A Bleg: Where is the New Germany?

It's struck me recently that a recurring theme on this blog is how much Germany is beginning to resemble the US, mostly in unfortunate ways. When Germany finally becomes 83.54% culturally indistinguishable from the US, where can I go to recapture that Mitteleuropäisch flair? I suppose Hungary, which I've always really liked, but then I'd have to learn Hungarian, which, as we all know, is impossible. I guess it will have to be Vienna, which I also love. The Austrians still seem to have enough cultural self-confidence to remain fresh and odd.

Any other suggestions?

Comments

[M. Möhling]

Butt-hurt by globalisation? John Cleese is, too:

“London is no longer an English city which is why I love Bath,” he explains. “That’s how they sold it for the Olympics, not as the capital of England but as the cosmopolitan city.”

“I love being down in Bath because it feels like the England that I grew up in and I feel down there a great sense of contentment, and settled [...]”

As someone who has so clearly understood and parodied British culture over the years, Cleese, these days, feels a touch estranged from what he sees as “a yob culture”.

“There were disadvantages to the old culture, it was a bit stuffy and it was more sexist and more racist,” he says. “But it was an educated and middle-class culture. Now it’s a yob culture. The values are so strange.

That's how we do it: mock the squares, whine when we succeed, move to greener pastures, where the squares still procure all these little thingies that we love to mock. Repeat as needed.

[Bastiaan]

Come to the Netherlands and be amazed. Switzerland is also an option.