Today, I met the neighbors. Meeting people can sometimes be a little different in Germany than in America. Sometimes in America, when you move into a new place, some neighbors may welcome you and come to meet you. But in Germany, I am told that it is more for you to go meet them, and people are a little more guarded. Once you make a friend, however, this is a very close friend and will be for life if possible.
Today, however, it was necessary for all of us to get to know one another. Our heat is not working properly, so we are all working with each other and the workmen to get the heat started. Here in our building, the apartments are heated with hot water radiators. There is no central heat or air conditioning here. For air conditioning, you open windows, and for heat, you turn the radiator knob to make it warmer. This is very common. It is very rare to have air conditioning, and most places are either heated with natural gas or radiators.
But it was wonderful meeting the neighbors. There are two apartments directly below us. One couple who is older speaks some English, but the other couple who is only a little older than we are speaks no English at all. It will be a great way for me to learn more German. Soon I hope to make some cookies and invite them over properly, but I need to figure out how to do that! We cannot find chocolate chips, brown sugar, or even cake mix here! But I love to cook, so making everything from scratch will be fun.
Since I am running a little behind this morning with all the excitement, I will make this a short one. The answer for the question of the day for yesterday (What do the German people call American football versus soccer?) is a trick question. If you write "football" in German, you are saying American football. If you write (der) Fußball, then you are referring to soccer. Fußball literally means "foot ball" and is pronounced fooss (as in goose) ball. The ß symbol is really like ss and is pronounced as we would in the word "less". Although I have come to enjoy watching Fußball, it is still no substitute for American football. And I can't resist saying "GOO Clemson Tigers!!!!"
Today's word of the day is "neighbors" - die Nachbarn (pronounced Nahch bahrn - the ch of Nach is pronounced the way you would if you were trying to imitate a cat hissing - the sound is made in the back of your throat.) One last little item: die is used for a singular word indicating she. Die is also used to indicate a plural word in German and many times there is a different spelling if it is plural, so you know which way it is being used.
The question for the day is "What is hard water?"
