Kultur 10

Hallo alle,

I thought these articles were much more interesting than the last set of articles.

The first article about the New Year's tradition of watching "Dinner for One" was nice because it was very comparative to American traditions. Many American families have a similar traditions, like watching Christmas claymations after Thanksgiving dinner, Tim Allen's Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, etc. Many families also go to the movie theater on Christmas Day or on New Year's.

I thought that the next article was the most interesting. It was very intriguing to read about not only the cultural differences but also the economic differences between Germany and the United States. In America, you would always be able to run out  to the convenience store to get whatever you needed and rarely have to worry about the operating hours of groceries or the like. In Germany it seems to be quite the opposite, and I've noticed in Italy it is also rare to have the same availability (as far as hours are concerned) as American stores. Maybe it just goes to show the priority that we place on working and consumerism here in the States. In class we talked about how few vacation days (if any) a typical American 9-to-5er would get in a year compared to the rest of the world. I think these economic/cultural difference in attitude is kind of a result of the typical "American Dream" idea that the rest of the world doesn't really grasp (and with good reason maybe?).

The excerpt about Mannertag was a really fun read. How wonderful must it be to, as a father (not that I am one), have one day out of the year where you know you are just allowed to get drunk as hell with all of your buddies. After I finished reading, I had this incredible urge to go drink German beer and eat German food.

Am Morgen!
Matt Riemland