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Hi TL!
Today is September 11th. An important day for the whole world, honestly, but an extra special one for me. On 9/11 (the 9/11), of course, we had the World Trade Centers incident.
At the same time, though, my baby sister was being born. It made for a very surreal experience. Tragedy and happiness all at once.
I think, maybe, the reason I feel like being reflective right now is because of the day. It's my sister's birthday, it's the anniversary of a very important moment in American history, and, incidentally, it marks the end of my first month in Germany as a full time Starcraft 2 caster.
So, with no further adieu, here are some musings from Germany:
wtf, why don't Germans ever drink normal water. When I was casting Gamescom, I was in a room that was housing, literally, at least 100,000 nerds. The temperature, and the humidity... the smell... it was almost suffocating. I was sooo thirsty. But there was no normal water anywhere to be found. It's all sparkly.
Back in the states, I lived on a diet of grape juice, jalapeno Pringles, and chocolate milk. These are things that are also ridiculously hard to find in Germany. I've always said "appreciate the little things", but damned if I never knew what it meant until the first time I walked into a store that was literally named "Juice Store" only to be disappointed by their lack of grape juice. (Carmac eventually came through and bought me some grape juice, but I would be lying if I said it was anywhere near being as delicious as Welch's White Grape)
![[image loading]](http://www.welchs.com/media/273335/large_100_white-grape.png)
One thing Germany has no shortage of is stairs. People joke all the time about the "fat, lazy, American" stereotype. I would have never grouped myself in with that segment of the population... Until moving here. I walk down 40 stairs every morning, on days where I'm early to the office walk up and down about 60 more, am constantly going up and down stairs at the train station(s), and, on most days, have to go up stairs just to have a seat on the train that I take between Cologne and Dusseldorf. On the up side, walking up and down stairs is really good for you!
Going back to Gamescom, let's talk about the "nerd-funk". Listen guys, in normal society I can understand the importance of maintaining your nerd-funk. When in public, and surrounded by people whose gamer friendliness is unknown, the nerd-funk allows us to easily distinguish one another. "Is that guy a nerd?" *sniff "Yep." But when we gather in the hundreds of thousands, for the love of God buy some deodorant.
Living in Germany is turning out to be a really incredible experience. The people here are some of the friendliest in the world, and the gamer culture here seems a lot more widely accepted than it might be back in the states. For example, last Friday I went out with Rotterdam and my girlfriend. We were stopped twice on the streets by fans in the course of like 4 hours. Obviously its nothing like the attention a real celebrity would get, but the fact that two nerds who sit in a studio and talk about Starcraft all day would EVER get recognized in public just seemed really cool to me.
I really like riding trains. As a child, I once rode a train from Atlanta to Washington DC and it will forever stand out in my memory as one of the most fun trips I've ever been on. Here in Germany I get to repeat that little piece of my childhood every day. I can't even put my finger on why I think its so great. It's just really, really fun for me. This is, of course, excluding the times when I get hopelessly lost, which happens far more often than I'm prepared to admit to.
Working with Rotterdam has been so fun. I really love this guy. He's intelligent, talented, and really fucking good at Starcraft. If you're a North American reading this, and you don't know who Rotterdam is, shame on you. Go find some of his VODs and check the dude out.
Being here in Germany is great. I think my decision to come over here was absolutely the right one, but I would be lying if I said I didn't miss home. I really do love America. I love the South. I love Georgia. I miss my friends, my family, the family dogs, and American food. I want to thank everyone on TL for supporting me, for reading this, and for being so fucking awesome. The online community in general... well it can be kinda shit sometimes. The e-sports community virtually never disappoints, though. The Starcraft community represents the best of e-sports online, and the Team Liquid community is truly the best of the best.
Love you guys, and I hope y'all will continue to tune in!
 
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Find the nearest REWE, you will get grape juice there guaranteed, as well as pringles and chocolate milk. For regular chips and chocolate milk, every discounter will do, whatever is nearest to you (Aldi, Penny, Lidl, Netto, Edeka - the last one should also carry Pringles and grape juice).
Edit: Chocolate milk comes either in glass bottles or tetra packs, labeled Kakao, Kakaotrunk or something like that.
Edit 2: Grape juice usually comes in 1 liter tetra packs, atleast in Rewe markets. They have either red or white juice, labeled Traubensaft.
Edit 3: And theres not better place for riding trains (real ones, not S-Bahnen or shit like that) like the Ruhrgebiet. If you have the time, try visiting "Münster", though. Should be about 2hours via train from Düsseldorf, but it has so fucking much history and most of the city is kept like it was around the turn of the last century. Quite a few TL.net members study there too if I remember correctly, so you could get hooked up with a tour 
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i like sparkly water.. non-sparkly water is just so .. boring to drink!
where are you living? close to cologne i guess?
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On September 11 2011 18:34 Celial wrote:
Find the nearest REWE, you will get grape juice there guaranteed, as well as pringles and chocolate milk. For regular chips and chocolate milk, every discounter will do, whatever is nearest to you (Aldi, Penny, Lidl, Netto, Edeka - the last one should also carry Pringles and grape juice).
Edit: Chocolate milk comes either in glass bottles or tetra packs, labeled Kakao, Kakaotrunk or something like that.
Edit 2: Grape juice usually comes in 1 liter tetra packs, atleast in Rewe markets. They have either red or white juice, labeled Traubensaft.
The chocolate milk I've found isn't chocolate milk at all. It's like... Chocolate water. Basically its YooHoo.
![[image loading]](http://chikamuna.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/yoo-hoo.jpg)
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I took a vacation to Germany 2 months ago and I too was surprised! A man can't get a nice cold glass of regular water without asking specifically for it! (ice costs money too D::
beautiful country and I love the european transit system, but boy is it expensive 
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So what are you looking for in you chocolate milk?
Flavour, thickness or overall chocolateness (lacking a better word here)?
Maybe the German TLer's can help you find the chocolate milk you are missing
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Then give the 0,5L tetra packs from Netto a shot, make sure to take the brown ones, not the light blue ones. I like them alot.
Or get some "Kakaopulver" and mix it yourself 8[
Usually 500g boxes, and usually yellow. There are brand ones and non-brand ones, at the top of the brand ones would be something like Nesquick, but a good middle-way would be Kaba or something. For the brand ones you need to go to Rewe, every other discounter has their own non-brand ones.
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Just mix some cocoa with cold/hot milk and there you have your chokolate milk.
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haha, nice blog post. Here some tips from someone having spent all of his life in Germany:
Water: fill your glass with water from the sink! You can buy water in stores, but rarely does anyone ever do that. The water you get from the sink in Germany is super clean and can be drunk without any problem Try it.
I totally know what you mean about the Grapefruit Juice. I regularly spend a couple of weeks in Colombia, a paradise of fruits and thus, juice. Germany lacks a LOT of fruits and good juice
I actually had to laugh at your comment about stairs in trains to get to the upper floor ^^ but, as you hint at later, riding trains in Germany is awesome. You can get everywhere, lots of different and interesting people do it, and you see a lot always enjoyable, apart from the regular delays the trains have.
I was at GamesCom as well and I can relate to what you said. However, it was about 25°C outside and the halls were crowded, really crowded. Heat within the halls was massing up to be around 30°C. You can't really fight this with deodorant 
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Do restaurants usually not allow serving water from tap? Germany sounds like a blast, pics would make this blog 10x better.
Also trains are so amazing, too bad its super expensive here in the states.
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On September 11 2011 18:34 MisterD wrote:
i like sparkly water.. non-sparkly water is just so .. boring to drink!
yea, I there is a reason we drink it, it's not only more delicious but also healthy as it's more than "just" water.
I heard from someone that it's impossible to find it in the USA, that must be really sad, I hate to drink normal water o,o
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Italy12247 Posts
I'm surprised you said nothing about delicions German beer
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Man, your talk about water made me thirsty.
*pours a glass of water with ice*
Aaah~ that's better~
Also, trains ftw.
5/5
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I have never understood why it is so hard to find grape juice in Europe. I almost never see it in stores, even large ones that have 50 different kinds of juices. Fucking lychee juice is more common than grape juice in Sweden. But if you check the table of contents of many of the other juices and drinks that you find they often contain grape juice as their main ingredient. It boggles my mind.
Also about the water. At least where I live, if you want non-sparkly water you just poor some from the tap. I don't know anyone who would buy bottled non-sparkly water when you can get the same stuff for free at the nearest tap. As an example, at Dreamhack they handed out free empty bottles and had set up refilling stations spread out all over the event.
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huh, you've been on german trains for a while and still like it? must have been lucky with
delays and such then I guess
nah just kidding I like trains as well (esp. old ones) even tho I have to deal with delays around
hamburg every single day :o
about the food/water. I'm used to this of course, I don't like sparkly water either.
I just always had to buy evian/vittel or something like that if I wanted water.
about the other stuff, you should really be able to find it as long as you're looking for it
in a proper market (rewe would be my first try, don't try aldi .. they have weird brands and stuff in my opinion)
glad you like it here and I would definetly stop you guys on the street, but I'm never around cologne :/
(*cough* hamburg is just better *cough*) greetings and gl in the future
edit: yeah tap water is ok too, sometimes when you ask for "stilles wasser" in a restaurant
you get tap water :D but german tap water is good as well, nothing to worry about here
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United States22883 Posts
I really like this blog.
I have a thing for trains too. I guess it's part of the Japanese stuff and being obsessed with/getting to ride bullet trains when I was a kid. As long as I have my mp3 player, there's just something relaxing about watching things whiz by when you're not controlling anything.
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Nice blog, glad you like it in germany, hope your gf does as well. If milk is too watery for you try landliebe, their products often have a natural 3.8 fat percentage.
Was nice to meet you, hopefully ill be at next IEM again
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I will never be able to relate to the concept of buying water, it's just absurd to me as a swede, you might as well be talking about buying air to breathe.
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Trains are the greatest way of transport humankind has ever come up with.(Save maybe from flying a light plane.)
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EPT
