Donnerstag, 15. November 2012






 Oktoberfest


The last five years, I went to the "Oktoberfest" in Munich/ Germany. It is the biggest folk fair of the World. 

There are many separate tents with a space for thousand of people. The brewery's produce a special beer only for the "OKTOBERFEST "with 2 percent more alcohol than normal. 
The folk fair starts normally at the last weekend in September and ends probably at the second weekend in October.

The first weekend it's the most interesting one, there has been traditional festival opening. The people procession through Munich to the "Oktoberfest, Theresienwiesen" and the mayor of Munich opens the "Oktoberfest" with the words "O´zapft is!" typical Bavarian language.
All people wear costume fashions Mens wear "Lederhosen" and Woman's wear Dirndl.
A really nice tradtion took part here. 

The knot of the apron gives a statement of the relationship status from the woman's. Is the knot on the right side means that she is married or engaged. Is the knot on the left side means she is single and a knot in the front means she is virgin and is the knot in the back is the woman a widow. 

I was in three tents "Hofbräu, Hypodrom and Schottenhammel" in my opinion the "Hypodrom and Hofbräu" its the most interesting tent for young people. There is a lot of party and they play Disco music there you can see many interesting people. The "Schottenhammel" is also nice but the average age is over thirty to open end ;-). 
There are also a lot of many other attractions at the "Oktoberfest" for example the traditional Toboggan is really funny. There is a conveyor belt which transported the passengers eight meters in height reached the top you slip down by a long slide. The most exiting on this attraction is probably the conveyor belt where the drunken people try to stand still this probably didn´t work. Most of all fall down on their backside in the funniest ways. 
Toboggan isn´t the only interesting attraction, you can even watch a boxing fight or eat something special in the countless snack bars.

There are also things I don´t like at the "Oktoberfest" the opening times are really rude at eleven o´clock in the evening everything closed at the "Oktoberfest" and the hotel prices are 200 percent higher than normally. I would recommend everybody to book a hotel one year in advance or if that isn´t possible search a hotel outside of Munich there are the prices also higher than normally but not as high as in Munich city.
Beware of the many drunken people at the „Oktoberfest“. A lot of them are very aggressive and do a wee-wee everywhere.





These are the famous „ Gingerbreads“ you can buy them in different forms.  The most popular form is the heart. There are various inscriptions available.For example : I Love You, You are great, hot chick …..
Men buy them to show their girlfriend how much they love them.






The Pictures shows the typical dress of women at the " Oktoberfest".
It is called tradional "costum fashions". It was originally worn by service personal and now it is the offical costum for women at the "Oktoberfest". Normally the women wear a special underwear called" Dirndl-BH". Probably the boobs are not as big as they seemed to be.






This is a traditional bavarian food called „ Weißwurstl & Bretz´n“
                                          The sausages were traditional served with sweet mustard and the bavarians ate it for breakfast.









Have fun at the „Oktoberfest“. It is always worth a visit!!














German School System



                       The German Education System



In this part we would like to present the German education system and we hope you´ll enjoy this.....

 
First of all it can be said that most of the children start as usually at the age of 6 years and attend the elementary school called in German "Grundschule".


By the age of 10 years they are separated into 3 different kinds of what we will call secondary school.

Therefore, the children spent only the first 4 years together in the education system. After that , they and their family must decide the type of secondary school that they will attend but usually the parents decide the direction of the child's education because the children are to young to make this decision alone.
Those are the five types of the education schools:
For the very young ones, from three to six years, there are Kindergardens, some are public, some are religious and others are private. Most of them are similar to some states all over the world most of them are convenient  during morning and after hours around 4 o´clock in the afternoon.

"Hauptschule" (secondary modern school) from year 5 to 9 in Germany some schools have also grade 10.This school is for the "manually" inclined they receive the same basic education as at the other secondary school, but at a slower pace and with "hands-on" experience.


"Realschule" ( Junior high school ) is from grade 5 to 10 like in most states as in Germay. This school leads to full time or part-time vacational training. It is possible for high achieving students to switch to the Gymnasium after they complete the grade 10.

"Gymnasium "(secondary school) Grade 5 to 13. This is the school for academically-minded children. It leads to University, or to a combination of academic courses and vocational credits. There are also different fields of education in the Gymnasium, mainly: math and natural science, classical languages and modern languages.

There is a fourth kind of secondary school in some states of Germany:
"Gesamtschule"Comprehensive school" is from grade 5 to 9 or 10. It is a combination of "Hauptschule" and "Realschule", and depending in which kind of school the children finished in grade 9 or in grade 10, he or she will receive either the Hauptschule or the Realschule certificate respectively. Every child in Germany must complete at least 9 years of education.
Another very important point: German children attend school only in the morning and therefore, there is no lunch and usually no after-school services either that means for most of them that they have to go to a sitter for the afternoon, if both parents have work.



But luckily over the past years things are changed in the education system and new laws  came out. So now in some Lands (states) school hours have been extended and the schools might be open from early in the morning to 5pm in the afternoon.

The school system is free at all levels, except at the University level, where a small fee depends of the University (about 200-500 euros per semester). Compare to some differents states is the college fee really acceptable in our country. See below for more details on Universities if you are interested to study in Germany.

German universities are exclusively academic institutions. Most students do not live in dormitories. Fraternities  or sororities are unimportant. University-sponsored social events are infrequent. Big-time sport programs do not exist. However, German students tend to be more politically activ.
Although German universities do not charge tuition, students need money for living expenses and books. Financial aid in the form of grants and loans is available under the Federal Training Promotion Act of (BAföG = Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz). However, as the BAföG has been scaled back in recent years, more and more students are forced to work part-time.


We hope that we could help your guys to learn a little bit about our school system ;)

Goldman Sachs - A Bank Rules The World!


A bank rules the world

Greed, discretion and financial risk is the motto of probably the world’s most powerful bank, Goldman Sachs. With more than 30.000 employees and capital of about 700 billion euros which is twice as high as the French national budget, Goldman Sachs became a global player in the finance sector. Goldman Sachs (G.S.) never works with private customers, their only clients are countries and big companies like Ford, Facebook and BP. The main principle of G.S. is that, to price everything and when they know the value of it they bet on financial fluctuations on the market. Trough the fluctuations the price changes and G.S. makes money. A good example is the “Abacus Project”  in 2007. The Bank sold bad financial products to customers as triple “A” products, which is the safest product on the market. But soon the finical value of the product dropped and many people lost their money. Goldman Sachs earned at the same time money trough the disposal of the financial products, furthermore, they bed on the stoke exchange against the product they sold. To put it all in a nutshell the “Abacus Project” was a very profitable transaction, they made an incredible 
 amount of 750.000.000 euros.



Henry Paulson from Goldman Sachs and former finance minister of the USA, supported many banks in the financial crisis with the help of tax money, however, he prevented in 2008 the rescue of the bank Lehman Brother. Lehman Brothers was the biggest competitor for G.S. on the finance market. At the same time he saved a big insurance company called AIG, with the help of tax money. Goldman Sachs cooperated with AIG and in case AIG had gone bankrupt G.S. would have lost about 10 billion euros. Henry Paulson removed the biggest competitor of G.S. and prevented a big finical loss at the same time. A great success for Goldman Sachs - only a coincidence?


During the financial crisis Goldman Sachs helped Greece to reduce their depts. This happened with a “Swap”. To put it simply, G.S. changed Greece's balance sheet for a huge amount of money. Greece could now borrow new money bond, but they have to pay really high interests to Goldman Sachs that arranged this new credit. So on the one hand Greece reduced their depts, but on the other hand they have to pay a yearly sum of 400.000.000 euro to Goldman Sachs which is a lot for a country that is almost bankrupt. Through its dubious behavior the bank is endangering the Euro Zone. Although G.S. is without any doubt responsible for the crisis in Greece, they never apologized for their actions. Furthermore, in an official statment the bank said they would do it again. In their opinion they did not break the law since it was a legal action, but to my mind ethical doubtable.


 Another strategy of the bank is to occupy several political positions with their former employees. This influence guarantees Goldman Sachs opinion in the politics. Due to the fact that many politicians are former G.S. employees, there is lobbying and a conflict of interest, but no one does something against it. For example the new President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, is an ex officer from Goldman Sachs. The bank forces the world to use their model and resuming their former employees making it almost impossible for anyone else to antagonize its system. So it is easy for them to avoid laws, which restrict the financial sector.

 


We wrote this text to emphasize that G.S. has a lot power in the political and financial sector. We must enact laws, which prevent lobbying and a conflict of interest. These laws are important to prevent a second financial crisis and to regulate the financial market.

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