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Movie Ratings — Watch Out!

by | Mar 8, 2010 | , | 0 Comments

I had planned to go see the movie “Valentine’s Day” with my eldest daughter this past week in English, but the few times it was being shown just didn’t work for us. On Friday we finally decided to go to see it in German in the local theater, and because it was “ab 6“, the German equivalent of PG, we thought that it would be okay to take her sister, who is ten. Let me preface this whole thing by saying that I am by no means a prude, and have no real issues with the openness and nudity, etc. that goes on here in Germany every day. But my version of PG and the German version of PG are two very different things.

Now this movie was rated PG-13 on American screens, but I didn’t check that before we went. I should have known. This has happened before. Claire and Emma went to a movie last year called “Sommer”. I think it was also rated “ab 6“, so I figured it was okay. When they came home, Claire said she thought Emma hadn’t understood everything, which in the end was probably better. When I saw the trailer for the movie a couple of weeks later, I was shocked. It was about a couple of teenagers and their “first time”! So much for “ab 6“! read more…

Germany’s North and South Divide

by | Mar 1, 2010 | , , , | 3 Comments

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Weisswurstäquator (white sausage equator – these sausages are particular to Bavaria). If you haven’t, it’s the line that divides the north of Germany from the south, and it runs just south of Frankfurt. (Writer’s Note: this border is open to interpretation.)

Since my college days, I’ve had a number of very close friendships with Germans. They started with my husband, who comes from Mönchengladbach, and another friend of ours who comes from Meerbusch, also in the Rheinland. While studying in London, I lived next to a woman, now my first born’s godmother, who is from a village north of Hamburg. She introduced me to our good friend who comes from a village outside of Bremen. And I studied with and later became flatmates with a half American/half German guy from a village near Kiel. We’ve known each other for years and have attended each other’s weddings. Funny enough, all of these German friends were decidedly from the north.

After about ten years or so of knowing each other, I shared the happy news with these friends that I was finally marrying my German sweetheart, and he got a job with a lens making firm. When I told them where the lens making firm was, in a town called Aalen somewhere one hour east of Stuttgart, they were shocked. Any joy that I was moving to their home country was greatly overshadowed by the horror they were trying hard to contain; I was moving to the south, and I was moving to Schwabenland. To them, southern Germany might as well have been another country, an inferior one at that, and Schwabenland was where their countrymen spoke one of the most disliked dialects in the Bundesrepublik.
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Politicans and Universal Constants

by | Feb 25, 2010 | , , | 0 Comments

Whenever I am stuck for a topic to write about, I can always get myself fired up by just reading the newspaper.  Today was no exception.   Guido Westerwelle, in particular, is a great topic whether in a blog or at the pub.

Mr Westerwelle is currently the head of the junior coalition partner in the government.  The Freie Demokratische Partei or FDP as it usually referred to.  They are viewed as a combination pro-business and pro-civil rights party.  That would be somewhat analogous to what Americans usually refer to as fiscal libertarianism.

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Marlene Dietrich stars in Berlin

by | Feb 14, 2010 | | 0 Comments

Walk of Fame

Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. PHOTO: Hyde Flippo

Things can move slowly in Germany and Berlin. Especially things having to do with “the war” and the Nazi past.

The German-born film actress Marlene Dietrich falls into this category. Some Germans (the dumb ones) still view Dietrich as a traitor to Germany. They fail to grasp the big difference between being anti-Hitler and being anti-German. Dietrich, working in Hollywood in the 1930s and ’40s, refused to support the Nazis. She became an American citizen and entertained US troops. Her return to West Germany in 1960 drew a mixed reception. She was cheered and jeered. Later she said famously: “The Germans and I no longer speak the same language.” But after she died in self-imposed exile in Paris in 1992, Dietrich was buried in Berlin, at her request. In 1993 Berlin purchased her vast memorabilia collection for the film museum there for $5 million. read more…

“On Se Won Händ”

by | Feb 2, 2010 | , , | 3 Comments

Ripped from the headlines in Germany, YouTube has shamed and ridiculed yet another public figure, this time former Baden-Württemberg’s Minister President and now Germany’s European Union Commissioner, Günther Oettinger.

The widely circulated video is of Oettinger painfully stumbling through a speech clearly neither drafted nor rehearsed by him. The point of the speech, recently held in Berlin at a Columbia University hosted event, and Mr Oettinger’s main message as the new EU Energy Commissioner are unfortunately lost, overshadowed instead by Mr Oettinger’s inability to pronounce many of the more “challenging” words such as “justifiable,” “interference,” and “initiative” and making other words such as “does” and “otherwise” unrecognizable. Already known for his rather distinctive way of speaking in German (read here: he has a very heavy Swabian accent), Oettinger managed to “swabianize” English. The well-known Baden-Württemberg tagline, “we can do everything except speak high German” has been refashioned by commentators to, “wir können alles außer Hochdeutsch – und Englisch!” along with the terms “schwänglisch” and “Spätzle-Englisch.” What made this all the more humiliating perhaps is that the YouTube video included footage of Mr Oettinger emphasizing how all Germans, regardless of their profession, must be able to speak and understand English.

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Earth to FDP!

by | Jan 27, 2010 | , , | 0 Comments

We are about four months into the new government here in Germany.  As so often seems to be the case in politics and people, the current government seems to have mis-interpreted what the voters wanted to say.

It should not be so surprising, really.  It is difficult to get a good unfiltered view of how voters feel when you live behind a wall of handlers and advisers.  Politicians are still just people and are just as susceptible to wishful thinking as anyone else.  The FDP is on the verge of learning this lesson the hard way.

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Buying Shoes for Kids: Germany vs. the US

by | Jan 12, 2010 | , , | 1 Comment

Just recently, I went to buy my youngest his first pair of shoes. Ty the au pair came with us to chase Olivia through the store, expecting this to be a short process. He was wrong, of course, because this is Germany, and everything takes just a little bit longer! And shoes are very important and very expensive here, especially for children.

We first took Noah to look for shoes before Christmas when he had just started walking. It had been pretty cold here and even I, the American who doesn’t ever put enough clothes on her kids, thought he might be getting a tad bit cold. But we were sent home from the shoe store. I guess kids have to have been walking for a couple of weeks before anyone is allowed to buy them shoes. Even my German husband was surprised, but around here, we must listen to the experts! read more…

Raising “Free Range” Kids in Germany

by | Jan 4, 2010 | , , | 0 Comments

I’m concluding my Christmas holidays now here in America, so it’s natural for me to once again think about how different my life would be if I were living in America instead of in Germany, especially as a mother.

Despite all my good intentions to not shop as much and my otherwise disciplined nature about spending money, I’ve continued the shopping spree which I had started on my last visit last October/November. All of these pre-Christmas, thanks to the economy, and of course post-Christmas sales have been too difficult for me to resist. Along with stocking up for Christmas presents for next year, I’ve been noticing what sort of toys are out on the market for children. My husband and I made a quick stop into Pottery Barn Kids when I first saw “Melissa and Doug” toys. I had previously read references to this brand on several parenting related web forums and sites. They were obviously regarded as nice, so I checked them out of curiosity. Maybe they would make a nice gift for one of our friends back in Germany.
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