On July 11, 1992, Young Germany editor Alex Handcock was picked as one of several children to sing “Heal the World” on stage with Michael Jackson in Cologne. With Jackson’s untimely death, he remembers the day he took to stage with the King of Pop.

The anticipation had been building all week. Our teacher had told us we were going to Cologne to sing at a Michael Jackson concert. Our class talked of nothing else – we were going to sing “Heal the World” with the King of Pop.

Last week the University was on strike.  Not the professors or the kitchen staff or the janitors, but the students.

Let’s take a short tour of the German education system, for those of you who haven’t yet (or have just recently) up and moved here.  You can start Kindergarten when you are 3 and generally stay until around 6 years—whenever your teacher decides that you are developmentally ready to move on up to big kids school.  Grundschule (elementary school) runs from ages 6 to 9.  And then things get complicated–that is, complicated if you were born and bred on the straight-trunked American system.)

A three-tier system

If there’s one thing almost everyone new to Germany soon learns, it’s that the Germans take their food very seriously. Anyone who then spends time in anything more than one part of Germany also learns that they take their regional food even more seriously.

Serious means: regions, cities and small villages with their own cookery books. Serious means: dishes that are not only unknown in other parts of the country, but frequently impossible to pronounce there, too. Serious means: don’t use the wrong word for bread-rolls in a bakery if you value non-spat-on wheat and rye products.

There are many great things about living in Hamburg, and one of them has got to be the harbour. Another is that people never tire of coming to visit me. Having said that, when they come, it’s really the harbour they want to see, not just me. That’s no surprise, since this famous stretch of the River Elbe really has got it all: and we’re not just talking gigantic industrial cranes and tremendous sea-going boats, either; no, we’re talking nice bars and even beaches from which to watch these exciting machines.

The real charm of the Hamburg Harbour, however, is not watching it: it’s getting out and about on the water.

There’s urban art and graffiti all over Germany’s capital. Some better than others… have a look at some impressions from the streets of Berlin:

Click through more urban art pictures on Young Germany here:

http://www.young-germany.de/yg/picturegalleryoverview/urban-art.html

Or look at the set on Flickr here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/young-germany/sets/72157619144846209/