Since the death of Richard Wagner, the story of music in Germany has been one of a long, slow, seemingly unending and inexorable decline, The Scorpions, Kraftwerk and Rammstein, the excepted. Perhaps there is no brighter glaring example of this than at Oktoberfest. The songs heard at Oktoberfest with German lyrics are often also sung… Read More The Top Ten American Songs at Oktoberfest (F)
You, Oktoberfest, are without compare, Overpriced everything, and especially the beer. Drunken Debauchery, in December we do detox, Fill up on roast pork, dumplings, or a slice from an ox. Fill up my glass, sir, ten euros is very dear. . With girls scantily clad, call it tradition I might add, After a liter or… Read More An Ode to Oktoberfest (Free Verse)
With all that’s been happening with the demonstrations for or against immigrants in Germany, I thought now might be a good time to look at a list of ten things I’ve done (or plan to do, if I can ever get a signature from my wife on a few of them) to integrate, and ingratiate,… Read More A Short List (for Beginners) on How to Integrate into Bavarian Culture (F)
This post is a guest post from my good friend Albert Mooney, who sums up succinctly what about half of the people in Munich actually think about Oktoberfest. It must be like living in Rio and hating Carnival. Or being a Dubliner who dreads St. Patrick’s Day. Or a citizen of Nero’s Rome who has long grown… Read More Confessions of an Oktoberfest Hater
Forty-year-old Sepp looked at his watch, took a last sip of his coffee, and grabbed his cap. As he was leaving the bakery all he could think about was how excited he was for his last shift before his two-week holiday was to begin. One more shift and then tomorrow he would commence with two… Read More A Lonely Father’s Day
If you travel by train or car in Germany for any distance, a few aspects of Germanness are inescapable. They all share similar ideas of orderliness, tidiness, and structure. Other pillars of Germanness, especially in the workplace, include punctuality, productivity, and thoroughness. These are the things that unite them, a sort of common consciousness, a… Read More Germany Still Has a Wall that Divides
Laptops And Lederhosen 