Kann ich probieren?

Can I try?

I had to use this phrase several times on Sunday afternoon when I attended a Weinmesse (wine fair) with the girls. This was my first event like this, as I've never been to one in the States either. It was held at an event center a little bit outside of Munich. It was huge. There were tons of different wineries there, most from Germany and Austria, but also a few from Italy and even one from South Africa! We had a coupon for discounted entry, so we each paid 5 Euros to drink as much wine as we wanted, basically. We spent the entire afternoon going from one vendor's stand to another, trying various wines and learning more about them from the vineyard salespeople. I tried to understand as much of the German as possible, but my friends had to translate for me at times. We tasted a lot of great wines and some not so good ones, too. Two of my friends and I also decided to place an order for 12 bottles together (4 for each of us). I wasn't planning on buying a lot of wine, but I really like the ones that we tried at this stand and so I decided to go for it. They were all reasonably priced, so no buyer's remorse here! We stayed for a little over 3 hours. It was so much fun!

While listening to the salespeople at the fair, I picked up a few more German words, like "süffig," which translates to "light and sweet" or "pleasant to the taste" (per my online dictionary). At the time, my friends mentioned that there wasn't a great English translation for this word, as it mostly used to describe wine as being easy to drink. Learning more and more German really makes me think a lot about the differences between German and English and how interesting the development and use of different languages really is. For example, German is a really efficient language, in my opinion. They have individual words for lots of things that we use several words to describe in English. One example is "Dachlawine," which literally translates to "roof avalanche." "Dach" is the German word for roof and "Lawine" is the German word for avalanche. Now in English, we would probably just describe it as "snow falling off of the roof." But since Germans have one specific word for this situation, they can simply say, "Vorsicht: Dachlawine!" In English, we would have to say "Watch out for the snow falling off of the roof," which is a lot longer. It doesn't make much of a difference in that instance, but when you are having a conversation and there are hundreds of words like this, you really realize how much more "efficient" German is as a language. In English, I think we tend to be more descriptive about things. We also have just about 10-15 synonyms for every words, whereas I feel like Germans use a lot of the same words over and over. (Keep in mind I've only been learning German for a few months, so my observation is based on somewhat limited knowledge) But we have discussed these differences with our German friends, who speak great English and German, and they tend to agree. It's just a really fascinating difference, in my opinion.

Anyways... While we were enjoying the wine, Matt went with two of the girls' boyfriends to a bar for a few drinks. Yes, we left the boys at home. It seemed to be a great girls' day idea and I don't think they were too disappointed. We all met up later that evening for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.

Nothing much new here other than that. We're going to Berlin tomorrow night and we'll be there until Monday. We're looking forward to lots of interesting history and some different food, as Berlin is a little more of the typical metropolitan city when compared to Munich. Should be fun! I'll report back next week...

Until then,
Kristin and Matt