With the financial crisis
and its aftermath still haunting the people in Europe and the United States,
staycations seem to have become very popular again. Enter the term into Google
and you will get a dazzling amount of pages offering strategies to improve your
holiday at home. Staying at home, however, has been en vogue for lesser reasons
in the not-so-distant past. At least in Germany. I’m talking, of course, about
the summer of 2003; then-chancellor Gerhard Schröder cancelled his summer
vacation after the Italian state secretary for tourism insulted the scores of
German tourists that flock to Italy every year. Not only was this incident
widely debated in the German media (and not only in the yellow press, even Die Süddeutsche, one of the most respected German broadsheets,
featured an article on the issue), it also inspired comedian Elmar Brandt to come up with a song called “Zuhause” that combined German lyrics fitted to the chancellor’s
vacation-cancellation with the music for the song “Azzuro” (the song Germans associated with Italy).
Soon, the discussion shifted to whether Germans should emulate their Chancellor
and stay at home as well.
