Hello dear readers, in this blog I will try to bring to you what it is like to live in Europe and how this compares to South Dakota life.  First of all, Baerchen means little bear in German.  This is one of the terms of endearment that my wife uses when she talks to me.  Some of the others are Schatz, Liebling, Maus.  You have most likely noticed that the words have been capitalized, this is how they are written according to the German language.

 

I am an English teacher who was originally employed in the healthcare business in the United States.  I teach mainly at businesses and occasionally have private students.  I also do proofreading, German to English translations.  I frequently have to defend the United States and provide my students with correct information regarding the USA and its history.  The German media demonizes everything it can about "Amerika" on television, in newspapers/magazines and on the radio.  In their schools they are frequently provided with a Germanized version of the history of the United States. 

 

In the first sentence, I stated that I lived in Europe, specifically I live in Germany.  It has been eight years since I left everything behind in South Dakota and relocated to the Ruhr area of Germany.  It was a drastic change to say the least.  South Dakota has around 700,000 people living there and here in the Ruhr area are around 25 milion.  Despite being known as the industrial area of Germany, the region is very green and beautiful.  The foods are similar but at the same time very different, some of my favorite food items are not available in the supermarkets but can be special ordered through online shops at hefty prices.  Driving here is also similar to driving in the USA but again oh so very different.  One example of this is, that on streets that are not marked otherwise, when you come up to an intersection, cars coming on the street to your right have the right of way.  They drive right through the intersection with very little regard for the safety of others.  It is their divine right to drive through, and God forbid if you challenge them.  Television is very interesting as well, talk shows of every variety rule the airwaves here.  It is truly a culture of discussion, discussion, discussion.  The guests on these shows are often politicians, who are pitted against celebrities such as singers or actors, and last but not least someone who is a mere mortal a person who works in the branch of business that they are discussing.  Other programs include "Wetten Das" where people demonstrate some strange and unusual talent they have developed only to appear on this program.  These talents include being able to identfiy any pacifer that is one the market while blindfolded and sucking on it, stacking beer cases or breaking apples with one hand.  European, American celebrities are invited on the show and bet that the person can succeed with their talent or not and if they lose, they have to perform some strange act on the stage.  A lot of television shows are from the USA some from the 1970s, 80s, 90s and are shown over and over again.  There are a lot of programs that people love and some that they hate here.

 

Over the last eight years, I have had to deal with anti-Americanism.  I have heard it all, that Americans are terrible people because there are so many guns in America, that American is a terrorist country and that America has no culture of its own.  Americans can only speak English, due to the fact that there are no foreign languages offered in schools.  Americans killed off the Indians, Americans still enslave black people and Americans want to rule the world with its large military might forcing little countries to become little American satellite countries forming an empire.  40,000,000 people in America have no health insurance. After hearing this as the first thing some people here say to me, the very next thing they say without missing a beat, is that they want to be like Americans.  American fashion, music, television programs, movies and everything else are worshipped and copied.  It truly amazes me that people can hate the USA and then say, yeah, I want to be like an American.

 

In future posts, I will try to cover in a lot more detail some of the similarites and differences between Europe and America.  Everything is indeed similar and so vastly different at the same time.  I hope that you will all enjoy what I have to write about and if you have comments or questions please do so in the comment section.