51–60 of 543 posts
Congratulations on becoming a citizen! It’s funny how being an outsider lets you see all the amazing things that locals take for granted.
The first time I was in Berlin I had to take a bus. It was just leaving the stop as I was getting there, but stopped at the next red light. So I ran to the bus and knocked on the door. The driver looked at me with a concerned look to see if something was wrong, and once he understood I was just asking to come onboard outside of the regular stop, he laughed. Not ironically or in a mean way: it was a genuine laugh like…
I too am French and I’m more puzzled by you than by the driver. Am I secretly German?
Ah, he really became german. (It seems I ain't anymore by that standard - when there are no cars, of course I go.)
The first time I was in Berlin I had to take a bus. It was just leaving the stop as I was getting there, but stopped at the next red light. So I ran to the bus and knocked on the door. The driver looked at me with a concerned look to see if something was wrong, and once he understood I was just asking to come onboard outside of the regular stop, he laughed. Not ironically or in a mean way: it was a genuine laugh like…
What a nice and heartwarming read! I'm german, and really hope we can pivot away from the rise of the far right. How that can be done, I don't know. I just hope we can do so before we start scaring away people like him who would otherwise come here, decide they like it, become germans, and end up making it a better place for everyone. (Part of it is I think we should make it easier and more incentivized to learn the…
> It shouldn't be too hard for the gov to commission a RosettaStone like german learning app ((suboptimal, i know)) that works somewhat well and give it out for free, right?) Deutsche Welle (DW) is funded by German taxes and has materials for learning German: https://learngerman.dw.com/ as well as regular new materials aimed at learners, such as the news spoken slowly https://learngerman.dw.com/de/langsam-gesprochene…
Tagesschau also has a version in "simple German" and you can turn on subtitles: https://www.tagesschau.de/tagesschau_in_einfacher_sprache
Somewhere in the afterlife, Max Weber proudly sheds a tear of happiness while whispering "this guy gets it", hahaha (of course his whole philosophy depends on the rules being as fair as possible, and also that they are enforced uniformly and fairly, but let's not get too lost in the weeds here).
Anyway, lovely article and congrats on finding a place where you feel home!
On rules - they certainly create clarity and also have the potential to enable NPC like behaviour which is all too common. Since you mentioned Traffic Light Coalition, the chancellor Olaf Scholz (who is a lawyer and was also the ex-mayor of Hamburg) recently said in an interview “Germany was known to be a country of engineers, we are now a country of lawyers”. Hamburg along side with Munich is what Germany should loo…
Would you mind explaining this? What is NPC-like behaviour?
> I didn't hesitate to complain (with Lärmprotokoll) to my landlord. True Alman spottet. No loud noises on Sunday (mowing lawn, home renovations etc) I can get behind. But I truly don't get why Germans collectively dislikes shops being open on Sunday. If you ask into it, something about the fabric of the German family is at risk.
Other people have the right to rest on Sundays too, so you force as many activities to shutdown as possible to make it so.
I don't really agree with the rule, by the way. Same thing as (in my country) all schools closing the exact same weeks which causes terrible holiday peaks on a bunch of other activities. Something we're also timidly abandoning, to great results (IMO) but which is not a popular change.
The first time I was in Berlin I had to take a bus. It was just leaving the stop as I was getting there, but stopped at the next red light. So I ran to the bus and knocked on the door. The driver looked at me with a concerned look to see if something was wrong, and once he understood I was just asking to come onboard outside of the regular stop, he laughed. Not ironically or in a mean way: it was a genuine laugh like…
> Being French, I have a hard time understanding why you wouldn't. I too am French and I’m more puzzled by you than by the driver. Am I secretly German?
Probably.