The Following is a German Sentence: "Fuck Yuppies!"

Most days of last week a handful of students took to the streets of Berlin to protest higher tuition. I think they were also in solidarity with squatters, who I saw stopping traffic on Rosenthaler Platz. Anyway, I'm all apologies for the NSFW nature of the slogan pictured above, but I couldn't resist because it's a complete German sentence, using entirely English words.

That said, I think in many areas of the English-speaking world "yuppie" has jumped the shark. I'm not convinced most of the protesters could tell you what yuppies is an acronym for. Young, Urban Professional. Auf Deutsch? Juppie?. Just yoking.

"Fuck", on the other hand, is timeless and universal.

The 16 German States

I memorized the 16 federal states of Germany, called Bundesländer, and their respective capitals. So 32 things memorized. Actually, only 29 because Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen are all city-states. Each is the capital of itself.

About.com has a nice unmarked map of the German Bundesländer plus a list below the fold, making it easy to quiz yourself.

To learn the capitals, plus interesting facts about some of the states, here is a list of German Bundesländer

Moved to Berlin

Long time, no blog. I moved to Berlin. My German still sucks; I tried a course here and dropped out, just like in Austria. I'll objectively review those two German courses shortly. Compare, contrast - I have a lot to say. But in the meantime I'm studying on my own by reading German books and newspapers and memorizing German vocabulary, as well as speaking in German with the locals, who are so patient and generously correct my grammar, so I'm maybe slowly improving.

Thanks, readers, for your generous patience too :-) More updates soon!