and from the cultural perspective or from the way of living and doing
things?

One interesting (and refreshing) thing I observed about Germans (or,
perhaps, Bavarians) was their attitude toward drinking. Around here (a
college town) the place is absolutely AWASH with beer and booze, but just
try to get any of it as an adult. You can't get a beer or a glass of wine
at any outdoor events -- period -- because it's treated like crack cocaine.

An example: We tried to do a "hangar dance" as part of the American
Barnstormers Tour here last summer. This would have been a fund-raiser to
help defray their costs. The city attorney said "nein" -- no alcohol of any
kind allowed on city property. Had their appearance not been canceled due
to our "little" flood, Iowa City would have been the ONLY stop on the tour
to not have beer and wine served at the event. Talk about childish!

Munich, on the other hand, treats beer as just another beverage. It's
everywhere, but it's no big deal. You can walk down the street with a beer,
and no one bats an eye. At Oktoberfest, literally thousands of revelers
drank beer from GLASS steins every day -- something that would be absolutely
unheard of in the U.S. (I can just hear our city attorney howling about the
"liability" issues.) Everyone had a great time, no one got rowdy -- it was
just good, clean fun, for people from all over the world.

And, best of all -- for those who had too much to drink, they had a special
tent set up with cots for revelers to "sleep it off" if needed. Here in
Iowa City, our jail is filled every weekend with young people, jailed for
"public intoxication" -- a thinly-veiled ruse to raise big bucks for the
city, and a stupid waste of valuable jail space. The Germans are much more
mature and pragmatic about the whole situation.

However, lest anyone think that Germany is a bunch of drunks careening
around the autobahn, NO ONE drinks and drives. The penalties for doing so
are severe -- as they should be -- and cabs are everywhere. Thus, drinking
is a nice, social event that is kept in proper perspective, rather than
romanticized it to the point where our young people here binge drink
themselves into oblivion.

We had a wonderful time, and we would go back tomorrow if we could. In
fact, we tried to extend our stay a couple of days (our staffing at the
hotel was rock-solid, so we felt we could be gone longer) -- but Lufthansa
would have none of it. They wanted $500 extra to move our flights back 48
hours -- so we sadly had to come home as scheduled.

Ah, well -- next time I want to get down to Stuttgart, in the area I *think*
my family is from.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
Ercoupe N94856
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"