Happy Birthday, Deutschland.

The reunited Germany celebrates its 13th birthday today - national holiday. Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy ...

But in all reality, German national holidays aren't days of great fanfare, parades and fireworks displays across the country. Germany is a country without any significant display or even sense of national pride and patriotism, except, maybe when it the national football (I mean the football that's played with the foot, get it?) team is playing at some international championships. Most of us grew up being taught that patriotism is equivalent to being a Nazi.

And even though the achievements in East Germany are absolutely amazing when we compare it 13 years ago, there's still so much work to do to get unemployment down, to keep the sky rocketing expenses for our social and health care systems under control, and to get the economy back on track that there's little to celebrate. The next national day of celebration is when the current administration gets booted.