Well, that was a weekend, for sure. The cultural differences between Germans (or "swiss germans", cause apparently that actually does matter) and Canadians, or even North Americans in general, is startling.

I wouldn't say that one way is necessarily better than the other, because that doesn't really seem like a judgement anyone could impartially make, but I will say that despite all the hate heaped on Americans, your average 18-year old Swiss girl is far, far more likely to offend your average Canadian in person than our slower cousins to the south are.

Don't get me wrong - I am usually pretty down for anything these days, and there are far worse ways to spend a weekend than getting hammered with a bunch of ridiculous, hyper-efficient, sex-obsessed people who speak a different language. But with that said, I could probably tell you some stories that I don't really want to commit to print anywhere that occurred over the last few days that would make you laugh, then cringe, then go "WWWAAAAAASSSSSSSSS?!?!" in a strange, high-pitched voice for the rest of the evening. Good people, very different culture.

I also found it interesting that the difference in language was actually less relevant than I thought. Admittedly, certain aspects of conversation, like telling jokes or any story on my end of things, were not really at all simple, but I found that after a couple hours listening to the "cadence" (for lack of a better term, and a few beers, I could generally pick up on what they were talking about.

It's not really that hard - Germans consciously put certain inflections on different words in order to imply different meanings, something that I've noticed a lot of us Canadians don't really do. I tend to speak this way myself, simply because I've always noticed the emotions behind words more than the words themselves anyway, and as English is just what happens when you leave French, German, and Latin alone to fuck for a couple centuries, I could get most of what was being said if I paid attention. If I felt really lost, I could generally assume they were talking about sex, which would usually be confirmed when one of them made a wanking motion, said something I recognized as having to do with fucking or getting fucked, or simply looked at me and yelled "SEX! HAHA!".

Unfortunately, they had a lot more trouble with this. I think there's quite a few reasons for it:

1. Despite the fact that I don't really mind spending a half hour holding up a conversation about foursomes while trying to figure out whether I'm being asked to join one, or whether I've had one before, I personally don't really like to talk about sex all the time. Thusly, substituting words they did not know is probably harder because they can't fall back on just assuming I'm talking about the same old thing.

2. German, as a language, is pretty abrupt and straightforward. Each. Word. Is. A. Word. Unless. You're. Just. Fucked. Then. It's. A. Werd. Word. That. You. Need. To. Say. A. Few. Times. English is more a flow of words with other meanings and strange pronunciations and really no particular order besides whatever the speaker inflicts on it. I, unfortunately, do not usually talk slowly.

3. My lack of any real knowledge of German besides very simple words was actually probably an advantage for me over their strange, strange ideas of conversational English. I can recognize a few words here and there, and can usually piece things together from the tone and so forth. They can recognize simple, strangely constructed and pronounced phrases, and repeat them with varying accuracy, but could not really pick up on normally built sentences.

Anyway. Very strange, kind of fun, very, very interesting, which is most important thing, probably. And like I say, despite shenanigans and so on, it was a pretty good time, and nice to meet some good people from somewhere else.


Through some process that I am simply to lazy to really want to transcribe, I got to looking at old FB posts and written things and blogs and the like, and I find it's kind of interesting how life goes sometimes. It seems like most aspects of it will naturally change and evolve if left alone, but the things I have or still do try to "hang on to" seem to forever remain more or less static despite any conscious effort to repair, alter, or eliminate them.

On a related note, what does it mean when you spend a whole night next to a very pretty, shirtless blonde while completely dance-with-me-or-I'll-fall-down class hammered, and are so focused on trying to figure out what she's saying in a very charming voice that you don't notice the lack of shirt till you see pictures later? As probably the first contact with someone new that I find to be quite a bit more physically attractive than average in a couple of years, I still can't help but feel at the lack of apparent ulterior motive on my part. I guess you could call that progress, but at the same time, I doubt I would even be questioning this lack unless it bugged me that I let a pretty straightforward opportunity pass me up.

Well, now I'm just confusing myself, so that's the blog today.

Your turn!