Certain amount of irony in today's title. If any of you have visited northern Germany in autumn and winter (sometimes spring and summer too), you will have probably noticed the prevalence of grey stormy skies and cold winds.
If you ask someone "How are you doing?", they will often answer with their opinion of the weather. Which puzzles me. It is as if you can or cannot be happy only if the weather is in sync with you.
One of my now best friends, who moved 10 years ago to Germany from Cameroon, first question to me when we first met was "What's this about the weather?". I told her that it was a German's way of doing small talk. Her response, "That is so stupid. What good conversation can come out of talking about weather?".
It is true that all good conversations usually start with a good dose of small talk. Yet, in Germany, small talk is considered a superficial, and thus not useful, form of communication. So, in the end, many are left with only the weather to fill up the void.
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