Welcome to that unknown land called Germany. Moritz von Uslar travels to a small town in eastern Germany, where he stays for three months and returns with this grand narrative, a story of the present that is both a report and an adventure novel. Outside, in the big city, where Hartz IV, alcoholism, emigration, and right-wing extremism are supposedly at home: this is where the story begins. The reporter searches for a place with a boxing club and a pub and finds it in the Oberhavel district, about an hour's drive north of Berlin. Pension Heimat, Franky's Place, Gaststätte Schröder: beer at the bar, dictaphone in hand. The reporter listens, observes, drinks along, trains with, chats with, and is back again the next morning. The pub owner Heiko, the storyteller Blocky, the tattooed punk Raoul appear, and thus the access is opened: to the rehearsals of the band "5 Teeth Less," to barbecues with the German flag, to hanging out at the Kaiser's parking lot and the Aral gas station - and to the everyday life of young men who may not have a great future but possess a pretty good sense of humor. The precise observations, verbatim conversations, the jokes, sayings, tales, and nonsense, along with the abundance of absurd, touching, and frightening everyday occurrences create a pull that draws the reader into life in the East German small town. This is classic and modern journalism. Moritz von Uslar has the courage, perseverance, and empathy to show that reality is always that place beyond expectation. In this book, there is room for all kinds of absurdities, but none for bleakness. German soil shines - it is the light of the gas station on the outskirts at half past midnight.