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.