I'd say this:
Guten Morgen = good morning, this is neutral and even the Bavarians understand, though they identify you at once as non-Bavarian <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> - even a fluent
"Grüßgott" or "Grüß Gott" with the typical rolling "R" in there will not allow you to hide your foreigner status. Foreigners - or even worse: Prussians (all Germans coming from above the white sausage border, I'm one <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> ) - are treated friendly, if they take care of some rules - and these are not lingual reasons <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" /> - nope, I'm not going into details there, I spent 5 holidays in Bavaria
Well, if you want to be identified as a "northern light" (East Frisian, north German) use
"Moinmoin" or "Moin Moin" - take care to sound as if you have a slight cold then and talk in a nasal way.
And about our ortography reform: It is a catastrophy IMO! My colleague e.g. has this letter "ß" in her name and she is keeping it! For the sake of history there are still regions with "ß" = Preußen -> Prussia.
Fußball = football in the meaning of soccer for the Americans <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />
(American Football = your kind of football)
And the "ß" is still valid due to several rules dealing with vowels/consonants. For the sake of the internet: ß = ss and the vowel combos ä = ae, ö = oe, ü = ue are no problem.
This reform has tried to demolish the origin of words - example:
Delphin = dolphin = is now Delfin -> the Latin "ph" is modernised to the "f"
Clown = clown = is now Klaun <shudder> -> written now how pronounced
Känguruh = kangaroo = is now Känguru -> if you look at this spelling you get a hunch how it is pronounced (ä/ae = like the English "a" in "apple")
Kiya
