Here’s a short two-question quiz, the answers are at the end. First, name the last President of the United States who regularly wore eyeglasses while in office. Second, why do you think there have been so few? Since I arrived in Munich as a permanent inhabitant of this wonderful country, there have been many things… Read More Why Germans Wear Eyeglasses
The Germans/Bavarians desire for order is legendary, and rightfully so. Few cultures place so much emphasis on punctuality, tidiness and ‘the plan’. Meetings are held to decide when the next meeting will be, begin promptly at 9am and end almost an hour later. They would end exactly an hour later but don’t because the next… Read More Germans and Bavarians LOVE a Little Chaos
I read this joke a few years ago and with all the grey weather in Munich recently I thought now would be a good time to post it. I added the part about the Russians. The French have sex because they like it. The Brits have sex because they drink too much. The Russians have… Read More A German Doctor’s Orders
Much has been written about the German language and how difficult it is to learn. It’s all true. One needs to go no further than Mark Twain’s classic ‘The Awful German Language’, at the back of his hilarious A Tramp Abroad, to get an idea from a very smart man of how ‘slipshod’ (his word)… Read More My First Three Sentences in German Unrelated to Beer
Unbeknownst to many, there is a large group of ethnic Germans in Texas. Most of the first Germans arrived in the mid-19th century one of two ways. They either arrived by ship directly to the coast of Texas or they migrated north from Mexico City when Napoleon III landed French troops in Mexico. Those that… Read More A Texas Two-step with German Beer, Brats, and Beats
During my backpack tour of Europe in 1999, I took my first dump in Germany and I thought the toilet was broken. I asked myself where was the water? There was only enough for my logs, not more. Germans’ frugalness is legendary, might’ve their thriftiness perniciously crept into their toilets too? The next time I… Read More You’re Shitting Me!
In the hit series ‘Game of Thrones’, one of the underlying themes of the first few seasons is that winter is coming. Winter in the show, however, is measured in years and not months. An economic winter is probably coming to Germany and the European Union (EU) soon, and it will be measured in years… Read More A Cold Harsh Economic Winter for Germany Is on the Horizon
