Germany is a desert concerning trance music. It is hardly ever played at clubs, parties and at radio stations. Electro and Minimal rule this country while Trance is big in wide parts of the world like Scandinavia, Eastern Europe or Great Britain. As a result there are not many DJs or labels from Germany that release good quality trance tracks. Tracks in my last “shopping bag” cause hope at my side though that something is changing.

While Paul van Dyk (from Berlin) is not really producing any pure trance tracks anymore – his new releases could be seen as pop music in my view, his label Vandit Records improves by releasing more and more decent trance tracks. Newest example is “Who’s in charge” by Polish DJ Adam Kancerski.

Probably one of the best German trance releases in recent times is the Ferrin & Low Remix of “Deep Impact” by Discodyne.

Good examples that show that there might be coming much more good trance tracks from this country? I hope so.

On my list of states in Germany that I haven’t visited so far there are a few left, one of them was Thuringia. This state in the middle of Germany didn’t see me so far since it is pretty far away from Berlin. Almost summerlike weather was announced for thursday so I took my chance to go there. Thuringia has a lot of interesting sights, the practical thing about them is that if you take the Autobahn 4 many of those are just right at it with just a few miles distance in between them. I started at the furthest point away and stopped at the closer cities afterwards.

Eisenach – Wartburg: In the hitlist of old castles in Germany, the Wartburg surely will take its place in the Top 3. Not only because this building is situated in a nice landscape but also because of its historical meaning. Martin Luther translated the new testament into German here, students demonstrated for a united german country at the Wartburgfest in the 19th century etc. etc.

Before arriving at the castle the visitor has some obstacles to overcome. When I came to the parking lot I first thought I am paying the entrance fee to the castle already since they demanded 4 euros just for my car to be parked here. What followed was a long and steep walk upstairs to the Wartburg. I would have thought, that, once we drove up on a narrow street including some serpentines the castle was in reach but that was wrong. The view of the building and the magnificent overview of the Thuringia landscape around it was worth all the climbing though.

Baumkronenpfad: Nationalpark Hainlich

My wife saw a documentary about this place a while ago. In a natural preserve, meaning a big forest not man made, a few hundred meter long walkway was created high up at the level of the treetops finishing at an observation deck in a tower. Again, we had to climb a lot of stairs. Read the rest of this entry »

Watching a german comedian on tv who pretends to be funny I realize again what a wasteland german tv is for people that come from Britain or the US whose tv programs actually have some really funny shows. If you do understand german you will desperatly search for a good laugh at the channels here but won’t find hardly any. Your options are these: Either you watch american sitcoms badly dubbed taking away much of the atmosphere and wit that these shows had in the original version or you watch german productions – basically none of them being funny at all. There is something on with a guy called Bastian Pastewka desperatly trying to copy Larry David (the Seinfeld Creater) and his “Curb your enthusiasm” show forgotting that he might have some talent but he is not like Larry David at all and the writers of the show lack completely of inspiration. If you wanna watch something that is copied but not as bad as that then watch “Stromberg”, a mediocre copy of the british “The Office”.

So, what’s left? You can either watch tv entertainer Harald Schmidt who sometimes has very funny and sarcastic statements or watch one of the many repetitions of ancient Loriot tv shows. Truly of the best comedians Germany has. Sadly, he doesn’t produce new stuff anymore.

Dear visitors of Berlin,

Almost the whole year through up to now we we freezing our lower backs off. The weather was constantly yucky and even late may or beginning of june there were some regions in Germany where it almost started to snow again. This was unacceptable for the World Cup so we ordered some good and warmer weather. And what can we say? It is being delivered punctually. You guys can leave your thick clothes at home. So, enjoy your stay here.

Get ready for some decent country music from Germany, Europe! As voted yesterday the band “Texas Lightning” will take part in the Eurovision Song Contest and they will sing in english, playing some authentic american country music. If the Eurovision Song Contest was about electing the best song, Texas Lightning would have very good chances, since its pretty inventive – I guess no country before had some country music – and it’s a nice song too. But the contest is not about that.

Since the election method was changed years ago and every citizen of the countries taking part can call up and vote the competition is basically about people voting for the neighbouring countries. So, every year the same thing happens: The baltic countries help each other, the scandinavian countries give each other the most points and so on.

Now, the problem is, hardly anybody likes Germany, not even it’s neigbouring countries. So, only a few or no points from Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands etc. Thats why it was not possible for Germany to get some good results during all the contests in the last years. So, in a way it does not matter, how good the german song is this time, it won’t win anyways.

And then there are those people who were shaking their heads over backward USA everytime when the hurricanes came and many people were without power. How could this happen in a country that probably considers itself as the technical most advanced country in the world? Unbelievable!

Now, it might be correct that Germany’s powersystem is more advanced having the power lines underground in towns and cities and such power outages happen very seldom. But that they do happen shows a recent power outage caused by the onset of winter in the western parts of Germany. Hundred thousands of people were right away without power and not because of a hurricane but “just” because 50 centimers (about 19 inches) of snow that came down in a short amount of time. The weight of the snow caused big iron overland poles to crack.

And even worse – in this industrialized country it was not possible to repair things completely so far since the snow came down before the weekend. While many people have power again, others are waiting in this cold weather.

Since I experienced Halloween in both countries – the US and Germany – here is how this day is celebrated in both countries:

Halloween in the US:
Children, about 3 – 11 years old, are walking through the streets with their brothers and sisters, usually accompanied by their parents. They are dressed pretty inventive and ring at doors of neighbours whose houses are decorated in a nice “halloweeny” way. After saying their trick or treat slogan the neigbours give them lots of different sweets.

Halloween in Germany:
Already days before Halloween itself – preferably at the weekend before – teenagers hold big halloween parties where they drink a lot, as much as they anyways drink at any other party that they usually have at the weekends – the reasons do not really matter – just this time a few of them at least wear some halloween-makeup.
On halloween itself basically 14 – 20 year old people walk around carrying and drinking alcoholics, only a few of them are wearing the typical customs or makeup. The few younger children that are out too are intimidated by the older children or teenagers. The older ones ring at the doors, no slogan of course and if somebody does not open the door – which happens very often because many people don’t even know about Halloween or the traditions connected with that – a ballon filled with water lands in the mailbox or paintballs are thrown against the wall of the house.

Please, Germany, if you copy customs from different countries then copy them correctly.

It is sunday and that is the perfect day to write some words about the “Ladenschlussgesetz” – the “you have to have your shop closed at certain times law” – one of the oddest things about Germany. While it forbids to have your shop open after 8 pm on working days – which is stupid – it forbids to have your shop open at all on sundays – which is also stupid.
The two main arguments against opening the shops on sundays are ridiculous:
Read the rest of this entry »