ATHENS – Shock was a common sentiment in the heart of Athens this week. 

Athinas Street, the colorful shopping mile in the Greek capital, is known for its lively fish and meat markets, where spice salesmen mix with traditional shoemakers and sidewalks are packed with commodities for sale. 

But at one corner earlier this week shoppers and residents stopped to look at the ugly face of growing public anger in the Greek crisis.

Workers were removing broken glass, burnt wood and other rubble from the Bank of Cyprus building, one of at least 48 Athens buildings that were torched by protesters during riots two days earlier.

Two blocks up the road, 50-year-old Michael Ipermahos stood outside his small clothing store and looked on in despair.

"Once, we were proud to be Greeks. Now, I am ashamed. Ashamed not of myself, but of the Greek politicians and what they have done to this country," he said.

'Work, work, work'
Ipermahos said he has been to several of the public demonstrations outside of the Greek parliament in the past months to peacefully protest the harsh austerity measures and to voice his anger over what he calls "injustice.“

"I work, work, work, day and night, 16 hours every day, sometimes in temperatures below freezing, sometimes in brutal heat," said Ipermahos, a father of two children – ages 20 and 23 – who still live at home with him and his wife.

"We are not lazy," he said. "But while my income is shrinking, the taxes are going up, fuel prices are skyrocketing and even basic food is becoming more expensive."

On this cool morning, only a few people stopped to look at the tee-shirts, jackets and other garments that Ipermahos sells.

But he does have one item that sells briskly.

"Gas masks," Ipermahos said, as he pointed to the prominently displayed protection gear.

"Because tear gas is regularly used at the protests, we now also offer gas masks. It is one of our best selling products," he said.

But it may not be enough, over the course of the past two and a half years, Ipermahos said the little shop that he owns with his brother-in-law has seen a 60 percent decline in business.

Courtesy Chris Manolitsis

Chris Manolitsis, a 52-year-old freelance sound engineer, is feeling the crunch of the Greek economic crisis.

And, hope for a better future is fading.                                                             

"It is almost certain that we will lose our jobs; we are only counting the days,“ he said. 

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Tightening the belt
Of course, it’s not just retail businesses that are feeling the crunch in Greece.

Chris Manolitsis, a 52-year-old freelance sound engineer who has been working with Greek artists for over 30 years, said he had been struggling ever since the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers in New York.

"The Greek music industry has generally deteriorated because people do not have the money to go out to nightclubs or events anymore, one of the first things everybody saves on is entertainment," he explained.

In recent years, the father of two grown-up children had to cope with a 50 to 60 percent reduction in his income, though he still feels somewhat financially independent because he has been receiving money from other sources, including rent from a house that he bought in better economic times.

However, his alternative income sources are far from secure.

"The woman who is renting my house is a civil servant who had her salary already cut three times and she is now facing a fourth cut," Manolitsis said. "I agreed to reduce her rent by 20 percent, otherwise the mother of a young child would have moved out and I would have been left with more uncertainty.“

And his 27-year-old son Terry, who finished college with a degree in media and communications, was recently fired from a job as a security guard, the only employment he could find after finishing his studies. As a result, the young man left for Scotland, looking for job opportunities outside Greece.

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Broken promises
Manolitsis blames the current financial crisis on two decades of financial mismanagement, which has resulted in broad public anger and deeply rooted mistrust towards politicians.

"Greeks had the wool pulled over their eyes, so to speak,"  he said.

"When former Prime Minister Papandreou won the elections in 2009, for example, he received overwhelming support on a platform that there is plenty of money," he said. "Two days later, the politicians said sorry, we made a mistake, there is no money.“

Today, most Greeks feel that they have been pushed to the limits, leading to growing despair and rising suicide rates.

"The situation is a tragedy and a shame for a nation with such a powerful heritage," Manolitsis said. "Of course I am worried about my future, but we have to keep going and I am not afraid to get my hands dirty or explore new routes."

Next week, the Greek sound engineer has signed up for a training seminar, which will teach him how to sell insurance.

MAINZ, Germany – Where did Germany's fairytale princesses go? Well, royals actually stopped playing a political and social role in Germany back in 1918, when the country's last emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, stepped down.

But, it certainly did not put an end to the Germans' strong interest in all things noble. More than 10 million people in Germany alone are expected to tune into one of the six German channels that will carry the British royal wedding live on April 29.

And some Germans will even make the trip across the channel to pay tribute to the newlyweds in London.

For a group of German aficionados of British culture and history, six men, who call themselves "Friends of British Royalty Germany Section," the upcoming royal wedding is truly special.
 
"We have been practicing a barber shop song for weeks, which we intend to perform in the streets of London on our upcoming trip to the British capital. This will be the highlight of the year for us," says 50-year old Bernhard Zanders, who heads the so-called “gentlemen's club.” 

 
"You are the flower of my heart, sweet Catherine" is the main line of their altered version of an old tune called "Sweet Adeline," which these die-hard fans of the British monarchy have been re-writing and rehearsing for weeks.

On the wedding day, the German travel group plans to perform the four-voice serenade and a little lullaby after the ceremony, under a window of the building, where William and Kate are believed to be spending their wedding night.

Windsors are German
To get into the mood for their journey, Zanders and his friends held a special birthday party for the queen last Wednesday – an evening ceremony in which they played the British national anthem and raised the union jack flag.

“A rite that actually required the consent of the British consulate because it is considered an official state act,” Zanders explained, who has been meeting with his group every two weeks for the past 15 years.

But why the Windsors and not King Gustav of Sweden or King Juan Carlos of Spain?

"The Windsors have a truly German background," said Zanders, "which has always made me feel a special European connection to the British monarchy.”

As a matter of fact, Britain's Windsors are descended from German stock.
 
The royal family's bloodline reaches back to the German ducal house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In the old days, the "Coburgs" were closely related to many European princely families and furnished the sovereigns of several royal dynasties in Europe, including Belgium, Portugal and Great Britain.

Eventually, Britain's royal family managed to shake off their German roots, but some of their German family members are still part of Europe's glamorous present-day aristocracy. Like Prince Ernst August V, the third husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco, and also the head of the deposed royal House of Hanover. He is the great-grandson of the last German emperor, Wilhelm II. He was 385th in the line of succession to the British throne – until he married Princess Caroline, according to Wikipedia.

Royal expert Norbert Loh with Sweden's Princess Victoria in 2009.

Love for royalty
Short of German kings or queens to go crazy for, people in Germany simply look beyond the borders to European countries which still have active royal households – like Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, or yes, the mother-of-all-monarchies: England.

Republicanism and democratic systems are nice, but many Germans will tell you stylish princesses, golden wedding carriages and all the other glamour that surrounds these royal dynasties are sometimes even better.

"The love for anything royal reflects the yearning for an ideal world, it is a modern-day fairy tale for many people," says Norbert Loh, a royal expert at "die aktuelle" tabloid magazine in Munich, who has been reporting on European royals for more than 30 years.

While Loh admits that the majority of his readers are above age 50, he also says that the broad media coverage of royal celebrities makes today's monarchies no less popular among the younger generation.

"I get many, many letters from teenagers who read my 'royal moment' column. For them, especially the young royals, like Prince William and Prince Harry, are real pop stars," said Loh, who will be acting as a royal expert during German television ZDF's six-hour coverage of the royal wedding on April 29.

For all things Royal Wedding, see msnbc.com's Windsor Knot blog