Dress Like A German – Female Edition

Let me start by saying this is just an observation of the small southern area Im living in. This is not true for all of Germany but I’ve been here almost 3 years and have seen a pattern with the style of women here. Hate to break it to you all but they don’t walk around in drindls and lederhosen all day, unfortuantely. Here’s a few things that I found was culturally different from the women in the States!

1. Short hair don’t care
Truthfully, NOT a fan of this short hair look here. There are SOOOOO many girls, young and old, with this short hair. Most of the time, I can’t tell who is a boy or a girl from behind, sometimes from the front. But even my Italian hairstylist hates it! She says in Italy all the girls have long beautiful hair and here she prefers the clients with long hair…meaning, she won’t ever cut my hair even if I asked! lol. What a gem for being honest!

2. Blingy Teeth
Man, how I wish I was kidding about this. I think girls in the states wear these things too but I never saw this until I moved here. A diamond on your tooth?! Who sat around and said..oh, let me just bedazzle my tooth. Every time I see a girl with one I keep wanting to tell her that she’s got something in her teeth.

3. Scarf I say!
Scarves are great, I even have a collection of them. The difference is, I wear mine in fall, winter, and mayyyybe spring if its still cold. The girls here…they have a different idea about them. They LOVE to wear them all year round. They will wear a tank top with a scarf in 90 degree heat! I’ve even seen some girls in the clubs wearing them!!! HA! The Germans also have a very serious medical regimen. If you start feeling a sore throat coming on…you immediately start wearing a scarf. You commit to that baby and you wear that thing day and night…even while sleeping! However, I cant figure out how to wrap my scarf and these girls got it down to a science!

4. Mrs. Poopy Pants
I hate to say that these are so popular here. Looks more like an adult diaper with legs. Need I say anything more?

5. Point That Somewhere else
When I was younger…say, 18 years old or so, I went through a phase where I would go get my nails done. And I’m not talking about your typical manicure. This was with the whole process that filed my nails down to tiny slivers and at the end I had beautiful long very fake looking nails and then I realized how trashy it made me look but that was also back in 2002 or so. Here it seems almost EVERYONE gets this done.

6. Looking through Glass
When you think of Europeans what do you think of? Thin, fashionable (in some countries), scarves, v-neck t-shirts on men, cool shoes, and chic glasses in strange shaped frames. Am I close? Well, the glasses thing in Germany is for real. So many people wear glasses and I think most of them prefer to wear these over contacts. For example, many women wear glasses in the clubs (where I would choose to wear contacts usually), and many even wear them on their wedding day (which is an absolute
NEVER in my book). We think of glasses as “four eyes” and almost something negative but here it seems they think its fashionable and a part of their face. I don’t wear glasses at all so what do I know!

8. Now I’m Blinged Out
From blinging out your teeth to your nails…fret not my pet, there are more things to be blinged!!! Hair for instance!! I see this a lot when it’s a special event ie. wedding, anniversary, birthday celebration. Lots of ladies go to get their hair did and come out with an extra sparkle. These are the Bling strands. It’s available in the US, I’ve just never seen anyone do such things. Sparkle and Shine, Mädels, sparkle and shine!

Have you seen people in your country wearing any of these? Would you consider trying some of these Southern German fashions out?!

Until next time, Readers!!! xoxoxoxo

30 Day Blog Challenge – Day 3

Day 3 – Describe 5 Things You Will Never Learn To Love in Germany

First and foremost – HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!!! LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU LIKE CRAZY!!!!! 🙂

Originally the challenge was to show a picture of you and your friends. Um, that’s lame and it’s not a challenge. Who posts a blog with only a picture? Not me. No thanks. So, I changed it. As I drove around today, I found several things that drive me UP THE WALL and I certainly will never be able to love these things. So, to give you a little taste of my usual nonsense, shall we?

1. You Shall Never Park

Not only are the streets small, yet somewhat manageable, the parking spaces drive me bonkers. The other day I had to park in a parking garage and about smashed into cars just to make my very own American sized parking space. They try to squeeze everyone into the smallest possible spaces. No room for error, let me tell you! And it’s not that all the cars are small here. Not everyone has the Smart car and all those other 3-wheeled vehicles you see in the Mr. Bean movies.

Also, I had to go shopping today and lord knows we had to drive around 8 thousand hours just to find a parking spot. No street parking. As a side note: I would like to add that the roads are so curvy, never a straight away so when you want to pass the slowest truck you’ve ever been behind when you’re in a rush, touch luck. You best sit back and enjoy the Sunday stroll!

2. Fashionista Suicide

I know my friends here will kill me for this (all of which I think dress beautifully) but it’s just the facts! I about go insane when I look at all the stores they have here. Back in LaLaLand, America I used to think that all Europeans were the fashion icons of the world and BOY was I wrong. It clearly is subjected to only select countries. Here, so far, the ONLY place thats of interest to me is H&M which in the US I never went to or very seldom. The rest of the stores look like you’re getting ready to either turn into a 90 year old or you’re going on a safari. Just no color and no fun! Some of the pants these girls wear make them look like they had a bit of an accident. NOT attractive by any means!

These pants aren’t too terrible. Most the girls wear these in khakis or jeans but this material looks like sweatpants and it’s horrendous. and rolled up at the bottom? STOP YOURSELF!

Do you see what I mean??? Accidents in the pants. These are considered super “trendy” right now. I would NEVER put my legs into those. I mean I can’t tell if this is a dude or a chick. And the back of these pants is just as saggy. No shape whatsoever. Nasty.

Back home, there are shoes galore, and beautifully cut dresses (my personal fave BCBG) and here you don’t have that. It’s all the same in every store. I want to DIE! Shopping used to excite me…now I get excited when I look at H&M….that has never happened before. It’s gonna be a looooong few years!

3. Did You Hear That? 

I want to rip my ear drums out and soak them in acid. The radio. What a load of crap that is here! You have one station that plays oldies…as in German Oldies…as in the stuff you here inside the beer tent at Oktoberfest. Then you have another station that plays all 50’s, 60’s music. And then you have the rest of the stations which are all EXACTLY the same. They are the WORST stations possibly in the world. They trick you by playing something new like the latest from Kesha and then they turn around and throw Tina Turner at you and maybe some Bon Jovi. Can someone have ONE station that is all Top 40’s or latest pop stuff? Anything so I want barf all over myself as I’m driving anymore! Honestly. I’ve heard Dave Matthews Band played ONCE…and I actually think that was in a store via satellite or something. I can’t even remember it was so long ago. I’m hearing songs I haven’t heard since the early 90’s. It’s terrible…horrific. I need to buy blank CDs to burn..STAT!

This is an example of what is playing…all the time. Sounds like bad 90’s music…and this stuff is recent and popular. Oh and this show is on every Sunday, makes me want to shoot myself! (Scan to the middle of it, you can see what I mean)

4. Yes Ma’am

This is obviously something that I can’t change, but I plan on starting the process. In the US we approach everyone as “You, He, She…etc” Here you have to change your entire language based on whether you are friends with the person or not. Do you know how hard that is for someone trying to learn a new language? So, I started saying the “informal” to Doctors, strangers, etc…and NO ONE tells me to call them by the “formal” words. I think the newer generations don’t care how you talk to each other – the younger guys I mean, however the older people are fine with it also. I don’t know, I think it’s just annoying and added vocab that isn’t necessary!

5. Can I Borrow A Cup of Sugar?

Since we’ve moved in we’ve had zero neighbors come and introduce themselves. I thought about doing it ourselves until I realized. Everyone around us is a freak. Across the street we have 4 adults and an illegitimate child with serious psychological issues. The adults consist of an older woman and her three adult children. They love to peer out their windows into our house or watch what we’re doing/saying at every minute. Then to the right we have a brand new house where the neighbor (husband) on our first meeting at a festival told me that he loves me and sees me outside in the garden in my shorts on hot afternoons. Thank you, creeper for noticing! The rest of the community are big families with children everywhere and no one is friendly. NO ONE. These smaller towns hate when new-comers come into their village, especially Americans. So…my American flag is still flying proudly at the front of our house. And there it will remain until people smarten up and get on my good side.

Ha….After reading this over again, I realized I sound a bit bitter. Just my opinions…I think I’m in need of peanut butter. Which of course, I bought out the whole store when they brought in “American Peanut Butter”…it’s allll mine! 🙂

Until next time, readers! xoxoxoxo