31 Aug 2016

1) Four words: Hot Dog meat loaf!  This is the country of ground meat, so of course, there's a meat loaf that tastes just like a hot dog.  These work much better on sliced bread than regular hot dogs. I believe it's called LeberKase, but it's neither liver nor cheese. Go figure.

2) If you want your waiter to be amused/offended, keep asking for an apple juice when at a beer garden.



3) You need to know what currywurst is.  It's a big hot dog (sometimes sliced) in a ketchup-like sauce with curry powder on it.  The other day, I asked for a curry wurst with no powder, and you'd think I asked to eat someone's baby.  The waiter was aghast and suggested the bratwurst, but what I really wanted was the hot dog in the ketchup sauce.  The bratwurst sucked, by the way.

4) I've never really lived in a place that had GINORMOUS grasshoppers.  We had one in the house and I didn't know what to do with it, so I hit it with a fly swatter.  Holy moley, those things are full of brown juice! Splashed everywhere.  I think I might have screamed like a girl. Not sure, though. Some of it is a blank.



5) I have yet to get my car washed.  I have a bit of fear here.  I've seen car washes in use, but German instructions can be intimidating.  Guess I'll just have a dirty car.

6) Remoulade is the best thing in the world.



7) Schnitzel is basically chicken fried steak

8) I'm a pretty smart guy, but I was simply unable to figure out the bread slicer at the grocery store. The instructions were all pictures too, but I was defeated.



9) While in a grocery store, a beautiful blonde girl walked by. Most of her butt was showing under her tiny cut-off jean short thong, and her basket was full of baby powder. I have no idea how that's related, but it was odd. All I could think was "She must be cold" and "That's really unsanitary".

10) I'm told the worst beer in Germany is better than the best beer elsewhere. I once compared a mass produced German beer to Budweiser and narrowly avoided being slain on the spot.

11) I'm still taking my German classes, and recently, came across a Mark Twain quote:

"My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years." - Mark Twain

13) I need to learn and remember the gender of vegetables to know how to refer to them in German.



14) Oktoberfest starts in September.

15) I have yet to try a Radler (beer and lemonade.) On the one hand, I love lemonade, on the other, I hate beer.  Maybe if mixed, it might be somewhere in between love and hate.

Cologne 22 Aug 2016

I spent a few days last week in Cologne  at a Gaming convention, and learned a few things. As usual, these are only my experiences, and might not represent Cologne, Cologneites, Cologneians, etc, in part or in whole.





1. Even if you ask for a groß (large) Sprite, you might get a .2l sprite for 4 euros anyway. On the plus side, it makes your hands look HUGE.

Thanks Steffen!

 2. People in Cologne only drink from small glasses.

Me chuckling at the tiny glass.

3. The Dom is stunning!

4. Far more people feel comfortable speaking English in Cologne than in Karlsruhe.


5. They have ONE place that serves French Toast and Pancakes, but we only found it because Hannes almost got us lost. And I didn't get to have any.

6. There's a good Brazilian Churrascaria restaurant there, but the advertised dancers never came out. And just like in all others I've tried, they try hard to get you to fill up on the buffet, and you need to look angry in order for them to bring you meat.

They DO like their knives.

7. If you ask "Can you make me a margarita?", sometimes they just answer "yes", walk away and don't get you a Margarita.

When I got it, it was HUGE, and had lots of cheap tequila in it.

8. Pizza with rabbit food on it can be really good, if you scrape off the green parts.

Also, thanks Steffen!

9. It's very strange doing a business trip without getting on a plane. A simple 2 hour train ride got us to Cologne.

You got a fast train
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get to Cologne

10. We stayed in a hotel (called Motel One) that 1) Didn't have a phone in the room, 2) Didn't have any water or a fridge in the room, and 3) Was just barely larger than the bed itself.  It was nice enough, very clean, and checking out was easy, because there wasn't anything you could put on the room.

No wonder I went out looking like that.

11. If a security door (that says it will alarm if opened) has more green lights on it than red, it won't alarm.

Add caption

12. We went to a burger Restaurant (it's a chain called Hans Im Gluck) where they had lots of sauces on the table. Grill Sauce (BBQ Sauce), Fritten Sauce ( Pommes sauce, or Mayo), Ketchup and an Orange Mustard sauce that was pretty good. The burger was pretty good too.

13. I had a fan come up to me and tell me he liked my blog. :)

11 Aug 2016

I've found myself using American idioms more than I should.  Clearly, they're not going to be easily understood in Germany. However, It's given me a chance to learn some of the German versions too.

1. Polishing a turd

A turd is a piece of poop.  If you polish it, it might look a little prettier, but it's still a piece of poop.

From Urban Dictionary:
An impossible process that usually results in a larger, uglier turd. "She tried to look more attractive by getting plastic surgery, but let's face it, you can't polish a turd."

2. Like lipstick on a pig
Similar to the above.  

President Obama once said this about McCain and Palin's ''change'' mantra:

"You can put lipstick on a pig," he said as the crowd cheered. "It's still a pig."

"You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink."

3. Nine women can't make a baby in a month

I use this a lot to point out that adding manpower won't necessarily make something happen sooner. Originally a reference to Brooke's law (from "The Mythical man month")

Limited divisibility of tasks. Adding more people to a highly divisible task such as reaping a field by hand decreases the overall task duration (up to the point where additional workers get in each other's way). Some tasks are less divisible; Brooks points out that while it takes one woman nine months to make one baby, "nine women can't make a baby in one month".

4. From this morning: "Great minds think alike"

Peter Petermann told me the German version: "2 dumme, ein Gedanke"

"Two dummies, one thought."

5. Rule of thumb

A broadly accurate guide or principle, based on practice rather than theory

"As a rule of thumb you should always pay for your date’s dinner.”

6. To Set the Table

Literally, it's to put dishes, knives, forks, etc. on the table in preparation for a meal. But as an idiom: To lay the groundwork for a future event.

"To set the table for her dissertation, the author provided a preface detailing her existentialist beliefs."

7. Beating a dead horse

If someone is trying to convince people to do or feel something without any hope of succeeding, they're beating a dead horse. This is used when someone is trying to raise interest in an issue that no-one supports anymore; beating a dead horse will not make it do any more work.

8. Let's not try to boil the ocean

To attempt something that is way too ambitious, effectively impossible. An idea too broad in scope to accomplish. 

"Let's not try to boil the ocean.  We can ship an initial version and add features to it as we go."

04 Aug 2016

This morning, I was going through radio stations, and ran across Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon.  What an odd song to run across; but it reminded me of the 80s.  Having said that, I remember these German songs/bands from US radio in the ‘80s:

• 99 LuftBalloons  (Nena, This song was also called 99 Red Balloons in the US, which is weird because Luft Balloons means air balloons and not red balloons.)

• Da Da Da (Trio)

• Dar Kommisar (Falco, but was he German or Austrian?)

• Rock me Amadeus (Falco)

• Anything from the Scorpions (I even saw them in concert in Long Beach)

• Girl you know it’s true from Milli Vanilli, but I’d imagine Germany (along with everyone else) disowned them.

• And of course, perhaps the most iconic song of the 80’s German invasion:  Major Tom (Peter Schilling)

If I could catch them on German Radio, then my ’80s new wave experience would be complete.

In the US, it’s well known that David Hasselhoff had a career in Germany, but I have yet to hear a ‘Hoff’ song on the radio. Nor does anyone talk about him here.  I expected him to be the Celine Dion of Germany.

Another German song I love is Du Hast from Rammstein.  Although I have to admit that it’s mostly because I loved singing it in Rock Band.  Now at least I know what some of the lyrics mean.

For an American, German radio is a strange mix of mostly English language music, with a few German songs mixed in, and German DJs.  I’ve gotten pretty good at translating traffic reports, if nothing else.

I also hear a lot of Journey on German radio.

Some of you may know that my family is prone to do this insane thing where we play a song that we all love (that’s not considered a good song) in the car with the windows down, singing as loud as we can.  Songs like Higher from Creed, Total Eclipse of the Heart, and Africa from Toto.  It turns out that it isn’t received in the same way here as in the states.  In the states, people look at us strangely, some smile, and some take video of the weirdos.  Here… Nothing. No response. Or maybe people are embarrassed for us. 

Not a lot of bands that we know make it to Karlsruhe, although Milky Chance did play Das Fest here a few weeks ago.  I think if we want to go to concerts again, we’ll have to head to Stuttgart, Berlin or Munich.  Or get into more local German bands like “Itchy Poopzkid”.  Ok, I’m not sure if they’re local, but the name is funny.