ExpatChatter: Recent Episodes
Brenda Arnold
A bit of history, a touch of current events, and a big dollop of humor. Munich, Germany as seen through a Midwesterner's discerning eyes.
The word “retire” means to rest, but in Germany, retirees have got it backwards: once they stop working, they’re busier than ever before
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Brenda Arnold
It has been six years since the world came to a standstill in the grip of the coronavirus. I wouldn’t want a repeat performance, but there were some positive aspects to it. One of them was how I no longer had to jostle for space. All at once, my American need for personal space – a lot more than what Germans need - had become the law.
Picture by Anna_Kovtun on Pixabay
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Brenda Arnold
The Munich public transport system has long since lost its good reputation. Even if you check the schedule, you may wind up standing for an hour on a platform when your train is canceled. But being stuck on a crowded tram offers a close-up view of a random sampling of its diverse inhabitants.
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Brenda Arnold
What’s so strange about singing in Spanish? We all learned the lyrics to “Feliz Navidad” back when the only Spanish speaker around was José Feliciano. Foreign languages are fun, folks, and besides, it’s really about the music. Bad Bunny also sings in Puerto Rican slang, so it could very well be that Latinos don’t understand everything, either. A bit of a cultural adventure never hurt anyone.
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Brenda Arnold
Germans are now confronting the fact that Christmas is over but winter is just getting underway. They console themselves by getting an early start celebrating carnival, which involves consuming large quantities of a special pastry, called Krapfen, to prepare for a period of fasting for Lent. True, hardly anybody fasts anymore, but no matter – Krapfen are delicious. Not only are these pastries popular, but their numbers also keep growing and more varieties are created every year.
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Brenda Arnold
You’re not supposed to use birthdates for passwords or combinations, so I used important historical dates. But as an American who lived in Spain and now lives in Germany, many dates stand out. Which led to a lot of problems when I tried to reconstruct the thought process behind my bike combination after returning from vacation…
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Brenda Arnold
I was brimming with confidence that my French was good enough to navigate around southern France. But not only was my French not suffisant, my lack of botanical knowledge also got me into trouble. Merde!
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Brenda Arnold
The windy city, indeed! But why windy? And who really caused the Great Fire - if you think it was a cow - then guess again!
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Brenda Arnold
Germans are so careful about maintaining their cars and they build their houses so well that they are practically airtight. But on New Year’s Eve, their sense of caution quite literally vanishes into thin air in the form of fireworks.
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Brenda Arnold
The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore kicked off so many holiday trends, like the idea of a white Christmas (with a little help from Charles Dickens) and the idea (I mean revelation of course, for all of the six-year-olds reading this) that Santa brings toys at night in a sleigh.
I couldn’t resist rewriting it was a not-so-subtle Bavarian twist. I hope you enjoy it!
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Brenda Arnold
Nuremberg is world-famous for its Christmas market but every German town worth its gingerbread has one, too. It isn’t just tourists who flock there but locals, too, all hoping for a white Christmas to create the perfect mood. But this rarely happens. One contributor to the mystique of holiday snow is Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers and the iconic classic, A Christmas Carol. Both featured harsh winters like those experienced by the author in his childhood in mid-19th century England.
Snow or not, after a few sips of holiday cheer it doesn’t make a difference. I visited a Christmas market in Regensburg, which has the perfect medieval setting to make you particularly nostalgic.
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Brenda Arnold
Christmas is confusing enough with Santa, St. Nick, and Father Christmas. In Bavaria they also add the Christkind, the Christchild to the mix. Oh yes, and let’s not forget the three kings who arrive on Epiphany. It took me quite a while after arriving in Germany to figure out exactly which of these Christmas representatives would be bringing the presents. Of course, in the end it was me all along.
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Brenda Arnold
Germans could never afford to celebrate a big holiday like Thanksgiving at the end of November the way Americans do. But there’s a good reason for this: They’re already getting all revved up for Christmas! Germans invented the car, truly a great achievement, but making Christmas last half the winter is at least on par with that.
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Brenda Arnold
After moving to Germany, I was excited to recreate Thanksgiving the way I knew it from my childhood. But then I learned that the traditions I wanted to recreate were not as traditional as I thought.
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Brenda Arnold
It's not a holiday without pumpkin pie, but what I bake is a far cry from my mother's version. I was shocked to discover that Germany didn’t have ready-made, canned pumpkin mix. This was followed by the equally shocking prospect of having to make pumpkin pie from scratch. Is that even possible? I was about to find out.
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Brenda Arnold
Americans celebrate fall with Halloween, but Germans have St. Martin. Children carry lit lanterns in processions through the dark, singing. It sounds so lovely, until you’re the one out there battling the cold wind to keep the lantern lit. After freezing to death a few times in icy November winds, I decided that this is a festival best enjoyed indoors.
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Brenda Arnold
If you’re just settling in on the couch, then don’t let any Germans into the room. They’ll open up all the windows to let in fresh air – regardless of the outside temperature.
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Brenda Arnold
Some Germans celebrate Halloween, but not all of them. I was determined to find a way for my kids to enjoy it the way I did, spurring me to take some unusual action.
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Brenda Arnold
My experience with mushrooms was confined to cans as a kid. In Germany, collecting them is a cherished hobby. But don’t bother asking anybody where to find them because they’d rather sacrifice their first-born before revealing their secret mushroom spot.
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Brenda Arnold
School has started, a good moment to consider the burden on mothers with children in German schools. The extra work required to support their children in German schools – or rather systems of schools - is so great that women from other countries literally do not believe it. Until reality hits.
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Brenda Arnold
Oktoberfest may be famous for beer tents and oompah bands, but hidden among Munich’s festival rides and parades is a rare treasure: one of the world’s last flea circuses. From lederhosen and lively crowds to tiny insects pulling wagons, this unforgettable glimpse into Bavarian culture proves there’s more to Oktoberfest than a stein of beer.
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Brenda Arnold
Raising a family in Germany was a golden opportunity to raise my kids bilingually. I initially thought this meant just speaking to them in English, but reality proved to be a lot trickier. I discovered I had quite a few tricks up my sleeve.
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Brenda Arnold
German immigrants used to flock to the U.S. They still go there in droves, but now they go back home again, as I discovered during my trip to New York. The Tenement Museum revealed how deep German history is woven into the fabric of the East Side of NYC
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Brenda Arnold
I fantasize about taking my kids back to where I grew up to show them the real America. Except when I arrive, it’s often to discover that many things have changed. Shops have disappeared, new restaurants have sprouted up. I may wax nostalgic, but were the old ways really better?
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Brenda Arnold
I used to feel sheepish whenever I took an overpacked suitcase home on a trip to the U.S. But when I thought about it more closely, I realized there was a very good reason for doing this.
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Brenda Arnold
Any foreigner in Germany knows all about the country’s love of overengineering. All it takes is trying to fill out a single form to get a residence permit. Less talked about is how German mothers also overengineer. Are they just responding to the system? I found out when my daughters started school.
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Brenda Arnold
Those of us who predate GPS know how to get around without using technology. Knowing the points of the compass is helpful for navigating in an American city, but in Europe, the streets often date from the days of footpaths and donkey carts. These willy-nilly labyrinths can dead end, disappear or lead you in a circle. So how does a North American get around a European city?
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Brenda Arnold
I thought my French was good enough to get me around southern France. But a one-letter mistake in a word sent me off on a wild goose chase – if that’s what you can call missing your stop on a bus.
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Brenda Arnold
My trust in native speakers was boundless, and it caused me to maneuver myself into an excruciatingly embarrassing situation.
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Brenda Arnold
American companies have made serious inroads into the economies of Europe and elsewhere, but this has come at a cost. There have been some pretty big flops along the way as executives naively thought they could simply replicate the American marketing model in other countries without making any changes. Some of these misjudgments are rather entertaining, and with the introduction of a coffee/olive oil concoction by Starbucks in Italy, we witnessed yet another product derailment.
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Brenda Arnold
It’s corn! I thought I had left that behind me in the Midwest. Nope. Right there, just a ten-minute walk from my suburban Munich apartment, the path goes straight through two cornfields. But the sight of these plants was not as familiar to everyone in my family, I learned.
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Brenda Arnold
If you are in Munich and see people jostling for a spot in line at a produce stand, you can bet they’re queuing for white asparagus. Don’t bother telling them that the green kind is better, because the white stuff has cult status here.
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Brenda Arnold
There are grocery stores, and then there’s Aldi. In the decades since WWII, this discounter chain has not only won over the wallets of its customers but also their hearts. Faithful Aldi customers from all walks of life wouldn’t dream of shopping anywhere else. But behind the well-oiled Aldi machine, there is also plenty of intrigue in this family-owned empire.
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Brenda Arnold
Imagine bending over to tie your shoe. Now imagine that this simple act would earn you millions of dollars. Yet this is just what Pelé did. The shoe: a Puma.
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Brenda Arnold
Eyeglasses and watches used to be mundane utilitarian accessories until designers were invited to the table. The ordinary sock has now joined in on the game and is no longer a simple stocking, but a formidable fashion statement. And, as it turns out, an opportunity to have a little fun with a perfect stranger.
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Brenda Arnold
When is a snack a meal? It depends on what country you’re in, as Germans discover when they go to America to find potato chips on their dinner plate. Europeans brought foods with them across the Atlantic but many of them were transformed into something new.
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Brenda Arnold
Germans are usually so logical, it’s hard to believe how that can make misjudge distances so badly when they visit the U.S. But to be honest, it’s kind of gratifying.
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Brenda Arnold
I first published this two years ago. COVID seems like a distant memory but reading this brings it all back.
Just as I was getting used to not being a mother, my COVID-harassed daughters came home - left - and came home - repeatedly. Now I'm trying to remember, what was it again that I always did for Easter?
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Brenda Arnold
I thought cowboy boots would help me develop my rodeo skills. An evening at the Grizzly Rose bar in Denver was enough to teach me otherwise.
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Brenda Arnold
Language class is where you learn to speak a language, but just memorizing vocabulary and practicing dictations won’t do the trick. I found a surprising way to get our exchange student to talk.
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Brenda Arnold
The German language is very precise and detailed, sometimes to the extent that it goes well beyond being descriptive and descends into hilarity. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most outrageous examples.
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Brenda Arnold
On just a 10-minute walk through Munich, I passed by the places that witnessed three pivotal moments in the city’s history: the scene of the murder of the president of Bavaria’s first parliament just after the end of WWI, the site where the anti-Nazi White Rose movement came to an end, and finally, the site of Bavaria’s first parliament, which was obliterated in WWII.
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Brenda Arnold
The U.S. is not just a large country, everything in it seems bigger, too. This includes the huge piles of garbage created from every restaurant visit that are not recycled. For someone living in Germany, a country that prides itself on recycling, it takes all your willpower not to separate your garbage and instead put the whole pile straight into the garbage can. In the end, I found I just couldn’t do it.
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Brenda Arnold
Germany has become a land of immigrants but is still grappling with this new identity. Munich’s population consisted of 30% foreigners in 2023 and has continued to grow. The perception and treatment of different nationalities is altered by what happens back in people’s home country. Little did I suspect that this would change how people see me, too.
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Brenda Arnold
Do you speak English? This question is often answered with “Yes” all around the world. Why bother learning another language if everyone speaks yours? Apparently, this is what many U.S. universities are thinking as they eliminate their foreign language programs. But this language hegemony leads to cultural ignorance, perhaps not an ideal state of affairs for a world power such as the U.S.
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Brenda Arnold
Every language has its peculiarities, which should be respected. But when you translate into another language and aren’t careful, elements of the original one can remain. This can cause confusion or more often, simply make for a shoddy translation. To my horror, I recently spotted a peculiar strain of German called Beamtendeutsch creeping into English.
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Brenda Arnold
We train dogs, but they have much to teach us. Babies are fluent in body language but over time it is sacrificed to verbal communication. Anyone with a pet pooch will confirm that our fluffy friends not only manage to express a myriad of emotions – but they can read ours, too. Time we learned a trick or two from them!
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Brenda Arnold
People’s identities are tied up closely with their names. But even when you are careful to pronounce it correctly you can still get into trouble. In Germany, some people with doctoral degrees have two “doctors” in front of their names—a doctor to the second power, perhaps. And then some people have “baron” in their name but aren’t royalty, while other royals are six years old and wear sweatpants. But it was the guy with the perfect Italian name that did me in—it turned out to be German. Very German, in fact.
Photo by Ayo Ogunseinde on Unsplash
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Brenda Arnold
The Krapfen is the best thing since sliced bread - or in Bavaria, since the monks began brewing beer. During Carnival season or Fasching, the bakeries explode with these delicious pastries. But there's an interesting history behind them, too.
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Brenda Arnold
Germans are so careful about maintaining their cars and they build their houses so well that they are practically airtight. But on New Year’s Eve, their sense of caution quite literally vanishes into thin air.
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Brenda Arnold
On a trip to the Christmas market in Munich, I was inspired by the holiday cheer and the number of foreign tourists and was especially impressed by their boisterous enthusiasm for holiday wares.
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Brenda Arnold
I loved Christmas cookies growing up and thought they were pretty good, but have since discovered that German holiday confectionary is in a league of its own – the premier league.
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Brenda Arnold
Germans don’t celebrate Thanksgiving but they celebrate Christmas half the winter. Starting at the end of November with the first of Advent, it culminates on January 6th, Heilige Drei Könige, Three Kings’ Day, or Epiphany, which is the Eastern Orthodox Christmas, but Germans figured it’s another holiday—we’ll take it.
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Brenda Arnold
I have cherished memories of holiday meals from my childhood. Certain foods were always on the table for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it just wasn’t a festive spread without them. Pumpkin pie for dessert was a must. But that was many years ago and 8,000 kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean and the pie I bake today is quite different from the one my mother made.
Pumpkins originally come from America. Although first imported to Europe centuries ago, they were not always as popular as they are now, particularly in Germany. Also, Germany was not nearly as Americanized several decades ago as it is today. There were virtually no breakfast cereals on the shelves, hardly any American candy, fewer processed foods, and the basic ingredient for pumpkin pie was missing, too.
You might think that ingredient would be pumpkin, which is very wholesome of you and I encourage you to keep up your unprocessed diet principle of “no trash.” But when I was growing up, processed foods were all the rage. So in my family, we used what most people did to make pumpkin pie, lovingly referred to as “pumpkin stuff,” which was canned pumpkin. You just had to open the can (which we did with our automatic can opener, of course; wouldn’t want to exert too much effort for something we’re putting in our bodies), add spices, eggs, and condensed milk, pour it into a pie shell and bake it.
Welcome to 1970s American cuisine. It was a culinary Wild West of pre-packaged food, ready-made ingredients and unresearched chemicals. Yee-hah!
But not only did Germany have no pumpkin mix, they didn’t even have pumpkins. This is hard to fathom today, looking at the roadside tables here piled high with the giant orange fruit, just like in the U.S. It’s easy for me to wax nostalgic while standing at one of these tables, remembering the pumpkin patches at home—right up until a BMW or Mercedes roars up beside me, interrupting my reverie. This is Germany after all.
The large-scale cultivation of pumpkins became noticeable here at some point in the 1990s. But this was not to satisfy my craving for pumpkin pie but rather to bolster a growing Halloween tradition. There was money to be made. I quickly learned how to bake a pumpkin for a pie—and was embarrassed to discover how easy it was.
Feeling smug about this new expertise, during an October visit to my sister one year, I encouraged her to bake her Halloween pumpkin, too, instead of letting it rot on the front porch as usual. She thought I was out of my mind and told me so, inviting me with a sneer to do it myself.
“I’ll show her,” I thought. Not only did I bake it, I pureed it, divided it up into the cups of a muffin tin for freezing, then removed the frozen portions and stored them in a plastic bag. These would be perfect for use in pie or soup. Martha Stewart would have been proud. My 1970s-style-cooking mother would have been perplexed at all the effort.
But what I did not consider was my father, who was living with my sister at the time. Alone during the day, he would fix meals by scrounging around in the kitchen to see if there were any leftovers. After all, it’s a dad’s job to eat these leftovers—God forbid they learn how to cook mere decades after separating from their wives—and my father took that duty very seriously.
Now, what you must understand is that this was a man who insisted on eating burnt toast, which was fine, once you scraped off the ashes, even if what remained was only a third of the toast. He also made jumbo-sized bowls of popcorn that he would feed off of for a week, right down to the last stale kernel. In short, he was not the kind of person who questions food.
When my sister came home from
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Brenda Arnold
My experience with mushrooms was confined to cans as a kid. In Germany, collecting them is a cherished hobby – but don’t bother asking anybody where to find them because they aren’t telling.
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Brenda Arnold
Americans celebrate fall with Halloween, but Germans have St. Martin. Children carry lit lanterns in processions through the dark, singing. It sounds so lovely, until you’re the one out there battling the cold wind to keep the lantern lit. This is a festival best enjoyed indoors.
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Brenda Arnold
Halloween used to be unknown in Germany. That has changed and there are now pumpkins for sale on every street corner and sometimes kids go trick-or-treating too.
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Brenda Arnold
The English language has its downsides. But when you compare it to German, French and Spanish it suddenly looks surprisingly efficient and user-friendly.Support the show
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Brenda Arnold
It’s that time of year again: The leaf blowers are back! They add to an increasingly noisy world, but it’s also possible to create pleasant sounds or eliminate them altogether.
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Brenda Arnold
I thought my French was good enough to get me around southern France. But language skills were not enough.
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Brenda Arnold
Those of us who predate GPS know how to get around without using technology. Knowing the points of the compass is helpful for navigating in an American city, but in Europe, the streets often date from the days of footpaths and donkey carts. These willy-nilly labyrinths can dead end, disappear or lead you in a circle. So how does a North American get around a European city?
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Brenda Arnold
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I used to feel sheepish whenever I took an overpacked suitcase home on a trip to the U.S. But when I thought about it more closely, I realized there was a very good reason for doing this.
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Brenda Arnold
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I fantasize about taking my kids back to where I grew up to show them the real America. Except when I arrive, it’s often to discover that many things have changed. Shops have disappeared, new restaurants have sprouted up. I may wax nostalgic, but were the old ways really better?
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Brenda Arnold
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The real founding father
I just recently overcame my amazement that Alexander Hamilton was not Anglo-American but from the Caribbean island of Nevis, contrary to the lore of America’s Founding Fathers. Thanks to the musical, this has become common knowledge,.
But now I learn that Chicago was not founded by French fur traders but by Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a black man from Haiti. Not until 2009 was a memorial erected for this pioneer, sponsored by another Haitian. Contemplating the bust of this man made me aware of how few memorials there are of non-whites. I was glad to see this one.
Windy City
Muttering at the cold wind while dragging a suitcase to my hotel, I kept telling myself not to be surprised. After all, Chicago is nicknamed “the Windy City.” But other cities in the U.S. are even breezier. “Windy” was an insult leveled at the city by its late 19th -century rival, Cincinnati, Ohio, particularly in reference to Chicago’s baseball team, the White Stockings, founded with the express purpose of defeating Cincinnati’s team, the Red Stockings. These names were later shortened to what we now know as the White Sox and Red Sox, to fit better into newspaper headlines.
The Great Chicago Fire
Every American schoolchild knows about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and what caused it: Mrs. O’Leary’s cow. This popular children’s song tells the story:
Late one night, when we were all in bed
Old Lady Leary lit a lantern in the shed
And when the cow kicked it over
She turned around and said
It’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight
FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!
Such a lovely little ditty. And so much fun to sing at summer camp, as I can attest to from personal experience. The only problem is that it is pure fiction, invented by a journalist desperate to deliver an interesting article, a tactic which has recently gained in popularity.
But seriously – all he could come up with was a cow?
If you’re going to make something up, you should plumb the depths of your creative well. I’d like to propose a few alternatives: Two teenagers dared each other to torch the house of the local oddball neighbor. Or: a train was running late and sped up so fast that its wheels caught on fire. Chicago was a rail hub then as now, so this version would track (heh- heh).
Another theory proposes that the fire was caused by meteorites that fell that night in Chicago and in other towns in neighboring states, where fires also occurred. The area was also suffering from a prolonged drought. Since everything –buildings, sidewalks, and bridges – was made of wood, the fire and a strong wind quickly burned through it all.
Who you callin’ Second City?
Chicago is called the “Second City.” This does not mean second to New York, and at this juncture, I wish to extend my most sincere apologies to New Yorkers; you have a great city and we all love it, but truly, it’s not the only one, and the fact that you refer to it as “the city” won’t make it so.
“Second City” refers to how Chicago rose from the ashes of the 1871 fire. Afterwards, Chicagoans did what German cities did after being bombed. They took out an old city map, gave it hard look, and said: “Eeehhh…we can do better.”
The architect Dankmar Adler then redesigned the city with a more generous layout, moving buildings back from the street and creating breathing room between them. This explains why I felt like I was in New York while walking around, but without the need to keep my elbows pinched against my ribs to prevent me from colliding with someone.
First a criminal, then a hero
Chic
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Brenda Arnold
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France’s national holiday is Bastille Day, July 14th, which sparked a revolution that sent shock waves across Europe. But French culture had already been impacting many countries’ architecture, language, cuisine - and even your backyard – for centuries.
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Brenda Arnold
It’s been over 200 years since these two broods of cicadas hatched at the same time. Just by chance, I’ll be traveling right through the middle of the swarms.
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If you are in Munich and see people jostling for a spot in line at a produce stand, you can bet they’re queuing for white asparagus. Don’t bother telling them that the green kind is better, because the white stuff has cult status here.
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Brenda Arnold
If you’re just settling in on the couch, then don’t let any Germans into the room. They’ll open up all the windows to let in fresh air – regardless of the outside temperature.
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Brenda Arnold
We are accustomed to seeing cemeteries full of tombstones honoring the dead from both world wars, but this cemetery stretches even farther back into the past. The French Revolution,
the ensuing Napoleonic Wars, and even the 30 years’ war left their mark on this historic cemetery. French generals have French Republican dates on their tombstones, now illegible to non-historians, and the woman who warned of Hitler’s evil intents—who went unheeded—is buried here, too.
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Brenda Arnold
An almost nostalgic story, written during the pandemic. Remember all those strange projects we took upon ourselves for lack of anything better to do? I discovered the strange parallels between my wardrobe and the methods of the famous German scientist and explorer, Alexander von Humboldt.
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Brenda Arnold
You might think that Germans would mostly miss the beer when they go to the U.S. - but you'd be wrong. What they really pine after is German bread, which is so hearty you might want to refrain if you've just had dental work done. But foreigners living in German grow to love it, too, and woe to those who have to leave the country!
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Germany is the land of soccer, especially in Munich, home of the world-famous FC Bayern. But American football has gain in popularity. Across the country, fans are gearing up for the Superbowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.
I spoke with two Munich football fans, Stefan and his son Ben, to hear how they fell in love with this sport, despite the huge success of the local soccer team.
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Brenda Arnold
Germans are now confronting the fact that Christmas is over but winter is just getting underway. They console themselves by getting an early start celebrating carnival, which involves consuming large quantities of a special pastry, called Krapfen, to prepare for a period of fasting for Lent. True, hardly anybody fasts anymore, but no matter – Krapfen are delicious. Not only are these pastries popular, but their numbers also keep growing and more varieties are created every year.
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Brenda Arnold
We train dogs, but they have much to teach us. Babies are fluent in body language but over time it is sacrificed to verbal communication. Studying the behavior of dogs gives clues to body language that will serve us well.
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Brenda Arnold
The New Year means more than resolutions. All of Germany sets off firecrackers at midnight on December 31st. This has a huge negative impact on animals, people, and the environment. Calls for restricting or banning fireworks entirely are getting louder every year.
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Brenda Arnold
On a trip to a Christmas market in Munich, I was inspired by The Night Before Christmas. Many parallels sprang to mind, but with throngs of last-minute shoppers, Christmas markets, and packed trains, I found myself wishing to be whisked away in a sleigh.
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Brenda Arnold
I loved Christmas cookies growing up and thought they were pretty good, but have since discovered that German holiday confectionary is in a league of its own – the premier league.
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Brenda Arnold
Santa Claus, St. Nick, or the Christ child? The figure we associate with Christmas takes on many shapes and forms in different countries. In Germany, he also travels around with a partner who isn’t quite so nice named Knecht Ruprecht. The whole holiday is more complex than you’d think.
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Christmas markets are popping up on every corner in Germany, including the medieval town of Regensburg and city of Munich, where they sell Christmas decorations and a few unexpected items like fake Fabergé eggs (somehow the Czar’s court got involved). The historic backdrop and mulled wine create a unique atmosphere that’s hard to beat.
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Germans don’t celebrate Thanksgiving but they celebrate Christmas half the winter. Starting at the end of November with the first of Advent, it culminates on January 6th, Heilige Drei Könige, Three Kings’ Day, or Epiphany, which is the Eastern Orthodox Christmas, but Germans figured it’s another holiday—we’ll take it.
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Germans have a reputation for being punctual, something which does not apply to its train system. During a recent train strike, it was striking (ahem) to note that many people felt there was not much difference to regular service. I’d say that’s a roundabout, polite way of saying that the trains just aren’t as reliable as they used to be. And that’s being overly polite, too.
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It's not a holiday without pumpkin pie, but what I bake is a far cry from what my mother's version. I was shocked to discover that Germany didn’t have ready-made, canned pumpkin mix. This was followed by the equally shocking prospect of having to make pumpkin pie from scratch. Quel horreur!
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Americans celebrate fall with Halloween, but Germans have St. Martin. Children carry lit lanterns in processions through the dark, singing. It sounds so lovely, until you’re the one out there battling the cold wind to keep the lantern lit. This is a festival best enjoyed indoors.
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Some Germans celebrate Halloween, but not all of them. I was determined to find a way for my kids to enjoy it the way I did, spurring me to take some unusual action. I recreated the holiday faster than you can say “Boo!”
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School has started, a good moment to consider the burden on mothers with children in German schools. The extra work required to support their children in German schools – or rather systems of schools - is so great that women from other countries literally do not believe it. Until reality hits.
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My experience with mushrooms was confined to cans as a kid. In Germany, collecting them is a cherished hobby – but don’t bother asking anybody where to find them because they aren’t telling.
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What some probably don’t realize is that, while the Oktoberfest is the biggest folk festival worldwide, it is very much still a local attraction as well as a draw for tourists. Even during the pandemic, without any assistance from people out of town, restaurants learned that people want to party whether the official event is on or not. This has become a permanent change.
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Every language has its peculiarities, which should be respected. But when you translate into another language and aren’t careful, elements of the original one can remain. This can cause confusion or more often, simply make for a shoddy translation. To my horror, I recently spotted a peculiar strain of German called Beamtendeutsch creeping into English.
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The Oktoberfest is synonymous with beer for most people. Yet half of the fairgrounds consists of roller coasters, kiddie cars, and shooting galleries—and what might possibly be the world’s last attraction of its kind: a flea circus.
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You know Fall has arrived when the leaf blowers start blasting through the open window. But whose idea was it anyway to have lawns that need so much upkeep? French culture impacted many countries' languages and cuisine - and even the front yard.
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Brenda Arnold
Munich had a run-in with e-bikes once a few years ago. They successfully battled the bikes—quite literally—and won, leaving mangled two-wheelers strewn all over the city. Some citizens in San Francisco are also unhappy with the city government’s decision to introduce self-driving taxis. They can’t throw them in the river, as residents of the Bavarian capital did with the bikes, but they found an intriguing and humorous way to tackle them all the same.
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Brenda Arnold
Do you speak English? This question is often answered with “Yes” all around the world. Why bother learning another language if everyone speaks yours? Apparently, this is what many U.S. universities are thinking as they eliminate their foreign language programs. But this language hegemony leads to cultural ignorance, perhaps not an ideal state of affairs for a world power such as the U.S.
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Brenda Arnold
People’s identities are tied up closely with their names. But even when you are careful to pronounce it correctly you can still get into trouble. In Germany, some people with doctoral degrees have two “doctors” in front of their names—a doctor to the second power, perhaps. And then some people have “baron” in their name but aren’t royalty, while other royals are six years old and wear sweatpants. But it was the guy with the perfect Italian name that did me in—it turned out to be German. Very German, in fact.
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Brenda Arnold
Those of us who predate GPS know how to get around without using technology. Knowing the points of the compass is helpful for navigating in an American city, but in Europe, the streets often date from the days of footpaths and donkey carts. These willy-nilly labyrinths can dead end, disappear or lead you in a circle. So how does a North American get around a European city?
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Brenda Arnold
Any foreigner in Germany knows all about the country’s love of overengineering. All it takes is trying to fill out a single form to get a residence permit. Less talked about is how German mothers also overengineer. Are they just responding to the system? I found out when my daughters started school.
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Brenda Arnold
Gridlock is a word often used in connection with legislators in the U.S. Congress, but for people who work in the Washington, DC area it brings something else to mind: the terrible traffic situation. But Yankee ingenuity has carried far south enough to inspire commuters to a brilliant solution to allow more cars into the carpool lane.
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Brenda Arnold
The hand of history has done its work on the city of Munich. Named after the monks that founded it, it was disgraced by its role in vaulting the Nazis to power. Many decades later, it has just been chosen as the training site for European rabbis. Munich has not only redeemed itself but become an important center for Jewish culture.
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Brenda Arnold
It is astounding how places can change over time, sometimes transforming from sites of great trauma into parks where people take walks, barbecue, or fly kites in peaceful skies. Berlin is full of such spots, and the old Tempelhof airport is one of the most fraught locations of WWII and intricately interwoven with the start of the Cold War.
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Brenda Arnold
Imagine if your wedding were so spectacular that people would want not just to reenact it, but turn it into a month-long spectacle. Introducing: the Landshuter Hochzeit, the recreation of a wedding that took place in the 15th century, complete with a bridal couple in a gilded carriage pulled by noble steeds. But don’t bother getting dressed up – costumes are reserved for the knaves, damsels and knights. You can console yourself with a mug of the beer that is specially brewed for this event.
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Brenda Arnold
I fully expected a lot of cultural differences when I moved to Germany. They speak with lots of umlauts and guttural noises, their cake is superior and the coffee twice as strong. Make that three times as strong. They also have the supreme luxury of public transport and some people don’t even own cars. But I never thought that as an American suburbanite, I would be considered a country girl. A series of unrelated incidents showed me why.
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Brenda Arnold
It is best to learn the standard version of a language, but what if you can’t differentiate between what is dialect and standard? In a bizarre twist of events, I speak more German dialect than my daughters even though they were born here. A close look at Munich’s and Germany’s history reveals how this could happen.
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Brenda Arnold
The pandemic is over, but its effects continue - sometimes in strange ways. I got used to wearing a mask and seeing others wear them but didn’t realize that taking them off would have some unexpected consequences.
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Brenda Arnold
There was a lot of hullabaloo when Adidas dropped its sponsorship of the rapper Ye for his antisemitic and racist remarks, a deal worth hundreds of millions of euros. But people might not realize that such sponsorships have a colorful history.On this episode of www.expatchatter.net, we delve deep into the fascinating backstory of two of the biggest sports brands in the world - Adidas and Puma. Join us as we explore how a family feud caused the split of the two companies, leading to a bitter rivalry that lasted for decades. We'll also discuss how the town where they are both based became divided, with people using shoes to determine which company they supported. From sponsorship deals with famous athletes to ties with Nazi Germany, this is a complicated story of family politics, business acumen, and the power of branding.
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Brenda Arnold
Companies sometimes use shady tactics to gain the upper hand in a market. But this is nothing new. In the past, one city even went so far as to burn down their competitors’ town. Cutthroat competition doesn’t get any worse than that.
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Brenda Arnold
Germany has become a land of immigrants but is still grappling with this new identity. Munich’s population consisted of 28% foreigners in 2021 and has continued to grow. The perception and treatment of different nationalities is altered by what happens back in people’s home country. Little did I suspect that this would change how people see me, too.
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Brenda Arnold
There’s a lot to be said for approaching challenging situations with the right attitude, which is called reframing. On a recent trip across the Atlantic, I had my reframing capabilities put to a serious test, but I passed with flying colors. Although I’m not 100% sure of this, because by the time I got home, I was no longer able to think straight.
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Signs are there for the express purpose of helping you find your way. They tell you where you are or which direction to take. But signs in a foreign country, even or especially when you think you understand them, can get you into a lot of trouble.
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Brenda Arnold
Everybody has their idea of a perfect vacation. I enjoy the ocean, but I don’t have any particular need to get down into it and rub elbows with the creatures of the deep – or fins, as the case may be. So how did I wind up snorkeling in the Atlantic Ocean, looking for sharks, of all things?
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Brenda Arnold
Germany already experimented with a cheap train ticket last summer. People loved it so much that as soon as summer ended, they started clamoring for a repeat performance. So now we’re getting another one, but a cheap ticket doesn’t compensate for the real problem with the rail system.
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Brenda Arnold
The U.S. is not just a large country, everything in it seems bigger, too. This includes the huge piles of garbage created from every restaurant visit that are not recycled. For someone living in Germany, a country that prides itself on recycling, it takes all your willpower not to separate your garbage and instead put the whole pile straight into the garbage can. In the end, I found I just couldn’t do it.
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Brenda Arnold
Eyeglasses and watches used to be mundane utilitarian accessories until designers were invited to the table. The ordinary sock has now joined in on the game and is no longer a simple stocking, but a formidable fashion statement. And, as it turns out, an opportunity to have a little fun with a perfect stranger.
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Brenda Arnold
Just as I was getting used to not being a mother, my COVID-harassed daughters came home - left - and came home - repeatedly. Now I'm trying to remember, what was it again that I always did for Easter?
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Brenda Arnold
Chicago was named by French fur traders who founded the city, which was destroyed by a big fire started by a cow. It is the windiest city in the country and is called Second City, trailing behind New York. So goes popular wisdom; but popular is not the same as true. All of these things are wrong.
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Brenda Arnold
I fantasize about taking my kids back to where I grew up to show them the real America. Except when I arrive, it’s often to discover that many things have changed. Shops have disappeared, new restaurants have sprouted up. I may wax nostalgic, but were the old ways really better?
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Brenda Arnold
When is a snack a meal? It depends on what country you’re in, as Germans discover when they go to America to find potato chips on their dinner plate. Europeans brought foods with them across the Atlantic but many of them were transformed into something new.
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Brenda Arnold
New York feels like another world compared to Munich. Many elements are obvious and in plain sight, but the essence of the city is more elusive. New Yorkers are different from Munich residents in so many ways. We discovered a few hidden gems on a recent visit.
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Brenda Arnold
American companies have made serious inroads into the economies of Europe and elsewhere, but this has come at a cost. There have been some pretty big flops along the way as executives naively thought they could simply replicate the American marketing model in other countries without making any changes. Some of these misjudgments are rather entertaining, and with the introduction of a coffee/olive oil concoction by Starbucks in Italy, we may soon witness yet another product derailment.
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Brenda Arnold
There are grocery stores, and then there’s Aldi. In the decades since WWII, this discounter chain has not only won over the wallets of its customers but also their hearts. Faithful Aldi customers from all walks of life wouldn’t dream of shopping anywhere else. But behind the well-oiled Aldi machine, there is also plenty of intrigue in this family-owned empire.
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Brenda Arnold
Many Americans think their sports are “all American” but football and baseball have long been a popular export. Millions of people across the world watch the Super Bowl. As an American raising my kids in Germany, I did my best to include basic sports knowledge and felt I had succeeded, at least until my daughter actually attended a baseball game and experienced the real thing.
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Brenda Arnold
Germany has the reputation of having generous social programs, with vivid descriptions such as "cradle-to-grave" care. This makes it sound as if the state holds your hand and guides you gently through a carefree life. At the very latest when you try to navigate the German school system, comes a much different, sobering reality. At its core, the school system dates to the late 19th century and it shows.
Mothers are tasked with filling in the many gaps left by the schools to try to shepherd their children through the system.
This constitutes hidden discrimination against women, as the burden is so great that many are forced to reduce to part-time work or quit altogether. Children from lower-income families whose mothers cannot afford to stop working usually fare much worse in school than classmates who are better off.
Until Germany modernizes its school system, there is no hope of creating real equal opportunity for women.
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Brenda Arnold
The press and social media are still abuzz with deniers of the U.S. elections in 2020, despite the lack of proof. Yet across the ocean – in Germany of all places, that paragon of efficiency – Berlin stands out as the shining star of inefficiency, corruption, and slothful administration. Enjoying favored status since WWII, it was deluged with subsidies to keep it a viable city. Over 30 years later, it still has not overcome a mentality of handouts and graft. Its new airport will forever serve as a monolith to ineptitude, and in a few days it must repeat elections in 2021 that were botched so badly they were declared invalid.
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Brenda Arnold
January is when Germans confront the fact that Christmas is over but winter is just getting underway. They console themselves by getting an early start celebrating carnival, which involves consuming large quantities of a special pastry, called Krapfen, to prepare for a period of fasting for Lent. True, hardly anybody fasts anymore, but no matter – Krapfen are delicious. Not only are these pastries popular, but their numbers also keep growing and more varieties are created every year.
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Brenda Arnold
For years, I suffered from the lousy picture I had taken for my German license, not knowing I would have this document for decades. Trying to rent a car, get into a night club or bar, or even just have breakfast in a government building in Washington turned into an embarrassing experience when I had to show my picture ID. But in the end, this old-fashioned, pink cardboard license had some unexpected positive side effects.
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Brenda Arnold
The coronavirus isn’t the first disease that jumped from animals to humans. This is historically the way that many of the communicable diseases that plague humankind have spread, beginning with the plague. It was when humans became sedentary and first figured out how to domesticate animals, confining them to small spaces – and often living with them in the same quarters – that veritable breeding grounds for germs were created. The Wuhan market is just one in a long line of such incidents.
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Brenda Arnold
Long gone are the days when you could walk down to the local five-and-dime store to buy anything. These days, no matter what you want to buy, you’re going to have to drive.
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Brenda Arnold
Germans are so careful about maintaining their cars and build their houses so well that they are practically airtight. But on New Year’s Eve, their sense of caution quite literally vanishes into thin air.
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Brenda Arnold
I loved Christmas cookies growing up and thought they were pretty good, but have since discovered that German holiday confectionary is in a league of its own – the premier league.
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Brenda Arnold
The news is all abuzz about the World Cup games in Qatar, but the coolest action is taking place outside the stadiums.
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Brenda Arnold
It wouldn’t be a holiday without pumpkin pie, but what I bake today is a far cry from what my mother used to put in the oven.
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Brenda Arnold
On just a 10-minute walk through Munich, I passed a murder scene leading to the end of Bavaria’s first parliament, an infamous chapter of WWII and the rebirth of Bavaria’s democracy.
My trust in native speakers was boundless, and it caused me to maneuver myself into an excruciatingly embarrassing situation
Somehow I keep coming across the camino or Way of St. James, leading to surprising encounters on rural country roads in Spain and urban squares in Munich.
Looking at U.S. politics over the past few years, Germans recognize many patterns from the Third Reich. One of these is the banning of books.
Some Germans celebrate Halloween, but not all of them. I was determined to find a way for my kids to enjoy it the way I did, spurring me to take some unusual action.
It’s that time of year again: The leaf blowers are back! They add to an increasingly noisy world, but it’s also possible to create pleasant sounds or eliminate them altogether.
Following a three-year hiatus, Munich’s favorite party returned. Corona didn’t dampen people’s spirits, but I wondered if the fleas survived the long stretch.
I thought my French was good enough to get me around southern France. But language skills were not enough.
My experience with mushrooms was confined to cans as a kid. In Germany, collecting them is a cherished hobby – but don’t bother asking anybody where to find them because they aren’t telling.
The 1972 Munich Olympic Games brought many long-lasting improvements to the city, but they were overshadowed by a tragic terrorist attack.
It’s been 50 years since the Munich Olympics were held, but their impact lives on in both triumph and tragedy. Part I – Triumph.
The German language is very precise and detailed, sometimes to the extent that it goes well beyond being descriptive and descends into hilarity.
Language class is where you learn to speak a language, but just memorizing vocabulary and practicing dictations won’t do the trick. I found a surprising way to get our exchange student to talk.
Raising a family in Germany was a golden opportunity to raise my kids bilingually. I initially thought this meant just speaking to them in English, but reality proved to be a lot trickier. I discovered I had quite a few tricks up my sleeve.
It’s funny, but when you go abroad, you are suddenly expected to be fully informed about activities in your home country. Worse still, you are often held responsible for their shenanigans, especially abroad.
The next best thing to free is Germany’s €9 ticket. Apart from motivating even motorheads to hop on the train, it has inspired a few surprising insights and may even have a permanent impact on Germany’s urban transport.
The same things that make mothers worry often provide the most valuable lessons to their children. Leftover bombs from WWII provided just such a harrowing but valuable learning opportunity.
Germany has the reputation of being punctual and reliable. But recent snafus in city planning are putting a big dent into that image.
There are millions of Ukrainian refugees in Germany, and I decide to help out by teaching a German class. It was nothing like teaching English and demanded more of my creativity than I had imagined.
I used to feel sheepish whenever I took an overpacked suitcase home on a trip to the U.S. But when I thought about it more closely, I realized there was a very good reason for doing this.
I thought cowboy boots would help me develop my rodeo skills. An evening at the Grizzly Rose bar in Denver was enough to teach me otherwise.
German immigrants used to flock to the U.S. They still go there in droves, but now they go back home again, as I discovered during my trip to New York.
I used to get lost all the time, but that all changed when GPS technology came along. At least, that was the expectation. Reality proved to be a different story.
The staffing shortage in the U.S. and Europe was visible everywhere during my recent trip and culminated in an arduous trip home with an unintentionally long stay at Heathrow Airport. But it also afforded the opportunity to observe some colorful aspects of human behavior.
Hiking and biking regularly might lead you to believe you’re in good shape. If you wish to test that hypothesis, just come and pit yourself against the Coloradans who tackle fourteeners every weekend.
I was tempted to feel sorry for myself when my plane was delayed by a storm. And then I remembered the travails of the Mozart family during their European travels.
A man was recently caught on camera driving a Maserati down the famous Spanish steps in Rome. It seemed so silly to me that someone would drive a car down an old cobblestone street, until I remembered a recent escapade of my own in an old Spanish town.
A WWII air raid siren startled me once while I waited for a train. Such an old technology could certainly be replaced with something better. At least that’s what I thought until a real emergency cropped up.
A Berlin museum juxtaposes Karl Marx and Richard Wagner. The exhibition is supposed to highlight their differences. Instead, I found many intriguing similarities.
Taking the train home from Berlin, some Ukrainians boarded the train. Watching their interactions with the conductor reminded me of my first experience taking German trains and other cultural mishaps
German minister for the family Anne Spiegel recently resigned after major errors of judgment. Did her family responsibilities overwhelm her, like they do so many women - still?
Just as I was getting used to not being a mother, my COVID-harassed daughters came home - left - and came home repeatedly. Their pre-Easter visit has made me once again resurrect my mother persona.
The oldest residents of a rest home suddenly developed mild illnesses. They all shared a trauma from the distant past that had suddenly been revived overnight.
The sky was suddenly a muddy orange, but what was causing it. I had an idea, but the thought was too scary to consider.
Germans are usually so logical, it’s hard to believe how that can make such planning errors when they visit the U.S. Kind of gratifying, though.
The five German cities I visited on a college tour with my daughter were all steeped in the history from WWII or the Cold War – or both. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered the largest influx of refugees in Europe since WWII into these same cities.
Speaking a foreign language can be tricky. Sometimes it can also get you into trouble - serious trouble. German umlauts - those two dots on some vowels. are often the culprit
Germans, the travel experts. If you want to know something about your own country, just ask a German. They probably know it better than you.
Canada and New Zealand were bastions of rationality until the trucker protests broke out. Should we turn to bonobo monkeys for better behavior advice?
California may have Silicon Valley, Hollywood and even Arnold Schwarzenegger, but Germany is way ahead of them in the recycling game. Being the land of engineers, they have taken recycling to a higher form of science.
AI has come a long way in helping make work easier, but it still makes mistakes. Sometimes some very funny mistakes.
The strangest things happen when words make the transition from one language to another. They might retain their original meaning, but often enough they take on entirely new lives of their own, sometimes with odd consequences indeed.
Moving just 10 km beyond the Munich city borders put us in the suburbs, but the small town of Zorneding has some surprising secrets, even for big city dwellers.
One-third of women indicated in a survey cited by Adam Grant that they thought their pets were better listeners than their partners. A good reason to take a look at what dogs are doing better!
There is probably a whole slew of new virus variants in 2022. So let's just do what Sleeping Beauty did and sleep through it.
The only consistent thing about raising children is that it is constantly changing. As soon as you think you have it figured out, they’re a year older and you’re back at square one. A little creativity can go a long way while making things fun at the same time. Here are four hacks taken from four different mothers and children of four different ages. They can help you, too.
Munich cancelled the Oktoberfest for the second year in a row, but people celebrated anyway. Little did I suspect that on a trip to Berlin, I would find people getting in on the fun - but not exactly in an authentic way...
This stunning Baroque library tucked away in a monastery in a Bavarian village is the unlikely site of any kind of drama. That is, until the year 1802. Napoleon’s conquest of Europe had profound effects that reached all the way to this quiet place. But what does the Corsican general have to do with libraries?
Marketing is considered to be an American invention. There have also been a few spectacular marketing flops by American companies, such as GM's Nova in Puerto Rico (the car that "doesn't go"). Then there's the fizzy drink that was introduced in China as "Bite the wax tadpole," commonly known as Coca-Cola. But there is one astonishing marketing ploy that flopped in Germany, hundreds of years ago, that few people are aware of.
The French have given us many beautiful things, from language to architecture. Little did the English know what was ahead when William the Conqueror crossed the Channel in 1066. France's influence didn't stop there. The impact on culture was felt throughout the European continent. Explorers and settlers packed it in their bags to the New World. But there is one cultural norm from the French that may come as a surprise.