27.02.2016 Saturday shopping so we don't starve tomorrow edition.

1) There aren't drug stores like Walgreens here. Or rather, you can't get prescriptions at them. There's a store called DM that has everything you'd normally get in a Walgreens. For prescription meds, you have to go to an Apoteke.
2) Sandwich bread is often called American bread. And it's VERY dense. And small. Like square hockey pucks.
3) We couldn't find Baking Soda. Baking Powder is BakPulver
4) The Deli mayo that we've bought is more like Miracle Whip.
5) We went to a new grocery store today. A little further than the Real which is across the street. It's called Rewe. How do you pronounce that? Ree Wee? Rooeh? It was smaller than the Real, and had no real meat department. But, like many stores, had more candy than any other store I've seen. Granted, it's near easter, but still. SO MUCH CANDY
6) SO many curried flavored things. Curry Ketchup sounds interesting. Probably for Curry Wurst, which is awesome,except when they pour curry powder on it, which is less than awesome.
7) There's bacon like I'm used to seeing, but most of what we've found is VERY thin. They end up being very small at the end. But the house smelled like Bacon, so it was worth it.

26.02.2016

Today, I had Pop tarts delivered to me in Germany. I bought them from a web site in France.

24.02.2016

1) Who the heck is this Max Musterman guy. He seems VERY popular here in Germany.
2) Salt and Pepper on the table in a restaurant is rare. I think dinner tonight was the first time I've had it in Germany.
3) There's an amazing place in Heidelberg called Schnitzel House that has 100 different kinds of Schnitzel. I had #94 today (Recommended by Jessica Wall). Now just 99 more visits before I win..
4) Dogs are VERY special here. They're everywhere. They bring them into cafes and stores. You'd never see that in the US unless they were a service dog. We love dogs, so it was a nice treat.
5) Some people, when they think no one is listening, sing out loud to old Journey songs.

23.02.2016

I'm going to a more general format. I'm not learning little things every day anymore.

1) Snow is NOT a big deal in karlsruhe. But having grown up in So Cal, where it's never snowed at my house, it still makes me happy.
2) On a tram, the way to take the remaining seat in a group of four facing each other is to step ahead of the seat, and back into it without looking or asking. Even if there's a backpack on it, they'll move it.
3) There was this one kid on the tram yesterday, maybe 10, who I had a staring contest with. Like I've said before, usually, I can just stare back at them and they stop staring, but this time, it was a battle of wills. He finally looked away when I smiled at him. Another weapon in my train staring contest arsenal.
4) Crossing train tracks in a very busy place like Kronenplatz is scary. If you're lucky, a train driver will wave you over. If you're unlucky, he watches you as he starts to accelerate.
5) The fresh fruit and vegetable truck showed up today. Seems a little early, but I bought a big basket of fresh strawberries for 1 euro.
6) SO MANY MORE COINS to worry about. I've taken to keeping the .5, 1, and 2 euro coins, and leaving the rest at home. I wonder if there's a coinstar in Germany where I can trade them in for paper cash. Or a prize or something.

20.2.2016

When you get a phone plan, you get some, Um, extras.

"Thanks for your visit to the Telekom shop on 02/13/2016. We want you to make love to 5 short questions. The SMS will be charged within Germany for mobile customers of Telekom."

Thanks to Google translate...

18.02.2016

1) Displaying breasts in advertising (esp when depicting breastfeeding) don't seem to be a big deal over here.
2) When it's sub zero (-4 degrees C), walking to the train sucks SO much.
3) When you're not sure when the next train is coming (but really, it's going to be there within 10 minutes), and you see the train pulling into the station, There's such a desire to run the last 100m to catch it, that it's almost unbearable. Luckily, I have no illusions about my dignity.
4) Where we lived in the US, smokers had to be at least 25' away from building entrances. Here, it seems to be 25mm. There is definitely more smoking here in Germany than on the West coast of the US. 
5) Flurfunk in Germany is like "the grapevine" in the US. Office gossip, the unstructured flow of information, rumors, etc. I just like to say FlurFunk.

I have to address the elephant in the room (A us colloquialism). Everywhere you see words like "AusFahrt" and "EinFahrt". As a crass american I have to giggle.

But I'm trying to suss out the difference between AusGang and Ausfahrt. Ausgang seems to be like an exit from inside to outside where Ausfahrt is like a driving, or riding exit.

For the record, don't use the urban dictionary to look up german words

14.02.2016

1) Uncle Bens does NOT make a good sweet and sour sauce.
2) Maultaschen - German sausage ravioli
3) Maultaschen reminds me of Shumai. especially with soy sauce on them. 
4) Being able to buy french biscuits at a German chocolatier is awesome. 
5) On Uncle Ben's rice, it says "have a rice day" on the side.
6) We saw a post card that said "I have bumblebees in the bottom" It was on a rack that said "forbetter your english"

13.02.2016

1) You press the top of light switches to turn them off. You flip up light switches in the US to turn them on.
2) The goulash suppe at Bratar is the bomb. I don't know when I had goulash in the past, but it brought back good memories.
3) This is the second time someone vacated a seat on the train after leaving a nasty fart there. Of course, not realizing it, I sat there after him. He stared at me from the train door as we were stopping. I didn't give him the satisfaction of throwing up.
4) Our bathroom has a huge picture window on one side (but we can close the shutters), and a semi-transparent door on the inside (can't cover it easily). When someone steps out of the shower, the door doesn't seem very opaque at all. 
5) A realtor told us that some people consider very squeaky floors a very desirable trait in a house.

12.02.2016

1) Ice makers in refrigerators seem rare. But there are these cool bags you can buy where you put water in them, and they seal themselves. After they freeze, you have ice cubes!
2) Dryers seem to be more like dehumidifiers. At the end of the cycle, you end up with a bucket of water. 
3) Evidently, I've been using the wrong "official" date format of dd.mm.yyyy. Instead it should be yyyy.mm.dd.
4) Tap water is not often consumed here. I happen to love tap water.
5) Privacy is much more serious here. Many aren't on Facebook because they don't want to give up their privacy.

11.02.2016

1) When the trains stop running, sometimes there's just no way to tell why. I'm learning to wait and be patient.
2) I'm learning German, but slowly. One thing I'm trying to do is understand the words I read in context, rather than trying to translate them to English first. Also, If you see me walking down the street and I look like I’m mumbling, I'm probably sounding out the words I'm reading. Or I'm just mumbling. Definitely one of the two.
3) I'm finding the good places to eat in town.
4) There are Seahawks fans here. Ran into Tim at Vapianos who is a huge Seahawks fan. We talked Marshawn's retirement and the hope for Thomas Rawls. He'd never met another seahawk fan. He makes great pasta.
5) Went into the Games workshop store. The guy at the register was from Chicago. Cool.

10.02.2016

1) they seem to sell a lot of German cars here
2) Expiration dates on food. The milk I buy seems to expire 4 days after I buy it. Is that an expire date? Or a sell by date? Are the cows just really far away? 
3) waiters/waitresses are very good at splitting checks. In the US, asking for an 8 way split check is like asking for a kidney donation. 
4) seems to be hard to get Sandwich–Sliced cheese here. Good thing the flat came with 26 cheese slicers.

07.02.2016

1) I'm too tall. The beds here don't seem to be made for tall (mutant) folks like me. Granted, I've only slept in 4-5 different beds, but I can't lay straight in them.
2) The default blankets are not made for people my size. Every blanket in this house fits what's essentially a twin bed (basically the master bed is two twin beds together, each with their own blanket.) If I roll over once, the covers are gone. I just ordered a 220cm x 240cm blanket. Far as I can tell, that's pretty big.
3) American candy is super expensive on Amazon.de. Like 20x higher than retail in the states. $64 for a bag of coffee nips. Gouge much? I still think there's a case for opening an American Goods store here.
4) Most everyone is very nice. We've met our neighbors upstairs, next door, across the street. And they're all very generous and kind. Most other places I've lived, we simply never knew our neighbors. 
5) Many spoons are more shallow than I expected. We had a hard time finding a cooking spoon with some depth. 
6) It's actually hard to find really big cups/glasses. I finally found some 500ml ones on Amazon.

06.02.2016:

1) Honey Mustard is called Maple Dijon in Germany. (or at least at my store)
2) Not everything with the same name tastes the same. Many items have far less sugar (which I like). But Heinz Ketchup is the same, so I'm good.
3) Thousand Island dressing is American Dressing here.
4) Berliners are awesome. Powdered sugar covered donuts with jelly inside. Not nearly enough jelly, but maybe I'll find one with more. And they are CHEAP to buy.
5) One of my new favorite combinations is Schinken and Kase. (Ham and cheese)
6) I think we did our Saturday shopping right. We planned tomorrow's meals, shopped relatively early, etc. We'll see if we survive tomorrow.

04.02.2016

1) After a certain time at night, they turn off the traffic lights in Ettlingen. Cars go super-fast, and as a pedestrian, I feel a little like frogger.
2) I think I get why so many people I see are what I would consider over-dressed for the weather. Wearing parkas. Tonight, I went to a biz dinner in a Left 4 dead hoodie. It rained very hard, I got soaked. It sucked. Back to my parka.
3) Wearing a left 4 dead hoodie to a very nice restaurant makes for an embarrassing "coat" hand off to the nice person who takes it to the coat closet. And it's even worse when you pick it up. 
4) The Cuban place serves tex-mex and bar-b-q, but no cuban food.

02.02.2016

Be careful reading on the tram. It’s very easy to miss one or more stops and end up in Berlin. 

Everyone is VERY quiet on the tram. It’s a little creepy. Once, yesterday, two people said hello (they obviously knew each other), shook hands and sat next to each other and never spoke again the entire trip.

Every time I looked up from my kindle app, more than one person was staring at me. Usually, I can just look someone in the eye and smile and they'll stop, but not today. No smile. Just a continued stare. Except for the guy with a glass eye. Not sure if he was staring at me or not.

German milk containers are tiny. I’m used to gallon sized jugs. I could easily chug one of these.

Pedestrians are not the top of the food chain. In Seattle, people would step off the curb, without caring if a car was coming and the car had to stop. I take my life in my hands whenever I step off the curb here. Or cross in front of a stopped tram. Those things startup and move surprisingly quickly.

01.02.2016:

There are SO many options for local tram tickets. Only travel between 9 and 3, we've got a ticket for you! Have more than 2 kids? You can buy a supplemental ticket to cover all the rest of your kids!

Buying a German phone online is verboten unless you have a credit card with a German billing address. Even then, it seems hard to tell GOOGLE that I want a Euro phone.

When DHL says it will contact you to ask for more information about your two packages stuck in customs, what it means is that it will do no such thing and that you must find a German friend to call for you.

You really can get around without a car. Then again, I haven't tried going home yet today, nor have I had to buy anything I couldn't carry. But I guess if I ever get a little tipsy, it's a much better choice than a car.