Life in Germany: All patriotic

Perhaps it's because I decided to leave England in the year the Queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee (although I do keep accidentally referring to it as her Golden, sorry Ma'am) and the year London hosts the Olympic Games, but since I landed in Deutschland I feel as though I have become more patriotic. I will fiercely defend my homeland against anyone who has a bad word to say about it. In fact, I recently virtually slammed my own brother (via social media) for being "typically British" and ergo negative about our Olympic preparation efforts to give one example.

This isn't to say that I wasn't patriotic before I left the UK. It just seems to have come through all the stronger now I'm no longer a permanent resident of the motherland. And, although I have always been a champion of the Royal Family, now, they are the iconic symbol readily available for me wherever I am in need of a Great British fix. If we were ever to loose our monarchy I would be distraught. Yes, I know they cost us money. Yes, I know they are archaic. Yes, I know they don't really carry much political clout, but to do away with our Royalty is to remove one of the few synonyms of Britishness.

Sure, there are events in British history that some people would rather forget; things that even make me balk at the idea of being associated with Great Britain. (The way we treated the people of the countries we took to be part of our Empire for example.) But I'm 99% sure that there are things in any country's history that the people of that nation would rather were buried and forgotten. Some of these events are more recent than others.

The iconic "Broom Army" photo tweeted after 2011's
 riots as people took to the streets to clean up.

Watching the Olympic opening ceremony my heart swelled with pride at the fact that my home country had pulled off something that amazing. (In fact watching the opening ceremony is what has encouraged the thoughts for this post). Alright, some of it was typically British in humour and style and probably fell by unnoticed by those watching who weren't British. But the Queen jumped out of a helicopter with Daniel Craig as 007 - that was a stroke of British genius! Aside from the quirks, what the ceremony did was unite the UK. The current scenes of the Olympics in London is a far cry from the scenes on the streets of Britain last summer. Both, however, have united a nation.

Certainly for me, living in another country has served to make me feel even more staunchly patriotic than I was in the UK. Although I hope never to the extent that I will refuse to learn and adapt and accept that other nation's culture and language. Perhaps it is strange that it has taken uprooting myself and living in a foreign clime to realise how British I really am, but then again, perhaps what I needed to fully identify my sense of being a Briton was to emerge myself in a culture vastly different to what I knew and was familiar with.