A Few Deutschland Differences

I have now been in Germany for more than a little bit more than a month, and leave in exactly 3 weeks from yesterday. It's crazy to think that I have been in Germany for 1/4 the time that I was in Spain! Though technically I haven't been in Germany been with Germans for 1/4 the time that I was in Spain since I have been to two other countries in this time also (yes, we know Marie, no need to rub it in).

So now I will give you a brief update on my life and then go on to talk about some differences that I have noticed between Germany and Spain and/or the US. This past week I went to all of Anna's classes except for the morning of one day when she had 3 straight hours of history (4 periods in a row of history sounds painful in a language I speak, let alone one that I don't). There was also a snow day Monday so unfortunately we missed my two favorites of her classes (English and Spanish, are you surprised? ;) ). I would also say that although I still really cannot speak German, my German has actually improved quite a bit in terms of how much I understand and of course I can speak more than when I got here.

Then last weekend the Bosch's told me about a benefit concert that their church was having this weekend and asked me if I would like to play in it, so I on the spot got out my flute and played a bit of a piece that I hadn't touched in literally maybe 4-5 months (since I didn't have any other pieces that I thought could be ready in one week) for their friends who were organizing the concert. I "passed" the test so this week worked on getting the piece back to performance ready and this evening played in the concert! I originally thought there would be other solo instrumentalists, but actually it was just choirs and a vocal solo and me, but that was okay and I thought it went pretty well. And in case any of you are wondering (which you probably aren't), the acoustics in German churches are very very different from those of American Churches.

Anyway, on to the fore mentioned differences.
-The language! (duh)
-FOOD.

• A big food difference is the use of Butter instead of Oil. You may remember me writing that Oil is used with pretty much everything in Spain. Here, that is replaced by butter. And not only do they eat/use a lot of butter, but I have also noticed a slight phenomenon here. The Germans have a really quite incredible butter spreading talent. You may think/be under the false pretense that butter spreading is not a talent, as I was. Butter is simply soft and nicely spreadable, or cold/hard and impossible to spread, impossible. Wrong. There are not just two kinds of butter spreadability, but rather two kinds of butter spreaders. Those who can only spread the soft (like me), and those who can spread it all. So far every German that I have encountered in a butter spreading situation (which have been several) has been the latter. (As a disclaimer, if you are german, reading this, and not an EBS (extraordinary butter spreader), I do not claim that all Germans fall under this category, simply those that my path has crossed thus far).
• As in Spain, dinner is also lighter/not typically the main meal. Here, a spread of fresh breads, cheeses, meats, maybe a saldad, and of course butter (straight from the fridge) is set out. I attempt to just do what Anna does but instead end up with embarrassing chunks of cold butter on my now crumbling and broken bread while she (and everyone else in her family) have a perfect smooth coat on their intact brötchen. 
• On the topic of food, perhaps it was just my 'host family' that didn't eat much bread, but in Spain I would say that tomatoes and olive oil came first whereas in Germany the bread wins. (Take a moment to note the play on words since Germany's economy is doing so much better than Spain's).

-The word "doch." it doesn't really translate to english, but it's a great word. Example of one usage: in english we might say "nuh uh" "uh huh" "nuh uh" "uh huh" but in german they would say "ja" "doch" "ja" "doch" or "nein" "doch" etc.

-My personal experience of going from living in a the very middle of a decently large city to living in a smaller area (but everything is still closer together/often walkable unlike the US!)

And actually there are many more differences but none in particular that I can think of now so maybe I will just add some more in my next post. I am also currently in the process of almost being sure of what I will be doing for the rest of my gap year after I get back from Germany! But to leave a little suspense, I will talk about that in my next post.