Kultur1

Munich, Germany

Perhaps most interesting to me in this chapter's Kultur-Text was the German fascination with American food. When I had foreign exchange students at my home in high school from Mexico, they all remarked on how bland the food was and had little interest in eating run-of-the-mill American food ever again--or at least not without a heavy dose of hot sauce! That Germans are interested in US table-setting at Thanksgiving and the use of crock pots is very interesting to me. Those things are part of my life, and they don't seem out of the ordinary or different, but I guess if one had never experienced them before, such normalcies might seem abnormal.

But cultural interest is a two way street, and the article on Munich in the Vorsprung textbook piqued my interest and brought me back to my one and only time in Germany (and in Munich). I remember the centra plaza with the Glockenspiel and how it was surrounded by beer halls and quaint shops. Even though Munich is home to 1.5 million citizens, it had the feel of something much smaller--reminiscent of London's ability to make a ridiculous metropolis feel smaller than New York City. I'll be returning to Germany this summer for a Goethe Institute course, but I'll be in Freiburg, not Munich. Since the two cities aren't that far apart, I hope I can find the time to take the Zug over to Munchen and have a beer!

The Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof

Hopefully while I'm waiting to get that train ticket, I won't be cut endlessly in line. Few things frustrate me more than when people do the "I'll start gradually moving alongside you in hopes of sometime cutting you in the line" tactic, and I'm surprised that the generally orderly Germans are inclined to try such tactics. I'm not a confrontational person, so I usually let line-cutters in places like New York City just go ahead of me, realizing that the cutting will only cost me about 30 seconds. I'm hoping that I won't spend forever waiting at the Hauptbahnhof just waiting in an (in)famous snake-line to get my ticket and get on my way! Otherwise, I might have a hard time traveling around Germany while I'm there....but I guess I'll just have to wait and see!