With Leander, a classmate: The German system of encouraging, and often drafting, people into a year of military or civil service immediately after high school isn't restrictive, it's character-building. Most people serve in the army or work in kindergartens or rest homes -- but the German government sent him to the Jewish community in Prague, where he spent his Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr as general factotum for some elderly Holocaust survivors. He ran errands for them, and helped with meals, and played lots of games of chess. They got on together quite well.
With Stefan, a local on exchange-student pastoral care duty: No, it's not true that German men are more domesticated than most. The lovely fluffy Black Forest cake that he brought to our potluck dinner? Doesn't count, he learned it at his mother's knee. My floormates that cook gorgeous meals for their girlfriends? Well, they're cooking for their girlfriends. My floormates that cook gorgeous meals for themselves? Well, they're students, and it's cheaper than eating out. (My floormates that spontaneously wash other people's piles of dishes, and that spend afternoons baking cookies, and that cook gorgeous meals for themselves, using private stocks of obscure vegetables and personal kitchen utensils kept apart from the common hoard, and wearing big efficient-looking aprons? I didn't mention this; I doubted he'd be able to respond.)
My own theory, by the way, is that men are indeed on average somewhat more domestic in Germany than elsewhere. The only New Zealand guy friend I've ever known to bake was gay. But I suspect that because the guys I know here are older than the ones I know in New Zealand, my data is biassed.
With Emily: How on earth will we be able to break the news to our schools back home when we fail our horrible representation theory paper? But of course, since our results notices will be in German, maybe we won't have to. Having the result for one class different from that for the others might look suspicious, though. Perhaps the best chance for deception would be to fail all three.
I'm going to Vienna again (briefly) this weekend. I'll be local for Christmas, but Simon's coming from Princeton to visit over New Year, and we're wandering north. People with great sightseeing suggestions or long-lost friends for us, as far as Koblenz or Cologne, should speak now (and please, do!), or forever hold their pieces.
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At the risk of overgeneralizing wildly (but hey, what are blog comments for?) I think that the domestic observations say more about male residents of godzone and (to some extent) the west island than their German counterparts.
And at the risk of showing my age with an 80's catchphrase, it now seems to be true over here that while real men may eat quiche (and drink latte), they still don't bake it.
Everyone cooks, bakes and washes dishes.
..don't they?
I had a friend who did an exchange in Germany in 7th form, and she said that German men were useless when it came to doing serious work - "wouldn't know one end of a spade from the other."
I would say that Hamburg has much to recommend itself (but then, I'm expected to say that), and maybe Lubeck (somewhere in the general vicinity of Hamburg - maybe a couple of hours by car) if you like old fortresses and things - it's particularly nice around Christmas-time with all the wonderful markets and things, though presumably the same is true of most towns in Germany. What we saw of Berlin was fascinating; however, this was restricted largely to the inside of the Pergamon museum.
There are little towns everywhere in Germany, and probably Switzerland, if you aren't inclined to go north after all, with cute houses like the ones in storybooks and a ruined castle or two (all covered in snow, of course, at this time of year). It would be brilliant if you could manage to find long-lost friends in such a town (near Darmstadt, for example).
Now I'm wishing I was back in Germany instead of Hamilton with no prospects of snow, or exciting people, to provide interest. Do send a postcard from somewhere when you have time, it's lovely to get them (says she-who-never-writes), and really, the whole country is brilliant so I shouldn't worry too much about where to go.
Oh, and is there something I don't know about Alex or do his culinary abilities not meet the standard to be described as 'baking'?
I'm afraid my baking experiences with Alex consist largely of the enthusiastic consumption of store-bought chocolate croissants. What have I been missing out on? :(
At the risk of holding to an always-sketchy opinion long after it's been disproved (but hey, what's blogging for?) I will stick to my guns: michael X, I'm afraid no, I haven't many New Zealand guy friends that dishwash so liberally as the German ones, or that bake (do you?). But maybe the revolution has begun.
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