Author: Amanda
Dear Readers, Grandmother, I have returned from my trip abroad in which I traveled much of Germany and spent a few days in Austria. The trip was certainly an eye opener to the way our cultures differ, giving me a new perspective on my own. One of the things I loved in Germany was how common it was to take your dog with you wherever you went. Dogs could follow their owner into the train station, the mall, even restaurants, and the well behaved and trained dogs, as many of them were, didn’t require a leash. It made me miss our dog Casey very much who gets to come to work with us.
Another interesting aspect was how they handled their signage. In many of the villages trying to maintain their rustic appeal, banners were made out of a hemp material with their lettering dyed in. In other areas where they had old buildings, (200 or 500 years old) they used a sort of wallpaper material they would paste on the wall. Regular banners or large scale advertisements were reserved for the train stations or more modern built sides of town.
Of course there are special occasions that would be exceptions to this. During my travels I happened to stumble across an open air concert held in Konigsplatz, Munich. Which is an open ground area between three roman looking buildings that date back to early 1800’s. The concert was brimming with people, but the grass was never disturbed as black tarp mats were set across the grounds first. Scaffold stages were erected on the steps of each building to help put on an amazing light show without blocking the view of the architecture of the building, and banners were hung along it’s sides. It was an amazing display of modern and ancient brought together, and by the end of the next day everything was restored to how it had looked before the show.