Hamburg Street Musicians

Less than a minute after thinking to myself, 'Why is every Fing street musician in Hamburg an Fing accordian player? If some one could play something more interesting, I might give them some money.', I came across this:



Since my thoughts were answered, I gave him 70 euro cent.

Der, Die, or Das?

Der, die or das...? There's always a one in three chance I'll get it right. These three little words give me this biggest pain in the ass while trying to learn German. All three translate to simply 'the'. But German, being German, of course it is not so simple as 'the'. Every noun is either masculine (der), feminine (die), or neutral (das). There is no actual reasoning as to why a noun is put into one of these categories. The word for 'woman' is feminine. Makes sense... but the word for 'girl' is neutral. Many words ending with 'er' are masculine, but 'nummer' (number) is feminine. With as much as Germans like rules, there's just no der, die, or das rules. I've just been wondering if when a new word is invented, like 'ipod', if there's some word council that sits down and decides whether it should be Die Ipod, Der Ipod, or Das Ipod. And if so, do they just go by whichever sounds best?

To make things more complicated, the form of the article changes depending how the noun is being used in a sentence. In the accustive form, 'der' changes to 'den', but 'die' and 'das' stay the same. But then they throw dative in there. Which the concept of dative in the first place is difficult, and I don't even feel like trying to explain it. Here, 'der' and 'das' both change to 'dem' and 'die' changes to 'der'. After that there's genetive, which I only kind of understand. Then 'der' and 'das' change to 'des' and 'die' is once again 'der'.

This rant doesn't even really cover all the complications, but a rant was needed none the less.

Now just because:

I think this is the hardest part of the marathon...

I have reached/passed the half-way point in my little Deutschland adventure. It's kind of like the 12 hour mark at the Dance Marathon. You're relieved and excited that you've made it so far, but then you realize that this is only half-way and there's still time for plenty more to happen. I've already had to adjust to moving to Germany, then moving within Germany.

There are many things here in Hamburg to appreciate. There's always some kind of random festival going on. Last weekend, I went to the wine fest, where I got to experience wine from the vineyards in Southern Germany, and see men in liederhosen. Then a block away, in the middle of the afternoon, I came upon disco balls, blaring techno music, and even a man wearing leather shorts of a different style. It was Hamburg's gay pride festival.

Hamburg has its own "beach" area on the Elbe, where you can relax and watch the carge ships go by. You can party all night on the Vegas-like Reeperbahn, and then continue the party at the Fischmarkt starting at 5am on Sunday mornings. I've found independent movie theatres that are definitely cooler than the ones in Chapel Hill. The shopping in the Neustadt offers nearly every designer brand available.

I am not ready to go home yet, but I am ready to start thinking of going home. I am ready to apply for grad school, and look for plane tickets home. Even though the end is in site, there's still plenty to do, and plenty of time for plenty to happen.