Kultur 10 -- Lars Lopatka

Most of the time, I start off my Kultur blogs by saying that I found the articles pretty interesting. Honestly, I thought these articles were more boring than usual; however, they caused me to do a little research on related subjects that I did find really interesting.

"'Dinner for Who?': Germany's New Year 'Procedure'" was really odd. Why Germans would adapt an unpopular, unheard of British short-film for their annual New Year's celebration is beyond me. However, I thought this article unearthed the interesting topic of globalization of film. At the end of the article, it stated that most Germans have not seen "The Sound of Music". I have seen this movie at least ten times and it is one of my families favorite films. I think that because film is pretty much universally appreciated, people have a natural curiosity to experience film from other cultures and nations. Although I find the German practice of viewing this weird, old English film odd, it struck me as interesting that my family watches "Life is Beautiful" every Christmas day, which of course is an Italian film.

"Sorry We're Closed: The Challenge of Spending Money in Germany" states that German laws and cultural practices cause stores to have restrictive opening hours and that it is practically impossible to shop at most stores on Sundays. The only stores one can shop at during these times are often Turkish owned. This sounds pretty annoying but in my experience, many small towns in the United States are the same way. Whenever we visit my mother's hometown in rural Wisconsin, we have much of the same experience. After reading this article it struck me that German stores were closed on Sundays because this is usually based in religious practices and I was under the impression that most Europeans don't practice religion anymore. I researched "German Religion" and found that over 60 percent of the population still affiliate with Christianity. This definitely surprised me because I thought it would be much lower. However, German youths are increasingly turning towards secularism, as significantly less than half of people aged (12-24) affiliate with any organized religion.

"Booze Brothers: Father's Day Debauchery in Deutschland" was very interesting! These are the good'ole German practices I like reading about. Although I find it pretty hilarious, its interesting that it has religious and historical roots. Maybe I can convince my dad to celebrate next Father's Day in Deutschland!

"Frohe Weihnahcten: A Visit to Germany's Christmas Markets" was actually a cultural thing that I have heard of before. I had no idea they were such a tourist attraction "luring 160 million tourists from around the world to more than 2500 Christmas Markets". I think it's pretty cool that something that seems so culturally rich can be heavily commercialized. Some might argue the opposite but it's pretty awesome that so many people get to experience something that seems truly German.

All of travel blogs about various destinations in Switzerland are pretty appealing. I'm a pretty huge skiier, so I would definitely like to shred some of those slopes.