Old Glory is no less red, white and blue from across the Atlantic.

Regular readers of AnthonyGanzer.com may be surprised by this, given my frequent jaunts to Europe over the last few years, but this is my first "Fourth of July" not on American soil.  The "Fourth" has taken its hits as a holiday just as others have.  Christmas was adorned with Santa and commercialism, Easter with rabbits and biological inaccurate eggs, and the "Fourth" has its customary PBS concert specials and sales on charcoal briquettes--the things freedom was built on, of course.  And who can forget the elaborate fireworks displays, and toddlers running around with "harmless" sparklers in the front yard.

But even those subtle remembrances to our country's founding are absent here in Germany, though a faint sense of patriotism still wafts in the air.

Brandenberger Tor: Which world monument will Alex sleep through next?

It's hard to understand how many little things go into successfully navigating life, until you're forced to learn them over again.  Take the supermarket for example.  Over the years, one learns more or less the fair price for an item, where items are likely placed, and how to avoid collisions with other shoppers.  It's just a matter of experience--when one does something for so long, the procedure becomes self-evident. 

But when that experience has to be amended to fit into another culture, often we feel like fish in a new flavor of water.