We were sharing a beer last night and a few feelings too. The manly kind… that the beer brings out. The kind that memories make. Memories of my first big party in Germany where I made broken conversation with a whole bunch of people I didn´t know in a language I could barely speak. I conversed, danced, passed out, puked and slept on his sofa and then we ate a massive bacon breakfast the next morning.
The morning after is becoming even more difficult to overcome. I turned 31 close to a month ago. It frustrates me how some people here get more active and have even more energy, the older they get. I know a 60-year-old who runs an average of 25 kilometers a week. I chose not to run after eating a full meal because the temperature touched a single digit and I was called lazy.
We usually go for a run on our ´Man Wednesdays´ where we talk about each other’s girlfriends (who are sisters) talk about the heavy German meal we are about to eat, eat that heavy German meal and then drink beer. We love beer. There is so much beer here. So many different kinds. I am drinking one right now as I am writing this. It helps with the flow of words. It is like a laxative for writing. Bayerisch Hell is my heaven.
Beer has been a very important facilitator of my social connections here in Germany. Other than the Bruder from another mother, there are two people that I drink beer with, and sometimes a Jacky Cola. One is a closet football Hooligan, die hard Eintracht Frankfurt fan, who is extremely intelligent. The other is severely intellectual and uses his country´s despicable history as a source for some witty dark humour. You don’t know whether to dissociate yourself from him or laugh uncontrollably. We start with a Kolsch Kranz, which is simply a set of 11 glasses of a delicious beer from Cologne for cheap, move on to a younger Uni pub and knock back some Cuba Libres and then end with a Jacky Cola.
Kolsch Kranz
I speak the language pretty damn well. Accent-free and everything. My girlfriend has tried her best to expose me only to the elegant version of the language. But with friends like the ones I have made, I got a book as a birthday gift which was titled ‘German Swearing: Top German Insults and How To Use Them. Weirdly enough, it is the ‘not-so-elegant’ stuff that has made me really entertain people here and have them give me the best compliment (literal translation) – ‘Kabir, you have good humour’. But I then I get why it’s must be so mind-blowing for them. I just imagine a white German with blonde hair and blue eyes saying, ‘MadarC#$%t, Tujhya Aa$%& G%&/d in an accent comparable to the bai’s son Ganya.
We ended last night toasting to a year of professional work life and a potential new adventure of being neighbours, spending more of our future lives running more, eating more heavy German meat and drinking more beer. I came here not knowing a soul and made a brother on the first day. Happy Birthday to you!
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