Kultur 2

Reading the assigned Kultur 2 readings was very interesting when put together with the experience I had while living in Germany over summer.  I actually had the opportunity to experience most, if not all of these things while I was living there.  My experience was very good, but I could not help to notice that Germans do tend to have very specific quirks, which stick out heavily in their interactions both between themselves, and with me as a foreigner.

Regarding the first article, this is definitely something that I noticed very quickly.  Germans tend to worry about everything, all the time.  And for this reason, they are always complaining about different things.  Whenever I would strike a conversation with one of my friends, they would complain about things not going well enough, about things I didn't even know about, and just about nothing in general.  At first I thought maybe this was just my friend's personality but as time went on I realized that this was just how most people were, so I had to get used to their constant overworrying about everything.

As for the second article, it was very interesting to see this as well, because I lived in an area with various elderly couples.  Each time I walked to and from home I would get a staredown, probably since I didn't look like a German, yet I was always polite and said good morning to everyone, which I also noticed wasn't very common.  It was a bit interesting, because I felt like I was being judged.  There was, however, an exception to this, and it was my landlords.  I barely interacted with them, but they were always very nice to me.  They even went as far as to give us strawberries that they grew for sale in their farm.

Finally, the article about statistics and Germans being very well informed is very true and one of the things I actually really liked about the country.  It was great feeling that I could have an intelligent conversation about anything with any of my friends because they would at least have some sort of opinion about it.  It was fairly often I found myself debating social issues with them.

Overall, Germans are very particular and their quirks can make them seem cold and impersonal.  However, they are very good friends once you actually become their friend.  I know I had a great time, although I sometimes got annoyed with the complaining nature of most of them.  However, underneath the complaining they are great people who like to meet new people, learn about them and are always down for a beer.