Incoherent Scribblings

Concerning Beer and Bavaria

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The countdown to Munich’s world-famous Oktoberfest has officially begun and once again I will leave it to the tourists and beer enthusiasts. I did visit the legendary festival the first year that I lived here in Munich, but since then I have not made a return trip.

In general, Oktoberfest is too crowded and expensive for my taste. However, I don’t skip Oktoberfest merely because I don’t like crowds or because it is too pricey: I must confess that the main reason that I have passed on it since my initial “been-there-done-that” visit is simply because I don’t like beer.

Though I drank beer as a college student, I never really cared for it. In those days, drinking was about getting drunk and as a result I drank beer because it was cheap and available. I thought that I would eventually get used to it, but I didn’t. I loathed the bitter, unpleasant taste and my worst hangovers always occurred after a night of beer drinking. Consequently, I was never converted into a beer drinker and now that my major drinking exercises are in accompaniment to a meal, I don’t even pause to consider it.

It is a bit ironic though, isn’t it? In places like Italy, France, or even western Germany where, instead of beer, wine flows like water I could have easily integrated into the drinking culture, but of all the places in the world, A. and I had to end up in Bavaria where the traditional beverage is the one that I can’t stand, didn’t we?

A few months after we moved here, I finally did try the beer, but I must admit that it took all of my will power to even halfheartedly give it a chance. Unfortunately, once I did give it a try I didn’t find my first Bavarian beer any better than I found my first American beer years earlier. After I choked down half a dozen sips, I relinquished my efforts and my Weißbier merely sat on the table in the beer garden getting warm and flat.

Since I have always preferred wine or liquor over beer, it really came as no surprise to me that I didn’t care for Bavarian beer. But beer is a vital part of Bavarian culture and the fact that my distaste for it would cause an occasional predicament was a bit unexpected.

For example, while it is acceptable to sit in a beer garden without a beer in front of you, there are social functions where the choice of beverages seems to be beer or… beer. I remember a couple of summers ago when I went to a barbeque I had to practically beg for a Coke and then before I got it I had to explain why I didn’t want beer. Luckily the hostess had a sense of humor and when I shyly replied that I really didn’t like beer she just chalked it up to my being an American.

To sum it up, I am positive that no matter how long I live in Munich, how many beer gardens I visit, or how many times I attend Oktoberfest, I will never be transformed into a beer drinker. And for that reason alone, I don’t expect that I will be getting honorary Bavarian citizenship any time soon!

Back to (Language) School

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When I finished my Master of Science Degree in Library and Information Science in 1999, it was never meant to be my final degree. I had always planned to eventually get my Master of Arts Degree in English and perhaps one day my doctorate. I figured I would have to do it part-time, but it was part of my long-term plans.

Well, a lot of things happened between 1999 and 2005 that I had never anticipated (moving to Germany being one of those things) and though my plans to go back to school had been put on hold, they always remained.

I spent the first year that I was here in Germany attending intensive German language classes four hours a day, five days a week. At the beginning of that first year, I planned on taking the German language proficiency exam once I completed the final level of language classes and then going to the university the following fall.

If truth be told, I did make remarkable progress in that year: I went from being almost completely unable to communicate in German to being able to speak, understand, and even read and write it pretty well.

However, I underestimated how much stamina learning German at such an intense pace would take out of me. I worked very hard the first half of the year: I got great grades and even jumped directly from beginning level 3 to middle level 2. But by the second half of the year I was so tired of learning German that my attention span began to wane. Once I got to the final level (Oberstufe) I could barely drag myself out of bed in the morning, let alone crack the books at night.

I began to realize that I really didn’t want to study English literature anymore and I wasn’t sure what else I might want to study. I wasn’t all that interested in going to the university at that point, I felt like I needed a break, and as a result, when it came time to sign up for the proficiency exam, I didn’t do it. I decided that I could take the test at a later time if I changed my mind about going to university.

For the next two years I thought off and on about going to the university and starting from scratch in computer science, linguistics, or both. As luck would have it though, I always had these thoughts in the middle of the semester and since I didn’t have that little piece of paper saying that I was proficient in German, I knew I wouldn’t get very far if I tried to enroll.

But a few weeks ago, I came to the conclusion that I am now definitely ready to go to the university. Unfortunately, I also realized that even though I took German lessons through Oberstufe, my German was no where good enough for me to get in this fall.

However, since something also told me that this was undeniably the right decision for me, I decided that in order to get into the university next fall it was time for some long-term planning.

The first step in the process is, of course, to pass that language proficiency exam. So from now until sometime next spring, I am back in the classroom working on perfecting my German skills because when the time comes for me to take the TestDaF (Test of German as a Foreign Language), I don’t plan on just passing it, I plan on acing it!

The Rules of Recycling

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I have never been against recycling: When you think about the amount of garbage an average person produces in a day, week, month, or year and how much of that garbage could easily be recycled into something new, recycling is obviously a socially responsible thing to do.

However, at the same time, up until three years ago I never lived anywhere that had a decent, convenient, or even mandatory recycling system. So, with the exception of when I lived in Iowa and got 5 cents for every (soda) pop can I returned, I am a little ashamed to admit that until I moved to Germany I never recycled.

But thanks in large part to the Green Party, Germany has not only a serious recycling program, it is mandatory. Nevertheless, though recycling is mandatory here, it is also one of those things that an expat might not find out about until it is too late.

When A. and I moved to our village outside of Munich and registered with city hall, they gave us a packet of information about our little town, but it only included the location and opening hours of what we thought was the city dump. We noticed the “yellow bags,” but dismissed them as mere garbage bags.

For the first three or four weeks we were here, we spent most of our time at IKEA and various other stores buying furniture and other necessary items for our apartment. The packaging obviously produced a lot of cardboard, styrofoam, and plastic trash and we happily carried it down to the dumpster without so much as a second thought.

My dishes and cooking equipment had not yet arrived, so we ate out most of the time and didn’t really produce a lot of what I like to call “nasty” garbage like potato peelings, rotten meat, or moldy bread. We did produce a lot of “packaging” garbage like milk cartons, but once again we just threw them away, barely noticing the “Grüne Punkt” visibly stamped on their sides.

One morning though, as we were lugging our latest IKEA junk pile down to the dumpster, we ran into our “Hausmeister” (or maintenance man) and he confronted us. At the time I didn’t speak any German, so I didn’t know what was going on, but A. informed me we had been throwing away our cardboard “improperly” and without any further explanation, he told me that we needed to take our cardboard back upstairs.

Later A. told me that in his discussion with the Haumeister, he had been informed all about Germany’s “Recycling Rules.” We learned that what we thought was merely the dump, was actually the city’s recycling area and it was there we were supposed to take cardboard, old wood, bottles, and paper… among other things. It was also there that we could get the famous yellow bags (for free). Once we had the yellow bags, we were supposed to put things with the “Grüne Punkt” into them and they would be collected once a month.

We were warned that it was imperative that we follow Germany’s “Recycling Rules” because you never know when your dumpsters might get a visit from the “Recycling Police!”

Apparently, the “Recycling Police” are much feared here because their sole responsibility is to go through garbage and if they find stuff in the “nasty garbage” that should have been recycled, dispense fines. And since in an apartment building it is nearly impossible to tell whose garbage is whose, the “Recycling Police” will punish an entire building for one family’s garbage negligence. This, of course, will not make you very popular with your neighbors and if they find out that it was you that caused the fine, your stay in the apartment building will be uncomfortable, to say the very least.

As far as I know, our building has never been visited by the “Recycling Police,” or if it has, they were satisfied with what they found. However, if they ever do decide to poke through our dumpsters, thanks to our gruff Hausmeister, A. and I can rest assured that it is not our garbage that is to blame.

Traveling in the Valley

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It appears to me that as an expatriate sometimes you have to consciously make an effort to enjoy what your host country has to offer. It is so easy to begin to take things for granted: It seems like you have all the time in the world to see and do everything and so you put it off again and again… until finally, one day you repatriate and never get to really visit anything.

Now that August has arrived, for the next three to four weeks most of Europe will be on holiday. However, since A. and I have no children that have been set free for summer break we are in no hurry to take our holidays at this time. Nevertheless, come September A. will probably take some time off and we will travel a bit more around Germany, most likely to the Rhine Valley once again.

Along with the Alpine region and Berlin, the Rhine Valley is probably one of Germany’s top tourist destinations and since my in-laws live there, it is one the place outside of Bavaria that I have had a chance to visit on many occasions. And by now, I feel that I know the area quite well.

I must admit that I am quite fond of this region. Bavaria is nice, but in my opinion the area around the Rhine has a different feel to it and since A. grew up in the area, we seem to have more fun there because he knows the places to go and the things to do.

One of my favorite trips to this region was a couple of years ago when we took a tour of the Mosel Valley right at the beginning of the grape harvest. The Mosel Valley is one of Germany’s wine producing regions and during the grape harvest there are all sorts of wine celebrations offered, complete with wine tastings! (We especially enjoyed this since we are more wine aficionados than beer drinkers.)

Another of my favorite trips was during March of 2004 when we went to see the famous Lorelei rock. Because I am quite fond of brushing my long blonde hair, the Lorelei story became a little joke between A. and me when we first met. For that reason, one of the places in Germany that he just had to take me was to this area where the Rhine is at its most twisted.

We had such a lovely time driving along the Rhine Valley that day even though it was early spring and therefore quite cool. We drove up one side of the Rhine and down the other, eventually making our way to the top of the Lorelei rock, where I sat near the statue of the famous lady and attempted to brush my hair. It would have been a great photo to send home: Unfortunately, it was very windy and quite wet that day and in the photo I ended up looking like a drowned rat!

These were probably my two favorite trips in the river valleys, even though I enjoyed the day that we spent in Trier exploring Roman ruins and had a great time climbing to the top of the Dom in Cologne as well. However, there are still many things to do and see in the Rhine Valley, so come September when we make our obligatory six-month pilgrimage to the in-laws I am sure I will have yet another chance to see and learn new things about that particular area of Germany!

The First Awkward Moment

Today’s entry, “The First Awkward Moment”, is brought to you by Expatica.com.

The first awkward moment I encountered in Germany happened within minutes of my setting foot on German soil for the first time.

A.’s family, whom I had never met, came to the airport to pick us up. I was not only anxious about meeting them because of the language-barrier that stood between us (at that point I spoke no German and my in-laws spoke very little English), but also because I wanted to make a good first impression on my new in-laws.

They were there when we exited customs and immediately A.’s mother kissed and embraced him. But when they turned to me we all shared an awkward pause. What should we do? How should we greet one another? True, we were technically family, but suddenly there was a cultural barrier between us.

As I stood there, I wondered exactly how one properly greets people in Germany and specifically, how one greets family members in Germany. Though I had been reading about Germany from the time that A. and I decided that was where our future was, I had done very little research on cultural interaction.

However, from the looks on their faces, my in-laws must have been thinking about how one greets an American family member and were just as puzzled as I was about the best way to welcome me to Germany.

If I got off a plane in America and stepped into the company of my family, we would first smile at one another, hug, and immediately begin chatting. If I was meeting in-laws for the first time in America we might shake hands, but then again we might not. It is quite possible that we would just smile and nod at one another before saying, “How do you do?”

Nevertheless, I had been abroad before and knew that, at least in France, people tended to be less contact-shy than Americans and that a standard greeting involved cheek-to-cheek contact and air kissing. I was always a bit uncomfortable with this, not only because I was never sure about how many times I was supposed to “kiss,” but because it just goes against my nature.

As I pondered what an appropriate German greeting might be, my sister-in-law suddenly stepped forward. I feebly attempted to hug her, but she clasped my upper arms in what felt like a vice-like grip. She then placed her cheek against mine and lip-smacked the air. Before I could even pretend that I was returning her greeting, she did the other side and released me. With that action, the dam was broken and I was immediately the recipient of no less than six more Küsschen.

By the time my brother-in-law approached me, I was prepared to kiss his cheek and greet him properly. Imagine my relief when he shook my hand instead!