It’s The Little Things

On December 25, 2011May 30, 2020 By StevenIn Life In Germany5 Comments

I was talking with my sister yesterday via the miracle of inexpensive international calling that is Skype, and I was telling her about some of the smaller differences between Europe and the US, things that are just interesting to me because they’re different. To someone who’s been in Germany for more than a year or two, these are the kind of differences that probably don’t get much notice, but to me, they’re huge and fascinating. Here’s a few of them.Plumbing:

toilet flush — That little button on the right side of the top is the flush control.

Urinals and toilets here are different. Not so different that it’s difficult to use them, but even just the flush mechanism. In the US, there’s typically a handle that pulls up a flapper inside a tank. The mechanics of it may be the same inside the tank, but here the flush button is usually on top for tank styled toilets, and it if you press the button the other way, it will stop the flush. There are also toilets where the tank is set into the wall, and the flush button is a big panel- I haven’t the foggiest idea how that works, but I’ve seen it in several places. Heck, even the stall doors in public restrooms are different here. They’re more private than in the US, and there’s a little occupied/vacant indicator built into the door handle. I think that’s kind of nifty.

Phone jacks:

Phone jacks in the US are a tiny little modular affair, less than half an inch wide. Here’s what they look like here in Germany:

Door knobs:

While interior doors aren’t much different, front doors here have a tendency to have a knob that does not turn. The entire purpose of this knob is just to have something to grip in order to open the door. The actual latch part of the assembly is built right into the keyhole. The lock is different also- the normal setting is locked from outside but not from inside. There’s a keyhole on the inside of the door too, and from either side of the door you can extend the deadbolt halfway with one turn of the key or all the way with a second turn of the key. I had to go through the settings with the door open so that I could see the deadbolt positions before I fully understood the door lock.

Windows:

This is my favorite difference so far, when it comes to normal house stuff. The windows here are just cooler, no pun intended. In the US, windows usually open via an upward or sideways sliding motion, or they can be tilted up with a hand crank. Not so, here. The window handle has three positions. In the downward position, the window is closed. In the horizontal position, you can open the window inward. The third position is the one that made me go “Neat!” – when you flip the handle upward, you can tilt the window in so that it pivots on the bottom two hinges. This gives you ventilation without having the entire house exposed to the rain or wind or snow, not unlike a car sunroof, but done vertically. From left to right, these pictures are closed, open, slanted open:

The best part of the windows here though is that it’s very common for there to be external rolldown shutters on very window. In other words, the windows have built in shutters on the outside of the building that you control from inside. Here’s the shutter on my bedroom window, and the strap mechanism that’s used to roll it up and down:

Pink Ladies

On December 21, 2011May 30, 2020 By StevenIn Life In Germany3 Comments

Pink ladies like their bier und pommes (beer and French Fries.)

Brrr-many

On December 18, 2011May 30, 2020 By StevenIn Life In Germany4 Comments

One of the questions that my friends and family back home have asked me frequently is “Steven, how are you doing with the cold?” To my friends in Chicago, New York, New Hampshire- this is a silly question, because I haven’t seen temperatures here that are colder than what they’re used to seeing.

However, it is important to remember that I’ve lived in South Florida for my entire life until now. Here’s a helpful comparison: Right now, it’s 37 degrees fahrenheit and sunny (yes, sunny!) in Regensburg. Back in my former home of Delray Beach, it’s 66 degrees. For South Florida, 66 degrees is chilly. When I left, it was closer to 80 degrees there.

Editor’s note: I’m talking about the temperature in Farenheit instead of Celcius because nearly of my readers are back in the United States.

Since I arrived, it has been pretty comfortable- the temperature has only rarely dropped below freezing. We’ve had some days that are considered unseasonably warm by the locals with temperatures climbing up into the forties. Although I’ve seen some snow here, it’s never been on the ground. I’ve needed an umbrella more often than I expected for November and December. The Internet says that the weather is pretty moderate here, with temperatures seldom dropping below freezing when the sun is up. Last year was a bad winter, the locals all say, and there was a great deal of snow.

The record lows here in the past have gone to twenty or thirty below 0, but those are extremes. The averages are much more moderate- although it will drop below freezing here, it probably won’t drop below 0 on the fahrenheit scale.

For this former Florida resident, adjusting to the November and December temperatures has been largely about changing what I think of as “cold.” Before I left for Germany, I tried to outfit myself with a sort of Florida Resident Cold Weather Starter Kit. I went to Burlington Coat Factory and got a big heavy jacket with an inner shell that was removable, one that was moisture and wind resistant. I went to a ski store (after the shock of learning that there was a ski store in Florida) and got some smartwool socks, a scarf, a pair of heavy gloves, and a pair of boots that are designed for snow. I also picked up some thermal inner layers, high tech stuff that wicks moisture and so forth.

Stoic underthings. — They kinda look like superhero gear, don't they?

Hot & Chilly's — They kinda look like superhero gear, don't they?

What I am learning is that most of the time, I don’t need the high tech polyester stuff on my torso- a regular long sleeved t-shirt handles the heavy lifting of layering for warmth quite nicely. The Hot & Chilly’s will come in handy when it gets colder, I imagine, but for now they’re not completely needed because it’s not that much colder here than it was in my Boca Raton office, which is always freezing.

After a full month here, I’ve finally sorted out that the whole point of a scarf is to keep your neck warm. I thought it was just to keep wind off the back of your neck, and I started out wearing it draped over the neck with the ends dangling. After watching how other people used them, I started to wrap it around my neck, which led to a few days where I looked truly silly. In the last few days, I finally realized that the closer the scarf is to my skin, the warmer my entire body feels. Don’t understimate the power of the wind to make you feel cold.

I’ve also noticed a lot of people here wear Converse. I decided to try my beloved Chuck Taylors today, and I can now say with certainty that they’re not ideal for this climate. I’ve worn them in New York, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, and many points in between, and they’re just not a cold weather shoe. This fully explains the fur-lined Converse I saw in the shoe store- I thought it was overkill, but I bet it really helps to keep the cold from creeping up into the soles of your feet.

The one thing that I wish I had packed more of before I left the US is long-sleeved cotton t-shirs. I have a half dozen of them, mostly with designs on them. I have a couple of simple cotton long-sleeved t-shirts though, and they’re worth their weight in gold for layering to handle movement between the office and the bus stop, and for walking in and out of buildings when the temperature is hovering around two degrees Celcius.

That’s about 35F for you Florida folk.

It was the butter that did me in.

On December 12, 2011May 30, 2020 By StevenIn Life In Germany8 Comments

It will take me a while to get used to grocery shopping here. For one thing, you bring your own cloth grocery bag, or you pay for the bags you need. You bag your own groceries- there’s nobody to bag groceries for you, and the cashier doesn’t help- she’s just there to ring up your purchase. (Mine was very helpful when I accidentally dropped my bank card and the conveyer belt took it away though. That could have been very, very bad.)

The shopping carts are terribly amusing to me. They here have four independently oriented wheels so it’s much easier to roll a cart completely sideways at a perpendicular to your previous motion than with carts in the US. The first time I saw that action, I had a solid “what the heck?!” moment. I’ll probably never use one of the shopping carts though because I have to be able to carry anything I buy home, and it’s a good ten minute walk.

Kaufland is a two level store. The upper level is where you enter and exit, and it’s a circle that takes you past some electronics, some housewares, and some liquor and candy. The first time I walked through, I was unimpressed because I didn’t even notice the flat escalators that went down to the lower level.

The escalators are flat to accommodate the shopping carts, as it turns out, because the lower level is amazing- it’s where all the food is. The lower level is layer out as a huge circle with cold storage, a big fresh produce section, and a very, very wide selection.

The selection is where I’m running into problems though, because I don’t know any of the brands. Sure, every once in a while, I’ll see a familiar name. So far, Palmolive, Kleenex, Calgon, and Swiffer are the names for home products that I’ve seen. And there’s Heinz, Uncle Ben’s, and Kellogg’s on the food side of things. (I was terribly amused at the McDonald’s brand ketchup, too.) Beyond that, the names are all entirely different. I can tell if I’m getting Kaufland’s house brand (Klassik, I think) easily enough, but anything else is sort of an unknown for me.

Adding to the frustration is that the language barrier is thicker in the grocery store than in a lot of other places. I was getting dish soap this afternoon and I had to ask Robert if it said anything about cutting oil or grease because I don’t know the words for that yet. A lot of things are easy to spot because they just are- cheese is obviously cheese, in any language. Ketchup is ketchup, even though you have some very interesting varieties that you just don’t see in the US.

So this was what I was doing a while ago. I found the cheese, then I found the cream cheese. Thinking that the butter couldn’t be far away, but still not seeing it, I fired up the translation app on my phone, flipped it around so that it would translate English to German for a change, and tapped in the word butter. It came back with ‘butter.’

I was incredulous. The German word for butter is… butter?! Naturally. I looked around some more, and went another aisle or so down, and found… butter. A variety of types. (What the heck is truffle butter?!) The shapes and sizes were unfamiliar. Little tubs. Slabs that just felt oddly measured. No sticks- that’s not how it’s sold here, I guess. There were some odd little tubes, too.

I stood in front of that butter case, muttering to myself as I picked up various types of butter, turned them around, and put them back, for the better part of five minutes. I’m quite sure that I was starting to worry some of the other shoppers. I eventually chose one slab and one tub, not even thinking to check for salting- apparently salted butter isn’t as common here, so I’m not sure how much I’ll enjoy the ones I chose. Oh well, it’s a taste adventure.

My best score of the evening may well have been the lactose free, soy based chocolate puddings that I found. Well, at least I think that’s what they are. The word ‘dessert’ is very clear, and schokolade and laktosefrei are obvious enough. And the designs on the package look sort of puddingish.

I’ve already gotten attuned to looking for the word “soja” on dairy types of products, because that’s German for Soy. Soja usually means laktosefrei, which means I’m a much happier person. I haven’t been hungry enough to try them yet- I had dinner right before I shopped because I know better than to grocery shop while hungry, even here.

I can’t wait to try my schokolade dessert. It might even make me feel better about the butter.

Mufasa!

On December 11, 2011May 30, 2020 By StevenIn Life In Germany1 Comment

You might have noticed that there are more posts from me on weekends- that’s because I have more time to myself. Week days are work days, which means I usually don’t have as much time to think of things to say. Not so with weekends. Especially Sundays, where I have to find ways to fill the time because nothing is open.

Today I filled some of the time by going to see Disneys Der König Der Löwen, also known as The Lion King. I’ve been thinking about seeing it for a while, but I’m glad I waited- I found that I could actually follow more of the German now than I would have been able to a few weeks ago.

I’ve always been somewhat facsinated by the voice actors who dub over well known parts on television and in movies. While watching television here, I found that the German version of “How I Met Your Mother” was really fun to watch because the voice actors who cover Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Segel, and all the rest really do sound like their American counterparts- almost uncannily so.

That was mostly the case with the German cast of the Lion King. They had a hard time matching someone to the timbre of James Earl Jones, but everyone else was more or less spot on. Here’s a sample of my favorite part of the movie:

Something else that I found interesting was that despite the massive shift in language, many of the songs retained a rhyme scheme. On those parts where I could pick out the translations, I noticed that they had changed the order of the words around to make it fit the rhyme scheme. It seems to me like that would be somewhat awkward, but I’ll have to ask a native speaker for their opinion.

Something else that I thought was interesting was that while most of the songs were English in the original were in German, Zazu’s “Nobody Knows” while he’s in the cage was in English. And in the bit where he sings “I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts” in the English version, the German version changes to a little tune I’ve never heard before. I’d be willing to bet that it’s a song that is very common to people who’ve lived in Germany all their lives, though.

All in all, a very fun outing. And one of the previews was for Die Muppets! I can’t wait to see that one.