Life goes on… in Amsterdam!

I’ve stayed
in this country for almost 2 years, ok, one and a half to be more exact. It’s
time for a bit of reflection, as I am going to leave this country in 4 weeks’
time. I have much to say about Germany, have always wanted to write about it
and I think now is the best time.

Germany,
a.k.a Deutschland (in German), a.k.a Jerman (in Malay), a.k.a Duitsland (in
Dutch), a.k.a Tyskland (in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian), a.k.a Allemagne (in
French), is 12 hours flight away from Malaysia (if you fly non-stop with MAS).
It is slightly bigger than Malaysia (357,021 km² vs. 329,847 km²)
yet the population is about 4 times more than Malaysia (82,314,900 vs.
27,122,000).

During my
stay here, I’ve learned a lot about this country, from my personal studies to
my personal experience. Thanks to the German government, I’ve attended an orientation
course (F.O.C) which taught me a lot about this country and what it is famous of. The Germans are generally not very proud of
being Germans, not too patriotic, due to the history (the Second World War and
Holocaust). Yet I think they do have at least 2 reasons to be proud of their
country. Firstly, the cars they produce. Just to name a few, Mercedes-Benz,
BMW, Volkswagen, Porsche, Opel and Audi. Some of these are, I think, the best
cars in the world. Sorry people I am not really into cars, so I can’t provide
much information, but in general I would say that I’ve seen too many Mercedes and
BMW and VW here, until I got numb… Secondly, the Autobahn (highway) in Germany.
 Highways are free of charge (toll-free!),
2 to 3 lanes, which means you can see 4 to 6 lanes from both directions (certain autobahns are up to 5 lanes!), and the most interesting
part of it – without speed limit (only when you see the derestriction sign, as shown below)!

My
personal experience as a passenger in Vik’s company car – 230
km/p! Well, it was fun, but you need really good and straight highways to drive
up to that speed, else it will be extremely dangerous.

Other than
that, the Germans are also famous with their sausages (Frankfurters) and beer
(it is so cheap that it is better to drink beer than water!) Ohhh and not to
forget the Schweinshaxe (knuckle of pork) and Sauerkraut (pickled sour cabbage),
these are the classic German dishes. 

I
personally love the Weißwurst (white sausage), I can eat it even without
mustard :p  Unfortunately I’ve never
tried the famous black forest cake here. I am not sure if it is really
originated from Germany, but I assume it is, as Black Forest (Schwarzwald) is a
mountain area here in the southern part of Germany. And talking about the Black
Forest, it reminds me of what my German language teacher told me once –Hansel
and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood could have came from this forest! I bet
my teacher was just joking with us about that, yet I am really thankful to her,
as she also taught me that those fairy tales were told by two great story
tellers – the Brother Grimms, who were Germans! The truth is, all my life I’ve thought that Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Rapunzel
were American or English! Well they were not, what a great discovery!

Now that we
know that the Brother Grimms were Germans, you might be thinking – anymore
famous Germans out there whom I should know? Hmmm, let’s do a little experiment
here (no cheating, be true to yourself ya…) Was Adolf Hitler a German? What
about Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, van Gogh and Goethe? Sigmund Freud, Erik
Erikson, Martin Luther, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx and Konrad Adenauer? Claudia
Schiffer and Arnold Schwarzenegger? :p

Ok, think
once, think twice… here are the answers: Germans – Beethoven, Bach, Goethe,
Erik Erikson, Martin Luther, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Konrad Adenauer, and Claudia
Schiffer. Happy with the answers? No, Hitler was not a German (I know he was
famous throughout Germany because of the history he created), he was an
Austrian, and the same goes to Mozart, Sigmund Freud and Arnold. Vincent van
Gogh was a Dutch.

Ok, I’ve written quite a lot and I need to
stop now. Coming up next I will blog about my experience with the Germans, the
culture and the interpersonal relationships. Your comments are welcomed! Hugs!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 3:33 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.