“I think… yes, I definitely want to go home now.” — Image courtesy of mypicasso.com
On February 2nd, 2013, The Wife and I took a trip to the Hannover Tiergarten. The word “Tiergarten” translates literally to “Animal Garden,” which always makes me think of snarling lions springing from cabbage crops and giraffes falling from fruit trees — splattering on the ground beside pink afterbirths of overripe fruit pulp. Can you imagine? Fur-covered limbs sprouting from roots and blossoms. Yellowed fangs stabbing outward from bramble thickets. Green vegetable juice spraying into the eyes of stunned onlookers. Children pawing at their parent’s coat sleeves, trying to hide their eyes and escape a lifetime of emotional scarring. The crowd turning to run — a moment too late — for Spring has arrived at… The Animal Garden.
Anyway, we came across these disgusting pigs called “Wildschweine,” and I decided to film them slogging through their own filth. These videos made me want to stop eating pork forever. Seriously, I was done. No more swine for me. Then I snapped out of it, glanced at my calendar and realized it was time for my monthly Bacon Bath!
“Honey, call the butcher and fire up Charlotte’s Web; I’ve got my ham goggles on and I’m diving into a bathtub full of porkbellies!”
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“You are so sexy I can smell your stomach.” — Image courtesy of animenewsnetwork.com
Let me begin by saying my wife can burp. Hard. She can burp so loud it makes me want to throw up a little. I think she’s been practicing her burps since she was a little girl in Germany. (I like to picture her running through an apple orchard, one tiny fist wrapped around a stump of liverwurst, mouth open wide and belting out a burp so loud the earth is shaking… apples falling from the trees… little German rabbits huddled together, seeking comfort as they fear for their very lives…)
So, back in early November of 2012, while we were still living in Portland, Oregon, The Wife and I went to my parent’s house for dinner. It was a pleasant evening, rife with laughter, good food and embarrassing childhood photos in which my American weenie was proudly displayed for the amusement of all. After dinner, The Wife and I drove home on I-5 and talked about how our car had been sideswiped just a few weeks prior (a memory which never fails to piss her off, even to this very day). She was tired, and spoke with this kind of drowsy German accent, which made it abundantly clear she was at least half drunk:
THE WIFE: “If we get sideswiped right now… *BURRRRRP* …I’m pissed.”
Click here to learn more about the term “Denglish.”
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Oh Berlin, you big silly. Is that a meat-eating flower jutting out from a mural of pure, German madness? “Have fun on your way to school, kids!”
The Wife and I were recently visited by one of our very close friends from Portland, Oregon. We shall call him, “Looney Tunes.” Looney Tunes spent New Year’s with us in Hannover, and then on January 2nd, we all took the CE train to Berlin.
I’d only been to Berlin once before, back in June of 2011, and that trip was wildly different. It was summer and we were staying in Mitte. This time around, it was winter and we were staying in Kreuzberg. Kreuzberg used to be punk rocker central and it was scary as hell, but it is rapidly being gentrified. Walking down the street, the buildings go like this: scary apartment building, crazy graffiti mural, depressing pub, Turkish döner place, Vietnamese restaurant, scary apartment building, really nice coffee shop. It’s kind of jarring how the places with money stick out from the rest, but Kreuzberg does have its own unique charm, I suppose. Looney Tunes absolutely loved it. The Wife and I will stick to our quiet little Hannover for now.
Here are some of the pictures from our trip. We hope you like them!
My wife told me that during WWII, the Allied Forces bombed the sweet holy hell out of Germany’s train stations. Like, specifically, in order to cripple their shipping and transport capabilities. Hanging a “Bombardier” sign inside of one is like proudly announcing the name of the last person who kicked your ass. It just isn’t done.
To the right is a place I never noticed during our first trip to Berlin. It’s called “Museum Island,” and it is exactly what it sounds like: a bunch of museums surrounded by water. Luckily, it was closed for the evening.
That’s the World Clock at Alexanderplatz. I couldn’t read the different times though, because they all seemed to be telling me, “Stop taking pictures, you tool; it’s Beer:30 PM.”
There’s the Berlin Christmas Pyramid, inexplicably standing 9 days after Christmas was over. Where’s your efficiency NOW, Germany?
That’s the Marienkirche, which I so brilliantly lined up with the TV Tower. Seriously. I thought this picture was going to be AWESOME.
In the background is the Berliner Dom. In front of the Dom is a hideous building called — and I’m not kidding — The Humboldt Box. And right in front of the Box? Oh, that’s just the Lustgarten. Really, Berlin? Really??
And here is a picture of the Brandenburg Gate, but I like to think of it as “A Picture of a Bunch of People Taking Pictures of the Brandenburg Gate.”
Every time I snap a shot of the Brandenburger Tor, I think to myself, “Seriously? Are we seriously going to take ANOTHER picture of this royal bastard? That’s smart; we only have 10,000 already, and the postcards they sell around the corner don’t even have our trademarked Shaky-Hands blur effect.”
Here’s the always uplifting WWII Holocaust Memorial. On this latest trip, Looney Tunes discovered there is actually a museum beneath the memorial. Man, I could not WAIT to get down there and cry my eyes out beneath a square city block of concrete and night terrors.
This is the bottle of wine our hosts left for us to enjoy. And by enjoy, I mean totally steal and laugh while drinking it.
Looney Tunes was all about seeing this place. It’s Berlin’s famous Turkish Market, or Türkenmarkt. I couldn’t see much through the torrential downpour, but I noticed some crazy-looking fruit, fried bread and dozens of little Turkish crones haggling over sheets of cloth.
My God the rain was pounding that day. Looney Tunes and I finished looking at the market then shagged-ass to the nearest pub we could find.
Oh Kreuzberg, you big silly. Is that a meat-eating flower jutting out from a mural of pure, German madness? “Have fun on your way to school, kids!”
Look at that. A really cool painting of a cat… and somebody put glasses on its face and a dick in its mouth. Just the way God intended.
These stupid swans looked way cooler at the time I took this picture. Seemed like there were hundreds of them, and each one was bigger than my wife. Now all I’ve got are a bunch of flying jerks in a rainstorm.
This is the Warschauer Straße station. The Wife, Looney Tunes and I had to cross it every single day we were in Berlin. You can see why we started calling it “The DDR.”
“I love you Berlin! Wait… wait… except for that part right there.”
There’s the S-Bahn at the Warschauer Straße station. You see all that scary graffiti beyond it? That’s Friedrichshain. It was occupied by the Russians before the Berlin Wall came down (which comes as absolutely no surprise to me).
And here’s the last view of the Warschauer Straße station, or as Looney Tunes called it, “The Death March.”
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“Women love this sort of thing. I read it in a magazine once.” — Image courtesy of zxmzhh.blog.163.com/
Back in early 2012, The Wife and I were watching a movie in our living room. I can’t remember now, but it was probably a chick flick like Sex and the City 2 or Eat Pray Love — something my wife forced me to add to my Netflix queue, forever sullying its masculine streak of pure, testicle-powered entertainment. (Wait, that sounded like gay porn, didn’t it.)
So, sometime during the second half of the movie, I stood up to get a glass of water from the kitchen, swatted my wife’s thigh and asked, “Would you like anything while I’m up?”
She replied calmly, without turning her gaze from the TV screen.
THE WIFE: “Please don’t slap my fat meat.”
Click here to learn more about the term “Denglish.”
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“I say this with love.” — Image courtesy of clclt.com.
Let me begin by saying life in Germany is awesome. I love it here! I have, however, learned a thing or two about the realities of life abroad. What follows is a list of discoveries, oddities and annoyances revealed in my first months as an expat American living in Hannover, Germany:
The common American advice, “Don’t worry about the language barrier in Germany; everybody speaks English,” is false. Everybody speaks a little English in Hannover, and they are terribly self-conscious about using it. Younger Germans are more likely to speak English, and I’ve met several who are fluent. However, if they aren’t fluent, and you desperately need to locate the nearest restroom, you’ll soon find yourself gesticulating wildly as you try not to make pants pickles.
There are pharmacies on every goddamn block. Seriously. They’re called “Apotheken,” and they are everywhere in this city. You can go to the nearest Apotheke and get your prescription filled. You can also purchase a wide variety of over-the-counter medications which do absolutely nothing. It goes like this: you must convince the pharmacist you have a cold and then intimately describe your most disgusting symptoms, after which time, if they believe you, they hand you a box of herbal tea. “Thank you Sir! I was going to drown my symptoms in a near-lethal dose of NyQuil, but this lemon-flavored tea should prove just as effective!”
Germans are impatient. They have zero tolerance for delays, lines or traffic of any kind. They operate at top speed, which is why, in the cashier line at the grocery store, you better pay for your items and get the hell out of the way, because Dieter von Shufflestein is right on your ass. The first time I tried to put my change away before taking my groceries from the counter, my items were suddenly overrun with those belonging to the person behind me. His pickled herring and canned hotdogs were all up in my situation, and he didn’t even care a bit. I wanted so desperately to turn to him and scream, “Bitch, I am going to throw your nasty shit all over the floor if you do not get off my Kool-Aid!”
Craft beers and dark beers have yet to really catch on in Germany. I’m from Portland, Oregon, so I’m accustomed to an amazing variety of beer, but over here, I mostly see pilsner and hefeweizen. I’m not complaining, mind you; the pilsner here is rather strong, and my wife can always tell when I have, as she puts it, “a pilsner-buzz” on. Oh, and liquor is super cheap here. Like, $7 for a fifth of rum, type cheap. I mean, hell, that’s not just cheap, that’s cheap as balls.
Recycling is a monumental pain in the ass. (I’m only speaking of apartment living with this one, and specifically, apartment living in the city of Hannover.) Glass can only be returned in these round tanks on the sidewalk, which look like giant metal boobies. And just like real boobies, they’re nowhere to be found when you need them. Recycling makes absolutely no sense to me here. You have to put your organic compost, or “Bio” garbage into plastic bags — yes, plastic bags — and take them down to the dumpster. Random items (like cotton swabs, tissue paper and tampons) go into clear plastic bags and are taken to an entirely different dumpster. Regular paper goes into blue plastic bags, while metal and plastic go into yellow bags; both of which are picked up from the street once per week… by different companies. Oh, and if you buy a bottle of water at a certain grocery store, and you want to recycle it and get your deposit back, you have to take it back to that exact same grocery store. So, with all of these convoluted rules and the counterproductive use of plastic in the recycling process, I kind of want to make a German flag out of rubber tires and hairspray bottles in the middle of a busy street and set that shit on fire.
Click here to learn more about the term “Culture Shock.”
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The results are in! The Expats Blog announced its winning blog selections for the country of Germany! With your help, we managed to win the Honour 2012 award. There were 3 top awards — Gold, Silver and Bronze — plus 3 Honourable Mention awards, all of which were selected from a pool of over 43 German expat blogs. This is really something! But you know what really took me by surprise? All of the support our readers showed for our blog.
In particular, we’d like to thank:
The Expats Blog, who writes www.expatsblog.com, found our blog and nominated us for this award in the first place. Great site you guys! Keep up the good work!
Toff Oliver, who writes www.hadafewbeers.com. He wrote an incredibly kind post about our blog and urged his own readers to vote for us. Please check out his blog and help return some of the love!
Aldonna, who writes www.ahundredmiles.wordpress.com. Her blog is private, but she re-posted our nomination article and asked her readers to vote for us.
Anja, who writes www.diestadtderengel.wordpress.com, gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review. She is also a regular reader and commenter on our blog.
Germany-USA Career Center, who writes www.germany-usa.com, gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
Alex K, who gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
Geoff Freeman, who gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
Charlotte, who gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
Christina, who gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
Michael Sadowski, who gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
PolkaDot45, who gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
Lindsey, who gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
Gary Casebeer, who gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
Randy Patton, who gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
Nick, who gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
Netz44, who gave us 5 stars and wrote a great review.
David Sale, who gave us 4 stars and wrote a great review.
If I have somehow misplaced your review, vote or tweet and neglected to list you here, please go to our contact page and email us! Also, if I have, in fact, listed you here but failed to include your website or blog, please email us as well! It is very important we promote your work in return!
And as an extra show of gratitude, I’d like to share with you one of my very favorite German commercials. It is simultaneously adorable and hilarious:
Thank you all for reading and have a wonderful holiday season!
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On December 14, 2012, the Expats Blog will determine their winning blog for the country of Germany. That’s this Friday! Would you mind leaving a quick vote for our blog to improve our chances of winning? Comments and votes directly influence this award!
Fill out the fields under, “Leave some love for this blog.”
I know it sucks to give out your email address. I did it already, and I know I can unsubscribe from Expats Blog whenever I want. If you are uncomfortable with the email address part, don’t even worry about it; just keep reading our blog and know how much we appreciate your time and attention!
If you don’t care about the email address part and you actually leave us a good vote? THANK YOU! If our blog wins, we’ll likely write a special post to thank you for your time!
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful holiday season!
P.S. Here’s a funny German advertisement for your trouble:
Germans: Can’t even be happy at Christmas.
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The Hannover Weihnachtspyramide (Christmas Pyramid) – “Honey, is this how your people contact the German Mothership?”
It’s that time of year! Time for just about every city and town in Germany to construct and enjoy their Weihnachtsmärkte for the entire month of December! (And for some reason, I’m describing this tradition as if I’ve actually experienced it before.)
Apparently, Christmas is a BIG deal here in Germany. It is celebrated with these incredible markets, where people visit booths to buy wooden trinkets, eat bratwurst, drink Glüwein (hot, spiced wine, sometimes with shots of rum in it), listen to live music and generally have an awesome time.
We sure as hell do.
Here is a video of the Weihnachtspyramide (Christmas Pyramid) at the Kröpke, right in the middle Hannover’s major shopping center.
And here are some before and after pictures of the Christmas Market in Hannover’s Altstadt, surrounding the big, scary, medieval Market Church (Marktkirche).
This is Kramerstraße, facing the old Market Church. This was the morning the Weihnachtsmarkt opened, and they were not selling Glüwein yet (not even after I tried to bribe the booth operators with my useless American dollars).
Putting the final touches on a medieval-themed booth. I would later discover this is where they sell mead and play bagpipes.
This is our absolute favorite of the Biergartens – The Wunschbrunnenwald (Wishing Well Forest). They basically made a tiny forest in the middle of the street, encircling a fountain. It has a bunch of little booths inside, plus dark corners and hiding places, so you can inconspicuously spike the holy shit out of your Glüwein.
Here are some more booths under construction right around the Market Church. I’m so relieved it’s not a sin to get plowed within sight of the House of God.
Here’s one of the booths advertising Glüwein, specifically. They sell other things too, like eggnog, which is called “Eierpunsch.” An Eierpunsch sounds like something you get when you go to a sports pub and make fun of the local soccer team.
Yet another booth under construction. Hurry up, Germans! Daddy’s got a sudden and inexplicable thirst for scalding hot wine.
Our first Glüwein. This is actually on the second level of the Pyramid. Usually, Glüwein is sold in charming little handmade mugs, but this place used glasses, which burned my American fingers all the way to the bone.
Here’s a nice and blurry photo for you. Clearly, I should have been a photographer.
Look at the miniature ferris wheel! isn’t it adorable? I made my wife SWEAR she would ride it with me, even though it’s really only for stupid little kids.
Here’s one of the larger stands at the market. You can even go inside, which is so cramped you feel like you’re getting drunk in a closet… inside a stranger’s home.
Now HERE is a traditional Weihnachtsmarkt mug. So charming! They’re almost charming enough to make me forget the €2 euro deposit I had to pay on top of the €2.5 euros for the Glüwein itself. Really? A deposit? These Germans… they think I’m going to steal a mug so I can take it home with me. I am offended. (And I am much more likely to lob my mug like a grenade into the swarm of Christmas shoppers. “Incoming!”)
Do you have any funny, German-related stories about Christmas time? Fire them off in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you!
Happy holidays everyone!
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“Oktoberfest is the tits!” — Image courtesy of thosefunnypictures.com.
This is a video I recorded shortly after we arrived at the Hannover Oktoberfest. It features a haunted house ride, at the top of which is a giant, talking werewolf.
I was entranced by the way his animatronic mouth kept opening and closing. It was hypnotic, especially because he was speaking German with some kind of ghoulish, Transylvanian accent. I don’t think Germans fully appreciate the menace their language can inflict upon American ears. There’s nothing else like it; when Americans hear a few harshly spoken German words, we know something really bad is about to happen.
But don’t get me wrong; everything about my wife is beautiful — her country, her culture… everything. It’s just that her native tongue is the Grammy Award-winning soundtrack of my nightmares.
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I’m sorry honey, but all I can see are dirndl boobs. — Image courtesy of oktoberfest-hannover.de
In Hannover, Oktoberfest takes place at the Schützenplatz, which is an open area directly across from the AWD Arena (home of the Hannover 96 soccer team, and yeah, you heard me right, I just called it ‘soccer’). This year, Oktoberfest ran from September 28th until October 14th, and yet The Wife and I almost missed it! We kept meaning to check it out, but (my wife) couldn’t seem to find the time. I finally jogged past the fairgrounds one morning and noticed it would only be open for one more weekend. That’s when I finally convinced my wife we had to go.
“I ran past Oktoberfest this morning and there’s only one weekend left!” I exclaimed. “There were tons of beer tents in there! They even had roller coasters with Germans on them! Screaming Germans! I need this, honey. I need it so bad.“
The Wife relented and we experienced our very first Hannover Oktoberfest together. It was AWESOME.
Here are the pictures we took that night. I’m sorry there aren’t more; I was too busy experiencing pure, unadulterated joy.
This was the view as we approached the Oktoberfest fairgrounds. I was so excited I had to go pee pee behind that tree on the left.
Looks like the entrance to just about any fair you’d find in the United States, doesn’t it? Though inconspicuous from this angle, that tent on the left is just a tiny feature of a massive beer garden seen immediately upon arrival. I told my wife, “Go on without me. I’m never leaving this place.”
“Look, kids, it’s the world’s scariest clown! And, uh oh, he’s trying to throw darts right into your adorable little eyes! Here are your ride tokens. Have fun!”
Currywurst is a really cheap carnival / food cart dish here in Germany. They hack up a bunch of pork sausage and drown it in curry sauce without a trace of remorse. Next to our currywurst are french fries slathered in (oh God) mayonnaise, which immediately reminded me of that scene from Pulp Fiction about Holland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO4HfasmD6E
That’s my full liter of beer on the left, and my wife’s sissy half-liter on the right. I don’t know why this picture in focused primarily on the table, but I do know drinking in public is legal in Germany, and Oktoberfest actively encourages it.
I’m sorry honey, but all I can see are dirndl boobs. — Image courtesy of oktoberfest-hannover.de
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