This year the city of Munich celebrates its 850th Birthday. This just tickles me. Not much (i.e, sand) in my home state of Florida can even come close to being that young.

It’s only fitting that I’d give a huge ‘ein Prosit’ (toast) in honor of our well-aged beauty of a host city. Locals here recently made jokes that as we celebrate Munich’s birthday at the Oktoberfest: “Wouldn’t it be a treat to have to dish out 850 cents for a liter of beer?” Hahaha…hehe… Get ready to gulp:

Last year the price for a Maß of OK-beer was already at 7,90€. Now it’s announced that during the 16-day festival (20th Sept. - 5th Oktober 2008) the price will be between 8€ to 8,30€ per liter of beer. For Americans, that’s about 13 dollars per Maß at today’s exchange. ooh Aua!

Blame it on the price of barley, so say the breweries. Not to worry. Thrifty Oktoberfest visitors can still get their ‘drink on’ by taking advantage of the fact that in Bavaria, beer is considered a food staple. That’s right. Beer constitutes a major part of a Bavarian’s diet. Along with eggs and bread, beer is also subsidized. That means you’ll pay about 60 cents (+ a tax on the bottle) for a half liter of Augustiner Helles if you buy it at the grocery store. No, you can take your beer bottles to the fest but I’m sure you can workout some pre-game plans. There aren’t any open container laws from what I’ve observed.

So happy birthday, Munich! With the higher prices, I’m hoping during the 16 days of beer mayhem there won’t be so many drunk people peeing on your trees, gardens and subway walls. Yeah. Who am I kidding?

Artist: Funny Van Dannen
Album: Basics
Title: Saufen

birthday flowers and candleIt is a Null Geburtstag for me. I’ve been reminded today that I am a very lucky person in life and that I should keep in mind that home is where the heart is. I feel very blessed to be touched by such kindred folk who spread warm, positive thoughts such as these.

So on my birthday. I’ve painted my toes red, put on mascara because at this age, I’ll admit, I need the extra help *wink*.

Then I’ve set my sights to send out more job applications even though getting a letter or email with the word leider has gotten old rather quickly, still the ever-thinking Alex is urging me on. He’s a hero to me.

In the worst case I’ve applied to new schools since distance learning is proving to be a leap too great for me to bound. Although, I’ve been deemed too old to be a student, so there’s a need to update my health insurance. I suppose this is the age when you are required by society to squeeze a bun out of the oven so better to tax now than at the time it happens.

And it is still a waiting game for the future of my European driver’s license, we’re holding bedtime lessons on the physics of a manual transmission car.

So things haven’t turned out as planned. Still there is always time for optimism no matter where it comes from. I got a phone call from a friend and she wished me a happy birthday. The next thing I know after explaining that the priorities of the world are all a muck, that good friend sets up a little, last-minute, evening get-together at a café for cake and wine. Now the world is just perfect. It can’t get any hard than it already is. I just won’t allow it.

Here’s looking forward to my first year in my thirties.

Artist: Wayne Brennan
Title: And I love

Completed my scarf. Now onto the hat.This is my 3rd January in Germany and finally I’ve learned an expression I’ve been dying to know: Das ist nicht meine Angelegenheit meaning, that’s none of my business.

Or better: Kümmere dich um deine eigenen Angelegenheiten! Can you guess? That’s right: Mind your own business!

Do native people use this expression? I’ve never heard it but then again I don’t ask enough questions, which is sort of a New Year’s resolution (or Vorsatz) for me.

It has been pointed out to me that I rely too heavily on assumptions that don’t work in the German culture. When I don’t understand something I need to speak up.

Only it isn’t that I know immediately that I don’t understand something, rather it is mostly the case that I understand it differently. It is recognizing that I am understanding something differently and subsequently wrongly is the point where I could save myself from getting into trouble or not. But regardless I’m destined to repeat my mistakes over and over again if I don’t start getting a clue soon. And this is where I start to miss Florida.

In Florida and I image in other states in the U.S., the people and perhaps the ‘lack-of-culture’ culture is often times more forgiving than it is here. Mind you I’d never want to experience the nightmare of being a foreigner trying to get a green card or just to pass customs for a few days vacation in the U.S. It is certainly comparatively easier in my shoes.

But once you are in the US, you aren’t told in so many words that your thinking is backwards or you lack proper communication skills. Am I wrong? Americans just take you for who you are. They are open to jesters and speaking slowly, imitating sounds and relying on facial expressions if need be.

Try using these primitive measures in Germany and you’ll get a blank ape stare from your confused, native speaker. Asking politely of a native German speaker to speak slowly is like slowing down the merry-go-round for 2 seconds. Then it gets boring or unnatural for the German and the merry-go-round accelerates again. The struggling foreigner has to weigh whether to ask to slow it down again or hang on and hope he’ll recognize something after all that spinning. (When in doubt and even if it feels rude, ASK!)

To a certain point, the way Germans speak is infectious. Now that my German is pretty good (once I get going) I don’t like to switch back to English. In fact I prefer to speak in German; I don’t have to worry about my hands or facial muscles. It’s all just brain and mouth. In an unfair way, one could say speaking in German is robotic, like Data. yeah.

Now it feels completely out of place to speak English in public places and when I do, I can feel that inside my cranium is war to arrive with the most appropriate words. It’s when my thoughts land in a mushy spot on my brain and the German words get mixed up with the English. Then nothing comes out and then I revert to the old assumptions and the old way of telling a story, which is to use body language, but opps! how?!

I know that it is just a bad, bad, bad thing to just give up on a train of mindless, American thought just to save the conversation. But sometimes that is the only thing that feels comfortable. Better to skip to a clean part of the record than to relive hearing the skinny lady tumble out nonsense repetitively.

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In other news, I’ve written a post on Knokke and I’ve posted some pictures of Belgium. We’ve joined a gym and love it. Oh and this ol’ bag of bones turns 30 is in 2 days. How’s that for train of thought!