Americans in Germany

If you are an American in Germany everyone tells you their opinion of the United States/American culture and politics whether you want to hear it or not. It must have to do with the tremendous influence the US has had on Germany since WWII. And the resentment/respect/indifference or any of the other multitude of feelings that describe the complicated American-German relationship. The Germans respond in this way only towards Americans. They don't comment to any other people no matter where they are from about their country's culture or politics.

Here are two recent examples that exemplify this. I've joined a community art center in Gmund that has 1/2 of a building in what used to be an American military base. It was a German base long before the Americans were there but nobody talks about that. In any case, the art center gets a certain amount of city support and offers incredibly cheap studio space to artists. There are about 23 or so artists who have studios there, working in every medium you can think of. I was there last Tuesday for the monthly meeting and a person who I met for the first time had two questions to ask: why would I live in Germany if I come from the US and if I was a member of the American military. Incredible questions I found.

I was at the physician today to talk about the results of a blood test taken as part of a normal yearly physical. This guy just came out and said that he liked Americans and found the US to be a beautiful country but that he didn't like the present government. This came out completely unprompted whether I cared about his opinion or not.