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The Best of Living in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Back in 2015, my family followed a call of God to ministry in Germany. You can read details about this whole process at our blog: martinfamilyinbavaria. In the six years since we’ve been here, we’ve gathered somee extensive experience with German life in and out of the Catholo-Pentecostal-Bubble, some gleanings of which I will now share in the form of the “best of living in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland”.
- We’re on a mission from God.
Really, we are. That’s why we’re in Bavaria. Augsburg is here, and the Gebetshaus Augsburg- Augsburg House of Prayer- is a key place we were called to.
Which means we spend a lot of time here, in the Gebetsraum, the Prayer Room:
This would be the prayer room at the Gebetshaus Augsburrg. We spend about ten hours in intercession there a week. Untortunately this photo was taken during the COVIC Panic of 2020-21, so the room is not nearly as full as usual on a weekday morning.
2. The landscape (Deutsch: Die Landschaft): Since we spend a lot of time communing with the author of all beauty, we also get out and enjoy the particular beauties of our home in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Such as:
The forest floor just outside of Neuschwanstein, about 70 minutes from the house we live in. Speaking of which, here’s the obligatory Neuschwanstein shot:
Here’s a picture of Hohenschwangau across the lake and down the hill from Neuschwanstein:
And here a shot from the so-called “Siebentischwald” in southeast Augsburg. Why “Woods of Seven Tables”? Because there was at one time a tavern with seven and only seven tables located there. The name stuck.
And below, the Allgäu region near the Austrian border.
As is this:
3. The food.Seriously,the food. 
Yes, I know, I’ve used this photo before. And this one, too:
That’s Döner, the lead competitor with the Breze (soft pretzel to you…hey, look! B –> P! It’s the Second Sound Shift! Hide the women and children! Call Arahant to warn him of excessive use of exclamation points!).
And the trout of Bavaria, I have mentioned before, but will mention again, here, because they are just that good. Here are the ones I made in our oven:
Then there are the baked goods. Like these:
“Krapfen”- which are these filled donut-like creations that come in a huge variety of flavors. The top one was filled with coffee cream; the bottom one with chocolate cream.
3. The Bier. Yes, it is amazing:
Yes, it’s an older photo. And it only shows one variety of Bier…there are many:
The real key in picking a good one, though, is this: Look for the Abbey or Monastery on the lable. All of the good stuff comes from places like Weihenstephaner, Kloster Scheyern, Kloster Oberschönenfeld, Barfüßler, even Franziskaner- these are the ones to look for. And it’s just better. Tradition counts. A brewery that’s been practicing the craft since …1048…1190…1489… hundreds of years, in any case, has a better mastery of the craft than those founded more recently. Which leads nicely into my last point…
4. History. And Art.
My daughter’s school is just a few hundred feet from a Benedictine Abbey founded in 969 on the site of an earlier church, which was founded on the site of a Roman military outpost. The house we live in is in part constructed on a site of a Napoleonic-Era monastery.
That’s Worms Cathedral, built in 1035. The city of Worms is the site of many key moments in German history. It is mentioned in Das Nibelungenelied and has been a locus of both the best and worst in German-Jewish history. Worms is one of the cities which was caught up in the awful pogroms of the 1st Crusade that began in 1096 and continued into 1097. The Jewish community recovered and eventually the synagoge in Worms became the seat of teaching for both Meir von Rothenburg in the 13th century and Raschi in the 17th. If was of course the locale of one of the best and worst moments in European history: The Diet of Worms, where Luther, pronounced his “Got kum mir zu hilf.” in the face of condemnation from the Emperor, the assembled princes and bishops.
And these are just a few of the elements that I go on about. The castles, museums, original artworks, architecture, great musical academies, combine to make the best of life in Germany by reminding us of the best elements of western civilization. I could stay on the topic for quite a long time, but the afternoon is getting on.
Published in Entertainment
Most of the pictures aren’t showing up.
And then there are the Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets) with Glühwein.
Weird. How many are having this problem with the pictures? I see them all clearly here.
Did you upload them, or link them? I don’t know how linking photos hosted elsewhere is supposed to work, or even if it does.
I uploaded most of them. Some I copied from my desktop. Does this matter?
I don’t know. Some sites really prefer that you link pictures that are hosted elsewhere so that they can be sent to browsers without the site itself having them in memory. I always make a local copy and upload it to Ricochet. It’s easier, and I can use the pictures later on for my own nefarious purposes elsewhere. I’ve never tried to learn if there is another method supported, or if there is, how to use it.
I tried re-loading the first two of these problem pictures after getting some feedback from the great Dave Deeble. Do the third and fourth photos show up now?
Photos 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11 are not showing on my browser.
Which Browser are you using? I’m using Edge.
The Hohenschwangau picture is sourced to <img src=”https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Fsc2YxWGvMZlczULyryRi-XOYncB5_LNDGKOo8YSDjILqCwJgA2TNzTzECOMtILamUvHFin_USRizJMkMKTPgr05fXrg0-JaRjs32178D0X6erkUY1_3_C8sknCHadsCD9LKwSkaLhHoVPUB4mYHhecsIAW31x85Vsri-_0TZ3wDZ5Hy1CFI-wvHcG3sKnvIctZ-BVN_vqYUrVmdGjSbeaQ3QSj1sinP2gqSqot4HDI2_58ulqgZnKgmTh5MrBYSJZBY4SVDdGO9Edb2_ZAjGQkhfr1xv-tNJzmb3RsF9JHh2Ck9WprJkLJQ_AEuakhvo0gedc55mU4bC5YNH7YC0xIO-oXVuHf4oJJ-zdKS75rpR5zyi7mBcSBc0wjugyQoNaH7OWYaOuWPuETmDwqgZnrBB7kUZ1pOxVMFwqK5ye8ShJGafUjGHlxRkU1RSc0tS-P4FVmX6-RpkjBYnky100ZB9WGAFwpdqNRqmZKiw7hZhzKRDNKDixfLDZJ2tpnksNg2A6HPXshfoYZB-mWxcx8bLdnVZjgoSZFdVykC99Q6Dvl2zvA9E91jeXR1C27qCF2BNoZAHdJRCUemjopr9YHL5vl07PNB3vK0w6-IyJ_FaXY63VSvA3WOskwY9dXkB71BFuXHa52wnubfNgihc8xH5qLL4P8xB8z9n-SeIT6_i6ZtqAn2G3IB-jw_dqqsFPxxXfiXICtvz_BT5ra7iFQ=w448-h597-no?authuser=1″>
It is not a picture that has been uploaded to Ricochet. I think you might have tried to paste the picture’s url directly into the text? If you right click on the picture wherever it is and select “Save image as” you can make a local copy. You then click on “Add Media” on Ricochet and upload your copy to the library.
Thanks. That procedure is what I have been following and I am on #7 now. I thought the “Bild kopieren” command would do it. Apparently not.
There. That should do it. Please do let me know if the problem persists.
You missed the one after “The trout of Bavaria…”
The Krapfen aren’t showing up?
No. The fish.
That’s weird because it was one of the ones I thought I’d uploaded on the first draft. I have, I hope, fixed it now.
From lovely Aurora, Illinois cable access….
Maybe I’m late enough to the party, but by now (PM of 9/5) the photos all look great! Except now I’m hungry . . .
Me, too. Coming through bright and clear.
Still cherished by schoolboys.
This is beautiful. But I’m provincial enough to think there are downsides–likely dealing with government policies–but I don’t know what they are. If you had a “freedom index” for the U.S. and one for Germany, how would they compare?
Speed cameras. You will be fined.
Registration with the police. If you’re staying in a hotel, you won’t be aware of it. It’s not a big deal, but we don’t think about it. If you’re staying longer term, how you answer questions determines how money is allocated.
Don’t be a scientology proselytizer. Or so I’ve heard. No idea if was true or still is.
Anything to do with 3rd Reich is touchy or was when I used to spend time there.
Have also heard home schooling isn’t allowed.
If you use an accountant for tax purposes, the accountant will be trying to maximize the taxes you have to pay.
I can live with that. Taxes?
Americans have worldwide income taxation. Germans (nor anybody else) does. So it depends on where you’re earning your income. Value added taxes are high. So prices and sales taxes are high.
Oh, and don’t jay walk.
I’m usually okay on the first draft. But after seven or eight, then a bottle or two if the monastaries shut off the taps, and I have trouble uploading too.
How bizarre to be a missionary in one of the wealthiest nations in the world, dominated by christianity, filled with churches and cathedrals.
Filled with churches and cathedrals? Yes. Dominated by Christianity? No.
The spiritual and religious life in Germany is not as awful and hopeless as depicted by either Christian and Jewish doomsayers or gleefully anti-religious bigots who would make a virtue of dancing on the graves of both Ecclesia and Synagoga. There is call for missions here, for sure, especially for outreach to the younger generation.
When I started drafting this post, I was going to write it about “best and worst” of life in the BRD, but I decided to focus on the positive. But since you mentioned these things:
Beautiful photos; I lived in Wiesbaden from 77-79 and trips to Bavaria were like entering a fairy tale in terms of beauty. I was always impressed with German architecture and engineering. The streets in German cities, at least then, were amazingly clean and I never felt threatened even when walking through them at night. I loved the public transportation, especially the trains, and wish we had something equivalent here.
I had become a Christian several years before arriving in Germany; I very much appreciated the German Christians, and Christians from other European countries I met, for their spiritual fervor (though by the West Coast Jesus Movement standards, they were very subdued). I learned from them that drinking beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages was not a sin, for which I am very grateful. I learned from them, as well, that history is important, the context of our faith and lives beyond this present generation was so important. I learned to study there, to research, what the church has thought, and taught, for hundreds of years rather than the preceding 10-15 years that I had so focused on in my early Christian walk. When I arrived in Germany, I was a free-will, pre-tribulation rapturist, dispensationalist, futurist. I was none of those when I left.
I think one of the most important lessons I learned from German Christians was the importance of humility, of living out one’s faith in the midst of a powerful, secular culture with an oppositional worldview–lessons that, I think, will be important for the American church to learn in these coming days.