Is the crust of bread the healthiest part of the loaf?

What I've realized as I've gotten older is that I've been dealt a pack of lies as I grew up.  One of those lies I was dealt was this one when I was in elementary school: "English is one of the hardest foreign languages to learn because it's full of complex rules and it often breaks those very same rules."  Now that I've met plenty of people from all over the world I've asked people if they thought English was hard to learn, and more often than not, they say, "Psh!  No!  English is easy!"  

For some reason this is a bit disheartening.  Maybe it was nice to know that you could do something that other people thought was hard.  Turns out it's more like me running the 200 meter dash in the inner most lane.  For some reason they put the slowest person on the inside.  Maybe it's so that I could think I was in first place.  In the first 100 meters I was always way ahead and I though, "I'm gonna win this!!"  But then everyone evens out, and I find out that I'm in last place.  Now that is a terrible feeling.  I whenever I got to that point, I always thought, "Why am I running this???  I'm a HIGH JUMPER for Pete's sake!"  Then I gave up, because it's not like I was going to get a second wind and come back in 100m.  I'm not fast... 

You know what isn't an easy language to learn?  German.  But that's not the topic of today's post. 

Another thing that I was told growing up was that the crust was the healthiest part of the bread.  You see some people don't like bread crust.  So they cut it off.  I wasn't one of those.  You didn't have to convince me to eat the crust.  I'm generally very hungry, so I devour the food in front of me whatever it is.  Unless it's french fries without ketchup; I need ketchup with my fries.   And no, I will not eat my fries with mayonnaise despite what these Europeans think.  Although I do like the curry ketchup.  And people keep telling me about this joppiesaus that I gotta try.  

Other kids I knew, however, had to be convinced to eat the crust, and for some reason, parents or teachers or whoever it was shaping our young minds, decided that the best argument was to tell us that the crust was the healthiest part of the loaf.  Of course after we learned that it was the opposite problem.  My buddies and I were sneaking into the bread cabinet rather than the cookie jar.  We were like a wild pack of Tasmanian devils  devouring just the crust and leaving the bread behind like the bones of our prey.  "We've gotta prevent cancer guys!"

So today, I was thinking about this as I was eating a delicious piece of vollkornbrot with Nutella.  I'll take a second to note: there are a couple things that I am on board with here in Germany.  One is Nutella*.  It's delicious.  Plus some things are hard or expensive to get here - things like peanut butter or maple syrup - and Nutella is a fine** substitute.  Another thing is Germany's bread.  They got this bread thing down.  German's rave about it.  They keep on talking about how Germany has such good bread, and how there are more than 500 types and so on.  For the most part, I would say that Germans are quite modest.  I haven't heard them brag about how good they are at Fußball*** even though their history in the World Cup is incredible (if you haven't heard… they won it last year).  But there are some things that they are proud of, and one of those things is bread.  It's somewhere behind the pride they have of their beer**** (that's a whole other topic).   So I've been exploring the different breads, and I've been quite impressed... Me and my buddy Alex rave about the Zwiebelbrot.

Anyway, as I was eating my bread with Nutella, I thought to myself, why would the crust of the bread be the healthiest part of the bread?  It's all the same ingredients isn't it?  To me it didn't make sense. So I consulted the internet.  And as it turns out it is true!  Turns out that some German research company did some study to find out that it has health benefits.  I'll let you do your own research, but I was relieved to find that everything I had learned growing up wasn't a lie.  Whew!  That could have been world shattering.

I don't get it though.  What is it with people that cut off the bread crust?  I really don't get it.  In fact, I think it's ridiculous.  It's why I didn't like Walter White right from the start of Breaking Bad.  In one of the first episodes he cuts off his bread crust.  What is that?  And then he has this connection with this meth dealer because this meth dealer doesn't like bread crust either?  Think about it for a second... this dealer is locked in a basement and is starving, and he can't eat the crust?  I mean really?  That's wasted food.  Forget the health benefits!  That's food right there… and you're too picky to eat the crust?  I decided right then and there that the story line was completely implausible. 

Side Stories that may or may not be relevant to anything:

*Invented during WWII by an Italian to ration the chocolate.  True story. 

**You have to say "fine" with emphasis: Imagine a really cute girl walking past and say, "Damn that girl is fine."  That's perfect.  Don't say it like you are answering the question of how you liked The Hobbit, which would be: "Eh, it was fine"  If you need an example, Brad Pitt says it in Inglorious Bastards:  "That's a FINE deal." 

*** Pronounced "foosball".  And no I don't mean the table game that we call foosball.  They call that kicker.  I'm talking about soccer.  But they are really good at kicker too.  I used to think I was ok at kicker, it turns out I am not good.  There is a whole new level of kicker over here.  I saw a guy practicing (practicing!!! Who practices foosball?  At a bar no less) and I was like, "Oh hey!  Möchtest du spielen?"  And he shrugged his solders, and was like "ok".  I think he knew he was going to destroy me.  And he did.  I got destroyed.  I now have no confidence in my foosball skills.

****American beer is better… (this statement will probably get more attention than the rest of the post :)  I can hear it now, "What do you mean American beer is better?"  "Amerikanisches Bier ist Pissen"  "What, you like Bud Light?"  Then they laugh at me and call me names… they are a bunch of bullies when it comes to beer ;)

How is it living in Germany? Take 2.

I want to start by saying that on the last post, I titled it before I wrote the post.  Now… that seemed like a good idea at the time.  But as it turns out… I didn't write much about how it is living in Germany.  That could be a problem… or I could just let it roll.  I'm going to let it roll.  Like a football rolling down a hill (not a soccer ball… an American football*), I tend to not go in a straight line.  I may jump around wildly from topic to topic.  Or I may not.  One could never know for sure on the outset of the post.  That's why it was a bad idea to title the post before I wrote it.  However, I'm going to turn it into a good thing!  Check it.  In the title, I'm going to ask a question of myself, or make a statement, or something.  And in the post I am going to do my best to answer it, defend it, and/or convince you of it.  So today, we're doing Take 2 on how it is living in Germany.    

Speaking of titles.  That reminds me of something**.  However, it doesn't fit very well into the flow of the post, which I know isn't very flowy, but I'm going to leave it in in any case.  However, but I'm not going to leave it in the main post.  I'm gonna do a side post.  A side post that I call Side Stories that may or may not be relevant to anything.  Check it out at the bottom.

The question in the title is very broad.  How do I answer that!?  I get asked it all the time.  "It's good… the weather is rainy sometimes, but I like it."  That's pretty much the answer I give.  It sucks and it's boring, I know.  I think I can do better.  And today I will. 

Germany.  It is indeed good.  I like living here.  There are good things and bad things.  Well maybe not bad things.  Bad sounds a bit strong.  Good things and not as good things.     Well that's not strong enough.  Good things and… no wait.  Let's go back and just say great, good, neutral, bad, and ganz schlecht. I mentioned weather already, so I will put that in the "good" column.  It's different, no doubt about that.  See, I come from Moorehad, Minnesota*** which is brass monkeys in the winter reaching temperatures of really cold and really really cold (like freeze your tits off cold), and temperatures of really hot in the summer.  I once played tennis in 120 degrees F (and humidity of like 200%... I might as well have been swimming).  Don't understand Fahrenheit?  Google it.  That's what I have to do cause everything is in Celsius here (good column… Fahrenheit**** is stupid… and Metric system goes in the good column too).  But it didn't rain all the time back home.  Which was a plus for Moorhead, and a minus for Aachen.  When I first moved here I was taking an umbrella out every time it started to sprinkle.  I would see people riding their bikes in the rain and think they were crazy, or at least I thought it sucked.  The first two weeks I was here I think it rained every day.  I was thinking to myself, "Great.  This is what I have to live in for the next two years?"  My dad and brother Tom came to visit me and I told them to bring an umbrella cause it would rain for sure!  But then it didn't rain the whole time they were here.  You guys got lucky!  Don't expect that every time!  Now, however, the rain doesn't bother me much.  You just get used to it.  Although, I did just bike home in the hail, and that was not ideal to say the least.  It kinda hurt actually.  

I like how people take advantage of a nice day here.  I often see people out playing Frisbee on a nice day, sitting in the park, running, I once saw a man and woman on a bike ride with a kid being pulled from behind on what I thought was a very cold day (remember where I'm from... if I say it was cold then it was.  You don't get to argue).  I don't recall often seeing that often in the US.  I think people are more active here (goes in the great column). 

Sundays everything is closed (good/bad).  People relax more, but it's a pain to find a place to eat or if you need to go to the supermarket you can forget it on Sundays and holidays.  Or you can bike to the Netherlands, which I do basically weekly to get some goods (I'll tell you about those later).  I had a plate of rice for supper yesterday with a cherry tomato on top cause I didn't have any food.  

Using cash is new… I'll put that in the bad column.  I'll tell you sometime about how I was swindled out of 100 Euro in Paris sometime.  

Girls are pretty (great column), but as far as Aachen goes, there aren't enough of them (ganz schlecht), and too many are taken*****.  

The University system is way different.  (not bad or good... just different... more later).  

Food goes in the bad column, I miss Mexican food, but if you are here, try the pork knuckle. 

And you should ask my friend, Whitney, about the vacation time here… it's unreal. 

Side Stories that may or may not be relevant to anything:

*For those who have never seen a football roll down a hill, I have another simile or two to help you out.  It's a lot like Alice wandering through her wonderland, like an antelope running for its life from a cheetah, or a humming bird jerking here and there, or like a box of chocolates, you don't know what… well I think you get the point.

**In my Deutsch Sprachkurs, we would have to read a paragraph about something, and then determine the title from a list of multiple choice answers.  Who would have thought that my language course could have been so practical!?

***Where is that?  It's on the boarder of ND and MN, next to Fargo.  Like Fargo the movie?!  Yes.  Like Fargo the movie.  Was that movie really based in Fargo?  No, it was based in Brainerd, MN.  Have you seen it?  Nope.  You gotta see it!  Do I?   - this is an example of typical conversation when I am asked where I am from-

****Herr Fahrenheit, so I've heard, came up with the scale by taking the temp of Frau Fahrenheit and calling that 100, and then taking the freezing point of salt water and calling that 0.  Dumb if you ask me.  He was German though, go figure.  Why is the US the only one that got conned to use it?

*****I have more than a couple stories on this topic, but yet another story for another time.  Oh, and I might as well put that in the "ganz schlecht" column while I'm at it.

How is it living in Germany?

It's been about 6.5 months since I moved to Germany.  Let's go back.  Back to the point where I was like, "How can I get to Germany?"  That started after my cousin, Andrew, moved here.  I decided that the way I would get here was through school.  I might was well take time to answer the most common question I get.  Why come to school in Germany?

Well that's a good question.  I can get it down to 4 quick sentences.  The school is cheap.  Work gets boring, and I have focus problems.  My cousin lives here.  And I want to get a master's degree without taking out a loan. Of course there is more to it, but that's the short and skinny. 

So, I was saying that I was going to go to school in Deutschland.  Well, as it were, I couldn't speak any German.  In fact, shortly after I decided to apply to school in Germany, I could not count to 2.  I think I could count to 1… but before Christmas of 2012, I couldn't count to 1. 

What happened around Christmas of 2012 you ask?  Well I might as well tell you right?  This is, in fact, Honest Insights from Brian… and my honest insights are less insights as much as my random thoughts. 

In 2012, I was on an Island called Ilha Grande with my two brothers, Tom and Kevin, and my Dad, who I refer to as "padre."  You see, our plane crashed, and we were alone on this Ilha Grande for 5 days… na na, I'm just kidding, it was a tourist destination and there were other people there.  Namely some Germans.  One morning, one of the German girls (a cute blond one at that) went up to the cakes that were out for breakfast and she looked back at her friends at the table, and asked, "Eins?"  Now my Brother Tom was living in Brazil for 6 months and he happened to live with a couple Germans.  Those Germans either tried to teach Tom to count, or Tom heard them speaking German and tried to learn to count based on that.  So, Tom, with his newly learned German, turns to us excitedly, like he is going to teach us something new, and says, "Oh, I know this word… it's 'seven'!"  The German girl, bless her heart, turned to Tom, smiled, and said, "Good!"  And Tom, still as excited as a puppy, says, "was I right?!"  And she, still smiling, says, "No, it's one."  Tom, obviously disappointed in his German speaking abilities, despite living in Brazil for 6 months, exclaims,  "Oh man!  I guess that makes sense… who would want SEVEN cakes!?" 

But here is the point:  I couldn't have guessed that eins meant one in 2012.  But the good news is that I think that I think I could honestly say that my German has been improving exponentially.  By December of 2013 I could count to at least 10, because after 10 days here visiting Andrew I picked up numbers 0-9 at the airport.  And I think I knew Rechts and Links because they always say on the trains, "Aufstieg in Fahrtrightung Rechts/Links."  And now… I think I can modestly say that I know at least 6 or 7 more words.

So anyway, I decided that I was going to go to Germany.  I like how I gave a 4 sentence answer to a serious question that I get at least weekly here, but then I take two long paragraphs to say that before I decided to come to Germany I didn't speak any German.  Haha.  Ridiculous.  No one is going to read this blog.  But I still have so many serious things to talk about like: more people die per year from cows than from sharks!  You see, I find it important to get an idea of your surroundings, you can't be too careful.  So I asked the indigenous people of Germany (or maybe they were Norwegian, I met a lot of Norwegians right away), "Is there any dangerous animals in Germany?  Poisonous spiders, snakes, bears, wolves, aligators, anything?  And they said, "We have cows!"  They proceeded to tell me that more people die each year from cows than from sharks.  That's great!  Now I have a cow-phobia.  I wonder if that is a thing.  I'm going to look it up.  Stay tuned….  According to an answer form that I found, there is no "clinical" name for it., which disappointed the person who posed the question who said, "dont think it exists...which is stupid coz there are alot of us."  Damn right there are lots of us!  It's a real thing, and we are not alone… and it's not for no good reason either!  Cows are probably out their disguising themselves as harmless sharks taking human lives!  And what are we to do?  Stand by and watch them do this?  They cannot do this to us!  Don't any of you see it!?  Cows are out there to take us off the planet and while we sit here watching the wheels go round!  Before you go to bed at night, check and see that your doors are locked, because you never know… that one night you don't check, there might be a cow out there in sheep's clothing waiting to off you.  Word to the wise:  Watch your back when there are cows around.

Oh… and living in Germany is good.

Honest insights from Brian

I figure that it might be time to start a blog.  Why?  I donno.  About what?  I guess just my random thoughts on random topics as I randomly go throughout life.  

Now.  A couple things at the onset. 

I thought about calling this "Life lessons with Brian."  I used to go on rants with close friends or family and I would call it "Life Lessons with Brian."  However, I can't guarantee that everything I say will be a lesson, and thus the word insights.  That's the beauty of that word.  It's just a "sight in" to my random thoughts.  No promises… no commitment… and that's the way I like it. 

If you are looking for intelligent insights, then you're barking up the wrong tree.  I'm not in the business of giving intelligent insights (that being said… if you are interested… we can talk business and rates… cause I got all kinds of good ideas!). 

This is more of an informal thing.  I'm not going to try and sound smarter than what I am, by looking up complicated words.  To try and fool you would be insulting your intelligence.  You're getting the plain and simple "Brian talk." 

You might have to suffer through some analogies, metaphors, or similes.  And I don't generally filter that.  You may hear some things, and ask yourself, "Do people say that?"  No.  They probably don't… but I do.  Why you ask?...  Oh… you didn’t?  Good cause I don't know. 

I may rant.  It's what I do.  It gets me into trouble sometimes.  Sometimes it's funny… sometimes its serious.  Sometimes it's serious but also funny, and sometimes it's seriously funny.  I may rant about strange things like how Europeans eat their Pommes with mayonnaise (what are Pommes you ask?  French fries…. You may also have to suffer some Deutsche Sprache now and again).  I may rant about double doors in Germany.  I may rant about other people ranting.  I probably won't rant about religion or politics, but I can't guarantee I won't.  I can, however, guarantee that it will be honest (not intelligent) insights.     

The reason I decided to do this was I wanted to write down some of my thoughts as I am living in Germany.  I make observations, and I usually let these observations fly out of my mouth with my friends here in Germany, and I think they are getting sick of it.  If you asked them how many times I've complained about ketchup and double doors, the number would probably be close to 10 (probably more… it might come up daily… don't get me started on double doors).  They roll their eyes every time I bring it up.  Anyway, that's what this blog is supposed to be… my random observations about random things that may or may not have anything to do with Germany.

Grammar.  If you are expecting good grammar… then you got another thing coming.  I ain't gonna talk proper fo nobody! And that includes German if I happen to write in German.  However, I will guarantee that in German I will try a lot harder to do it right :)  And I don't like proof reading my own writing.  I can barely read as it is.

I may sparse in some smiley faces here and there.  Don't like it?  Tough break.  Maybe I will just put a smiley that I am thinking of in words in parenthesis (left eyebrow raised and intense glance (followed by: wink( followed by: :) ).  Maybe not…

I'll try and keep the length to one page.  Longer than that would be ridiculous (you know I always spell that word wrong; I feel like it should be rediculous).<--could someone please tell me if that period should go before or after the parenthesis?  Or what about when you have quotes like: he said, "hey there."  I think it goes inside all the time.  I argued about this with an Italian friend of mine (and he eventually conceded because I fooled him into thinking that I had good grammar… haha! Sucker!!!

Ok.  That is enough intro, plus my page is basically finished.  Stay tuned for the next installment of Brian's Intelligent… oops! I mean Honest Insights from Brian.