German Spotting
I'm homesick for Germans at the moment (does that make sense?) so I have enjoyed playing a little game, on the subway, called "German spotting."
The rules are simple:
Casually scan (don't stare at) your fellow passengers, taking special note of their hair style, glasses and shoes.
Then decide who might be German and think about what you could say to them in German.
Based on this highly scientific screening method, I have decided that the city is filled with Germans! Okay, perhaps "filled with" is a bit of an exaggeration, but I did hear/overhear/eavesdrop on 2 conversations in German on the subway last week. Music to my ears!
The rules are simple:
Casually scan (don't stare at) your fellow passengers, taking special note of their hair style, glasses and shoes.
Then decide who might be German and think about what you could say to them in German.
Based on this highly scientific screening method, I have decided that the city is filled with Germans! Okay, perhaps "filled with" is a bit of an exaggeration, but I did hear/overhear/eavesdrop on 2 conversations in German on the subway last week. Music to my ears!
posted by Erin at 6:55 PM
5 Comments:
oh no, it is not an exaggeration. nyc is full of germans. not exactly "crawling with" germans, but it has its fair share of germanic tourists.
and regarding staring on the subway - embrace it! pretend you are german - in my memory staring on the subway was totally fine with them. just don't lose a stare-down to a 16-year-old girl. you'll feel like a loser for at least a week.
and if you're missing german-ness, check out the activities of the goethe institute, german book office, and nyu's deutsches haus. there's also the austrian cultural forum and pro helvetia (the swiss institute).
Hier hallo, hier I'm German... leider nicht in NYC, sondern immer noch in Berlin. Ich wollte nur mal sagen, dass ich Deinen Berliner blog sehr gerne gelesen habe und auch bei den Abenteuern in NY mit bei der Partie bin. Wenn nichts dagegen spricht....
Unbekannterweise Grüße aus Charlottenburg / Wilmersdorf
Franka
Hast Du die Berliner Landtagswahlen verfolgt?
Me too! I still "rehearse" what I'm about to say "auf Deutsch", even though the words coming out of my mouth are English. Some habits die hard. Unfortunately, there aren't quite as many Germans in Sac-a-tomato as there are in NYC and SF. Guess that's another reason to frequent the Bay Area sooner than later...
Viel Spass!
jp
Hi Lexy! Ah the stare-down... fun in Germany, but probably something to avoid on the NYC subway. You may have lost a stare-down to a 16-yr old, but as I remember your sweetie lost a stare-down to someone with a knife... and since this the good old US of A, I have to remember that people have guns!
Hi Franka, Glad you made the Berlin Adentures- New York Adventures switch! I see that Wowi won re-election in Berlin! Any other election excitement? Say hi to Wilmersdorf for me:-)
Hi JP...it's time for you to plan a visit to SF...or better yet to NYC!
some other election excitement is that the NPD got 7% in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Scary! And in some eastern parts of the province they got up to 40% of the vote!!!!! And what was their platform? "We'll provide more jobs." How? Your guess is as good as mine :-)
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