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Staying cool in the German summertime

by | Aug 3, 2016 | , | 0 Comments

Summer in Germany is a humid and sweaty affair, especially down here in the landlocked south. For a pale, sea breeze loving Brit my first summer was indeed a baptism of fire. When I heard of a beautiful place where you could swim and laze away a day it seemed to be the stuff of dreams. I grabbed my swimsuit, towel and sun cream and followed the directions I’d been given on my recently acquired bike. Unfortunately it was 19th April, and even though the temperature was 35°C outside the pool would remain firmly closed, until the safe date for open air swimming, May 1st.

Early morning Freibad - Photo - Alie

Early morning Freibad Photo: Alie

The Freibad (lido or open air swimming pool) is open to all and can range in size from a simple rectangular 50m pool to a complex of various pools with slides, diving boards and water features. My local is famous for its wave pool, in addition to its, sometimes stinky, sulphurous mineral water, which you can drink and thankfully don’t have to swim in.

Anything goes at the Freibad, speedos have never gone out of fashion here in the south anyway, but feel free to wear what you want, some kids are still wearing wetsuits well into July. Temperature wise I’m not sure I’m the best judge of what is considered cold since I’ve swum outdoors in the UK all year round, but the pool for swimming is generally the coolest 21-24°C whilst the more family friendly pools with slides, whirlpools and waves tend to be a little warmer at 25-27°C. read more…

The German/Austrian-Hawaii Connection

by | Jul 27, 2016 | | 0 Comments

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 Germanic connections, and even here, so far away from Europe, there are many. First, I wanted to see if there were any direct historic ties between the Sandwich Islands (now better known as Hawai’i) and the German-speaking countries. I didn’t have to look very far. Aboard the Resolution, the ship that took Capt. James Cook to his discovery of the Hawaiian archipelago in 1778, were a German-Swiss artist and three German sailors.

Since Cook’s discovery, Hawaii has been influenced – positively and negatively – by other haoles (outsiders), including Americans, British, French, Portuguese and Asians. It turns out that people from the German-speaking parts of Europe have played some key roles in Hawaiian history. If you study Hawaii’s past, you’ll run across many German names: Hackfeld, Hillebrand, Isenberg, von Chamisso, Lemke, Pflueger, Scheffer, Spreckels, and Zimmermann. At one time, the island of Kauai in particular had a sizeable German population. The island’s main town, Lihue, was nicknamed “German Town.” There were German Lutheran churches and schools in Lihue and Honolulu (Oahu).

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor: The iconic USS Arizona Memorial (right) was designed by an Austrian-born architect. The USS Missouri (“Mighty Mo”) is anchored nearby (left) as a museum. The Missouri was the site of the Japanese surrender signing in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. PHOTO: Hyde Flippo

World War I pretty much put an end to the German presence in Hawaii, but I want to concentrate on two enduring legacies: one German and over a century ago, the other Austrian and much more recent. read more…

Lost Pets in Germany

by | Jul 13, 2016 | , , , | 0 Comments

Lost Pets in Germany

PHOTO: Erin Porter

Losing a pet is an experience I don’t like to relive, but I am sharing my trauma in the hopes it will relieve your drama if you ever find yourself in a similar situation. Here’s the story of how we lost our cat in Berlin – and got her back.

At first, we were puzzled. We couldn’t find our cat anywhere, but as we live in a 6th floor Dachgeschoss (attic apartment) there was no obvious exit route. Examining our abode closely we found that there was only one escape – the window. Poking our head out we saw that she could have nosed her way out and done a rooftop stroll before entering any one of the many apartments that share our roof line. I was terrified, but hopeful – how far could she go?

We formed a plan to retrieve our lost pet in Germany. read more…

Goodbye Deutschland!

by | Jul 6, 2016 | | 0 Comments

good-bye-deutschlandWhen I first came to Germany thirteen years ago, I was a nineteen year old college sophomore on my first trip outside North America. Five years ago, I returned to study for my master’s degree at the University of Siegen. For much of the time since, I’ve thought about whether or not I could see myself becoming a permanent expat like so many people I’ve met over the years. But I recently decided that the time had come to return home to the United States and say goodbye to Germany.

read more…

You Know You’re a Real Expat in Germany When…

by | Jun 29, 2016 | , , , | 2 Comments

Rossman store hours

Öffnungszeiten. Store hours. Never on Sunday! PHOTO: Hyde Flippo

A while back, someone in our Expat Forum posted a clever “You know you’re in Germany when…” I happened to run across that list again recently and thought I’d use it as inspiration for today’s blog entry. These brief “You know you’re not in Kansas any more when…” items often can tell us more about cultural differences than an entire chapter of a book — plus they usually bring forth a chuckle or two.

Here at The German Way we also have our own Cultural Comparison Charts which compare American and German daily culture and customs. Drawing from all of these sources and personal experience, here’s our German Way version of “You know you’re in Germany when…”

You know you’re a real expat in Germany when…

  • you’re used to separating the plastic, paper and bio trash before you toss it in one of the three under-the-sink bins;
  • you know how to type the @ sign on a German QWERTZ keyboard — and you no longer type “zou” for “you”;
  • you no longer take a sunny, blue-sky day for granted – in the depths of a long, gray German winter, or even in the summer;
  • “pay to pee” is just a normal part of daily life — at gas stations/rest stops, in department stores, and sometimes even at a restaurant or bar;
  • you are no longer startled by cars passing you doing 100+ mph on the autobahn;
  • you find it perfectly normal to see nudity and soft porn while flipping through the normal German TV channels (or the local newspaper);
  • you’ve taken so many train trips in Germany and Europe, you lost count long ago (“Senk ju vor träwelling”);
  • you are finally used to the checkout clerk at your corner Drogerie (drugstore), where you shop almost daily, acting like she has never seen you before in her life, but…
  • you exchange good-byes with perfect strangers when leaving an elevator or a train compartment; read more…

3 Ways I Embarrassed Myself at the German Sauna

by | Jun 22, 2016 | , , , , , | 0 Comments


Don’t worry guys, I brought a towel to sit (and sweat) on in the sauna, and didn’t try to wear my swimsuit into the nude areas. I’m not a German sauna newbie. I’ve been once before.

Photo: Erin Porter

About to get N-A-K-E-D PHOTO: Erin Porter

That one time was at touristy Tropical Island. I highly recommend it if you are also a spa novice. It is a full-on water park with slides and waterfalls and artificial beach front. But deep in its center lies an area cloaked in palm trees and signs barring entry for those under 16. We waffled back and forth if we were actually going into this adult-only zone before putting on our big boy pants (or taking them off, in this case) and entering.

As Germans consider regular spa going a part of good health and not a luxury, the average German knows what to do in the sauna. Not so for a couple of expats from Seattle. We clumsily felt our way through the process of showering, storing our clothes in a cubby and dramatically dropping the towel to enter a steamy room full of naked Germans. And – no surprise for those who’ve done it before – it wasn’t so bad! We emerged thoroughly moist and with muscles that had deeply relaxed so that we were basically moving puddles. It was fabulous. read more…

Baedeker, German Reiselust, and vacation days

by | Jun 13, 2016 | , , , , | 0 Comments


Kings and governments may err, but never Mr. Baedeker.
– A.P. Herbert, in his 1929 English libretto for J. Offenbach’s operetta La Vie Parisienne[1]

Baedecker book cover

The traditional Baedeker guidebook, like this 1911 English-language edition, sports a red hardcover with a golden embossed title. PHOTO: Hyde Flippo

In both German and English, the term “Baedeker” (BAY-day-ker) is synonymous with “travel guidebook” (Reiseführer). Although the German Karl Baedeker (1801-1859) did not invent the travel guidebook, he certainly perfected it. After publishing his first travel guide (Rheinreise/Journey along the Rhine) in 1838, Baedeker went on to refine his product by being meticulous about the facts and information he included (with carefully detailed maps), and inventing the “star” ranking system for outstanding attractions (1846). The German word Erbsenzähler (bean counter, nitpicker) is said to have originated with his method of counting the exact number of stair steps in a cathedral tower by leaving a dried pea on every 20th stair as he went up, and collecting/counting them on his way back down.

The red Baedeker guidebooks[2] are still published today, and still have a reputation for sober factualness and lack of embellishment, especially compared to most contemporary travel books. And it is the Baedeker and other tourist guides that bring us to my main topic: German Reiselust (love of travel).

Sometimes called “wanderlust” in English, the German propensity to travel is better named by other, more modern German words, Reiselust and Fernweh being the two most common. Perhaps Fernweh is the one we want here: the longing for travel to distant places. Some cynics say this Germanic desire to go off to faraway places has to do with the German saying “Da, wo ich nicht bin, da ist das Glück.” (“There where I am not, there’s where happiness is.”) — but I think not. It has more to do with Germanic curiosity and information-gathering, not to mention a desire to find the sun and escape the frequent gloom of northern Europe. Ever since Goethe went on his Italienische Reise (Italian Journey) in the 1780s, the Germans have been among the world’s greatest tourists — with Baedeker in hand (since the 19th century). You also may have seen the Baedeker in the hands of Lucey Honeychurch in the film A Room with a View (also in the original 1908 E.M. Forster novel). read more…

7 books which will help you get to know Berlin

by | May 26, 2016 | , , | 0 Comments

IMG_0767 (1)Alongside relishing delicious tapas, sunbathing, and swimming in the sea, I spent our two-week summer holiday in Andalusia last year reading “Tales of the Alhambra” by Washington Irving. Reading relevant books for the location is something I like to do – Henry James in Italy, Jan Morris in the Middle East, Alice Walker in the US – providing a more nuanced dimension to fact-filled travel guides.

I did this, too, when I first came to Berlin as a student – sniffing out obscure, vaguely relevant works in the glorious Staatsbibliothek on Potsdamer Platz. Though after 6 years here, my location-focused intellectual pursuits have been waylaid by work, family life and lots of other good, unrelated books I’ve been keen to read, I still believe books – both fiction and memoir – represent one of the best ways to understand the spirit of Berlin. Here are my top seven recommendations spanning genre and historical period – mostly available in translation – to help you get to know Berlin. 

1. “Die Poggenpuhls” / Theodor Fontane

Set in 1888 in what is referred to as the Kaiserreich, “Die Poggenpuhls” depicts an impoverished Prussian aristocratic family struggling by in Berlin. The father has died, the two brothers are away with the army, leaving the mother and three sisters in a pokey, rented apartment just on the edge of an acceptable part of town, desperately keeping up appearances despite the financial constraints. The novel shows the shifting of power and wider societal change at a crucial point in German history. read more…