My brother and I are now staying with a friend of ours, Flo Sandkaulen, in Kaarst which is 15 minutes from Duesseldorf. I have been noticing many differences between America and Germany. For one, I didn't realize how big of an impact our country has on Germany especially considering the media, almost every song I hear is in English. Flo told us that the radio is forced to play 2 German songs for every 10 English songs on the radio, which is funny to me that they would rather hear songs of a foreign language than songs of their own language.
This week we really did not do too much. We mainly explored cities nearby Kaarst, such as Duesseldorf and Cologne. I love both cities very much, there is so much diversity. When we ventured to Cologne we went to see the city and of course the Cologne Dom which is this amazingly large cathedral which was being built from 1248 to 1880!!! Inside the church we listened to a choir that was there to entertain all of the tourists, it was beautiful. The Cologne Dom was actually the largest structure in the world until the Washington Monument was built. The Dom is one of the best known monuments in Germany and the most recognized landmark in Cologne...of course. When we got out of the Hauptbahnhof (Train Station) the Dom was right in front of us, it almost hurt my neck to look to the top of it! Apparently Catholic mass is still held there, which would be amazing to attend. People also have their weddings there, for a pretty penny anyway.
Another thing I have noticed is how different the youth looks here, well how they dress anyway. It seems like in the USA the youth falls into a few categories of how they dress (Punk, Preppy, Gothic, Casual). Here everyone dresses so different from one another. Although I have spotted many people wearing Abercrombie and Fitch, I didn't realize that was such a big deal here! The most popular thing to wear here right now are scarves and Chucks (converse shoes), it is kind of funny that even on a 90 degree day you will still see plenty of Germans wearing a scarf!
The people in Western Germany seem for the most part very open to Americans and seem very nice and helpful, which is nice for the transition from USA to Germany. I can't wait to see how the people of Freiburg are! We have one week left in West Germany before we must depart for Freiburg and Mannheim! More to come =]
Auf wiedersehen!
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