first impressions
Mar. 10th, 2014 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deird1No longer being quite so jetlagged, I thought I'd resume my posting schedule.
Germany! Yay!
(Or, alternately, Germany! Grr!, depending on how I'm feeling at the time. Mainly this is connected to how much my ability to speak German is working.)
The Climate
It's cold!
Which requires warm clothing, but other than that it's actually warmer here than in Australia - because the houses are all set up to keep the cold at arm's length, with double glazing and ridiculous levels of insulation. The temperature the house was set to (24 degrees) was actually way too hot for us. We kept walking inside and wanting to remove about six layers of clothing.
It's rather amusing at the moment, because we're experiencing what would be a slightly colder than normal winter - whereas all of the Germans reckon that spring is in full force (judging by the flowers, they're right), so they're all busy eating ice-cream. We huddled over mugs of hot chocolate yesterday, with ice-cream eaters surrounding us on all sides.
The Food
I love the hotel breakfasts you get in Germany. Always have.
In Australia, your standard at-home breakfast will be cereal or toast. The fancy breakfast you get when staying somewhere includes cereal, toast, and bacon and eggs and possibly sausages. (Maybe even pancakes.)
In Germany, I have yet to determine what Germans eat for breakfast when they're at home. But judging by their hotel breakfasts, I'm guessing it includes meat and cheese. At any rate, the fancy hotel breakfasts are: bread rolls, cheeses, sliced meats, croissants, pretzels, fruits, and yoghurt. Washed down with fruit juice and tea.
YUM.
The Backwardsness
I knew it would take me a few weeks to adjust to the cars being on the wrong side of the road (and driving them! never done that before!), but I'd forgotten about the walking thing.
That being the fact that countries tend to walk on the side of the road that they drive on. I keep being on the wrong side of the escalator, walking past people on the wrong side of the footpath, and generally confusing everyone I encounter.
Combined with the fact that the pedestrian lights at intersections don't make loud noises at you when you're supposed to cross - so I keep not realising they've changed - and I'm a rather hazardous walker at the moment.
The SILENCE
Germans are not chatty people.
To put this in context:
- I am not an extrovert.
- I am VERY DEFINITELY an introvert.
- Every time I go to the supermarket in Australia, my non-talkative, introverted self will end up striking up a conversation with the person next to me in the checkout line - because it's what you do.
- I also nod and say "morning" to every person I walk past on the street, because it's Australia, and it's considered good manners.
Here? EVERYONE IS QUIET. They don't say hello when you walk past them, they don't make silly comments at the shops, and they generally mind their own business.
I AM CONVERSATIONALLY DEPRIVED. SEND EMERGENCY WORDS.
The Free Time
This is not so much Germany, and more the fact that we're living overseas. Hence, we do not have family close by, and we do not own a house.
Normally, our Sundays will include a church service, a brief visit to a random family member, and a whole lot of chores. Yesterday? We got up late, went to two church services, drove to a tourist attraction and walked around for a couple of hours, and still ran out of things to do.
We don't have our own house - and that comes with a lack of kitty litter changing, sweeping, fixing things, and gardening. Right now, it also comes with a lack of games (still en route) and a lack of baking (really need to buy an oven tray).
We're watching an awful lot of television.
How's everyone else going?
Germany! Yay!
(Or, alternately, Germany! Grr!, depending on how I'm feeling at the time. Mainly this is connected to how much my ability to speak German is working.)
The Climate
It's cold!
Which requires warm clothing, but other than that it's actually warmer here than in Australia - because the houses are all set up to keep the cold at arm's length, with double glazing and ridiculous levels of insulation. The temperature the house was set to (24 degrees) was actually way too hot for us. We kept walking inside and wanting to remove about six layers of clothing.
It's rather amusing at the moment, because we're experiencing what would be a slightly colder than normal winter - whereas all of the Germans reckon that spring is in full force (judging by the flowers, they're right), so they're all busy eating ice-cream. We huddled over mugs of hot chocolate yesterday, with ice-cream eaters surrounding us on all sides.
The Food
I love the hotel breakfasts you get in Germany. Always have.
In Australia, your standard at-home breakfast will be cereal or toast. The fancy breakfast you get when staying somewhere includes cereal, toast, and bacon and eggs and possibly sausages. (Maybe even pancakes.)
In Germany, I have yet to determine what Germans eat for breakfast when they're at home. But judging by their hotel breakfasts, I'm guessing it includes meat and cheese. At any rate, the fancy hotel breakfasts are: bread rolls, cheeses, sliced meats, croissants, pretzels, fruits, and yoghurt. Washed down with fruit juice and tea.
YUM.
The Backwardsness
I knew it would take me a few weeks to adjust to the cars being on the wrong side of the road (and driving them! never done that before!), but I'd forgotten about the walking thing.
That being the fact that countries tend to walk on the side of the road that they drive on. I keep being on the wrong side of the escalator, walking past people on the wrong side of the footpath, and generally confusing everyone I encounter.
Combined with the fact that the pedestrian lights at intersections don't make loud noises at you when you're supposed to cross - so I keep not realising they've changed - and I'm a rather hazardous walker at the moment.
The SILENCE
Germans are not chatty people.
To put this in context:
- I am not an extrovert.
- I am VERY DEFINITELY an introvert.
- Every time I go to the supermarket in Australia, my non-talkative, introverted self will end up striking up a conversation with the person next to me in the checkout line - because it's what you do.
- I also nod and say "morning" to every person I walk past on the street, because it's Australia, and it's considered good manners.
Here? EVERYONE IS QUIET. They don't say hello when you walk past them, they don't make silly comments at the shops, and they generally mind their own business.
I AM CONVERSATIONALLY DEPRIVED. SEND EMERGENCY WORDS.
The Free Time
This is not so much Germany, and more the fact that we're living overseas. Hence, we do not have family close by, and we do not own a house.
Normally, our Sundays will include a church service, a brief visit to a random family member, and a whole lot of chores. Yesterday? We got up late, went to two church services, drove to a tourist attraction and walked around for a couple of hours, and still ran out of things to do.
We don't have our own house - and that comes with a lack of kitty litter changing, sweeping, fixing things, and gardening. Right now, it also comes with a lack of games (still en route) and a lack of baking (really need to buy an oven tray).
We're watching an awful lot of television.
How's everyone else going?
no subject
Date: 2014-03-10 10:46 am (UTC)Darcy did some filming in Bavaria a year & a half ago. One of the crew was vegetarian. When asking in the local pub/restaurant whether they had something without meat, he was met with general hilarity and disbelief. What could you possibly eat other than meat???
I AM CONVERSATIONALLY DEPRIVED. SEND EMERGENCY WORDS.
This made me laugh out loud. :)
no subject
Date: 2014-03-10 06:03 pm (UTC)Gabrielle
no subject
Date: 2014-03-11 09:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-11 09:35 am (UTC)I try. :)
This country really does seem to think that bread and meat are what one should eat at every meal.
no subject
Date: 2014-03-10 06:01 pm (UTC)Though baking would also work. Maybe both?
no subject
Date: 2014-03-11 09:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-10 06:08 pm (UTC)Hope you find stuff to do and that the above paragraph constituted emergency words.
Gabrielle
no subject
Date: 2014-03-11 12:36 pm (UTC)I hear you on the politeness thing. I spent a week in Adelaide a while back, and everyone had manners. When I got back to Melbourne, I hadn't been there for ten minutes when I witnessed a teenager kicking open a train door and flipping off the security guard who tried to stop him – at which point I breathed a sigh of relief and thought "Ahh... I'm home..."
no subject
Date: 2014-03-10 08:14 pm (UTC)I remember you talking about this previously. Since then, I have paid a bit more attention to my own and other people's walking habits, and I still can't detect a preference for any particular side. Occasionally I worry that I'm just exceptionally clueless and am leaving a trail of confusion wherever I walk, and make an effort to walk on the right until it inevitably slips my mind again and I return to my old habits (walking on whichever side is farther from the road* on sidewalks, walking on whichever side contains the product I want to buy when I have an immediate goal in a store, pretty much random otherwise as far as I can tell).
*In the probably-vain hope it will be quieter there.
Every time I go to the supermarket in Australia, my non-talkative, introverted self will end up striking up a conversation with the person next to me in the checkout line - because it's what you do.
I don't know on what level (country, big city vs small town, what-have-you) the politeness of that is determined, but I do know I run into that a lot from the other direction. It doesn't help that I'm prosopagnosic, so when I say "it's extremely rude to talk to strangers without a damn good reason" my definition of "stranger" is very broad. (I spent an entire conversation (or "conversation") with what turned out to be my former art teacher giving him minimal answers to his questions and my best Stop Being a Creep and Go Away glare because we ran into each other at the park and he didn't have the decency to introduce himself before trying to talk to me. Intellectually, I am aware he was reasonably justified in believing he had the right to recognition on sight--I never told him I'm faceblind, and he likely doesn't have enough experience with homeschooled teenagers to know they're very often faceblind**--but I don't quite...grok it, so I can't bring myself to entirely forgive him.)
**Because non-autistic homeschoolers are much more likely to leave for high school than autistic ones are, and most if not all autistics are faceblind.
SEND EMERGENCY WORDS.
Abecedarian! Shutter! Marigold! Azure! Schnitzelbank! (ah, so that's how it's spelled)
no subject
Date: 2014-03-11 12:38 pm (UTC)Maybe America does this less?
and he didn't have the decency to introduce himself before trying to talk to me.
While I am not faceblind, that annoys me too. I barely ever remember where I know someone from - just that I know them somehow, so I have to spend a lot of conversation dodging around specifics until I get some kind of clue who they are.