Germans, Baltic Germans, and Native Hawaiians So how many German connections for a so-called Russian Fort on the Hawaiian island of Kauai could there be? More than you might expect. We'll start with a Bavarian/Franconian physician and adventurer named Georg Anton...
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Louisiana’s German Names and Connections
Louisiana: The Pelican State, the Bayou State, the Creole State No. None of Louisiana's nicknames, official or otherwise, offer even a hint of how much of an impact German-speaking immigrants have had on the state. In fact, despite having lived in Louisiana as a...
Das schönste deutsche Wort – The most beautiful German Word
Wortschatz is a "word treasure"! Recently I happened to stumble across my copy of the book »Das schönste deutsche Wort«, first published back in 2005. That book was the result of a 2004 contest that encouraged people all across the German-speaking world – and...
Karl May: German Westerns, Winnetou and Old Shatterhand
If you've never heard of Winnetou, Old Shatterhand, Kara Ben Nemsi or Old Surehand, you probably didn't grow up in Germany or another German-speaking country. Those characters created by the German author Karl May (1842-1912) are as well-known in Germany and a few...
Bad Medicine: Germany and Homeopathy
Samuel Hahnemann and "Like Cures Like" If Samuel Hahnemann had remained a linguist and translator, or even a physician, rather than moving into experimenting with a new type of medical treatment, he and the world could have saved themselves a lot of headaches and...
The Two German Academy Award Winners for Best Actor
The Very First Academy Awards Ceremony Only two Germans have ever won an Academy Award for Best Actor or Actress in a Leading Role. One of them did so at the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929. Since then many other German-speakers have also won or been...
The Art and Tragedy of Albert Bierstadt
The German American landscape painter Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) The painting depicted below is not what most people consider a typical Albert Bierstadt landscape. It was created during the "tragedy" period of Bierstadt's life and career. Many art critics, art...
Weird in the USA: Things That Foreigners Find Odd
Cultural Differences in Reverse You never fully understand your own culture until you leave it and experience a different one. When US Americans (more about that term below) travel to Mexico or Europe for the first time, they immediately notice the differences in...
The True Cost of Gasoline in the USA and Germany
Gaining a Better Perspective on the Cost of Gasoline and Diesel Today You may have noticed the recent spike in gasoline and diesel prices caused by Adolf Putin's little war in Ukraine. But it's not the first time world events have made motor fuel prices fluctuate...
What’s in a Name? Exonyms: Köln vs Cologne, Donau vs Danube, Beijing vs Peking
Exonyms: Shape-Shifting Place Names "Munich" is the English exonym for the city that Germans call München. An exonym is a name used in a specific language for a geographical feature situated outside the area where that language is spoken, and differing from the...
How many lives does a cat have? What is Trick 17?
Number Idioms in German Cats have been around for thousands of years. They are said to have more than one life. Just how many lives depends on where you are. Arabian and Turkish cats have six lives. For some reason German or Spanish cats have seven lives. In the...
10 Things Expats Miss After They Leave Germany
Reverse culture shock can be disconcerting, even scary. While driving in my US hometown recently, I had a flashback to my time in Germany when I noticed a few things that Americans do that contrast with normal practice in Germany and Europe. Some of them are funny,...
Swiss Family Robinson: From Johann Wyss to Walt Disney
Some facts about The Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Crusoe: The "Swiss Family Robinson" was not named Robinson. Robinson Crusoe was of German heritage. Daniel Dafoe, the man who started it all, published a sequel called The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,...
Gendering and Sexism in German and English: das Gendern
In the last few years, Germans and other German-speakers have been embroiled in a debate over das Gendern, or "gendering." Anyone who has tried to master the German language knows that, unlike English, all nouns in German, not just proper nouns, are capitalized and...
Traveling to Germany in Covid Times: What You Need to Know
Before You Go If you, like me, have been champing at the bit, eager to once again fly to Germany from the USA, it is now possible. While we don't currently have truly ideal conditions, US-Americans are now taking long-haul flights across the Atlantic and landing in...
The Matterhorn and Zermatt: What You May Not Know About the World’s Most Iconic Mountain
Berg der Berge (Mountain of Mountains) Let's start in Zermatt, a city without combustion-engine autos (to preserve its pure mountain air). Electric-powered shuttles provide local transport. Most visitors reach Zermatt via the cog railway from the nearby town of Täsch....
Germany in the USA and Canada: Part 2
A Preview of German Place Names and Connections: From Leipsic to Winesburg When I first wrote about German Place Names in the USA and Canada more than five months ago, I realized that the topic was far more vast than I had originally thought. Since then, as I have...
Why Does Berlin (BER) Have So Few International Long-Haul Flights?
Why is Berlin such an international flight provincial backwater? For a major European capital city, Berlin has very few international nonstop flights. Long-haul flights to and from other continents are a rarity in Berlin, Germany's largest city by far. (The Berlin...
Germany’s TV Tax: The Debate Over the Rundfunkbeitrag
Germany's Version of British TV Licensing North Americans newly arrived in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland are surprised to learn that they have to pay an annual fee to receive public broadcasting radio and television plus internet video streaming. Even if you don't...
Exiles and Expats in Switzerland: From Albert Einstein to Tina Turner
Switzerland as a Refuge US-born Tina Turner lived in Switzerland with her German-born husband from 1994 until her death at 83 in May 2023. Albert Einstein did the same with his wife in Bern and Zurich about a century earlier. Both Albert Einstein and Tina Turner also...
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