Top Sources

Germany

I visited Berlin in the summer of 2000—the first time I had been in Germany since I was a boy, when I spent a few days in Heidelberg. I loved everything about it. I took a silly schoolboy delight in deciphering movie posters and food labels. Decidi...

I visited Berlin in the summer of 2000—the first time I had been in Germany since I was a boy, when I spent a few days in Heidelberg. I loved everything about it. I took a silly schoolboy delight in deciphering movie posters and food labels. Deciding to try Turkish food in a restaurant near Prenzlauer Berg resulted in one of the best meals of my life. I went to the Galerie der Romantik and saw real Caspar David Friedrich paintings for the first time. One day I tried to go the Kulturforum and got lost. I didn’t mind. In Germany, I enjoyed even just walking around. I swear the beer tasted better and the women looked lovelier (of course, beer does help with that sometimes). If you’re from the Anglophone world, Germany is hilariously different in all kinds of unpredictable ways. Optimism—regarded in the Anglophone world as the hallmark of a healthy personality—in Germany is simply a sign of low intelligence. Which explains how a clinically depressed loaf of bread could become the star of a German children's TV show. You'll learn a lot from the sources I’ve selected, everything from the musings of Düsseldorf business reporter Thomas Knüwer on German media and business to Sign and Sight, an excellent English-language magazine on German society and culture and reflections on German politics and culture by an American currently living in Berlin. Start reading....und viel Spass! (And have fun!) Related Top 10 Sources: World Cup Soccer | Beer | France | London