1) Taking your time in a grocery store makes all the difference.
I think the first dozen times, we just wanted to get in and get out. We were
nervous we'd be found out as foreigners, all of the German was just too
overwhelming, and I think we assumed the food would all be very different.
Yesterday, Robin and I just took our time, looked at everything
we wanted to look at, spoke English(!) whenever we wanted to while discussing
various products, asked about one or two (it's surprising how much gesturing
works), and in the end, we bought a bunch of good food, found some new
favorites, and felt like it worked really well.
Certainly, the fact
that we're learning a lot of German very quickly helped.
2) Nose rings are really a thing here. I've seen so many on
young women. More so that I'm used to seeing in Seattle. Also fewer outrageous
hair colors.
3) Do public cigarette machines mean a lot more very young
people smoking? My observations seem to agree that there are a lot of 14 year
olds walking around smoking. Granted, I'm assuming causation when it could just
be correlation.
4) In the US, most cars sold are automatic (3.9% of cars sold in
the US in 2013 were manual.) Here, most seem to be manual. Why the difference?
I know there are differing opinions on whether or not manual or automatic
transmissions are more fuel efficient. Certainly manual is more fun to drive,
but it's also more work, I suppose. Maybe Americans are just less interested in
all of the work a manual requires, especially when driving in heavy traffic. I
know my knees like an automatic.
5) These are getting harder to write. I'm finding myself getting
very comfortable with life here. But I'm sure more will come.
6) Fleischsalat is awesome. I've certainly eaten much more pig
(and ham - schinken) here than in the states.
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