Cultural Misunderstanding Averted:
On the walk back from buying groceries today, I noticed a woman shaking her closed fist in the face of a homeless man. My first reaction was shock. My second to realize that I was completely wrong and she was actually giving him encouragement and wishing him some luck by closing her fist around her thumb and making the German gesture for good luck.
(To wish someone luck in the native way, close your fist around your thumb, squeeze it and say Ich drücke dir die Daumen!)
Happy Surprises:
It's been a long week and hard to keep up with everything. I finally got everything under control last night and was left with a manageable workload instead of a to do list longer at the end of each day. And after two days of travel, I was just tired. So, I skipped the whole getting up and getting dressed part of the morning and just stayed in bed for a couple of hours with my laptop and coffee. (I travel or work from home...it doesn't matter how I look on those days)
So when the doorbell rings at 10am, I'm suprised and not dressed to answer the door. I throw a robe on over my pajamas and quickly answer it to find a wonderful surprise - a "care package" from one of my best friends in the world (from Singapore, to be exact). We met in business school, bonded one night at dinner over a shared love of pink snakeskin, I joined her and a couple others for a trip to Paris, and that was that....we realized we were like sisters that the stork had been dropped off on other sides of the world.
Among other wonderful goodies (pineapple tarts!!!) was a book that will inspire some serious exploration. Living in Germany and in close proximity to Vienna and Italy makes trying many of these things very possible!
An Ettiquette Dilemma:
So what's the ettiquette on how to drink wine on a train? Drinking beer out of the bottle is quite common on German trains, and it seems like a tall boy (or two) is in order for many of the men commuting home at night on the LIRR. But how does one drink wine?
I typically take the train to Frankfurt once a week - sometimes there and back on the same day, making it a very long day. Lately I've been tired but can't sleep, and too bored/tired to read or play games on my Kindle. (Herr J thinks I need a PlayStation portable or something...he might be right).
So I decided a glass of red wine might be a good way to relax, and if I were lucky, perhaps to induce a nap. They do sell little bottles in the train station, but they don't have plastic cups. I felt a little weird drinking it out of the bottle. OK, I felt a LOT weird - enough that last week I didn't get wine because it seemed weird. This week, I decided I didn't care what people thought and went for it. I felt good about that decision when I realized that the girl in the seat next to me didn't seem to care about not having showered in a few days!