Rant – Page 2 – The Bittesuite

Homelandsick: Missing Things Always Happens, Even if Culture Shock Doesn’t

People miss things when they leave their country to live in another one. It’s a fact. I’m sure if you asked Science, it would agree with me, so you might as well not even waste your time.

As I was saying: whether or not you experience proper culture shock (or more esoterically: the out-of-towner heeby jeebies), you will undoubtedly regret that parts of your old life aren’t parts of your new one. And what’s really cool is that, if you’re not living abroad right now, then you probably have no idea what those parts are. Total surprises, all of them. For me, at least. As an American (read: Texan) living in Munich, Germany, I can tell you what might make an American (read: Texan) sad about living in Munich, Germany.

I’m not going to say “friends and family.” That’s because everyone misses friends and family. And “everyone” includes me. In fact, if any person has friends and family back home to miss, then they miss them without an atom of a doubt. That feeling is so universal that, when I ask a person what they miss about the old life and they start to say “Fr-,” I instantly pass out from boredom.

Let’s talk about the interesting stuff, then. You know what I mean–the stuff we can live without but, dammit, just don’t want to. What I miss more than anything are the cost and availability of digital entertainment. There, I said it.

I realized this for the first time back in April, when I tried to log into my Netflix account. “Welcome back, pal! Ready to watch TV shows and movies anytime, anywhere, for one low monthly price?” Netflix is always so happy to see people.

“Am I ever!” I exclaimed, bubbling with enthusiasm.

Netflix’s forehead turns bright read as it anxiously tells me to piss off.

And then, “Wait a minute. Oh shit man, since when are you in Germany? Dammit, I shouldn’t even be talking to you right now. Get out of here before you get us both in trouble.” Netflix’s forehead was bright red, presumably from rage against my audacity, so I discretely closed my browser window and tried to forget the whole thing ever happened.

I realized it again immediately afterward, when I tried to log into my Hulu account. “Whoah, buddy,” said Hulu, “Where you think you are? America?”

“No, sir,” I sighed as I closed down my Web browser and crawled under my bed for a nap.

Then I tried to listen to some music on YouTube. I believe I was trying to show Roxana how badass Volbeat still is. “Sorry!” answered YouTube, “We can’t show you that, now! Because Germany.” I decided to hang up the towel for awhile. After all, Munich has beer and parks. Sweet mother of God, does it have beer and parks.

Last month, I regained my itch for music exploration, though. Spotify wouldn’t let me down. I was sure of that. It started here in Europe, after all.

Spotify totally let me down. After 10 hours of listening, it sent its little text-window bouncer to greet me. “Time’s up pal. Pack it up and come back next month.”

Good grief. Well, I guess I’ll have to do this the old fashioned way. Get over here, iTunes.

“Hey buddy, what’s up?” asked iTunes.

“Well, Germany won’t let me watch movies or listen to music. I’m kind of hoping you’ll help me out. What do you have available?”

“Oh my, everything! I’m the U.S. version, after all!” replied iTunes, elated as ever.

In walked Roxana. “Hola, amor! What are you doing?”

“Looking at movies on iTunes. Hopefully something in Horror. Need that adrenaline, now. Want to watch something?” I asked.

“Sure! Let me pay for this one, since I can use my German debit card.”

“Oh,” interjected iTunes. “She’s gonna pay?” Then iTunes sighed, “You’ll have to get in touch with my German friend. I’m not allowed to sell to other countries. Gotta have that American debit card!”

Aw, you too, iTunes!? I switched my iTunes location to Germany.

“Guten abend!” exclaimed iTunes’s German friend. “Was kann ich fuer Sie tun?”

“Well,” I said, “we’d like to rent ‘Mama’ please.”

“Ah so! Es tut mir leid, aber ich habe kein Film dass ‘Mama’ heisst. Bitte fragen Sie meinen amerikanischen Fruend.”

Dammit. Okay, well we can probably solve this problem using my debit card and the U.S. iTunes store. Let’s give that a shot.

That one actually worked. We watched “Mama” that night. For $4.99 USD, more than half of what it costs to stream Netflix for a month. On the bright side, we could have watched the movie all we wanted before the 24-hour rental time limit expired.

But “Mama” wasn’t even a good movie. So we only watched it once.

Oh, and they also don’t have “Game of Thrones” over here. Wound sufficiently salted.

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Update July 2014: They totally have “Game of Thrones” here, now.

The Dumbest Thing in the World (Or, How to Become Homeless in 1 Easy Step!)

I think it’s locking yourself out of your house. Before living in Germany, that one never would have occurred to me. Because it sounds preposterous.

In the U.S., you have to manually lock your door from the outside when you leave your house (unless you live in small town Texas, where you don’t even do that). That means you don’t need to realize your keys are missing until you can’t start your car.

Doors in Germany are locked by default, and can’t be permanently unlocked. This demotes the humble doorknob to “thing you can use to pull a door open.” Job automation truly does hit close to home, these days.

To those of us used to those noblest of doorknobs who work doubles as locking mechanisms, this means we don’t realize we’re missing our keys until we’re homeless. I’ve been homeless three times since moving here.

The First Time

Melodrama aside, the first time occurred as Roxana and I moved into our apartment. We had just carried a load of things from our temporary place, and I was ready to start building some sweet Ikea furniture, cursing like a goddam sailor. Roxana wanted to make another trip to the temporary place, so off she went, leaving me to my LACK bookshelf and 5,000 pounds of cardboard.

I promptly set to prepping the cardboard for disposal. If there’s anything that makes me crazier than dirty dishes, it’s idle cardboard in the workplace. I bundled it, tucked it under my arm, and banished that useless evil to the garbage in the courtyard. Then, it hit me so suddenly I felt psychic.

Oh, dammit.

But no big deal, right? Roxana was just down the street. She’ll be back soon. She was back soon, but I sat on the stoop for 40 minutes that rainy day, jumping at every sound of footsteps along the sidewalk. Like a puppy whose family is on vacation.

The first time was kid’s stuff, I admit. 40 minutes is almost no time, but that didn’t stop my mind from wandering to places like “she’ll take a nap over there and it will be hours before I can get back in.” I didn’t have my phone, and neither did she, so that was a possibility. Anyway, the second and third times were meatier experiences.

The Second Time

This took place maybe a week after the first time. Maybe 4 days, so sue me.

We didn’t have any connection to the Internet, so I had been making daily trips to a nearby coffee shop to use theirs and spend a crapload of money on coffee. I can order the pants off a cup of coffee in German, now. Ich moechte bitte eine tasse kaffee. Kleine, und zum mitnehmen. I haven’t learned how to say “booyah” yet, however.

Anyway. This time, the “dammit’ hit me the second I closed the front door behind me. It’s 1pm, and Roxana won’t get home from work until 7pm, so that was one hell of a dammit. After I stopped hating myself, though, things weren’t bad. I was on my way to drink coffee and use the Internet, after all. And I always make sure I have a book and my iPod in a backpack when I leave the house (making it really stupid that I can’t say the same thing about my apartment key). So, if bored came to really bored, I would still have The Red Wedding and the sweet soothing arrangements of Christos Antoniou to occupy my thoughts.

Long story short, I read e-mails and the news at the coffee shop, and then got my Westeros on at Luitpold Park. No bigs.

The Third Time

This dammit led me to a small, albeit fruitless adventure around Munich about 5 days ago. That puts it about 2-3 weeks after the second time.

Remember my last post, when I said that my work to get my Student Application would begin “tomorrow?” What that meant was that I planned to apply for a health insurance policy. Documents in hand and book in back, I set out to stake my claim on a future in Germany. Boy, was I proud.

I was proud, that is, until the second my front door shut behind me. Dammit.

The time was 1pm, again (hey I just realized that that’s 13:00–that’s spooky, right?). Armed with only an account of Dorne’s vengeful spite and some minor errands, I had to make the best of 6-7 hours. Let’s get to those errands, huh?

For once in my life (and I would bet the life of the universe, as well), accomplishing something as mundane as taking out a health insurance policy required almost no time at all. I type that for you now without even a hint of exaggeration. It took me 5 minutes in that office to apply for a policy. Add the 15 minute walk/subway trip to Hauptbahnhof, and the whole thing drained 20 minutes.

The time was 1:20pm. Armed with only an account of some spoilers I can’t conscientiously put to text and maybe one more errand, I had to make the best of 5:40-6:40 hours.

“I’ve got it!” I enthusiastically proclaimed to myself. “I’ll sign up for more German classes! Get that out of the way!”

No luck. The language school was closed for the entire day, since the German weekend hasn’t been standardized, yet. About 20 minutes from Hauptbahnhof to Rosenheimerplatz was all it took. All of those mental exclamation points, wasted on a closed office.

The time was 1:40pm. To make the most of the rest of my day, I did what I think any warm-blooded Muenchner would do in my position on a sunny day like that one. I bought a beer and went to the Englischen Garten.

Post #7: Bavaria is the Texas of Germany

In Junior High, I had to learn a second language, and I had three choices in school: Spanish, French, and German. I’m pretty sure most Gen Y Americans can relate to that (I think iGen are learning Mandarin, too). As a Texan, Spanish was the practical choice. Mexico is our neighbor and a major inspiration for our culture. Not to mention, a Texan without a Mexican acquaintance is a person who never leaves the house.

In college, as my mind opened to other world cultures, I would affirm my choice in a different way. Germany (and bits of its neighbors) speak German, France (and Canada) speak French, while South America, Central America and Spain speak Spanish. Travel potential earns Spanish an extra 100 points.

Then, I met Roxana. 100 extra points for Spanish.

Now, I’m in Munich, and I’m about to give Spanish an extra 100 points. I am learning that people speak Spanish everywhere. For instance, in my heart of hearts, I feel like a ton of people in Munich speak Spanish natively. For the life of me, I can’t find the statistics to support it, but I don’t have the nerve to deny it, either. Let’s talk about my misadventures through statistics before I get into why I think so many Spanish speakers live here. That way, you’ll know how how supremely justified by science my perspective is.

First, I tried to find out how many people who live in Germany are Germans. According to the CIA’s World Factbook, that stat is right around 91%. Damn. That’s doesn’t verify my suspicion at all. Well, maybe many of the country’s immigrants come from Spanish-speaking nations. The same source says that 6.1% of Germany’s residents are non-Turkish and non-German, and then lists Spain as one of the six major “other” immigrant groups. No other Spanish-speaking nations are listed. Crap.

But, Germany’s a complex nation, right? The World Factbook, for instance, says that Roman Catholics are 34% of Germany, but a whopping 80% of Bayern, and my German teacher said to us that Munich is pretty much a complete mix of religions (those stats and vague informative summary zoom in from nation to state to city, for anyone unfamiliar with the country). So cities don’t necessarily represent states or the nation, here. Maybe Munich has an especially high Spanish-speaker population, even though Germany as a whole does not. Well, a 10-minute round of research didn’t reveal anything very telling, except that no Spanish-speaking nation is among the top 6 immigrant populations in Munich (Wikipedia). 22% of Munich residents are from other countries, and the top-6 nations make up about half of those people. That leaves a max of about 10% of Munich for the Spanish-speaking countries. Not much, unless they are all of the 10%.

So, Spanish speakers still don’t seem to be very numerous, here. But maybe every non-top-6 nation in Munich is a Spanish-speaking nation. That would put their numbers at about 10% of Munich residents, and I could finally say that Munich is full of Spanish speakers! Maybe I’ll find out that a lot of Germans learn Spanish as a kid, inspired by all of their Spanish-speaking neighbors. Maybe I can use Spanish education to infer a large Spanish-speaking population, like one can with the Texas population.

5% of Germans learn Spanish.

Thanks for nothing, Wikipedia. I still have my gut feeling that Munich is full of Spanish speakers, but I don’t have any data to reinforce it. Well, I do have something. I have met and spent solid time with about 17 people so far in Munich. Of those, 11 speak Spanish as their native language. And no, I did not meet all 11 through Roxana. That puts the makeup of my new friends in Munich at 65% hispanohablante. Wow, Munich is full of Spanish speakers!

This educational rant brought to you by: A Misguided Use of Statistics

Post #6: Getting Yelled at by an Old German Man: A How-To

If you want an old German man to get upset and yell at you, two things need to be true. 1) You need to know very little German and 2) something about German society needs to confuse you. Once you have those things, that stern reprimand you always wanted is just a metro ticket machine away.

Overgeneralizations aside, this is the story of what happened to me, yesterday.

It’s 5pm and I’m leaving class. In an hour and twenty minutes, I’ll be meeting Roxana at the train station so that we can take the metro to the Isar River and drink beer and eat pretzels (you know, as we Germans are wont to do).

Right next to the school I attend is an automated kiosk that sells metro tickets. I’m after the kind that lets you ride the metro an unlimited number of times around most of Munich for one week.

I tap a few on-screen icons in a way which I think roughly translates to “I would like one week-long pass to ride the metro around Munich, please” in automated machinese. However, what I really couldn’t stop saying was “I would like a week-long pass to travel to other cities in Germany by the train, please.” My school doesn’t offer a class in this language, so I’m stumped.

I decide to call Roxana to see if she’s purchased something similar in the past. She hasn’t but she wants to help, anyway. So, I start reading screens and narrating my progress to her.

Roxana: You want a pass that lets you travel among 2 or 3 rings inside Munich.

Ryan: When I tap “season pass–weekly,” it wants me to input a destination, like a city or something.

Roxana: Well, that’s-

Now, behind me, I hear some loud German words in a male voice. Distracted by them, I turn to investigate. A grumpy man-face greets me, and I can tell the words are directed at (or are at least about) me. I’m a little confused, but I assume he’s trying to give me instructions. Something like “press that button, dummy.” But he’s not. I apologetically ask “Englisch?” and he responds with “Get off the phone if you’re going to use the machine! I need to use it!”

It’s clear he doesn’t perceive the relationship between my phone call and the adventure I’m on with the machine. I shrug at him and start to say “I am on the phone asking for-” and he says “Go!”

Now, my temper is a little short, but I’m in a country that’s not my own. So, I hit “cancel,” step back, usher him forward, tell him “Go,” and walk away.

So, that’s it. Just a story about an angry guy for your entertainment. I’m trying to learn something from the experience, but I’m not sure I can avoid the same event in the future. If I need to accomplish something, and I don’t know how to do it, yet, then I think I have to hope that whomever is nearby will teach me how to do it. Or someone will have to yell at me and I’ll have to learn some kind of guilt trip technique.

The universe heard my wish later, though, when I met Roxana and we both tried to figure out how to use the machine in the train station. We spent about two seconds in confusion when the guy next to us offered to help. Now, I know how to use that machine. So it ended well. Viele dank, train station guy!