Children in the United States often write to Santa Claus for Christmas. The US Postal Service even has a website to help them do so. It's the same in Canada. In fact, many countries around the globe have a Santa or Father Christmas letter-writing tradition. That...
The GW Expat Blog
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Germans, Austrians and Swiss in Hawaii
I'm once again visiting Hawaii, this time on the island of Maui. Since 2010 I've been on a continuing quest for Germanic-Hawaiian connections. Even here in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, 12 time zones away from Europe, there are many more than one might think....
The Singular/Plural Conundrum in German and English
Nouns That Are Singular in English but Plural in German – and Vice Versa English-speaking students of the German language soon encounter the odd situation of common nouns that are singular in English but plural in German. The opposite also occurs, with singular nouns...
Mae West: The German Girl
When Mary Jane West, later the stage and film star Mae West (1893-1980), was growing up in Brooklyn and Queens she was known as "the German girl." Her mother, Mathilde/Matilda West (née Delker), had been born on 8 December 1870, probably in the Kingdom of Württemberg,...
The Father of Sliced Bread Was a German Iowan
We take pre-sliced bread for granted. It has even become part of the language: "It's the best/greatest thing since sliced bread." But Iowa-born Otto Frederick Rohwedder did not begin selling his pioneering bread-slicing machine until 1928. It could automatically slice...
CATAN: Klaus Teuber’s Pioneering Board Game
New Energies: German Game Designer Klaus Teuber When you hear the term "board games" you may think of typical tabletop games such as chess or checkers/draughts, Go, Monopoly, Pictionary, Risk, Scrabble, Sorry!, and many others. But we're going to talk about a special...
Baby Names in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
Baby Names: In and Out of Fashion Like many other things in life, baby names go in and out of fashion. It's an international phenomenon that applies globally, regardless of language. Some first names (Vornamen) are rather timeless, while others fade away. Baby names...
Indiana’s German Place Names and Connections
Indiana: The Hoosier State The US state whose name means "land of the Indians" also has a lot of German connections. In fact the largest ancestry reported in Indiana is "German" – with 22.7 percent of the population claiming that ancestry in the 2020 census. In the...
Why Nefertiti Is in Berlin, Not Cairo
Egyptian Artifacts and a Wealthy Berlin Patron of the Arts If you want to see the famous bust of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti (c. 1370 – c. 1330 BCE), the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, you have to visit Berlin's Neues Museum (New Museum) to experience it in person. The...
Coburg, Germany, Black History and St. Mauritius
Coburg, Germany Before, During, and After the War As Black History Month has recently passed its halfway mark, I'm returning to a theme I've written about before: Black Americans and Germany. Which, believe it or not, brings us to the northern Bavarian city of Coburg,...
The Nebra Sky Disc: An Introduction
The World's Oldest Known Representation of the Night Sky I'm not exactly sure when I first became aware of the Nebra Sky Disc, but I do recall being reminded of its existence in late 2021 when the German ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer named his mission to the...
How the German Advent Calendar Emerged from the Ashes of War and Conquered America
How a Stuttgart Publisher and US President Eisenhower Saved the Advent Calendar The Advent calendar tradition is a relatively recent Christmas custom, far more recent than the Christmas tree. Although homemade calendars date from around 1850, the first printed...
How Germans Helped Shape the World: Historic Globes
No, The World Is Not Flat! Bad news for flat-earth believers: Ancient Greek astronomers proved that the earth was a sphere – which later gave us the Latin (and German) word globus. Although references to globes representing the planet earth date from about 150 BCE, no...
The Rising Costs for Tourists in Germany
Room Taxes, Spa Taxes, and ETIAS Traveling in Europe or anywhere else has always involved spending a certain amount of money. But over the past decade or so a new kind of travel expense has arisen in Europe, including the German-speaking countries. And yet another, if...
Beyond Munich: Germany’s Other Beer and Wine Festivals
As I write this, Oktoberfest in Munich is about to end on October 3rd. Oktoberfest, which begins in September, is by far Germany's largest and most famous folk festival (Volksfest), but there are many other attractive options all across Germany. These other events...
A Brief (Germanic) History of Mexican Beer
The German, Austrian, and Swiss Heritage of Cerveza Today both the Mexican and US beer brewing scenes are quite similar, reflecting the global phenomenon of Big Beer. In both countries it is difficult to know the true company behind a particular beer brand, even if...
Yes, There’s Uber in Germany, but…
Uber and Its Competitors in Germany Ride-hailing and ride-sharing services in Germany and most of Europe have had a far more difficult time than in North America. While Uber plays a limited role in Germany, Lyft can't be found anywhere in Europe. And Uber had to wage...
Barbie’s German Ancestor
Like many other Americans, the "all-American" Barbie doll has German origins. Barbara "Barbie" Millicent Roberts was born – as a fully grown adult plastic doll – in New York City at the American International Toy Fair on 9 March 1959. Her accessory boyfriend, Ken,...
Adventures on a First Class ICE to Munich
My last post was about revisiting Berlin after a five-year pandemic-related pause. In that post I promised to later write about Munich, our next destination, and I will. But today my subject is Deutsche Bahn (DB) and the "adventure" of rail travel in Germany these...
Berlin: Then and Now
Germany: Before and After the Covid Pandemic Before this year (2023), my last trip to Germany and Berlin was in March/April 2018. It was a true European journey that ranged from Budapest, Hungary to Rotterdam, Netherlands (a river cruise), and also passed through...
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