About every 4 months I get a flyback, means: I return to Germany for something, which supposingly is vacation. Didn’t fully work out as vacation this time. Those, who know me, can imagine why. I had just one week in Germany. And nearly no entirely ‘free’ day… I wanted to see people, and there are even some people who wanted to see me 😉 Makes in total a pretty packed week.
What did I enjoy most when being back in Germany for a few days?
- Talking
To Taxi drivers, shop assistants and other unknown people, who happen to cross my way during traveling and shopping. Because I could do all that in German! Unbelievable, but I enjoyed for the first time to discuss at length the best way home from the airport with the taxi driver. Or exchanging a few more words than absolutely necessary with a bakery assistant. It’s just because I can do it and people understand me. - Nature
I enjoyed having a small hiking tour through the Taunus. Were just a good 2 hours. And the sky threatened us with rain clouds. I had missed it anyway. This or a bicycle trip through open fields or forests or at best on hills or mountains. Shanghai is too large a city to ‘just go out for a walk’.Unfortunately, I did not find time for a cycling tour in Germany, which really is a pitty… Maybe, we’ll gonna buy bikes in Shanghai soon. I still have a birthday coupon about a bicycle… - Bread (actually: rolls)
Hm, somehow missed to buy good bread. But at least had rolls for breafast on all weekends. For some weird reason I was up on Sonday morning at 07:30 already, went jogging and afterwards bought fresh rolls for a decent German breakfast including fresh cafe latte, made of real espresso. That’s how a day may start! - Pork
I used to be a fan of beef. But as I keep eating beef in China (the chances for bone splinters are a lot less) I was looking forward to some traditional local dishes made from pork. And I had plenty of chances…Saturday as saussages, Sunday a bit more elaborated as ‘medallions’, Friday as good old Jägerschnitzel (“hunter’s schnitzel”, just learned, that the word ‘Schnitzel’ has been taken over into the English language ;-)), today my mother is going to offer pork filet, and I will no refuse. - Traffic
I’m still afraid that it is kind of dangerous to get used to the German way again, but it’s enjoyable to cross a street without too much thinking once the traffic lights show green. In Germany, cars give way to pedestrians in these cases, in China they don’t. Hopefully I remember that as soon as I’m back in Shanghai! - Driving
And, yeah, every few months a bit of driving a car myself is also nice. EuropCar even wanted to do me favour and upgraded my humble reservation of a VW Passat (Sport) to a brand-new (9 km on the meter!) Mercedes CLK. Well, I do not really like Mercedes, but the new CLK eventually is a bit more sportive and young in design than the former types, which I think of as too conservative, especially regarding the interiour. (That’s why I like Audi or BMW better.) Streets were too full on Friday to check out the car’s limits, but maybe tomorrow when going back to Frankfurt… - Discussions
I did enjoy some discussion with friends about the recently deceased pope, political opinions, free access to news of all these different political flavours, differences of culture and the like. It’s so much simpler doing that in German and about topics I do know a bit.I’d like to also learn about all these things also in China, but so far chances were limited. We’ll see…I should be able to get them sooner or later.
Did I miss something from Shanghai? A week is definitely too short for missing anything as I was busy doing those things that I missed from Germany. But I’m looking forward to the next Salsa class 😉 Well, that is not really typically Chinese… But the food is, and I started to like it. So after all the pork dishes here, I will also enjoy again the Chinese cuisine.