While there are, not entirely unexpectedly a couple of days before Christmas, quite a lot of Santa-inspired attempts to withdraw Dollars and Euros from bored transit passengers’ pockets – the Korean idea of “Santa” has not yet been assimilated by soft drink marketing. In South Korea – well, in the tiny part of South Korea I have now come to know – Santa is usually young, quite attractive (which implies the complete lack of Santa’s well known facial hair), wearing a green miniskirt and knee-high white leather boots.

I may be mistaken, but my guess is that over here there will be more 13 year old boys who still believe in Santa than at the North Pole.

Es gibt viele Vorurteile gegenüber dem Karneval in Brasilien – zu viel Sex, zu viele Drogen, zu viel Gewalt. Das meiste davon ist übertrieben, auch wenn es wohl stimmt, daß man zumindest im Norden von Rio nach 22 Uhr nicht an roten Ampeln halten sollte. Ich selbst habe mich weder in Rio noch in einer anderen brasilianischen Stadt unsicher gefühlt, auch wenn das vermutlich damit zusammenhängt, daß ich selten ohne meine ortskundigen Freunde unterwegs war.

Andererseits, zuviel Ortskenntnis könnte auch problematisch sein, wie die folgende Meldung auf Spiegel Online suggeriert. Tragisch, aber vielleicht hilft der zeitliche Zusammenhang mit dem Karneval das Bewußtsein für das Gewaltproblem in Rios Norden zu schärfen. Salgueiro wird dennoch “meine Schule” bleiben – wer einmal dort gefeiert hat, wird verstehen, wieso. Und ich war schon zweimal da…

Rio de Janeiro – “Es könnte eine Hinrichtung gewesen sein”, sagte ein Polizeisprecher. Etwa 20 Schüsse habe ein Unbekannter mit einem Sturmgewehr abgegeben, berichteten brasilianische Medien. Die Polizei wollte das nicht bestätigen. Der 40-jährige Vize-Leiter der Sambaschule Salgueiro, Guaracy Paes Falcao, war sofort tot. Auch seine Frau wurde erschossen. Bereits 2004 war der Bruder von Falcao ermordet worden. Als Hintergrund vermutet die Polizei einen Revierkampf im Glücksspiel-Milieu.

Vor Leonardo da Vincis Bildnis der jungen Frau drängte sich immer die größte Schar von Besuchern. “Das Gequassel der Menge tut richtig weh”, sagte ein Aufseher heute. … Und immer wieder müsse man das Fotografieren mit Blitzlicht unterbinden.

Man sollte allerdings auch bemerken, daß der Amüsationsfaktor angesichsts der anwesenden Massen dort ebenfalls am größten ist. Als ich Mona Lisa zum ersten Mal gegenüber trat, stand rechts von mir ein amerikanisches Paar, dessen Ehrgeiz, sich mit klassischer europäischer Kunst auseinander zu setzen, seinem Patriotismus keinen Abbruch tat. Und so identifizierte die Frau nach einiger Überlegung konsequent, was dem Bild Leonardos zur tatsächlichen Perfektion fehlt:

“Would have been better, had it been painted in America.”

Oh, before I forget: It was the first time I visited Bochum. And although I haven’t seen too much of it, Herbert Grönemeyer seems to be right to claim that is a better place to be than one usually thinks.

So on my way back to Stockholm airport, I saw a tall guy with an earpiece standing in the middle of a road I had to cross. Then the royal carriage appeared and King and Queen of Sweden passed on their way to the annual opening of the Swedish Parliamentary session. Not sure, but it appears to be something like the “Queen’s Speech” in Britain.

Remembering what GWB’s visit to my home town had been like in February this year – remmeber, people who lived close to the place where he met with Chancellor Schroeder had to pass the entire day behind closed curtains not to risk being shot by US secret service snipers on the next building – I was mostly surprised about the relative lack of royal intrusion in people’s lives.

Where Bush had 3 motorways closed as well as airplanes diverted, King and Queen came, greeted and went to the Parliament with amazing royal understatement – despite the impressive amount of cavalry accompanying them.

Last Friday, TWIG published a story about Germany becoming an important destination for nascent Chinese mass tourism – as Germany is the first Chinese-government-tourism-approved European country. A fact in itself somewhat contradicting the Financial Times’ Berlin correspondent who, according to another government sponsored article, can see Germany becoming

“‘the new France,’ a country where joie de vivre has not yet been unraveled by atrocious prices and the danger of airline strikes.

Claims like this always make me cite Elle Woods, the only person who can counter such statements on the appropriate level – “Whoever said that Orange is the new Pink was seriously disturbed”.

Now, Chinese masses tucking into Sauerkraut may not in itself be a sufficiently interesting subject for a mainly American audience. So no wonder, the article’s hook is something as famous in the US as it apparently is in China: the Geman Autobahn. I once had a vivid discussion with an American friend about the mythology of German motorways, while driving on an American one that is just as famous over here: Highway 66.

In the end, I wasn’t able to convince my friend that German highways are – for the most part – speed regulated. That most German cars aren’t Porsches, and that, while Michael Schuhmacher may be distorting the average, most Germans haven’t driven a car at 200+ km/h.

But then again, so much has been demystified about Germany that it might not be a bad thing to keep some legends alive… (whole story in the extended section).

Tourists flock to German autobahns

Thousands of Chinese tourists are flocking to Germany to satisfy their need for speed on the famed autobahn, the Times of London has reported.

Wealthy Chinese driving enthusiasts are paying nearly $4,000 to spend a week navigating German freeways, where speed limits are often merely recommended, as fast as a high-performance BMW, Mercedes or Audi can carry them.

“At weekends back home we go for drives,” one tourist told the Times. “But we all wanted to be able to say we had driven at high speeds on the German motorway system. They are very famous, mythical even.”

The driving vacations, offered by leading tour operator TUI and others, are part of a concerted effort to attract Chinese tour groups to Germany, which in 2003 became the first European country put on the Chinese government’s list of approved tourist destinations.

Since then, Chinese travellers have headed west to Germany in record numbers and now represent the third largest tourist nationality from abroad, with more than 120,000 visitors expected this year.

Many of those visitors are coming with full pockets and plans to hit the stores. The Chinese are estimated to spend more per capita while in Germany than travelers from any other country except for Russia.

Still, not everyone is pleased with the prospect of a Chinese invasion on Germany’s autobahns.

Safety advocates say that Chinese drivers are often ignorant of Germany’s rules of the road. They note that Chinese drivers have been spotted running red lights, tailgating and even committing the cardinal sin of traffic violations in Germany – passing on the right.

Tour operators admit that the finer points of driving etiquette are sometimes lost in translation, but deny that Chinese tourists constitute a traffic menace.

“Sometimes there are teething problems, like the Chinese not understanding that they are not permitted to stop at a roundabout or pulling off onto the shoulder to make tea and let the children run around,” a spokesperson for TUI told the Times. “But nothing serious.”

It’s -5 degrees at home. It’s snowing. In Rio, it’s 30 degrees. Sun’s shining. That’s about 1,5 degrees shift per hour for me until tomorrow evening.

Nonetheless, judging from the opinions those (not too many) Czech people held whom I talked to in Praque, a lot of the 3,48 million votes in favour of EU membership seem to have been cast not out of any European enthusiasm but due to the realisation that a small country like the Czech Republic is bound to be severely affected by whatever the EU decides – with or without any influence on the inside. Quite apart from the additional legal and political problems resulting from Czech and German politicians’ handling of the Benes-factor in the run up to the accession treaty, they expressed a lot of fear regarding the possible surrender of velvet-revolution-acquired democracy to some intransparent bureaucratic complex in Brussels.

I found this rather surprising given that most of those who shared this opinion with me are very unlikely to remember their life before the velvet revolution in colour – if they remember the revolution itself, I suppose must be a consequence of tv coverage interruppting regular kids afternoon progamming…

Thus, it is difficult for me to judge if they are really afraid of subjecting themselves to an unaccountable technocracy or if the ‘giving up what we fought for’ argument is not in fact a politically correct way of expressing nationstate-centric reservations against the European project. Clearly, the velvet revolution as well as the peaceful separation from Slovakia in 1994 has allowed young Czechs to recently develop a stronger national identity than was conceivable in the formrt pseudo-internationalist totalitarian regime. When my Prague Castle architectural tour guide, a young female history of arts student, talked about the “Czech” national revival at the end of the 19^th century on Sunday morning before briefly mentioning the referendum, the subtext was obvious to everyone present – she was actually alluding to the national revival at the end of the 20^th century – and the fear of losing her national and cultural identity, of being assimilated.

She voted in favour, she said – because she is hoping for EU cash for her art projects and because of – resistance-is-futile – assumed inevitability.

She, like most others I talked to this weekend, may be right about the project’s inevitability. But can this be enough for those who believe in the European cause? Hardly. They will have to continue to fight for the new members’ heart. And we all know that John Lennon, a graffiti of whom became a revolutionary rallying point in Prague, was absolutely right about this – “money can’t buy you love”.

So let’s hope that paid-for cohabitation is only the beginning. Again – welcome in the EU, guys!

Anyway, even though this blog is only “almost a diary” and I am actually a bit in a hurry to leave Freedom with the next available train, I feel obliged to write something about meeting the lovely Gentry Lane in Paris yesterday for I discovered that a few hundred of you, my gentle readers, are reading these lines because Gentry told you to read about Young Werther’s plans to rule the world (which, by the way, do not actually exist – just to reassure possible readers from various intelligence services – I’m not trying to capture your market. Neither do I wear blue and yellow suits or regularly threaten girls to kill myself if they do not kiss me…).

Well, I am only too happy to corroborate her claim of looking ten years younger – even though I never thought she looked ten years older. And the German word for “lucky panties” is, of course, “Gluecksbringende Schluepfer”, which in some way, does sound like an oxymoron, in my opinion…

So for once, there is a real reason for importing an anglicism into “The Awful German Language“, which, quite honestly, is not all that awful after all. Just ask Gentry.

I suppose it was pretty tough to write this article. You can literally sense how the evident editorial intention to publish yet another “peaceful American tourists tortured to death by mad and naked European pacifists”-peace made the newspaper’s European correspondents look desperately for something anti-American to write about. Their effort wasn’t too successful, even if you insist to count Bush-policy discussions as anti-American torture, as the article indicates -

“‘I am certain that a number of American visitors will be asked about the U.S. administration’s policy on Iraq. But if indeed there have been some unpleasant encounters, I strongly believe that they are few and far between,’ says Patrick Goyet, vice chairman of the European Travel Commission in New York. ‘Furthermore, speaking as a European and for the vast majority of my fellow Europeans, I consider any such behavior idiotic and embarrassing.’”

Period.

But the best part of the article is a bullet point list by Bruce McIndoe, CEO of iJet Travel Intelligence that tells American tourists how to behave when in Rome. Well, we all know what the obvious answer is, but let’s have a more detailed look at Mr McIndoe’s propositions.

Avoid American fast-food restaurants and chains.

Believe it or not, but McDonald’s and their competitors do not just cater American tourists in Europe. Like it or not, the deconstruction of traditional European eating habits is advancing rapidly, even in France, although they don’t like to talk about it for cultural and marketing reasons. So Starbucks has just announced to open more than 200 branches in Germany. And I had my last McBurger last Monday night. Remember “Pulp Fiction“? It was a “Royal With Cheese” – basically the same, but with subtle, metric, differences.

Keep discussions of politics to private places, not rowdy bars.

Well, it’s never a good idea to go to a rowdy bar anyway, if you aren’t a cowboy yourself. I seriously wonder what kind of etablissement Mr McIndoe had in mind here. What exactly are “rowdy bars”? There are hardly any cheap-western-movie-style saloons in Europe, should that be of any help. But wait, he might be concerned about the significant amount of Irish and English Pubs where it’s definitely a lot easier for American tourists to talk to Europeans as most interaction is in English….

Take a rain check on wearing clothes featuring American flags or sports team logos.

Damn. I just bought one of those Ralph Lauren US-flagged sweaters and I am not even American. And I did not even buy it for any ideological reason. And when I recently wore it during a generally leftist (read: European left, not its kinder, gentler, liberal US cousin) theatre company’s performance I was actually a bit stunned that no one cared at all. Seriously, the American flag is not something only Americans would wear in public in Europe.

The same goes for baseball caps or university logoed sweaters. If all the Germans who wear Georgetown or Harvard sweaters with Yankee baseball caps actually knew those universities and had any real idea about the baseball team whose logo they promote, Germany would have certainly fared a lot better in last year’s international secondary education assessment. But I will tell you, should I ever feel safer not wearing my Ralph Lauren sweater.

Keep your passport out of sight.

Indeed a good idea. But mostly because it really is a hassle to get a temporary one abroad.
Keep cameras, video equipment and maps tucked away.

Right – very interesting point. Sure, there are places where its safer not to be to easily identifiable as a tourist. Just like in Miami, a few years ago, remember? So this is good advice for all tourists if they choose to visit places they should rather not. But if this is an advice specifically aimed at Americans in Europe it does come across a tad bit arrogant – there are cameras and video equipment in Europe. We also have mobile phones, T-mobile hotspots and even ones with at affordable rates…

Soften your speech; Americans typically overshadow their hosts in the volume department.”

This, I have to agree, is partly useful advice. Some American tourists do overshadow almost everyone in the volume department. That is particularly true for shrieking female undergraduate students. Strangely though, it does not hold at all for all the Americans I know personally…

I wonder what Mr McIndoe’s ideas for blending in in the US would be? Maybe you, my gentle readers do have some suggestions?

Covers usually do transmit a significant amount of information about the book’s content. But we also know that looks can deceive, especially concerning human beings. That’s why the headline of this entry can be quite handy: it reminds us to remain open to the fact that the information we receive by decoding the cover does not necessarily convey the correct social rules of interaction. So we have to remain vigilant.

In Amsterdam looks are sometimes almost as deceptive as the fly-over-country-bank featured in Michael Moore’s latest film, Bowling for Columbine. You think it’s just a bank. But it’s actually a bank – and a licensed gun store. In Amsterdam, where a large portion of GDP is made by directly following the idea of making love, not war, people don’t buy guns. They buy porn.

And that’s exactly why you should be careful about looks. A lot of souvenir shops in Amsterdam are conventional souvenir shops only on the outside, featuring the usual displays of postcards, t-shirts and disposable cameras. Inside, their range of products features a slightly different kind of ‘typical’ Amsterdam memorabila.

The kind labelled with a significant number of Xs…

Most of the times and in most of the countries I have ever been, asking if someone I want to talk to in English is able to speak is not only a matter of politeness and respect but the most natural thing to do as not everybody will actually be able to speak English.

But in the Netherlands, things are slightly different. When I ordered coffee (and yes, it *was* coffee) in Amsterdam on Saturday, I suddenly wondered whether it is actually more impolite to ask if a salesperson does speak English than not to ask, as asking does imply the assumption the person could not be *able* to speak English in a country (ok, I’m in Amsterdam, not in Gouda) in which everyybody speaks English.

When I asked some Dutch people at a party what their preference would be, the result was mixed. Some prefer to be asked, some don’t. Should you now ask me for a generalised recommendation, I would say – don’t ask, but be *very* polite in language and tone.

Given the special nature of the service sector in this town, there are a lot of impolite English speaking people on the streets. They, too, will get their coffee, of course. But they won’t get the waitress’s smile. And seriously, given the temperatures here this weekend, such a smile can provide life-saving warmth.

I am sure this has happened to all of you who have used a German train in the last 10 years: The one time that you hope a train will actually be five minutes late, as they usually are, it is on time and you miss it because this one time only you’re not on time – as you usually are.

Usually you have to wait for trains. And you do wait. All the time. Wasting days of valuable lifetime on a random platform earning money for the operating company by watching the advertisments they put on for entertainment. But does that mean the one train that arrives on time train would actually consider waiting for you (or even those suctomers who (for good reason) usually add five minutes to the time indicates on the timetable? Only a minute? Only once?

Certainly not. So now I’ll have to wait for two hours (and 10 additional minutes, as usual), which is how this entry came about.

But as a teaser, I have a lot of things to talk about next week. Stay tuned.

Bonn is scary. For those of you, gentle readers, who don’t remember, whqt Bonn is, here my brief executive summary: Bonn is a medium sized city situated on the left bank of the Rhine river, south of Cologne. But far more mportant than what Bonn is, is what Bonn was – the Capital of the Federal Rpublic of German (until 1991) and seat of the German Government (until 1999). I was there for the last time on the 27th fo September 1998. That was the day when Kohl was voted out, and Schroeder became Chancellor; that was in a time gone by, a time in which Bonn was the center of German politics.

When I jogged through the squre lile of doll-house-like abandoned I somehow sensed for the first time how much has changed since then. Actually, Germqn politics have not changed a lot, to be honest. But the atmosphere has. The difference cqn really be summarised in the difference between Bonn and Berlin. Just a few meters from the former Bundestag building there is well done museum about post WWII German history, the “Haus der Geschichte”.

And while it is not actually about Bonn, it somehow was. And while I think the permanent exhibition is going to be expanded as time moves on, it somehow feels indicative that the exhibition “current challenges” ends with the government moving to Berlin. History has left Bonn. It is now being made somewhere else. And Bonn is hurt by this probably more than by the governmental exodus (for which the town is being generously compensated).

Webcam viev of Ground Zero.

I hate it to write entries twice. The first version of this one was killed in the lovely Apple Falgship Store in Soho earlier this afternoon by my failure to honour the subtle differences in operating OS X (Ctrl & C resp. V on a PC is Apple & C resp. V on a Mac – you better keep that in mind…). So here we go again.

Today, on the way to the Staten Island Ferry I went to see Ground Zero. I wonder how many pictures of construction sites I had taken until today. The answer is probably – none. The construction site is massive. But if you’d take away some of the surrounding buildings built after the WTC, the pictures I took today would probably look quite similar to those taken during the early stages of the Trade Centre’s initial construction back in the 1970s. A visitor from outer space would certainly not understand why thousands of people would be lining this particular construction site at any given time. But everyone living on this planet knows why they honour the thousands of innocent people who either jumped or were buried under countless tons of concrete, steel and broken glass when the twin towers crumbled after being hit by two planes hijacked by Al Quaeda terrorists, on September, 11th, 2001. Everyone living on this planet knows what happenend, what was there and what is no longer.

But isn’t it interesting that empty space can mean so much? Isn’t it good to know that the meaning people attribute to the New York’s deep scar is much stronger than that of the supposed incarnation of materialism could have possibly been?

At Ground Zero, there’s a billboard attached to the scaffolding of one of the surrounding buildings. It says something like ‘the importance of things is not the size of the act, but the size of the heart’. Normally, that’s nothing but a cheesy line. But to those standing there, it does mean something. And to them, it’s true. But then, somewhere in the Middle East, there will probably be another billboard. Stating the same cheesy line or – the same truth. Next to a picture of Mohammed Atta.

And while it’s obvious who’s right and who’s wrong when you’re standing on Cortland Street – if this world can’t solve it’s bad case of heartache, it does not take much to predict that many more innocent people are going to die.