Still not dead

[theweaselking]

...although I'm definitely too old to be hanging around with the current crowd.

Still can't make MY PC talk to the network. I think my PC is stupid.

Why am I the only person impressed by buildings older than, say, THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE? "No, you don't get it. This building was standing here when Cromwell killed King Charles, and when the Borgias held the Papacy, and when Constantinople was sacked!" "Who? What? Where?"

I hates them. I hates them, my precious.

Have more pictures. Have much more snark recorded on laptop. Will share both as soon as possible.

Mmmm, currywurst. Sausage and curry together.

Comments

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

Yum!

Are you having it with rote-weiße?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Since I'm not sure what that is, I bet my answer should be "No".

I'm consistenly amazed by how much I can read of menus and signs, and of how much I am MISSING by not knowing a single word, or not being able to parse a set of conjunctions. Don't even get me started on deciphering native Germans speaking to each other - if I catch one word in five, I'm doing well, and they're probably talking about me or what I'm doing right at that point.

But yeah. Dinner at a Bonn brewpub, which was currywurst (German sausage, with Madras curry and ketchup sauce) with handmade fries a big bowl of largely inedible Krausalat.

I don't get coleslaw. I never have understood it - cabbage is bad enough on it's own without adding mayo. Eww! It's just got no attractive qualities.

I have new souvenirs that go PING. It's great, even if I can't play with them without annoying everyone around me.

[waterspyder.livejournal.com]

Sorry I missed you earlier, I was taking a nap.

Glad you're having a good time, aside from enduring 16-year-olds.

[missysedai.livejournal.com]

I used to go into Stadtzentrum in Altena to a Bulettenrude (a sort of snack stand, but you could get decent meals, too) for Currywurst. The guy at the counter would always ask if I wanted rote-weiße, and eventually I said sure, why not.

Hand cut french fries, salt, mayonaisse and ketchup. Thought I was going to die of disgust when he handed it over, but it's actually quite delicious. German mayo is nothing like the stuff I get at home, unless I make mine from scratch. As for Krautsalat, well...I'm a proper German girl, so I love the stuff. I miss my Omichen's homemade sauerkraut.

Most Germans are thrilled to bits to speak English with you especially if you're making an effort to learn a little German, so if you get stuck, just ask someone "Sprechen Sie Englisch? Ich brauche Hilfe." (Do you speak english? I need help.) It's rare that someone would refuse.

It sounds like you're having a good time of it, which makes me insanely happy. I miss Deutschland terribly, I've been ridiculously homesick for the place for nearly 20 years. The first thing I'm going to do when the kids are out of the house and I have a little disposable cash again is go back and stay for a month. It's a beautiful country and the people by and large are among the warmest and most welcoming I've ever encountered.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I've been working pretty well with the standard greetings, some parts of the phrase book, and "Mein Deutsch ist schrecklich. Sprechen sie Englisch? Nein? Sprechen sie Franzosich?" when I get in trouble.

With the appropriate pauses for response, when necessary.

Oddly enough, Dutch people keep stopping me to ask me for directions.

[cmseward.livejournal.com]

I've been asked for directions in both Amsterdam and Paris (in Dutch and French, respectively). Either I look like I'm friendly and know where I'm going, or I have a generic face that looks local everywhere I've been.

I'm with you on the old building thing, too.

[harald387.livejournal.com]

I hates them. I hates them, my precious.

My brain initially said 'Awww. Poor John!'

Then I remembered that you're IN FUCKING GERMANY.

No sympathy for you.

-K

[culfinriel.livejournal.com]

So mentioning Istanbul probably wouldn't help them any?

[waterspyder.livejournal.com]

sometimes singing the song helps people's memories

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

No, you're not the only one who is impressed by that. Looking at the bathhouses and the Porta Nigra in Trier really kind of puts you in your place as a citizen of a 230-year-old country.

You need to get a Donner Kebap. I ate those things pretty much every day. Oh, and Mueller Milch, the drink that drinks like a meal.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

139 year old country, actually. We're all Canadians.

But I've been eating my way around. Some of the students keep going for "traditional German food" in the form of Pizza Hut, McDonalds and Subway. They're tickled pink at the idea of getting beer at any of those.

Me, I've been eating a lot of meat and potatoes and gravy.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

I was talking about my experience with the 230-year thing. I've been to Germany three times: a month in '92, a month in January of '96, and four months (September-December) later on in '96. It was on the last trip that I went to Trier and saw the Porta Nigra and bathhouses.

As far as food goes, I always mixed it up. While it's nice to eat the traditional German food, it's also nice to get something fast that you know and get back out in the streets to see things. Donner, though. Can't stress it enough. You want one. Badly.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

He should drag the hateable others along with him to get one. They could all get one, and then they could have...

...I'm sorry. I just can't make the joke.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's bad. I think if you lived any closer to me I'd actually drive to your house to slap you for that one. =P

[jerril]

We actually have a lot of Donner around here (although they spell it Donnair). I"ve not had it on a stick (which the locals spell kebab, usually) before, but in a pita fairly regularly. And with lots of tzatziki sauce mmmm. Garlicky.

[eididdy.livejournal.com]

When I had it, it was on a roll that looked like a cross between a pita and an english muffin with a cucumber sauce, lettuce and a hot pepper (which I normally avoid like my life depended on it). It was definitely called Donner Kebap though. At least it was in Bayreuth.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Foudn a place in Cologne that sells them, today, just like you said: Yeah, it's "donair". Lebanese food, available all over the place in Canada.

Still an awesome idea, though. I stopped there and had lunch with a random Australian I met at the top of the Cologne Cathedral belltower.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Because they're young and foolish.

Luck on the connections. Currywurst sounds vile, but I said that about peanut butter and bacon sandwiches, too.

[wyatt1048.livejournal.com]

When I was younger, on a sunday afternoon, my family would (when it wasn't raining) take the dog for a walk to the iron age burial mounds over the fields. I guess you end up with a different attitude towards history when you can find roman coins in a freshly ploughed field, and coming across a stretch of land without legends and history is rare than when you have a few centuries of (recorded) history spread over a continent.

Time and distance are related: in Europe, you can travel hundred of years in a few miles, and in the Americas, you have to travel hundreds of miles to go back a few years.

[matgb]

Well, I grew up in a country with lots of old buildings. Which is why when I go away on holiday, I like to go to places like Greece and Italy, to see even older buildings.

Remember, Munich was little more than a village in the Thirty Years War, although the Bavarians don't like to be reminded of that.

Was wondering where you'd got to, must've missed the "I've gone away" messages.