AMD 6 - Bratwurst und Gluhwein!

As part of AMD 6 I tried not only to learn more about Germany, but also to taste Germany and test my cooking skills! My specialty is fried eggs a la Dimitris with a little bit of egg shell in it. So trying to cook Bratwurst was a challenge for me! In order to do that I had to buy the proper Bratwurst sausage from the meat market and I had it roasted at home! I must say that it turned out well! I have had Bratwurst mit Pommes Frites in the past when I visited Austria and Eastern Switzerland for snowboarding so having in mind the original taste brought me back some nice memories from the German speaking countries. It turned out well with the help of my older brother for the french fries. Since I wanted to taste German food, my brother and I already had some red wine in the fridge so I thought: why not get a little bit crazy and try to make some Gluhwein? I did not know if I could do it so I looked it up at websites such as eHow and Nixie Pixel to find out that Gluhwein is not that hard to prepare. I heated it up in a kettle, I already had some cinnamon sticks (really lucky me since my kitchen is nearly empty but thankfully I have a brother who loves cinnamon), sugar, oranges, and honey! I followed the recipes I found and since it was one of the cold snowy days I figured out it would be nice to stay inside and enjoy my German drink along with my Bratwurst mit Pommes Frites. The Gluhwein turned out to be okay! Nothing like the original you taste at the Alps but for my first attempt at something like this it was not disappointing at all!

Kultur 6 - Tabloids, Privacy and Recycling

The first article regarding das Bild Zeitung did not surprise me a lot. Tabloids and newspapers exist everywhere. In fact, in Greece, there is one newspaper (called Espresso) dealing with all the "shocking scandals" but you would not call it a tabloid. It provides information but at the same time functions as a tabloid that reveals every shocking aspect of our society. The Daily Mirror functions in a similar way, and I do not see why we could not find something similar in Germany. I believe that people get more interested in this kind of subjects than in the usual news that's posted every day.

Regarding closed doors, it is something I have dealt with in the past, and even if open doors are something common, they are not that common back home. I always remember myself at a young age being told to knock the door and walk in after permission is given. I find it funny (maybe simply typical German) that when you walk in a door you have to seem confident. I always saw closed doors as a privacy issue, nothing more, nothing less, so I do not understand this necessity to seem confident apart from just knocking the door to be let inside the room. As far as I understand the article, it is possible that Germans tend to keep the doors closed at all times. It matches all the stereotypical German characteristics, so locked doors are also not a surprise for me.

When I read the article regarding recycling, for once more I told to myself what a country Germany is and they seem to prove why they are considered the top country of Europe right now at every single aspect. The fact that people care so much about recycling and want to do it as neat and clean as they can impresses me. I honestly would not expect to see that from any other place and the fact that Germans keep the recycling process complex, but always follow it carefully, shows me one more reason that Germany is the most organized country in Europe.

Kultur 5 - Aspects of the German Life

First of all, I was surprised to find out that Germans never say sorry for anything. However, as I noticed when I came to the United States, and inevitably continued the habit myself, Americans tend to say sorry for everything even if is not their fault. You bump into someone, and it is them who says sorry. I guess that Germans and Americans are exactly opposite regarding this matter. It is impressive and strengthens the characterization of German people as cold and emotionless. And since they seem cold and emotionless, why would they care about sex shops being everywhere? In their point of view, sex shops are still shops, right? It still seems awkward for many people, but in the end of the day, there are people buying things from sex shops, but if those things seem personal for Americans and have to be hidden, they are not treated in that way by Germans.

Regarding the existence of Klofraus, it is something that I have seen in the past at nightclubs and resorts in Greece. It is not that popular there, so I was also surprised to have to pay some small amount of money in order to use the bathroom. My opinion is that as low and minor this job is, it is still a great opportunity for people to get a job, since many doors are closed, and the use of Klofraus opens up chances for more people to work.

When I read the article about flirting in Germany the first sentence that came to my mind was: "I thought so". Since Germans are so different in many aspects of behavior, why would they follow the trend in this case? I actually found it quite complicated to connect myself with Germans and understand how exactly does flirting work, but that is probably what makes them special about it! Also from the article about women in Germany, I understood that women are completely equal with men in every single aspect, and to be honest I would expect that from a developed country like Germany!

AMD 5 - Denglisch

Since I live in a foreign country, I already understand the concept behind "denglisch". However, in Greece, "Greeklish" is used in a different way, and is seen within the world of chatting and text messaging. Greeklish is the way of writing Greek sentences by using the english alphabet and sometimes even using english letters that look like the Greek ones. Such examples are "ω" (omega) which Greeks tend to type as "w", or even "θ" as "8", but the spelling of Greek words remains the same even in the very different english alphabet, and this way of typing is more popular than writing in Greek (sadly in my point of view because the Greek language loses its whole value, although I must admit that I tend to type in Greeklish myself sometimes).

Therefore I decided to look for "Denglisch" and see how that works, since the German language has the same alphabet as English, so Denglish should be something different. In Greece, it is possible to see someone respond with "sorry" or "thanks" although you are speaking Greek to them, and in this manner, "Denglisch" seems to be the same in Germany. It seems that Germans do not have some words, and therefore used the English version. We already know "Handy" which is the mobile phone, but I was surprised to see words such as "Smoking" and "Slip" which are also used for the same meanings in Greece. It was also interesting to find out that as in English, "google" became a verb regarding searching something on the web, it did in the same way in German and is even conjugated being "googeln". The word "update" regarding computer software is used in Germany and in Greece, as does the word "download" although in Greece they are not conjugated (one would literally say "that is a nice song, let's do it download"). So before reading the article about "Denglisch" I thought it was only because of Germans using English words, but after I read it, I understood that "Denglish" is special because Germans use English words but even treat them grammatically as if they were actually German.

AMD 4 - "Downfall" Parodies

For AMD 4 I decided to do something that made me laugh a lot. I decided to watch some parodies from a certain scene from the German movie "Downfall", which is about the final days of Adolf Hitler. It amuses me how a movie about one of the arguably most evil personalities in history, could be turned into such a hysterical parody. The scene which is used in most of the parodies is where Hitler finds out that Waffen SS General Felix Steiner failed to lead the Red Army out of Berlin. The parodies are used for non German-speaking viewers who do not understand the conversation and English subtitles are used in order to falsely describe some humorous situations. Some of the videos I watched were:

• Hitler finds out he was not accepted into Hogwarts
• Hitler finds out there is no Santa
• Hitler gets banned from xBox live
• Hitler finds out Pokemon aren't real
• Hitler after hearing Rebecca Black's "Friday"
• Hitler loses his Facebook friends
• Hitler learns that Farmville is not real
• Hitler finds out Michael Jackson has died
• Hitler finds out his daughter is pregnant

As seen from the videos, what Hitler supposedly says along with his bad temper is what makes the videos funny. Just for the history, I tried to listen to the original dialogue of the popular scene, but I did not understand a lot due to the fact that the dialogue was fast.

For anyone interested in movies and in history, the original movie "Downfall" was nominated for an Oscar for the Best Foreign Picture of the Year while Bruno Ganz's performance was actually spectacular with historians describing it as very accurate to Adolf Hitler's personality.

Tshcuss!

Kultur 4 - Germans on the Streets

The articles regarding the behavior of Germans on the streets shows that they share some common trends seen in Europe, but also some features that are purely German. I believe that seeing people on bicycles on the streets of the cities is something that we see more and more during the past few years and I don't think that Germany would be an exception. Because of the German organization and infrastructure I would expect that the country would take care of the bicycle riders and create special bicycle lanes. It is something I have seen in Central Park in New York City and recently in some neighborhoods of Athens (and let's face it, if something changes and measures to protect to environment have been taken from citizens in Athens it is probably because of the influence of other European countries and Germany is most likely to be on the top of that list). The environmentally friendly policy Germany follows is something we would expect to see from such a developed country.

The other article regarding not crossing the street when the "red man" is on even if no car passes at that time is quite surprising. It emphasizes the structure and organization and how Germans obey rules (and this is actually why they are the best at what they do). I find this action a bit exaggerating but I would not expect that Germans would be so strict for something that simple. But someone may say that, these small details are that make the difference, and piece by piece, this structured way of living is what makes Germans the leaders of Europe.

The article about the Germans' "Illogical Logic" shows how simplistic Germans can be. As we have analyzed the Germans' behavior and the fact that they can seem really cold and emotionless helps understanding that they don't care more about what they are being asked for and that they would not further explain themselves more than they should. From my point of view that does not make them unfriendly or mean, it is just part of the German behavior. Maybe explaining things more than they do now would cause this feeling of intervening in other people's lives. This could be translated by being helpful, which would be an improvement, but not from the Germans' side. They behave simplistic and do everything they have to one by one without getting into greater detail if they are not asked for.

The article concerning the system of transportation reminds me a lot about Greece because they same system is followed there. There are no turnstiles in Greece. Buying a ticket seems voluntary, but I have been thinking myself that it is not worth not buying one since if you get caught by an inspector, the fee may reach 70 euros. There have been times where I have forgotten to buy a ticket or because I know that the presence of inspectors inside the bus passing from my house is very rare, but it is not a great feeling and I hate it when I am in that position. The great majority of people buy tickets because they simply have to do so since it is the law. I suppose it is exactly the same situation in Germany, and people buy tickets because they simply obey the law and because it is not worth being given a fee of 40 or 50 euros for not buying a ticket for 1 or 1.5 euro.

I honestly found the last article funny because seeing two one-way signs is not something you would easily notice in a such well-organized country. But I believe that we could see something like this in any country in the world, even in the United States how many times have we seen situations like this one which are immediately uploaded on "Fail Blog"? I think it is quite common to see things like this anywhere around the globe, and it actually shows us that German people are also humans like the rest of the world and that they can also do something wrong!

AMD 3 - Attempting to speak German

For AMD 2, I practiced German by watching a soccer game and listening to the language. For AMD 3, I thought that it would be a good idea to actually speak German on my own. To do that, I called my cousin in Greece. She graduated from the University of Mainz in the field of law three years ago, and she speaks German fluently. While we were talking I told her to help me practice my German by starting a conversation with me. I tried to say everything we have learned in class, even the really basic sentences as "Wie heisst du? Wie alt bist du?" and I must admit it was really funny for both of us, and my cousin certainly had not seen that coming from me. She asked me what is my favorite color by saying "Was ist deine Lieblingsfarbe?". I even told her about my favorite foods and my favorite clothes, which is one of the most recent things we learned in class. When she answered my questions she frequently said: "ich glaube dass..." which as she explained later means "I think that...". Initially I was confused because I thought "dass" was actually "das" and it did not make a lot of sense to me, but she explained that they are different words and she spelled it for me. My cousin did not want to get into detail with th conversation because she said did not want to confuse me, but she did promise that she is going to have another conversation with me in German when I learn even more things!

Tschuss!

Kultur 3 - Alcohol and Humor in Germany

The articles were very interesting and they helped find out more things about the German culture. In Germany the legal drinking age is 16 for beer and 18 for liquor. The law is not as strict as in the United States and it is not really surprising for me. As I have lived all my life in Greece, I grew up with the Greek idea that did not restrict you from consuming alcohol at any age, and while the legal age in Greece is 18, the laws are very loose. Its somewhat similar with Germany because of the fact that the legal age for beer is 16 and, lets face it, its not very likely that anyone would consume alcohol before they turn 16, so its pretty much as if there is no restriction at all. To be honest, I believe that this law is more successful than in the United States, since young people have the chance to taste alcohol and understand all its consequences really fast.

My opinion, as I have noticed until now, is that considering alcohol in the United States illegal until someone turns 21, makes people want to try it more and more, and attracts under-aged people only because it is illegal and therefore tempting and cool. I am sure everyone has noticed people who have stated they want to drink at parties just to get drunk although the taste of alcohol does not give them any pleasure. I believe that this is what people in Germany are able to understand. By consuming alcohol from the age of 16, by the time they turn 18 or 19, people understand the consequences of alcohol. On a personal basis, I remember myself tasting beer for the first time when I was in 10th grade and I did not like it. My summer vacations in Greece after I graduated from high school were connected to night life, and it is normal to have shots and drinks with your friends, and it is not always enjoyable since there are always times where you exceed the limits. However, this chance of consuming alcohol made me understand what I like from it, and why do I actually drink and so I reached a point of understanding alcohol is not that special and I know how to protect myself from its dangers. There is a great majority of people of my age who think like this in Greece, and because the law is similar to Germany's, I suppose that German people think alike and that is why the German law seems very rational to me. As I read the articles, I believe that banning alcohol from public places would not make a big difference, because the legal age does not change and people can still drink at bars and pubs, so it would not make a big difference except for forbidding people to have their drink anywhere they enjoy it.

As for the German sense of humor, I have been to Berlin and Munich before, and the German people's behavior is so similar to the articles. They seem moody, serious and pessimistic, but in reality, they use this image to produce their own style of humor. The loud lighthearted humor of the Bavarian people shows that German people may not be as cold and serious as they seem. The wittiness of the Hamburger humor style and the sarcasm of the Berliner humor shows that the Germans take advantage of their cold image and use it in order to be funny. In my opinion, this is what makes their own humor and culture unique compared to other European countries that share many common characteristics.

Tschuss!!

AMD 2 - Bayern Munich against Napoli!

As part of Abenteuer Mit Deutsch 2, I decided to do something really challenging to test my knowledge of German. I am a fan of soccer and there were UEFA Champions League (European Cup) matches last week. Only one of them seemed to be really interesting because I hadn’t watched the two teams during this season yet, and luckily it was the one of Bayern Munich against Napoli in Italy. I did not want to miss the chance, so I thought it would be interesting to watch the game with German commentary!

I must say that at times it was really hard for me to understand some of the things I heard but I guess I did okay! I understood the players’ names of course. I understood that the score of the game, 1-1 was “eins zu eins” while I could recognize when the commentator made references to each minute of the game, such as “achtundvierzig Minute”. It took me a while to understand that in German, “goal” is “Tür” as door, since I had to look it up to figure it out. It was my first time watching a soccer game on German commentary, I must say that I did enjoy it although there were times I was lost inside the German language! For the record, the match did in fact end 1-1 and I believe that Bayern Munich will improve during the next fixtures!

Tschüss!

AMD 1 - Rammstein!

As part of the Abenteur Mit Deutsch activity 1, I listened to some songs of Rammstein. Rammstein is a popular German metal music group. The first time I heard about them was from the film xXx starring Vin Diesel, which featured the song "Feuer frei". At first, I thought Feuer frei meant: "free fire" but as I looked it up, it actually means "Fire at will". Another very popular song I like by Rammstein is "Du hast" (=you have). In order to practice my German, I tried to translate either one of these songs. I figured out it would be easier to translate "Du hast" since it seemed to be slower and thus easier for me to understand, while it had simpler and repeated lyrics. I found out that the name of the song could have a double meaning since it could be "Du hast" (=you have) or "Du hasst" (=you hate) although the official song is called "Du hast". After working on the lyrics myself and (I admit it!) cheating in a way by looking up the lyrics' translation online I found them to be:

Du / You
du hast / you have
du hast mich / you have (me)
du hast mich gefragt / you have asked me
du hast mich gefragt, und ich hab nichts gesagt / you have asked me and i said nothing

Willst du bis der Tod euch scheidet / Do you want, until death separates you
treu ihr sein für alle Tage / to be faithful to her for all days

Nein / No

Willst du bis zum Tod, der scheide / Do you want, until death, which separates,
sie lieben auch in schlechten Tagen / to love her on bad days too

Nein / No

It was really interesting to look up the lyrics since I've heard this song so many times that I could actually sing it, but I never understood what it meant until now. I must say that I really enjoy the lyrics too! I could not imagine that this song is actually talking about love and as it seems, wedding vows (yes, I also looked that up, although the lyrics themselves reveal that), but this harsh rejection "Nein!" is what identifies it as a (sort of) heavy metal song instead of a romantic one!

I suggest this song because it has nice rhythm, as I found out it also has nice lyrics, and it also helps practicing everything we learn in class!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My0HQ0QkGLQ

Tchüss!

Kultur 2 - German Perfectionism and Identity

As I read the articles that were assigned, I was thinking; "Wow, how weird can that be?" about Germans being as honest as they can be, and about them staring at you for no apparent reason. It is hard for me to understand why Germans complain (or just believe they complain) a lot, especially regarding soccer, since Germans have a very talented and solid team, which was among the favorites of winning the European Championship of 2008 where they reached the final against Spain and the World Cups of 2002, 2006 and 2010 where they finished 3rd, 2nd and 2nd respectively. Except for the European Championship of 2004, where the Germans got knocked out on the first round and the Greeks later won the tournament (let me boast about it as Greece's greatest success in soccer), the Germans were always on the top 4. I grew up knowing that the best teams in the world were Brazil and Germany. However, this does not seam enough for the Germans themselves, and someone would ask why since it seems irrational.

From my visit to Germany and from the information I have seen on the media, the Germans are perfectionists, they would not settle unless they achieved perfection. In Greece, Germans are viewed as the most productive European country and their economy is considered to be the most efficient. It does not surprise me to find out that the Germans always complain and are obsessed with statistics. My opinion is that this life style is what has made Germany into the leading country of Europe, and how has Germany sustained all the difficulties other European countries are suffering from during the present economic recession.

The German people's habit of staring and being brutally honest is an exciting fact about them. It is definitely a German thing to behave that way since it is not something we see everywhere nowadays. I would suggest that along with Germans' constant complaining and obsession with statistics, staring and brutal honesty may be their identity; they are some of the characteristics that distinguish the Germans from other cultures around the globe.

Kultur 1 - How German Is American

Reading the given article was very helpful for me to understand the connections between the German and the American culture. The fact that I am Greek and that I had not lived in the United States at all until I came to study at Michigan mislead me more, since I always had in mind that the American culture was mostly connected to the English culture because of my limited knowledge to American history, and therefore I always considered a cultural rivalry between the two countries especially because of World War II.

It was actually surprising for me to realize that the German culture had such an impact to the United States, or that the percentage of German immigrants in the U.S was as high as 20%. I found it impressive that the German culture has influenced the American culture in various ways, as in events such as the Oktoberfest which originates in Germany but is also famous in America. Religious expression and music are also some common features that both cultures share, although I personally could not see the connection between the German and American, before I read this article.

Being Greek, I did not know much about the German and American cultures apart from what I saw in the movies and from my first two years in Ann Arbor, since Greeks follow a culture of their own, based on their own history and experiences, and thus, I was not aware about all the similarities between the German and American culture, and understanding them now is a pleasant surprise!