Some things about not sprechen sie Deutsch

On culture shock…
One of my correspondents has suggested that I may be suffering from a touch of culture shock. I wasn’t really sure what that was, so consulted that oh-so-reliable source, Wikipedia. Here’s what it said:

Culture shock is a term used to describe the anxiety and feelings (of surprise, disorientation, confusion, etc.) felt when people have to operate within an entirely different cultural or social environment, such as a foreign country. It grows out of the difficulties in assimilating the new culture, causing difficulty in knowing what is appropriate and what is not. This is often combined with strong disgust (moral or aesthetical) about certain aspects of the new or different culture.

I’m not sure that I am suffering from strong feelings of disgust but I would have to say that the Wikipedia does pretty much sum up how I’ve felt in the last couple of weeks. Every time I go outside our little flat, I feel just a touch anxious… am I doing the right thing? Have I offended someone? How am I ever going to communicate what I want? Certainly the sense of knowing what is and isn’t appropriate has been a big source of conversation for us since we arrived.

On the plus side, I think I am starting to feel better about things. I spent most of the day out and about yesterday and even managed to ask how much something was, buy two things and order lunch. My language skills are still miniscule but I recognise a lot more words and can even put a few of them into sentences!

On food…
I’m sorry to go on about food, but it really seems to take up a lot of my time. We don’t have a car here and so what I buy is limited to what I can carry. This usually means that I am only able buy enough food for a couple of days at any one time. We also have a teeny-tiny fridge and no freezer, so I can only buy meat etc a couple of days ahead of time.

A trip to go and get food can be quite a time consuming task. There aren’t any big supermarkets like NZ (in central Dresden, anyway), but there are lots of little markets all around the place. Our nearest market is about 10 minutes walk away. Getting to and from the market is not actually the issue, however. The real problem is trying to figure out what to buy… Whether this tub is yoghurt, milk or butter milk? What kind of cheese this is? What flavour jam am I buying? Which brand is best etc etc etc… Also, some things seem to be done differently here: for example, there doesn’t seem to be a ‘baking aisle’. It took me about 5 mins just to locate flour and I still haven’t managed to find anything that vaguely resembles baking powder or yeast. There are, however, lots of pre-packaged foods- especially for baking. I wanted to make pizza last week and ended up buying a bread mix to make the base as I couldn’t locate yeast. I have since discovered that you can buy a pizza base mix, or buy one of about 20 varieties of frozen pizza.

You will be pleased to know that in order to alleviate some of these issues, we are hoping to start German classes this week.