Kultur vier

I thought the Illogical Logic article was short but very funny. In America people usually know what you are talking about when asking a question even if you are not specific. I sometimes don't pay great attention to detail so I actually laughed out loud picturing myself buying a train ticket and showing up at the wrong time.
The article on public transportation and the honor system was also very interesting. I love how Germany is all about the honor code, sometimes I feel that our country lose sight of that and values a while ago. Reading this this article I feel as though it would be very embaressing to get called out infront of an entire bus of Germans. They don't seem like the most pleasant people when they are angry.
The Two-Wheeled Teutons article makes me want to live in a city in Germany because I love biking and exercising. What better way to get to work or school by riding your bike, and it will be in a nice open path. The bikers in Ann Arbor annoy me so much because they are always in the way an cutting people off. I think Ann Arbor should make a bike path just for bikers to get to class. I remember when i went to New York City there was a bike path and it was so nice to see everyone outside riding bikes without interupting traffic.

Kultur

I think it is very interesting that Germany has so many bike paths (and some even with their own traffic lights). By implementing these bike paths Germany is reducing the number of cars on the road and reduces the countries reliance on gasoline. I think that having bikes to rent is good idea especially for tourists that are interested in going to a lot of locations. I thought the article how crossing the street without the correct crossing sign was quite funny. Especially here in Ann Arbor, everyone jumps out in front of cars all along the streets, so I can imagine Germans would cringe if they were to see Ann Arbor. I am interested to see if a lot of Germans do actually abide by the "little red man" though! I didn't really understand the article about selling the German train tickets. Why would ticketing agent sell you a ticket for a train when it isn't supposed to be used for that train. It seems quite ridiculous on the ticketing agents part. I also found it extremely interesting that the subway operates on the honor system. Although I can't imagine a ticket for the subway would be that expensive if it operates on the honor system most of the time. Overall, I think it is interesting how Germany offers transportation. While more public transportation and bike paths are ideal for most people, I think the United States is far too big to be able to implement systems like this except in cities. Also reading about nudity in Germany was pretty strange. While I can imagine they don't see too many problems, I inherently see this as very wrong and would feel incredibly awkward if I visited a nude location.

Kultur 4

The article about the bike paths made me think about how some people say that when you're in a car you hate pedestrians, when you're walking you hate cars, but everyone hates people on bikes. I think nice bike paths like the ones they talked about would be really beneficial, especially if a lot of people ride their bikes places. I know at home the bikers ride on the side of the road and never follow the normal road rules and I'm always afraid I'm going to accidentally hit someone. You really have to watch out for the people that bike on this campus too! The article about stopping for pedestrians definitely reminded me of Ann Arbor. People here just walk into the road and assume that all of the cars will stop for them, and people never seem to wait for the crosswalk signal. I guess when I came here I was naive and always waited until the signal changed, but now I think I've started walking like the people who have lived here for a long time. It's funny that people over there and very strict about waiting for the crosswalk signal. I've never really been to a big city where I had to take public transportation, but I hear a lot of stories. The article about the bus tickets makes it sound that much more confusing, and it seems like it would be hard for a tourist that hasn't traveled much to find their way.

Kultur 4

When I went to Germany I did notice that there were a lot of rent a bike areas and I was very tempted to rent one, but we only stayed in each city for about a day so it was kind of pointless and I didn’t really know how it worked. But I did not notice the bike lanes, nor did I get rung at or yelled at. I don’t really remember what I did for pedestrian lights but I usually just follow what the crowd is doing. But the subways I do remember. I kept thinking to myself, why don’t I just get on without a ticket. Of course my mom and I got a ticket, but we were never told to show our ticket. That is probably the most interesting thing about Germany. We had so much trouble just figuring out the machines for the train stations. I don’t think there were many people to ask either. Actually I remember this one lady who helped us to get to where we were going. I guess she knew we were tourists. About naked people though, we were told about the naked gardens, I think in Berlin, but I didn’t see any naked people at all. So I think things must be changing and people are not so open about their bodies now, and I mean, I did go in Summer, so it wasn’t that cold. I guess I wasn’t looking hard enough.

Kultur 4

When i have read the kultur articles in the past, i have agreed with them and noticed the same things that the articles talk about. This set of articles was different. I was surprised by the first article because i never saw people riding around on bikes. Maybe it was because i was in a really hilly city, but i tried to think back about it and i honestly don't think i saw any bikes the whole time i was there. A couple of the articles that i really liked was the one about crossing the street and the one about a free ride because i had experiences with both of those things when i was there. Being from a city close to Ann Arbor i have grown up with the idea that you can basically cross the street anytime you want no matter what the sign says. This is very different in Germany and for good reason. I remember trying to cross the street and my german friend pulled me back and said "we don't do that!" and a second later, a car flew past. I realized that the streets are much more dangerous in Germany even if there isn't a car coming that you can see. My other experience was on the bus. I too thought about not punching my ticket and asked my friend about it and she said that they didn't do that either because of the people that would periodically check tickets. We only had this happen once but it was pretty scary even though we did have the right, punched tickets because the people were rude and did kick people off that didn't have the right ticket.