Adventures in Europe, Part III

Unfortunately, I don’t have any odd, amusing interactions with the Germans to share. However, two of my friends have amazing stories which must be shared:

My friend Emily is a Germanic-looking girl from Texas. She has dirty blond hair, blue eyes, and a tan. One day, she’s riding on the tram, and she notices this old lady staring at her legs. She ignores it, but every time she looks up, this woman is still staring at her legs. There’s no mud, she doesn’t think her shoes are too far out of the norm, and she gets really confused. Finally, she gives her “that polite smile that still asks ‘What the hell are you doing?’” The woman then explained in breathless German that she was trying to figure out whether or not she was wearing stockings because her legs looked unnaturally tan, but they still looked too natural to be fake, and she was confused.

Another friend, Bradley, is, (how to put this?), not a color you typically find in Germany. At the wine festival, a really drunk German man comes up behind him and pokes him in sides. He looks up just in time for this man to put him in a headlock and start yelling “Ohhh-bama! Obama!” really loudly, while petting his hair the entire time. Finally, another American girl had to go start flirting with the German so that Bradley could get away.

I had dinner with my German roommates tonight and learned a couple things. For one, Germans tell “deine Mutter” (your mom…) jokes. That was one aspect of American culture I totally did not expect to translate. It was especially amusing since I was kinda tuning out at dinner today (my flatmates only occasionally remembered there was a non-German speaker at the table), and I tuned in just in time to hear “Ja? Deine Mutter!”

Also, listening to German radio is like listening to an American radio from 5 years ago. I heard the Backstreet Boys for the first time in ages today. I feel all nostalgic now… and I want it that way!