Kultur 2

Blown Away: I thought this article was kind of funny. According to the article Germans don't like moving air currents, and they will avoid them like the plague. Seriously, they think the air currents will make them sick and they announce when they detect the presence of one by saying "Es zieht!" Although I'm sure this is a bit exaggerated, I couldn't imagine not opening the windows during the summer.

You Have What?: This article claims that Germans tend to come down with some rather outlandish illnesses. I thought it was funny when the author made the claim that a German suffering from Kreislaufzussamenbruch could sleep it off, while anyone else in the world would die from it. One thing I can related to is that German's don't run to the doctor's or to their medicine cabinet for every little illness. I feel the same way.

Germany's Sauna Obsession: I agree, saunas are great. I thought it was cool that 1.5 million people have private saunas in their homes. I hope I can have one someday.

German School System: One fact from these articles that I found interesting was that the age of the average University student in Germany is 23. I hope I'm done with school by the time I reach this age. What I gathered from these articles is that pre-University schooling in Germany is more specialized to what a student will be doing in the future than the equivalent education level in the US. In the third or fourth grade students split into one of four different paths. There's Hauptschule, in which student's focus on learning a trade. There's Realschule and Gymnasiasten, which focus on preparing student's for college. Then there's Gesamtschule, which is like the current American school system.