An Introduction

Guten Tag und willkomen! Those of you who know me have been asking many questions and wanting to be kept up to date on my assignment to Germany with my company. Well, for one reason or another the days have turned to weeks, have turned to months, and I still haven't gotten started yet to let you know what's up. But now, thanks to the wonder of modern travel, coupled with my inability or desire to sleep on a plane, I've finally had a chance to start things up. So either don't say you weren't warned, or be careful of what you wish for, whichever suits your fancy.

As a kind of brief introduction, let me explain this here thing before we go any further. And yes, this is also an out for you if you so choose. I can get to rambling sometimes, and maybe you'll come to decide that you just don't care to read my droning. I completely understand. I get tired of myself sometimes, but unfortunately, I can't tune me out.

So back to the intro. I work for a global energy company, and as I said above, I have been given the opportunity to work in Germany for two and a half years. Pretty cool, huh? Well, I used to live by Murphy's Law, and was convinced that the dude hated my guts. But over the years, after things like hitting the winning square on a Super Bowl pool (the only square I bought, and worth a tidy little sum) and winning a five-day Carribean cruise, I've revised that a bit and decided that I'm more like a blind squirrel - every once in a while I find a nut. And let me tell you, Germany's some big nut. Unfortunately (or maybe not - blind squirrel doesn't really translate), somebody's already claimed a blog with that name. So instead of the squirrel, I've decided to go with the dog's ass that the sun shines on every now and then. Turn it to German, and voila! Der hundepo (dare hoont-eh-poh, phonetically). That's me - the dog's ass.

First off, a ground rule and a couple of warnings. I will be using no (real) names in this thing, so if you know me or know any of the other subjects of whom or which I am writing, please respect that fact in your comments, and don't spill the proverbial beans in regards to identity. This is for various reasons, but mainly privacy concerns for myself and others. So keep that in mind, and we'll be cool. As for the warnings, these are more for your sake than mine. First, you're going to notice that I throw in a lot of asides (you know, the stuff in parentheses). I realize that this can be a bit irritating, and I'm trying to cut down on them. Hey, I'm an accountant, not a writer. Cut me some slack. The same goes for punctuation. I realize that most of it is atrocious, but I'm trying to convey my thoughts in writing as if I were there talking to you. So if I'd pause while talking, there'll be a comma or some other thing. I don't care if it's grammatically correct or not, that's how I talk. Also, I'm going to be throwing in a ton of German (with pronunciations following). At first, anyway, this will be more for my sake than yours. I'm trying to learn the language, and any usage I can get is helpful. Deal with it. Also, I'm going to be getting one, but right now I don't have a keyboard or computer that has umlauted letters (you know, letters with the dots above them) or a couple of the other special characters used in German. My favorite is this one that looks like a funky capital B, but is pronounced as "ss", but I don't know what it's called.

I can tell you now, learning the language is going to be a bitch. Despite the fact that English is primarily a Germanic language, I haven't had hardly any exposure to it in real life, the way you run into Spanish, or even French. I've found that the ability to mimic, say, a Frenchman's English helps immensely with your own pronunciation of French. Unfortunately, I've not known any Germans in the US, so there's been no one to mimic. Just being here for even a day, though, has made me feel a little better. I still don't know shit, but just being immersed in it makes me a little more comfortable about knowing that I'll be able to pick up the pronunciation with time.

So that's what this thing will be about - my life in Germany. Experiences, anecdotes, impressions of things, places, and people I've met, that sort of thing. I'm here now for a week in order to look for an apartment, set up a bank account, and other stuff to get ready for the actual move, which is targeted for the end of April. Since I'm so late in starting I'll need to catch you up on some of the stuff that's happened to this point, but I'll try to be a little more succinct with those topics. I also may not be posting on a regular basis until I get back here for good, as picking up everything you own and moving it half way around the globe can be a tad time consuming. But I'll do my best, and I appreciate all the feedback that you'd care to give me. It's pretty much validation for what I'm doing and I'm shallow like that. So 'til next time, Auf Wiedersehen (owf vee-der-zehn)!