Porsche. Photo: Flickr (cc) Jaritapower

„Nikki!“ Janet called up the stairs. “I’d like to speak to you in my office.”

I had been living in Germany for a few weeks now, in an enormous house in the Frankfurt Nordend.  Au pairing had been going well so far, but “I’d like to see you in my office” sounds dubious no matter the language.  I walked down the stairs, wracking my brain for what I could have done wrong, paranoia filling my stomach.

In the office sat Mr. Jens, the children’s father, and Janet sat behind her desk.  I looked frantically from face to face.

“Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” Mr. Jens said.  “I just figured it’s about time to go driving.”

Lego Brick. Photo: Flickr (cc) Windell H. Oskay, www.evilmadscientist.com

The stereotype that Germans are particularly efficient might be mostly myth, but what truth there is to the stereotype is evident in the language.

In German you can string any number of words together to make new words.  Why make up a whole new word when you can put two words together to articulate the same point?  While English grammar is obsessed with communicating things in extreme detail, with a new word for every object or concept or idea, German grammar saves time with a plethora of compound words that make learning German all the easier for the newbie.  Less vocabulary to learn.  More time to drink frothy beer.

I got to reflecting the other day about what a tragic generation we are, we post generation-X-ers. After all, generation X was already bad enough, mired in a post-ideological, post-modern world of meaningless as they were; and we’ve sunk even lower. So low that, as far as I can tell, there is not even extreme cultural skepticism, heavy drug-use and Nirvana to bind as any more. Not only are there no more big ideas left, there’s not even the unifying recognition of this crushing fact.

Traditional German "Imbissbude" (Flickr: threedots)

No, all we have left, I thought, as I overheard Americans and Germans talking in the U-Bahn, are industrially mass-produced snacks. Get together a group of international students in Hamburg forty years ago and they’d have started debating the Cold War and exchanging tips about underground rock-music before they even knew each others names.

Rensing claws the ball off the line. Replays showed it should have been given a goal. Photo: picture alliance/M.i.s. Sportspressfoto

Die-hard football fans dread the summer break. It’s a strange two and a half month period with one barren weekend following the next. Obsessive followers check the transfer rumors several times a day and fans throughout the world tinker with their fantasy teams non-stop. But really it’s all just a way of making the time go by more quickly. Being prepared for that moment: The new season, full of hopes and dreams.

Andrew at Tacheles. Photo: Andrew

I am now writing my thesis, and what better way to proceed than taking a break in between? It was a coincidence that we traveled from the capital of then West Germany (Bonn) to Berlin which is now the capital of unified Germany. My first time in Berlin last March was marked by helping out a friend move in, and of course, taking the touristy route. This time, I spent the first day touring the city with my Ozzie. The days after were dedicated to discovering more of the city and its history.

Home. Photocase.com/eyelab/rene

My first visa—that is the “you’re legally allowed to stay in this foreign country kind,” not the platinum kind—in Germany was so easy, I barely noticed it was happening.

Janet, my host mother, and my boss when it came to au pairing, drove me around the city so that we could collect all the paperwork we needed.  She’d already arranged for my health insurance, the paperwork for which we filled out at home and mailed off.  Once the company confirmed that I was insured, we had the first bit of paper that we’d need to convince the German government that I was legit.