Helpful, yet humorous travel tips

Daniel Pink is just one of my favorite authors ever. Yeah, what he writes is good, but he blogs and speaks an awful lot and he is intelligent and super funny. If you haven't read A Whole New Mind, his fabulous book defending all things right-brained, you need to, it's awesome.

Anyway, Pink has been making informative and funny travel videos for the last few months as he is on the road. From which food court food to avoid to how to travel with kids, the tips are always interesting and have that certain "Pink" flair. His latest from today is a classic. Enjoy!

Pink's Travel Tips -- Tip#8 from DHP on Vimeo.

Learning new things...

Besides learning German, there is a host of new things I will have to learn in order to avoid becoming the "ugly American" in town.

Here are just a few:

1. Sort trash...I mean, sort trash, not just recycling. Germany is very green and one commentator said that Germany's second hobby behind drinking beer is sorting trash.
2. Bike. I will be cycling to work. Once again, Germany is very green.
3. Not take work home. It's a "no-no" in German culture. You work hard, get your work done, go home and have fun. Working overtime is seen as being inefficient and lazy.
4. Smile less and do not "overshare". Unlike Americans who automatically become friends with just about anyone ("Wow, you juggle chainsaws while reciting the Declaration of Independence? Here's my phone number! Let's have lunch!"), Germans are traditionally more guarded.
   
5. Be open to very blunt advice. It's Germany. It's normal to them.
   

Just like any culture change, I'm sure it will take time, but I'm trying to prepare myself as much as possible so I'm not super cranky. Thankfully, I found this blog by an American from North Carolina who's lived in Germany for several years now. I think my favorite post was this one, on how to not dress like an American in Europe. Awesomely funny!

What the future holds...

From my high school memory book, senior year (2000-2001):

What will you be doing in 10 years?

My response: Probably teaching high school students since I promised I would never teach high school students...

Whoa.

Video Preaching!

I'm stoked! My pastor, Art Evans, is doing live video teaching Wednesday nights at 7PM (Pacific time) and Sunday morning 11:AM (Pacific time)! Which means, you'll probably be able to see the back of my head on Wednesday nights. I usually sit in the second row.

Anyway, here was today's awesome sermon on how Jesus heals the brokenhearted. You will be blessed!

Where are you getting your bread?

I've been very privileged to sit under the teachings of my pastor, Art Evans. He's awesome, mostly in that 75% of his sermons are quoting Scripture. I've got a backlog of sermon notes I want to blog on, but thought I'd start with this one from Luke 11 as Jesus is telling a parable:

⁵Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, ⁶because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.'

⁷"Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' ⁸I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness^a]">[a] he will get up and give him as much as he needs."

1. You, by yourself, have nothing to give. "a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him." We're like the man who has no bread. By ourselves, we really have nothing to offer. If I'm just counting on my own smarts, my own experiences, and my insight to help people then I'm in trouble.

2. You have to get your bread from Him. The only way the man was able to feed his friend was because the neighbor gave him "as much as he needs". He sought out the neighbor and was annoying enough that it caused the neighbor to act. How much more will God, who is our Father and Friend, act on our behalf and give us what we need so that we, in turn, can feed others!

3. You get bread from Him to give to others. The man didn't get bread to feed himself or his family. He got bread to help his friend. Even if we think, "Gee, I'm feeling holy today. I don't need to read my Bible," it's not for you! You are getting "bread" to share with others. Now interesting enough, when the man did get bread, he got "as much as he needs" meaning even though it was for his friend, his family did not go hungry.

So press on! Keep asking, keep reading His Word because without His "bread", we have nothing to give.

Unexpected gift

In January while in London, I found myself saying, "God, this is enough! You don't have to do anymore than this! This is more than I hoped for!" From meeting an amazing new friend to being affirmed to being forced by a snowstorm (Act of God!) to spend two extra days in London, I just could not believe that God would bless so abundantly.

Well, here I am again. I have my dream job. And God is working out details in ways I never expected or even asked for. Traditionally, one of the most difficult aspects of moving to Germany is housing. It's scarce, you don't know what is typical for the area and it is expensive. My school said they would help me search, but I wasn't looking forward to the whole search.

God knew that. I got an email three weeks ago from my school secretary saying that two single teachers were moving out of their flats (apartments) and were wondering if I would like one of them. Woohoo! Both were nice, but it was this email that clenched it for me:

I'm glad that Gerhild asked you to write. I was actually going to ask Cathie if it was ok for me to contact you to give you some insider information. I'm not sure where you are from but I believe she told me you were from California as well.

"As well." I couldn't believe it. He, Evan, is from California, went to UC Irvine and surfed in San Diego. He gets me. He gets the culture I'm coming from. Not only that, his flat is 100 euros cheaper than the other one, is on the first floor and has a renovated kitchen. That in and of itself would have been more than enough.

But God wasn't done.

Since then, Evan has emailed me about 10 times, giving me insider hints on where to buy a used bike, what cell phone company to use, what to pack, etc. Everything I wanted to know, but didn't know who to ask.

What a blessing. God, this is enough! No more blessing! I can't take it anymore! :-)

Learning the language...

I have four months to learn German...in southern California! You must understand the hilarity of my situation. I live in San Diego, California, a mere 20 minutes from Mexico. I live in a community of mostly immigrants from Iraq which means my neighbors speak Assyrian, Aramaic, Kurdish and Arabic. Our immediate neighbors of 18+ years speak Greek and Czech. Our community college gives classes on Spanish, French, Italian, Assyrian/Aramaic/Arabic and Kumeyaay(our local Native American dialect). But no German.

So it's just me, the library and the internet. And you know what? I'm a little disappointed.

Before you start shouting, "Rosetta Stone!", realize that the program is $600 and consists mostly of vocabulary. Even when I had free access last year to R.S. through a friend's library account, I got bored fairly easily and remember almost nothing.

So far here's what I've discovered about language programs:
1. If it has fun games and cool graphics, it's just vocabulary.
2. If it has good grammar information, it's boring and dry.
3. If it has fun games, cool graphics and good grammar information, it will cost you a month's worth of rent.

But after looking for over a month, here are the resources that seem to be working out okay:

1. Book: really old conversation textbook from the 70's a friend loaned me. So the spelling hasn't been updated yet(did you know German people decided to standardize their spelling in '96? That's crazy!), but I can deal with that. It's good solid grammar and reading practice.
2. Web: www.babbel.com A great web site for learning and reviewing vocabulary and common phrases. It keeps track of what you've gone over and has you review every two days.
3. Web: http://www.deutsch-lernen.com/ Free online grammar course that goes over the basics and gives you a chance to practice. Did I mention it was free?
4. Web: http://www.lingorilla.com/frontpage It must be good because the web site is completely in German! You watch a video and then do exercises based on grammar concepts in the video.
   
5. Web: www.youtube.com Yes, Youtube! I found some easy language videos that a bunch of university students in Muenster made that are fun and informative. You get to hear real people speak.
   

There are other more advanced programs I'll have access to once I get the basics down and there are plenty of web sites I can read for information (reading the T-Mobile website to try to figure out what cell plan to get is insane!). But for now, I'll plug along and hopefully by the time I get to Germany I'll be able to sound respectable!

Tschüss!