I started this blog in 2012 when I had an inkling that my time in Germany was drawing to a close—partly as a record of all the things I found either delightful or maddening (or both!) and partly, maybe, to process how I felt about leaving after three years of pretty high highs and relatively low lows.
Now, eight years later, I'm at the point where, barring any change in circumstances, my departure from Germany is once again reasonably foreseeable. And, once again, I suddenly feel like I have a lot to say about this place where I've now spent almost half of my adult life.
But enough of the feelings and on to the lolz, amirite?
Germans have a reputation as a very literal people. Although they've produced famed poets (Brecht! Goethe! So I've heard, at least!) who could wield metaphors and other figurative language with the best of them, on the whole I have found this to be true. Don't pose a rhetorical question to a German unless you want it answered. Sometimes this is infuriating! And other times, well...
I was at the library, in the Before Time, when I came across the German DVD of Life of Pi. In English, it's an enigmatic title. It plays its cards close to the vest. It's also a title that is extraordinarily easy to translate into German. Leben von Pi. Boom. That'll be five bucks because I'm a professional translator now. But instead, they went with...
... Schiffbruch mit Tiger. That's Shipwreck with Tiger, for all you non-German-speakers out there. And just like that, the mystery is gone. The bubble has burst. Thanks, Germany.
