It was a bit of a culture shock for me when, after first arriving in Germany, I saw my next door neighbors clean all their windows every week without fail. Even more especially as these were outside windows and this sometimes happened while it was raining. Having always been something of a "neat freak", or so I was told, such devotion to "shiny windows" nevertheless still came as quite a surprise.

GERMAN HOMES AND A HOUSE CLEANING CULTURE

Germany has a reputation as one of the cleanest and most tidy countries around, leading to house cleaning companies across the globe advertizing themselves as "German House Cleaning". Does this image still hold up in the "laid back" 21st century.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art177868.asp

And THE WORD OF THE WEEK is: "HUEFTGOLD"........ something no one who rushes around all day cleaning is ever likely to get.

Heuftgold literally means "hip gold", which unfortunately is not a low slung solid gold belt, instead it describes those extra pounds that seem to creep onto the hips when no one is looking.




germanculture.bellaonline.com is the place to go to find many articles covering a wide variety of topics, and there is a site forum:

http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=247

So if there is anything you would like to see or if you have any questions or comments then please feel free to get in touch, either in the forum or via email.

Francine McKenna-Klein,
German Culture Editor

http://germanculture.bellaonline.com