As an expat, there are a few consistent questions people from “back home” tend to always ask. When you first move somewhere new, it’s easy to understand where they’re coming from, and I cheerily answered in the first few years I lived in Germany. At some point though, some switch flipped, and my mental eye … Read More →
“Guck mal! Eine Rakete! Das wünsche ich mir. Wie cool ist das! Eine Abschlepper mit Flugzeug! Das wünsche ich mir auch. Oh! Ein riesiges Schiff! Ja, ja, das wünsche mir so super sehr. Hej, was dann? Warum ist der Polizei so böse gegen der Fluchtling da? Das wünsche ich mir gar nicht.” These are the … Read More →
Some days I’m just moving in the shadows. That’s both the beauty and the bother of being an expat. I pinch myself to make sure I’m still real. Still a human being. Growing up in a smallish Midwest city meant I enjoyed an endless stream of lasagna jokes every time some clown who couldn’t read … Read More →
If a power outage happens this week, I’m totally prepared. Why? Because we’re up to our eyeballs in Sankt Martinstag fests and have made enough colourful and bizarrely malformed lanterns to put Burning Man to shame. What? You missed that 11 November was Martinstag? Didn’t you see the special Google Doodle? WARNING: here comes an … Read More →
When I announced to a group of friends my plan to move to a small university town in Germany in the midst of winter 2011, my Swiss friend gravely informed me “German winters are gray and dark and terrible.” Clearly she was skeptical my years on the sunny central coast of California, and hot, hot … Read More →
If you’ve spent even one Silvester in Germany, you are familiar with Dinner for Two, a 1963 Brit comedy sketch where Miss Sophie and her butler, James celebrate her birthday with an inimitable dinner party. The key line of the skit, which you must be prepared to ask and answer come end of year, is “same … Read More →
WARNING: This post is not funny. So, if you started the new year in a fragile state, skip to this instead. Many people consider Germans (especially those over a certain age) notably rude, unforgiving of mistakes, and humourless. I confess, even having befriended a German exchange student in high school I remain friends with to … Read More →
Linguists are having a helluva week. A new language was discovered in a remote village in Australia and Duden Dictionary updated the sophisticated German’s official vocabulary to include Shitstorm. The latter had me wondering about the correct article for this noun, which it turns out is “der.” For correct usage of this new word auf … Read More →
Girl turns 6 today. As such, she is officially a Schulkind. This means the time has come to purchase a Schulranzen. What’s that, you ask? I’d call it a satchel or a backpack, but this thing is so much more. Beyond the obvious configuration differences – it is more like a nicely decorated hard-sided box … Read More →
You know the saying about how you never truly appreciate something until it’s gone? Well, I can see now how I took for granted the splendor of our former home in Central California. There’s an abundance of things I could point to in clarifying “splendor,” but for the purposes of this post I’m talking about … Read More →