Skip Navigation

dfyx

@ dfyx @lemmy.helios42.de

Posts
3
Comments
335
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • I will be going on a school trip to Munich, Germany soon, anything I should know?

    Jump

  • I think you're confusing us with the British.

    Germans are careful about anything that could be considered antisemitic because of history but unless you go straight to Nazi slogans, there is no law that forbids you from being critical of Israel. Insulting someone can be illegal but that can only be applied if you insult a specific person, not a country and it's only enforced in extreme cases.

    So unless OP plans to join a full-blown anti-Israel protest that risks getting violent, I don't think they have to worry about that.

  • I will be going on a school trip to Munich, Germany soon, anything I should know?

    Jump

  • "Grüß Gott" exists in BW but it has become very rare. I would say only the generation 80+ uses it regularly. Edit: source

    In Swiss German, "grüezi" (which comes from "Gott grüße euch", so basically the same origin) is extremely common.

  • I will be going on a school trip to Munich, Germany soon, anything I should know?

    Jump

  • I have lived my whole life in the south of Germany.

    People in the south are literally known for their friendliness. Or, in the case of Bayern, their fake friendliness.

    Don't get me wrong, people are friendly. But the way they show it is different from other cultures. They are more likely to tell you what's on their mind instead of meaningless small talk and polite phrases. To some cultures that seems to appear rude even if it isn't meant to be.

    They do not speak English.

    The assumption that nobody speaks English is outdated by decades. Some may have a thick accent or mix German and English grammar when speaking but they will definitely understand you. I've met many foreigners who came here to practice their German and got frustrated when everyone immediately switched to English when they noticed a foreign accent.

  • I will be going on a school trip to Munich, Germany soon, anything I should know?

    Jump

  • General culture:

    • In a big city like Munich, most people under 60 will understand English pretty well. Some might be hesitant to reply in English because they are not used to speaking it out loud but they will certainly know what you need from them. Younger people who are chronically online might have more contact with English than with German in their everyday life.
    • Many Germans, especially in the south can appear grumpy and not very talkative towards strangers. They are not angry at you, just direct. "Not complaining is enough praise" is a fairly common saying. If you ask someone how their day was, don't expect empty pleasantries but facts. On the other hand, once you get to know someone you can become their new best friend within half a day.
    • This goes for anywhere in the world but if you value your sanity, don't talk about politics.
    • We may be of a different culture than you but we are not aliens. If you are unsure about something, just ask and if you do something inappropriate, someone will tell you.
    • If you need a snack during the day, I recommend looking for a bakery. Most will have a selection of sandwiches and bottled beverages.
    • Most stores are closed on Sundays while restaurants may have their own days off (often Monday). Opening times may vary but don't expect 24/7 supermarkets like in the US and Asia. If you urgently need something, try a gas station or near a train station.

    Laws:

    • The EU and Germany specifically is big on privacy. It is technically illegal to take a photo of an individual without their consent. Photographing crowds is fine and nobody will complain about being in the background of your selfie but don't go around shoving a camera in someone's face without asking.
    • As others have said, beer is legal from 16, liquor from 18, even in public. Even if you don't drink, be prepared to encounter a couple of drunk teenagers if you're out in the evening. Just be polite and ignore them and it will be fine.
    • Other than that, expect a pretty standard western legal system. Unless you're planning to actively commit a crime, the details won't be important to you.

    Terms and phrases:

    • Bahnhof => train station
    • U-Bahn => subway / metro
    • Flughafen => airport
    • Bitte => please / you're welcome (yes, it can mean both)
    • Danke => thank you

  • What old thing surprisingly still exists?

    Jump

  • Sorry to disappoint but alligators are not closely related to dinosaurs even though they have existed for a long time. Birds on the other hand are dinosaurs.

  • What’s on your bucket list?

    Jump

  • Your comment inspired me to write a short story. It's the first draft of the first bit of fiction I've written in a while so don't expect too much but I wanted to share:

    I should have seen it coming, he thought as he drifted through the emptiness of space.

    It wasn't the first time he had thought that and it wouldn't be the last but it was exactly what went through his mind at this moment. There wasn't much to think about but regrets. Not much to do either. Nobody to talk to, not even air in his lungs to scream into the void. Just empty space, fading memories and regrets.

    It all had started with an innocent thought, back when he had been a young boy by the name of Marcus. He had watched as his older brother's favorite dog had been hit by a cart. That had been his first real contact with death and as is normal for any person, he had thought: I don't want to die. For most people, that thought just leads to a generally cautious lifestyle, maybe a list of things to do, but overall, they don't spend too much time thinking it. But Marcus had never been like most people. From that day on, that one new thought had consumed his every waking moment and his list of things to do in life had consisted of only one item: become immortal.

    So he had spent most of his youth hunting for information about his new obsession, much to his father's displeasure. He had read stories from Roman and Greek mythology, had found a rare translation of Egyptian lore and had even talked to soldiers returning from the barbarian lands in the north. At one point he had waited outside a doctor's house for days until two of his brothers had come to drag him back home.

    And eventually he had actually found the secret to immortality, long before the medieval alchemists and the 21st century cryopreservation craze. Ironically it had been something so trivial, so mundane that he couldn't remember what it had been. Then again, after living uncountable lifetimes, there was a lot he couldn't remember anymore.

    What he had found was even what people generally considered the "good" kind of immortal. Not the one where you technically can't die but still age and become so sick and frail that you can't do much with your life. He didn't need to eat, drink, breathe or sleep, couldn't get sick and couldn't really be harmed even by extreme forces. With time he even learned to endure things that couldn't threaten his immortal life but still felt unpleasant, like pain, heat and cold. Even in the endless nothingness of space, he still looked like a healthy middle-aged man with only a couple of scars from before his immortality.

    But of course there was a catch. There was always a catch and he should have seen it coming. He had seen so many things coming, just not the important ones.

    Outliving his family and friends had been painful but to be expected from the start. Everyone who seriously thinks about immortality comes to terms with that after a while. Even the downfall of his entire culture at the hands of foreign invaders hadn't really impacted him. By that point he had already been at the other end of the world, studying cultures that nobody from his home had ever heard about.

    He had seen empires rise and fall, political systems blossom and revert to absolutist monarchies, religions morph into each other. He had been there for that brief moment in time when humanity had seemingly invented everything at once: contraptions to connect the planet, to explore beyond it and to turn it into a barren rock where no life was possible. Well, no life except his own. He had tried to warn others after the first few rounds of almost-extinction but every time the best he could manage had been a few decades of rebuilding and halfhearted attempts at making sure it couldn't happen again. And then it had happened again. And again.

    Only when he had become the last bit of sentient life for as far as he could reach, he had figured out what the catch was. He was immortal. He couldn't die by any means, not even by his own hand, and that meant he would be alone forever. It's not like he had never tried to help others become immortal. He had offered it to his closest friends, to countless lovers that he couldn't bear to lose and to a few strangers that he had thought to be important for the world's future. Most of them had laughed at him or politely humored him but never really put any effort into it. A select few had made genuine attempts but none had ever managed to do what he had done. He could only assume they had been lacking that unwavering conviction that had driven him in his youth.

    And so he had been alone. For the first few years it hadn't bothered him too much. After millennia of being around every conceivable kind of person on earth, a bit of peace and quiet had actually been welcome. Eventually, he had spent a few decades, maybe centuries, looking for other survivors but with no success. The only thing he had found was a few remaining sea critters and for a while he had even attempted to breed them into something that would make a good pet.

    He had tried to build his own rocket to get off this gods-damned rock and see something new in the universe but it turns out that even with all the knowledge of humankind, more spare time than a human could ever dream about and a whole heap of mangled spare parts that had conveniently been left behind by previous generations, a single human being just can't do that.

    So all he had left to do was sit there for a couple billion years and wait for the sun to burn out and swallow earth.

    It had been a spectacle that he wished to be able to share with others. It had been really bright, really hot and a lot slower than he had expected. But most importantly, it had been the last time something interesting had happened to him. After who knows how long, the sun had finally shed it's outer shell and collapsed into a white dwarf.

    The only other thing left was him. No planets, no asteroid belt, nothing particularly interesting to look at. Just empty space, fading memories and regret.

  • What’s on your bucket list?

    Jump
    • Buy/build my dream home. My current apartment has its perks and is quite big for the rent I pay but it doesn't feel like home. I had to move in a hurry because my old lease got terminated when the house got sold and I still feel homesick after more than seven years.
    • Continue learning Japanese until i can hold a useful conversation, then visit Japan.
    • Publish something for the world to see. A piece of software, a game, a movie, a novel, anything.
    • Show the most important people in my life how much they mean to me. I regularly tell them but there are more feelings deep inside me for which I haven't found the right way to express them.

  • The implication of that

    Jump

  • SATW always portrays Finland with a knife, so it’s more of an inside joke and not related to this specific comic strip.

  • Gameplay mechanics were also a lot better with more replayability.

    Jump

  • Of course I do. And even that was rare and special because it was so much effort to carry everyone‘s gear into one place.

  • Gameplay mechanics were also a lot better with more replayability.

    Jump

  • Or like PC before internet connections at home were widely available.

  • What advice/solutions did your therapy actually give you?

    Jump

  • Am I supposed to tell them I really really wanna kms right now?

    Yes. If you don't, they can't help you.

    Nah, they’d lock me up lmfao

    Not if you are honest about it. Talking openly about it instead of just doing it is a good sign that you might be ready to fix stuff.

    Can’t even tell my mom cuz she’d get mad at me…

    That's not normal and not healthy. Tell your therapist. They might be able to find a way to get you out of an unhealthy environment, at least for a while.

  • What advice/solutions did your therapy actually give you?

    Jump

  • Not me but someone close to me:

    • There is a difference between "ready for therapy" and "ready for change". Some people will sit in therapy for years but never see much progress because they are so stuck in doing or thinking something that holds them back.
    • Your therapist will tell you things that don't make sense to you. Listen to them anyway. If they tell you something that seems impossible, don't ignore it, ask how you can do that. If they tell you something that seems useless, try it anyway, then report back if it doesn't work and be open for an explanation for why it didn't work.
    • Be brutally honest. Your therapist won't be able to help you unless you tell them exactly how bad your situation is. If you spend 90% of your day in bed and tell your therapist you're doing okay, they won't be able to correctly identify what kind of help you need.
    • It is completely normal to miss some of your goals. Therapy takes time and nobody will judge you if you take longer than others. Figuring out how much you should push yourself and when you need a break is hard. Either way, don't be angry at yourself when something doesn't work out. As long as you tried, you're fine.
    • Most of your problems are in your head. That doesn't mean they aren't real. It doesn't mean they don't hurt. It doesn't mean they aren't difficult to overcome. It just means that the only person who can solve them is you. A therapist can explain how to solve them but they can't change your thoughts or your habits.

  • Ice cream sundae

    Jump

  • Yeah, seems like a bug in either their link shortener or their internal routing:

    To fix this, they should either

  • Ice cream sundae

    Jump

  • They actually do have the sensible explanation but for some reason not as the top one. Sorry for not checking that the link UD gave me actually leads to the correct explanation. It instead shows the full list even though the link contains the correct ID.

  • Ice cream sundae

    Jump

  • Urban Dictionary's share button didn't give me what I actually wanted to link to. Fixed.

  • Ice cream sundae

    Jump

  • Oh damn, Urban Dictionary fucked up the link. The hymen explanation is further down on the same page and I specifically clicked that share link and the shortened link even includes the ID for the correct explanation but somehow when expanding the link they just show you the full list without even scrolling down to the right section. Thanks for nothing, I guess.

  • Ice cream sundae

    Jump

  • What’s the Facebook clone in the fediverse?

    Jump
  • Removed

    Showers, morning or night?

    Jump

  • Night. Getting out of bed in time for work is hard enough. Showering in the morning would mean I need to get up even earlier.