Hintergrundinformation

I know you must all be unspeakably worried sick that I'm running off with some other country for a year, so here are some very basic bits of Hintergrundinformation ("background information") to start you off.

• It's called Deutschland in the official language, which is Deutsch ("German").
  
  The name of the country is pronounced "DOYCH-lond" in English phonetics. "OY" like "boy," "CH" like "chip." Not dutch-land (they have their own country). Not dooch-land. Not doosh-land.
  
  
• The country's flag, in case you somehow haven't noticed already from this blog, looks like this:
  
  
  (Not to be confused with the Flag of Belgium (image courtesy of 4 International Flags)... or even the Flag of Uganda.)
  
  
• It's got a population of about 82 million (roughly 4 times the population of Texas), and it floats somewhere between New Mexico and Montana in terms of land area.
  
  
• The capital city is Berlin. But I'll be based in Regensburg -- see here for a rough location on the German map.
  
  
• If you don't already know where it is, then all you need to know now is that it's in central Europe. If you don't already know where Europe is, may the universe kindly help your soul.

As for the rest, and how life is really like over in Deutschland, I'd rather tell you once I get there.