An English overview of Aldi

Aldi grocery stores are experiencing a surge in popularity, especially in the US. When I was younger, we never really thought of Aldi as a viable place to buy decent food. Most food was beyond highly processed and poor quality. Now, however, Aldi is focusing more on fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as favorites popular among the granola-munching set (I include myself in this category). After all, one can buy decent hummus at Aldi in the US (don't try the German version if you're a hummus connoisseur, though; it's nasty, with sugar and vinegar added, which is NOT accurate).

Mashed put together a decent video shopping at Aldi in the US. Even if you're in Germany, it's worth a watch if you're curious about the store. Most of the information is basically the same for the stores here, too, such as needing to use a coin to unlock the carts and needing to bring your own bags.

Current Mood of German Learning

I'm currently taking a very high-level German class and realized:

If I ever get frustrated about not always knowing what I call $5 (or should I say €5) words in German or not knowing all of the idioms, can I just remind myself that one of the fellow students in this class is literally already a translator, and this is the class that foreigners have to pass to apply to the translation program at the uni? And that we did a tough exercise in class last night, and I was able to do it on the fly and also help another classmate with it? I'm always getting frustrated by what I don't know but I should also celebrate what I do know.

Crooked Bamberg

Bamberg is a beautiful, historic town in the Frankish area of Bavaria. It's built along several rivers and picturesque half-timbered boxes line the banks.

Despite the quaint and scenic views, these houses aren't without their problems. Sagging roofs and settling foundations, especially among the river, make for a bunch of crooked neighborhoods.

Take a gander at this store. Must one walk sideways to get in?

Germans do have a sense of humor

Hornbach 

This is a display at Hornbach, a German home improvement store

My blog entry that's both a blessing and a curse

One of the most-visited* and most oft-cited** blog entries in this joint is the analysis of the German educational system that I wrote, viewable here. After having published it six years ago, I feel conflicted about leaving it on the blog.

On one hand, it's a quick read and outlines a somewhat convulated subject that people are curious about. Is it comprehensive? No, it's not, at all, but at least gives an idea of how things work here, and in English. Does it bring a lot of visitors to the blog? Yes, it does, though that's not really its purpose. I had just wanted to share something that I had written for a German Life and Culture class.

Conversely, the article is somewhat of a curse. I am an educator in training and spirit (though not exactly in job tile right now). Information literacy is very important to me and I am disturbed that this article is being used as a research source when it's only appropriate to be used for entertainment/enlightenment purposes. I know of at least one high school teacher who used it as a class assignment (based on web analytics linking to the person's page) and the article was even referenced in conference proceedings of the National Defence College in Bangladesh, which didn't really properly reference it other than citing the article in the bibliography.

I won't call out the high school teacher or school but I will mention the Defence College, because the paper mentions the editorial board and based on the amount of authors and the numerous strings of letters after their names, including PhD, those individuals should be well-acquainted with proper academic research and citation and know better than to use a personal blog as a source. The other ironic thing is that they would have seen the disclaimer at the top of the article and the corresponding blog entry outlining why the article isn't an appropriate source.

At this point, I will still leave the article on my blog and hope that people read the clear disclaimer on it. Maybe it'll hit home for at least some people and they'll think more about the research process.



*by real people, not by spammers; those would be other entries, and I have no idea why the entry Fastnacht in July is so popular with them

**or not, by people who use it as a reference and don't give me credit

Nope, Netherlands, not this time either

It seems as if I've written about the Netherlands a lot recently (or once, but considering that I rarely post any more, that could count as a "lot"), so here's another post about the country since I took a recent trip there again.

I love visiting the grocery stores in the country, especially because they're open on Sundays, which German stores are not. However, not all of them are open; some of the German-owned stores don't join the fun (like Lidl or Aldi). Albert Heijn and Jumbo aren't spoil-sports, though, and we perused their aisles with glee on a Sunday.

The snack aisles are many and plenty, full of exotic chips with Thai and Indonesian flavoring. Plus there are some exotic offerings inspired by the USA -- or, as this popcorn says, "inspired by the USA recipe," which doesn't really make sense from a grammatical point of view. I guess they're trying to avoid calling it "American" because there are other countries on this continent. Or maybe not.

The biggest issue is that this is not a typical concoction for popcorn for us. I'm assuming it's similar to kettle corn, which we do have, but it's not always available. Typical popcorn for a US American would be salty and butter-flavored.Germany seems to also think that we have salty-sweet popcorn and I can say that even that kind of "American" style popcorn doesn't even taste like our kettle corn. More common than kettle corn, but less common than regular popcorn, would be caramel corn, but I have rarely seen that here. Oh well. It's another case of not quite getting our food (and it goes both ways).

The Dutch get in on getting American food wrong

"American" week at German grocery stores evokes strong emotions for me, including the desire to laugh, cry, be sick, or when I'm feeling adventurous, maybe even try it sometimes. There are usually very few things that I do want to try, though, because it's either food I wouldn't eat even when I'm in the US or it looks disgusting. I had yet to participate in "American" week shopping in another country, though, so during a trip to the Netherlands this winter, I perused their display for their take on what we eat.

This one landed a solid nee (no) for me: some sort of "American" sauce for fries.

Based on my non-existent knowledge of Dutch, but with the ability to somewhat decode the ingredient list based on my knowledge of English and German, I determined that it has canola oil, mustard, something from corn (a thickener?), vinegar, sugar*, and lots of preservatives in it.

Is this typical American food? Well, the preservatives would almost have me thinking so but as far as what it would probably taste like, I can give a resounding no. And thank goodness for that!

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*I would like to continue ranting a bit. Yes, American food and condiments add sugar. However, for German food, I'm always shocked/disgusted by just how much is added. I can't even eat most of the commercially prepared sauces, soups, or spaghetti sauces here because they taste almost as sweet as candy does and it's very off-putting for me. I am wondering if this Dutch sauce would be as sickeningly sweet as the German ones?