Guten Tag! (Good day)

I realized as people began to email me with questions about my host country, that I was shamefully unprepared for many of those questions. While a little knowledge can be dangerous, here’s a “snapshot” of Germany:

• Name of country in local language: Deutschland
• Nation’s capital: Berlin (moved there after the West and East reunited)
• Type of government: Federal Republic with 16 states
• Independence: January 18, 1887 is the date of German reunification, but UK, USSR, US, and France formally gave up the rights to post-WWII zones in 1991
• Legislature: 2 house Parliament, consisting of (1) General Assembly - 603 seats and elected by popular vote under system combining direct and proportional representation); a party must win 5% of the national vote or 3 mandates to gain representation. Members serve 4 year terms, and (2) Federal Council – 69 votes; state governments are directly represented by votes; each has 3 to 6 votes depending on population and are required to vote as a block.
• Population: 82.4 million; Düsseldorf has approximately 600,000 people
• Official language: German
• Literacy rate: 99%
• Ethnic groups: German 91.5%, other 6.1%, Turkish 2.4%
• Religion: Protestant 34%, Catholic 34%, unaffiliated and other 28.3%, Muslim 3.7%
• Land area: 124,836 square miles (slightly smaller than Montana)
  

And what about those German innovations? Well, there have been some memorable ones:

• Printing press with moveable type, aka Gutenberg Press (1440)
• Bunsen burner (1855)
• Contact lenses (1887)
• Diesel engine (1892)
• X-ray (1895)
• Geiger counter (1912)
• Electron microscope (1931)
• Ballistic missile (1944)
  

As I learn more, I’ll share my journey with you, albeit virtually. In case you are just now signing on and want to see previous daily postings, just clink on one of the links in the section “Passport Archives” (to the right)…Danke…