Having been here for just over two months -- and for the most part loving it -- a few things still stand out to me as being foreign. Of course, the irony is that I'm the foreigner, observing the country while living within it. I must point out that this list is in no way comprehensive... Rather the opposite, in fact: it's totally off the top of my head. I'll probably spend the next two weeks adding to it.
- Mullets. Ok, this one REALLY deserves a blog entry of its very own. But seriously, who let the mullet out of fashion purgatory and back into the mainstream here? A hair salon could probably just print out a few pages from ILoveMullets.com and use that as their fashion catalog. More to come on this topic once I've gathered sufficient photographic evidence to make my point. I went out mullet-hunting with my telephoto lens a few weeks ago, but being the distracted individual that I am, ended up spending the afternoon taking pictures of ducks instead.
- Smart Buildings. The buildings here are seriously smart. Lots of windows -- lights only come on when they need to, windows automatically open and close as needed for temperature control, and the shades and blinds open and shut as necessary to have enough -- but not too much! -- light. Nice. It's too bad most builders in the US find it more profitable to shave a few dollars from each room by eliminating even motion sensors for lighting.... But Germany is a capitalist society too -- so why did it make sense here but not there? Was it a sense of social responsibility? Don't get me started on that -- you do know what industry I work in, right?
- Drinking Implements. Does human physiology differ so much between Germany and the States that you actually need to drink less as a European? Judging from the relative scale of all things drink related here, it seems so! I find myself perpetually dehydrated, as I'm not proactive enough to get up and refill my glass every 90 seconds. Note that there is a big, fat, blinking-in-bold-red-letters exception for beer, which tends to be consumed in units ranging from a half to a full liter at a time. Check out the irony there, though. You can dehydrate yourself by drinking three liters of beer in a night, then come home and have to drink 83 thimblefull- er, I mean european glasses of water to rehydrate. And don't even get me started on how slowly the juice and milk containers pour! (the never ending debate: do I squeeze the container while it pours to make it go faster but spray everywhere, or sit here and wait while it dribbles out into my thimbl- er, glass?).
- Radio in the car. I wrote about this before, but it strikes me every day on the way to work: German radio stations are engineered specifically to sound good in German cars. I've heard a German station in a non-German car (say, an Opel), and I've heard plenty of non-German stations in German cars while driving our test fleet back in the States. It just works here. Take the tunes and throw in some German autobahn driving (even if it is rush hour on the A81), and you have one happy Chris. Side-note: San Francisco has one of the best dance music stations in the country, and I was lucky enough to land in a German city with one of the best dance/house stations in Germany. Sunshine Live makes the commute go fast -- literally and perceptually!
- Perceptions of Americans. This one's no surprise, although I almost feel like the negative feelings and perceptions are dissipating a little bit -- at least compared to the dark years following 9/11. A friend here mentioned a funny story that sums up that desperate feeling you get when talking to Europeans about American politics. It's funny how much street cred one can pick up by talking having helped on the Kerry campaign (more effectively described as the "campaign against Bush.") Instant friends, I'm telling you.
- Diesels. They're everywhere! I have a Mercedes A-Class diesel as my rental car this month (I'll roll the dice again and get a different car next week). It is, objectively speaking, a small car -- especially when considered on the scale of cars in the States. That's why it STILL gets me every time I turn the key and it sounds like I've just fired up a Quad-cab Super-Duty Extended-Bed F-350 Turbo Diesel Dualie (... you get the idea). This thing is LOUD! Of course, the response this triggers in me, the American, is an urge to go out and buy a boat just so I can tow it. ;) Just kidding. You know I want a plane.
Enough with the list. Things are different here, but nearly universally different in fascinating (and sometimes fundamentally better) ways. Just kick my ass if I come home with a mullet.