Roberta - Ein Überlauf der Deutscher

As you may imagine, there are hundreds of other tourists here besides ourselves and many of them hail from abroad. You have your typical Asian crowd going from place to place and the occasional Frenchman, but it is unbelievable how many Germans there are.

The first few I noticed were standing next to us on the rim. I heard them speaking and thought, "Neat, they're German." A few minutes later, walking back to the hotel, I heard more of them speaking. In the restaurant we ate at that night, there was a group of them one table over, chatting and staring at us. That's when I started thinking, why so many Germans?

Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Germans, or any Europeans for that matter. It just seems strange... of all the places in the U.S. a German could visit, how did all of them end up at the Grand Canyon? I've been to other National parks and monuments and historic places, many of which are of great value. Not to mention there are so many other great American attractions to visit. Yet, it seems the Canyon is the most popular... at least with Germans.

As my dear, economically-minded parents pointed out immediately, there are many Germans (as well as other Europeans, Asians, etc.) here probably because of our horrid economy. The Euro is significantly worth more at the moment than our dollar, so the "Deutscher" are flocking over here for a vacation. Unfortunately, the reason for the congregation to the Grand Canyon is still a mystery, and my parents have decided it is "a wonderful research opportunity" and are determined to find an "economic" reason for this anomaly.

It's become sort of a joke now ~ whenever we pass a group of Germans, we can't help but make some comment. Today we compared American bikers to German bikers and decided that German bikers were angrier and for the life of us we couldn't figure out how they got over here (forgive us, we're not normally so condescending :).

Each day we've been here we've passed at least one German every five minutes and we still can't get over the fact that they're everywhere. Again, I have no problem with them coming to enjoy the Canyon as that is the reason I'm here, however, it is still the most interesting phenomenon I've encountered on this trip so far.