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!

I tried to work out how old I would be by then, but it started to get too depressing. I’ll stick with conjugating my verbs, thanks!

It’s kind of interesting to see each language’s slight twist on thisidea. In English, you are most likely to hear ’sister city’. In German it is ‘Partnerstadt’, and French ‘ville jumelage’ ( both gender neutral, how politically correct). In the former Soviet bloc, they were (somewhat tellingly) known as ‘brother cities’.

What I was most curious about is the process involved in acquiring partner city status. Is there an official process, or does one city just flick another an email saying “I’ve noticed you around, I think you’re pretty cool - want to be sister cities?”. Or maybe that’s a little too forward. Perhaps there’s a kind of personals page for towns ‘Seeking Sister City’… “looking for a good, mid-sized town, preferably European. Must have a sense of humor and basic infrastructure. Pop. preferred: 40 - 50,000.”

Join me as I report live from New Zealand, and uncover some pockets of German culture along the way.

In between providing me with blankets and reading material and feeding me soggy vegetables in inidentifiable sauce, the lovely Lufthansa lady who looked after me for 10 hours sometime during the last 48 also offered me many a drink. Being a responsible air traveller, I stayed hydrated with lots of oxygen accompanied by 2 hydrogen atoms (I mean water of course!). I was oh-so-politely asked once if I wanted my water “mit oder ohne Sprudel“. The next time I was asked if I wanted it “prickelnd“. Again I was asked, but this time it was all about “Kohlensäure“. Oh Germany, why must you confuse with your manifold words for fizz?

In another funny fizz tale, on a different Lufthansa flight last year, the flight attendant spoke to me in English and asked me if I wanted my water “with sprinkles”. How cute! Not wanting water with candy sprinkled on the top, I politely declined.

Stay tuned for a New Zealand update… (yep, there are still lots of sheep!)

When I described this hellish travel itinerary to an English-speaker (not in Germany), I said I would be “soooooooo long unterwegs.” Not “on the go”. Not “in the air”. Not that I would be “travelling for a long time.” Unterwegs. The German word. It just slipped in there! Do you speakers of another language find that this happens from time to time? I sure do, it’s how Deutschlisch was born. Unterwegs is just such a great word, there’s no English one like it. I guess I’ll just have to start realising that when Englischers are staring at me blankly, it’s time to get translating!

Remember when I looked into the increasing use of SMS language recently? Well, the plot thickens. A recent University of Toronto study says that using text slang will not hinder kids’ linguistic development, but rather presents an “expansive new linguistic renaissance”.

Hmmm, I’m not so sure about that. While SMS abbreviations may not statistically harm developing grammar skills, I don’t think they have signified leaps and bounds in the development of the English language, but rather encouraged a certain amount of laziness. Any thoughts?

Which LOLCAKAOPULIA will volunteer to write a firmly worded letter defending the umlaut?