Cultural experience in Prenzlauerberg

Last week a few other members from the group and myself had an eyeopening experience at a bar in Prenzlauerberg, I cant recall the name, but one thing that struck me was the furniture in the ladies room.

We sat down at a large round table in the corner of the bar each having our own conversations around the table when up came a very, very drunk German man who asked us where we were from. After saying we were from Seattle, and explaining to him where in the world that is, he was delighted to find out that we were American and decided to call his friend over and sit down with us. At first it was all fun and games; we didn't exactly know how to say no to such an adamant, friendly, drunk German and figured nothing bad could come out of it.

Immediately, the man - we never got his name, but lets just call him Jens - struck up a conversation with us about what stereotypes we have of Germans. It was innocent at first; we told them that before we got here, the only ones we had really were that Germans drank a lot of beer but after being here for a month, we noticed that they stare a lot. Then, out of nowhere he started telling us that Americans think that all Germans are Nazis, which was based on an experience he had with a presumably confused and ignorant American. We dismissed this misconception by explaining that we don't believe that (which I thought was a funny coincidence since last week all of our readings had to do with Nazi Germany...). We then asked him what his stereotypes of Americans were and he said that since we have the right to bear arms that everyone in America has a shotgun and will shoot you if you come onto their property.

Needless to say, the conversation went downhill from there and we ended up leaving for lack of drunken understanding but I thought this was still a really interesting experience of clashing cultural stereotypes! Especially since we are from Seattle, one of the most liberal cities in America, and we're studying abroad with the CHID program, one of the most liberal majors at UW. If it weren't for the alcohol, we might've been able to understand each other more thoroughly, but I'm still really glad we got to exchange points of view.