Hold on a second. There's a word for that?!

How would you describe these? Go ahead, do it. Out loud. If you're like me, the description probably sounded something like "Oh, I know what those are! Those are those little plastic things you stick in the wall before you put a screw in so that it doesn't fall out. You know what I'm talking about?!" You would probably have some idea of what I was talking about, and if you didn't, I could surely ramble on for long enough until you figured it out. But if you asked me to describe these guys using one word, there's no way that I'd be able to do it. In fact, I don't think there is anybody I know who could do it, at least not in English. But Germans, they're different. They all recognize instantly these stick-them-in-the-wall things as "Döbel."

I wasn't too surprised when Hans Hummer, the wood shop teacher at school, knew the word for those plastic thingamabobs. He is, after all, a carpenter - it's only to be expected. I was at the hardware store with the teacher I carpool with when she busted out "Döbel" in reference to the materials I would need to build my own suspension closet (which up to this point has only resulted in a mine field of holes in my ceiling and my clothes are still draped over the back of my armchair). I was a bit taken aback that an occupational therapist would know the work for those screw holder whatchamacallits, but in thinking about it, she told me that she used to be a wood worker before she started giving therapy. It made enough sense. But when my roommate Vicky asked me if I had bought "Döbel" after having looked at my pathetic attempt to fasten hooks to the ceiling for my closet, I just about flipped out. If you're somehow reading this Vicky, don't take offense. In fact, it's probably more of a compliment. How does a 24 year old studying law who almost certainly has no experience with drywall construction know the name for these godforsaken little nubs?! Nobody knows that in English! I then took it upon myself to carry around a Döbel in my pocket for the next week and ask people at random if they knew what it was that I had in my hand. The only person who didn't know what they were called was a co-worker named Elizabeth, but she almost doesn't even count because she's from Poland and she spent 54 years of her life without having tried peanutbutter. Indeed an outlier.

So what is the point of my Döbel anecdote? Is it just a way for me to rant and rave about something that I had a hard time believing to be true? Partially. But also, it is a representation of a phenomenon that happens to me here in Germany quite regularly. Take something which we can't exactly express in English with a concise word or phrase, whether a thing, an idea or a feeling, and you're likely to find a word for it in German. Here a are a couple examples:

Schadenfreude - (n). the sadistic pleasure that you get from somebody else's pain or discomfort; also rarely seen in the verb form schadenfreuden which can be understood in the following context: Ach, Wolfgang, warum schadenfreudest du so gern? {Geez-o Wolfgang, how come you enjoy seeing other people in pain, agony, discomfort or all of the above?}

Fremdschämen - (n). the feeling of being embarrassed for somebody else.

Vorfuhreffekt - (n). when something happens/exists in your presence, but then when you want/need to show somebody else that same thing, it isn't there. For example, you're 1992 Subaru Legacy with the shattered back window is making a rattling noise when you accelerate and turn at the same time, but when you take a mechanic for a ride to show him what you're talking about, what is normally your POS car rides like a dream. Or how about when you make that mental list of movies that you want to watch, but when you walk into the video store, you have no idea what it was that you wanted to see, so you end up walking out with Super Troopers for the sixth time.

Gräbele/Besucherritze - (n). the crack between to twin mattresses pushed together.

Verschlimmbessern - (v). in an attempt to make something better, you unintentionally make it worse.

Montagsauto - (n). a poorly produced product or good. It's translated literally as "Monday car" with the theory behind it behind that a poorly made car was probably on the assembly line on Monday when the workers were still half asleep/hungover from the weekend.

Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellshaftskapitän - (n). Captain of a steam ship in the Donau River Shipping Company. You may not believe it, but I find myself needing this word on a daily basis. ;)

This element of German makes it an exciting, but difficult language. Some estimates put the average daily vocabulary of a German to be about six times that of the average American. There is a word for basically everything, so descriptions become very specific very fast which I find to be exhilarating - it cuts down significantly on blabbering time and people the know exactly what you mean. Besides "jaywalking", I haven't discovered any of these ridiculously specific words in English, and I think that this specificity is going to be something I really miss when I go back to the English speaking world.

Until then, I'm going to enjoying being able to laugh at someone slipping and falling in the snow and having to use only one word to justify the fact that I found it funny, although I don't necessarily like the fact that Andrea may have twisted and hurt her ankle in the cobblestone.

By the way, Döbel does have a one word translation in English: chubs. Seriously?

Wallpaper Apprentice, The Giants & Disco Music in Holland?

I have put up enough wall paper to be considered a professional, The Giants won the world series for the first time since 1954 and I rode in a VW Bus to Holland wearing a mullet wig. The last three weeks of my life have been eclectic to say the least. However, eclecticism is no excuse for falling behind in my attempt for a weekly blog entry, so it's time to play a little catch up. I have the whole week off from work, so we'll see if I can't manage to get back on track in my abundant Freizeit.

As I mentioned before, I helped Ben Walter with the renovation effort of his newly purchased Würzburg apartment, a win-win situation given that I could use the illegally-earned money and he could use the extra hands. I can now say with confidence that wallpaper has to be the worst way to decorate any wall. First you have to spend three years taking the old wallpaper down, which either comes down the whole strip at a time, or in little pinky sized shreds. In this particular apartment, taking down the old wallpaper was like taking a trip through time: embossed fleur-de-lis over a flaky gold paisley over an MC Escher-esque floral print. In a word, hideous. Almost as hideous, in fact, as the light pink coffee grinder/pear tree print we had in our kitchen in college. Once we managed to peel the sopping wet paper off, it was time to cover the crumbling, poorly masoned walls anew with what we considered to be a timeless white, gently embossed pattern. After prepping the walls, cutting the paper to size, drenching the back in paste-like, undoubtedly carcinogenic glue, we slapped them up. The process of making sure that the paper is straight, is exactly lined up with the strip next to it, has no bubbles underneath it and stays clean is excruciatingly tedious, especially when the walls of the apartment seem to be breathing little bubbles under paper that you thought you were done with an hour ago and the knife the you have to cut the paper is so dull it's more like a tiny little saw.

All obstacles overcome, we managed to wallpaper the entire apartment, including the 12 foot long hallway with seven doors, any wallpaperer's nightmare. In addition to being on the Wallpaper Task Force, I got to help out with bathroom demolition and laying the new laminate flooring, both of which were much more gratifying than gluing up paper that in 30 years is just going to make some other illegal immigrant pissed when he has to rip it down. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see the finished project because I was out of town, but in my head it looks really good. Although manual labor isn't something that I would be happy doing for the rest of my life, I very much enjoy doing it from time to time. Much of the work allows you to get lost in your head, but more importantly, it gives you a new found respect for those people who do that kind of work on a day-in, day-out basis. What hand workers do for the world is truly invaluable. Well, actually, it's worth 10 euros an hour, but I really appreciate it, too.

Much of the last three weeks of my life has been absorbed in following the Giants magical trip to the top of the baseball world. For me, it was a mixture of excitement and frustration; excitement, because the Giants finally performed after years of what Loaf Lorenz would call "torture baseball" and frustration, because the games were both impossible to find streaming internationally and impossible to stay awake for (most were at 2am) when I have to get up for work at six in the morning. Nevertheless, I was able to keep track of what was happening through internet articles, video clips and facebook status updates. The whole thing was unbelievably amazing, the only better scenario having been if I could have gone to some of the games. Florian says that I now know what it was like for him when he was in the United States and the World Cup was on: poor coverage in the middle of the night and nobody around you is really that interested. So it goes with soccer in the US and baseball in Europe.

The latest notable note from the past three weeks was this past weekend when I traveled with the Universität Würzburg Ultimate Frisbee team, Disc-o-Fever, to Holland for an indoor tournament. I joined the frisbee team looking for a way to play a sport, make friends and do a bit of traveling, given that tournaments are scattered all over the place. It appears as though the decision to play is going to meet all of my expectations. The trip to Holland was a blast, both from a frisbee and social perspective. Playing indoor makes the game of Ultimate totally different - with fewer players and a smaller field the game moves blindly fast in comparison to the outdoor version. We did pretty well overall, placing 5th out of 16 teams, barely scraping it out in the last point of the last game.

From a social aspect, the tournament was amazing. In frisbee, an important component of the game is spirit, another way of saying that every effort is made to maintain good sportsmanship. In European frisbee, this concept is taken to a whole new level. After the game, whereas Americans just exchange high fives, Europeans make a circle out of both teams and one player from each team makes a speech about how the game went and what he or she appreciated about the other team. Then, without fail, the two teams play some kind of team building or ice breaker game with one another to lighten the mood which works surprisingly well, that is unless you're playing against Belgians, those sourpusses. Another cool aspect of an indoor frisbee tournament is that all the players sleep in the playing hall and that the host team organizes a party for all the players on Saturday night. I was quite excited to find out that my sense of humor meshes very well with the other players on my team as we got prepared for the party, the theme of which was Hockey & Tokkie, a dutch way of saying Snobs & White Trash. Everybody on Disc-o-Fever was eager to outdo each other with the trashiest getup, and, once dressed, we crashed a party where most people were dressed as well-to-do Hockies. It's also comforting to know that I had packed all the necessary accoutrements to make a nasty white trash costume without knowing before hand that I would be attending such a party. Talk about things that speak to your personality.