Wilkommen im Deutschland!
So in the weeks since my trip to Europe, I know I've had a lot of people ask me "So what about Germany?" I know this note comes much later, but I just got crazy with work and school, especially school. I got behind after my trip, and then finals came very quickly as well. Plus, Germany wasn't nearly so easy to sum up as France was. I was there with friends and Cologne wasn't nearly as touristy as Paris... and that was totally cool! We did check out the city. It was actually very interesting. Cologne is strangely both a very young and very old city. Being close to the north, it was almost completely destroyed in WWII, so almost everything is less than 50 years old, the exception being the Cathedral, this incredible 300 year old Gothic cathedral. (Being downtown by the brand new train station, it was also strangely across the street from a brand new indoor athletic facility, complete with glass, neon and a large rock climbing wall.) The other exception I know is the "Innenstadt" (inner city) is completely surrounded by an enormous stone wall that was built by the Romans 2000 years ago back when it was a Roman outpost to protect them from the Germanic invaders.
Other than that it's strangely new, but in a very European way. The streets are all on the same street system that the original city had. It made it very confusing, just as confusing as Paris. For most places, you had to know either a major street nearby or at the very least the neighborhood it was in. And absolutely forget about any type of grid system. I thought SF was hard to figure out. Only by American standards. :-)
So it was a strange mix of old and new. We were staying near the "Heumarkt", which is the older market. It had all the Christmas booths and vendors, and we drank "Glühwein" (a hot mulled wine). Right next to it is the "Neumarket" (new market). That one had all the modern shops (unfortunately a vast majority were the same as the ones you'd find in America, although more expensive). It was really cool though. I wish I had my camera with me for one. One of the stores had a large window display of a teddy bear workshop, an animated window with teddy bears making toys. All the stores lead to the outside like most European markets, but overhead they'd have glass awnings in case of rain.
Actually the biggest thing I did in Germany was check out the local scene. We spent a lot of time checking out pubs, shops, blending in with the locals, etc. One of the strange things for me was the fact that in Minnesota there are so many German Americans. So actually going to Germany, it was weird to be around these Europeans who looked just like the people I grew up around, except I flew 8000 miles to see them. :-) I spent a couple hours talking to this one guy who looked exactly like a friend of mine from high school. Not only that, but it was interesting to see how many of the things I think of as "Minnesotan" are actually German. We were standing at a light waiting for it to turn green along with about 40 other people. Not a car was coming for miles and not a single person would cross on a red. That would be against the rules. (The joke in Minnesota is people can be standing in a blizzard with no cars around and waiting for the light to turn green.) :-) Oh yeah, and blue laws. The shops were mostly closed on Sundays. I was standing in front of a shop with a perfect black Lonsdale polo I desperately wanted.. but it was closed and I was leaving the next morning. (As a consolation, I guess you can buy them on e-bay.) Now I understood why the stores were so freaking busy on Saturday!
Oh yeah, back to another point. One of the reasons my friends picked Cologne was it happens to be one of the gayest cities in Germany. As I mentioned before, it had about 60 gay bars, most of which are in two different neighborhoods, but several all over town as well. We were in the Heumarkt close to several of them. I would hardly compare it to San Francisco though. Even though it's open, and actually Germany is much farther ahead of the US in terms of gay rights (short of full fledged marriage, they have partner laws at the federal which afford gay couples many of the rights which are only a dream in the US, including rights of survivorship [including pensions] and immigration rights). However, even in the gay neighborhoods, two of my friends from SF walked down the street holding hands, much to the incredible shock of the locals. (Just try and get noticed doing that in SF!) My German friends explained it's not so much of a gay thing, and it's just not common for two German -people- to hold hands, let alone two men. Interessant. :-) People there are just very quietly live and let live. I explained it's probably because people fight against us so much in the US that we feel we have to live our lives so out loud. Even in "gay Paris", someone had to tell me I was staying in the gay neighborhood before I knew that. I just wanted something central, and found the hotel on Orbitz! Even the gay strip club across the street I had no idea was such until someone told me it was such. :-)
Oh yeah, and I was reminded of something else that happened. Apparently the bars in Germany have no set closing time. So we were there about about 3:30 in the morning, and we're just standing there when all of a sudden the Police comes through. (FYI, yeah, German police are way hot. :-) ) They just said, okay, now you're closed. I was agog. No arrests or anything, just everybody out just cuz we say so. The locals were completely unphased and they said, oh we just come back in like half an hour. (The excuse is sometimes they check to make sure no one's doing drugs, although there were definitely some other illicit activities going on that the police were completely unphased by as well.) Weird.
So we checked out a lot of the local scene, mingled with a lot of locals. I could have killed one my friend's friends though. I hadn't met him before (he lives in Florida), and he was being a complete stereotypical American. We finally went to an authentic local German restaurant... the menu's in German, off the tourist path, nobody speaks English, etc. He hated it. Why can't I get just a glass of water, why can't I get ice, why don't these people speak English, why is my order taking so long (oh for god's sake they're busy and we're on vacation!), yelling at the waiter -in English-. Richard and I were about ready to kill him. Later on he went back to the hotel and we enjoyed the local scene. We went to one of the local pubs and chatted with the bartender. I gotta say, one of the best things about Germany is the people. I met so many great people in Germany. (To which everyone says, friendly people in Germany? Advice to friends: Learn at least some of the language of where you're going, even if it's just one language to one of the places. It'll open so many doors for you. I had so many people agog that an American would speak German. One local even assumed I had to have been stationed there.) So this bartender was just getting done with work and "chaparoned" us for some of the local places, the kind of places that you'd have no idea they were there, because you go down this street, then off to a side street, and then down an alley to find it. It's funny because several of the bars actually have a sign above the door that says "Localklub", i.e., we don't speak English, we don't play English music, it's just an old dark local pub not like those glitzy American-style places, etc. :-) But we had the best time. The place was packed with locals all singing along with German pop music, drinking way too much beer ("Zwei Kölsch, bitte!"). (In one instance, I remember one of the locals came up to me very, very intoxicated and tried to make me his new bestfriend. That's when it's helpful to say (in a strong California accent), "Oh my god, but I'm like so sorry, but I like don't speak any German" and then go back to speaking German as soon as he leaves. :-) ) We were instructed on the proper German ways of toasting, clinking the bottom of the glasses (the tops will break if you hit them too hard) and making sure you look in their eyes when you say "Prost!" The next days after I left, I still had the tunes going through my head. :-)
We also went to a huge dance party on Saturday night. There was guys from all over Europe there, not only Germany, but France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Poland. I actually found it amazing that some people from other countries didn't speak -any- other language besides their own. I started talking to this guy from Spain (there's always that ackward moment at the beginning when you're not really sure what language to start speaking in). I started speaking in German (hey, we're in Germany) and he was really broken about a few words. Then he said "Si hablo Espanol?" I said "un poquito". That was pretty much the end of the conversation. (It didn't stop one cute Italian boy who didn't speak a word of English or German, but didn't stop his face from lighting up like a Christmas tree everytime he saw me. :-) ) Man I need to learn some more languages! :-) I did meet several Germans though, several of which we've kept in contact with since. You know, when I was learning German in high school, everything we learned was spoon fed to us through books. All of that has changed. I now can get German television shows (actually they're broadcast locally, one of the advantages of living in an international city). Via the Internet I can directly talk with people in a foreign country. (Can't do anything about the time zone thing, although because of the 9 hour difference, I tend to chat a bit before I head to bed right when they're getting up, and right before I head off to work when they're just getting home from it.) Not only that, but online databases have not only dictionaries for instant lookup, but huge databases of colloquialism and multi-word phrases. (I found out "I don't care" translates to "Es macht mir nichts daraus"... "it makes for me nothing out of it".) You can even use Alta Vista to translate entire web sites and passages. Some of them were friends of my friends I went with (one of which spent four years in Germany), others I met there. Now I have friends I can stay with almost anywhere in Germany. (Of course the same goes for them in San Francisco, one of the advantages of living here, where they might actually want to visit!) Some speak English, some don't, some it depends on what's better, their English or my German. :-) "Ist San Francisco wirklich so toll?" they ask. (Is SF really so great?) I say come visit and you'll find out. :-)
So yeah, I had an amazing time. I will definitely be back. :-)
Other than that it's strangely new, but in a very European way. The streets are all on the same street system that the original city had. It made it very confusing, just as confusing as Paris. For most places, you had to know either a major street nearby or at the very least the neighborhood it was in. And absolutely forget about any type of grid system. I thought SF was hard to figure out. Only by American standards. :-)
So it was a strange mix of old and new. We were staying near the "Heumarkt", which is the older market. It had all the Christmas booths and vendors, and we drank "Glühwein" (a hot mulled wine). Right next to it is the "Neumarket" (new market). That one had all the modern shops (unfortunately a vast majority were the same as the ones you'd find in America, although more expensive). It was really cool though. I wish I had my camera with me for one. One of the stores had a large window display of a teddy bear workshop, an animated window with teddy bears making toys. All the stores lead to the outside like most European markets, but overhead they'd have glass awnings in case of rain.
Actually the biggest thing I did in Germany was check out the local scene. We spent a lot of time checking out pubs, shops, blending in with the locals, etc. One of the strange things for me was the fact that in Minnesota there are so many German Americans. So actually going to Germany, it was weird to be around these Europeans who looked just like the people I grew up around, except I flew 8000 miles to see them. :-) I spent a couple hours talking to this one guy who looked exactly like a friend of mine from high school. Not only that, but it was interesting to see how many of the things I think of as "Minnesotan" are actually German. We were standing at a light waiting for it to turn green along with about 40 other people. Not a car was coming for miles and not a single person would cross on a red. That would be against the rules. (The joke in Minnesota is people can be standing in a blizzard with no cars around and waiting for the light to turn green.) :-) Oh yeah, and blue laws. The shops were mostly closed on Sundays. I was standing in front of a shop with a perfect black Lonsdale polo I desperately wanted.. but it was closed and I was leaving the next morning. (As a consolation, I guess you can buy them on e-bay.) Now I understood why the stores were so freaking busy on Saturday!
Oh yeah, back to another point. One of the reasons my friends picked Cologne was it happens to be one of the gayest cities in Germany. As I mentioned before, it had about 60 gay bars, most of which are in two different neighborhoods, but several all over town as well. We were in the Heumarkt close to several of them. I would hardly compare it to San Francisco though. Even though it's open, and actually Germany is much farther ahead of the US in terms of gay rights (short of full fledged marriage, they have partner laws at the federal which afford gay couples many of the rights which are only a dream in the US, including rights of survivorship [including pensions] and immigration rights). However, even in the gay neighborhoods, two of my friends from SF walked down the street holding hands, much to the incredible shock of the locals. (Just try and get noticed doing that in SF!) My German friends explained it's not so much of a gay thing, and it's just not common for two German -people- to hold hands, let alone two men. Interessant. :-) People there are just very quietly live and let live. I explained it's probably because people fight against us so much in the US that we feel we have to live our lives so out loud. Even in "gay Paris", someone had to tell me I was staying in the gay neighborhood before I knew that. I just wanted something central, and found the hotel on Orbitz! Even the gay strip club across the street I had no idea was such until someone told me it was such. :-)
Oh yeah, and I was reminded of something else that happened. Apparently the bars in Germany have no set closing time. So we were there about about 3:30 in the morning, and we're just standing there when all of a sudden the Police comes through. (FYI, yeah, German police are way hot. :-) ) They just said, okay, now you're closed. I was agog. No arrests or anything, just everybody out just cuz we say so. The locals were completely unphased and they said, oh we just come back in like half an hour. (The excuse is sometimes they check to make sure no one's doing drugs, although there were definitely some other illicit activities going on that the police were completely unphased by as well.) Weird.
So we checked out a lot of the local scene, mingled with a lot of locals. I could have killed one my friend's friends though. I hadn't met him before (he lives in Florida), and he was being a complete stereotypical American. We finally went to an authentic local German restaurant... the menu's in German, off the tourist path, nobody speaks English, etc. He hated it. Why can't I get just a glass of water, why can't I get ice, why don't these people speak English, why is my order taking so long (oh for god's sake they're busy and we're on vacation!), yelling at the waiter -in English-. Richard and I were about ready to kill him. Later on he went back to the hotel and we enjoyed the local scene. We went to one of the local pubs and chatted with the bartender. I gotta say, one of the best things about Germany is the people. I met so many great people in Germany. (To which everyone says, friendly people in Germany? Advice to friends: Learn at least some of the language of where you're going, even if it's just one language to one of the places. It'll open so many doors for you. I had so many people agog that an American would speak German. One local even assumed I had to have been stationed there.) So this bartender was just getting done with work and "chaparoned" us for some of the local places, the kind of places that you'd have no idea they were there, because you go down this street, then off to a side street, and then down an alley to find it. It's funny because several of the bars actually have a sign above the door that says "Localklub", i.e., we don't speak English, we don't play English music, it's just an old dark local pub not like those glitzy American-style places, etc. :-) But we had the best time. The place was packed with locals all singing along with German pop music, drinking way too much beer ("Zwei Kölsch, bitte!"). (In one instance, I remember one of the locals came up to me very, very intoxicated and tried to make me his new bestfriend. That's when it's helpful to say (in a strong California accent), "Oh my god, but I'm like so sorry, but I like don't speak any German" and then go back to speaking German as soon as he leaves. :-) ) We were instructed on the proper German ways of toasting, clinking the bottom of the glasses (the tops will break if you hit them too hard) and making sure you look in their eyes when you say "Prost!" The next days after I left, I still had the tunes going through my head. :-)
We also went to a huge dance party on Saturday night. There was guys from all over Europe there, not only Germany, but France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Poland. I actually found it amazing that some people from other countries didn't speak -any- other language besides their own. I started talking to this guy from Spain (there's always that ackward moment at the beginning when you're not really sure what language to start speaking in). I started speaking in German (hey, we're in Germany) and he was really broken about a few words. Then he said "Si hablo Espanol?" I said "un poquito". That was pretty much the end of the conversation. (It didn't stop one cute Italian boy who didn't speak a word of English or German, but didn't stop his face from lighting up like a Christmas tree everytime he saw me. :-) ) Man I need to learn some more languages! :-) I did meet several Germans though, several of which we've kept in contact with since. You know, when I was learning German in high school, everything we learned was spoon fed to us through books. All of that has changed. I now can get German television shows (actually they're broadcast locally, one of the advantages of living in an international city). Via the Internet I can directly talk with people in a foreign country. (Can't do anything about the time zone thing, although because of the 9 hour difference, I tend to chat a bit before I head to bed right when they're getting up, and right before I head off to work when they're just getting home from it.) Not only that, but online databases have not only dictionaries for instant lookup, but huge databases of colloquialism and multi-word phrases. (I found out "I don't care" translates to "Es macht mir nichts daraus"... "it makes for me nothing out of it".) You can even use Alta Vista to translate entire web sites and passages. Some of them were friends of my friends I went with (one of which spent four years in Germany), others I met there. Now I have friends I can stay with almost anywhere in Germany. (Of course the same goes for them in San Francisco, one of the advantages of living here, where they might actually want to visit!) Some speak English, some don't, some it depends on what's better, their English or my German. :-) "Ist San Francisco wirklich so toll?" they ask. (Is SF really so great?) I say come visit and you'll find out. :-)
So yeah, I had an amazing time. I will definitely be back. :-)
posted by Joe Carlin at 9:08 PM
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