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Are You Following Germany To The World Cup?

Monday, May 24th, 2010

In just a few weeks, the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa will begin.

The German national team is meeting now to prepare, and millions of Germans and foreigners are watching these preparations closely. How well will Germany do at the games?

Traditionally, Germany turns in a great performance at the World Cup games. We have won the tournament three times, behind only Brazil and Italy. In the last 14 World Cups, we have always made the quarterfinals, won the most vice-champions, and it looks good for us this year, too.

Currently, Germany is ranked 5th overall. We’re a part of Group D, along with Serbia, Australia, and Ghana. Tickets for the matches still don’t sell that fast, but the Germany vs. Ghana match sold out back in March. To watch live, you will now have to try and find a secondary dealer for tickets, likely at a very inflated price.

Fortunately, the games will be broadcast on international television, and you can be sure that it will be no mystery when the games are on in Germany! World Cup watch parties and “Public Viewing” are popular in Germany, and local beer halls frequently have special events related to broadcasts.

After hosting the World Cup games in 2006, Germans have been even bigger supporters of the games. If you are traveling through Germany between June 11th and July 11th, expect to see us all in our jerseys on game days and to hear endless discussions of the matches.

Don’t be surprised at all the other gossip that is discussed, either. Not all of the drama is on the field! For example, because the coach of the German national team, Joachim Löw, has a contract expiration date near the date of the games, there has been a great deal of speculation about his next move. Mesut Ozil, one of the star players, is also a big topic of discussion.

Whether you like to watch the games or simply talk about them, I encourage you to follow Germany’s progress through the 2010 World Cup tournament. You can get the latest news about the team and their group on the Germany Team page on fifa.com or in any German publication with a sports section!

—Marcus

Still Stranded In Germany Due To Volcanic Ash?

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

Europe is certainly having its share of transportation troubles this year. First there was that big snow in January, which made Berlin (and Germany as a whole) a winter wonderland but grounded flights on occasion.

Now we have a volcanic ash cloud over Europe, and the majority of its airspace is closed.

If you are stranded in Germany due to volcanic ash, don’t despair. While I would love for you to stay in my beautiful country, I understand you want to go home.

Here are some of the other ways to get around Germany and Europe when the airports are closed:

  • Take An Airplane — I agree, this may sound very strange… they say the airspace is closed, so how in the world can one travel through Europe using an airplane? The thing is that most people are unaware of the fact that airspace below 6,000 meters is still open! (Note: The normal air traffic takes place at an altitude of between 6,000 and 11,000 meters.) So, contact your air carrier and ask them if they provide (or know of another carrier that provides) flights below the 6,000 meter mark (ex., Cessna flights). Or ask around small-sized airports and airfields for these type of flights.
  • Take A Train — The German Rail System is one of the most efficient and advanced networks on the planet. Trains run to and from all of the major airports and cities, so book a Deutsche Bahn rail ticket for local and international travel. Remember, airports in Portugal and Spain are still open!
  • Take A Bus — Though our train system is more famous, German bus lines are also very good and give you many options for getting around the country and even Europe. The Berlin Linien Bus company is one of the most well known, and I also offer an online bus tour booking service which covers convenient coach tours through Europe. As I mentioned just above, in just one or two days you could be in Spain or Portugal and then get back home from there since their airports are still open!
  • Rent A Car — I told you just last week how easy it is to rent a car in Germany. The German airports are closed, but the German highways remain open!
  • Take A Taxi — With more than 50,000 taxis in Germany, you should be able to find one at the nearest taxi stand, at the airport, or near any transit hub. If none are at the stand, ask to use the taxi phone (Taxirufsäule) or call the city’s taxi hotline, Taxi-Zentrale, which is in every phone directory. Fares over 50 km can be negotiated, and international travel is allowed but likely will be expensive — plan to pay at least 1 euro/km. You can also use this table of taxi fares by city as a guide (German).
  • Share A Ride — In Germany, we have several Carpool services, which pairs travelers with others looking to share the cost of travel. It may be a bit adventurous, especially for those with no German skills (although, many drivers do speak English), but why be stuck when you can make a new friend and get moving?

Either way, I wish all of my readers stuck around Germany the very best as you try to get home. In the meantime, you can book a hotel room (special prices included) and watch the visual map of the ash cloud online or read the latest airport closing updates.

Good Luck!

—Marcus

Germans Are Candidates For Being Original Fools

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

After the last blog post about the Porsche Test Track, I thought I would share something a bit lighter now in honor of today.

Today is not merely the first of April. Today is also April Fool’s Day, so be on guard against pranksters and tricksters roaming around looking for gullible types. April Fool’s Day is quite popular throughout Germany, so you can’t relax anywhere!

Part of the reason that April Fool’s Day is so popular in Germany is that according to some, the holiday originated here. However, there are multiple stories about its birth.

One of the oldest stories traces the holiday back to Augsburg in 1530. There, a group of lawmakers was supposed to be meeting on April 1st to discuss a number of financial projects. However, the meeting didn’t happen. As a result, many speculators lost money, earning them the title of “April Fools.”

According to another story, April Fool’s Day was started in Darmstadt by Gabriel Hoffman. No one is sure of his motivation, but there is no doubt that the holiday has certainly caught on around the country.

You can’t even trust the news on April 1st. Many of the national and local papers put out a special April Fool’s Day edition. This has caused some international sensations as multi-national syndicates pick up the stories without realizing they’re fake.

Some of the 2009 national hoaxes included the announcement of women’s only parking spaces, magnetic towing on BMW cars, and the banning of lederhosen sales.

For 2010, the pranks are anyone’s guess. . . keep your eyes and ears open! ;-)

To see some of the great April Fool’s Day hoaxes from Germany’s history, you can look at the archives at the Museum of Hoaxes. Also, don’t be shy about sharing the hoaxes you think should have been included in the list!

Traditionally, pranks are supposed to be played before noon, although the national pranks tend to go on all day or even for a couple of days.

However long your April Fool’s Day experience lasts, enjoy!

—Marcus

Can You Handle 14 Puppet Shows In One Week?

Friday, March 19th, 2010

As you know, Germany is full of unique festivals and celebrations. Many of these celebrations are based on our rich history and legends. Nowhere is this illustrated better than in the Schwarzwald a.k.a. Black Forest, where many of Germany’s best stories have been born.

If you are up to an exceptional dose of culture, you will want to head to the Black Forest town of Gernsbach this next week. Each year just before Easter, the town hosts one of Europe’s premier puppet festivals.

The Gernsbacher Puppentheaterwoche (Gernsbach Puppet Theater Week) attracts the top puppeteers from Germany and Austria. For one week straight they stage performances for adults and children. Some are light-hearted and funny, while others are darker artistic pieces.

No matter the subject, the visual experience is superb. Many of the puppets are made by hand especially for the event. With intricate costumes and sets, the stories really come to life in ways that can make you forget there are any human performers involved!

For 2010, there will be more than 14 puppet performances. Some will be traditional stories for children, while others, like Caravaggio, are original works design specifically for the festival. There are performances each day of the festival, which is being held March 20 – 27 this year.

Even if you can’t make a performance, you will still want to head to Gernsbach for the workshops and exhibitions. You can see museum displays of historical puppets made in Germany at both the town hall and the main library.

If you’ve ever thought of trying your own hand at being a puppet master, then you will want to attend some of the workshops. There are workshops for children’s entertainment, but there are also in-depth teaching events for those with an interest in being on stage.

Tickets for the day and evening shows are available from the town culture and tourist office at +49-7224-644-44 or by email through touristinfo@gernsbach.de.

It’s a novel festival with a lot of culture packed into just seven short days, so try to find at least one day where you can visit!

—Marcus

Germany Shined In 2010 Winter Olympics In Vancouver

Monday, March 1st, 2010

The closing ceremonies are freshly over, but the memory of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver will last for a long time in Germany. Though many predicted a strong showing for German athletes, few anticipated just how well the Canadian team would do in the Winter Olympics this time (Congratulations, Canadian friends!).

For me, it has certainly been enjoyable to see Germany’s shining performance in the Winter Olympic games again. True, Germany has traditionally done well at winter sports, thanks to our honorable attitude, many mountain ranges, excellent skiing opportunities, and the exemplary national support, but we were not always a medals leader.

During these games, however, German athletes certainly seemed to be going for the win again. You can see from our final standings just how well we did in the overall medals count. In both team and individual sports, Germany’s Olympic champions gave their all to earn recognition for their event and their country.

Besides, in the all time Winter Olympics medals count we are, with 358 medals thereunder 128 gold medals, a convincing number one. :-)

Germany’s strong showing at the 2010 games has broader implications than just enhancing our national pride. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we have an upcoming bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. Munich has put in an official bid for the games, with the theme Die Spiele im Herzen, meaning “The Games in the Heart.”

If Munich wins the bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, it would become the first location in the world to have hosted both the Summer and the Winter Games. It would also be the first Olympic Games hosted in Germany since the reunification, which would be meaningful for many Germans.

The bid has an environmentally conscious bent, promoting the use of existing winter sports facilities near Munich, like the ski jump courses at Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the bobsled, luge, and skeleton tracks at Schönau am Königssee in the kingly Berchtesgadener Land. It is also being promoted by Katarina Witt, one of Germany’s most famous (and gorgeous ;-) Winter Olympic champions.

By doing so well in the 2010 Winter Games, Germany enhances its chances of getting the bid for the 2018 Olympics. Our strong performance testifies to the high quality of our training sites and competition grounds as well as exemplifying our commitment to sports excellence.

Keep your fingers crossed that we win the bid, and I’ll save you a seat next to me at the 2018 Winter Olympic games! :-)

—Marcus

Best Of The New Year 2010 To You!

Friday, January 1st, 2010

Greetings on this first day of 2010! I hope that your New Year’s Eve celebrations went well — I trust that you are not reading this first thing in the morning! ;-)

Like most of the other peoples of the world, this morning finds Germans waking up a bit worn out from the night before. Even if you only stayed home and watched Dinner For One, our traditional New Year’s Eve programming here in Germany, it is easy to be tired by setting the work of the old year aside.

For those of us who went out for a St. Silvester’s party or attended a fireworks show, well, thank goodness for coffee! ;-)

Of course, New Year’s Day is not all about recovering from New Year’s Eve. This is also the traditional day in Germany to say Thank You to the people who have served you throughout the past year. Small gifts for business partners, the newspaper delivery boy, your grocer, or the doorman at your building are customarily given on this day.

Many people also set their Neujahrsvorsätze, or New Year’s Resolutions. These are popular in Germany although not quite as institutionalized as a practice like they are in the U.S. or Great Britain.

Still, setting goals or making wishes for the year ahead is much talked about here, even if we know that the majority has no intention of following through on resolutions to eat right, lose weight, or give up one’s favorite time wasting hobbies ;-)

As for me, my Neujahrsvorsätze for MyGermanCity.com is to keep developing this site into an entertaining and informative portal for all things related to Germany.

In the year ahead, you will see more webcams, maps, and finally the photo galleries to give you an even closer look at what’s going on “now and then” in Germany. Also look forward for more developments of the Community area (whose gates will hopefully opened in 2010).

Until then, however, enjoy this day and the things here now. Make some Neujahrsvorsätze of your own regarding Germany, research them on MyGermanCity.com, and, of course, let me know what you miss.

I look forward to hearing from you as you achieve your resolutions.

All the best for you and yours,
Marcus

Merry Christmas 2009!

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

Christmas is upon us at last!

Here in Germany the snow is on the ground, making the white lights of the German Christmas Markets really twinkle and shine. I luckily and gratefully enjoyed them in person here in Berlin, by the way.

Of course, on Christmas Day we will all be together for a big meal and the exchanging of presents. The day after Christmas I’ll be around visiting close friends and other family members. I traveled a lot this year, so I have a bunch of stories to share and people to catch up with before the year is through.

Wherever you are, I wanted to take a few minutes this day to wish you the very best of the holiday season. Whether you will be celebrating Christmas in Germany or another corner of the world, I want you to feel the warmth of the German holiday season. Even for those who celebrate for purely secular reasons, it is a truly magical time of the year.

There are carolers and live music performances all over the country. Some of the carols that are shared I’ve collected here so that you can listen as well (links open in a new window):

You may be able to catch some of these performances live, of course, via the webcams that are over the Christmas markets. I don’t have webcams for every town in Germany yet, but several of the bigger markets are covered, with more added all the time (including you, thank you!).

You can watch the markets via webcams in Dresden, Munich, and Berlin from several different parts of the city.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

—Marcus

Hug A Tree For Good Luck On Thomasnacht

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

You know from reading about recycling in Germany that we Germans care deeply for the environment. However, on Thomasnacht, when you see someone hugging a tree, they’re not doing it because they love Mother Nature. OK, they probably do, but… they’re mainly doing it for good luck.

Hugging trees for good luck is just one of many traditions that are celebrated around Thomasnacht (this very night from December 20th to 21st), which usually coincides with the Winter Solstice.

Another tradition is baking Kletzenbrot, which is a kind of fruit cake with lots of dried pears and raisins. Unmarried women can also toss shoes over their shoulders, and if the toes land pointing out, they will marry in the next year, as Thomasnacht is supposed to be a good night for predicting the future.

Of course, you don’t have to stay in trying to guess what’s going to happen to you in the year ahead. Instead, you can go out and have a good time at one of the Thomasnacht parties being held around Germany. Rüdesheim am Rhein plays host to a particularly well-developed party for this special day.

The Rüdesheim town association puts on the Thomasnacht party, which includes special drinks, pageants, and presentations. Locals dress in historical costumes and reenact scenes from the town’s history, while performers do street theater based on tales from the Brothers Grimm. There is even a special cruise down the Rhine with live classical music.

While the occasion is certainly festive, community events like these also serve as a way to get more people to come out to the Christmas markets. Since most of the shops close up on the 24th for the season, Thomasnacht also serves as a last hurrah for gift buyers and those looking to get souvenirs from the markets (including me ;-).

Thus, whether you just want a night out or you are trying to pick up a bit of good luck by hugging a tree, don’t neglect to take advantage of the peaking of the festive spirits around Thomasnacht! ;-)

—Marcus

Stollen — The German Holiday Cake Everyone Seems To Adore

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

Even though I travel quite a bit, I can always count on being able to get a taste of Germany abroad during the holiday season. There is one kind of German Christmas cake in particular that people the world over seem to adore. It may be cliche, but I love that bakers everywhere, of all nationalities, are making Stollen cake this month.

Also known as Christstollen, it’s a very rich cake — you may want to eat it with a dark coffee on the side to balance the sweetness. There’s butter, cream, sugar, raisins, spices, and a strong dash of brandy or rum. (Regionally there’s also marzipan in the middle.) The top is covered with a grainy white sugar icing, and I can never stop with just one piece! ;-)

Neither can most Germans — Stollen is addictively good. This is one of the reasons that bakeries all over the world bring it out at the holidays. Baked in long, low loaves, it is sure to have customers clamoring for more.

As a result of its popularity, Stollen even has its own festival! Hosted in Dresden at the Striezelmarkt (Dresden’s Christmas Market on Altmarkt) the Saturday prior the second Advent, the highlight of the Stollenfest is the baking of a giant Stollen cake. The locals are honoring the effort of August the Strong, who once ordered a 1.8 ton Stollen cake!

This was back in 1730, and I’ve no idea how his baker managed. For years, no one else tried, but gradually curiosity got the better of the locals. In 1994, the organizers of Dresden’s Christmas markets decided to bring the tradition back, and have been baking giant Stollen cakes each year since then.

The average “uber cake” now has 44 liters of Jamaican rum and weighs in at between three and four tons. Cut with a four foot (1.2 meter) silver knife by the Royal Master Baker, 500 gram pieces of the festival cake are then sold to attendees for about 3 Euro. With an average of 700,000 people turning out each year to enjoy the festival, it’s a good thing the cake is so large so that everyone can get a piece!

If you can’t make the festival, and your local baker doesn’t have any Stollen, you can also order it online from a number of traditional bakers, including the American based Dresden Stollen bakery.

However you manage, be sure you get a taste of Stollen this season, so you can see why so many people — including me, of course — adore this wonderful holiday cake. :-)

—Marcus

Germany’s BAMBI Marks A Solid Gold Achievement

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

While Bambi might remind you of a certain cartoon character by Disney, in Germany a BAMBI does not live in the forest. If you have one, it lives in a place of honor in your home or is on display at your office. The solid gold fawn represents a pinnacle of personal achievement.

The BAMBI Award may not be well known in the U.S., but in the world of European and international entertainment it is better known than the Oscars or the Grammy’s. In Germany, surveys have shown that 94% of the population is aware of the award — and I’m assuming the other 6% are still babies (who were left unasked… ;-).

The BAMBIs are simply that big.

Created in 1948, the award originally honored movie stars. Over the years, it has evolved to glorify all facets of media entertainment as well as global achievements and excellence in general categories.

Despite the versatility of the categories, the criteria remains strict: You must be extremely popular in your category. Also, award winners are those who “with vision and creativity who affected and inspired the German public” for that year.

The award winners are selected exclusively by Hubert Burda Media, the largest print media group in Germany (they run more than 60% of the magazines). The exclusivity and the limited award categories makes the prize truly treasured.

The 2009 and 2010 BAMBI awards will be presented in Potsdam, at the Babelsberg Film Studio Park. This park is the world’s oldest studio grounds and a very prestigious one, having shot movies with everyone from Marlene Dietrich to Tom Cruise and Matt Damon.

The ceremony tomorrow, November 26th, will be a glittering celebrity event, as it is every year. More than 6 million Germans tune in to watch annually, and the event is carried on most major networks along with Deutsche Welle.

Attending is the place to see and be seen for the fall, so everyone who is anyone will be out on the red carpets, hoping to be noticed and wishing to win a BAMBI of their very own.

—Marcus

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