Kultur2

   While reading the article about the complaining Germans I thought about this guy I met at MSU a few months ago. A friend of mine works at the physics lab at MSU and I was in there talking to some guys I had met previously about what their experience was like working in the lab and in the scientific community. Two of the guys were German but the one who did that most talking was one of the most negative guys I had spoken with in a long time. He must have complained to me for a good half-hour about things ranging from salary, choice of research, the grant process, the types of students he had, to the future of science in general. After he got himself all worked up over everything he complained about (it seemed like this stuff had been boiling inside him just waiting for someone to ask him the right questions) he trotted off to his office. Another, less bitter, German physicist proceeded to tell me about how much he enjoyed his work and how he was enjoying pursuing new interests in the field of materials science. Oddly, these two guys share an office. Maybe Germans have a greater tendency to complain but the nice German physicist in my little story goes to show you that sometimes they are happy people as well.
    The staring Germans sounded like they might be interesting people. I admit to enjoying a good people watching session, you never know what you might catch. Do German creep on peoples' facebook pages more than we do? That might be hard to do. Going to the airport is the best for some staring action. I bet the old ladies who watch out the window to keep an eye on things would love a good making a little trip to the airport or train station to enjoy a nice coffee and get some watching done. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether or not someone is gawking at you or what is going on in their head when they're staring at you. Based on what I read in the articles for the Kultur2 I think I'm going to conclude that Germans are just people that are interested in things and analyzing them. People everywhere are interesting to watch and sometimes what you see makes you laugh, sometimes it can make you sick, and sometimes you just like what you see. This recent talk about Obama and reading these articles caused me to have a pretty good laugh when I saw this photo:

Sie haben einen schönen Hintern