I was walking through Lauf yesterday, in a rare moment of sunshine and blue skies, and as I looked around I realized Germans have this bipolar existance. They adorn their houses with suncatchers, they dress their windowsills in colorful flowers, and every home has a "Familie" nameplate made of clay with little suns or catepillars under the doorbell. They love bakeries, flower shops and the majority of shops here sell sometype of greeting or post card. And despite the German's tendencies towards "the cute", on the opposite end of the spectrum, the rough, punk rebel spirit seeps out from the young people of Germany. They revolt against the clean cut, they abhor the lebekuchen with cutsie sayings on them written with pink frosting, they embrace the Döner and McDonald's. These are the youth who grafitti the historic walls of the town with saying like "Nazis Raus" or "No Nazis!"
Perhaps all nations can atest to the opposing forces of the younger vs. older generations, but it seems more pronounced to me here in Germany, perhaps because I'm a stranger looking in. Still, I wonder, what will win out in the end--the cute or the cool culture...
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