Germans and their late nights....

I have always been a morning person. I usually get up no later than 6:00 and accomplish 90% of what I will get done for the day by noon. With that said, I have always been an early to bed girl as well. It has taken some time to get used to, but now we know that German's love their late nights. It is very common to come home from dinner at someones house at midnight or later. We all went over to a friends' house for a barbeque on Saturday night, and even at midnight, I felt so bad about leaving (I think they would have preferred us to stay longer). Culturally, you don't want to offend anyone, and so the evening goes into the late night hours. Our kids are with us too, so they also stay up and play with the other kids -which is often good, but also can be difficult (depending on who is there - ie. our kids are varied ages, so it is not always good for all of the kids). It is definitely a huge cultural difference that I have noticed - For the most part, we enjoy it (although sometimes, bed by 9:00pm is a very tempting alternative :-)).