The Importance of Speaking Another Language

In my 'other life', I'm a language teacher. I teach English and German at a Middle School in the Greater Stockholm area. Speaking English is not a big deal over here - but speaking German certainly is. And I speak it fairly well. And I can't even begin to tell you what a difference that makes when it comes to experiencing life in the German speaking world.

For instance, 18 years ago, in Bernkastel-Kues, we visited the Lauerburg Winery and Vineyards for the first time. The shop, smack in the middle of Bernkastel, was run by an elderly couple. We were later to find out that they were the former proprietors, and that their son had now taken over. At that time, my German was more than a little rusty, so we tried to get by in English, with rather sullen mono-syllabic answers as a result. But J had a question about growing wine, and we realised there was no way we would get an answer unless we tried German. And lo and behold, the couple instantly turned out to be the most charming and entertaining persons. We chatted away, they offered us to sample their wines - we had a great time. Unfortunately, at that time, we could only import very few bottles of wine - I think it was two bottles per person - and their wines were quite exraordinary. What a shame!

However, next summer we went back, and now Swedish law had changed. And the couple proved to be just as charming this year, telling us a rather funny story involving another Swedish customer, who happened to be the brother of former Prime Minister Olof Palme . We bought quite a few bottles that time.

Of course, this year we revisited the shop, but the couple had passed away. The son turned out to be just as friendly and welcoming though, showing us his wine cellars, something he probably didn't do on a regular basis.

On one of our previous visits, we were shown the 17th century building where the daughter of the owners was to be married the following week. I very much doubt that would have happened if we had not spoken German.

Next year we are planning to visit the Loire Valley in France. Do we speak French, you may wonder? Well, we both took it for four years in school - 40 years ago, and we really haven't used it since. I can introduce myself, but that's about it. So I guess that will have to be our project this winter - to brush up our French!

Big mistake on my part

Being home again, I had the chance to fix a few things I couldn't figure out how to do on my cell phone. One thing I did was put a tag on every post, so I could easily find everything that belongs to the same trip. However, this meant that I got the publication order a bit wacky. The post 'Desert in Denmark' should of course not be the very last post - it should come between 'Think positive thoughts' and 'Römö and van life'. Sorry about that. I'll keep this in mind...

Desert in Denmark

Today's trek will probably be one of the highlights of this trip. After a tip from my cousin we decided to head back north again, past Løkken and another kilometre or so to Rubjerg Knude Fyr/Lighthouse. This lighthouse is partly buried in sand, just like the church we saw the other day. It is estimated that it will fall prey to the sea within twenty years.

But the most interesting part of this is the surrounding sand dunes - a veritable desert. Check out the photos below!

After this we continued south, heading towards the ferry for Thyborøn, the island of Thybor. Many place names on Tyr, Thyr and Thi around here, probably named for Norse God Tyr.

Have stopped at Krik Vig camping in Agger for the night, a quite unremarkable place with a remarkably expensive Wifi. This is not a place I would recommend if more than one person plans to use Wifi.
Our plan is to catch the ferry first thing in the morning and then travel on to Rømø and Oasen Camp site.

What on earth is that in the distance?

Could it be the Sahara?

The sand was super soft

Interesting differences/observations

We wouldn't call ourselves experienced campers, but we did have four weeks of camping under our belts before embarking on our Denmark-Germany 2018 tour, so here goes.

Danish and German campgrounds are quiet and peaceful. Swedish campgrounds are crowded with yelling and screaming children. There were children in Denmark and Germany, too, and of course they were playing - but they did not disturb other guests. In fact, the only time we were disturbed by children was in Lübeck. Two Swedish families allowing their kids to run wild until after 10pm.

Danish and German camping grounds, streets and public restrooms are incredibly clean  - like they were here some 20 years ago. Whatever happened to the 'Keep Sweden Clean' Campaigns of my childhood?

We take good cell phone reception (and Wifi) for granted in Sweden. We're lucky, it seems. Updating my blog would have been so much easier with proper reception. Germany has the best engineers in the world, so we certainly expected more in this respect.

When we were in the States maybe ten years ago we were surprised to see how badly maintained quite a few of the roads were. Germany was worse! We were constantly bumped around, having to re-organize fridge and cabinets several times.

Germans are 'known' (in Sweden) to drive very fast. We feel this may be changing since our last vacation in Germany about 20 years ago. Maybe because of the roads? 

Cash is King in Germany. Having lived in Japan (where everyone walks around  with large amounts of cash since cards are simple not accepted), we don't have a problem with this but we were certainly surprised. Quite a few stores do not accept Visa or MasterCard but only the German EC-card, which of course is not issued in other countries.

And why can't you use your credit card directly at the gas pump? Instead of having to go inside to pay - with your card!

Bikes are the normal means of transportation for daily errands in Germany and Denmark. Grocery shopping, bringing the kiddies to day care or school etc. (They have trikes with huge boxes in the front with passed seats and seat belts.) 

You wouldn't think there was a whole lot to say about traffic lights, do you? Well we did not find one single 'intelligent' traffic light in Germany (the Danish towns we visited were too small for traffic lights). They were all just programmed with set intervalls, and did not seem to be sensor-driven by the traffic, the way we are used to. Again, this country is home to the best engineers and engineering schools in the world (sorry to all my US friends...) so we were a bit surprised.

I realize there are good reasons why people do things differently from us, which is why I would love to see a list like this on Sweden, from the German perspective. And remember this - we loved every minute of our vacation. Denmark and Germany are fantastic countries with friendly and helpful people. I do not want to sound like I'm criticizing - but these are things we noticed, because they surprised us.