The second half of our question/answer session:

1. From Mc In Da House: Inspired by “Ask the German guy”, I’ve got a few questions I’d like to ask an American-

• Why do - most - Americans think that David Hasselhoff is still a big star over here in Germany?
• And why does David Hasselhoff believe, that he’s responsible for tearing down the Berlin wall?
• Why are - most - Americans (living in Germany) are obsessed with German toilets?

First off - the toilet thing. Americans are wasteful by nature… our toilets use TONS of water (imagine your toilet 3/4 full of water all the time). Plus there isn’t a shelf. It’s the shelf that really throws us. When you poop in America the worst thing you have to worry about is toilet water splashing your tush as you… er… launch your torpedo. But you never really have to see your shit. In Germany on the shelf toilets, it’s like the shelf is there for inspection purposes. Like you could stand up and say “huh, what did I eat yesterday that was orange…” or “wow, I need to lay off the corn”. This is too much intimacy for the average American. We don’t want to think about our bodily functions beyond the age of, say, 4 or 5.

David Hasselhoff: even at the height of Baywatch’s popularity, the Hoff was pretty much a joke. He was semi-cool in Night Rider, but that was just because he had a cool car… he was cool by association. Then one day the news hit that he had a best selling album in Germany and the late night comedians had a field day. No one in America could conceive of a place where people would actually pay money to hear David Hasselhoff sing. So Germany and Germans became the punchline for a lot of late-night fodder. As for the Berlin wall thing… no clue other than to say David Hasselhoff is a complete nutjob.

Ask me questions any time you’d like… I love the idea of trying to explain Americans to Germans (I bet a lot of my fellow expats would as well). By the way, thanks for putting up with all the expats in your country… most of us really do love it here.

2. From Caffinated Cowgirl: Who would you rather be for a day? Brittney Spears or Queen Elizabeth?

At first blush Britney sounds like a no-brainer, but I could do some serious damage as the Queen. I could stand on my balcony and call Princess Diana a simpering whore. I could declare London Calling the national song. I could order dna testing on Prince Harry because, let’s face it, he’s as related to the monarchy as I am. The possibilities are endless…

3. From Haddock: Why did the USA rename GMT to UTC - What was the point?? It’s the same time referrence, but it was renamed (rest of the world uses GMT as a referrence).

I had no idea, so I asked Jim… he looked at me & scoffed, “UTC is based on atomic time,” he said. “Not every minute is the same amount of time… they work in extra seconds every so many seconds to account for irregularities in the earth’s rotation.” He looked pretty smug after that explanation, and I don’t have the heart to tell him all he did was confuse me more. So your guess as to why they did it is as good as mine.

4. From Katie: How do you suggest an American who can’t really speak English meet people and make friends when she moves to Germany? Your shopping tips were really useful last year, btw.

First off I’m glad to hear my shopping tips actually helped someone. I really need to finish that project, huh?

So, an American who can’t speak English moves to Germany and wants to make friends? Yowza, that would be tough. I’m always saying if you can’t speak the native language, english is certainly the best backup. I get the feeling there are expat enclaves in every country for every walk of life. It’s just a matter of finding what you need. And that’s exactly why Al Gore invented the internet for us… so we could all find what we need. Go Al!

5. From J: Being that you’ve been abroad for a while now, I would like to know if you knew before you moved to Germany what you know now and you couldn’t change anything, would you still have moved here.

Probably everyone knows the answer to this already, but I would hesitate for a nanosecond to move here all over again. It hasn’t always been easy. At times it’s even been downright depressing, but at the end of the day the good far outweighs the bad. Plus this whole expat thing is like an adrenaline junkie’s biggest high… it’s difficult to take things for granted when you barely speak or understand the language. Every situation is ripe with terror and/or possibility. I’d trade that (not to mention a gazillion vacation days) over 24 hour shopping and a better selection any day of the week.

In the 2+ years we’ve lived here we haven’t been back to the states once. The first year we thought a lot about going back and said we would our second summer here. Then it arrived and we said “wellll, we’ve never been to Spain, let’s go there instead and maybe we’ll visit America for Christmas”. By the time Christmas arrived we all said “nah, maybe we’ll go back for a visit in 5 or 6 years”. Two years in and this is home. America is the foreign land now.

6. From Mud: Why do some Germans insist on wearing all black with shiny red shoes (women) or a nice dark grey suit, white shirt and neon (yes neon) green tie? Or is this trend just in Schwabenland?

I have no clue on this one… it’s not a trend we see in Dresden. Heh, one of my favorite stories Jim brought home from work was a time when he was walking in behind a guy dressed all in black… black suit, black shoes, black socks, black sunglasses. One of the guys (a German) he works with looked at Jim, leaned over, lowered his voice, and whispered ‘Johnny Cash’ with a southern drawl. Cracks me up every time…

On this day..

• I miss half-priced books. - 2008
• Good times. - 2007