I watched television for the first time in a while the other day and noticed that, with a hiss and a roar and a dash of David Beckham, the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games had finished, just as quickly as they had begun.  This always seems to happen with the Olympics, don’t you think?  Four years of construction of Bird’s Nests, selection of mascots, international political controversy, promotion, preparation and excitement and then – in the blink of an eye – it’s over.

Perhaps it felt that way for the poor old German athletes who aimed for 50 gold medals and came away with 16  – although I think saying “Crisis is putting it mildly” (as the Süddeutsche Zeitung did) is a bit harsh.   If they want to feel good about themselves, they can always compare themselves to Neuseeland, with our 3  (count them, three) glorious golds.

At least some of the downtrodden Sportlers could enrich themselves linguistically in the ‘Chinese Learning Area’ of the Athlete’s Village, or culinarily with traditional Chinese street food.  How do you say ’seahorse-on-stick’?

… not Auf Wiedersehen! Yes my friends, the Kiwi is on the road (hence the photo.) The time has come, as it does for most New Zealanders, for me to put on my backpack (slash pack all my clothes into two rather heavy suitcases) and see the world – or at least Europe. So just a forewarning, my posts may become a little more infrequent and the videos harder to come by, but I’ll still be here! I’ll be updating the blog with a more international flavour, about my travels and intercultural encounters along the way – plus, of course, commentary on anything I find strange or comical.

So I hope you’ll join me in Miss V: First Germany, then the WORLD! (I’ll have to come up with something more catchy.) Then I’ll add adios, arrivederci, au revoir, adeus and maybe even hoşça kalın to my repetoire.

You all might remember me being a Schwarzfahrer (fare-dodger) earlier this year. Well, for true proof that crime doesn’t pay, look at the story of one 24-year old German man who played Schwarzfahrer for a five months, during which he was caught 102 times! You have to pretty much be wearing a sign that says “I don’t have a ticket” for that to happen. The oddest part is that he could afford the tickets, but was just using his naughty ways to fight boredom.

I wonder if he will be more inclined to buy a ticket when he gets out of jail – after 22 months.

Aeric Winter, the man who prompted my original Prefixated video, comes over all Miss V as he teaches how to phonetically pronounce his name: “Andreas”. A coup for every Andreas who is sick of having his name mispronounced!

Because it’s sometimes hard to remember that in German you have fear FOR something (Angst vor), and you take medicine AGAINST an illness (gegen). You travel WITH the bus (mit dem Bus) and works of literature are FROM Goethe (von). And there are no rules to learn them, it’s a matter of Sprachgefühl.

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But no country will ever really be able to top the US in terms of fireworks extravaganzas. On July 4 this year, in New York, Macy’s (a department store) let off fireworks at three (yes, 3) different locations in the city. Reportedly this used 36,000 shells (what most of us call fireworks) , exploding 1000 fireworks per minute, at a total cost of (wait for it!) over $7 million! Now that has to be the biggest birthday of a Nation celebration I’ve ever heard of.

Who needs the land of the free when you have the land of the efficient? Following on from the world’s first automated restaurant, did you know that Real has opened ‘The Future Store’? No, you don’t get to shop on hovercrafts or buy or your meal in convenient pill form (although they do have ‘Roger the Real Robot’ to help out shoppers gone astray).

Basically, you head into the Future Store with your Handy , which you then use to scan the barcodes of your Joghurt or Schokolade or what have you. Then at the till your clever mobile phone tallies up your purchases and you pay electronically. Move over George Jetson!