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.