Expat chatter

The Library, the Monk and the Sandals

The Library, the Monk and the Sandals – read by the author Brenda Arnold

“Take their books! They’re useless propaganda. Get rid of them!”

This actually happened. “Duh,” you’re thinking, “everybody knows how the Third Reich banned books.”

Not so fast. This did take place in Germany, but I’m not talking about the book burning of the Nazis. They didn’t invent openly regressive politics. This event occurred during the secularization of 1802/1803, a historical development that had drastic consequences. Including for books.

The 400-year-old Marketing Flop You’ve Never Heard Of

26 August 2021

The 400-year-old Marketing Flop You’ve Never Heard of read by Brenda Arnold

They told me in college that marketing was invented in the U.S. The industrial revolution had produced a surplus of goods. Suddenly, stuff needed to be made more attractive to find buyers. Marketed.

The whole idea of marketing is associated with modern times. Medieval shoemakers weren’t worried about customers, nor were blacksmiths concerned about not selling their horseshoes. Unless there was a famine and nobody in the village had any money to buy anything, in which case they had bigger problems anyway.

Get those escargots out of my lawnmower

The one thing missing from your Blame the French list

11 August 2021

Get those escargots out of my lawnmower – read by the author Brenda Arnold

The list of French innovations impacting Anglo-Saxon culture has no end. To wit, there are no fewer than four words in this last sentence that the Normans brought along with them across the English Channel in 1066. A little perk included in the saddlebags of William the Conqueror, so to speak. While his minions spread across the country crying “Payez vos taxes!” they were also sowing Latin-based words via Norman French. I can guess one of the first words that English peasants learned when they realized what had befallen them: merde.

Give us our daily bread, but please let it be German

Read by the author Brenda Arnold

2021 August 2

A good friend of mine recently returned to the U.S. after several years’ absence.

“Watch out!” I warned him. “You’re going to have reverse culture shock!”

All those huge cars, jammed highways and overfriendly people. It’s a bit scary after you’ve been gone for a while.

“Take it easy!” I said. “Don’t let it scare you. You’ll get used to it again, I promise!”

Vaccination Fascination

25 July 2021

Read by Brenda Arnold

A strange thing has set upon us. Suddenly, we’re all doctors. Better yet, we’re virologists. At least you’d think so listening to the conversations around you.

Small talk used to revolve around topics such as “How are the kids?” or “How’s work?” Ha! Those were the days. Little did we know how good we had it, having the luxury of discussing such mundane things as your offspring, work and the latest annoying construction site on the beltway and how your commute is stressing you out.

The Prussian Rock Star in my Wardrobe

18 July 2021

The Prussian Rock Star in my Wardrobe read by Brenda Arnold

Many people have been using their downtime from the pandemic to tackle long-delayed projects like sort through closets. After years of accumulating, the clothes have become packed to the point of being barely extractable. You have to fight to pull out that blouse and when you do manage to free it from the morass, it bears the imprint of the buttons from the neighboring jacket. Little by little, the clothing has gotten swallowed up in the quicksand of overabundance, sometimes disappearing for years.

Grave Thoughts Indeed – Part 4 – The Oktoberfest

26 May 2021

(Click here for parts 1, 2 and 3)

Grave Thoughts Indeed — Oktoberfest. Read by Brenda Arnold

Munich is known first and foremost for its annual Volksfest that attracts six million visitors from around the world, a number that makes you question its “folksiness” – but whatever. Tracing its roots takes you back to – where else? – the Alter Südfriedhof (the old cemetery in Munich). Many of the institutions associated with this sprawling, brawling two-week party took shape under the leadership of men buried right here.

Grave Thoughts Indeed – Part 3 – Royal rollicking and frolicking

The Alter Südfriedhof dates to the 14^th century, but most of its graves tell the tale of Munich’s movers and shakers from the 1800s, a time when the city’s population doubled. More people meant more buildings, streets and institutions. But this was also an era that saw one of Munich’s most famous scandals involving its king, one which left traces here in this cemetery.

How war shaped the Alter Südfriedhof

Grave Thoughts Indeed – Part 2

Small German towns have monuments to the dead of the two world wars, sometimes combined into one, with all the names of the locals who died. The Alter Südfriedhof has no such monuments or graves. But war left its impact nonetheless, beginning with one that came centuries before.

Grave Thoughts Indeed – How War Shaped the Alter Südfriedhof, read by Brenda Arnold

World Wars – the prequel

Long before the twentieth century, another conflict raged across Europe so deadly that it too is sometimes referred to as a “world war”: The Thirty Years’ War.

Grave Thoughts Indeed

To take a stroll through the Alter Südfriedhof cemetery in Munich is to revisit its history. Pestilence and death, war, aristocratic scandals – even the Oktoberfest are all written into the epitaphs of people who shaped the city. It feels like the who’s who of Bavaria are all buried in this one spot (though by no means all of them are). In this four-part series – yes, four – I will reveal some of the most intriguing stories behind the stones. The history of the cemetery, as you will see, reflects the history of both the city and society at large.