Classic German

I realized that I am in fact learning German when I was able to understand this unusual sign I saw when walking by a hospital in Martinsried.
"Hubschrauber Flugverkehr - Drachensteigen verboten!"
That is some classic German.

And then on the same trip as I was waiting in the airport to get on the plane a Lufthansa employee came by and conducted a little interview with me about my travel habits and plans for statistics - and to my enjoyment without switching to English. It was like an extended German class exercise.

Busy busy busy

No time for blogging - just got back from traveling to Munich, Vienna, and Děčín over the last 2 weeks - more on some of that later. maybe. This week will be all writing to get a paper finally resubmitted.

But here's something:
Favorite German word of the month: angrillen
This is a verb that is used in reference just to the first time you fire up the grill in the spring for the new year. how sweet is that? Like 'wir haben gestern angegrillt'. Or 'wir grillen heute an.'
I opened the grilling season for myself officially I guess when my friend Amy from Brighton was visiting and we scored some homemade bratwurst - lamb and standard variety - from the local butcher, and Amy hooked up some homemade kartoffelsalat to go with them. I cannot begin to explain the difference between these bratwurst and the store-bought variety (even here in Germany).