This Family Rule must be understand in a very flexible way. In my family, “German” meant everything related to our years in 1970s Germany. If you lived in my house, you absorbed the fact that living like a German was the best way a person could live. If you were a visitor in our home, you knew you were in the presence of some pretty darn special people!
Here are some things–or ways of doing things–whose Germanness clearly kicked the butt of Americanness. Boy, there were so many things which were better. Germany would have beaten the U.S. in Rock, Paper, Scissors each and every time. And since we understood these things, maybe we were superior beings?
In no particular order, I present the first twelve testaments to German awesomeness. Drumroll, please…
Photo courtesy of A. Kniesel
1. Nutella. O.M.G. We were eating it by the pound before you American dumb-dumbs even knew it existed.
Photo courtesy of MPD01605 on Flickr
2. Drinks in bags. Ditto, American slackers. I was drinking bagged Capri Suns before you were even born.
Photo courtesy of Thomas Rosenau
3. Haribo Gummi Bears. Same story, third verse. Also, gummi colas, gummi worms…you name it!
Photo courtesy of Maddox74
4. Playmobil.
Photo courtesy of Hans
5. Steiff stuffed animals. Yup.
Photo courtesy of EME
6. German bread. From fluffy to crispy to scour-your-anus-good. Just add BUTTER.
Blutwurst photo courtesy of Roberto Verzo
7. Sausage. So. Many. Kinds. Of. Heaven. (I swore never to try Blutwurst but I ate it once by accident. Part of me wanted to stick my finger down my throat. Part of me wanted more.)
Photo courtesy of capl@washjeff.edu
8. Cheese. We only had, what…American, Swiss, and Cheddar back in those dark ages?
Image courtesy of Wikimedia
9. Ikea. Who cares if it isn’t actually German? We used to go to shop at Ikea in Germany, before it came to the US. I would live in Ikea if I could.
Photo courtesy of capl@washjeff.edu
10. Wooden toys. No plastic crap for us. No siree!
Photo courtesy of High Contrast
11. Coffee. My parents were partial to Tchibo, which they drank with a drop of Bärenmarke evaporated milk.
Photo courtesy of Mysid
12. Chocolate. No surprises there, especially in the 70’s. I think Ritter Sport with rum, raisins and hazelnuts was my childhood fave. Also epic: Kinderschokolade eggs with build-it-yourself toys inside. Some of the toys were quite involved. The surprise and the engineering behind them was magic.
Stay tuned for more worship–uh, I mean, sharing. In the meantime, you might want to check out fellow blogger Aaron Schilling, who is writing fun and very authentic bits about the unfolding of his intensive German experience.
This post is part of Family Rules. For the prior post, click here. For the next post, click here.
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I didn’t think there was anything that could be better in Germany than in the US (or in Switzerland, of course) in the 70s. 😉 Anyway, my father went to Oklahoma several times work related around 1974 and he brought back the most amazing gifts: My first pair of jeans and a t-shirt that had a beautiful lion printed on the whole front. Oh I loved loved loved the t-shirt.
I learnt as a young child that there is something special about Italy and the Italians though, although the Swiss thought very strong about the Italians back in the 60s and 70s. In a bad way. But when the Italians won the football worldchampionship in 1980, everybody in Switzerland wanted to be Italian. If you could tell that you had in fact connections to Italy and Italians it added to your rank, even in Switzerland. 😉
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