June 11, 2014
10: It will be the little things, not the big things, that
make you realize you are not at home.
11: You never
know when that random word/phrase in that one language might come in handy.
12: Americans:
if a European tells you something is within walking distance, don't be
surprised if it’s really not walking distance.
Europeans, if an American tells you something is not within walking
distance, they may be, subconsciously, lying to you. You’re better off consulting a map.
At home,
you take these things for granted; abroad, or away from home at all, they make you realize that you aren’t at
home. This is actually an anecdote
from last week, but I forgot to include it in my post. So, I will include it now.
I was
watching a presentation at the AEI (Albert Einstein Institute). When the presentation was over, I picked up
my hands to clap. I completed one clap
before I realized that no one else was clapping. Instead, they were all using a fist to knock
on the desks. Strange, right? Well, it wasn’t strange to them. In fact, it was quite normal. I guess I wasn’t in Pittsburgh, anymore.
It turns
out that the knocking only happens at the AEI, it’s not a German thing. But, still, it was enough to make me think
about differences between cultures. When
you travel, take notice of these little things.
It can be just as interesting as the major differences, and often, it’s
a little more shocking than the big differences. After all, you expect the big differences;
it’s the little ones that get you.
* * *
You know those little words that you
learned during school in a different language: the ones you always laughed
about, knowing full-well that they would never come in handy? Well, one day, they might come in handy, if
only in a small way.
This
one's to you, Maggie Hess, you who taught me how to say, "I'm a jelly
doughnut," in German (Ich bin ein Berliner, by the way). For those of you who know even a tiny bit of
German, or a bit of history in the case of JFK, you also know that this phrase
means, “I’m a Berliner,” as in, “I’m from Berlin,” in a figurative way. Well, this was the interesting coincidence that
led me to finally being able to use
my knowledge of the northern-German word for jelly doughnut.
We
were sitting at a beer garden during a social event, and someone asked another
person at my table about the term for people from Hannover (I don’t know how to
pronounce or spell his answer (my German pronunciations are terrible, and my
spelling is even worse). But, he did say
that he thought it was an ugly-sounding word, and that the word “Berliner” was
much better. Then, he began to laugh and
said that the word has a double-meaning in German. “It means a person from Berlin and a baker,
no, a pastry.”
“a
sweet of some sort,” someone else chimed in.
It
was then that I spied my opportunity to make use of my knowledge. “It’s a doughnut!,” I exclaimed, and the
Germans at the table agreed.
“Yes, that is it.”
So,
like I said, it was limited usefulness, but usefulness none the less. That seemingly-random phrase finally had a purpose
in my life. Thank you, Maggie.
* * *
"Walking
distance" refers to a different distance depending on where you live. If you live in America, for example, a five-minute
walk might be pushing it. If you live in Europe, your daily commute is entirely
possibly a 15-minute walk. (And no one, unless that person is an American
living in America, will pitty you if you complain about it, so don't even
bother (trust me, I have not bothered; as a matter of fact, no part of me minds
the commute. I'm definitely European when it comes to walking... and air
conditioning, but I'll get there later)). Europeans also like bikes. It
makes me long to live somewhere more bike friendly.
Anyway,
mini rant about my frustrations with the American people over (and I honestly
mean no one offense, to each his or her own, but the average American walking
distance is significantly shorter than the average European walking distance).
Now, on to my little story:
Currently,
I’m partaking in a three-day training conference for the LTPDA language on
Matlab (it’s a 3rd-party language that will be used to perform data
analysis on the LISA Pathfinder). Last
night, after the conference, there was a dinner at a beer garden in the
area. Early in the conference, the
organizer announced that, according to MapQuest, it would be a 45-minute walk
(one could also take the tram system and cut the commute to 20 minutes and
minimal walking). To a significant
majority of Americans, this would mean they were taking the tram. Period.
And then they would complain about the 2-min uphill walk at the very
end. To the conference organizer, and a
surprising number of Europeans, this meant that MapQuest was probably lying; it
would probably be about a 30-40-min walk; and that sounded like a very
reasonable distance. After the conference,
we met outside, and roughly half of the participants (and virtually all of the
participants under 30 years of age) walked to the beer garden. Easy Peasy.
Now,
I believe that I promised you a mention of air conditioning. At the beer garden, this came up in
conversation. They were all very
impressed when I informed them that air conditioning isn’t something we use
very much at my house, and that my apartment at college doesn’t even have
it. We also don’t use a lot of heat in
the winter (that, I will admit, I
hate), and my apartment at college has a hole in the wall through which much
cold air enters during the winter months.
But, I’m all for minimal use of air conditioning. I enjoy the heat.
 |
| That's the city of Hannover. |
 |
| This is one of the telescopes at the observatory. |
No comments:
Post a Comment