There Was a Checkpoint Charlie

A fair warning to those faithful readers of mine who don't like to read: This may be my last update for awhile due to me travelling back to the states and then moving next weekend, so I plan on writing a lot.

Well I'm having a great time here in Germany. I've noticed a couple of cultural differences, however, that absolutly drive me crazy. The first and foremost is the fact that they make you pay to use bathrooms. Is this insane? It doesn't matter where you are -- public, private, museum, department store...there is someone's who's job it is to patrol the bathrooms and make sure that people pay the requisite 0.50€. Talk about a job that sucks! Going to the bathroom is a natural human process and they are charging us to take care of this multi-daily task? I don't think so! Being a man, it is a bit easier as we can just go wherever we want...but still. I mean, if someone is going to make me pay to go to the bathroom, I'm going to make sure I get my money's worth. I'll take Moby Dick in there or something and cozy up to do some reading. I think a great protest would be for a bunch of students (cause they love to protest) to go into bathrooms and just stand in front of the toilets. Do this all day to protest charging for bathrooms. Germany is the only country that does this.

The second gripe...well its not really a grip because it's not that big of a deal is German's adversion to crossing against a traffic light. What do us American's do? We come to a street, look to see if any traffic is coming, and as long as there is no traffic, we'll cross. We really don't care if the sign says "Don't Walk" or not...no traffic is a go for us. Germans on the otherhand will do their civic duty and wait for the sign to change. It is really something to see an empty street and a bunch of people on either side waiting for the walk sign to appear. Speaking of walk signs, being in the former GDR, I'm privy to a rather neat cultrual phenomenon, that of the Amplemannchen. The Amplemannchen is the crosswalk signal from the former GDR that is much more exciting than it's FRG counterpart, and a lot more exciting then the boring WALK/DON'T WALK we have in the US. Being in Dresden, I've also seen the female version Here is a pic of the Amplemannchen:















Other then these two things, Germany is great. One thing that Germany is known for is it's beer, and I'm more then happy to report that I've been drinking my fill. Radeberger and Feldschlößchen are the two regional beers I've been drinking the most of. Something that is really hard to get used to, as an American, is the lack of open container laws. Every day I see people having a beer walking down the road, riding the tram, or hanging out wherever...you can drink any place you like. It's great! And beer is usually one of the cheapest things on the menu, so why drink pop or water when a beer will be cheaper! I love it!















Yesterday I went to a European Soccer match. We went to the 1. FC Dynamo Dresden game. The Dynamo (procounced Du-Na-Mo btw) play in Germany's 3rd league, but it was still quite fun. I was quite impressed with the fan support. I mean I would equate this (any soccer snobs, please correct me) to attending a minor league baseball game. Small stadium, cheap seats, & a level of play below that of the Bundesliga. But the fans come out in droves! Colors of yellow, maroon, and black were everywhere! The fan section I would equate to the fan sections at NCAA Football and/or Basketball games. The fans stand the whole game and cheer and chant and yell and sing. It is great! I was patted down as I entered the stadium and I don't ever recall havind gone through that in the US. I was also told that people throw batteries onto the field at opposing players....hmmm, sounds familiar. I can only imagine what it would be like attending a game in the Bundesliga or the Premiership. Gotta put that one on life's to-do list.

We went to Berlin last weekend and that was quite something. Most of us remember the Wall coming down and what it meant...but there is a real history to the Wall and what it stood for that many of us don't know. It was real humbling and educational to read about it and how events played out. The thing that I never really thought about was that the Wall was around and containted the "free" West Germans while the "non-freee" East Germans could travel where they liked (except for West Berlin that is). The other thing that the OFOMOL told me is that East Berlin was a city where East Germans wanted to live because they could receive TV channels from the West and they had some of the best living situations; West Germans, on the other hand, didn't want to live in West Berlin (it was isolated, who could blame them?) and incentives were offered to get people to live and work there. Then in 1989 the Wall came down, David Hasselhoff came for a visit and Capitalism spread across the land. Now they make a buck by selling stuff from those by-gone days. Karl Marx must be rolling in his grave when he sees this:















OK, I fly back to the states on Wednesday. Hopefully I get home with the least of delays and there are no terrorists on my plane...if not, I'll do my best to take them down. I move down to the sticks on saturday. Look for details in the coming weeks about my place down there. I appreciate the comments, so keep them coming.