Gibraltar – an English world in Spain

Map of Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a fantastic city – a small English World in the South of Spain. It is the European Gate to Africa.

Geographically the city belongs to Spain, politically it belongs to the UK.  Hence it is no wonder, that you have to show your passport at the frontier to enter the peninsula. After the entry in the UK you pass a runway of an airplane (see the second picture).  By the way the runway is closed when a plane lands. Until yet everything is a little bit strange – a different world in the good known Spain.

‘you have to pass a runway of an airplane’

When you are in Gibraltar you can feel the English ambiance. You can talk English, pay with pounds and buy Fish and Chips. Furthermore the taxes are less than in Spain, that’s why Cigarettes and Alkohol are very cheap.

Gibraltar is moulded by a big  mountain called ‘the rock of Gibraltar’ or ‘the rock of the monkeys’. The city has 29000 inhabitants, in comparison: Berlin has 3.5 Mio inhabitants – even my small hometown Werder/ Havel has got the same number of inhabitans as Gibraltar.

As I said everything is typically English, there is just missing the rain. To everybody who loves the UK but hates rain I say: Go and visit Gibraltar!

The crazy ideas of the German Grammar – Part 4

This time I want to give you an understanding on the “German Prepositions”.

First I have to say, that this is a really hard nut to crack – even harder than the rest of the German language. (Who is surprised by this?? I guess: Nobody!!)

There are more than 30  prepositions in German.                                   Here are the most used:

mit,  nach,  von,  seit,  aus,  zu,  bei,  an,  auf,  hinter,  neben,  über,  vor,  zwischen,  gegen,  für, außer

While some preposition are simple to translate (f.e. hinter: behind, neben: next to, zwischen: between, among), other have got some distinguish meenings.

There are a lot possibilities in German to say:  I go to…

• Ich gehe in den Park.                I go to the park.
• Ich gehe zum Bahnhof.            I go to the train station.
• Ich gehe nach Berlin.               I go to Berlin.
• Ich gehe zur Bushaltestelle.  I go to the bus station.

The preposition depends on the gender of the noun (The crazy ideas of the German Grammar- Part 3)  and on the Case, which is used (The crazy ideas of the German Grammar – Part 2).

The majority of prepositions require just one special Cases, that’s why it is good to learn these ‘miniwords’ with the cases, in which they used. For example ‘mit’ need the Dative Case ( mit dem Freund, mit der Freundin, mit dem Hund ), ‘auf’ is used as well by using the Dative Case ( auf dem Dach, auf dem Boden).

Some preposition are used with different Cases, depending on the sense of the sentence.  

‘A good example is if you are sick. What do we do when we are sick? We take something for our sickness correct? Well in German, you would take something against your sickness. See the difference here? It is little subtle things like this which make up the whole picture.’  (Source: learngermanwords.com)

For better understanding have a look on these pages: www.learngermanwords.com, www.nthuleen.com,

‘Stilles Örtchen’- a good travel advice!!

www.florianmessner.com

Hey, today I got one good travel advice for you!

The normal matter having to go to the ‘Stilles Örtchen’ (German for: smallest room, the john, the outhouse) can turn to a very heavy matter.

When I have been to the Ukraine, there was a really big misfortune, which I won’t never forget.

I had to go to the bathrooms- but unfortunately I didn’t have a clue of Russian, so I couldn’t read the toilet-signs. The end of the story was, that I entered in the men’s part of the toilet… There was a woman running behind me, telling me something in Russian- so now I understood that I took the wrong decision.

I recommend you to be prepare your vacation really good – it will be helpful.

Here already some tips for you:

Japan

Russian sign for 'Women' Женщина - Woman

China

kjk

Barbecue – different traditions worldwide

mmhhh.... yummy....

Who hasn’t been never to a barbecue? For sure there is nobody!! Barbecues are popular all over the world!

Two Years ago I thought, that barbecues are celebrated everywhere the same way – But I had to learn that I have been wrong:

I was invited at a Spanish barbecue. Arriving there I just saw meat- not a scrap of salads, bread or other things than meat and sausages – thousand sorts of meat and sausages ( I have to repeat it three times, because there was really just meat!!!).  In Germany this is not normal…. In the end  I liked it, but I am still convinced that German can do a better barbecue than the Spanish.

One month later I invited the same people, that have been at the Spanish barbecue to have a typical German Barbecue. Two Spanish Boys helped me buying the things I needed. They told me that the meat, which I bought, wouldn’t be enough- but I didn’t listen. I wanted to show them what a typical German Barbecue looks like! My German and Austrian flatmates helped me preparing a potato salad, a vegetable salad, some cakes and some dips.

When my Spanish friends came, they looked a little bit confused, but after tasting everything they decided, that the food was very delicious. ;-) At the end they told me, that the German Barbecue is even more tasty and healthy than the Spanish one.  Few days later, one asked me when I will do the next barbecue - so the victory was mine!!!!

I am sure, that in other countries there are other traditions to celebrate barbecue. So when you know something about this, I would be really happy, if you tell me!

Please vote!!

A really interesting question concerning my last blog:
Have a look on “Germans- Beloved or hated?” and vote the most popular nation!!

Germans – Beloved or hated?

"Visit a country, in which Germans are more unpopular than here.

Against this  advertisement of an Austrian airline there is a study saying that Germany is the most popular nation of the world.

More than 17.000 people from 34 countries were polled by the BBC. The result surprised everybody-  56 % have a positive opinion about the Germans. Particularly in Europe Germany have a good image: 82 % of the Italian think that the German influence can be rated as positive.  The same said the Spanish, the Portuguese and the French.  The British with 62 % and the Russian with 61 % have as well a good opinion on the German nation. Read the article here.

as vacationer: 2002 the Germans were the most popular holidaymaker. Unfortunately this opinion changed 6 years later a little bit:  the Germans had to lay down the crown. Now they are on the 5th rank – Japanese, Americans and Swiss are on the first three ranks. The reason of the change could be that Germans are so called tight-fisted. Have a look on the article here.

As I worked 2 years in a Hotel in a foreign country, I can say that I every time liked the German Guest a lot. There are  nations, who don’ t know how to behave oneself  -  like Italian and Russian ( sorry guys).

Finally I just have to say:  I like you, Germany!

My name in Chinese!!!

www.chinafokus.com

While I surfed the internet, I found my name written in Chinese (picture on the left side).  Mostly the German names sound different and longer in spoken Chinese than in German because they don’t have the same syllable like us.  Here an example: The typical German name ‘Andrea‘ changes to ‘An De Lie Ya’,   ‘Maximilian‘ changes to ‘Ma Ke Xi Mi Li An’.  

My name is a little bit easier: Every symbol shows one syllable of my name- so the first symbol stands for ‘Sa‘ and the second for ‘Ri‘. Unfortunately the Chinese can’t speak the letter ‘R’ – so in China they call me ‘Sa li’ – really nice change :-)

When I’ve been to China, a Chinese friend made me a present- a stamp with my German and Chinese name on it. You can see the imprint on the picture below.  It is strange, that the Chinese symbols are different- but I guess it is really difficult to write a word in Chinese, that you don’t know.  So  nevertheless I like both symbols! 

My stamp

 

 Have a look on the page and find your name in Chinese:  click here.