Kultur 6

I am not one who normally follows the news, which is one of my many faults, but I do know that American tabloids are the worst resources if someone wants real news and not made-up garbage. That is why I find the Gild so interesting; it can give readers the best of journalism and gossip. I would never read it myself, but I can understand why it is so popular in Germany. Besides, having pictures of naked women will make anything popular. I am one of those people who becomes very timid when confronted with a closed door. I will sometimes stand there for a few minutes just contemplating on whether to knock or not. When I finally decide to knock, it tends to be a quite knock, as to not disturb the person inside. But I am all for knocking loudly and striding in confidently; it sure as hell saves time just standing there like a nervous schoolboy. Where I come from, recycling is not a big deal. There are recycling services available, but they cost more and most people do not bother. We do have 10¢ deposit for all bottles and cans that are either alcoholic beverages or carbonated soft drinks. I can not say I am surprised by all the recycling in Ann Arbor, but it is something I am getting used to. But Ann Arbor still does not compare to the amount of recycling done in Germany. I find it nuts, but also a good thing that other countries should be striving towards.

AMD 6

For this AMD I am going to right about our class trip to the Museum of Art. The whole trip was used as a good tool for us to practice speaking German with our new vocabulary. The trip started with us going into the gift shop and saying what things we could get people for Christmas. I said: "Ich schenke meiner Mutter diese Schüssel" and "Ich schenke meinem Vater diese Skulptur." This is good practice for using dative words. The next thing we did was go to room full of European art that was mostly from the Renaissance Era. Here we talked what kind of are we liked or disliked. For example, "Albrecht Dürer gefällt mir," or "Dieses gemälde gefällt mir nicht." Then we went up a level and looked at more paintings. One painting had 3 women looking at a sculpture of a woman. I made the comment, "Das Skulptur hat ein großen Hintern." Maybe not the most appropriate comment. We also saw some small dancing figures and practiced the body vocab. After this we went and saw a cool sculpture of female warrior made entirely of gun parts and bullet shells welded together. This was really cool and one example of modern that I can actually appreciate. Next was the main section of modern art, and "es gefällt mir nicht." "Ich verstehe moderne Kunst." Some pieces look cool, but seem so easy to do. One piece was just a bunch of random pieces of paper glued together making a mash of gunk. Another one looked like a giant piece of grey drywall, with a little line of paint on the side. Overall, it was a fun experience that helped me with my vocabulary, using the dative, and saying what I like and don't like.

Kultur 5

I relate to the "Entschuldigung" article because I always get tired of saying "excuse me" all the time. There have been numerous occasions of me being called a jerk or being accused of being rude. Of course I wasn't trying to be rude, I just didn't feel like saying telling them to excuse me since it would make no difference in the situation. The more I take this class and read these article, the more I feel like I should have been born in Germany. I just feel like my personality would fit better in that culture. This also goes with the flirting article because I don't know how to. I'm not so much like Germans where I just blankly stare, but I'm also not one to go over the top. The best I can do is hold a nice conversation.
I'm a little surprised of how sex is treated in Germany. I guess I'm just used to it being a taboo that you have to keep private. I have the mindset that I would be too embarrassed to enter a sex shop because I want to keep my sex life private. I do find it funny that the shops in Germany stick to regular business hours. I don't know exactly what kind of hours they have here, but I imagine that they are open more at night, similar to bars and clubs.
I have no idea what the clean bathroom article had to do with the romantic theme, but I think it's an excellent idea. People have to pay for food, drinks, energy, and most other necessities, so why not pay for the bathroom? Most public bathrooms, i.e. gas stations, are disgusting. It's left to the employees to clean, but they might not have time due to other responsibilities. I experienced this first hand while working at a gas station. People constantly used the bathroom, making messes, and leaving without paying for anything, then we had to go clean it up. Delegating someone to only focus on the bathroom is a great idea and would not only create jobs, but also provide extra income and clean bathrooms.

AMD 5

For this blog I found German dubbed Disney songs on YouTube. I did not need subtitles for this activity because I know all these songs by heart. One phrase I kept hearing was "Kannst du...?" from songs like "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" and "Colors of the Wind." I was confused during "Be Our Guest" because it sounded like he was saying "Sein Ihr Gast," which is translated to "Be your guest." I might have just heard him wrong. My favorite, though, would have to be "Du hast ein Freund in Mir." I might have said that wrong in German, but that's what I heard and I probably would have understood it even if I've never heard that song before. I then listened to "A Whole New World" and I did not recognize any phrases. The German title of the song, "In meiner Welt," does not make any sense to me because it means in my world. It was probably changed from a whole new world in order to fit the music. I liked that the German version of "Circle of Life" still used the original African audio since there is no reason to change it. As for the German lyrics, I could pick out a few words here and there but nothing significant, mostly conjunctions.

AMD 2

For this blog I decided to experience some German culture by drinking mineral water that I found in the German section at Meijer. The brand is Gerolsteiner and according to Google it is a leading brand for mineral water. As I type this I have not tried it yet and I want to first give some impressions of the label. First off, I'm a little disappointed that the label is printed in only English; I would have liked some German on it. This water sounds really healthy with all the minerals found in this water and the label really takes strides to talk about this. One thing I noticed that is a little different from American beverages is that the volume is listed in milliliters first (750 mL), and then it gives the volume in ounces. I am now ready to try this, but I am a little nervous because the last time I had carbonated water I almost puked. Here it goes...
...I do not like it. It is completely tasteless but is really carbonated. I was expecting there to be some flavor because of the minerals but there was absolutely nothing. I let my roommate try some and he said it is like drinking Sprite only without the lemon-lime flavor, and I agree. I am glad that I tried though, because I am not one to step out of my comfort zone and try new things. I also now know that I should steer clear of mineral water if I ever visit Germany.

AMD 4

Kultur 4

These articles were very entertaining to read because it's fun learning about how different Germany is from America. I've never had to deal with people traveling on bike until I moved to Ann Arbor, because where I'm from you have to drive everywhere since everything is so far away from each other. Every time someone on a bike passes me II get a powerful urge to tackle them for some reason, but I don't think that would be a good idea in Germany, since they would just run me over. I also rarely use the pedestrian walk signal at intersections. I instead just watch the traffic like most Americans, and if I ever visited Germany, I would have made the mistake of crossing when I'm not supposed to. The logical way of thinking for Germans and the train ticket example kind of confused me. If the person selling the ticket knew which train he wanted to go on, why did he sell the wrong ticket? I skipped the optional nudist articles because I don't feel like reading about that. It doesn't surprise me how much training and schooling it takes to become a driver in Germany, and I don't think I would want to be a driver with all those expenses. I feel like it's different in America whereas we need cars because the country is much larger and everything is very spread out.

Kultur 3

I think the way Germans have mealtime is pretty funny. Mainly the first and second breakfasts, which reminded me of hobbits in Lord of the Rings. Could it be that J.R.R. Tolkien drew some inspiration for hobbits from Germans? It's possible with the hobbit's meals and the amount they drink alcohol, but that is only speculation. I'm not surprised that Germans use the metric system since almost every country uses it. I only prefer the English system outside of school because I'm used to it, but for science classes I am all for the metric system.
I am glad in a way that the U.S. has pretty strict alcohol laws and I agree that Germany should at least ban public drinking. The difficulty of putting that kind of law into place is very understandable. Trying to bring change to the U.S. is nearly impossible because political views are so polarized in this country, and I have no doubt that it is similar in Germany. The article about Turkish food was a funny read, and also good information for whenever I might get a Döner in Germany (but very unlikely).
Reading about jokes in Germany was very interesting because I never thought of Germany being a funny country. The pessimism I read about was the best view I had for Germany, so that also made me think of Germany as a dark and humorless country. I couldn't really identify with any of the types of jokers found in Germany, and I don't know if I could explain my own type of humor. Out of the jokes that were presented in the Laugh Lab research, I found the American joke the funniest, and that is not a coincidence. But I think I can relate with the humor of Germany as a whole because I find almost all humor funny.

Kultur2

I really enjoyed reading these short articles. It is always interesting to learn about other cultures, especially in a good-humored and exaggerated way. I always try to not complain about things and I'm usually able to stop myself if I start to complain. I even keep stuff worth complaining about to myself because I don't like confrontations. So reading about Germans always complaining was interesting and made me think that I would get very annoyed in Germany because I can't stand unwarranted complaining. The article that I related the most to was the one about German honesty. I have always had a "problem" of being too honest to people, and I have apologized many times for it. I just don't like to bullshit people and I feel like that in that sense I would fit in very well in Germany.

Kultur1

Even though I am of German descent, I had no idea about how much impact Germans have had in the U.S. I only know of how the Swedes in my family immigrated to America because that is where my name comes from, but most of my heritage comes from Germany. One thing I found interesting was that early Germans liked to live in wooded areas, which makes sense to me because my hometown of Muskegon, Michigan was founded as a lumbering community. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of German culture in America as been lost due to disassociation from the events of WWI. I did find it interesting about the impact of German Jews who escaped Nazi Germany and moved to California. I love movies and I had no idea that there was such a German impact, especially the fact that Bambi was originally written in German.
Working at a gas station for a year, I learned to always greet people with good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. So the German 3 part greeting system comes very naturally to me. I didn't know that German was the official language of 4 countries, and that it has such widespread use around the world. I always thought it was just spoken in Germany.

AMD1

For this blog I watched the movie "Downfall." It is a German movie with English subtitles that is about the last few days of Adolf Hitler's life inside the underground bunker in Berlin. It's a very interesting movie because it gives a view of Hitler as a human being who had descended into madness and is dragging the German people down with him. Never have I seen Hitler portrayed as a person, but instead I've always seen him as an evil entity that is beyond humanity.
One thing I enjoyed while watching the movie was listening for German words that we've learned in class. I heard a lot of "danke" for example. I did find it interesting that whenever Hitler was talked to, people would use the formal "Sie," except for his fiance, who used the informal "du." I that it was cool that I caught that. But for most of the movie I just heard a bunch of gibberish.