If you live long enough in another country, then you inevitably gather a whole collection of experiences in dealing with the people and the culture there.
It may be that you have to handle lots of bureaucracy, or cope with unusual customs, or it may be just plain getting used to driving on the other side of the road.
For many ex-pats, these tales of living in a strange land can often form the basis of conversations with friends and family back home, but seldom do they get published as a book for a wider audience.
Cathy Dobson, who we talked to last year, took this brave step and wrote “Planet Germany” which, as she puts it, documents how “one British family bungles being German”.
In the book, she takes us through an entire year in the life of her family and business as we discover how they cope with living as British ex-pats in Germany. Many readers will be familiar with the situations that she describes, such as the first knock on the door of the Sternsinger, the madness of the Karneval season, or just the amazement at the end of each year that, after telling their fortunes by dropping molten lead into cold water, most households sit down on New Year’s Eve to watch the same little-known sketch in black and white as the previous year.
Add to this the fact that her business partner tries to help her with such traditions as the correct use of Du and Sie, whilst at the same time forming her own opinion of the simple British customs that have travelled with the family. Stuffing a turkey, for instance.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Planet Germany. It is a book that you will not want to put down!
Am 20. Januar 1936 starb sein Vater und er wurde König. Die darauf folgende Zeit sollte für ihn nicht so einfach werden, denn er hatte andere Vorstellungen als die Regierung und auch das Volk. Schon am ersten Tag seiner Amtszeit brach er die Regeln in dem er mit seiner Geliebten seine öffentliche Proklamation am Fenster verfolgte. Den Sommer 1936 verbrachte er dann mit Wallis Warfield – bekannt als Wallis Simpson, lieber an der kroatischen Adriaküste, als im Schloss Balmoral wie es britische Tradition gewesen wäre.
One reason might be that each country looks to its own citizens and their inventions. The telephone is a similar example. Whilst people in the UK and USA will tell you that it was Alexander Graham Bell who invented the telephone, most people in Germany – especially in the Taunus region – say that it was Philipp Reis.