God..you guys wouldnt believe how much this place has changed since the last time I was here. the keyboards here are a little different than they are back stateside so please forgive me if my typing seems a bit strange.

The last time I was here (back in the mid 1980's), this place had one of the highest standards of living in the world. I don't know what happened, but this country seems to have fallen a lot. Downtown Hanau was once one of my favorite places to go when I was here last. Now I go there and there are many homeless people and grafitti drawn on walls that I don't remember seeing when I was hare before. everything was very clean at first. there are a lot of middle easterneres here and people from all over the world. The whole country seems to becoming just like the United States is. The crime rate seems to be higher than it once was too. the US Army is all but gone now and you have to actually go out of your way to find another american. I don't know if that is a good thing or not, but the one thing that is good is that the germans finally got their land back.

The youth here all seem to be very fond of the gangster rap music that comes from the states. i for one don't like it at all, but the youth here seem to reall love it (why this is I will never know).

I mean no offense to african american people by typing this, but a lot of this gangster rap music has lyrics where they all call each other the (n-word) quite often. Its sort of funny to hear the punk rockers here that can't understad a word of english repeat these lyrics and are calling each other the n-word without realizing what they are saying.

Im typing this from an Internet Cafe downtown and my schedule is sort of tight so I have to go now. I took a TON of pictures and will post them all as soon as I get back stateside.


Until then

Aufwiedersein = Goodbye

:)

Have fun while you're there Dunkirk...looking forward to the pictures. :)

Dunkirk,

I was in Germany from 1961 to 1964 with the 92nd Field Artillery, and have gone back to visit family since then. Haven't been there in about ten years but my youngest son has been there twice in the last year representing his law firm on some international cases, and I have relatives from the Heidelberg area come to visit for a week or two every summer.

When I was last there the cleanliness of the country stood in stark contrast to the U.S., no litter, no graffiti. It saddens me to read the country has changed so much.

Guten tag Dunkirk, i hope you enjoy your stay in Germany and will regale us with your misadventures in Deutschland. Looking forward to those pics.
FYI- Aufwiedersein = Goodbye is actually Auf Wiedersehen just so you can avoid any raised eyebrows in case you have to write it out while across the pond.

All in all i wish you the best of luck and hope you stay safe.

Tschüs :)