Kultur 9 - Gabrielle Spickard

I found the articles for this chapter's Kultur blog assignment very interesting, and I enjoyed reading them. I always feel like I gain valuable insight into German culture after these assignments, which I feel would be helpful for when I (hopefully) study abroad in Germany. For the first article, I actually wasn't that surprised about the extensive amount of paperwork and documentation that is considered normal in Germany since order and reason is pretty deeply engrained in the culture. That would probably take some getting used to from me, though, both being from a much different culture and being rather disorganized. The second article, which talked about neighbor relations and laws/regulations in Germany, was also interesting but somewhat non-surprising (for similar reasons as the first). It seems like some of the regulations are kind of ridiculous or very strict, though. One barbecue per month, even during the summer? Nothing on a Sunday? Oh well. The third article about German patriotism and flag-flying was probably the most interesting to me. I never realized how cognizant Germany is about patriotism in relation to their identity following WWII, even to the extent of not flying flags and being reluctant to make openly patriotic statements.