On health insurance and bicycles

We wanted to write about cycling. Now I see the head of Francesca´s post — obviously she wants to write about health insurance.
Hmmm.
I know there was thunder and lightening in the US about Barack Obamas proposals for a new health insurance system. When we last met, Francesca got excited, too. I couldn´t. Health insurance isn´t [...]

Hospitality

Never visit a German unannounced, guidebooks to Germany say. First, I wanted to protest.
The way I grew up, everybody walked into our house when they wanted to. Everybody was welcome and everybody got something to eat. “Fünf sind geladen, zehn sind gekommen. Schütt Wasser in die Suppe, heiß alle herzlich willkommen” runs a German saying: [...]

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän

Germans love long words. We have an easy way to create them by stitching several nouns together. A Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän works as a captain for the  Danube steamship company. Though this word isn´t used much any more (when did you see your last steamship?) the spirit of it prevails. Especially as it is a title. Nobody admits [...]

My home is my sandcastle

“Castles? Castles  … I don´t know .. I´ll write about sandcastles!”
Children all over the world build their fantasy worlds in sand, but only the Germans make the beach a construction site for temporary homes.  A ring of sand, fortified with stones and decorated with shells, tells everybody who owns the place. Invariably the family will [...]

Turnfest or Where to look for the Real Fun

 ”Today, the Internationale Deutsches Turnfest starts” I said to Francesca. “Let´s write about Turnen (gymnastics)”. 
“Okay” Francesca said “I have done gymnastics in a Turnverein as a child. Where does the Turnfest take place?”
Sometimes it shows that Francesca´s children don´t attend a public school in Frankfurt. I first heard about the Turnfest six month ago when the [...]

Break fast – That´s how it feels in the morning

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” I said to Francesca. ” Unfortunately, breakfast time in Germany is between 6 and 8 in the morning.”
At this time of the day, I can´t imagine to eat anything at all ever again for my whole lifetime. Even to look at anything edible makes me sick.
This [...]

The story of …. Tanz in den Mai

 
“Now that I start to pay attention, I realize that Germans find a lot of reasons to party”, I said when Francesca proposed to write  about Tanz in den Mai-Dance into 1st of May”. 
This night resembles those Christian churches you find all over Europe, which were erected on former pagan sacred sites. When I grew up, [...]

Le Car C´est Moi

“I have to sign Untruegerman this time” I told Francesca when we discussed this weeks topic. “We haven´t got a car”.
While the Abwrackpräme, the 2500 Euro the government grants for getting rid of your old and buying a new car, makes the first page  every day, my family is dreaming about getting money for handing [...]

Time to arrive

“She comes in her own time” an interculturally trained friend said when Francesca came late. Last time, she didn´t come at all, because she had mixed up two dates.
As a German, I should be upset. I still am when I have to wait in a business context. In my private life, by now, I´m regularly [...]

On Lent, lentils and Maultaschen

“When I hear Lent I always think of lentils” I told Francesca when we discussed Fastenzeit, the 40 days between carneval and Eastern.
In the catholic household of my upbringing, lentil soup was the staple diet for a Friday, the day on which religon demanded not to eat any meat. We ate it with Wiener Würstchen, a [...]