Germany Doesn’t Suck

Shortly after moving into my new place, I realised that I needed a wall clock for the living room. I had my old faithful electronic one in the kitchen, but the only way I had to tell the time in the room I relaxed in was by putting my book down and turning on the […]

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StudentC: ‘J, who do you want to win tonight?’
J: ‘Neither. I hope they both lose.’
*whole class gives me the German Fuck Off Sigh*
StudentC: ‘You’re so American!’
StudentD: ‘You have no idea how football works! They both can’t lose!’
StudentC: ‘One of them has to win!’
*I can no longer keep a straight face and start laughing*
Germans are so […]

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Be there!
It’s official, the Bremen www.bremen.de will be the fourth city to be invaded by the Whiney Expat Bloggers in Germany for our annual Meet-Up.
Come one, come all!
Speak English the entire weekend!
Meet new people and see old pals again!
Enjoy the kind of camaraderie that people who have never lived outside of their […]

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has been delightful the last few days, especially the 30°C yesterday!
The schwül warm (tropically humid weather that just about makes it impossible to breathe) was awful last month and in May and I hope it’s gone for good. I can’t remember it ever being that bad before.
Conversation a few weeks ago:
J: ‘ColleagueK, I […]

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A few months ago Blogger.com got on my last nerve and I decide to finally do something about it and switch to Wordpress. I decided to go with Wordpress.com a first to make sure I liked it and then I’d either switch to Wordpress.org (on my own host) or search for a different service […]

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Let’s do it! Send those Germans home looooosers!
Viva Espana!

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*In a lesson about technology*
J: ‘StudentB, what ISP do you use?’
StudentB: ‘Telekom.’
J: ‘You do?’
SB: ‘Yes, I’m a magenta man.’
J: ‘A what?’
SB: ‘A magenta man. I used to work for Telekom and you know what colour their logo is.’
J: ‘Magenta?’ [I had thought it was pink]
SB: ‘Right. Those of us that worked for Telekom are loyal […]

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(Part 2)

Kick some pasta-munching meatball butt tonight!
Overcome the curse of 22 June!
“La seleccion” have suffered three painful penalty shootout defeats in quarter-finals at major tournaments in matches played on June 22.
They lost to Belgium on spot kicks in the last eight of the Mexico World Cup in 1986 after a late Juan Senor goal […]

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Now that we know we’ll be going to Bremen, let’s work on a date for the 2008 Whiney Expat Bloggers in Germany Meet-Up.
The Meet-Up has been the third weekend in November the last two years (a coincidence) and both years we’ve commented how it’s been dark and cold (not unsurprising at that time of the […]

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When I lived in Poland, I lived in a furnished apartment that included cable TV. Unfortunately, it only got CNN, BBC, the Cartoon Network and British Eurosport in English, so that’s what I used to watch at first. As I learned Polish, I watched various programs.
TV isn’t dubbed into Polish like it is in […]

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I was watching a video a few weeks ago and a helicopter landed and took off, and I though the sound effects were great. It felt like I was right there.
After the chopper left I still heard it and thought that having that noise almost drown out a quiet moment between a couple was a […]

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Home furnishings update
As my photos show, the new place was lacking in just about every way when I moved in. That’s changing.
On 19 April, I went to Ikea to see what small things I could find for my place. I left with a set of dishes (dishes, cups and bowls), a toilet brush and a […]

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I’m off work for the rest of the week due to the leg/knee thing previously mentioned. Quite annoying, actually, because I’ll most likely have to cancel my Regensburg plans for this weekend – something I’ve been looking forward to since late last year - since I’m hobbling (at best) around.
I still don’t have internet access […]

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As previously mentioned, I’m a Germany based oral fluency examiner for Cambridge and have to both interlocute and assess different candidates a few times a year.
6 & 7 June were two of those days.
The German examining teams are divided up by state, but sometimes we have to travel to Baden-Württemberg and do exams there. […]

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As of today, all the Euro Cup games move to 20h45. No more 18h00 game and then a 20h45 game. Now we can only watch one per day instead of two. That doesn’t make sense to me. Why cut the viewing audience in half?

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