Happy All Saints Day...

Bavaria is a pretty Catholic place. That said, Religion is Europe is pretty different from Religion in America- My friends here won't believe me when I tell them about the Singles Nights and Basketball Teams and HALO sessions which American churches organize in a desperate attempt to convince the masses that Jesus is Hip, and so is our particular interpretation of What He Said. But although the European churches lack the youth culture and (Poland excepted) the political clout of America 's religious right, I would venture to say that religion is no less culturally pervasive- in Munich, at least. From the general greeting "Grüß Gott" (God's greetings- only really used in Bavaria and Austria) to the law that no building in downtown Munich may be higher than the Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady), the message is overwhelmingly: "It's okay that you're not Catholic. But WE ARE."

Me, I can live with that. I think it's nice that everything is closed on Sunday, and so people are therefore forced to actually spend time with each other (dare I even say their families?), and I benefit from the religious Feiertage, such as today when, as on Sunday, everything except restaurants are closed, and nobody goes to work. (Although I must say, I feel a little bad about taking advantage of a holiday that is so clearly meant for a religion which I am not... but I guess that sort of works into the whole business of being a Catholic state: Those who are Catholic enjoy their day off, those who aren't, feel guilty about it.) Seeing as when you register your address with the local authorities, you have to also register your Religion for tax purposes (a percentage of your earnings then goes to support your particular source of spiritual enlightenment), I suppose they could say that since this is a Catholic holiday, only people who are paying the Catholic Church Tax get the day off. They'd probably get a lot more converts that way.

So onto the story of This Particular Day, which inspired the post. All Saint's day. As an American (it's unavoidable, sometimes I just have to be one), I am a bit scandalized that even though by government mandate, the day after Halloween is always a holiday, this wonderful tradition still hasn't caught on. Yesterday, I did my American Duty and taught all my students Halloween vocabularly, and dedicated a part of each of my lessons to talking about Halloween. This was probably the first year in my life when I haven't had a costume, and it was a little depressing- on the way to a free concert at the Musikhochschule, I missed a train and therefore came late, so that I could go to a bakery and buy a Jack o' Lantern shaped baked good (I had to go to three before I found anything)- which turned out to be some sort of sugar covered Challah bread- not exactly American, but it made me feel a little more festive.

But I digress: Yesterday, in all of my lessons, when I asked my students if they ever did anything for Halloween the answer was uniformly "No, it's not really celebrated in this country," but then when I said something about Halloween parties, one of them let slip that on religious holidays such as All Saints day and Good Friday, there is a Tanzverbot- dancing is forbidden! Sure, nobody can stop you dancing in your own house, it's prohibited but in all public places. Clearly, my immediate reaction was "What is this, Footloose?" Upon further research I have discovered that most discos obtain "Special permits" to have dancing, anyway. Still, it begs the question: where is Kevin Bacon when you need him?

Anyway, I slept in until 10am, and it is a gorgeous day outside, so I am going to take advantage of my ill-gotten day off, rather than spending it in front of the computer. Auf wiedersehen.