... and then I ran into a bike.

These last few days have been.... interesting. Nothing particularly good or particularly bad happened, but it's been much harder than I thought to acclimate to a different culture. I've been here for almost three weeks now and don't feel settled yet. I think Sara put it best when she said, "It's hard to feel out of step with the things around you all of the time." Quite literally, I am not in step with German culture. For example, people bike everywhere here. In all sorts of weather, in formal clothes or in sweats, people are on bikes. To accommodate this, Munich has sort of extended sidewalks - one side for pedestrians, one side for cyclists. It keeps bikers off the road, away from cars, etc. It also means that pedestrians have to be aware of these bike lanes when crossing the street. As a rule, my situational awareness is sub-par. When it's 8am and I'm walking to work with my iPod on, my situational awareness is borderline retarded. I've already had a couple of run-ins with bikes and many near misses (with a stream of German cursing ensuing from the offended biker.)

Yep, definitely not in step with the culture yet.

But, I am determined not to make this a forum for me to bitch about how much I miss America and our distinct lack of bike lanes. There are some things here that fit me snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug, culturally speaking. For instance, we have happy hour in the office. I tried tequila-flavored beer yesterday - it sounds like shit and tastes not much better. I choked down a couple of sips so I didn't seem rude and left it on my desk, hoping the night janitorial staff would throw it away. No dice. This morning, I have a hot, stale, tequila-flavored beer sitting on my desk, and I haven't yet found a way to dispose of it discreetly.

Aside from the generally relaxed attitude towards drinking, I heart German soccer fans. What wonderfully eccentric nutcases they are. There's a match on tonight at 6pm, and every hardcore fan is mysteriously "sick" today and stayed home from work so they won't miss a minute. Instead of our 1980 "Miracle on Ice," they have a 1954 "Miracle of Bern" when Germany defeated Hungary in the World Cup final- called the biggest upset in soccer history. Soccer means so much to this country that Wikipedia cited that game as a "significant turning point in post-war German cultural history... offering the first feelings of success for a beaten nation." Hm. Interesting.
Last week I went to a game with some of my coworkers, and had my biggest out-of-step feeling yet; the German national anthem was playing, so I leaned over and said, "Oh! This is 'Deutschland über alles,' right?" My coworker, Birgit, looked at me with a mixture of shock and horror. She proceeded to explain that "Deutschland über alles" are the beginning lyrics to the first verse, and it's forbidden to sing it. "We only third verse sing," she explained. Apparently, Hitler heavily used the first and second verses of the national anthem as symbols for German supremacy, so they're not sung (or spoken of) today. Whoops. Big fucking whoops.

This weekend - going to visit Sara in Frankfurt. Hooray for conversations in English, snuggles with Jonah, and laughs all around :)