The German/Austrian-Hawaii Connection

by | Jul 27, 2016 | History and culture

Pearl Harbor’s Austrian Architecture and Honolulu’s Prussian Bandmaster NOTE: This is an updated version of a blog I first posted in May 2010 and have revised several times since then. I’m currently in Hawaii. As usual, I’m on the outlook for...

Oktoberfest in North America

by | Sep 1, 2023

Introduction Perhaps a bit surprisingly, annually there is at least one Oktoberfest event in almost every US state, and in several Canadian provinces. Most of the celebrations have bounced back from the covid pandemic years, when they had to close down. All across...

Mark Twain in Berlin and Vienna

by | Dec 12, 2022 | Berlin, Book reviews, History and culture

Mark Twain, whose passport bore the name Samuel Langhorne Clemens, crossed the Atlantic Ocean 49 times. In Europe the American writer visited many German-speaking cities, from Berlin to Vienna, and many points in-between. The future globetrotter’s first foreign...