It has been six years since the world came to a standstill in the grip of the coronavirus. I wouldn’t want a repeat performance, but there were some positive aspects to it. One of them was how I no longer had to jostle for space. All at once, my American need for personal space – a lot more than what Germans need - had become the law.

Picture by Anna_Kovtun on Pixabay

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Brenda Arnold

The Munich public transport system has long since lost its good reputation. Even if you check the schedule, you may wind up standing for an hour on a platform when your train is canceled. But being stuck on a crowded tram offers a close-up view of a random sampling of its diverse inhabitants.

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Brenda Arnold

What’s so strange about singing in Spanish? We all learned the lyrics to “Feliz Navidad” back when the only Spanish speaker around was José Feliciano. Foreign languages are fun, folks, and besides, it’s really about the music. Bad Bunny also sings in Puerto Rican slang, so it could very well be that Latinos don’t understand everything, either. A bit of a cultural adventure never hurt anyone.

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Brenda Arnold

Germans are now confronting the fact that Christmas is over but winter is just getting underway. They console themselves by getting an early start celebrating carnival, which involves consuming large quantities of a special pastry, called Krapfen, to prepare for a period of fasting for Lent. True, hardly anybody fasts anymore, but no matter – Krapfen are delicious. Not only are these pastries popular, but their numbers also keep growing and more varieties are created every year.

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Brenda Arnold

You’re not supposed to use birthdates for passwords or combinations, so I used important historical dates. But as an American who lived in Spain and now lives in Germany, many dates stand out. Which led to a lot of problems when I tried to reconstruct the thought process behind my bike combination after returning from vacation…

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Brenda Arnold

I was brimming with confidence that my French was good enough to navigate around southern France. But not only was my French not suffisant, my lack of botanical knowledge also got me into trouble. Merde!

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Brenda Arnold

The windy city, indeed! But why windy? And who really caused the Great Fire - if you think it was a cow - then guess again!

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Brenda Arnold

Germans are so careful about maintaining their cars and they build their houses so well that they are practically airtight. But on New Year’s Eve, their sense of caution quite literally vanishes into thin air in the form of fireworks.

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Brenda Arnold