As the rest of you have already mentioned I too read the article How German is American. I had no idea that there was such a huge concentration of German settlers in the Midwest. I knew that Germans were a big ethnic group in the American melting pot however 15.2% is a huge percentage of Americans that are German. In the summer between 8th and 9th grade my friend invited me to come to Austria with him. The culture there is similar to ours in many ways but also different. They have this really cool thing there called summer sledding which was this cart you got in that was attached to a rail and each person had a lever that controlled how fast or slow you can go. Unfortunately it was quite a few years ago and I don't remember the whole trip but the memories I do have I will keep forever.

If you guys didn't look at the optional videos from Monday this commercial is worth checking out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSdxqIBfEAw