Gaststätte

A gaststätte is best described as a pub....no rooms available, no food, no snacks and its usually a neighborhood place where thirty to fifty local guys hang out once or twice a week....to stay away from their wives or play cards.

On most Monday through Friday nights...there will be a dozen German guys standing there.....avoiding going home. There will always be a four guys in the corner, usually playing cards. One guy typically runs the bar, and its usually his second job.

Its hard to say if a gaststatte actually makes much of a profit. I'm guessing most make enough to pay for the heat, electrical and cost of the place....and maybe put $200 a month profit into the bartender's pocket. Considering there is no food typically involved in a place like this....then its a particular crowd who comes to frequent. Guys typically avoid getting into serious arguments at a place like this because if they ever irratate the bartender....they get tossed out and there usually aren't any alternate places to hang out. So folks tend to stay friendly.

Du and Sie

Somewhere in the vast German way of complexity...."you" became a four-star problem. In English, "you" is simple to explain and use. It takes a minute to explain the word and its use...then you move on.

For Germans, Du and Sie....are totally different. I had a language professor try to make it simple, just by saying that you'd only use Du for people that you knew, and Sie was for everyone else. Then someone brought up that you couldn't use Du for the Butcher you visited twice a week, or the bakers wife who took care of your bread sales, or the barber you visited twelve times a year. The professor kinda agreed. You can't define the splitting point of Du and Sie.

If you are ever in a car and the German cops stop you....NEVER use the word "Du", otherwise it could be a ticket for bad language usage. Du shouldn't be used with your associates at work, unless you actually sip beer with them and swap life stories. Don't use Du for your new neighbor until you really get to know them (usually ten years after they move in). Don't use Du for bar waitress that you've known for six years unless she uses the word Du on you first.

Its stupid to have this formal and non-formal way of addressing "you". If you meet some gal at a bar, and actually ask for a real date....then you have to start wondering around the second and third date....is it appropriate to use Du? Should you hold back until the twelfth date? Should you wait until you've done some kinky stuff behind locked doors? Should you wait until you've met her parents? Should you wait until you've actually proposed?

I'm always rather harsh on Germans for their language....but they deserve it.

Word of the Day: Das is Geil!

Call it a word. Call it a phrase. It really doesn't matter. You can say the word to one guy who say it really means this. But the next guy says its something different.

By the dictionary, geil means horny. Old Germans will absolutely swear that it means this and they would never ever use the word unless they were locked up in their private place and thinking hot lusty thoughts. In their minds, its some Gothic gal...in black, giving you the "one-eye" (because the other is permanently hidden behind hair).

So you turn to a teenager and show them a neat new video game....and they automatically say "GEIL!"....which means in teen German-speak....nifty, neat, great, man o man.

Teachers tend to hate this word....because its really gotten misused now. How someone can say "horny" about some new bike or someone's haircut....just doesn't make sense.

So should you as an American ever use the phrase? Probably not. You probably would get to using it a fair amount and one day....talking to some 55-year old neighbor gal...you'd say her new hairstyle is geil.....and she'd start to smile, wink, and give you some impressions of lusty behavior.....then you'd realize you really said the wrong damn thing. And it'd be twice as bad if you were an American woman saying this to the 55-year old neighbor gal.

So as you are sitting there on the front door step....and the teenage girls walk by saying geil about your new car....its ok. If they are saying geil and gazing at you.....it might be a different meaning. Sadly, this is why the German language is so screwed up.

Cola-Beer?

Rarely do I make negative comments about German beer. There are literally hundreds of brews and brands. Somewhere amongst these....are the Cola-Beers....which frankly, I can't stand.

Its a mixture of fifty percent beer and fifty percent cola. Whichever idiot came up with this idea....probably was wasted when he wrote this down. A guy could gulp down two of these in an hour, and still likely not get wasted (remember....a real beer is 5 percent).

Most Germans claim this is the way to drink beer if you have to drive. Women seem to like this taste, because its sweet beer.

I'm more of the mind....either drink a Coke or drink a beer....but don't mix the two. It spoils perfection either way.