3 Jahre unter den Deutschen: Ein Rückblick

The 5th of September marks 3 years, to the day, since arriving with a planeload of huddled masses young Germans returning from their New York City vacations at Berlin's golden doors  Tegel Airport. So I thought this seemed as good an occasion as any to ease myself back into writing after a summer that saw me accomplish very little, thanks to a sneakily depressive inability to focus on much of anything for longer than 10 minutes. Alas. We can call this piece a review, an integration-check, or, perhaps more to the point, a "please, sweet Jesus, don't let me sound like that douchey American dude I overheard at a bar the other night whose accent was all fucked up from spending too much time abroad! Or wait, maybe he was just Canadian.." Yeah, let's go with that. It also serves as a bit of a debriefing after the reverse culture clash of spending six weeks back in the US this spring. Enjoy.

Despite Berlin's hype as some cosmopolitan super hipster Williamsburg-an-der-Spree, in the end, Berlin is in Germany and the culture, attitudes, expectations, institutions, popular knowledge, etc. that make up and shape everyday life are different from those I grew up with. Not like, Kabul or Pyongyang different, mind you, but still. Living in that for three years has to have had some appreciable affect on how I speak (even in English), how I interact with other people, my expectations, my points of reference, and the way I think. As I realized while having a long talk with a friend last week: I actually have no American friends, or even middlingly familiar American acquaintances, here, at all. Vielleicht soll ich doch mit dem ganzen Ami-scheiß aufhören und mich ab jetzt Flori-fabi-christi-an nennen!? Nee, lieber nicht. It's not like I've made a conscious effort to avoid Americans. Not at all, honestly! I'm over the pretentious Andy-circa-2007 "I did study abroad and most of my new friends weren't other Americans doing study abroad, so look at me amn't I great" stage. That's stupid, because, you know, there are some pretty OK Amis. But perhaps this is a topic better explored in depth in another post. Bottom line: immersed in a new culture, one changes. I've changed, too.

So here are a couple random thoughts, compiled into listicles, sans GIFs, to explore.

Nowadays, I:
- Can't start a beer without cheers'ing - it feels wrong. Though that 7 years bad sex thing is bullshit.
- Can recognize a good proportion of the German men's national soccer team on sight. Oh, Per, why'd you have to go?
- Can go days at a time without encountering a German word or expression I'm unfamiliar with. (!!!)
- Think Obama sucks, but not for the reasons most Americans who thinks he sucks do so.
- Think Germany is shitty, but then secretly think Germany is actually pretty good in a lot of ways. Which seems to me to be a really common German trait. Taken to its extreme, however, this Heimatszwiespältigkeitsgruppenonanie (I coin this word!) results in proclamations of Deutschland being so Kacke and how you just think of yourself as European, really... and then later you join in smug comment rounds on articles from the US about kids shooting their machine gun instructors in the head by accident and isn't that just typical stupid Amis and that would never happen here, we're just so enlightened, smug smug smug wank wank wank. Bastards.
- Notice how loud groups of Americans sound in public places.
- Don't find, for example, frank discussions of society's treatment of pedophiles at a dinner with people I've just met to be at all a surprising topic of conversation. Ditto for other topics like politics, religion, social issues etc. that are deemed "not polite conversation" by a lot of people back "home". Ok, so the Germans don't smile and act like it's amazing to meet you right away, but they don't hold back on the sharing once you get them going.
- Have a far greater attention span in conversations, and give others a lot more time to make complicated points. The 6 weeks in the US this spring drove home to me how much of conversation there consists of people shooting off 20-second soundbites and then cutting you off if you go "over time"...
- Both talk and think far, far less about carbs and calories because they're simply not things people talk about here. They talk about how best to "nourish oneself"/ "sich ernähren" instead. You Americans can continue keeping those calorie demons in the hole, though. As you wish.

- Do not support blanket bans on smoking in public places/all bars. Get a grip, people. And bring on marijuana legalization, Dland! And public drinking everywhere, America!
- Unintentionally (as in, not for humorous purposes) come out with bizarre constructions like "I already three years ago.." in English. Slap me when I do this, please.
- Am blunt and slightly sharp right back to people when they're that way with me. Here, bizarrely, it results in the interaction becoming friendlier, rather than escalating it into greater tension. Berlin, wa?

Yet, I still:

- Can't bring myself to wish people "Guten Appetit" before they start eating. It's just silly. Dig the fuck in, I'm sure your appetite doesn't need my verbal encouragement.
- Insist on speaking English most of the time when I'm one-on-one with my closest friends because I'm wittier in English. Sorry. It's objectively just a funnier language. (I'm also lazy.)
- Immediately pretend I can't understand German when encountering crazy people/ticket checkers/the police/anyone where feigning ignorance might help me get out of the situation on a slightly better footing than otherwise would be the case.
- Can't understand why they can't figure out a fairer way to spread out the cost of the public broadcasters.
- Ditto on the weird health care setup. The NHS makes more sense.
- Prefer cake that is mostly cake, and not a half inch of cake topped by fruit suspended in weird gelatinous sugar, topped by pudding, topped by whipped cream. That's like, a trifle or some shit.
- Probably still talk as loudly as those groups of Americans in public.
- Always forget that using the words Jew/Jews/Jewish makes everyone really uncomfortable. Not because they're anti-semitic, but because they're really scared of sounding anti-semitic. Chill kids, it's not your fault your grandparents/great grandparents became banally murderous psychos for 13 years.
- Have no patience for this natural/homeopathic/herbal stuff. Load me up on ibuprofen and give me those drugs that may or may not be shown to cause birth defects a few years from now. At least they work. Organic food, on the other hand, I can deal with.
- Refuse to drink a G&T with lemon. Give me limes, or give me death! (Or a different drink.)