Ramblings

Firstly, I’m sorry for the delay in between blog posts. In the future I’m going to attempt to keep a reasonable schedule of two or so a week, unless a) I’m traveling, or b) nothing interesting is going on. Thus next week, when I’ll be in Berlin for most of the week, you shouldn’t expect posts. That being said, I’ll probably write an extra long one upon returning from these trips (die Reisen, auf deutsch).

Now, onto my meanderings for the evening. For a country as advanced and developed as Germany, they seem rather averse to using cards for payment. Cash is still absolutely king in Deutschland, and that is surprising coming from the States where every little store (die Geschäft) takes your VISA. I’ve only found a couple of places here that will take it, and those I’m probably getting charged a hell of an exchange fee. Still, I haven’t yet gotten used to carrying around the larger amounts of cash – especially when the bills here go up in size as they go up in denomination. My wallet is, literally, too small to hold the €50 bills, and I haven’t even tried a €100 yet. Euros do look a whole lot cooler than dollars, though….all fancy-like and colorful.

An interesting fact about German grammar that we learned in class today is that there is officially no such thing as a run-on sentence in German. Apparently die Deutschen can simply tack on additional independent clauses using only a comma and have it be totally ok. For example, in German one can say: „Ich studiere Deutsch, sie studiert Geschichte, er ist nicht an der Uni.“ This translates to „I study german, she studies history, he is not going to college. “ Intriguing. I don’t know if they have such thing as a fragment, but I would assume they do – Germans are efficient, and not getting your point across by leaving out words is most decidedly inefficient.

I’m going skiing (Ski fahren) this weekend! A group of us are going to this place called the Wilder Kaiser the Austrian Alps…..enjoy the link so all you stuck state-side can be suitably jealous:

http://www.wilderkaiser.info/en/

Now, I’m going to bed. Guten Nacht, und auf Wiederhören! (good night, and I’ll talk to you later!)