German Me.

I feared my blog had been losing momentum because Germans had stopped doing weird things for me to discover and comment about. However, I feel the real reason is that I have gone native, and all the things I previously noticed as weird, I now consider as perfectly normal.

That's not to say the Germans don't still occasionally do/ wear/ say things that make me stop and stare, but the everyday stuff doesn't seem so odd anymore.

Which is why, when I am back in the country in just a few weeks, you should not be surprised if I do some or all of the following:

1. Shaking hands with everyone as I enter a room.

2. If I don't go as far as shaking hands, I will probably say hello loud enough to make my presence known. This will apply in shops too, where I will also say bye to the shop assistant as I leave.

3. Eating ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast.

4. Dressing practically. I have a German coat now, there's no going back!

5. Relying too heavily on the timetabling of public transport. If a German bus is meant to turn up at 14.32, that's when it will turn up. Even if there's been a fair amount of snow. I fear 'This bus runs approximately every 10 minutes' just isn't going to be good enough any more, and I will have to relearn not to be surprised when three buses turn up at once.

6. Pressing my thumbs for luck. That's what they do here, rather than crossing their fingers. As I don't need to wish people luck here very often, I'm at that awkward stage where I will cross my fingers for them, then remember they have no idea what that means, and probably think I'm making some kind of obscene hand gesture, and quickly switch to the thumb pressing gesture. I will probably have just got into the thumb pressing habit by the time I get back.

7. Dropping the odd German word into the conversation. If the Germans can get away with saying 'gehandicapped' as a legitimate 'German' word, then I think I'm allowed a bit of Deutsch, oder?!

8. On a similar note, using the German sentence structure or word order, instead of the English one- some things just roll off the tongue better in one language, especially if I'm recounting something that happened in Germany, or what someone said in German.

9. Getting up ridiculously early, and then probably feeling disappointed that I'm up at 6am and there is nowhere open to cater to my ham and cheese sandwich eating needs.

10. Stockpiling food for the weekend. Nine months of shopless Sundays have got me trained in long term meal planning. Either that, or I will only go shopping on Sundays, just because I can.

And there you have it, 10 things to expect from the new German influenced Hazel. Hopefully this will give you a bit of advance warning, and you won't think I've gone completely crazy, and we can still be friends.

Though I will be supporting Germany rather than England in Eurovision.