Children in the United States often write to Santa Claus for Christmas. The US Postal Service even has a website to help them do so. It's the same in Canada. In fact, many countries around the globe have a Santa or Father Christmas letter-writing tradition. That...
The GW Expat Blog
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History and culture
Germans, Austrians and Swiss in Hawaii
I'm once again visiting Hawaii, this time on the island of Maui. Since 2010 I've been on a continuing quest for Germanic-Hawaiian connections. Even here in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, 12 time zones away from Europe, there are many more than one might think....
Mae West: The German Girl
When Mary Jane West, later the stage and film star Mae West (1893-1980), was growing up in Brooklyn and Queens she was known as "the German girl." Her mother, Mathilde/Matilda West (née Delker), had been born on 8 December 1870, probably in the Kingdom of Württemberg,...
German Influence on the Spanish Island of Mallorca
After 14 years living in Berlin, I joked that our summer vacation plans are the true sign we have fully integrated into German culture. We were finally going to Mallorca. We had never heard of Mallorca before moving to Germany. It is simply not on most North...
The Father of Sliced Bread Was a German Iowan
We take pre-sliced bread for granted. It has even become part of the language: "It's the best/greatest thing since sliced bread." But Iowa-born Otto Frederick Rohwedder did not begin selling his pioneering bread-slicing machine until 1928. It could automatically slice...
Day Trip to Wittenberg, Germany
Coming out of the pandemic, my family limited our long-distance travel and started exploring places closer to home. These day trips from Berlin are some of my favorite places and we have re-visited often. But I am always looking for somewhere new. Enter the...
Indiana’s German Place Names and Connections
Indiana: The Hoosier State The US state whose name means "land of the Indians" also has a lot of German connections. In fact the largest ancestry reported in Indiana is "German" – with 22.7 percent of the population claiming that ancestry in the 2020 census. In the...
Guide to Salzburg
A perk of my new job is that the headquarters is in Vienna. While I usually work remote from Berlin, there have already been a few opportunities to visit the team in office, as well as combine work and pleasure by taking some days to explore other places in Austria....
Why Nefertiti Is in Berlin, Not Cairo
Egyptian Artifacts and a Wealthy Berlin Patron of the Arts If you want to see the famous bust of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti (c. 1370 – c. 1330 BCE), the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, you have to visit Berlin's Neues Museum (New Museum) to experience it in person. The...
Coburg, Germany, Black History and St. Mauritius
Coburg, Germany Before, During, and After the War As Black History Month has recently passed its halfway mark, I'm returning to a theme I've written about before: Black Americans and Germany. Which, believe it or not, brings us to the northern Bavarian city of Coburg,...
Weekend in Hamburg
Last November I was in a funk. I had found myself in visa limbo after living in Germany for many years, newly laid off, and facing a big decade birthday. I kept telling myself it would all work out, but the anxiety was eating me alive and an impending birthday...
The Nebra Sky Disc: An Introduction
The World's Oldest Known Representation of the Night Sky I'm not exactly sure when I first became aware of the Nebra Sky Disc, but I do recall being reminded of its existence in late 2021 when the German ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer named his mission to the...
The “New” City of Dresden
It feels like every year at about this time I hear rumbles of dissatisfaction with Berlin. Sometimes they are coming directly from me, but this year I've noticed more online posts than usual complaining about the rising costs of the city, the dismal winter weather,...
How the German Advent Calendar Emerged from the Ashes of War and Conquered America
How a Stuttgart Publisher and US President Eisenhower Saved the Advent Calendar The Advent calendar tradition is a relatively recent Christmas custom, far more recent than the Christmas tree. Although homemade calendars date from around 1850, the first printed...
My Favorite Berlin Christmas Markets
I am fresh off the high of my favorite Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market). After the disaster of the pandemic years, my appreciation for Christmas markets has only grown. My personal favorite only runs for one weekend every Christmas season. I eagerly anticipate its...
How Germans Helped Shape the World: Historic Globes
No, The World Is Not Flat! Bad news for flat-earth believers: Ancient Greek astronomers proved that the earth was a sphere – which later gave us the Latin (and German) word globus. Although references to globes representing the planet earth date from about 150 BCE, no...
Guide to Rostock and Warnemünde
The Deutschlandticket has been an absolute boon to my travel within Germany. With the tantalizing offer of low-cost air travel I have taken to sort jaunts around Europe from London to Naples. But as my family multiplies and travel costs rise, train travel has swung...
Beyond Munich: Germany’s Other Beer and Wine Festivals
As I write this, Oktoberfest in Munich is about to end on October 3rd. Oktoberfest, which begins in September, is by far Germany's largest and most famous folk festival (Volksfest), but there are many other attractive options all across Germany. These other events...
What Not to Do at Oktoberfest
If you missed it, this weekend kicked off Okoberfest in Munich. With the tapping of the keg and the magical words of “O'zapft is” (“It's tapped”), the biggest beer festival in the world has begun. Last year was the first year after the pandemic that the event was held...
A Brief (Germanic) History of Mexican Beer
The German, Austrian, and Swiss Heritage of Cerveza Today both the Mexican and US beer brewing scenes are quite similar, reflecting the global phenomenon of Big Beer. In both countries it is difficult to know the true company behind a particular beer brand, even if...
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