Ah, The Germans.

Last night I spent the evening at a birthday party for a friend of the fiance's. Not especially bloggable in itself, but I met two new German friends at the party. For many of you the previous sentence brings about vivid (ok, very blurred) memories of a cold night in Brooklyn with two drunken Germans, a sleeping Italian, and one American loudly screaming "SCORE!!!!" The similarities were not lost on me either. My new acquaintances were named David and Marcell (which, according to David, is a dog's name). I discovered something very interesting about my two new friends. David grew up in West Germany, and Marcell in East Germany. David is a carpenter, Marcell owns a very profitable business (yeah, I know, and he's my age!). The interesting thing was that there was a very obvious role reversal. David openly criticized Marcell for his frequent vacations and "business trips" to Europe. Marcell defended that, as the owner of a company, he is working all the time (and would tap his temple every time he said this) and has much to think about. Eventually the conversation deteriorated to the point of Marcell scolding me for not being a McLaren fan, and David for being a Schalke '04 fan. David mainly scolded Marcell for having a dog's name. I just enjoyed the German beer. Anyway, fun times all around and Marcell wants to catch an F1 race sometime. Should be interesting.