Hey everyone! Dana here.
You've asked me some questions, now let's see if I can answer them.
It's actually been about a year and a half since I did the last Q&A video, which was,
I think, the only Q&A video I've ever done.
So let's just go ahead and jump right into the questions.
Who is Mr. German Man?
Mr. German Man is my husband.
And he's German.
Do you switch your wedding ring from one hand to the other?
Nope, and I couldn't do this even if I really, really wanted to because my fingers are not
the same size on both hands.
So I would not be able to switch the ring.
And Mr. German Man and I decided when we got married that we would both wear our wedding
ring on the left hand.
How cold did it get where you lived in Florida?
I think the coldest that I remember it getting in South Florida was 9 degrees Celsius.
And that was, like, really extreme.
Do you speak German? Ja! I do.
And I'll put a link down below to a video that I made all in German.
What language do you speak at home with Mr. German Man?
So I think I've mentioned this in at least one video before, but my answer has kind of
changed now, so I thought I would revisit this question.
For most of our relationship our main language has been English.
And then also if not English than something like Denglish.
Just this horrible, chaotic mix of the two languages, which is a really, really bad habit.
We have tried from time to time to be like, no! Okay!
From now on we are only going to speak German.
It's German all the time.
But we just have found that so hard to keep up.
So much of the first part of our relationship was in English.
We've just found it really hard to switch to German.
But I have a new found determination to speak German at home as much as possible.
And when I tweeted about that on Twitter, I saw at least one comment from someone like,
hmmm and why do you suddenly want to speak more German at home?
And yeah, I am looking into at the moment possibly getting involved in another project
outside of YouTube that would require me to speak more German, and so I just want to polish
up my German skills a little bit.
Why is your video "8 Questions I Have For Germans" in English and not German if it's
questions for Germans.
Okay, I see where, I see where you're, yeah, I get that question.
Um, I decided to make the video in English even though they're questions for Germans
because I didn't want this video to be just for Germans or German-speaking people.
I wanted that this video could be something that people from around the world could watch
and learn about my experiences living in Germany from my questions.
And so the best way that I could reach the most people, and still involve the most people
in this video, was to make it an English-language video, even though they are questions for Germans.
Did that make sense?
What's up with your weird name?
I thought Americans pronounce this name "Day-na" not Done-ah."
Yeah, what is up with my weird name?
Okay, so I actually tackled this question in the first Q&A video as well, but I keep
getting it so much, so once again, just real quickly: my heritage comes from the Czech Republic,
and so that's why I was given the name with the pronunciation "Done-ah" rather
than the pronunciation "Day-na."
And here in Germany I've met some people who are named Jana.
I don't think I've ever met anyone else in Germany named Dana.
Whereas in the Czech Republic of course I did.
But so in Germany I explain my name to people, I say: you just pronounce my name like Jana
with a D. So if you can say Jana, you can say Dana.
Oh, I love this question.
Where you ever even in Germany?
No. No, I was not. Next question.
Do you come from Bielefeld?
I think this question comes from the clock that I have on my blue background.
And, no, I don't come from Bielefeld.
I am from the U.S. I moved here from Florida, and now I live in Munich.
Do you just make Youtube videos or what is your profession?
So, I'm a freelancer, which means for me that I do lots of different things.
Making YouTube videos is one of them.
In addition to that I work as a presenter with the Bayerischer Rundrunk for TV and online videos.
I do voiceover work sometimes.
I'm also a writer.
A few years ago I published my first book, "Found in Prague," which unfortunately is
unavailable at the moment, but I am thinking about trying to figure out how I can get that
back to being available.
But what I'm really, really, really excited about is that I've recently finished writing
my second novel.
And I'm right now looking for publishers.
Hopefully get the book out.
I would really love to get it out as soon as I can.
I'm really excited for people to read it.
I'm so homesick.
Did you feel homesickness and how did you overcome it?
Ah, homesickness.
Yeah, that's a hard one.
I did feel homesickness, and I made a video about the emotional stages that I experienced
when I moved to Europe.
And I'll put that down below.
And how did I overcome it?
I tried to remind myself of three things as often as I could.
Wrote them down, and tried to just think about them whenever I was feeling homesickness.
One: it was what I really loved about that place.
So whether it was Germany or first when I moved to the Czech Republic, what did I love
about living there?
Number two: I tried to remind myself of why I had wanted to move to that place
in the first place.
Sometimes when I was feeling homesick, it was easy to forget why I had wanted to move
there in the first place. So I reminded myself of that.
And thirdly: I tried to remind myself of what I really, really loved and enjoyed doing in
that new place that I couldn't do where I was from.
So taking Florida and Germany, when I was caught up in missing the warmth and the sun
and the sand and the ocean, when I was missing all that stuff, I would try to remind myself
of how much I really loved getting to go hiking in the Alps.
And how much I loved that I could drive just a few hours from my home in Munich and be
in a completely different country.
And that you've got changing seasons here.
And the beautiful leaves that change color. And snow.
And so I just tried to remind myself of those things and keep myself positive that way.
So my question for you is: what other questions would you like to see me answer in a Q&A video?
And also, do you enjoy Q&A videos?
Would you like to see me make another one sometime before another year and a half goes by?
Please let me know in the comments below.
Look, that's Dana laughing in the background there.
Thanks so much for watching our videos. I hope you enjoy them.
And thanks for watching this video here.
As a little extra for December, we will have some more videos coming out.
Probably on Friday, and they are mostly filmed by me.
I hope you enjoy them.
Have a nice day.
Auf Wiedersehen.
That's still Dana laughing.
I don't know, Bielefeld. It just sounds like a nice bee field to me. A nice spring name.
So actually, I did tackle this video in the first Q&A video...ah this question.
Um, mostly filmed by me.
I hope you enjoy them as well.
Thank you.
Bye.