Wet and cold aside, @Lurius, from what I've seen in pictures your home country is absolutely beautiful and only has about 7% of the population of Germany---I'd love to live in a place with so much breathing space...
Tinnitus Talk Support Forum
@Lurius I'm beginning to think you're a tourism agent who promotes Norway in a positive way on a random tinnitus forum, and I have to admit: it's working! Must be a Valhalla of serenity for people with tinnitus/hyperacusis who want to evade the urban chaos of 24/7 ongoing noise.
@Leila Yeah, there seems to be a lot of interest for cities in the former DDR. Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin and Halle an der Saale are popular destinations for Dutch tourists. Socialist urban planning with historical sites is very unique in Europe. You're so lucky to have such beautiful cities.
Haha, you're right about that. It's seems to be a universal saying. Here, we'd say: het gras is altijd groener aan de overkant
None of the stuff I said about Norway was meant as something positive xD
I think so, too, @Christiaan, and I love how things changed for the better over the course of the years. We used to have friends in East Germany and I remember visiting them during DDR times when everything looked triste and pretty much the same. It's amazing how beautiful everything is now and how much pride the people take in their homes and hometowns.
I'm pretty sure Christiaan is teasing you, @Lurius :) The true culprits who're luring us towards the north are @Exit with his sad bird pics and @MindOverMatter with his amazing nature shots...
Oh @Lurius. You're such a buzzkill;)
@Leila Too bad your friends aren't around in East Germany anymore, if I understand it correctly. I hope you'll find a reason to revisit it again. Have you ever watched Goodbye Lenin? It's a super beautiful movie! I watched this movie in German class and had to write an essay about Ostalgie.
Is there still a thing between the Ossis and the Wessis? Or just an old generational thing? We sort of had the same geographical division here religion wise: catholic south vs. protestant north. At least, we had a so called ''pillar'' society until progressive politics came into play in the '60s.
Nope, our friends are still there and we've been back and forth ever since it's been possible. It was quite emotional to have them visit us for the first time.
Yeah, Good Bye Lenin! is a total classic. And Ostalgie is still a thing, even in Wessis, if they are old enough to have lived during that particular period of time.
Yeah, Good Bye Lenin! is a total classic. And Ostalgie is still a thing, even in Wessis, if they are old enough to have lived during that particular period of time.
I love my DDR-Brötchen and did the dance of joy when an Ossi Bäcker posted his recipe online. There are other things, too, of course, because not everything DDR has been bad...
I didn't realise there used to be a religious "split" in the Netherlands. Did it cause trouble the way it caused / causes in Northern Ireland? Or was it more that people of a feather preferred to cluck together and that was it?
I didn't realise there used to be a religious "split" in the Netherlands. Did it cause trouble the way it caused / causes in Northern Ireland? Or was it more that people of a feather preferred to cluck together and that was it?
@Leila Great to hear you still have the same old friends in the neuen Länder. Your close ties with them is the brick and mortar that keeps Germany together:p
Alright, so the Wessis have their own kind of Westalgie. That's very interesting
Alright, so the Wessis have their own kind of Westalgie. That's very interesting
Yeah, I do agree that DDR culture also has quite some positive things to offer. I've never heard of DDR bread, but one thing that I do notice here is that Trabant cars are still very popular. In fact, I know a guy who owns one
Luckily, we have never experienced something like 'The Troubles' around here. It's more like being part of an exclusive club, as you mentioned. Every political/religious group had its own butcher, school, university and more of that ilk. My country was basically divided in socialist, liberal, protestant and catholic 'micro' communities until the era of flower power politics/culture finally put an end to that.
We probably have our Westalgie, too, but I actually meant Ostalgie. As I said, they had some really great things and because of our friends we got to experience them, too. I've still got quite a lot of Ossi children's books tucked away at my dad's. My "gran" used to send them because we both loved reading, and they were brilliant.
Did you know everybody entering DDR territory had to exchange 25DM / day? And for your 25DM you'd get 100 Ostmark which you weren't allowed to take back with you on exit. We'd just leave it with our friends and my dad and some of his buddies got arrested once for trying to give his change to a bunch of elderly people while visiting Ostberlin.
Just to give you an example of what you could do with 100 Ostmark: a bread roll used to be 4 Ostpfennig a piece and all the other basics, too, were shockingly cheap.
Especially compared to post Euro inflation where prices, instead of halving just as our original money has, have doubled.
Especially compared to post Euro inflation where prices, instead of halving just as our original money has, have doubled.
@Leila . Ah alright. Do some of these books happen to be written by Bertold Brecht? I've heard that he was a major influence in the DDR and even beyond its borders.
No, I haven't heard of that 25DM/100 Ostmark story. I can imagine that life wasn't easy in many respects in the DDR, but, based on your description, it seems that the elderly especially were in dire straits.