis like Portugal finding jobs in Germany, and the relevant background research led me to this.)
"Moderate climate, a regionally diverse cuisine (though not exactly renowned for its sophistication), a varied landscape with coasts and mountains, any number of famous historic and natural monuments..."
Just makes you want to up and move here, doesn't it??
(The translation crossing my desk today is about skilled workers from countries-in-economic-crisis like Portugal finding jobs in Germany, and the relevant background research led me to this.)
Monday, March 26, 2012
Duct Tape, or Failing at the Small Things
This is the reality of living your life in another language, no matter how fluent you become:
At some point, you find yourself standing in a hardware store and realizing that, while you can successfully communicate the concept "I need to fix my floorboards down more firmly because they squeak when walked on, but the nails that hold them in place are already so deeply sunk into the wood that a hammer can't reach them, so I need some kind of small, thin metal piece I can put on top of a nail to then hammer on that instead of on the nail directly" and yet at the same time you don't know the word for "duct tape."
And you stand there and ask yourself, Do I really want to submit myself to the humiliation of playing the describing-and-guessing game for something as basic as duct tape? Or am I going to slink out of here, consult a dictionary, and come back another day?
(To be fair, part of the reason I don't know the word for duct tape is that Germans never seem to USE duct tape. And for those desperate to know how the story ends: I did a second, more thorough pass through the store and eventually found the heavy duty tape on a shelf near the back, thus saving myself both the humiliation of asking and the extra trip to the store!)
At some point, you find yourself standing in a hardware store and realizing that, while you can successfully communicate the concept "I need to fix my floorboards down more firmly because they squeak when walked on, but the nails that hold them in place are already so deeply sunk into the wood that a hammer can't reach them, so I need some kind of small, thin metal piece I can put on top of a nail to then hammer on that instead of on the nail directly" and yet at the same time you don't know the word for "duct tape."
And you stand there and ask yourself, Do I really want to submit myself to the humiliation of playing the describing-and-guessing game for something as basic as duct tape? Or am I going to slink out of here, consult a dictionary, and come back another day?
(To be fair, part of the reason I don't know the word for duct tape is that Germans never seem to USE duct tape. And for those desperate to know how the story ends: I did a second, more thorough pass through the store and eventually found the heavy duty tape on a shelf near the back, thus saving myself both the humiliation of asking and the extra trip to the store!)
Map Nerd Discovers Map Nerd
This could be dangerous...to my own amount of time spent reading things online, I mean.
I've recently discovered the "Borderlines" blog on the New York Times website, where author Frank Jacobs – as his byline says – "writes about cartography, but only the interesting bits."
As a Europe-dwelling person who likes countries and maps, I particularly enjoyed this installment: "Where Is Europe?" As in, where are the borders of the European continent, and how do we decide?
The careless way people use "Europe" as synonymous with the European Union has always bothered me (So Ukraine or Croatia don't even count as Europe now? It's bad enough that map makers often don't even include all of Eastern Europe on European maps...) but this article puts that in the larger context of what has been considered "Europe" over time – from the name's original usage for a small bit of land near the Dardanelles, to the political connotations of "Europe" being wherever the Ottoman Empire ended, through various attempts at establishing some sort of logic to where, geographically, Europe ought to end and Asia begin...and back to the politic aspect, with the E.U.
Except he explains it all much more interestingly than I managed in that summary!
I've recently discovered the "Borderlines" blog on the New York Times website, where author Frank Jacobs – as his byline says – "writes about cartography, but only the interesting bits."
As a Europe-dwelling person who likes countries and maps, I particularly enjoyed this installment: "Where Is Europe?" As in, where are the borders of the European continent, and how do we decide?
The careless way people use "Europe" as synonymous with the European Union has always bothered me (So Ukraine or Croatia don't even count as Europe now? It's bad enough that map makers often don't even include all of Eastern Europe on European maps...) but this article puts that in the larger context of what has been considered "Europe" over time – from the name's original usage for a small bit of land near the Dardanelles, to the political connotations of "Europe" being wherever the Ottoman Empire ended, through various attempts at establishing some sort of logic to where, geographically, Europe ought to end and Asia begin...and back to the politic aspect, with the E.U.
Except he explains it all much more interestingly than I managed in that summary!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Drowning in Bubble Tea, the Addendum
Just so you can see I wasn't kidding...
This is a random and utterly non-exhaustive sampling of pictures taken on a single evening's walk home through Prenzlauer Berg. As far as I can tell, none of these places existed a month ago, or if they did, they were other types of cafés, with no mention of bubble tea in sight.
What's going on, Berlin??
Gleimstraße:
Prenzlauer Allee:
Schönhauser Allee:
Hufelandstraße:
Pasteurstraße:
Not to mention the parents-and-children oriented café a block from my apartment, which is called Café Ballon ("Balloon Café") and is appropriately filled with balloons, a children's ball pit... and bubble tea.
This is a random and utterly non-exhaustive sampling of pictures taken on a single evening's walk home through Prenzlauer Berg. As far as I can tell, none of these places existed a month ago, or if they did, they were other types of cafés, with no mention of bubble tea in sight.
What's going on, Berlin??
Gleimstraße:
Prenzlauer Allee:
Schönhauser Allee:
Hufelandstraße:
Pasteurstraße:
Not to mention the parents-and-children oriented café a block from my apartment, which is called Café Ballon ("Balloon Café") and is appropriately filled with balloons, a children's ball pit... and bubble tea.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Berlin, Drowning in Bubble Tea
Okay, I don't think I'm imagining this: Everywhere, literally everywhere I go in Berlin, there are suddenly places selling bubble tea. Upscale, fancy-shmancy Prenzlauer Berg cafés are selling bubble tea. Sketchy, cheap-o places on main drags are selling bubble tea. What is going on?
And more specifically...is Europe only discovering bubble tea now? I remember that being a Thing when I was in college (so, at least six or seven years ago) and of course it's been around in Asia much longer.
As with swing dancing (a retro craze that seems to be just now really catching on in Europe, over a decade late), it tickles me to see Europe - which is so often so far ahead of us on, well, almost everything - be occasionally so clueless on the trends. And I mean that with love for both continents in question.
- - - - -
The first real spring-like day, thin jacket and no scarf, glorious sun. True to form, the instant there's even a ray of sunshine, everybody's sitting at tables outside cafés.
I even saw a number of people sitting literally in the middle of a sidewalk that had been torn up for construction - the café proprietors simply worked in some tables wherever there wasn't construction, and kept on serving.
Flower shops are doing brisk business in all the accoutrements of balcony gardening. I came home today with a lavender plant in one hand and a 20-liter bag of potting soil in the other.
And more specifically...is Europe only discovering bubble tea now? I remember that being a Thing when I was in college (so, at least six or seven years ago) and of course it's been around in Asia much longer.
As with swing dancing (a retro craze that seems to be just now really catching on in Europe, over a decade late), it tickles me to see Europe - which is so often so far ahead of us on, well, almost everything - be occasionally so clueless on the trends. And I mean that with love for both continents in question.
- - - - -
The first real spring-like day, thin jacket and no scarf, glorious sun. True to form, the instant there's even a ray of sunshine, everybody's sitting at tables outside cafés.
I even saw a number of people sitting literally in the middle of a sidewalk that had been torn up for construction - the café proprietors simply worked in some tables wherever there wasn't construction, and kept on serving.
Flower shops are doing brisk business in all the accoutrements of balcony gardening. I came home today with a lavender plant in one hand and a 20-liter bag of potting soil in the other.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Japan – One Year After the Catastrophe
I don't post samples of my professional work here very often, because it's essentially a lot of the same (texts that were German and now are English, mostly in journalism), but this is interesting and a little bit different:
To mark one year since the tsunami and disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Spiegel Online produced a series of video shorts featuring different individuals from the area and how their lives have changed.
The videos were originally in German, and I translated the subtitling and the narrator's voiceover for the English version. Which was interesting work – and as always a bit strange to be writing about something I myself couldn't see (which happens often when translating), since I didn't have access to the video while doing the translations for it.
I was moved just by the text on paper, and of course it's more moving when you can see the actual people involved, so here's the link if you want to have a look:
"Japan – One Year After the Catastrophe" on Spiegel Online International.
To mark one year since the tsunami and disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Spiegel Online produced a series of video shorts featuring different individuals from the area and how their lives have changed.
The videos were originally in German, and I translated the subtitling and the narrator's voiceover for the English version. Which was interesting work – and as always a bit strange to be writing about something I myself couldn't see (which happens often when translating), since I didn't have access to the video while doing the translations for it.
I was moved just by the text on paper, and of course it's more moving when you can see the actual people involved, so here's the link if you want to have a look:
"Japan – One Year After the Catastrophe" on Spiegel Online International.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Today Not Old Anymore
While we're on the subject of language quirks, here's a nice little phrase I was thinking about last night:
"Heute werde ich nicht mehr alt."
That's what you say when you're reaching the point of tiredness where it's almost to time to say goodnight and head home – but literally what it means is, "I won't get old anymore today."
Which is so lovely and nonsensical!
So far the best English-language equivalents I've come up with would be something along the lines of "I don't think I'll last much longer" or maybe "I'm going to call it a night." But that really doesn't have the ring of the German.
"Heute werde ich nicht mehr alt."
That's what you say when you're reaching the point of tiredness where it's almost to time to say goodnight and head home – but literally what it means is, "I won't get old anymore today."
Which is so lovely and nonsensical!
So far the best English-language equivalents I've come up with would be something along the lines of "I don't think I'll last much longer" or maybe "I'm going to call it a night." But that really doesn't have the ring of the German.
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