>>>I lived several years in Mönchengladbach and everytime back I was wondering about early sunset. (You imagine where)
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>>When I was living in Germany, I spent most of my time around Schweinfurt, Wurzburg and Giebeldstadt. Twice a month I had to drive every road in an hour's drive circle around the area. Eventually I knew every single road by heart. It seemed then that the sunrise and sunset was similar to here but I may just have grown accustomed to it.
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>>How has Berlin changed since the merge? Back in the mid 80s it (well parts of it) was one of my favorite cities. I spent time in each zone.
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>When I was in Lake City SC I found days short and time a sun set / sun rise needs very short (sharp?). Get a world map with latitudes. Germany is as north as Canada where our nortern border is close to the hudson bay.
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>Berlin is 52° North where Charlotte is 35° N, the 23° 26' N is the Tropic of Cancer
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>We have around 8 hours the shortest day and 16 the largest.
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>Agnes

Wisconsin (where I am from) is very similar to Germany (probably closest to Bavaria). There is still a lot of German culture there. My great grandmother and grandfather on my mother's side were from Germany, on my father's side both grandparents were from Norway, and my grandfather on my mother's side was English/Ojibwa (his mother, my grandmother was indian). It was a strange cultural mixture because each family was intent on maintaining their culture. That is very common in Wisconsin (or it was when I was there). Interesting that they did have one similarity though - the head of the household was always the man - but it was the woman who enforced it and continued the culture.