Churchill.lt

Hamburg (C) Juliane’s photo

When I was a child I associated this country with sweets that my father used to bring from there. And with discipline and good football like it was in one cartoon. When i grew up i realized that there is more I can learn about Germany…

I will not tell you how many people live in Germany or how big their territory is. If you still don’t know you can easily find all facts in wikipedia. I will tell you only what I learned about this country in my trips there and what my german friends explained to me. So all facts here will not be more then gossip, but you are always welcome to add some more gossip.

It’s strange but the country that looks so strict and orderly from the outside, is actually dissolute like free wheel inside. Of course a lot of west european countries are more free in aspects like sex and other topics which in chatalic Lithuania are taboo. But only germans are such geniusses that in Hamburg they named a district St. Paul, built a million sex shops, porn video shops, striptease clubs and make this place a prostitute and other nonentity attraction centre. And in Kiel, only a few metres near the beautiful church, they built a brothel. By the way – prostitutes here have a special status, different from other normal employees.

The big cigarette industry has contributed even more to liberate this country. Of course, only because of them, people are allowed to smoke from 16 years old – anywhere, even in public places, you can see cigarettes advertisements every third step, and automats to buy more cigarretes every second step.

Now some changes are coming – the new limit allows smoking only from 18 years and forbids smoking in public areas. But unfortunately, because Germany is a federal republic and each federation has to approve new issues, those changes are coming extremely slowly. Finally, the social democrats have the following election slogan – “Love each other, we will do the rest“ – I probably don’t have to explain about what they are speaking, especially when the mayor of Berlin is one of them.
Well, that’s how strict and temperate countries’ stereotypes fall. Germans who I know also proved to me that the stereotype that they are always on time is wrong. But their love for football, beer and sausages is true.

Continuing to talk about Germany like an integrated country is impossible, because they are still separated. It’s interesting to watch how two germans meet eachother – the first thing they ask each other – are you from West or East germany ? “sure, the Berlin wall has fallen, but it’s still in our minds – Juliane told me one time in Hamburg – west Germany feel an aversion for eastern Germany, because of taxes they’re paying the east to grow its economy“
You can feel the difference also in behaviour – after long control under communism east germans still hope that somebody else will do their job, westerners in this case are more organised.

“East germany now has a crisis – in Boserup Erik told me – a lot of young people move from east to west and they are losing workers“. In the same time companies don’t want to invest in the east even if the government made good posibilities for that. Specially in the east, you find more emigrants from others countries and together with them a growing neonazi movement, which even gets legal status hidden in the nationaldemocrats parties name.

The political course in Germany changed together with the new conservative chancellor Angela Merkel. The war in Iraq critic became pro-americanism. Germany still hasn’t sent troops to Iraq but is helping America to transport their own there. They have been allowed to transit in Germany and continue their flight to Iraq.

Germany and Lithuania. I will never forget that night in the ferry when I was in a cabin together with two lithuanian businessmen, which were driving around Europe to buy stuff they could sell in Lithuania. They started a long conversation about Germany being a big shit – “they think about themselves that they are the most important in Europe, never smiling, you will never drink with them normally and the worst thing in Germany is the police. They will stop you without any real reason only to piss you off, and they can’t speak english. I can speak german, but I didn’t even try to do that with them. – Yeah you are right – confirmed the other buisnesman – “I immediately sent them nachui, without going any deeper. They met each other for the first time, but their opinion that Germany is the worst country in Europe was similar like two drops of water.

When I asked what Juliane thought about that she wasn’t surprised – “but police are not liked without reason. You from the east always steal our cars. My sister once went on holiday to Lithuania and somenone stole her car. Your image here is like a car thiefs. If it would be about anything else maybe our relationship would be better, but now we are talking about cars. Its a sacred thing. In Germany we say that germans love their cars more than their wifes.“ I didn’t have anything to say after that.

Of course the blog post format is not enough to tell everything about this country, but maybe someone has to add more information or opinions. What do you think about Germany ? I’m waiting for your comments.