German Musings

And for my first post in Bali, a diatribe on Germany. Or Germans. Or really the German language. So you know, I'm pretty much alone. That is to say, at the camp I'm staying there are only German and Balinese speaking people. I constantly walk into situations where people are speaking a language of which I have no understanding. But I'm the shit cuz I'm from California. But then again this comes to terms with the fact that I'm from America. It's a tough little equation, but I think in the end I come out ahead. Oh yeah, and I'm kind of a goober, factor that in on the American side. A thought- if I created a German chess board, the surfing Californian would trump the harbinger of compulsory democracy. And the pawn would be a goober. Total goober. But Germans are incredibly nice. Seriously, nice like I never would have guessed. They are teaching me German. Not why they're nice. Mostly surf terms right now. Learning. Slowly. Such an ugly language. Not a creative thing to say I know, but really-- I mean, it's like half of what I hear all the time. It sounds like they're trying to get peanut butter off the roof of their mouth. Honestly. Drink some milk people. Milk is hard to find in Bali. Damn. Ok, really I'm just jealous. I've been going to markets trying to find peanut butter before my surf sessions. Helps me communicate better. I'm tired of everyone coming down to my level to speak English. Always paying me a favor to speak in my native (read only) tongue. Except I feel pretty smart, cuz their English is somewhere between 1st and 5th grade level. I'm smarter than 5th graders. I think. Although, have you seen those spelling bees? Pretty sure if it weren't for auto-spell check there'd be some confusion on the page. What is true is that I've started speaking English in the most broken grammatically incorrect way. For example I found myself saying today "Wave is good, yes?" Wtf? Really? Yes, it will take some work, but hopefully when I come back to the states I will still be able to converse normally. We'll see.