Feeling A Part of Berlin

It's really interesting how certain things one picks up on by association.
I have noticed that I am certainly in the groove of Berlin life to a degree.
I get up in the morning and get ready for work. I walk in to work the 2.4 km (up to 3.1 km depending on which route I take) stopping along the way to pick up fresh brötchen for Christian. I'd certainly get some for myself if I found some gluten-free! The bread here is wonderful! Fresh, so fresh that the brötchen (this is something like a sandwich-size rectangle or circle or oval of bread-basically a roll but in various sizes) or croissant is like a rock the next day! But nothing like the soft loaves back home. Even the whole-grain loaves almost compare to Wonder bread in the States. This is thick hearty, whole-kernel bread! YUM!

Ok, so then once I'm at work I have my morning coffee with MY gluten-free toast with jam and start my day. I did find some really good gluten-free bread by a company called Schär. They make several versions of bread and their best loaf so far is the Ertha. There are sunflower seeds and flax seeds in it. It's amazing toasted or made into a grilled cheese sandwich with the lactose-free REAL cheese that my co-worker Sebastian found! It's made by Grünlander and that's what I'm actually planning to eat for lunch tomorrow! I have to admit I did not believe that it was actually cheese that I could eat but believe me, it hasn't bothered me once! And I've eaten quite a bit of it by now. I just found out about it earlier this month.

Ok, enough about bread and cheese and onto the things that I noticed that I now do that have been "set" for me lately:
1. I take off my shoes when I walk into the office. We actually have slippers that visitors can use so that they take their shoes off. But this is coming from a gal who used to run around barefoot as a kid all summer long! Any excuse to take off the shoes!

2. I'm starting to refer to myself by my last name. Well, this isn't quite set yet, but I do it more and more which is typical of Germans.

3. I am out of the habit of buying food/groceries for a week or longer. I now just buy for that day or only a couple of days ahead because I know I'll be going back there again in the next day or two. I also know that it has to be eaten up soon or it's going bad much sooner than back home. (There are likely a couple of main reasons behind this - mainly when you're walking, it's easier to carry smaller amounts of food and the refrigerators are smaller (MUCH smaller) here so there's not as much space even to put all that food. And since I pass about 8 different markets or grocery stores to and from work every day, this is no problem.

4. I always make sure that I have some dark chocolate close by at home AND at work. This is important!

I have to say I'm usually a quick study. I notice cultural things and pick up on them fairly quickly, so I think that I adjusted sooner than I realized. I'm just still really working on the language! It's a tough one! At least for me. Whereas French was a complete breeze for me, and even the little Spanish I'm managed to pick up from my neighbors in LA I remember, German grammar is a b@tch!

But I am proud of myself for being able to easily work the double opening windows now. I've even gotten pretty swift and efficient with bagging up my groceries. That's still so funny for me. That we bag our own groceries because since - well, all my life and still now in the US, there are baggers at the grocery stores. I wonder if that job will ever go away.
Actually with these automated checkouts it seems that even the cashier jobs are going away. Personally, I like having people there. Call me social. At least keep the cashier. I can still bag my own groceries. Often I prefer doing it myself because some of those youngsters toss my eggs around like they were made of rubber.

Anyhow, it's really been easy for me to adjust to certain things about European life. And just as I suspected, I'm liking it more and more. Although I still miss my turkey burgers! Bread or not.