This week, Des and the gents set out to explore Munich, and, while you might think that this was indicative of the German tourism board having a Half-off sale (Buy one course of non-FDA improved performance enhancing cow-hormone therapy, get a hotel room and a plate of strudel free), in actuality, there's no culture, no language as appropriate as German to express the rich array of emotions, personalities, and just terrible, terrible choices that we witnessed this week.
German is a unique language, replete with compound words and words like schadenfreude, that convey a complex idea in a single word that, in any other language, would take upwards of seven (Yes, I sat on the metro counting "Taking pleasure in the misfortune of others" on my fingers). This is the language that brought us words like Backpfeifengesicht or "A face badly in need of a fist." Treasures like "Rolltreppenbenutzungshinweise: Or tips for the proper use of an escalator. Nouns we did not know we could live without until we discovered their existence (vergegenwartiganbrauchenwort in German - see what I mean?) like Donaudampfschiffahrtskapitanswitwe: a Danube steamline ship captain's widow.
It is these words that we will explore this week, these words that would render the text of all Bachelorette recaps and other less-focused blogs obsolete if only they could fine their expressive way into mainstream English.
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