Pensée of the day

Por Favor!!! A Journey Home from Spain

2010-09-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

Never understood people who claimed they were happy to go home after their holidays so they can go back to work for a break, but after a week of heavy sunbathing and partying with mucho vino tinto, tapas and cervezas on the south coast of Spain I was indeed looking forward to getting back to normality after a quiet and relaxing flight home.
My love/hate relationship with Ryanair had been tested to the full on this holiday. Determined to “beat” Ryanair's proposterous baggage charges, I decided that I could go on a one week beach holiday with just hand luggage aka 10 kg including all toiletries, handbags and so on. I mean, what would I need; a book, a bikini and some flipflops!? Then I saw the weather forecast. Rain. Rain in Southern Spain in JUNE??? For 5 of the 7 days!!! So a couple of bikinis and a pair of flip flops were not going to be sufficient and the 10kg luggage allowance most definitely not! So i decided that I would wear as many clothes as possible on the way, including jacket tied sneakily around my waist, looking a bit like the Michelin man going through security which wasn’t so bad on the outbound flight where it had been quite cold in Germany, but at the Spanish end had been decidedly uncomfortable in the 36 °c heat. Nope it didn't rain after all!! Which meant in the blazing heat, i needed to buy some suncream, cos i couldn't take it with me because of the fluid allowance for hand luggage! **Oops, didn't think of that** of course, a bottle of factor 15 suncream, shampoo, shower gel and toothpaste cost pretty much 30 euros, so i might as well have taken a case for the extra 30 euro, not had to walk around the airport like the michelin man, taken all my nice clothes and another book and a second pair of shoes, and brought one or two of the 8 bottles of suncream i already had at home :-).
I get on the plane, looking forward to some peace and quiet. I spy a last solitary seat, check there are no screaming kids in at least 4 rows either side of my vicinity... NO kids... esta BIEN! But then the noise levels rise despite no screaming kids and I look to my left and realise that my seat is next to the Spanish Youth National football team. It is bedlam. 22 testosterone-fuelled Ricky Martin cloned 16 year olds doing a sort of seated flamenco dance, stamping their feet and clapping and Olé-ing before we have even taken off. I’m impressed, albeit begrudgingly, that teenage football players have such a good sense of rhythm. Next to me are a couple of oldish Spanish ladies. I wonder what they could possibly want in Frankfurt Hahn? The lady immediately next to me (I am in the aisle seat) leans across me to ask one of the teenage football players can lend her a chewing gum. He looks surprised but smiles a dashing white toothed smile and gives her one (a chewing gum that is!) They are all nonchalant gum chewers these Spanish boys, you can see their trained elongated cheek muscles flexing as they simultaneously chew noisily with their mouths open, clapping, laughing shrilly and olé-ing.
The flight attendants arrive with their trollies to serve refreshments from the “Ryanair café”. Except there are big crosses all over the menu to denote what is not left anymore. So I pay 3 euros for a coffee and to say it was luke warm would be generous. The flight attendants are writing down everyone’s orders on napkins. Everyone is paying in notes and they have no change, so they need to record what they owe everyone. The lady next but one to me orders a 5 euro Panini and a cold beer. She wants to have both at the same time, a hot panini and a cold beer. She gets the panini first, but the beer doesn't come. Then her friend shouts at the flight attendant that she wants a new panini that is hot and a beer that is cold AT THE SAME TIME. She gets so upset, not surprising when she paid nearly 9 euros for a limp looking sandwich and a luke warm beer. The lady next to me keeps playing with the chewing gum she got from the football player, pulling it out of her mouth and sucking it back in again, chew chew chew, pull out, suck in , chew chew chew.....The people in the row in front are smoking “smokeless” cigarettes.
The testosterone radiating from these Spanish boy-men is almost palpable, their heads following the good looking female flight attendant in unison as she passes by. They keep pressing the bottom to alert the flight attendant to ask her stupid questions.
The two old ladies next to me get a visit from their amiga, the amiga comes up to our row and shouts “CHICAS!!! - ¿qué pasa? Very loudly!!! The airhostess is trying to get past the amiga with her refreshment trolley so the amiga simply squashes herself up against my seat as I am in the aisle and leans over towards me ample bosom first. I have to turn my head to the side not to disappear down her cleavage. She is speaking in a very animated fashion gesticulating about 5 mm away from my face. I try to be tolerant, thinking that they must be pretty excited about their holiday to Frankfurt Hahn. She goes away, but about 10 minutes later, she is back "chicaaaaaaas, ¿qué pasaaaaaaa? The arm waving and loud- talking and leaning over me continues. Amiga has halitosis and she spits when she talks so it's not so pleasant sitting directly below her. Either one or all of them must be deaf, since there is no other reason to shout so loud at each other in normal conversation, despite the nearly olé-ing. Amiga has a grating quality to her voice that sounds like she needs to permanently clear her throat, talking in this pneumatic drill manner that sounds like "tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-tha-" at one point my neighbour screams back at her so loud that i have a ringing in my ear. Now my patience is beginning to wear thin and I am developing a really bad mood and tinnitus! I put on my hooded top, put up the hood and stick my fingers in my ears, closing my eyes. at regular intervals, amiga leans across and brutally pokes the lady next to me. every now and then i feel the raindrops of spittle on my eyelids. she eventually leaves again. Then someone farts. It's of the silent but violent variety, i consider ordering a stinky salami and egg sandwich and eating it wide mouthed and noisily to get my revenge except of course, there are none left on the menu. The Spanish football players are playing this game where they slap each others' arms with two fingers very hard. I watch trying to work out the rules - not sure there are any except after every slap you must wince and laugh hysterically. Behind me, someone starts whistling. Then, i don’t believe it, but the lady comes back, "chicaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas, ¿qué pasaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? "this time with an accomplice (amiga 2), so now i have TWO very loud ladies leaning over me poking at the woman next to me and screaming tha-tha-tha in Spanish and spitting as they talk. it’s even worse than before as they both lean against me, the chewing in my right ear doesn’t stop and the olé-ing reaches fever pitch, i feel like i cannot take it anymore, and in my claustrophobic intolerance i SCREAM "POR FAVOR!!!" indicating in a circular arm waving fashion my minimum space requirement for avoiding suffocation-by-bosom. I am so loud that i even manage to temporarily stun the Spanish footie players into silence. The ladies look at me in a shocked manner, perhaps having noticed i have a hood up over my ears and am covered in a light spit drizzle, but i doubt it.

But let’s look on the bright side. Positives
It only cost 49 euro to the south of Spain.
We arrived 20 minutes early
i got back my blogging inspiration
i got away with the baggage allowance albeit minus suncream and cosmetics costs, but I felt i had won a war!

Of course the 20 minute headway was eaten up by the 90 minutes of my losing the ticket for the parking area and everyone had gone home on the information desks as it was nearly midnight. i had thrown away my inbound ticket so couldn't prove how long i had been parking there...and they didn't believe when i said a week. Turning on the waterworks also didn’t make them any more lenient with me. They made me wait ages, then after a 20 minute walk to the car, at 1.30am I start the 160 km drive back to Heidelberg. In the fog.

Cuba Part 5 - Baracoa

2009-08-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

We meet our tour group!! There was a gorgeous looking Cuban guide but of course he wasn't ours, ours was waiting for us in Baracoa, our next destination and this guy was just "looking after us" for the evening. So there were people from Australia, UK, Croatia and when we went out, it became apparent who was going to be a good drinking buddy. We had dinner with two tour groups and the guides were hilarious, everyone was sussing out each other, the Croatian girl was tall, skinny and gorgeous!! After dinner we went back to the hotel but me and the boys (well Dave who's retired and Lal a lawyer from Birmingham plus the tour guides) weren't tired so we headed back out and sat on the road in a bar opposite the Havana Libre. They ordered a bottle of rum and I couldn~t believe they thought we'd get through it. After half and hour drinking the rum with another random Italian, I start worrying that Jess is waiting up for me, but the guys ordered another bottle and told me to stop worrying. Then the tour guide disappeared and came back with a guitar and they made me play Wonderwall, suddenly everyone in the bar outside started singing along, noone seemed annoyed and I quickly learnt that music is as important as breathing in Cuba, as is dancing which was the next destination. Everyone can dance in Cuba, we went to the hotel Salsa disco where i stayed til 4.50am. Three bottles of rum (el ron) and many dances later I have to get the guy on reception to let me in to my room cos I didn't want to awaken Jessica.
Jessica on the other hand took great delight in waking me up at 8am ...OUCH!!! Parts of the night before started to come back to me. We had breakfast then made our way accompanied by our equally as tired guide, who then remained in havana, to the airport. We flew in a little propeller plane to Baracoa right on the eastern side of Cuba. Town of wind, palm trees and music, chocolate, coffee and bananas. AFter being continually heckled in Havana for being either blonde, female, youngish, wearing shorts, or any other reason you could think of with "Guapa" "mango" or "linda", it was nice that people in Baracoa were a lot less interested in shouting at us. We met our guest family, Israel and Norma in our "casa particular"
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Casa particular

Casa particulares are private homestays in Cuba, very similar to bed and breakfast
Casas particulares can be recognised by a small sign on the door, with two blue triangles ('roofs') against a white background, which the owners obtain after paying a fixed per-room annual tax.
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Our room was really cute, even had European sockets and an interesting stand for hanging things up on. It was really getting exhausting how much everything costs in advance, we even had to do it with our family for our evening meals and water, but it was great speaking so much Spanish, and even knowing a bit was getting us quite a long way. Was really useful learning all the types of seafood, our family couldn't really understand the scope of food vegetarians eat. OK, you don't eat meat but what about chicken? What about fish? What about prawns? In the evening we went to the Casa de la Trova on Antonio Maceo street where there was a crazy but cool MC, people just turn up and plan and dance. I loved it, everyone else was drinking rum but after the night before i stuck to Bucanero (cuban beer). We sat in the road ourside, there was music everwhere, people singing hanging up their washing, really just my idea of heaven. Tatiana our tour guide, with the bluest eyes ever, was our cool but crazy tour guide....

Cuba Part 4 - second day in la habana

2009-07-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

On the way to old Havana, its a sat morning and we got followed by a couple that somehow led us to a street with colourful murals by Salvador González who is an afrocuban painter and sculptor well known for his murals around the world. His murals are collective events involving the community they are painted in and represent the moving of afrocuban culture to a new home. I keep thinking "what's this going to cost us?" feeling dreadful for being so suspicious, not wanting to always fear the worst, then they offer us a drink...honey, basil and water (tap? not sure)... jess and i have one and they do too. i keep thinking i should ask them what it will cost, but for the first time i don't. we sat down and had a nice chat in spanish, they started trying to sell us Cohibas (cigars) from their ration, they were asking what jobs we do, how long we had already been there, i was enjoying the linguistic challenge. they said they were teachers, life in cuba was very hard, how they were very poor... i am just waiting for the rip off moment to come, i start panicking we are sitting down in a cul de sac off the main road, .... waiting... then it comes... the bill arrives, they want 16 CUCs (16 euros) for 4 glasses of water and honey. I KNEW IT!!!! jess and i say calmly that this is really out of order, that we'd have given them some money for showing us the lovely murals but we are not paying for their drinks and we will leave 8 CUC for our 2 glasses. they say they can't afford to pay for their drinks, we say you won't have to pay this barman he is blatantly your mate and you are all in on this together. we leave our money and LEG it, not sure if we are being followed. after this sour-making experience we watched our backs for a few blocks then started to analyze what they had asked us. eg. how long have you been in cuba? can u spaek spanish? what's your job ie how much money do you have? so we agreed from now on, we are students and we are POOR and we have been here for 4 weeks ie we are wise to the tricks! cuba really is very expensive for tourists if u are there a long time, so jess and i agreed its ok to get ripped off if you get ripped off on your own terms ie
-it's our choice
-no sour taste left, ie not feeling anger towards cubans
-cute boys are involved (only joking)

we walked along the malecon as far as we could then went to the museo de la revolucion. I then wished i had watched a few more movies cos although i had read alot about what happened in 1953/1959, i wasn't familiar with lots of the names whose blood spattered clothes were on display. "these are the glasses of X", "these are the shoes y was wearing when he was shot dead", "this is the toothpick used by Z" the most famous, of course was Che (we are on first name terms!) and there was a whole room devoted to him.He hat was on display, in fact millions of things he apparenlty once touched, like his radio and his telephone and various garments. my oh my he was a charasmatic good looking individual. its a reallly interesting museum detailing cubas history pre and post revolucion and has the boat che and fidel sailed over to cuba in from mexico to start their revolution!

Time for more street pizza yum! by this point my knees were hurting so we got a coco taxi which is a little yellow contraption powered by a motorbike! cos it was valentine's day, he took us along the malecon where couples were dotted along perfectly distributed along, and we managed not to get ripped off , barter the price by setting whole price for EVERYONE AT 4 CUC (hurrah!), and also not to die in a traffic accident (hurrah again!). we got back and decided to go on the internet (also very limited and expensive( for 7 cuc an hour with the slowest connection you could imagine, we went on for half an hour each. then it was time to meet our tour group.

Cuba Part 3 - First day in Havana

2009-07-31T08:48:00.000-07:00

First thing on the agenda was finding a farmacía. I literally could hardly get out of the bed I was in complete agony with my back and neck. I just didn't know what to do, so we ventured into the sunny and windy Havana from our Hotel (La Colina) which is opposite the universidad de la Habana in the area Vedado which Jessica recognised instantly from several films. The cars are just amazing, brightly coloured, huge and fabulous. There are old yellow US school buses running up and down, pink French buses, and cadillacs in every imaginable colour. We walked past the Hotel Habana Libre, (previously the Havana Hilton) where Castro apparently lived for a while and into a freezingly airconditioned shopping center. Political propoganda is everywhere, adorning the walls of almost every building, house, shop wall, baseball stadium and they are currently celebrating 50 years since "la revolución"
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La Revolucion
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt that led to the overthrow of U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista of Cuba on January 1, 1959 by the 26th of July Movement led by Fidel Castro.

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I ventured into the farmacía and decided to be brave and try out my GCSE-level Spanish (well I took it in 1995). I couldn't remember the word for neck so I said something like "me duele la espalda" (think this is shoulder!!) but I pointed at my neck. To reinforce the point i said "MUCHO"..."sí" says the lady, nodding her head and thank goodness understanding the problem. She lays 3 tubes of something on the counter. "Cuanto cuestan?" I asked, having been told you must always always and with no exceptions ask what everything costs before buying it, even in respectable government run pharmacies... I chose the middle expensive cream, it said "analgesico" or something on the tube and that sounded to me like something that numbs pain fast! Jessica helped me apply the cream in front of a 'hasta la victoria siempre' Che poster and we found our way out of the cold into the mid-morning Havana heat. We decided to walk along the Malecón, (the sea front), from the Hotel Nacional de Cuba to the Hotel Riviera. We paused to look at the map and a lady appears like a Cheshire cat from nowhere and sitting on the sea wall she starts to tell us the history of the Hotel Nacional in Spanish... She then wanted me to pay her in foreign currency for this information I had read for myself in the Lonely Planet, so we started to walk again and passed a building with so many poles in front of it that the view of the building behind was completely obscured (turns out its the former US embassy). We paused to look again, but got told off for loitering by an armed guard, so we carry on in the strong wind which was very inconvenient for "map reading while walking cos you're not allowed to stop to map read" especially when you need both hands anyway to maintain dignity wearing complelety impractical floaty dress. Jess says we are having a mojito. i have never had one, so we go to the top floor of the hotel riviera and go to the bar on the top floor. we ask first what it will cost (very good!) and enjoy the view over the Florida straits. It was the Havana jazz festival and that's why we arrived in havana a couple of days before the tour started. we thought we could buy tickets at the Hotel Riviera, which was why we went there, but we couldn't so the lady gave us instructions how to find the theatre. We got there around 1, but couldn#t buy tickets til 2, so we decide to try and find some food, our guidebook says there is a peso restaurant aorund the corner, which of course has prices for cubans and is much cheaper... we are told we must always ask though whihc currency is being used, because otherwise the Cubans will claim the menu is in CUCs, not pesos where you come to pay. it turns out to be a very expensive CUC restaurant so we leave and i see a pizza sign pointing to a tiny pizza seller hidden away in an alleyway. 5 pesos for a piece of the most amazing pizza ever, so delicious, but we realise we don't have any local pesos, so i ask if i can pay in CUC and how much 5 pesos is in CUCs. Two Cuban boys are behind me and tell me its 50 cents for 2 bits of pizza, the lady selling looks very annoyed all of a sudden and gives me my change in local pesos. one boy gives jess a guava then weleave and we hear the lady yelling at the boys. we sat on the roadside and the boys approach us, one of them can speak good english, he tells me the lady was annoyed with them for telling us the true price. we thank them but then they don't go away. one is called raul. jess tells raul we want to go to the jazz. they say they are going too and maybe they can come with us. i am inwardly rolling my eyes. one amazing thing about cuba is the way dance, art and theatre is supported. Cubans can go to shows concerts, opera, museums for next to nothing. tourists however pay probably 25 times more, which is still really cheap, but Raul then offers to try and get us tickets for the jazz at cuban prices. i am thinking this is immoral and i don't want to get caught, but he tries. the cuban tickets are also a different colour to the tourist tickets. theirs are red and ours are green. we buy our tickets but the boys still wont go away. i was also thinking they were quite brave, cos cubans aren't supposed to mix with tourists and get in trouble if police catches any whiff of socialising. but they want to introduce us to the delights of Cuban icecream eating at la Coppelia, its a very serious (of course state-run haha) business in cuba! again, locals are separated from tourists and the queues go on for miles. The whole experience can only be described as regimental ice cream eating. the boys bribed the guy at the entrance to let us in so we could go in the local section. it was an amazing ice cream parlour with a huge colourful domed roof. You get told where to sit and only have a few types to choose from. The portions are HUGE, you also get water, (that u should not drink under any circumstances!) the boys left us and say they will see us later... we walked home and slept for 2 hours. city breaks are absolutely exhausting! we got dressed and ready to go out to a paladar for dinner.

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Paladars
Paladars are small, family-run, private-owned restaurant in Cuba. One of the very few forms of private enterprise in Cuba. The Cuban socialist government allows families to start and keep control of these small businesses in exchange for very high taxes. Paladares are limited to 12 seats only (although they usually have more than that in secret back rooms!!!) and must cook local food, such as rice and bean, pork and seafood.

The paladares are known for the simplicity and authenticity of their food and for having very good prices compared to the good quality of the food. They don't have particular names or even plates at their doors to inform passers-by that they exist. Being owned by poor families, they also have little to no advertisement. Some paladares use the services of "guides", people who receive a commission for bringing new customers to the place. These people usually approach tourists and offer themselves to "guide" them to nice off-track places, such as the paladar for which they work.

Often they have several menus with the same food but difernet prices, depending on how much the paladar owner thinks you look like you'll be able to pay.
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We knocked on the door of the paladar, and a man answers, its a little spooky somehow, and leads us through silently into the front room full of hundreds of cuckoo clocks. there are 2 other couples. Its very very hard for vegetarians in cuba, and jessica was preparing for subsisting for 3 weeks on rice and beans (called Moros y Cristianos)..this guy gives her an egg on top too so she's happy. it was pretty expensive (around 10 pounds for the meal each) but it was nice and a really unique experience!! we then make our way to the jazz, the theate is amazing in art deco style, and i thought i was going to die of cold, the aircon was feerreeeezzing...the boys did turn up, but they left us alone, they cna't have been more than 18 years old, they probably found some younger prettier tourists to spend the evening with!!!

Cuba Part 2 - Havana

2009-07-31T07:18:00.000-07:00

It may be a cliche, but the first thing I noticed when i got off the plane apart from the heat was the smell of cigars, and the fact that the airport was PINK! at this point i realise my neck and shoulders have completely seized up and I wonder how i am going to lift up my rucksack. Well first jess and I decided to rename cuba "queueba" as we had to wait for ages to go through the passport control, i just could not understand the lady. she wanted to know where i had come from and she shouted at me 3 times before i realised she didn#t care where i started the day in frankfurt but where i had got on the plane to cuba. after being wished a rather insincere nice stay in cuba, we then queued for ages for our bags, then got out, the bags were scanned again on the way out, then we queued to change our money. we were changing massive amounts, as we weren#t sure where else we could get any. There are hardly any ATMs in Cuba, and you couldn#t pay for hardly anything with credit card. Then we had to find a taxi. we knew you should get into government taxis, cos they have fixed prices...we knew it should cost about 15 Cuban tourist dollars. This one guy came up, he looked quite official, but his car really didn't. however he said 20 dollars, we said ok cos we were tired, jetlagged and impatient, and then he said, we just have to wait for his mate. jess and I look at each other, wondering if we should leg it, but the bags are in the car. Its very dark too. we just decide to risk it and eventually we get going. we get to a dark crossroads havana is signed one way and they go another way down a very dark road. i am thinking they want to go the long way round, so they can charge us more, but jess gets her mobile out of her bag, and she calls her mum, i think this is a bit weird cos her mum will be sound asleep as its about 3am in the UK... i find out later she wasn#t really calling her mum, but she thought the men were goin to kidnap us and she wanted to give them a sign that someone knew where we were... so my first impressions of cuba were a bit distracted cos i was looking for signs. luckilz they didn#t kidnap us, but they did demand 20 dollars EACH when we get to the hotel. had this happened at the end of the trip, i would have told him he was getting twenty from both of us and basta, but at the begiining we were just a bit unsure and scared so, weakly, i gave him 40 dollars, so he did well out of us. considering the average Cuban earns 18 CUC a month.

Tourist Dollars and pesos

In Cuba they have 2 currencies, the peso (CUP), sometimes called the "national peso" and the convertible peso (CUC). It is subdivided into 100 centavos. Dollars are sometimes referred to colloquially as "pesos" and convertible pesos as "dollars"; which currency is meant should be understood from the context. To add to the confusion, "pesos" may refer to both moneda nacional and convertible pesos, even in cases where (to the tourists, at least) it is not obvious which currency is being used. Cuban state workers receive a portion of their wages in convertible pesos, the rest in the normal pesos. Shops selling basics, like fruit and vegetables, generally only accept the normal peso, while "dollar shops" sell the rest. we ended up calling them "cucs, like cooks" and pesos. The cuc has been in limited use since 1994. You have to be really careful when getting your change from CUCs cos its really hard to tell which note is which. It's a very good way of scamming tourists, who in the hustle and bustle don't have the opportunity to count a fistful of colourful notes. One tourist dollar was around 23 pesos so if you are expecting 5 CUC in change (5 euros) and get 5 pesos (25c) you have been severely shortchanged...
But the effect of this double economy, in my mind, encourages capitalism and goes against everything communism stands for, the effect created is everyone striving to get their hands on tourist dollars, ripping people off any which way to do so, to be able to buy more than the basics, but Cuba needs tourism in addition to its sugar industrz and so the government doesn't seem to mind bending the political ideology to suit.

Have you adjusted your mirrors?

2009-05-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

Wow! You think someone'd be grateful for the lease of an incredibly cheap company car with all modcons, FREE petrol (yes! that is FREE petrol!) and lots of free services, like mounting 'winter' tyres for a winter in which it never drops below 1 degree, whilst the nice men at the garage kindly store your 'summer' ones for free (like a seasonal wardrobe). But no! It seems there is no end of problems, not least the insurmountable difficulty every night of trying to find a parking space in the incredibly crowded streets of surbuban Heidelberg. Well, anything to avoid paying those extortionate rates in multi-storeys eh? Gosh, with all that surplus cash, you wanna hang on to it don't you?

But the real trouble starts when you let your friends drive - even though we are all insured up to our eyeballs of course. After some persuasion ('well look I know you said you'd drive, but the thing is, we just wanna get there don't we? shall we just drive?', 'er, yeah', 'I mean, we're late anyway...we wanna get going...shall I just drive?', 'er, I can probably manage it', 'oh....well, OK'), I clamber into the driver's seat and do a quick reccy of clutch, accelerator etc (no need to worry honest. they drive on the wrong side here, maybe the gas pedal is on the wrong side too, just checking, anyway). And then I realise it! Inside every German man who's been put through the rigours of a Fahrschule is a driving instructor just itching to get out! The Incredible Hulk bursts to life! 'Have you adjusted your mirrors?'. (Er what?? have we just gone back in time 12 years to my British School of Motoring days?). I shrug it off. After all, it's his car, he's hungry (men and hunger) and I am a woman, and a kind of foreign woman at that who hasn't had the privilege of going through the 'system'.

We set off and all goes well. I even believe I am vaguely impressing both of us with my ability to work the gears and steering wheel in a fairly competent manner. Until...'so, how can you drive when you can't see?'. Hmm, a slur on being long-sighted. I try to explain that just because I can't read small print (well, OK, actually, ANYTHING anymore) without glasses doesn't mean I can't see pretty well beyond my hand. But of course! I haven't been through the 'system' which would have meant a compulsory eyesight test and then compulsory glasses, so I am probably, without realising it, HIGHLY dangerous on the road and HIGHLY illegal. I can tell these thoughts are going through his worried little head: insurance, excess, accident, eyesight test, money, worry worry. Strange - I am more used to guys who get worried cos they had a heavy night in the pub and ended up driving home over the limit. Oh well, I'm sure he's right really (Goddamn it! it's the fact they're always bloody RIGHT in this country that always trips up my arguments).

Well despite my blindness and what must be my corresponding inability to judge traffic speed, I manage to do OK I think, until of course we come to the Lärmschutz wall. Oh dear! I have failed to notice the speed limit which has suddenly been drastically (=dangerously?) reduced to 70 km. Well luckily I have my friend to point this out to me, as well as to point out all the other speed limits on the way home, including helpfully telling me when to pull into the right lane (when the car behind me is literally frothing with speed and anger at my bumper). But of course I am blind so unable to see these things myself. Isn't this relaxing dear?

Aah almost home when I accidentally knock the windscreen wiper lever with my hand and set off the little devils. Apparently, turning on the windscreen wipers is now fast becoming one of those dying skills akin tocarpentry and weaving, what with the advent of humid-sensitive wipers that spring to life upon contact with a raindrop. How clever I am to have found the lever! I am practically a craftsperson! But no! It is not good, as the car's owner points out to me in a vexed tone of voice because just the other day he queued for a good, long time (probably about 7.4, sorry 7,4 minutes) at the car wash and NOW HIS SCREEN IS ALL DIRTY AGAIN!!! God how thoughtless of me. Fancy trying to clean the windscreen when I didn't need to, and making it all dirty!! I hope I am thoroughly ashamed of myself at my clumsiness (in fact, I go through a brief range of emotions: disbelief, shock, dawning realisation, anger, disbelief again, apathy, despair, normal acceptance and lethargy). Where are my old friends who would skin up at the wheel whilst drinking a can of lager and eating a cornish pasty? And with the wing mirror hanging off and attached by only a thin thread of yellow electric cable (or something).

I am calm calm. All is quiet on route 66. Sighs of relief all round as we near our destination. We have almost managed the whole journey unscathed AND no sign of an argument (apart from the imaginary one I am carrying out in my head about what am I doing here? should I be angry? who is right? should I crash the car for fun anyway?) when we happen upon the last hurdle: parking. Helpfully, my driving companion points out it would have been better if he'd driven as now I have to attempt a parallel park. Undaunted, I find a parking space for a forwards parking strategy as I am indeed unpractised in the (now) very ancient art of parallel parking (the last one having been performed in 1995 during my driving test). I glide in, couldn't be better and announce proudly 'see! I told you I was good at parking'. Of course I have parked on the kerb but that is nothing, non? But no! Silly me! I have parked on the kerb! what am i thinking?! From the man who worries if he's not between the white lines in a space: 'you need to shunt backwards and out and then forwards again at an angle of about 46 degrees south westerly and keep on till morning. Otherwise you'll damage the tyres'. ('Is that summer or winter?')

Aaargh! Well, I can assure you of one thing: If the strategy was to deter me from future bouts of voluntary driving, this punter's won hands down.

By Cath

The Rules

2009-05-14T09:17:00.001-07:00

Calling all year abroad students! All exchange students! Everyone considering embarking on an extended stay in Germany! In fact – Achtung! Everyone! Listen up – there are a few things you need to know about German life to make your stay there more enjoyable (bearable?), but none more important than realising the concept of the Rules.

Until you have fully grasped how central the idea of Rules is to German life, you are merely skipping along on the surface of the Teutonic landscape, sipping at coffee and cake, but never fully diving in. If you want to fully understand what is nearest and dearest to every German's heart, you need to appreciate the role of the Rules.

Firstly, you are very much mistaken if you believe that the key to a living a peaceable German life is simply to learn the Rules and follow them. Oh no no! It is far more complicated than that. You need to totally get your head around the idea that the Rules run YOUR life the minute you step onto Frankfurt airport tarmac…and no self-respecting German would have it otherwise.

Coming from a country where most people's attitude to Rules is to ignore, break and bend them, or worst case scenario, renegotiate them and find the best deal on the Internet, it can be quite hard to adapt to the fact that here Rules prevail. Rules reassure, order, govern. They may change sometimes but they are always there, and you must ALWAYS ALWAYS find out what they are ahead of time and abide by them. Knowing what the Rules are and being able to follow them is what makes Germans tick. It calms them down, soothes their Angst and makes them feel they have found their rightful place – at least for a while. NOT knowing what the Rules are strikes dread into the core of a German's heart, and the very idea that there may not BE any Rules for a specific situation is unthinkable!

What the actual Rules are for a situation you may encounter in German life is almost irrelevant. The point is, they will be there and you will hear about them, whether it's from an angry member of the public informing you how you have broken them, an angry official (oh! Actually he's not angry at all, he's just helpfully telling you what the Rules are but he just happens to be scowling, frowning and shouting as he does this) or a well-meaning friend or colleague. In fact, you may as well forget about any foolish notions of 'bantering' with workmates or friends. The whole purpose of conversation will be to impart knowledge of Rules (or facts, which can help you better figure out the Rules), personal experience of Rules or occasional bafflement at the Rules. But you will not laugh! And you will not ask about the sensibleness of said Rules under discussion! The POINT of the Rules (sigh!) has nothing to do with being sensible or practical at all – that is totally not the point of them (and I don't make them anyway of course so don't ask me!).

That brings us to an interesting point – which is naturally, who makes the Rules? And here again, you will find conflicting answers. In fact, the point often seems to be that no one truly knows the Rules – they only know what others do or what others have said, which seems to constitute a reasonably safe (safe meaning you can hide and not stick out in society too much if you work really hard at it) version of them. If you ask and ask and ask-again, you may be lucky enough to find that the Rules are dictated by whoever shouts the loudest. But whatever you do, don't expect your demands to 'see the manager immediately' to get you anywhere here. You will find a much vaunted tried and tested way of enforcing the Rules is to shout loudly 'das geht nicht' ('that is not OK') which roughly translated means 'don't argue back, I can't be bothered with it and you will not win'.

Some examples of Rules which I met with some surprise at first include Rules for ventilating rooms (lüften) – there are government guidelines on how best to do this. One colleague once almost fell off her chair with astonishment when I said I had managed to pack for a short visit to London without checking the weather forecast first, and another was most unhappy I was going away to Italy and would book accommodation upon arrival!! What about forward planning? What about things happening over which I would have no control? Such as a light shower when I wasn't prepared with my waterproofs?

Travel seems to be an area fraught with Rules. There are Rules at every corner and beware! They will rap you sharply over the knuckles at every corner too. I have been fined for not date-stamping my ticket on a train on my first trip to Germany when I was unaware of the correct protocol. I was fined for accidentally showing an out-of-date travel card which was then swiftly removed from me as it was the property of Deutsche Bahn (in which case, why was it in my purse?), and fined for erroneously believing myself to be on a stretch of train track covered by my travel pass. All these occasions were genuine errors, but of course ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law. I have been shouted at on trains and buses by kindly members of the public for all manner of misdemeanors such as placing a wet umbrella on the seat, sitting in a carriage in a seat someone had reserved 4 hours into my journey and the list goes on. I have been screamed at for veering slightly onto the left hand side of a cycle path by a cyclist coming in the opposite direction, for crossing a road when the man was on red (many many times!!), for cycling on a cycle path on the wrong side of the road (ie, you should cross the road and cycle along the other pavement in accordance with traffic flow) and on and on it goes.

My former landlady had a particularly tiresome habit of going into my apartment when I was at work to check that I was obeying some of the Rules that could otherwise cause irreparable damage to her house and probably cause it to fall down (hopefully). She would enter my bathroom if I'd left the window open and my bedroom to catch me drying clothes on the radiator (both contravening Rules for airing). These are very serious offences as they may cause the deadly mould to grow which is a severe health hazard and leads to immediate vacation of the building. When I begged her for my privacy, she waved the governmental leaflet pertaining to Airing-Procedures in my face.

Other Rules which I have had earnestly explained to me concern the Ordnungsamt which is responsible for making sure people pipe down and don't annoy their neighbours by doing such thoughtless things as showering, mowing the lawn or hanging out washing at the wrong times/dates/place. How on earth do people enforce the 10 o' clock Nachtruhe (evening rest period) without being able to complain to the Ministry for Order, Germans have asked me, perplexed? Who is responsible for cleaning the third step outside the flat? Who is responsible for shovelling snow at 7 am from the driveway? What is the correct procedure for separating rubbish and disposing of empty bottles? Until what time on a weekday are you permitted to throw noisy breakable glass bottles into the recycling bin?

The obsession with Rules belies a general craving for Order and a trust of authority. Values such as privacy, minding your own business, making do or questioning are strictly British eccentricities. And the reason for all this Order? It's simple – without it, Germans panic and everything collapses. Without a framework imposed externally, they are at a loss. Why – just watch them trying to queue!

By Cath

Going to Cuba - Part 1

2009-05-14T09:14:00.000-07:00

Feb 2009
Sitting here in Frankfurt International airport at the same MacDonald's table I sat at before I flew to Boston, I am eating a bacon and egg macmuffin looking at the planes through the big glass windows trying in vain to imagine where I am going. Frankfurt - Paris - Havana Cuba!! It's bright today, which is a relief seeing as all 3 Paris airports were closed the last 2 days...and there's been snow/flood chaos in the UK.... Jessica is meeting me in Paris and flying out from London...I shouldn't have boasted about having had no cold the whole winter, instead I have the stiffest neck and shoulders, caused a) by my last-ditch attempt to get a pre-cuba bikini bod at aqua jogging...overdid it with the foam dumbells....and b) carrying my very heavy rucksack, crammed to the brim by 3 and a half weeks worth of clothes..... c) stress tension... in the midst of trying to organise a UK music tour, last night I got a email from Ryanair saying our flights had been rescheduled, bless Ryanair... so I had to rebook 3 flights from horrible 'Frankfurt' Hahn...quel horreur! Mine cost 50 euros, 2cents for the flight, no tax and 30 euros for a bag and 10 for the credit card costs. The world is crazy... trying to imagine what they will come up with next

Ryanair.
Would you like to breathe on board using Ryanair onboard oxygen? 20 euros
Would you like to use the toilet? €5 ...for number 2s €10
Would you like to arrive in the correct destination? €50

anyway....am now Paris bound, Jess and I have VERY short connections times, she has the riskiest, haven't heard of any delays but we'll see. If the bags make it its another story! 3 and a half weeks are a long time...its been 10 years since our last long trip together to Israel. We have the same hairstyles, we're just 30 instead of 20 and now have more sense than to randomly hitchhike down the West Bank! I am of course the most ridiculous packer favouring 10 dresses and 6 bikinis over activity clothing. Now is the point of no return. Not sure what the next few days will bring but here's what I expect:
Weather: hot and breezy
People: friendly, trying to sell stuff to get tourist dollars, grateful for tips, maybe not friendlyif you don'T buy stuff
Food: not heard great stuff about cuban cuisine (avoid fish!), weird banana type plants...
Culture: colourful vibrant, everyone dances or plays music, colourful buildings, squares with cafés, not much luxury, nice beaches, interesting politics, hopefully nice group to tour with....

woohoo pretty much on time, teeny tiny air france plane with friendly flight attendants. had to wait ages for loo (put soap on hands but no water comes out grrrr)...by which time i missed the coffee and biscuits. Everyone else on alcohol ...11am red wine!!! settled down for first leg of flight finally have time to look at Cuba lonely planet I've had for 5 months...arrive Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport...my mobile inexplicably stops working the sec i need to text jess to see if she has made it or if i will be travelling to havana on my own!! having a bit of a quadlingual day, get into French mode...Paris is boiling, feeling sun on face in dept lounge hoping Jess will make it. She not answering phone, .... la havane here i come....imagine its a 24 hour flight, then it will be over nice and quick! ... starving after my egg macmuffin, all the people in paris just look different, like a breath of elegant fresh air, posh suits, fresh brown eyes, nice greying hair, Windsor tie knots and Blackberries. Can't believe how many people also want to go to cuba! I'm sitting blinded by the sun at terminal porte C87, keep looking for a girl with long brown hair ressembling Alanis Morrisette....(jess) then i get a text "Am on plane".... yeah but which one???? the one from london or the one to Cuba? ...CUBA!! cool! turns out she got personally escorted from her flight from london cos time was so tight! pah!! i am running like a loony between terminals c and d and standing in the mahoosive security queue...... i get on the big plane to havana. It really smells bad, mix of sweat, old and new....(ah so the French don't lüften=?!? :-)) we made it... i figure i won't notice the smell of the plane after a few minutes.....

Random rants of the week :-)

2009-05-07T01:25:00.000-07:00

Rant 1

Short cars in car parks

It really is so annoying if you are late for work and you are desperately searching for one of the three remaining spaces in a 6 storey multi-storey car park...and BINGO... you think you have spied a space at the end of one of the rows... so you drive up the row and its turns out that a SMART car or similar microscopic vehicle like peugeot 106 or fiat panda or sometimes even a motorbike is occupying the space, headlights literally up against the wall as close as possible. Then it turns out this row is a dead end ie no way to drive back except reversing and so in the dark dimly lit dingy building too early in the morning for driving backwards in a straight manner you have to maneouvre your way out without hitting a pillar or a car. Solution to short car owners... please leave 2m room between the front of your car OR stick a ribbon on the aerial!

Rant 2

People who take lifts ONE floor

I live in a block of flats with a lift which is very handy cos otherwise i would have to walk up and down 5 flights of stairs x times a day. In my building on the first floor is a dentist, so there are a lot of people coming in and out of the building. Now, if you have a pram, I understand you need to use the lift to go one floor. I understand that if you have broken your leg or are elderly, you may need to use the lift to go one floor, BUT i don't understand using the lift to go down one floor consisting literally of 15 steps with an 8 year old child who is quite capable of walking, who then gets asked twenty times by well-meaning cool liberal parents if they want to press the button, then child presses like ALL the buttons so while their one floor journey time is unaffected, my journey from my flat down to my car takes like 5 minutes longer than necessary, while the lift stops at every single floor. RAaaah. solution, if parent and child try to get in the lift at floor one and ask if lift is going down, say its going UP :-)

Rant 3

Lettuce in vending machine sandwiches

What is the point of lettuce in vending machine sandwiches???? firstly let's discuss the point of lettuce at all...hm.... well its "salad" so i supposed its "healthy" and full of vitamins....But lettuce is 80% water and therefore very low in any sort of nutrients....but the water content has the effect of making the bread soggy. YUCK! PLUS it is often stringy so you cannot just take a nice bite of your tuna sandwich, you have to struggle to use your incisor teeth in a zigzag sideways motion to try to break up the lettuce, otherwise you either pull the whole lettuce leaf out in one fell swoop including most of the sandwich filling (try doing this while trying to talk to someone else) or you end up trying to pull it our of your mouth (aesthetically and socially non-pleasing)... so you could argue it Looks nice... hmmm i defy any piece of lettuce to look fresh and appealing after 8 hours in a refrigerated vending machine, rather a bit limp and brown. So please can we have a lettuce ban on all bread products!?!?!

Rant 4

People who put their babies as their profile pics on facebook/wer kennt wen etc

why do people put their babies on their profile pics... Yes, your babies are all really cute but let's be honest... not many of them look like you and if you have got married and changed your surname how am i supposed to know who you are if you send me a friend request?!?!!

(Short) Rant 5

Emails where the reply is at the bottom and you think people are just sending you empty mails back!

Rant 6

Aldi supermarket check outs

They have such beatifully long conveyor belts to put your goods on BEFORE they get to the check out person, but at the other end they are completely ridiculous there is like a miniscule 60cm square bit of space for everything. PLUS they are really speedy at scanning at Aldi so much so that the cash desk lady is asking for the end amount before you've packed away the first item and she's piled everything up in a precarious food tower which collapses as you give up on the attempt to put things into bags while simultaneously rummaging through your overful handbag to find your wallet and get out your EC card, and sweep everything in one go into the trolley (bad if buying eggs or tins that fall on your foot or glass products). Whaaaat's the rush??? :-)

Combat Trousers...

2009-04-24T08:35:00.000-07:00

I have just remembered my phobia of combat trousers after watching a clip from a live concert of phil collins... wearing combat trousers....

You either look really cool or really sad in combat trousers...here is my guide to both.

To look cool in combat trousers, you have to be a bit grungy, the crotch has to hang half way down to your knees, they should be dark grey/green or black and smell quite bad...and you should have some baggy jumper, like a hairy peruvian hooded top or a heavy metal band t-shirt and dreadlocks. The backs of the trousers should be trodden to shreds by big fat steel toecaps boots with the laces undone!

To look sad in combat trousers, you have to choose firstly a beige-coloured pair and iron them prestinely. Make sure each pocket's velcro fastener or button is done up nice and neatly, then take a plain white thick cotton t-shirt, preferably from Marks & Spencers (not baggy, not tight, just nice and sensible), iron that too and tuck it neatly into your trousers with a brown leather belt with brass buckle and white Asics jogging trainers (done up nice and securely with a double bow) and to top it off a white wrist sweatband :-)
The thing I don't understand is why people who look sad in combat trousers don't use the numerous pockets for things like mobiles phones and cameras but instead attach them to their belt?! Which begs the question, why wear trousers with so many pockets if you don't use them, cos you're not really making a fashion statement!

Sat Navs Make You Stupid!!!

2009-04-09T04:40:00.001-07:00

Sat navs…curse or blessing…

There are two types of people in this world: People love satnavs (follow the instructions issued by an electronic voice to the letter, even if it tells you to drive the wrong way up a one way street) and people who loathe them (these people are half a generation behind the people who would 'never' buy a mobile phone or use email)

Well I am personally sitting on the fence.

I mean, what could be more practical than having a little talking device in your car that tells you where to go, which speed to drive at, where the speed control cameras are, what time it will be when you get where you’re going...

isn't that amazing??? hmmmmm well...

Last night, I had an amazingly quick and easy journey to Brentwood from where I was coming from. A414 Harlow -> M11 motorway -> M25 --- BINGO. I didn’t pay any attention to the sat nav until I got to Brentwood and wasn’t sure where Eleanor’s road was. took me 35 minutes, 39 km all using my own common sense of direction.

This morning however, I decided to use the satnav the whole way. Not happy with the route it chose entirely on the M25 during rush hour, I asked “Jane” to recalculate another route. The route she came up with appeared at a 8.30 in the morning with not much sleep glance, to be the M11 route I had taken the night before. As I drove past the road I knew I had come down just 12 hours previously, I was wondering where on earth I was heading. I got to a T junction and decided to disobey Jane, who wanted to take me in the opposite direction to the M25, where I knew I wanted to go. But of course, since I had declined to take the M25 route, the sat nav, I realised all too late, had recalculated a non-motorway route I shall name “Backroads of Essex”.

Backroads of Essex (which incidentally also have several diversions) are full of sleeping policemen, narrow roads where you have to alternately give way to oncoming traffic as only one car will fit down the road at any one time. And the roads of lined with scratchy bushes that you are scared will damage the paintwork on the car your loving mum let you borrow for the evening. But sat navs don’t give you that option under the “Avoid motorway “ etc section, they should have a few more parameters such as “Avoid sleeping policemen, one lane country roads with 30mph speed limit and potholes”….

The other annoying thing about my satnav is that it takes ages to find the satellite signal.... But i always set off while it's still searching thinking that by the time I get somewhere where I need to be told where to go...it will surely have found it... won't it?? NO!! Scenario: You're approaching a complicated 'only in Germany' type motorway exit with several possibilities to exit. You throw a desperate glance at the sat nav hoping against hope that the satellite signal has been found, but no... you have to make a 50/50 decision, first fork or second fork ... first...or second.... JANE????? help me!!!! You don'T think for a minute to READ THE ROAD SIGNS....you take the first fork. split second after you've turned off irreversibly, Jane immediately comes to lifees up "turn round when possible". aaaah!

The thing is… sat navs rob perfectly intelligent people of their common sense. If you are looking for the motorway, and Jane says you should drive up a steep hill… she is probably having you on, but there is something in you that thinks “But Jane the sat nav says it’s up there!!!” Last year, on the way to a hen party, I ended up in the middle of a field when she announced “you have reached your destination”.

People who trust the sat nav implicitly will find themselves on the other end of indignant protesting by fellow-passengers who are waving their arms and raising their voices in indignation pointing at the well placed motorway signs.

If you don’t have someone in the car to read the map for you, it is at least more favourable to have something telling you where to go rather than try and read directions scribbled on the back of an old envelope. I say may common sense prevail!

Conference Calls....

2008-12-27T03:47:00.001-08:00

Conference Calls

If you work in an international company and your company continues to shift certain vital departments to the Far East/Eastern Europe, including cost cutting by curtailment of all non-essential business travel due to the current credit crunch climate, you will almost certainly have made intimate friend with “Bill”, that’s my name for the automatically talking conference call moderating man.

The fun begins trying to establish a phone connection. It’s really like the voting of the Eurovision Song Contest

“Dublin, are you there? This is Germany!”
...Crackles, coffee pouring and coughing...
“Helloooo??? Hello this is Dublin… hello?”
“hello Dublin, can you hear us?”
“Hello??? this is Dublin, Germany can you hear us?”

and so on.

And before you even realise Dublin has successfully joined the call, you hear Bill say:
“Dublin has left the call”

followed by

“Dublin has joined the call”

and the fun begins again:

“Dublin, are you there? This is Germany!”
...crackles, coffee pouring and coughing...
“Helloooo??? Hello this is Dublin… hello?”
“hello Dublin, can you hear us?”
“Hello??? this is Dublin, Germany can you hear us?”

And if you are in a third location, you are hearing this all thinking
“Have I joined the call? Bill didn’t say Newton Square calling!”

So long as you can hear everyone else, it’s best to keep schtum.

It is therefore advisable, if not essential, to plan 25 minutes “conference call set up time” into each meeting, even a meeting scheduled for 10 minutes should be blocked for at least 35.

Agenda

9-9.10 – Opening conference call software
9.10 – 9.30 – Opening the phone lines to remote colleagues, much shouting “are you there” and general confusion
9.30 – 9.45 sharing the desktop application with remote colleagues
i

So even more complicated than having a meeting via conference call, is trying to hold a training course using the conference call software. It’s bad enough under normal circumstances trying to hold a training course, when you have 12-15 sets of eyes staring at you while you desperately try to work out how to “share your screen” with all the course participants… only to discover you’ve been sharing a very personal email with the whole room for the last 15 minutes (well that explains the giggling) and your user for the system you work in every day, and where you spent 2 days setting up all the examples you wanted to show the participants in the system has for no apparent reason, been locked, and your Indian hotline colleagues have gone home already…..

So what does Bill do all day? Well, Bill likes to keep himself amused by creating pure conference call havoc…while the poor obviously stressed and nervous trainer is trying to keep on track with an explanation of some very technical and abstract software, he’ll interrupt for no reason:

Bill: “you have 15 seconds of recording time left”

Trainer looking very harassed:

“um, sorry folks, not sure how that happened, I didn’t even set up a recordin…..”

Bill: “your message has exceeded the recording time allowed. Press 5 to replay message, press 6 to delete the message”

Trainer presses 6 to delete message

Bill: “to replay the message press 7. To call all destinations, press 5. You may leave a message for another mailbox. To disconnect press 6.

Trainer presses 6 again

Bill: “Conference call has been aborted”

Now we have to set up the call again.

“Welcome to Ready Conference Plus. please wait for the tone and say your name”
“Germany”

You will be the…. FIFTH caller in the call.
...to be continued

Fitness Phobia

2008-11-30T02:49:00.001-08:00

Every one knows that fitness studios (as they are called in Germany) or gyms (the correct English term) are amazingly marketed money making machines that succeed in convincing thousands and thousands of people with annual good intentions (the majority probably the first 3 and a half days of January) that it’s a really good idea to pay a substantial chunk of your monthly salary, plus a fee for joining, including an additional “all-you-can drink” option for an mere 7 euros a month, for the pleasure of sweating, getting out breath, “feeling the burn”, and generally feeling completely inferior.

The worst part is trying to look like you know what you are doing, the first time you walk into the big room filled with metal contraptions that look like they could be used as torture devices (and for the most part, for me at least, are!). You’ve spent approximately 1 hour trying to decide what you are going to wear, as if it’s a first date with a hot French guy. You’ve packed a few alternative outfits, in case you get there and you don’t “fit in” with the others. You’ve got your drinks bottle, with the name of the gym emblazoned down the side, and you’ve got your towel. You’ve had your introduction with your personal instructor, (its part of the introductory package) who has shown you how to use these bizarre looking apparatus, and filled your personal training plan card out, tailored to your every need, including the weight you need, the number of repetitions and the number of the machine, so you can easily find it again. You’re ready to get fit, toned, … get that bikini body, tone up the wobbly bits, look like all the pictures of semi-naked God/goddess men and woman adorning the walls of the gym.

You’ve psyched yourself up. You’ve made it into the gym. You go nonchalantly through the turnstiles and up the stairs to the changing room. You put on your carefully chosen outfit and go to close the locker. Hmm. how do I close the locker?? There is a kind of knob with a green LED, if I turn it nothing happens, maybe its broken?? You check there’s nowhere inside to slot a 1 euro coin… there isn’t. You take all your clothes, the 2 spare outfits, coat, handbag, wash stuff out and put in into another locker. You try to close the locker again. You still can’t turn the knob. You don#t want to ask someone, cos then they’ll know it’s your first time, so you try and watch what everyone else is doing. They appear to be holding their membership cards flat across the locker knobs with the little green lights, which then flash and they can turn the knob. Oh the wonders of modern locker technology!!! In Budapest you get changed then call an attendant, who locks the door for you and writes the time on a chalkboard inside the locker then gives you a numbered tag to tie onto your swimming costume, whose number is different to the one on the locker to prevent theft should you lose the tag! that's progress for you!

So you managed to lock away your clothes. Now its time to pick up your personal training card and get fit! Quick look around to check you haven’t made a fashion faux pas… alright. First thing on the list. warm up. 20 minutes cycling. you find a spare bike and just about manage to adjust the seat but there are 20 buttons with all sorts of different programs on. it doesn’t say on the card which button to press. You decide to just start cycling. Its like cycling up Kilimanjaro. but you try to make it look like its dead easy, cos you can’t work out how to change the resistance! after 10 mins you are red and your thighs are burning. Must have done some good though, you just burnt 120 calories. All that for half a biscuit! Man! Next thing on the list: Machine number 2. Bench press. 3x15 reps at 25kg. OK…You walk in the general direction of where you were with the personal instructor….thinking “ I know where machine number 2 is…. yeah I do this all the time”. You find the machine with a 2 on top but it says “bicep curl”. Hmmm. A quick look around confirms that there are in fact 3 machines with a big 2 sign. What the…? By this point you are starting to flail slightly. “Bench press”, which one looks like a “bench press”.. you have absolutely no recollection of what a “bench press” could be, nor that you ever used one. A roaming supervisor comes over and asks you if you need help. You say you are fine ….. then you wonder your own stupidity “why didn’t I just ask?!?!?” oh well it is too late now. You are on your own! Eventually eureka by jove you find the machine number 2 which also says bench press. phew. Now you have to set it up to the correct weight so you can use it. 25 kg. The diagrams on the bench press really don’t help. There’s picture of a man and his muscles are coloured red so you know which ones you are supposed to be using…ahh so a bench press must be for the pecs and the triceps! right. there are handles and a seat below. you sit on the seat but its so low you can barely reach the handles. you have to adjust the seat! how??!?!? After repeating a similar pattern for …ok ¾ of the list… you can’t be expected to complete everything the first time…. you think…. now time for a class. how about aerobics?!?! These fitness instructors are different species to normal people because they have amazing physiques, apparently never eat chocolate biscuits or cheese, don’t have a hair out of place or an armpit sweat patch despite jumping around for an hour and can do press ups with one arm whilst relaying their instructions without even getting out of breath ….One instructor is yelling instructions like “Komm” “Jaaaa” “Komm schon” like the late night “ads” you get on cheap TV channels! 

Did you enjoy your gym session…hmm not really …. that is why, despite your good intentions to go 3 times a week, your gym attendance dwindles to twice a month, then even less, til the point where you are paying 80 euros for a session, dividing your annual membership fee against the number of times you actually went to the gym. Well you could get your money’s worth by going there and trying to drink the all you drink bar dry! Good luck!!

Irritating things people say

2008-11-13T08:51:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Cath for her input!

People who say....

"Bless".

"Give me a lend" (of a book) as opposed to "Can I borrow"....

"I got it 'off of'..."

"Joolery" as opposed to Jewellery

People who pronounce the letter H as "hate-ch" as opposed to "a-ch"

People who refer to me as 'yourself'. It happens in shops and Customer Service calls and drives me mad. "Is it for yourself?" instead of "is it for you?". Where did this come from?

'at the end of the day'

'fairly unique'

'I personally'

"shouldn't of", instead of "shouldn't have".
'At this moment in time '
'With all due respect'
'Shouldn't of'

24/7

A numerical cliche. Once a convenient shorthand for those shops or services that stayed open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but now a catch-all phrase simply meaning all the time.

As If

What power can be invested in two such little words. "He truly believed the overthrow of civilisation would benefit mankind. As if."

As You Do

An ironic little add-on to a sentence that has just described someone's unusual behaviour.

Been There, Done That, Got The T-shirt

It was probably an accurate enough phrase when used in relation to visiting tourist destinations, but not when applied to, say, getting a divorce.

Bring It On

Mucho macho but a toucho naffo.

Catch You Later

It makes "you" sound like a disease or, at best, an object plummeting to Earth.

Get A Room

Used when a couple are being over-amorous or flirtatious in public.

Go Ballistic

People don't just get very annoyed any more, they "go ballistic".

It's Not Rocket Science

Well, what is? And what do rocket scientists say to their colleagues when they can't understand something?

Kick In

Things don't "take effect" anymore, they "kick in".

Muppet

A withering description of someone ineffectual or inconsequential.

Not

An extremely irritating one-word cliche that negates whatever has preceded it.

No-Brainer

Something that is so obvious one doesn't even need a brain to grasp it.

Not A Happy Bunny

Why "bunny"? Are bunnies usually in a state of near-delirium?

Reality Check

"Take a reality check" - people sometimes say this if what you're doing or saying seems a bit unconventional or wrong-headed. Take an originality check.

Shoo-In

Not a love-in for footwear fetishists, but a candidate for a post where success is guaranteed.

Touch Base

A quick chat with someone to catch up on things, jargon that comes from baseball.

Way

In phrases such as "way cool" or "way common", the word "way" means "very".

Your Take

Why can't we just ask what somebody's view is? Why "take"?

On Acid

This is one of those phrases critics resort to when they can't be bothered to think of any adjectives. It usually means "to an extreme degree" or "with extra weirdness".

Car-Crash TV

Meaning that, although it's awful, you can't help but watch it.

It's A Big Ask

Sports commentators and players often revert to the language of the nursery.

Gutted

To suffer a particularly annoying disappointment or setback in life.

No Worries.

What happened to "yes, sir" or even "coming up, boss"?

We Value Your Call

Yet another cliche from call-centre hell. You call is valued so much that it will not be answered for at least 10 minutes.

Blue Sky Thinking

In other words, we must now think in away that is completely clear and unrestricted.

Moving The Goalposts

The ultimate frustration in the corporate world.

Learning Curve

Why curve? Sometimes this phrase is preceded by the word "steep", making it even more odd. Of course, it comes from the mumbo-jumbo land of graphs.

Thinking Outside The Box

Anyone who is truly capable of thinking "outside the box" (that is to say, unconventionally) should also be capable of writing without using cliches.

Snail Mail

The oh-so-superior reference to letters that are sent through the conventional mail system.

Charm Offensive

Often said by politicians about other politicians when they are being particularly unctuous.

Too Much Information

Go into too much detail about your recent operation or your toddler's toilet training and you may well be called to an abrupt halt.

Whatever

Almost completely meaningless, though sometimes used as a substitute for etcetera. "Whatever" is also used as a substitute for "Who cares?" by stroppy children.

Diss

Short for disrespect.

The Cupboards Are Bare.....

2008-10-12T15:03:00.000-07:00

Funny how creative you can become with food when you didn’t manage for weeks to go to the supermarket
.
One reason for not blogging for so long is the same reason I was reduced to ordering my first ever pizza online from my bed this afternoon. I don’t have time! And I don't manage to go to the supermarkets. The opening hours of German food procurement places have admittedly improved significantly over the last 7 years. When I came to Germany the supermarkets closed at midday on Saturdays and Sunday opening…forget it! Sunday opening is still vehemently fought against by conservative governments and trade unions, hence one is reduced to going to the petrol station for a refrigerated pizza at 400% mark up. When i lived in the middle of nowhere as a student in Schmiden near Stuttgart, even the petrol stations weren’t open on Sundays, so i would head by bus, tram and train (2hr round journey when all was said and done) to the MacDonalds in Königstrasse, Stuttgart to feed myself on Sundays.

So this Saturday, like last Saturday and the one before, I just didn’t manage to go the supermarket. i only notice bare cupboards on sundays and sat mornings, the rest of the time, i eat out or someone feeds me! So I have been gradually depleting my stocks of food, mostly tinned and today… I finally had no more inspiration. Not entirely bare, all that remained was the following

a jar of damson jam (too stiff to open)
some risotto rice
a pancake mix from circa 2002
packet mixes for broccoli gratin, spag bol,
kidney beans
raw cacao beans
walnuts
one kiwi
ketchup
pasta
dried spirulina
a mini pack of gummibears
tomato cuppa soup
half a tub of Philadelphia.
tube of mayonnaise

in theory i could have used the Philadelphia as a kind of cream sauce to make a kind of weird carbonara. but ‘no’ i thought enough was enough, hence the online pizza.

Here are some recipes i knocked up over the last few weeks for supermarket shy people like myself.

Desperate dish one.

Tuna sweetcorn and baked potato with Philadelphia.

Rummage around any cupboard and you are bound to find some sort of tinned fish….be it sardines, herrings, or TUNA! You are also bound to find some sort of tinned veg, in my case always the mini tins you get in French supermarkets Bonduelle or such like…. then rummage around the fridge vegetable drawer and there’s bound to be a potato, it probably has a few outgrowths but ignore them as long as they are not green/mouldy. The heat of the oven will kill anything untoward… hopefully!!

Set oven to 250°c. Prick the potato so it doesn’t explode in the oven, if the fork gets stuck in the potato cos its so soft just use a bit of brute force to pull it out again. Wash potato and remove any bits that have sprouted. Bake for 45 minutes. Meanwhile drain tuna and mix with mayonnaise and tinned sweet corn. when potato ready cut into it, and smear some Philadelphia on top spinkle some salt and put your yummy tuna/sweet corn right in the middle. Nutritious, delicious!!!!

Desperate dish two.

Baked frozen chips

Sometimes, you just fancy chips. on their own, and that is a good job when you don’t have anything to go with them! This recipe is therefore probably best suited to a semi hangover day. Preheat the oven to 230° c and empty the chips onto a baking tray, carefully removing the lumps of ice that fell out of the bag that has already survived several defrosting sessions. Leaving the ice on the try could make the chips soggy. Bake for 25 minutes until golden brown. Arrange the hopefully semi crispy chips on a plate and add loads of the ketchup and the dregs of the Sarson’s vinegar your Dad lovingly brought over from the UK. Delicious!!

Desperate dish three

Curious salad

Take a third-full packet of prewashed rocket and remove all the limp looking/soggy leaves. Search the very back of the fridge for tubs of mini tomatoes. Tubs of tomatoes tend to gravitate to the backs of fridges so look there first. you may find several semi full tubs from different supermarkets but this doesn’t matter wash them all except the ones that look a bit green and cut in half and add to the rocket. Take the overripe avocado you bought with the good intention of making guacamole and cut it into strips to simulate a kind of mozzarella. Pick off any non-limp looking leaves off the basil plant you forgot to water the last fortnight and add. For the dressing, take a nearly empty jar of pesto and scrape out what is left. Check first if there are any furry looking white spots inside the jar!!! Add balsamic vinegar and some of the coarse grain mustard you bought in France on your holidays, that you can also get in Germany, but you feel like it is something you can only get in French hypermarkets. add some tomato salt and Voilà!!!!

Desperate dish four.

Practical pasta

There is always one or several bags of pasta knocking around your cupboards. and there is normally a tin of tomatoes. These are the main ingredients for some sort of pasta creation! There is also normally an onion of some description, albeit an onion that has a 10cm green sprout. This is absolutely no problem just cut it off. The onion is fine if it’s not black inside. Chop the onion and fry. check the packet of salami you opened 10 days ago and cut up any bits that don’t look too shrivelled and fry with the onion. add the tinned tomatoes and simmer til the tomatoes reduce. add Philadelphia for a creamy touch.

Desperate dish five.

“Zwieback"

this is the German equivalent of Lucozade. we call it Swedish toast, little dry crispy bread bits. You eat it mainly when you are ill and have some sort of magen-darm-grippe (stomach flu). Everyone has some Zwieback in their cupboard. Open and check the moths didn’t get in during their annual invasion. smear Philadelphia on and then see if there’s any curry powder/paprika/chilli to pepp it up a bit. hopefully the Zwieback won#t be so old that ist chewy. CRUNCH!!! 

A few funny bits....

2008-08-12T03:12:00.001-07:00

****German knowledge necessary for full appreciation of following****

I love the ridiculous. Here is my favourite ridiculous thing of the week after ordering something online:

Ihre Versandkosten in Höhe von 3,95 entfallen, wenn Sie noch für € 37,51 bestellen.

:-)

Thai Curry...

2008-07-05T00:19:00.001-07:00

Walking down the aisles of my local supermarket and trying to decide what to buy for my dinner, I became inspired by a coconut, nestling next to the avocados. My dinner for that evening was decided. THAI coconut curry….. with REAL coconut milk!!!

I bought all the other ingredients and spent the day looking forward to cooking. YUM!!!

I cooked the meat and the vegetables and all I needed was the coconut milk to make the sauce. However, I had judged the ease of opening the coconut from countless “Bounty” adverts. They subliminally give you the impression that it’s dead easy to open a coconut with claims such as “in paradise the coconut tree is a gift for the lazy man”. Either the coconut falls from the tree and conveniently splits open as it hits the floor, or a good looking man opens the coconut samurai style with perfect ease. Either way, I hadn’t planned “opening coconut” into my food preparation time!

I got my big knife and was expecting the blade to slip through the coconut. No chance… why did no one ever tell me that coconut shells are completely impenetrable? I couldn’t believe it. I tried the hacking approach, thinking that if I struck the shell with the knife at a weak point it would split open Bounty-style! No chance… and very dangerous for all extremities. I tried to simulate a tree by dropping the coconut from a great height onto the hard kitchen floor… though I was concerned as to how I was going to collect the coconut milk….but all it did was thud onto the floor and annoy my neighbour.

Right I thought, time for tool action. I got out my tool box and found the hammer and a nail. As all I really wanted was the coconut milk and by now my dinner was getting a bit burnt, I figured I only needed to make a hole in the coconut to pour out the milk. So I got to work and managed to bang a narrow nail into the coconut shell… this enabled me to then hammer a bigger screw into the hole and eventually I had a hole big enough to pour out the coconut milk. I made a second hole cos I remembered from school physics that it wouldn’t be possible to pour the liquid out otherwise and triumphantly poured the “milk” into a glass…. BUT IT WAS JUST CLEAR LIQUID… I thought coconuts had coconut milk inside. Damn those Bounty adverts!!

So undeterred and it being too late to buy some nicely packaged and easy to open coconut milk from the supermarket I realised I would have to find a way to split open the coconut, scoop out the flesh and mix it with the coconut water to make some sort of coconut milk. I started hammering holes in an orbit around the coconut. By now my dinner was smelling really very burnt indeed and my kitchen and I was covered in flying bits of coconut shell. but eventually, with all the holes in the coconut, I managed to prise the coconut open with pure brute force. I scooped out the flesh and tried to make “milk” for my now black curry.

I won’t lie. It didn’t taste good. At all. I went down the road to the Thai takeaway. Much easier. Much safer. Much quicker  The lazy man’s gift indeed. Not sure how they came up with the slogan “try a little tenderness”. Coconuts should come with a warning!!

Playing Scrabble with my Grandma

2008-03-22T16:25:00.000-07:00

When I play scrabble with my grandma, I always want her to win because I know it will make her (temporarily) happy. I am therefore sometimes lenient when a word is spelt wrongly or actually doesn't exist at all.

She starts well. She chooses an N, I choose an O… so N being nearer to A…she gets to start.

She looks at the rack of 7 letters…. I tell her she has to place her word across the middle pink tile and explain that certain tiles will double or triple the value of the tile you place on top of it. She places a T on the middle star. She looks at me triumphantly. I am waiting for the rest of the word… but it appears that she is finished with her word…”T”…..
”Err Grandma…. you have to write a WORD….”
“What?” she questions…
“Grandma..you have 7 tiles and you have to make a word”…..”oh” she says….and takes away the T…..

“Can I have ‘dod’?" says Grandma
“Dot?” I query
“No”says Grandma “ D---O---D… dod, you know........DOD, like Ken!!!!”
“Errrrr” I reply uncertainly…”What’s a dod, Grandma?”
Grandma bounces around a bit on her seat and says “you know…. like…dodding about”

My grandma is from the North-East, so I figured this might be a part of her dialect, but I look up the word and it doesn’t exist….

“Sorry, Grandma, you can’t have dod”
“Oh..” she looks really despondent and I feel guilty.

She places “don” and the game proceeds. She has understood the rule about the double and triple word tiles cos she is very determined to use them….. and she has a genuine 30 point lead on me pretty soon, which makes me feel less guilty for not letting her have dod. She then places the word “frict” (she wants to use the c on a triple letter tile)….

“what’s a ‘frict’, Grandma?”
“it’s a thing…. er, you know, the thing for the uch…..the…thing for ‘t …thing”

She is so chuffed for fitting this word between two others AND getting a triple letter tile, that I decide to let her have it. It does, after all, strike me as potentially distinctly Northern sounding…. maybe a tool?!?!? or a bit on a boat?!?! I also allow the word "iz"

I spy an empty red triple word tile and have and I, N and G… so I try to make a word using the letter that would allow me to nab the triple word tile…. I had this feeling there was a potentially amazing word and then I had it…. AROUSING… to which I later added a 'C'!!

I not only used up all my letters, but I covered not just one, but 2 triple word tiles!!! So checking the rules… I got 9 times the value of the tiles PLUS 50 for using all of them up at once…. it was my first ever genius scrabble moment!!! This clearly put me in the lead but the achievement was somewhat dampened by the fact this scrabble scenario would never have presented itself I had not allowed the non-real words.

So does it still count??? :-)

Handbags .... How much can you fit in yours?

2008-03-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

“Does your hand luggage contain any liquids?” asked the man at security control at Baden Airpark. “No!! I declared proudly, having deftly plucked a bottle of perfume from my handbag at the last minute and placed it in my main baggage before it was conveyor belted away to goodness knows where!!!!

So as my laptop bag emerged from the x-ray machine and the scanning lady asked to look in it, I didn't think much of it, she pulled out my handbag from the laptop bag, from which I had removed the perfume bottle and asked to look inside. “Are there any liquids in this bag”… she asked ? Nooo…. I replied, although by now, my no, wasn't sounding so convincing. I watched in mortification as she rummaged through my handbag. I had no idea it was so full of stuff….. she eventually pulled out the following liquid items:

- another small bottle of perfume
- A small bottle of body lotion from the hotel I stayed in in Oberstaufen
- a mascara
- toothpaste….

Oh dear I thought….the lady was quite nice about it… as they were only small amounts … but I just cannot imagine what she thought as she had to compete with the other contents of my handbag (which I swear I only cleaned out about 2 weeks ago….)
In addition to the aforementioned liquid items, and categorized for your convenience, my handbag contained the following:

Food items

- banana,
- kiwi

Stationery

- red roller ball
- blue roller ball
- black biro
- telekom biro
- 3 retractable pencils
- one normal pencil

Paper items

- a leaflet explaining how to look after my guitar
- boarding pass
- passport
- chewing gum wrapper
- hotel reservation for family member
- an invoice I should have given someone else…
- a reply to the gym telling them I don’T want “all you can drink for 6.99 per month”
- dinner receipt from dinner in oberstaufen
- receipt from DM
- post it notes
- bar receipt from the Allgäu Sonne
- a leaflet about Suplasyn
- prescription for physiotherapy
- business card for physiotherapist
- my ski pass from the Kandelwand
- supermarket receipts
- Löwenkeller receipts

Electronics

- iPod
- iPod charger
- Extra headphones
- mobile charger
- camera
- mp3 recorder

Miscellaneous

- a wetwipe that says “rince-doigts” obviously picked up from a French hotel somewhere but haven’t been to france since may 2007??
- 2 glo sticks that don’t glow anymore from the club we went to after Christina’s hen dinner
- a key to bleed my radiator
- a two inch screw
- paracetamol
- pair of earrings
- 2 hairbands
- a hair clip
- the broken off pendant of a necklace
- a plastic cup
- a black bangle
- the cap from the perfume bottle top I DID put in the main baggage

Yes, I could perhaps consider pursuing a career in child minding!?!?! :-)

Adventures in the Allgäu

2008-02-27T13:23:00.000-08:00

Being February, I felt my annual mini ski trip was long overdue. So as I was also organising my friend’s hen party and she lived just 150km from a nice ski area I decided to combine her party with my skiing extravaganza. I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to join me for the whole weekend, so I decided, “what the heck”… I will go on my own…. and not being content with any old B&B, I decided that I was going to find myself the finest wellness hotel I could afford that still had any spaces available at three days’ notice.

I was determined not to forget anything. So in organised manner, three days before departure, I placed the essentials (passport, camera, suncream) in a special place so I could definitely not forget them. I packed them in my vanity case, then I realised this vanity case wasn’t big enough for all my stuff, so I transferred most of the contents a bigger vanity case.

I went to the cellar to get my skis. I packed the car…and it was time for the off!. I had this feeling I had forgotten something, so I went back to the flat to check I hadn’t left anything lying around. Nothing… ok, I thought… time to go!

As I left the flat, I set my navigation system and headed for the motorway. As I set off, the niggling feeling that I had forgotten something wouldn’t budge. Something on the radio made me thing of the colour pink….and that triggered the thought of my ski pass holder….. which triggered the thought of my ski jacket….. which I swiftly albeit too late realised was still sitting in a bag in the cellar of my flat!!! I had made copious lists…..but on the way to my mini SKI holiday, I forgot my SKI jacket and trousers….I turned back… I went back to the cellar… and found the bag containing all my ski equipment. I grabbed the bag….but as I did so…. I realised I had ALSO forgotten my SKI BOOTS!!!! can you believe it….. and then I notice the ski poles propped up in the corner too, I dragged everything to my car…..!

I headed for the A6 direction Heilbronn/Ulm. With the help of Heike, I had organised that all the girls should be seated at 7pm prompt so we could surprise Christina when she walked into the restaurant at 7.30. I left Heidelberg at half past three, thinking I would miss the Friday rush hour traffic. Of course, I hit a traffic jam before the turn off to the A81 and was stuck there for an hour or more……whatever during this time I realised I had another niggling feeling that I had forgotten something else….. I had a look in my vanity case where I had placed my camera and passport….or so I though. They weren’t there!! NOOOOOO. I had a think….I couldn’t believe after placing these most important articles on my “must not forget” list….I had managed to forget them ALL, obviously prioritising mascara when transferring the articles into the bigger vanity case. Then I realised they would probably ask for my passport at the hotel….NOOOOO there was no way they weren’t letting me into my perfect 5 star wellness hotel…… who can help me??? I thought in desperation…… does anyone have my passport number?????? Nope…absolutely NOBODY….Then I had a thought….that afternoon, I had been at the financial adviser and I remembered he had a photocopy of my passport. it was about 17.30…. maybe he is still in the office, I thought….maybe…..he could fax the photocopy of my passport to the hotel!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I stopped at a parking area on the motorway and looked for the business card of the mr. financial adviser. I phoned him and said “hi, …. don’t suppose you are still in the office are you???”….. he sounded most perplexed… I reminded him who I was…he knew…. the foreigner blonde one who he had to explain with extensive simplified pencil drawings every German financial term to…. I had told him I was going skiing… and I asked him if he could fax the photocopy of my passport to the hotel….”only if its no trouble…. only if you are there”… he wasn’t in the office…but he offered to go anyway…..i couldn’t believe it!!!!!!

Because of the jam I was very late for the party. …. I was supposed to meet Heike so as I had never been to her house before I was really relying on my navigation system. she told me she lived slightly “out of town”…so I didn’t worry when my tom tom started to lead me up a very narrow dirt track….in the middle of nowhere somewhere near the Bavarian border. I was practically in the middle of a field and “Jane” my chosen Tom Tom voice of the day announced “you have reached your destination”……. Noooooo I though it was already 7pm… I was already far too late…. I organise this thing and I’m not there on time…impossible!! Jane had totally let me down.

In the end, Heike and I did make it on time….and it was great except I couldn’t contribute much...they were comparing how saggy their boobs had become since breastfeeding....i decided this evening never to give birth personally... vain as i am....also couldn'T contribute to the wedding comparing, birth stories.... all over dinner!! oh well i did my best to join in…. we ended up going to a club to round off the evening. I had a very strong sense of déjà vu as I walked into the club… I asked Christina if we’d been there before… she said “yes… in 1995”!!! Then I was 17 and into their music…. now I am 29 wondering why everyone looks so young and almost all the boys have mullets with blonde highlights and diamond earrings.. It was just so bad…… do you realise…. most of the boys had nail varnish and plucked eyebrows…. well i guess it#s nice if a man takes care of himself!!!

After getting 3 hours sleep it was time to head South. Met a friend in Sonthofen to drive onto Oberstdorf. After realising there was a skijumping event there, we drove a bit further to the Austria border to the Kanzelwand…We skied all day…..it was great..sunny…..empty…. just what I wanted…. also...the lunch menu looked very interesting.....

and the best was yet to come…… my 5 star wellness hotel!

After a day on the slopes, it's hard not to look sweaty and dishevelled... it suddenly occurred to me that I looked a complete mess, but I needed to check into my 5 star hotel, the "Allgäu Sonne". I released my hair from the Stirnband...nice and kinky and sweaty. as best as i could (for i of course, could not find my hairbrush), i tried to recreate the sixties bob it was cut into. it just about looked ok. I put jeans on and did up my coat to hide my sweaty rollneck top....panda eyed with a stripe of red across across my forehead where I missed with christian's suncream, I walked with as much aplomb as I could muster into the hotel. Frau Dowle? Asked the man... he knew who i was.....incredible...this was becuase noone is mad enough to come here for just one night....normally people stay for a few weeks for their "KUR" * place where you go for a time out to get healthy and unwind.

"Can I offer you a champagne, Frau Dowle?" I declined... i then had to "take a seat" to check in. it was amazing. Then he asked me where I had parked, and then asked for my car key so he could repark my car. All I could think was "AAAAAH"...since my sweaty skiclothes were all over the passenger seat, the skis pushed through the tiny car askew by the handbrake, empty disposable coffee cups stuffed down the door storage area next to the driver's seat it was snow spattered and muddy wheeled and basically a complete embarrassment to imagine what the poor porter would think! i inwardly reluctantly outwardly nonchantly handed over my key. Then he said "Can i get someone to help you with your bags?"... which i also declined because I was completely unsure if i should tip the porter and only had a fifty... so i told him “i don't have much it is fine thank you” then as uncumbersomely as I could made my way to the lift with my bright pink trolley dolly case, laptop bag, vanity case and handbag.

It was getting on and the wellness area was closing in 45 minutes. I was so looking forward to going to the sauna and i was a bit frustrated that i had to rush having paid for the lovely 5 star hotel.... for the sake of 10 mins in a sauna with mountain view, I could have just as well taken the other accommodation I stumbled across in my hotel search which was a quarter of the price and whose highlight was "running water"...hot AND cold!!!!! But I ventured on and found the fluffy white towelling robe and the fluffy flip flops and grabbed my bikini and headed down to the wellness area.... there were arrows but when i got to the wellness area there was a big "no outdoor shoes" sign on the door...."hmmm" i thought. there were no signs for changing rooms so I was a bit perplexed...then i spied a man wearing his towelling robe and flipflops walking out of the wellness area INTO the hotel.... this struck me as a bit inappropriate in a five star hotel but then i remembered people did it in the Hungarian hotel I stayed in so i thought "must be the thing to do"....get changed in your room, and walk in your robe to the wellness area ...home from home and all that . thing was in Hungary, the wellness area was in the basement so if you went down in the lift, you didn't have to walk across the main lobby. Anyway, i went back to my room and got changed there.... time was ticking.... as i left my room i just felt completely exposed and when i stepped out of the lift and flip flopped into the lobby to get to the wellness area, i felt like you feel when you have a dream when you are naked in a room full of people (who are not). everyone was staring..... i still don't know if it was the "thing to do", but at least they didn't throw me out for inappropriate or lewd behaviour!

There was noone else in the sauna so if I did make any faux-pas /contravention of holy laws of sauna then they weren't seen!

Am I a prude?? Germans like to be naked...

2007-12-20T05:34:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows that British people are prudish. You don’t talk about S-E-X, don’t do naked, or discuss bodily functions and so on in polite company….the concept of walking around naked in front of other people, for example in naturist camps, is considered something people of the upper echelons of freakdom do… If someone “moons” and run onto a football pitch during a televised game, the chances are they'll become a temporary minor celebrity and make the front pages of “The Sun”.

This is why it is so shocking at first to discover that Germans consider it completely normal and just love to be naked in public….A LOT….not hippies on far flung and sparse “naturist” beaches…normal people…This reality dawned on me slowly…. At first when I was in the English Gardens in Munich there were people sunbathing naked ….. NAKED…in a public park. So NOT English!!! Then on one of my first visits to a swimming pool, I couldn’t find the womans section for changing. There WAS not woman’s area it was communal…..EEK. But there were changing rooms so I went in there, and then entered the locker area to put my stuff away, where, in my opinion, you should be already changed, ie. WEARING your swimsuit. A man around age 60 is standing there, completely stark bollock naked, creaming himself with Nivea body lotion. He has one leg propped up on a plastic stool which affords a great view. He gives me a little nod and “Guten Abend” … I am mortified…. I don’t know where to look. IS THIS NORMAL???

In Germany it is known as the “Freikörperkultur” or “Free body culture”, commonly abbreviated to FKK. FKK is all about being at one with nature… and does not involve sexuality…It has actually been restricted in Germany since the 1980s, but goodness me, you wouldn’t know it…. If they have restricted it now, gawd knows what it was like before!!

They have certain hours when you have to go to the municipal swimming pool without any clothes on!! Men and woman and children…. Mixed!!! Family naked days!!! Down the slides, on the inflatables…. NAKED!! I know people who regularly go with their entire families to FKK beaches and wellness institutions. “Wellness” is one of those words the Germans use that sounds like it is an English word, but it isn’t. Like “Handy” (mobile phone) or “Smoking” (tuxedo)…Can you imagine? Wellness areas are where the saunas and steam rooms are to be found, places where you must adhere to the principles of FKK….

The first time I ventured into a sauna in Germany, I wasn’t sure what to expect…I went into the sauna area wearing my swimming costume and thought I had walked onto the set of a porno movie! Men and woman, all shapes and sizes, wandering round completely starkers! Steam rising as people criss-crossed and strode, almost in slow motion before me. I felt disapproving eyes upon me. The 70cm squared piece of cloth covering me causing immense offence to those around me…Contravention of the holy sauna rules!!

One interesting thing about seeing all these people notice, is observing, without making it obvious you are doing so, the bizarre bodily adornments people have…What is strange is not so much the tattoos, the piercings, but the people they are attached to. You look into the face of a guy who looks like a doctor, nicely trimmed beard, “sensible” haircut, slightly steamed up glasses…then look down at a veritable army of genital piercings….you can hear them jingling against each other as the man walks across the wellness area. Old ladies with nipple piercings and hip tattoos!! Maybe my grandma has some secrets she isn’t telling me!!

Of course, if you are going to a sauna at a local gym, you run a very high risk of running into your colleagues naked....maybe your boss.... maybe the guy who won't stop sending you lunch requests. It is mortifying....I was in the little pool have a splish splash around after a gym session and I spied a guy, extremely fit looking, dark-skinned...and i thought "that looks like Carlos".... guy from work who is also a fitness instructor. he got in the pool and looked over at me but i thought he hadn't recognised me cos a) i had wet hair b) had no clothes on and c)he wasn't expecting me to be there.... but of course he had recognised me and being Brazilian and completely without bodily hangups he swam over to me...i discreetly turned so i was facing the wall of the pool.... and he came over for a "chat".... i just couldn't stop thinking about how I was going to get OUT of the pool....and he seemed to have no intention of doing so.... and i was getting cold.....so i will never know if he watched me get out or not but if my bum cheeks weren't red my face cheeks certainly were!

So …. Onto the holy sauna laws “The Sauna Commandments”. They have big signs up saying things like “no sweat on the wood”. And more detailed rules such as:

Die Benutzung der Sauna – Räume ist nur mit einem ausreichend großen Liegehandtuch und im unbekleideten Zustand gestattet.

You may only use the sauna if your towel is big enough and you are in a state of undress.

Bei Benutzung der Sauna – Räume hat der Badegast zu beachten, dass die hohen Temperaturen – 40° C am Fußboden, bis zu 100°C an der Decke, für diese Räume gerade zu charakteristisch sind. Entsprechende Vorsicht ist geboten. Eine Berührung des Ofens ist ebenso zu unterlassen, wie das Hantieren an Thermostaten, Thermometern und anderen Einrichtungen des Sauna – Raumes.

Saunas are typically hot. Please bear this in mind. We also advise you not to touch the oven.

Badesandalen sollten aus hygienischen und die gesundheitliche Wirkung des Saunabades betreffenden Gründen beim Saunabaden getragen werden. Sie dürfen aufgrund der hohen Temperaturen jedoch nicht in die Sauna – Räume mitgenommen werden.

You should wear sandals for hygiene and health benefits when you go to a sauna area. But you cannot wear sandals in the sauna because it is too hot.

Aus Gründen des eigenen Vorteils, aber auch mit Rücksicht auf andere Badegäste sollte jeder Sauna – Benutzer im Sauna – Raum ruhig auf seinem Platze verweilen. Entspanntes Sitzen oder Liegen mit abschließenden Aufsitzen wird empfohlen. Die Rücksicht auf andere Badende, die in der Sauna Entspannung suchen, verlangt ruhiges Verhalten.

Respect for other sauna users means tranquil behaviour. Repose in silence on your sauna spot.

Das Mitbringen von Spirituosen oder stark riechenden Essenzen, insbesondere das Aufschütten solcher Substanzen oder gar brennbarer Aufgusskonzentrate auf den Öfen, ist streng verboten. Die eigene Sicherheit und das Leben der Mitbadenden sind durch einen Verstoß gegen diese Vorschrift auf das höchste gefährdet, da solche Substanzen, wenn sienicht in geeigneter Weise im Wasser verteilt sind, im Ofen entzünden und zu Sauna-Bränden führen.

Do not bring spirits into the sauna and attempt to throw them on the sauna. You might cause a sauna fire

Der Sauna – Raum ist ruhigen Schrittes wieder zu verlassen und die Tür leise zu schließen.

Leave the sauna on tiptoe and close the door quietly

Die Aufenthaltsdauer im Sauna – Raum richtet sich nach dem eigenen Behagen. Es wird abgeraten, nach der Uhr kontrollierte Zeitspannen auszuharren. Übertreibungen können Zwischenfälle auslösen.

Staying in the sauna too long can cause unforeseen events…Aha????

Are the Germans fresh air-aholics??

2007-11-21T05:45:00.000-08:00

Preamble….
What is Lüftung? Definition:

Das Lüften ist ein Methode im in einem Raum einen Luftwechsel zu erreichen. Man kann maschinell Lüften oder durch geeigenete Maßnahmen wie die Nutzung von Öffnungen wie Türen.

Airing is a way of replacing the air in a room. You can air a room artificially or using practical methods such as opening windows and doors.
**************************************
Germany is very cold at the moment. I braved the elements to walk from my car to the office, wearing four layers in the -1 °c temperatures. A very pleasant warmth hit me as I entered my building. I went through the security turnstiles, up the stairs, whilst starting to undo my fake Mexx sheepskin coat. As I walked into my office, I was hit with a cold front. BLIMEY, I thought, it’s FREEEEEEZING in here. Then I realised why. The connecting door to the next door office was open and inside the window were all wide open….and there was noone in the office. I muttered to myself quietly, and closed the connecting door. It is something I am used to, having spent a number of years working in offices with Germans. But I still haven’t figured them out. Why would you open a window, when the expensive heating has been on during the night, and let all the warm air out?? WHY??

The reason for this, is the German obsession with “frische Luft” (fresh air) and “lüften” (to aerate/air/ventilate). I never cease to be astounded how anyone can OPEN THE WINDOW as wide as it will go when it is baltic arctic minus temperatures outside. It doesn’t matter if you are at work, at home, or at play, the German equivalent of the British “talking obsessively about the weather” in general chit chat conversation, is always a discussion about the quality of the air in the room they happen to find themselves in, and how they are going to achieve an acceptable state of air in the shortest time. Admittedly, this has its advantages if you enter a meeting room where 20 people have been residing for the last 2 hours, and the odour of sweaty male hits you. The British would probably think it rude to comment and pull their stiff upper lips over their noses as to impede the flow of air into their noses, so to speak. In such a case I admit, the Germans have a good point. But this is an extreme case.
The Germans even have specially desiged windows to regulate their fresh air management. I have never seen these window in France or Britian….These windows are really scary. If you pull the lever upwards, the window tilts forwards, enabling you to regulate a continuous flow of freezing “fresh air”, or as I call it “a draft” into the room. if you pull it to 90°, it opens “normally”, but inwards. The trouble is, you have to be very precise at the exact lever position, cos if you get it slightly wrong, the whole window threatens to descend on your head, kind of dangling on one hinge. SCARY WINDOWS!!!

I first noticed this obsession when I used to stay over at my German ex-boyfriend’s flat. Even if I was ill with flu, he would open the window at -20 °c to “lüften”. I was just completely and utterly perplexed by this. I could only think “what a waste of energy, money letting all the nice warm air out”….but all he would say is “die luft ist schlecht”….(the air is bad)…and my one and only attitude to the situation was “what do you mean, the luft is perfectly NICE and WARM!!!” what is bad about that??? I mean it is a bit “stuffy”…but I guess the equation here is that to me, it is more important that it is warm and slightly “stuffy” or “musty” in the dead of winter, than -10°c in my bedroom!
The Germans must see this otherwise. So I decided to research the benefits of lüften. The reasons for lüften are many and varied.. Here is some information from the good housekeeping guide for Germans, which I have translated for your convenience.

„Durch richtiges Lüften kann viel Energie gespart werden: Kurzes, kräftiges Lüften ist besser als Dauerlüften über gekippte Fenster. Beim Lüften dürfen die Räume nicht auskühlen, da sonst die Gefahr der Schimmelpilzbildung besteht.“

Correct airing can save a lot of energy. A nice short and hearty airing is better than “prolonged airing” using the “tilting window”. When you air, you must not let it get completely cold, or you run the risk of developing mildew.

Zur Abwehrstärkung Verbesserung des Raumklimas durch regelmäßiges ausreichendes Lüften.

Airing is good for the body’s natural defences.

My friend Cath though, just sent me an article about average lifetime expentancies….and the British is 83.79 years, and the German one is 83.12….so fresh air can’t be that beneficial, can it???
If you enter „lüften“ in Google, you find a number of translation forums where poor English translators are desperately trying to find an appropriate translation for lüften.
This attitude towards what consititues an acceptable office air environment is therefore often contradictory in an office of mixed nationalities, namely British and German, and of course where I find myself on a daily basis. So this brings us back round to where I started, when I entered my office and it was freezing…
Noone in my office is a regular timekeeper....But if I get there first, I go in and put the radiator on. I like it cosy and warm. I close all the doors and savour rebreathing the air in with its ever increasing CO2 levels. Then my colleague arrives. First will come an exclamation about how warm it is, then she’ll take all her clothes off down to her vest red-faced. All the while I am sitting with my three layers still on. Then I notice her ever increasing fidgeting. I know she is dying to open the window to “lüften” because “die luft ist schlecht”. So I look straight ahead at my monitor, I can see out of the corner of my eye, she is trying to get my attention to ask. Eventually when she can take it no more, there comes the “Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate (said starting on a high k, going down in pitch and back up again through the ‘a’s’ te) Can we open the window?”. I say yes of course, think “brrrrrrrrrr” and put my coat on. We “lüften” for a few minutes, then when I start putting my hat gloves and scarf on, she gets a bad conscience and we close it again. If she gets there first it works in reverse. The windows are wide open when I arrive and its freeeezing. So I don’t take my coat off when I arrive and put up with it as long as I can until I feel its ok to ask to shut it.
We haven’t fallen out about this. It’s kind of just one of those things. We are trying to reach a compromise, they can lüften in the morning, and we don’t put the heating on full, and my colleagues next door close the connecting door if they want to lüften. I have procured a full length cardigan which remains hung up in my office, should the coldness brought about by the lüften start to get to me. But people are confused. They say…”hey you are British, you are used to the cold”…..and I say, “it may rain a lot and be unpredictable weather where I come from but it is NOT THIS cold!!! If you come from the South of GB it is very mild. I never experienced such cold temperatures in my life til I came to Heidelberg, where the top and bottom temperatures fluctuate between -25°c and 43°c.
I am on my own in the office this week. The windows are steaming up …. And I love it!!! Here is a thought to end on. I was told about a German man who had the following phrase "Erfroren sind schon viele, erstunken noch keiner!"
"Many have frozen to death, but noone died because it was smelly")….on that note….

HAIR-raising experience?

2007-11-12T07:39:00.000-08:00

It is a hair raising experience trying to go the hairdressers in a foreign country where they speak a foreign language….As if it wasn’t hard enough trying to convey and actually get what you really really want in your mother tongue, try it in German! I even had a French hairdresser in my former-regular salon in Heidelberg and spoke to him in sort of trilingual confused hairdressing lingo. But after a few visits to any new hairdresser, I always seems to end up going back asking them to recut…Communication problem?? So be it…I resolved to swallow my pride, accept my german hairdressing vocab just wasn’t up to scratch and always fly back to Britain to get a haircut that I can describe properly…..

Once, I had my hair cut in Berlin…. I literally looked like I’d had a bowl put on my head and cut round. I had my hair cut in Heidelberg so badly that my friend Sietske asked me afterwards “what did she do to you?” I then went back and said “it’s too long at the front, and boxy at the back”….so she cut it again and it was even worse…… so I cried and gave up on her and went to the aforementioned French guy, who fixed that problem with the typical hairdresser exclamation “Who cut ZIS?” then….”did you cut zis yourself???”. He then asked me out for a drink!!! Only the French!! Unfortunately, I didn’t fancy him so I turned him down and was too embarrassed to go back there too!!

So today I visited my hairdresser in Hertford who I have been really happy with, 3 visits….satisfaction…. no tears…..a very good and unrivalled record!! First I get my hair washed by “Giuseppe” but judging by his accent he has never been anywhere near Italy!! “Garn aaaht tonoy??” he says….i tell him yes and I just got off a plane…he says “that’s alright then”.i then realise this is the only response he has to any statement….he says “do you live in hertford?” I say, “no I live in germany, but I am visiting parents in ware”…he says again “that’s alright then”….
When I called this time to make the appointment they asked me if I wanted a “wet cut”….so I said “yes please”…. Thinking this was odd, cos don’t they always wash your hair and cut it wet at the salon?? Turns out wet cut means they don’t blow dry it,….so she finished and it was still wet and she said “there you go”….and I was like ….”OK…..er……” I felt too embarrassed to question her……see,…..6 years in Germany have done nothing for my directness skills…..then I point to a part of my hair that seems to be a bit longer than the rest and say “um…… do you think this bit is a bit longer?”…..it blatantly is….but I don’t want to be rude…..she says “when it dries it won’t be like that”,…and I am thinking…..well why don’t you dry it then????? But I don’t say anything……I am inwardly cursing myself……SAY SOMETHING…..i had so looked forward to this appointment, I really really needed to feel like a new woman! I did not want to leave the salon crying or feeling anything less than A-MA-ZING….I tucked my hair behind my ears and of course tipped her…. Then I went into the nearest shop to examine my new cut….it was really good except this one long bit, it was sticking out and the layers weren’t even…. Had a learnt nothing from all these years of disappointing cuts….. if you are not happy SAY SO….she is not a MIND READER……
I buy an alice band….cos they appear to be in in England and it will complement my new short and sharp sixties bob. Then I wait for my dad to come collect me…. I am waiting on the street by the salon….i could still go back….then I think…..no….i’ll sort it out myself…..then I think…..NOOOO I just paid 30 quid for a “wetcut” I want a cut I am happy with….it takes every iota of bravery in my body to walk myself back into the salon….a guy at the desk says can he help me…..how can I phrase this….”hhi…, I was just after a second opinion about my new hair cut, do you think you could check this bit”, I say pointing at the sticky out long bit. My original hairdresser has left for a break…and this guy is the manager…..he sits me down and has my hair looking amazing in 10 seconds flat. I made sure I took his name to go back to him next time!! I was so proud of myself for being …sort of…assertive….

No frills please! - Flying and Airports

2007-11-12T07:12:00.000-08:00

People at airports are fascinating. Especially this one on the French border, you get a real mix of people….I was in queue to go through security and there was a slightly self-righteous Teva-sandal wearing couple who were expecting in the queue behind me…they were discussing the disgrace that is the price of a bottle of mineral water at an airport, especially when you can't take it through security, for approximately ten minutes. I tried to crack a joke with them while we were waiting but they didn't get it. Was probably my French. Then over the tanoy we heard an announcement saying the flight was 25 mins late, and the girl started groaning., “now I’ll have less sleep and have to get up for work tomorrow”…I on the other hand was thinking “only” 25 minutes…I mean….when I tried to go home at xmas it was cancelled completely!!! I turned round, smiled and said “oh well, it could have been 3 hours” and the guy just looked at me all sour as if my cup is not allowed to be half full…. and he said “If they say it’s 25 minutes, they mean it’s an hour”… Mr. Cup-Half-Empty was making me wish I had never bothered trying to inject some positive vibes into the situation. I decided to stop this line of communication.

In the queue, I was sandwiched between “Mr. Cup-Half-Empty" and the smelliest dog in the world who was waiting with its owner and owner’s brother, the brother being the only one who actually wanted to go through security. The girl had the lead of the dog tied around her waist. I could not understand…she must be completely immune to the smell of this dog. It was really disgusting, and she was voluntarily attaching herself to it. This girl was very tall, and you could tell she was one of those no-nonsense girls, no frills girls who had never drunk alcohol let along got drunk, or smoked, or worn mascara....and who was into "outdoor pursuits". very fit and toned, but she never tried to be.......I spied a French guy in front looking what seemed like warily at the dog, cos he had a toddler toddling round and was probably scared of dog attacking child. He grabbed the child and picked her up, out of, what I assume is harm’s way…..but then he put her down next to the smelly dog. WHY?? Did everyone have a cold???

It's always so amusing watching people unpacking their bags at the check in….people who try and take 3 kids, two buggies, 2 large suitcases and their parasol on as “hand luggage”….or try and repack their bags so that they don’t have to pay for excess baggage….I once saw a girl trying to put on everything that was in the case and wear it through the security….she must have been British, cos she was stuffing her pockets with cans of baked beans she was obviously missing in whatever baked bean-less land she'd ended up doing her ERASMUS semester in. I feel so sorry for people with kids on flights, but…at least if you go with Ryanair, they really are quite reliable, at least in terms of punctuality…I guess many would disagree, but I like to speak as I find…..like today, they said it would be late, but we started boarding at the normal time and landed early…..

You can't say fairer than that!

Obviously, it would be lovely to have the frills back, a side of frills to go with the punctuality …. Having boarded last with my laptop bag, and made it through passport controlled unscathed (this time….read about my last experience), I was having trouble locating an empty seat on the plane that wasn’t next to a snogging couple or screaming kids. I almost always get stuck next to snogging couples, both heterosexual and homosexual ones. It's really annoying. I found an aisle seat eventually and asked “Sergio” the “flight attendant” if he could find me a free overhead locker cos they were all jammed full, presumably of everyone’s oversized hand luggage and possibly their children too. There is always one Latino type male flight attendant on every Ryanair flight, and always one from Essex with a bun ring. Sergio tells me to put it under my seat….”there’s loads of room” he says….i am thinking … define “loads of room” I am NOT squeezing my precious laptop under that teeny tiny seat...and hang on...shouldn't there be a swim vest under there????…. But I had no choice, so I carefully found way to fit everything in and had to maintain an ironing board posture for the flight. So I was not very impressed with Sergio. Upon closer inspection I realised he had a bald patch, cos he had sleeked back his dark locks from front to back and he was trying to compensate for what he didn't have on top with the back….Funny I thought only the over sixties did that…..The other flight attendant is called Kelly. Kelly is lovely, she is always smiling and friendly….in her nylon blue uniform and bun ring…. Why do all air hostesses have bun rings….like a fake bit of hair that makes you look like you have more hair than u actually do….does that improve your flight attendant skills??….she also has the foundation jawline problem and the fake nails you hope won’t come off in your coffee. Coffee….i paid 3 euros for my fair trade coffee…..it was kind of grey…milk these days comes in sort of sugar sachets where half the milk flies out when you try to open them..…then I tried to pull down my little tray trying to balance by book, lyric writing pad and coffee on it…. As I looked diagonally across from me, I saw that the catch for the tray of the person sitting there had broken was being held up by 5 flesh coloured sticking plasters. Classy.

After drinks and duty free had been served, it was time to get rich!
Over the tanoy we learn that we can buy scratchcards and win a million pounds. A 3rd flight attendant walks down the middle aisle…her voice reminds me of the “computer says no” character from little Britain, you know….monotone and expressionless… she is on auto repeat… “wanna winna million buy a scratchcard”… “wanna winna million buy a scratchcard”…. “Scratchcards….winna million….scrarchcards…winna million”… You can also buy Ryanair vouchers worth 20 euros for your family for Christmas….well that will just about cover the cost of taking one bag in the hold these days.

What also makes me laugh is that before we start to descend, one of the flight attendants literally races down the aisle with the rubbish trolley. Except she seems to have no intention of picking up any of anyone's rubbish, she just zooms by, perfunctorily looking from right to left to right again. But not making eye contact. Every waitress who doesn't want to take an order or bring a bill knows this.....Don't make eye contact.....so I stuffed my coffee cup in my own bag.

We landed early….and my luggage made it too. 15 mins early….I'll take the rough with the smooth!! As long as there's coffee....Well they got me home…that was the main thing!!

Paying for Parking.....

2007-10-25T05:59:00.001-07:00

How to turn a basically intelligent person into a frustrated gibbering wreck….

Pay for parking!

Ever had this happen….You have parked in a car park. You can park for an hour for one euro, but you have to pay an extra 2 euros per extra hour commenced. So you pay one euro for 60 minutes, and 3 euros for 60.01 minutes. It’s about 57 and a half minutes since you arrived, so you hope there won’t be a queue at the machine so you won’t have to pay 2 euros for one minute’s parking….

I go to the “pay for parking” machine…Wow, there isn’t a queue, just one couple….i have 2 minutes to save the holy 2 euros…..they can’t possibly need more than 2 minutes to stick a few coins … can they????

Oh yes they can…..

This couple is a sweet looking one ….But first they can’t find the parking coin, … the poor old lady’s arthritic fingers fumbles through her purse. She holds up the yellow plastic coin and squints at it….i am inwardly telling her…yes, that’s the one, put it in the slot….off you go….yes….go on…yes…that’s right…..the trouble is there are two slots. One for the money coins, and one for the plastic parking coin. I see her gravitating with the plastic coin towards the money slot…..nooooooo, I think, don’t want the machine to be jammed!! Luckily, it doesn’T quite fit….she is confused, I don’t want to jump in and interfere just yet, she’ll notice the other slot in a minute…am thinking “it’s only 2 euros, it’s only 2 euros, not the end of the world”…..She notices the other slot ….she inserts the coin. €7.50 flashes up….she looks in shock at her husband….SIE-BEN FÜNG-ZIG????? SEVEN euros –FIFTY????? DAS DARF DOCH NICHT WAHR SEIN!!!!!!!!! (a kind of “one foot in the grave” I don’T belieeeeve it!!! J this goes on for about 15 valuable seconds…..staunen …..staunen…….. SIEBEN EURO FÜNFZIG????????

They don’t have enough coins….so they have to try and pay with a five euro note by threading it into the slot for cash….ever tried to do this in a hurry???? Every time the man threads it through it comes out again, the machine making a rude noise and flashing an angry red light….. I have started a sort of impatient barely distinguishable knee bouncing……as if this will make him work out the machine quicker… He tries to flatten in on his thigh and thread it through again. I can see he is putting it in the wrong way AND upside down, according to the helpful diagram next to the slot…but I still don’t want to interfere…..after 3 more attempts he turns to me and asks if I have any change, I do, I put it in the machine for him. The machine whirrs and it takes what seems like an eternity for the now validated plastic parking coin to drop…..the poor old man bends down sloooowly to retrieve it……I do it for him….then quick as a flash..put in my coin…..€1 flashes up…. YEAHH I BEAT THE MACHINE But then I realise… I gave all my change to the old man…..i could have made up the amount with 5c pieces but this machine doesn’t accept them… so now I am facing the task of threading a 20 euro note in, cos it’s all I have … well I must have put the note in right first time, cos next thing I know all I can hear is…..kerchunk kerchunk …kerchunk …kerchunk …kerchunk… kerchunk…kerchunk …kerchunk….€19 in small change flood out of the machine…..

Time to buy bike?????

My night out with real Essex girls

2007-10-17T03:49:00.001-07:00

For some reason, people always ask me “Are you from Essex?” Maybe because of my accent. But I wasn’t born in the back of a Ford Capri, and I don’t own a white plastic handbag, in fact I was born a few miles from the border. I have decided I quite wish I was an Essex girl…cos there is nothing more fun that dispelling or .. equally as fun…living up to stereotypes!!

I had really forgotten what it is like going out on the razz in the UK… how to behave, how to dress and how much I should expect to pay!

I went to Basildon, Essex to meet up with my friend and her friends that I didn’t know, with whom we were going out for birthday dinner and drinks, followed by a boogie in a cheesy nightclub.

Now, dinner and drinks in my adopted country involves a meal, probably something typically German, or if I’m feeling really adventurous possibly Greek. The drinks part will include possibly an aperitif, perhaps a beer or wine with the meal, and a coffee to finish. The meal is expensive if 2 people have to pay more than 35 euros (23 pounds or so).

You dress smartly, i.e. no hooded tops, some leather shoes rather than trainers and a hint of make-up. But in general, when I first moved to Germany, I always felt incredibly overdressed when I went out and got stared at as if to say “why’s she dressed up like a dog’s dinner?” so I quickly learnt not to dress to my full potential.

So in keeping with my habituated behaviour, I turned up at Eleanor’s from where we were getting a cab into town, with jeans on and a pretty top, a bit of make up, hadn’t made a particular effort with my hair, and I borrowed my Mum’s functional boots (they had a slight heel, not a particularly trendy toe) cos I was trying to scrimp on the footwear I brought over from Germany so as not to go over Ryanair’s very generous baggage allowance of 15 kg.

So my mate opens the door and she is looking VERY stylish. She has ¾ trousers, a very low-cut and trendy top, and make-up. She has had her nails done, and as I inspect them more closely, I see that there is intricate artwork on every nail. So I dig my hands in shame into my pockets and meet her mates…. There is a girl with a beautiful baby doll dress and killer heels, beautifully painted toenails…I am so glad they don’t know I am wearing my “nice ass” pink and white socks, with a picture of a donkey and a sewn on tail under my not so trendy Clark’s boots…It must have taken her hours to get ready….i can tell each section of her hair has been carefully ironed straight with immense precision. Mine was still a bit wet when I arrived…. Another mate is wearing WHITE leggings….and white stiletto sandals!! I love clichés…how ESSEX!!! Eleanor goes to pick someone up from the station and I sit uncomfortably on the sofa listening to the girl’s stories and trying to join in … several have just had babies and they are discussing sagging boobs and leaking and all sorts of bodily things I have never experienced and don’t think I want to either!! So I sneaked upstairs to try and find something to razz myself up a bit….i knew El wouldn’t mind me going through her makeup…I find some eyeshadow and pile it on, then put on more eyeliner, blusher, top up the mascara and then I go through her jewellery stash to jazz up my non-existent décolleté. Her jeans won’t fit me and if I wear one of her tops everyone will know I don’t have trendy clothes of my own and am wearing El’s stuff…so I decide to put up and shut up regarding my Clark’s boots and unironed jeans, although at least Cath once said my bum looks nice in them!! Work the bottom, Katie, I think, descending El’s spiral staircase.

Everyone ignores me as I sit back down, I had had the same problem with the wet fish handshakes and introductions when I arrived, a few of the gewhls had mustered an ”awlright?” I wasn’t feeling like doing the German round of handshakes and nice to meet yous, I thought they would laugh at me and think I was stuck up.

The main topic of conversation is “OWL-COAL” (say it with a nasal nuance) Eleanor’s beleaguered boyfriend, the only male present, is trying to stop the gewhls opening the champagne before El gets back from the station….”I want a drink….” Screams the baby doll dress girl…although she has already shared a bottle of white with another party participant before arriving. I was actually going to drive home that evening and not drink, but at this point I realised, that to get anywhere that evening, it was going to be a case of “if you can’t beat em, join em”!! So I booked my place on the sofa…. El arrives back and the champagne is opened and distributed…the girls are appeased, temporarily….then they all start laughing hysterically, but I think I missed the joke….they are all so loud…. Right kate, I think….try and have a conversation….I ask one girl what she does for a job, but she looks at me like I have asked if I have three heads….she turns back to her friend to discuss….something.

I really feel the baby doll dress girl is looking at me as if she is thinking “what is that girl wearing”? So I decide to pay her a compliment. I really do love her dress, and I tell her so…. Then we start to chat and it’s really nice….i found a way in….FINALLY!!!

The cab arrives, it’s a big big cab…we are going about 12 miles….el says its 90 pounds return. I seriously thought she meant 19 pounds… but know, it was 90!! .how can it cost 90 pounds or 150 euros to go that far….we are to split the cost between six of us. We go for a pre dinner drink in a wetherspoons pub….. el’s boyfriend and I start chatting …amongst the drunken squealing he tells me he thinks I am the only sane one here… I feel slightly relieved!! Then we go for dinner. Other people join us there and we had a lovely time….wine was flowing and at the end the bill comes and it was about 400 pounds….don’t think anyone was taking note of how many or what type we were ordering…baby doll dress girl has already gone home cos she “wasn’t feeling well”…..then we head to the club, but queue is massive and its raining…of course noone goes out with a coat on in the UK, so we went back to the wetherspoon’s pub where they were playing the requested cheesy music…. It was fun, an observational experience….I did enjoy myself a lot…but next time I am going to wear a dress!!!

I love quotes!!

2007-10-17T03:49:00.000-07:00

Quotes are like jokes… i can never remember them when I want to recite them!! So I’m going start writing them down!!!

My faves

"First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down."--George Burns

If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age."--George Burns

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible."--George Burns

"Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair."--George Burns

"Happiness is good health and bad memory."--Ingrid Bergman

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length."--Robert Frost

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city."--George Burns

"I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate."--George Burns

I spent a year in that town, one Sunday."--George Burns

"A happy life is one spent in learning, earning, and yearning."--Lillian Gish

"“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”"--Eleanor Roosevelt

"In order to be walked on, you have to be lying down."--Brian Weir

"To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first."--William Shakespeare

"If A equal success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut."--Albert Einstein

German Drivers....

2007-09-04T03:26:00.000-07:00

I come from a country where you learn to drive on the other side of the road to 90 % of the rest of the world, where they test your eyes are fit to drive before the test by vaguely gesturing in the near distance saying “Alright love, look over there…. you see that tree??….you see that car next to that tree???….. can you read the number plate?” From a country where I didn’t even have to do a theory test, the tester just showed me a card with a triangle sign and an animal on it and said…”what does this mean?” As well as this, I was told I didn’t “need” fifth gear for my driving test, so therefore he didn’t need to teach me how to use it at all, and you are not even allowed to drive on a motorway as a learner and motorway driving is even tested at all in the standard driving test!!!

All this being said, I still feel I am in a position to criticise certain aspects of German driving….namely INDICATING….

It is the most bizarre phenomenon….On a daily basis, driving down my road to work, I get so annoyed…..Suddenly the car in front will suddenly reduce speed to about 30 kph but for no apparent reason….there is no opportunity to overtake on this road, unless you want to risk death by collision with tram! The people are normally looking for a parking space…this I have deduced by the kind of acceleration – deceleration, kangaroo driving they do: “is it a space?”…, decelerate …”not big enough”…accelerate ”is he pulling out?”…decelerate…. no he’s reparking…accelerate…..Fair enough, we all need to park….but could you not at least indicate your intentions????…..it happens EVERY MORNING…. When i learnt to drive they taught me "MIRROR-SIGNAL-MANOEUVRE".... i am convinced some people here follow the rule just "MANOEUVRE-IGNORE OTHER ROAD USERS"

Conversely, there are the other drivers that needlessly indicate….You know how mercedes A class drivers have a bit of a reputation…normally you assume they are the housewives of rich businessmen…there is an A class lady driver who parks in the same car park as me who drives me crazy…. I have seen her on 3 different occasions. The car park is clearly marked with arrows, there is only one way in, one way out and one direction to drive around it. It is a multi-storey carpark so you generally (depending on how late you are) have to drive up 3 or 4 floors in a square to get to a floor where there is a space left. You can only go anti-clockwise. This lady, indicates at every possible junction, say she is driving up the ramp, and I am just behind, she pauses at the top… stops….looks left and right (even though you can only go left and she has right of way) INDICATES left before following the arrow that says left, meanwhile I am left balancing my clutch with an angry engine behind her,….then the indicator goes off, and we get to the next corned where she repeats the same procedure…if I need to get to the fourth floor, this starts to get really irritating….. ;-))

Bizarre Office Behaviour

2007-08-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

There are 8000 employees working at my company and what I want to know is this: if I myself have about 3 weird office habits that I can’t imagine anyone else doing, does that mean there are 24000 illicit or strange things going on every day in each of these offices. I for example, I am obsessed with checking my keyboard for eyelashes….(have you ever tipped your keyboard upside down and seen what comes out?) …if i feel too lazy to take my coffee cups back to the tea room, I put them in my drawer overnight.....and I keep my headphones looped over my plant on my desk!!! If only the office walls had eyes…. Here are a few things that i encounter in my daily working life...

The “nose tickle”...

If you walk down the corridor and look left and right into the offices as you go, it’s amazing how many guys are sat at their desks (and it is always guys) staring at their screens doing what I call “the nose tickle”. It’s like, they are not blatantly picking their noses, they just cannot leave their noses alone!!! I remember Boris Becker used to do this on Centre Court at Wimbledon...this is why I preferred Stefan Edberg cos I thought Boris was disgusting!

So when you catch someone actually picking their nose, how should you react?? Once, I was standing at the door and my colleague hadn’t seen me. He was sitting there quite unaware of my presence doing the unimaginable...I didn’T know what to do!!! Cough subtlely, go out again and walk up to the office loudly clumping my feet so he had some warning to stop the boring, knock, which would be way too official, or turn on my heel and pretend I never saw, to save the embarrassment. in the end he saw me and went very red......

Pointless headset phoning....

Most of us have headsets for phoning, as we work closely with colleagues in India, Hungary and the US....These headset however, are designed for phone calls of long duration where you need your hands free to make notes, or lead a conference call, or whatever....they are NOT designed for answering the phone to your mate (in all likeliness is sitting next door) to say "yes, let's go for lunch now"... it really winds me up.... Why put on a headset to answer the phone when you can just lift up the receiver???? WHY????

Extendable limbs...

One of my former office colleagues had magic legs like Inspector Gadget. …..She is only about 160 cm tall, so quite short really… and our desk is at least 2.40m in depth (we sit opposite each other), but even if I am not stretching out my legs, her legs always seem to tough mine on my side!!! we seem to be playing footsie with each other….how do her tiny legs stretch so far, da da da da dum inspector gadget da da da da da doo hoohoo…she appears to be sitting upright (I call us “typing monkeys”), yet her legs are well onto my side…hmmph

Conference call coughers....

Something that keeps me amused during conference calls if I am attending the actual meeting in person, is the strange noises you hear over the sound station from people working from home or in other locations.... I have heard dogs and kids, coughing, slurping, eating breakfast, people seem entirely unaware that the 50 people attending the meeting in person can hear every bite of the crunchy nut cornflakes. The equally applies to pouring tea. At least I hope that is what I can hear!!!!!!! here's an idea......Get out the telephone instruction manual and find the part that explains the "mute" button.... :-)

Sweat moppers...

I have a male colleague who gets very sweaty in the summer. We dress casually for work anyway, but he looks like he is going to the beach, he wears a singlet, sandals and socks, and bermuda type shorts. He is extremely lean and fit, but in summer, the beads of sweat fall from his temples and drop off continuously onto the desks. Now, I spend a lot of time in meetings with him where I have to sit next to him at his desk. Once, he had a packet of handy andies next to him, he took one out, lifted up his singlet, and mopped him armpits during our meeting. Then, he placed the used tissue on the desk between him and me!!!! Pleasant!!! As if this wasn’t bad enough, he then did it again.....WITH THE SAME USED TISSUE!!!! THHHEEEN.....he put it back on the desk AGAAAAIN.

Magnum eaters.....

You know how sometimes it can be really unpleasant listening to other people eating???? Well, I actually get more annoyed by people who are really considerate and try to eat quietly....

Magnums.......they are the worst. If you can hear a pin drop in the office and you suddenly hear the sound of teeth going through the hard chocolate, its almost like the sound of a dead weight being dropped on concrete. My stomach seizes up immediately. Then, there is the pause as the considerate colleague waits for the choc to melt so the next chew is not so noisy, you can see the person extend the mouth in a vertical oval o shape as they try to stop the mouth getting too cold. Then comes the chew... squelchier... then comes the next bite.... also drinking yoghurts....banana flavoured drinking yoghurts.....then I just have to leave the office or listen to some loud music. The banana smell combined with the noise is just too much to bear!!! :-)

Cleaning ladies...

The cleaning ladies have special sensor that tells them when i am desperate for the loo, this is the time they should do their hourly toilet check. it doesn't matter what time it is, how often since the last check.... everytime i am desperate after a meetin or whatever, her trolley is always parked in front of the door so i can't go in....booooo so you walk to extra 100 m to the next to find there is a trolley in front of that one too.....this applies also to the coffee machines. they are always filling the beans or cleaning when i want a coffee....

Bad breath survival guide...

As i spend a lot of time in one-on-one meetings, I have learnt which of my colleagues are fine to talk with at close quarters, and on which ones I need to apply my tried and tested “bad breath survival guide”. Some of my colleagues are very courteous when it comes to close conversation. They chew gum or eat mints before or during our meeting. Others are blissfully unaware of the lengths I am going to to survive the meeting. Often the warning signs are there, you look at their teeth and can see the plaque build up. That’s a sure-fire way of knowing you need to be prepared ...so here’s how to get through it, without causing offence, and close off your olfactory organ whilst fighting the urge to yell... “ever heard of toothpaste?”, “ever owned a toothbrush?” and “ever thought of not eating raw onions at lunch when you have a meeting with me straight afterwards?”.

The halitosis “hows”.....

--->Claim you are really tired today and that is the reason why you are sitting at the desk propping up your chin with elbows on desk and hand clamped loosely yet effectively over your nose.

--->Claim you played too much badminton and have put out your neck. You must therefore look straight ahead of you at the screen and this means you avoid the direct line of breath, you still might get a bit, but the worst impact is lessened immensely.

--->Spray yourself in copious amounts of perfume, deo, whatever you can find really, so that is all you can smell is yourself.

--->Even if you don’t have a cold, use Vick’s vapour rub or Olbas oil ...this is how we used to get through the dissection classes in A-level biology!!! Just dab a little under your nose....very effective. That way you always get colleague’s sympathy cos every time you have a meeting you apparently have a cold!!!

--->The one I use most often is the “hold and stretch” technique. I hold my breath while the colleague is talking, then every 20 seconds or so, depending on if its a monologue type of colleague or not, I lean back as if stretching, and take a lungful of oxygen from the safe air zone.

Colleagues with blackheads...

I have a colleague who has had an extremely ripe blackhead for the last 2 weeks. I just have to remember not to look at him directly now, in similar manner to halitosis colleagues, because if I do, all i can think about is the blackhead....this feeling of dying to squeeze it, the satisfaction of seeing it pop out....aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, the anticipation of knowing it’s going to be a really “good one”. I think I need help!!!!!!! But you know that feeling, it grips your stomach, and there is absolutely no way to quell the urge, its the worst kind of abstinence in the world!!!! I just don’t know him well enough to offer my squeezing services!!!!

A fondness for mullets....

2007-08-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

Writing a blog largely based on my antics in Germany, it was inevitable that I would eventually write a blog about mullets!! How fitting then, that I was just having a trip down memory lane in a rather dull business meeting....was thinking of all the celebrities I used to fancy before I was 10....and I just realised how bad their mullets were!!!! It wasn't just a German crime!!! The word in German is VOKUHILA….(pronounced fockuheelar) Germans love to take the first two letters of a word and stick them together…vorne kurz hinten lang….. (meaning short at the front, long at the back!!)….

After this blog there will be no skeletons left in my cupboard!!!

Crush no.1 - Martin Daniels

If you were born in the late seventies, it is highly likely that your first girly crush was on someone like Tom Cruise in Top Gun, Mel Gibson, or Marti Pellow singing “Goodnight girl”. Not me. My first ever crush was on Martin Daniels, son of the oh so classy magician Paul, who was on „Game for a laugh“ back in the Eighties. I wasn’t strictly speaking allowed to watch it, and it wasn’t really suitable viewing for a six year old, but i was truly convinced i was going to marry him…. He would have made a great husband, especially judging by the meteoric rise of his career….I think he now works the cruise liners….and he wasn’t just “away at sea” in the working sense…I heard a rumour he has since been to jail….probably for heinous mullet crimes! Oh my goodness, fancy have Debbie McGee as a mother-in-law!!!! i cannot find a pic of his mullet, but trust me it was a classic. Here he is today!!

And even worse

"Watching you watching us, Watching us watching you - goodnight!"-uuuuummmmm Nice!!

Crush Number 2: The Monkees, Davy

Should have known fancying someone called "Davy" would be a bad idea. What mortified me was my Dad telling me that the Monkees programs i used to watch every morning during the summer holidays were actually made in the sixties, and that the guy I thought was about 18 (obtainable enough for a 10 year old) was probably in his mid forties with kids already…. I refused to believe my Dad, but then I saw him on TVam with Anne Diamond and he had drawn a flower on his forehead, he was a hippy.....I hadn't yet grasped the concept of prerecorded TV programs ...

His mullet crimes were not committed in the sixties but way after....

OUCH!!

Crush number 3 :Stefan Edberg

....it was the battle of the Eighties tennis players, you either liked Stefan Edberg or Boris Becker.... nowadays, I would go for old Bazza everytime, after all, he comes from Leimen, nr. Heidelberg!! But at the time, Stefan was the one. This was the first time I would collect newspaper cuttings from my Nanna....she was so sweet, she would perfectly cut them out with the date on and everything!! When he won Wimbledon in 1988 I was so happy!! But i nearly missed it cos i was at gymnastics cos that year the rain had stopped play on the Sunday, and they had to play the final on MONDAY!!

Crush Number 4: Jason Donovan

Then came the inevitable....OK, I love Kylie now, but I used to hate her....cos she had the most amazing man on the planet....Jason Donovan......

Mullet ahoy!!

And the last one, but not from the 80s ...yet another tennis player......Andre Agassi!!!!!!

trouble was...he didn't have the excuse that it was the 80s when he had his mullet....SHAME ON YOU ANDRE...thanks goodness for bald patches!!!!!

The Jeremy Kyle Appreciation Society...

2007-07-27T01:06:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows daytime TV is a waste of time, so why do so many people watch it? I used to love watching “The Time, The Place” and “Kilroy” (which at least covered sort of topical affairs), but when they were axed, along came Vanessa and Trisha. The latest one to plague ITV on a weekday morning is Jeremy Kyle….I am sucked in, it’s the voyeuristic tendencies in me...its train wreck television…it’s dreadful….and the worst thing is Jeremy Kyle himself. It’s voyeuristic because of the guests....he parades the UK's most desperate people…it’s like chav anthropology, true social education – some of the guests are great…if you think you can’t possibly see:

anyone with a tighter “Essex facelift” (where hair is gelled and pulled back into a high ponytail so tightly you look permanently startled! similar effect to botox without the injections!)
a kid any fatter
a woman with any more gold hoops in one ear or sovereign rings on her fingers
a woman who has at least four possible candidates as father for her child
…. you are always proven wrong.

But Jeremy Kyle…he is horrible. He is like a dictator….he never stops shouting… he can’t seem to talk at normal volume, he never smiles, he even shouts at kids…he calls everyone "scum" so condescending, it is awful.

Today I watched a show with three people who had a problem…Karen, Sharon and Darren…..you couldn’t make it up, could you??!?!? According to the ITV website (I research my blogs thoroughly), the Jeremy Kyle show is “one of Britain's most-loved, watched and talked-about shows.” What about good old Coronation Street!? Well I guess people talk about it or i wouldn't have written this blog but the well-loved bit...ahem...

Here are some classic “Jeremy-isms”
His favourite phrase is: “it’s not rocket science”. whenever there is a "problem child" with a mother who has 3 feet fake nails and is a bit poor on the old grammar, he`ll say something like "you don`t know why he/she is behaving like this do you? But I DO. IT`S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE"

If someone in the audience wants to ask a question, he barks “YOU HAVE TO STAND UP IF YOU WANT TO ASK A QUESTION”….

I found this on the Jeremy Kyle Digital Spy blog: so funny
JK (approaching attractive looking woman) "You have to stand up if you want to ask a question."(Attractive Woman stands up, towering over Jeremy, who immediately regrets his request.)
JK "Hi, you're tall aren't you?"
AW: "Ummm...actually no I'm only five foot f..."Jeremy (interrupting quickly and changing subject) "Hey, nice shoes! So, what have you got to say about all this?"
AW: "Well, uh, at the end of the day, you lot on the stage have gotta sort it out. I mean, you know, you've gotta like, sort it out. At the end of the day, like, I mean, it's all about sorting it out innit? At the end of the day." (Consults Cliche Dictionary hidden in top pocket) "I mean, a relationship is all about trust innit? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you can't love yourself nobody else will love you. At the end of the day..." (explodes)
JK: "The Voice Of Reason, Ladies and Gentlemen!"

He is totally insensitive…if you have people on the show whose children have committed suicide, breaking their hearts whilst talking about it, Jeremy turns to the camera and audience and says "the first thing I`m going to do after this show, is phone my children"….very sensitive!!!

He is always saying "I'm Jeremy Kyle" and making sure everyone knows it's HIS show, he's always says, pointing to the 'The Jeremy Kyle Show' sign “whose name is it up there on that sign??? Hmmm???”

He shouts"...That's a FACT!" at the end of every sentence, even when it makes no sense for example, "Why don't you get a job? That's a FACT!" (Er..Isn’t it a question Jeremy???)

Showing off….he takes every chance to tell stories about how great a father he is "I used to drive all night to see my kids without any sleep"

Patronising…telling wife-batterers and gambling addicts and alcoholics how "brave" they are for "coming on the show and putting their hands in the air"

And guess what...these types programmes even get subtitled. My mate Cath decided to give up feigning interest at company team building events and got a decent job in London as a subtitler.... and she had to subtitle the Jerry Springer show. People apparently bribe others to take on the Jeremy Kyle show if they are unlucky enough to be landed with it!! This morning I had to stifle my guffawing when I read that she has gone from translating business software to transcribing expletives. She wrote:

"Jerry Springer was shocking actually. So obviously all
staged.
Subtitles went something like
BLEEP
SHOUTING
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE
You nasty-assed BLEEP
BLEEP
(each one lasting several seconds - that is mega long
for a 'caption')"

So funny... so here is a spoof mockup of the Jeremy Kyle Show...but it's scarily accurate!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPZcN-PiomI

And here is the real Jeremy Kyle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1DToMHBVbk&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-TXtEVT5pI&NR=1

Enjoy!

I seriously do not know how come this program is still on the air.... i think it really is only because of people like me who think it's so bad its good!! :-)

My Loathing of Creative Writing

2007-07-13T12:13:00.001-07:00

A weird thing happened to me last year, I kind of discovered not only that I enjoyed writing words down, but was also quite good at it. It began with song lyrics. I was writing a song with someone, and he said “just write a ‘blind’ text, any old rubbish, just so we can sing the melody properly”. He gave me about 15 minutes for this task. So grasping at straws, I started writing about an ex-boyfriend who had messed me around for months, but was now desperate to have me back….after 15 minutes, I had a really quite decent text….I was excited…..

Then I kept hearing this word “blog”…..what on earth is this blog thing, I asked myself on numerous occasions before actually bothering to google “blog” and discover there were literally a trillion uses of blogs, personal diaries, business blogs, newspaper blogs. At first I thought it was a bit weird, people wanting to write their personal stuff down and give the entire world access to it….then I realised there is a lot more to it, like mySpace networking…what a wonderful way to get new ideas and inspirations from your average Joe….its like actually seeing inside people’s heads. People you didn’t think had any ideas, they do!!

It was on a business trip to Hungary, that I started having all these funny ideas and observations, well I always had them, but I never wrote them down before, I didn’t want them to go under like most things or ideas I had had between the years 2001 and 2006, since living abroad. Living abroad provides endless quirky stories, so much goes forgotten, but it takes half an hour to write down something funny, and then it stays with you forever. Given that I was living in a hotel, and was 3 km from the nearest visitable place, I ended up going to the pool at the hotel and then writing down “blogs” on my laptop in my hotel room. I would keep notes during the day, on the bus, in the supermarket and write everything up as soon as I could.

The thing was until the age of 28, I thought I detested creative writing. I loathed English at school, and the teacher knew it. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate literature, or enjoy reading a good book, but actually taking a keat’s poem, and breaking it down, analysing its iambic pentameter was like BORING!!!! My soul was still in foetal stages until that point. At parent’s evening my teacher told my parents “She might get a B if the wind is blowing the right way on the day”…..a B??? “pah…I ‘ll show her”, I thought. Now, what I lacked in enthusiasm for Shakespeare’s sonnets, Keat’s mellow fruitfulness and Miss Haversham’s probably stenching nightie, I made up for in spelling and the ability to learn by heart the names for all these poncy poems and regurgitate them using fancy words. I went into my GCSE English literature exam not really caring what happened. I remember thinking I am going to use as many pretentious words as possible. I distinctly remember writing façade….including cedilla, “au fait” and “de rigueur” and writing in American English words like neutralizing, and realizing with ‘z’, blow me, I got an A*….only 2 in the whole year did, I was well chuffed, especially when I bumped into my teacher afterwards….i tried to keep my smugness to myself!!!

So I think my inspirations come from observations, but I never realised before that what goes on around you is really all you can really write about, cos that is all you really know about. At least if you are writing characters or whatever. It’s a different thing entirely to have fantasy, write science fiction, invent a whole new world order…..

At seven or eight years of age, I had no fantasy. That is why when we had “story time” at primary school, I used to plagiarise my mum’s girls crystal annuals. I absolutely adored reading them….they were kept in a wardrobe at my Grandma’s, Girl’s Crystal 1956-59…..I would be there on a Sunday, get a small chocolate bar, and bury my head in various adventures at boarding schools, highwaymen, and posh schoolgirls whose daddies lived in “Indeyaaaa” and had “tuck boxes”.

Monday morning was always “story writing time”. So the stories from Grandma’s were really fresh in my head, I’d take a story I’d read and adapt it a bit. One week, I was dying to get my book back, I wanted to see if I had a gold star for my “composition”. I opened it up. I just said. “See me, Katy”. No star, not even a red one. “See me” was never a good sign.

“Did you make this story up yourself, Katy”, Miss Reid asked. Wide-eyed, I replied “Yessss” going really red…. I think what made Miss Reid suspicious, was that I was 7 years old, and I had written a story entitled

“Stella’s Peril at the Highwayman’s Lodge.”

This was 1986. Stella really wasn’t a name that was particularly trendy at the time. This was the era of Sarah, Rachel and Jessica, not names reeking of the 50s like Stella, Margaret and Patricia. Am also not sure “peril” is a word in most 7 year old’s vocabularies in the mid eighties. Same applies to “highwayman” and “lodge”….Still, there was very little chance Miss Reid had a girls crystal annual from 1957, so I knew if I stuck to my guns, you would just have to write in my report “Katy has an excellent vocabulary for her age”.

Strange it took so long for me to discover that writing is fun….. well I ran out of Girls Crystal stories to plagiarise.!!

Rules, rules, rules

2007-06-28T01:50:00.000-07:00

I have just discovered or rather realised something.....

In German there is no phrase for "there is an exception to every rule".....isn'T that typical????

BGA

Anyone for a freebie?

2007-06-27T00:09:00.000-07:00

Freebies…Germans love ‘em.

Everywhere I look, people are going to extraordinary lengths to entice you to do things for “free” stuff!!

At work, if you canvass a new customer, they will give you free shares. At the gym, they will give you 50 euros if you recruit a new member. If you stop receiving your phone bills by post and get them sent by email, they’ll give you 20 euros…..buy one get one free, 4 dvds for the price of 3. Get a free European flight with your airmiles (you only have to pay the tax which is 100 euros!!!). Germans also firmly believe you must be compensated with freebies if a promised service is not up to scratch. I guess as a Brit, I just can't work up the courage to ask...although I know lots of Brits who do...

Once when I extended my 2 year mobile phone contract, a German friend asked me….”So…what did they give you for extending your contract”….and I was like “what do you mean???...they gave me a new phone for 1 euro” showing my tiny little cameraless flip phone with a groovy light on the front that flashed red, orange and green when it rang….I asked specifically for one without “schnick-schnack” (all those useless functions you get, don’t know what they mean or are for and never use like ‘bluetooth’;-)) ). “is that all?” he replied incredulously…I said “what do you mean is that all??”….then he listed the freebies I could have got if I had asked…….case, free smses….but you know what….that is all just too much effort for me!!! I want a phone for a euro and a new contract and I am a happy woman!!

In German they have a word for getting you to get a new customer ….it’s “werben”. This can be translated as advertise, recruit, canvass, introduce, promote….there is no specific English word for it as far as I am aware.

One of my friends wanted to “werben” me to get a bank account. He told me about the good interest rates, you had instant access to your money, the account was free (in Germany you often have to pay quarterly for your bank account)…..AND….most importantly….and the clincher…..if he signed me up, you could get a free “trolley-dolly” suitcase, or a 25 euro voucher for a well known petrol station.

He wasn’t really in it to get free stuff for himself…..but the point is, if someone was offering something for free, he couldn’t possibly rest until he had taken advantage of it.

So I signed up and ticked the free gift box on the form for the suitcase!! I thought a little case would be perfect for all my trekking back and forth from Germany to the UK!

It was approaching christmas. I checked my postbox a day before I was due to fly home and discovered an “Abholschein” (form from the post office that tells you you have to go and collect a parcel). Probably a Christmas present, I thought. The trouble was, they return parcels to the sender within 7 working days if you don’t collect them, and I was going away for 2 weeks to the UK. So I would have to go to the post depot before work and pick whatever it was up.

This was in the days before I had a car and went everywhere by train, tram and bus. I was leaving for the airport straight after work, so I had to take my suitcase full of presents and 2 weeks worth of clothes with me to the post depot on the way to work. Problem: the post depot is not on a busline going in the direction of work. It is exceedingly difficultly located on the Czernyring and I had to walk WITH case from Heidlberg Hauptbahnhof, where I had got off the tram from my house to the post depot. (a good 15-20 min walk) I had stiff shoulders when I arrived, but this was alleviated by my excitement at whatever my mystery parcel was.

After waiting in a VERY LONG queue (well, it was Christmas) I finally got the the counter. I handed over the collection ticket to the lady and watched in mortification as she, now out of view behind an enormous box, staggered over to the counter. This box was about 100cm x 80cm x 40cm. It was my FREEBIE from the bank!! The “trolley-dolly” suitcase was in fact an oversize MA – HOO – SIVE thing, a hard case, making it all the more heavy. I asked the lady if I could pick it up after Christmas and she said NO….being Christmas, there was no room for things people couldn’t pick up….I pointed at the oversize suitcase already with me and tried to get the sympathy vote, but no. She was adament. So I took the box off the counter, and sort of shuffled into a corner to work out what to do. Could someone pick me up? – no, noone I knew at that time had a car. Should I get a taxi to work? – well that would cost about 25- 30 euros, about the value of the “freebie” Should I just leave it on the street? – no, someone might think it was a suspicious package. There was nothing for it, I had to manage somehow. Next problem, because the depot was on the czernyring, and therefore the bus lines don’t run parallel along the same road, I had to go BACK to Heidelberg to get the train or bus to Walldorf. To add insult to injury, the post depot lies at the foot of a hill. So I sort of balanced my freebie on top of my suitcase and started to drag it up the hill towards the bus stop. The bus came and I struggled on with my 2 square appendages. I got off the bus at the Hauptbahnhof, I must say everyone was most unhelpful, then realised I should have just stayed on the bus to Walldorf, but all this to-ing and fro-ing had disoriented me completely.

I briefly considered the train, but that would mean escalators (there were no lifts then), and another change to another bus….i just sat and waited for the next bus.

When I arrived at work, I had to go through the turnstiles, there is barely room for a person, let alone a person and too large objects. But I didn’t want to press the button for security and get them to open the door cos I was shy of speaking German and could barely understand their Badisch accents.

The freebie remained in my office for about 3 months. Eventually I found someone to give me a lift home.

What people will do for a freebie, eh? Perhaps this story explains my “freebie complacency”

Corsican Culinary Confrontation

2007-06-10T01:33:00.000-07:00

Whenever i am on holiday, i like to think of myself as open to everything…chat to the locals, and sample the local cuisine. But really, despite my genuine desire to be up for anything, I have to admit, that there are things that make me realise, I really am not.

In Corsica, there are several things you’ll find on every menu: l’assiette de charcuterie (selection of cold meats and so on), wild boar in red wine sauce, and various things in Corsican cheesy sauces. I was having a meal in a lovely little restaurant in Algaiola, a tiny old town on the North coast between ile de rousse and calvi…. Granite stone walls, tables so close together you could hear everyone’s conversations on the next table. I had wanted to try some of the local delicacies and this was a perfect backdrop. I ordered an aubergine terrine to start and the fish for the main course. Sounded lovely. My dining companion took the wild boar. As we waited for the main course to arrive, I noticed the men on the next table taking charge of their dinner. I was really starving! My heart sank as I realised they had chosen the same meal as me, and on the plate was not a nice piece of filleted fish, but a whole fish. I had forgotten this was the Continent!

If there is one thing about food that makes me squeamish, its fish that looks like fish. I didn’t want to have the image of the cute fishy I saw snorkelling yesterday now dead, cremated and on my plate… I like my fish to look and smell as un-fishlike as possible. Blistered eye staring up at you, teeth protruding out of the jaw, pathetic little fins all crispy…..i just don’t like it!! DON’T LIKE IT…
It’s like getting chicken with the feathers still on!!

I really was not liking myself for being such a wuss, this whole incident was leaving me feeling on the one hand frustrated, uncontinental and pathetically foreign that I just didn’t want to look down at my food and I couldn’t just be cool and like “yeah, I’ll cut the head off, now I’ll cut the tail off, now I’ll cut the fins off, yeah man this is FUN”….On the other hand, I was a bit annoyed that I hadn’t predicted this potential scenario and chosen the steak…and that I was starving and paying lots of money for the ordeal….

My very generous dinner date said we could swap. I found this really chivalrous, seeing as he himself isn’t that keen on personally beheading his dinner before eating it either. I decided to pull myself together..it had become a personal challenge……A corsican culinary confrontation…..me against the fish!

I scraped back the skin to reval the flesh….OK. I thought, that is the bit I am supposed to eat. Then my dinner date said, now you have to cut off the head….eeeeyou…..i felt ILL….I closed my eyes, knife poised, so glad I was facing the corner and noone could see my facial expression. As the knife went through the spinal cord I pushed the head gently to the side of the plate, trying not to look down, then tried to cover the eye with the skin. Then I cut off the tail and the fins….

It was time to eat!! Yum! I was wondering where the sauce was…I was sure the menu had mentioned some yummy Corsican cheesy sauce….on my plate was a small but perfectly formed cylinder of rice and a fish. Otherwise nothing. I felt most hard done by.!!!! I tried the flaking fish technique….i ate some, it was ok. Just tasted of fish. Fish …and …fish… but of course the other thing apart from bodily parts hanging round the plate that puts me off fish is the lttle bones….if you are an accustomed fish eater, you can slide the whole half off the bones….but even then you always have a few floating around…I don’t understand the fun factor…..it’s hard work!!!! I thought going to a restaurant was supposed to be a pleasurable experience. I wistfully thought about opening a box with a macky d filet-o-fish with tartare sauce…..a tenth of the price and ten times more enjoyable….to me anyway……guess that reveals my true culinary colours!!!

Best Sailed Plans

2007-06-10T00:52:00.000-07:00

I was in Toulon….To be honest, I am not sure there is really any really good reason to go there except to catch the ferry to Corsica!! And that was the plan!!….As I drove onto the ship I was feeling really excited. A whole new adventure. Somewhere I had never been before, somewhere that is France but doesn’t want to be, island of amazing rugged beauty: glaciers, ocean, unique fauna and flora, mountains, rivers…amazing. And I was really looking forward to the ferry trip. I had booked a luxury cabin for the overnight 8 hour journey. It had been a long journey from Heidelberg, nearly 1000km and 10 hours…so I couldn’t wait to have a lie down….I locked the car and headed towards deck. The ferry smell, reminded me of those Brittany ferry holidays to France when I was a child. I had to go to the reception to get our cabin keys. As I passed by the room with all the reclining chairs, I thought, “I am so glad I don’t have to sleep vertically tonight", remembering an awfully uncomfortable night I had spent with my whole family in a Vauxhall Nova at a French ferry terminal when our ferry had been cancelled due to bad weather...

There was a mass of people, predictably, queuing to get their cabin keys. I took my place in the queue. After 5 minutes it became apparent that the queue was not going down whatsoever, I started straining to hear what was going on….There were lots of stressed Corsica Ferry workers, who seemed to be native Italian speakers rather than French, flapping papers and apologising to people…I overheard one reception guy (with immaculately plucked eyebrows) say that this guy couldn’t have his cabin because they were all booked out. The man was asking…how can this be?? I booked, I paid for it….how can pay for something that isn’t available???? At this point, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach….I wasn’t going to get our cabin…..I started pushing visions of reclining chairs out of my mind…. “think positive, said my travelling companion”, “smile”, I smiled….I approached the desk, I handed over my reservation to the guy with the plucked eyebrows.

He repeats practically the same thing to me….i want to cry, the guy with the eyebrows isn’t even apologetic. He just says matter of fact, “there are not enough cabins available, you can get a refund, or you can take the cabin another night. I say “I don’t want the cabin another night when I am not on the ferry, I want it tonight, seeing as I paid 70 euros for it and don’t do sleeping vertically. No apology, nothing, he could have feigned sympathy…..pah! He tells me I can sleep in the vertical reclining chairs - then adds, "it's free", as if this is supposed to make me think Corsica Ferries are so generous for taking my money for a cabin that isn't available. I feel the tears welling…there was nothing for it, the next 9 hours were going to be spent either roaming the ferry aimlessly, or sleeping upright.

I decide to check out the ferry's entertainment...i thought if I could kill a few hours, I wouldn't have to spend so long sleeping vertically. So I went for a roam around the ship..."Amusements" I thought, feed a machine with 20 cent pieces...I can find that fun if I have to....I went to find the mini amusement arcade....this is how it looked:
"Great", I thought. OK, so I will go up on deck. There was a swimming pool!! It looked like this:

As bedtime approached, I was starting to feel a sense of solidarity with a number of people on the ship. Lots of people had booked cabins and were preparing themselves for a night at right angles!! I walked into the toilets and was pleased to see someone had really decided to make themselves at home:

I turned in for the night. After 10 minutes, I already had back and neckache. I decided to lie on the floor along the foot of the seats, hoping against hope noone had been sick down there or anything else equivalently horrible!!

I lay there for 2 hours. Wide awake, thinking of all the things I normally try not to think about. I wasn’t actually that uncomfortable, except that there was no room to shift around too much, I eventually start to drift off to sleep, but then I hear a noise. I was alert like a shot. It sounded just like a dog, a wet dog who shakes himself really quickly to dry off. I said to the awake guy next to me “did you just hear a dog?”. He thinks I was dreaming. I lie back down, I glance cautiously from side to side under the seats, at the feet of the people in front, then to the other side, I cannot see a dog....but it is very dark….I start to drop off again….then I hear the dog noise again, and again…I sit bolt upright. It must be a dog, and I am not sleeping on the floor of a ferry with a dog in the next aisle who could just start licking my face at any given moment!! No way, there is nothing for it, I have to move…..my seat is next to a luggage rack. The guy says why don#t I sleep in there….I decide that at least I would be a) horizontal and b) out of the way of reach of death by dog!! It is very cold sleeping in the luggage rack. I had no blanket, just my jacket. But I don’t drop off anymore quickly In the luggage rack either…the bars on the rack above the one I am sleeping in keep rattling along with the movement of the ship…If I place my hands on them momentarily, they stop vibrating and making this noise, but it only starts again after a few minutes…..on top of this, I can still hear the dog, so the whole night is filled with dog, luggage rack….luggage rack, dog, dog, cough cough, luggage rack. The whole time the ferry is going up and down in a circular movement….. I was also completely freezing!! I kept thinking of the luxury cabin….then looking at myself in the luggage rack…that just wasn’t in my game plan..

The next morning, after no sleep whatsoever, just 3 new blog ideas and much soul searching, they switch hthe lights on. Throughout the night there have been announcements in French and Italian….it sounded like they were offering free cabins, but I think this was my imagination playing tricks on me….they only did English announcements for completely irrelevant things,,,,,the proper information evaded me….I went to try and get a refund. I am 100% sure I will never get it. Next time i go on a ferry I am taking a blow-up mattress with me!!

S

Feigning interest at team building events

2007-06-10T00:48:00.000-07:00

There is nothing worse than company team building days…held at posh hotels with all the people you spend most of your time trying to avoid at work. And it would be ok, if you actually got anything out of it, but you just know you are going to be spending the day listening to boring presentations about things you don’t understand and doing your best to sleep with your eyes open whilst maintaining am “I AM interested face”.

Cath and I are not the most punctual of people, but we managed to arrive on time to get a butter brezel and a coffee before the whole ordeal started. We walked into the “welcome” meeting, practically the last…and scoot right to the back like school kids trying to get seats at the back of a coach on the way to a school outing. …after 20 minutes – no actually that is far too generous…after 8 mins, we have already lost the plot. We have the obligatory “get to know” session, where all the big wigs who laugh at their own jokes introduce themselves, and then another guy starts talking about the “pillars” of something or other, presumably our goals for the next 6 months. This guy is German and keeps repeating the same English phrases incorrectly!! For example… things we do “on a daily base” or “last not least”….It becomes apparent very quickly that the welcome meeting is going to overrun and therefore dig into our coffee drinking time planned for the first break. Luckily there is some light relief, as an Indian employee walks in late and knocks over a load of champagne flutes……

The second session begins…I just about make out the following words “key activities, goals, goal owners….how to increase life customers….. “who cares?”, I think…everyone in the room will be dead in 60 years anyway!! As I hear the new topic “power of concepts”, I start to find the double crown of the guy in front of me incredibly fascinating….Cath is examining her split ends, she leans across to me to say something, I meet her half way and she says, “Kate, I love eating Tahini straight out of the jar”. This comment is so incongruous apart from the fact that lunchtime is approaching that I struggle very hard to maintain my composure. Then she says “Kate, this is a load of bollox”… the guys at the front are spitting out words that appear to bear no relation to each other whatsoever…As I win my third game of hangman against Cath the whole room erupts in laughter. We have, of course no clue why…the words interoperability, leverage, interphase don’t normally have me in stitches….

After lunch and a welcome respite, I start to consider how I am going to get through the next session. “Adopting capabilities” and “today’s reality” of something or other!! I decide on trying to find the most bizarre pair of glasses in the room. German glasses are very distinctive....they can be either mega tiny, or are just the lenses hanging off a strange wire construction....There are many potential candidates. But my favourite is a pair where the arm has a zig zag pattern, then the wire goes across the top of the left lens, to the nose bridge, then underneath the second lens and back to zig zag pattern on the other arm.

I cast a glance around to see how everyone else is passing the time. Cath, who I am not sitting next to during this session is comatosed, bent forwards with her head between her legs in a brace position like you are supposed to take during an emergency landing!! The guy talking is trying to be cool, I hear him say that business process content is “sexy”. Nice try mate, but it doesn’t work. There is a competition to win an iPod….everyone has to put their name into a hat for a raffle….two months after this happened, Cath and I were discussing the day and discovered that we had both put 10 slips with our name into the hat!! We still didn’t win though.

Calls with "withheld" numbers: To answer or not to answer??

2007-06-10T00:42:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking, if I get a call on my mobile where the number is withheld, you can guarantee it is one of the following:
bad news
a stalker
someone trying to sell me something.

All options are as unwelcome as the other, but my personal least favourite has to be the unwanted salesman call.

I was at work, mid-afternoon, and my mobile rang. “Withheld”….hmmm I thought, my conscience didn’t let me ignore it…. maybe it was important. I answered. “Frau Dowle?” The anonymous voice enquired…. Jaaaa, I answered cautiously…. It was a salesman from my mobile phone provider. He wanted to know if I was interested in DSL. Do you have 5 minutes? he asked me. My curiosity roused, purely for any excuse to leave my work for a brief interlude, I said yes, but I made it clear that I was not in a position to order DSL at the moment, namely because I did not actually have a computer, so DSL would really be quite pointless.

I listened to all the benefits, the great review the product had had from the consumer protection people…only 29.95 euro per month. I said…sounds very good, but as I mentioned, I do not have a computer, so I don’t want to order it, but you could send me some information. “Sehr gut, Frau Dowle”, said the voice. I thanked him and hung up…and went back to my work.

About 2 hours later, I heard the little SMS jingle from my mobile phone in my handbag…..I was hoping it was someone inviting me for a beer after work. I unflipped my phone. The SMS read as follows: (translated!!) Dear “Mrs.” Dowle, Thank you for choosing our DSL. Only 29.95 per month. We are happy you chose us. Service should be available by the end of the week. I thought this must be some administrative error, since I didn’t have a computer, I hadn’t signed anything, and I had made it quite clear to the guy on the phone that I didn’t want to order it. I didn’t think any more of it…until the next week.

I was checking my bank balance online. I was in the red. Ahem….I CAN’T be, I thought. I went through the transactions. There was an entry for -100 euros…..from the mobile phone company!!! WHAAAT ??? I thought…..They had debited my account because apparently for the bargain price of 100 euros, you get a splitter, a router, and a wireless thing, and all the rigmarole you need to connect your imaginary computer up to the Internet, plus the connection fee!! Then I checked my monthly bill, and it was twice as much as normal because they had added the 29.95 euros to my monthly mobile phone bill. This explained why I was in the red. I was really quite annoyed.

I phoned the hotline. I spent about 20 minutes on one of those switchboards where you go round in circles trying to work out to which category your particular problem belongs? Ie…. If you have a problem with your mobile phone, press 1, if you have a problem with your hardware, press 2, if you have a problem with your connections press 3…and so on….whatever, I always end up with the “operator”, to whom I try to explain the problem, and then who redirects me to someone who says that’s the wrong department and hangs up, so I have to repeat the whole thing once again.
I eventually found the “sort of right” contact person, and said I now had DSL, had had my bank account debited by 129.95 euro but that I didn’t actually want it, or order it, and couldn’t use it anyway. The man on the hotline completely ignored what I said …then asked me for my customer number and looked me up on his computer. Frau Dowle, on the 29th June, our salesman phoned and you ordered DSL 2000, what is the problem. I tried to explain again….i didn’t order it, I DON’T HAVE A COMPUTER. “Ah yes”, he said, I can see your problem. “Thank you” I said. He said he would cancel the order and refund the money. I thought that would be the end of the problem.

I got a little slip in my postbox saying I had something to collect from the post depot. Maybe someone sent me a present!!! It took me a few days to get round to collecting the parcel. It is such a hassle; the post depot is basically only open when I am at work. But one morning, I made it, and after standing in an extremely long queue for about half an hour, I presented the collection slip, and the lady gave me this huge box, which was obviously all the rigmarole from the mobile phone company for setting up the DSL for the phantom computer. THEN she said that will be 8.50 euro, I decided, no way am I paying 8.50 for all this stuff I don’t want, don’t need and didn’t order. So I told the post depot woman there had been a mistake and she should return it to the sender.

I then ascertained that the mobile phone company had still not refunded my account so I phoned again. They said they could not refund the money until they had received the hardware back. I told them I had never received it. They said they had sent it to me, and it needed to be proved that I hadn’t received and just “pocketed” the hardware, so to speak, before I got a refund. I tried the “I don#t have a computer” argument again. After all, what could I do with all this stuff……??? Apparently I could sell it on e-bay or do any number or things with it. All I could do was hope that the post depot DID send it back, and that someone at the mobile phone company actually made a record of its return, so I could get my refund.

This all went on for 3 months. No refund, phoning the hotline, them saying they had the hardware, I should get my refund with the next monthly phone statement. So basically….they never “refunded” my, just gave me a credit note, so I didn’t have to pay a mobile bill for a few months. But really, what is the use of this when you are in the red and need the cash. Plus they never refunded my overdraft fees. All quite shambolic really. This all taught me one thing. Never ever talk to a sales person on the phone…you just don’t know what will happen.

Last month my mobile rang at work again. It’s always during the post-lunch lull, when they know you are at your most fallible. . Christ. I thought. Same conscience pricked again, I answered. It was the mobile phone company….. I knew what to do.
“Frau Dowle, you have been a customer for 4 years now”…
”I am not interested” I answered straight away, the woman continued
“I have a special offer just for you”
“I am not interested”
“Can I just tell you something about it”
“I am not interested”
“But Frau Dowle, we want to give you a present”
“I am not interested”
“It’s a brand new mobile worth 400 euros”.
My resolve began to quake…don’t trust her …don’t trust her. I managed to get her off the line….phew!

I then checked my mail and saw the “special offer” she had been talking about. Yeah right…free phone for 400 euros IF you extend your contract by 24 months (thereby guaranteeing them at MINIMUM a sum of 840 euros in bills alone) and as long as you spend at least so and so much per month. “Pah” I though, I KNEW it. Never ever trust anyone whose number is withheld…..

Inline Skating at the Hockenheim Ring

2007-05-23T03:46:00.000-07:00

I have just discovered that the word inline skate doesn’t appear to be the common word used by British people for a boot with wheels in a line on the bottom. The correct word is apparently “roller blade”.

Another shocking example of how germanified I have become, like thinking the word “Wellness” (going to spas) or “Beamer” (projector) or “Smoking” (tuxedo/dinner jacket) or “Handy” (mobile phone) are perfectly acceptable English words!!!

I think the inline skating craze started here around the time I did my Praktikum. The whole of Southern Germany appeared to spend the summer of 2000 on “inline skates”, and I kind of grew with the craze hence not knowing this wasn’t what British people called them.

Germans take inline skating very seriously. They have to have all the correct “gear”, know all the correct moves, emergency stops, turns, technique and so on before they set wheel to road!!….Helmet, wrist, elbow and knee protectors, (which are actually a very good idea), finger ring bell for attracting attention, padded skating shorts, sporty reflective glasses and an element of fluorescence. You will often see a couple with the “Partner-Look” (another phrase Germans think English-speakers use) skating completely in unison, with matching yellow fluoresent crash helmets….

So picture the stark contrast when Cath and I turned up for a fun skate around Germany’s formula one racing track, the Hockenheim Ring. Cath didn’t even have any skates, and we were both in our work clothes, ie skimpy t-shirts and jeans (and no helmet!!) looking distinctly dishevelled after a day sweating away in the office with no air conditioning. We tried to go the week before but we had been turned away by a guy who looked really bemused we had bothered turning up when it had been raining….we headed for the skate hire, except we of course went to the wrong area, so after asking the bemused guy who had turned us away the week before (and judging by the smug look on his face recognised us clueless English girls) we finally found a plausible looking entrance. I stopped the car just to let Cath out so she could check where the skate hire was. Before she had barely closed the door, someone (actually a young girl) had shouted at me “Das ist doch kein Parkplatz” (that isn’t a parking space)…..I took a deep calming breath. Even young people have now started shouting at my for my apparent Ordnungswidrigkeit (doing something to contravene the unwritten laws of Order)!!!!

I let it pass. Then Cath came back and I parked (correctly)…and I put on my skates for the first time in 3 years. Cath had to hold me up, cos i was acting like I had skis on, trying to snow plough to stop, then hold my hand as I tried to walk in skates up the stairs tribune into the stadium. The slippiest steps in the world, but before we got that far, a lady checking the tickets came up to us and asked us where we got them. Because we had already been to a different entrance looking for skate hire, we already had a tear in the tickets, so she thought we had brought the tickets from last week and tried to reuse it, or bought them from a skate ticket tout (who quite frankly, wouldn’t be making a great living considering the tickets only cost 4 euros). We tried to explain we had bought them…totally kosher, today, we had no reused them from last week, we just had a bit of a detour on the way here…I mean, would we really bring back last week’s used tickets, and if they are so bothered, they should make the effort to print the date on the ticket!!!!

After all this the time is really ticking…

Cath hires some skates with my car key as deposit as neither of us have an Ausweis (ID)…so I gingerly test my skating ability with a few little rounds in the area where you put your skates on and Cath puts on her skates. It’s hard work, we are perspiring and after a struggle, she gets her foot in and does up the intricate laces and straps. She then picks up the knee protector….unfortunately we realise at this point that you have to put the pad on BEFORE the skate, because it’s like an elastic tube. So she takes off the skate again, puts on the pad, and puts the skate back on. Then she puts the protector on the other knee (well remembered!!) and the other skate. Then she picks up the elbow pad….except it looks really big…we look down at her knees and the protectors look a bit weird….because she put and ELBOW protector on her knee….so she has to take the skate off AGAIN!!! I start wondering what is supposed to be fun about skating, it all just seems really stressful….although it is really funny.

We eventually get going!! Neither of us fall, and it starts to become fun. I watch the German expert skates in awe, they all kind of skate in a v shape from side to side arms oscillating between two and ten o’clock..making a regular swiiiish swiiiiish noise with every move….I am making more of a swiisss…?%&(…swi…scheisse…..brr…..ga..noise…Thirst needing quenching, I pick up a coke so amongst all the swiiish swiiisshing skating experts I am phoning Andreas on my handy, drinking coke, knee pads over my jeans and leather handband slung over shoulder.... trying not to fall over while many men look at me bemused!! Now it is all very precarious so I start to panic when I can hear someone shouting behind me “Achtung” (my very least favourite German word) then German swearing, they are proper speed skaters and they are coming fast. I sort of stop still shaking my hands around my head as if that will move me out of their path and save me from the impact cos I blatantly can’t get out of the way in time. They shout at me, apparently there is another rule I am not aware of that is that when you skate the slow skaters should go on the right…how are we supposed to know that rule applies to a skating track???”!?!?!?!? It isn’t implicit!! Ah well it wouldn’T have been a proper day out in Germany if I hadn’t got shouted at for rule breaking at least twice!!

I miss great British banter!!!

2007-05-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

I feel seriously lacking in good banter…..I don’t think Germans really approve of banter….it has no Ordnung, it is random, there is no defined target or conclusion…What is banter to me?…here is my definition: “funny superficial conversations about ridiculous or not so ridiculous topics with no real meaning or significance..which joins you with others in common experiences and perceptions of people or things…and where no conclusion or outcome is required except that you have laughed so much that you feel like you’ve done 100 sit ups.” (think I’ll send that to the Oxford English Reference people!!).

(Here is the official definition – think I prefer mine :-))
“an exchange of light, playful, teasing remarks; good-natured raillery”

It’s just that I don’t often feel in Germany that it is OK to laugh about pointless things. I feel criticised for enjoying talking about nothing…But there are loads of things Germans do that are pointless....and we don't criticise...like ironing their Stofftaschen (ecologically-friendly material shopping bags), closing doors even when there is noone in the room, sweeping the leaves off the street every morning in the middle of a force 9 gale or changing into Birkenstocks and sandals at the office. At least pointless banter has a social element and even improves your stomach muscles without even having to go to the gym!!!

Here there always has to be a good reason for laughing. Genuine irony, a clever pun. I have, for example, never really experienced Germans laughing in embarrassment if someone slips over or falls backwards off their chair….and of course that is the classic British reaction, it’s not Schadenfreude, it’s something else.

Please don’t get me wrong, I would never say that Germans don’t have a sense of humour. That is of course not true. But I always feel that the jokes have to be clever, or intellectual…or about politics!!! I have never heard a “chicken crossing the road” type joke….and I have been here for 5 and a half years….maybe I have been mixing with the wrong people???

My German ex-boyfriend’s dad Karl-Heinz (great name innit?!!) used to tell me jokes, at which he would laugh really hard…except he was the sort of guy who hardly made any noise when he laughed, he would just go a purplish shade of red and get extended crow’s feet arcing to the corners of his mouth… It was lovely the way his whole body would shake up and down with amusement, which made me wish so much I had a tiny clue what it was about or why it was so hilarious!!! He was trying so hard to communicate with me, bridge the Hamburg-London gap and make me feel welcome that I hated to disappoint him...i mean I generally understood a few detached words, but not enough to make any sense out of it… At this point I always had to decide whether to get him to explain it to me, or pretend that I found it really hilarious too. Thing is, I really hate to pretend I have understood something when I haven’t…you run the risk of someone challenging you, or asking you a question related to it….which…they invariably do!!!! Especially the Germans!!!…What is even worse...is when you HAVE understood the joke and it just IS NOT funny!!! This I guess is no German-specific problem... I really hate faking laughter, you know your eyes will always give you away, and your laugh sounds just a little more high-pitched than usual…...

Once, I asked for an explanation… I felt a bit sorry that I was ruining the fun for everyone else, the "Kate joke relay" time eating into the joke-telling during "Kaffee und Kuchen"....but it’s horrid sitting there with a blank face when everyone else is creased up… So at the same time as trying to fathom the joke, I was trying to eat an enormous bit of cake balanced on my knee in the conservatory, without getting crumbs everywhere and get the hang of the cake-fork. The cake looked fantastic and had been baked especially for me, I just don't like cake very much, and I don't like cream...but I was trying to look like I was enjoying it, although I just felt stressed. Forcing the cake down with a smile while trying to understand the second explanation of the joke. Trouble was… I just wasn't getting it, so after the third attempt, I mustered a very poor “AAACHHH SOOOOO”…and tried to laugh….as if I had finally understood…it was getting really tiring now and I had cake stuck in my throat…but we both knew I still hadn’t got it, I was really losing momentum…then he said to me in German something like (literal translation) “You only understand train station” (du verstehst nur Bahnhof – it’s an idiom I hadn’t encountered by then)….at this point, I really wanted to give up, I felt like a complete failure, Christian’s parents must hate me and think I was really stupid and wish he would find a nice clever witty German girl his own age….baaahhhhh!!! I sort of nodded, didn’t have a clue what he was going on about….train stations…was he asking me how my journey was??? Christian said “did you understand” and I sort of nodded, I mean I understood the word “train station”!...I just couldn’t see the relevance….But he wouldn’t leave it,…..so I got even more embarrassed as it became apparent that I was basically LYING that I understood and I WASN'T enjoying the cake (Chris's mum said I could leave it...)….how to make a good impression with the Teutonic parents-in-law. It turns out “ich verstehe nur Bahnhof” means something like “it’s all Greek to me!!”….

And it certainly was!!!

German Sleeping Habits– Fun or Function??

2007-05-09T05:47:00.000-07:00

Although the Brits seems to have got away lightly in terms of changing, or rather NOT changing their ways to conform to the whole idea of a united Europe, (i.e. have kept the pound, miles per hour and driving on the left,) how long can they keep their imperial bed measurements i.e. the classic 4ft 6 ins by 6ft 3 ins double bed???

When I moved to Germany, my bedding moved with me. One problem: None of it fitted my new bed!!.British doubles are 135x190 cm, German ones are 140x200cm. I guess this is because they are a bit taller on the Continent.No idea of the historical reason for this, the Brits always like to do things differently and unmetrically....This is really not a problem, I am happy to have bigger bed!!!….But what about German bed making habits…. It doesn’t matter where you go, be it a Gästehaus (B&B), or in the bedroom where you lay your coat on a bed at a party, the Germans always make their beds in exaclty the same way. They take the duvet and fold it in half, short side to short side…and lay the duvet in the middle of the bed….WHY??? I remember when I first came to Germany on my school exchange, I was determined to be tidy, as I am normally not. I made my bed every day. Laying the duvet out in full, covering the entirety of the mattress, the only way I had ever known. But every night when I came back from my day of visiting various South German landmarks, the duvet had mysteriously migrated into its folded position and the pillow had changed ends!! I always felt really aggrieved, like I had somehow offended my guests because they thought I hadn’t bothered to make the bed….even though I had!!! I asked one of my friends once: Why do you make your beds like this, and he said “They fit on the bed better this away and look tidier”…. ?????? Apparently the whole of Germany agrees!!

They also don’t like sharing duvets, the Germans. Typically, most couples will have a 180 cm x 200 cm bed….But there is not just one mattress but two, directly lying side by side, and then instead of a large double duvet, you get two separate duvets…..

So you may as well go sleep on the sofa for all the intimacy this affords!! Isn’t it nice to cuddle up under one duvet with a cup of tea in the morning??? Apparently, it is far more important to be practical about it… I mean, now I think about it, there are advantages of not sharing a duvet, you don’t have the dead of night duvet tug-of-war, it is not so unpleasant if one person ate too much curry the night before…and there can be no arguments about who hogs the bed if there are clearly defined sleeping zones, ie you have your mattress and duvet, I have my mattress and duvet!!! I can see the logic. I just find it a bit weird that noone in Britain does this….To Germans, sleeping isn’t fun, it is a function!! You always know you can rely on the Germans to be consistent in their love for “Ordnung”….

So I accept strange bed dimensions, and I (begrudginly) accept two mattresses and two duvets….but I am dreading the day the EU standardises bedding. Why?? Because I don’t like square pillows!!!

It’s a crazy aversion. But in my opinion a highly justified one.

Square pillows…the most silly invention ever. Why? Because:
a) they are mostly lumpy, feel like they are filled with roughly cut bits of foam
b) when you lay down on them, it's like sinking down in a piece of oasis, like that green stuff you stick dried flowers into to make twee arrangements, you press your finger into it, and it doesn'T spring back. the imprint just remains...forever....square pillows are exactly the same!
c) they are not fluffy enough to use as a reading pillow, and are completely limp, you may as well try using a beach mat as a boulster!
d) if you lay your head on the lower edge, they provide no neck support whatsoever, because all the filling has migrated to the other side, if you try and lay your head in the middle, you get the aforementioned "oasis" effect, if you try to lay with your head at the upper end, you are practically sleeping horizontally, which defeats the point of a pillow.
e) If you try to fold it in half, it is way too thick, and if you move, it springs open, unless you have tried to stuff it like a calzone pizza into your british dimensioned pillow case. If you lie on the side with the two folded edges, they won’t stay put, unless you don’T move at all all night, if you sleep on the folded over end, you feel like you’re going to choke cos your head is propped up at an alarming angle, and giving you several unflattering double chins!!

I don’t like them. It’s one of those inexplicable phobias. I would honestly rather touch a hairy-legged tarantula than sleep on a square pillow. Luckily in France they sell rectangular pillows, albeit ones too narrow for my British pillow cases…but beggars can’t be choosers…Any excuse to pop over the border to the hypermarché…

It's Spargel Season!

2007-05-04T06:28:00.000-07:00

What on earth is "Spargel"....you may be wondering???

Some sort of budget supermarket hair cream???

No, it's actually the German word for asparagus.....pronounced something like "Schpaargeyel".....but not the asparagus like you get at posh British dinner parties....ie green and quite small and thin....The German aspargus is huge, and creamy WHITE, and rather resembles a part of the male anatomy! :-) No wonder the Germans' nickname for it is the "royal vegetable"!!

It tastes OK, mainly because you smother it in Hollandaise sauce. It can be a bit bitter and stringy....But really, in my humble British opinion, it doesn't have such an AMAZING quality that it warrants two months of German mayhem!! When it is harvested in the spring, Germany goes asparagus crazy!!! They hold parties....town festivals for weeks!!!! Today, I even saw they were selling it at the petrol station!!!!! it just said "SPARGEL--------->!!!" How can a vegetable cause so much excitement?

Can you imagine a similar situation....say.......in Hull, people lining the streets, to celebrate.....the Hull "Celery" Festival.....or the Exeter "Brussel Sprout" Extravaganza... a bronze statue of a woman grasping a basket of brussel sprouts taking pride of place in the city centre...who cares about Elgar or Churchill when you can celebrate a cruciferous vegetable...like in the town of Schwetzingen near Heidelberg....it is famous for several things but mainly because of the quality of the asparagus...

My greatest challenge during the Spargel season is feigning excitement at lunchtime if spargel is on the menu at work....after all, I don't want to be a party pooper!! If someone checks the lunch menu on the intranet and Spargel is there, they will talk about it for two hours beforehand. How their mother makes it, how their mother's mother made it, how their best friend's mother-in-law made it, followed by comparisons of the pros and cons of various asparagus cooking gadgets. If one of my German friends comes up to me jumping for joy screaming "There's Spargel for lunch", i have to dig deep into my outward excitement reserves to muster a convincing "NO WAY....ECHT COOL....." or a squealy "OOOOHHHH", especially when the description from the dodgily translated intranet menu reads as follows:

"Feel well and stay fit – asparagus marinated in vinaigrette sauce with egg"

I will have some this year....it would be impolite not to!!

Telling the Time in German - Mental Arithmetic?

2007-04-29T00:09:00.000-07:00

I remember clearly my Mum teaching me to tell the time. Think I was about 6. It was easy. She drew a clock, split it into segments and everything that was on the right side was something “past” the hour, and everything on the left hand side was “to” the hour. Analogue clock reading made easy.

So why over 20 years later, am I still struggling to understand what time it is when I ask someone what time it is in Germany??

It is of course the German time “rules”.

In principle, it is quite logical to Germans, who have grown up applying the clock reading rules.

Of course if you ask someone the digital time, it is simple ….what time is it? 12.24 – twelve twenty-four, zwölf Uhr vierundzwanzig….no probs….

It’s the analogue rules that make my brain shrivel…..

The first confusing thing is understanding that if a German says it’s “half nine”, (es ist halb neun)…it’s actually 8.30. I remember the German lesson where we learnt to tell the time, I was seriously flummoxed by this apparent lack of logic. Why say it’s half past nine, when it’s actually half past eight…..i mean, sometimes you have to just accept that some things HAVE no logic, and you have to think of the millions of illogical thing about the English language. The following case springs to mind:

Pronunciation of -ough

rough - say "uff"
cough - say "off"
though - say "oh"
through - say "oo"
bough - say "ow"
thorough - say "er"

So I figured it's ok to accept one slightly illogical thing about an otherwise law-abiding and exception-free language...But then my teacher explained…..it turns out it IS logical....when Germans say it’s half nine, they mean it’s “half TO nine”!!!!!

So this rule is perfectly ok to cope with….but it does lead to confusion when a German writes in English…”meet you at half nine”…and you always have to clear up if time telling is language-dependent i.e., if you write in English, British time-telling rules apply and they mean 9.30, or country-specific i.e. we are in Germany and German rules apply and they mean 8.30.

The next confusing thing is maybe a problem for me cos I am not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to quick mental arithmetic….

If you want to say it’s twenty-five past nine….in German you say it’s “five to half ten” meaning “five to half TO ten” (fünf vor halb zehn)…..So there have been times (although not that often) when I try and make and appointment or whatever, and the receptionist will say how about “five to half ten” and I need to write this out in words on a pad in front of me and literally draw myself a 6-year old tell the time diagram before I can accept or decline the appointment.

So “ten to half five” is 4.20

“Ten past half four” is 3.40

Geddit?

The final one, which is my major stumbling block is the following…

The other day, I asked my mate Andi what is the time.
He said “viertel elf” (literally quarter 11)…..but it doesn’t mean “quarter to eleven”, or “quarter past eleven”, the time was quarter past ten!!!!!!!!!! When he said that I just raised my eyebrows and said "digital time please"....It's not that I can't work it out, I just can't work it out that quickly!!!! And if he had said “dreiviertel elf” (three-quarters eleven) the time would have been “quarter to eleven” !!! TOTALLY CONFUSING.

The logic is as follows: in spoken German you refer to the next full hour, in other words, it names the fraction of the currently passing hour. So for example, "dreiviertel drei" (three-quarter three), means "three quarters of the third hour have passed".
I really don’t understand the need for such complicated time-telling rules….rather than asking people in future, I think I’ll pop to Kaufhof and replace my watch battery…..

Deutsche Direktheit - Fieberbläschen

2007-04-24T04:52:00.000-07:00

Ich fühle mich hundeelend. Dass ich krank bin hat sich von der Erscheinung eines alten Freundes ergeben…..das Fieberbläschen auf der Oberlippe!!

Als ich aufgewacht bin, habe ich gleich das Kribbeln gespürt. Also ganz tapfer habe ich es geschafft mich aus dem Bett zu schleppen und zur Apotheke zu gehen…Ich wusste es aber, vom Bauchgefühl her, dass es schon zu spät war, um das Ausbrechen des Blasens zu verhindern und ich die nächsten 2 Wochen von dem schönen - von meinem Bruder benannten - „Lippenaccessoire“ begleitet werden würde.

Ich ging in die Apotheke rein und zeigte auf meine Oberlippe hin. Ich sagte, „Guten morgen, ich habe ein Bläschen. Aber die Apothekerin sagt nicht einfach „Bitte schön, hier ist Ihr Zovirax „….sie bleibt ihren deutschen „Genauigkeitswürzeln“ treu und fragt mich „Haben Sie einen Herpes?“ Ich rolle meine Augen und sage „ja, genau“…ich finde es völlig unnotwendig, dass die ganze Apotheke erfahren soll, was mich genau belastet. Dann sagt sie „nicht anfassen!!“ (ich hatte nur auf meine Oberlippe hingezeigt, nicht angefasst!!!) Dann kommt eine halbe Vorlesung. „Herpes ist sehr ansteckend!!!“ (echt?? denke ich ganz sarkastisch) „Wenn Sie ihn anfassen kriegen Sie gleich Herpes auf dem ganzen Körper“ „ Herpes breitet sich wie irre schnell aus“ (…ja danke …ich WEISS)….dann erklärt sie mir wie sehr es jucken wird, bis der Ausschlag vorbei war. Vielen Dank, denke ich….jetzt geht es mir blendend!!!

Warum reagiere ich so heikel, fragt ihr euch jetzt bestimmt….Was die Deutschen nicht verstehen ist Folgendes. In Großbritannien assoziiert man das Wort „Herpes“ fast ausschließlich mit sexuell übertragbaren Krankheiten….das Wort wird nur innerhalb von Besprechungsräumen in Kliniken für Geschlechtskrankheiten verwendet. Ich würde mein neues iPod darauf wetten, dass 99.99% der britischen Bevölkerung nicht wissen, dass Lippenbläschen vom Herpes-Virus verursacht werden. Es gilt genauso in der Werbung. Das Wort Herpes hört man einfach nicht im Fernsehen….Auf Englisch nennt es sich was viel schöner klingendes…und zwar „a cold sore“….ganz schön, ganz explizit, und ganz weit weg von allen Assoziationen von unangenehmen sexuellen Krankheiten!!!! Es ist mir jetzt so oft passiert, dass ich mir einen Kaffee bei der Arbeit hole, ich tue niemandem weh, ich spreche niemanden an…dann kommt ein Fremder auf mich zu und sagt…“Das ist ein schöner dicker Herpes!!“ oder einfach „Sie haben einen Herpes!!!!“…..Meinen diese Leute wirklich, dass mir nicht bewusst ist, dass ich was Riesiges auf der Oberlippe habe??? Dass ich das furchtbare Jucken in den Augen, der Nase und im ganzen Rechtsseite meines Gesichtes nicht fühlen kann???? Dass ich nicht merke, wenn ich versuche einen Burger zu essen und das Ding platzt wenn mein Mund nur halbwegs auf ist und wie die Sau blütet??? Huh???? Ich möchte wirklich verstehen warum die Deutschen oder besser gesagt, Deutschen, die mir persönlich fremd sind, das für notwendig halten!!! Was ist los mit der britschen Art einfach „nichts“ zu sagen? Wie wäre es, wenn ihr einfach versucht vorzugeben, dass ihr gar nichts gemerkt habt??? Ich habe ein perfektes Beispiel von britischer „Diskretion“….dies ist eine wahre Geschichte.......eine muslimische Frau ging in Großbritannien in die Sauna rein, hatte ihren Hidschab aber noch an. Die Leute, die da arbeiten wollten diese Frau nicht beleidigen indem sie ihr sagen, dass sie eigentlich was passenderes zu ihrem Saunagang anziehen sollte. Also sie haben nichts gesagt, woraufhin sie aus der Sauna gegangen ist, und gleich in das Schwimmbad gesprungen ist (natürlich immer noch mit Hidschab an). Ich weiss ganz genau, dass das nie nie nie in Deutschland passieren würde….Ist doch gegen die heiligen Saunaregel!! aber ich mag es, dass die Briten nichts sagen wollten. Ich finde es nett, dass sie ihr nicht weh tun wollten!!

Ob ihr es wisst oder nicht, als Britin ist es äußerst schwer mich mit der deutschen Direktheit anzufreunden. Nachdem man etwas Zeit in Deutschland verbracht hat, entwickelt man eine gewisse Immunität gegen diese täglichen „Direktheitsschüsse“….am Anfang tun sie wirklich weh und man handelt sich jedes mal bei jedem Schuss einen dicken blauen Fleck ein….nach und nach wird es einfach ein Teil des Alltags und es fühlt sich an als wäre man ganz leicht von der Seite geschubst!!

Für mich war dieser Vorfall in der Apotheke einfach ein weiteres Beispiel von deutscher Genauigkeit….Man soll es halt sagen genau wie es ist….

Oder wie ich auf Englisch sagen würde….“You Germans call a spade a spade….and herpes herpes“!!!

The Latest Lip Accessory is....

2007-04-24T00:37:00.000-07:00

I feel ill. My illness and run-downness has this morning been confirmed by the first of the uninvited biannual visits to my upper lip by .......the cold sore!

I woke up and felt “das Kribbeln” (that tingling feeling you get when you know one is about to erupt on the surface) and decided to act promptly and drag my “woe is me” aching body to the Apotheke (chemist) even though I know in my heart of hearts, that it is already too late and I will therefore be accompanied on my way for the next fortnight or so by what my brother likes to call my “lip accessory”.

I walk into the Chemist and point at my upper lip and say “ich habe ein Bläschen” (this means I have a cold sore, everyone knows it, no need to go into further details). But Germans like to be precise and address the virus by its correct anatomical name “Sie haben ein Herpes?” (Do you have herpes?) ….I am like “Jaaaa….obviously it is a herpes virus do you need to inform the whole Apotheke of this!!!” Then she says “Don’t touch!!” (I had only pointed at my upper lip, I hadn’t ‘touched’ it)….she goes onto to give me a lecture about how HERPES is really contagious (um, really?) and HERPES will spread like wildfire if you touch your HERPES then touch another part of your body (….i KNOW!!!) and then to describe to me how much it is going to itch until the proper outbreak. Gee thanks, I feel better now.

The thing is, Germans don’t realise that if you say “herpes” to any British person, they will immediately think of the genital kind. The word "herpes" is TABOO. I would say 99.9% of the British population don’t even know that cold sores are caused by the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1)!!!!!!!!! It is the same in advertising, you would never ever get a British ad for “Zovirax” fixating on the fact that you have a O-MA-GOD “HERPES” virus attacking your upper lip. But in Germany it is quite normal, and it is very often the case that you will be standing in the coffee corner at work, minding your own business, and a complete stranger will come up to you, point at your upper lip, and go “you’ve got herpes!!!!”…..Anyone who has suffered from cold sores will know that when this happens, you just want a horrible, gruesome accident to befall anyone who says this…..you think I don’t know that I have a protusion on my upper lip, that my whole face, nose and eyes is itching like crazy on the right side, that if I open my mouch more than half way, it splits and starts bleeding profusely???? Why do Germans and what’s more German STRANGERS feel the need to point it out AT ALL?? Why can’t they be British about it and pretend not to look (even though they are, but they will go to great pains to conceal this fact) like the way British people will ignore a Muslim woman going into a sauna wearing full hijab robes because they are worried about offending her. Apparently, there was a woman who did this and then jumped into the sports centre’s swimming pool to cool off while still wearing the black top-to-toe Islamic dress! That is sooo British, I mean aside from the hygiene aspect, what on earth is the point of going into a sauna fully robed?? But I love British people for not wanting to offend!!!
After a while of being subjected to the daily injections of German directness you do develop a certain immunity to it, at first it really hurts and you are really bruised afterwards, but as time goes on, it becomes semi-normal and it just feels like a gentle nudge.
I guess this whole incident is just another classic example of German “Genauigkeit” (accurateness). So the motto is…don’t wrap it up in cotton wool…say it how it is .
Germans call a spade a spade...and herpes herpes!!

Post Office Pandemonium

2007-04-22T21:48:00.000-07:00

Help!! I am breaking into a cold sweat…and the reason why??? I just posted my Auntie’s birthday card!!

Feeling hugely proud of myself and my organisational skills (with a big dosage of help from my personal reminder…my mum…) I have just returned from the postbox down the road, having posted aforementioned card. It was a card for my Auntie’s 50th birthday, a very thoughtful one, I found a card of Times Square circa 1920, and she has just been there for a pre-birthday shopping trip…

For me, living life as I do, with barely enough time to wash my own clothes, and in a country wholly lacking in card-sending traditions, it is always quite an effort to do the following:
1. Remember the date far enough in advance of the birthday taking weekends and bank holidays into account plus the extra time required for the card to be sent from Germany to the UK.
2. Find a decent card. Given that obviously, the selection of horrendously ugly cards well outweighs the choice of nice one, coupled with the fact that most greetings cards are written in German so not many British people can understand the greetings sentiment within the cards, I am reduced to either managing to go to the English shop and paying the 30 % mark up on the cards there, spending 30 pounds in one go buying shed loads of cards in the UK at Christmas and trying to remember which card I meant for whom, or as a very last resort, sending an email card, or a grovelling SMS.
3. Buy stamps. If you have ever wondered why you have received a card from me with several stamps (from 2-10) on and not just one with the correct amount on, here’s why. Stamp machines provide the perfect opportunity to rid yourself of the shrapnel in your purse, even taking 1c coins. But as you can only put 15 coins in the machine at one time, you will often have several stamps to make up the correct postage sum. The other thing is that these machines don’t give change in coins, but in stamps….so if you want to buy a 55c stamp, and only have a one euro coin, the machine asks you if want to receive the change in stamps, or completely cancel the stamp-buying proceedings. So you don’t have a choice but to say yes. The trouble is, it doesn’t just print you out a 45c stamp as change, you’ll get 4x10 c stamps, plus 2x2 c stamps and 1x1c stamp. So having gone to buy one stamp you now have 8, and have to put up with the stamps hanging around your purse until the next time you need a stamp, at which point you try and buy a stamp which will make up the appropriate value by specifying a “Wunschwert” stamp: I have 45c worth of stamps (4x10 c stamps, plus 2x2 c stamps and 1x1c), so now I need an additional 10 cent stamp. But I only have a 50 c piece on me, so you then get 40 c in stamps back (4x10c)…so you are still stuck with annoying stamps floating around your purse….
4. Post the card. So many times I have managed the first 3 steps but fallen completely at the final hurdle…remembering there is a card needing posting in my handbag at the point where I happen to be passing a postbox.

So you can see why I was so proud of myself for completing all four steps, I even had a “Luftpost” sticker!!! So here’s why the cold sweat ensued ……. I forgot one very important fact….Deutsche Post sets the postage rates according to card dimensions, not weight. And I had a niggling feeling walking home that my card was 1 or 2 mm too wide for the 70c postage.

Because I often buy cards for my friends while I am in the UK, the cards have UK dimensions….I have discovered that the EU has not yet gotten around to standardising greeting card dimensions across the 25 member states therefore most of the UK cards are 1 or 2mm too wide for the 70 c stamp. So often I have come home and found a card I posted a fortnight before back in my postbox. And the joke is, the next stamp up for this dimension of card is 1.80 euro. So a card that is 225 mm wide is 70c and a card that is 230 mm wide is 1.80 euro. Does this sound logical to you???? Plus if you want to cash in your 70c you have already paid you have to go to the post office and pay the rest…now imagine firstly, post offices are only open when I am at work, combined with the aforementioned problem that this card already has 8 stamps on it, and you can see why email cards are so appealing.

I also once sent a square card. That got sent back.

I am ashamed to admit I have also “trimmed” a card before and put it in a narrower envelope. I promise this is not due to pikiness, rather I am just determined to beat what I consider and completely ridiculous system!!

So here’s what happened my first Christmas in Germany. The problem is not just that a card may be 5mm too wide, it may also be too narrow. I managed to buy a box of little cute Christmas cards from Next to take back to Germany to send. Germans don’t “do” the whole “send 100 cards to vague acquaintances at Christmas and buy a strange contraption to hang them up all over the house” thing….. Full of Christmas spirit, keeping in touch with my loved ones, thinking of others at this festive time of year, I wrote about 25 or these little cards, and bought 25 stamps. Now these cards where all in at the time, very ecological, they were only about 10x8 cm. I was so organised, sent them 3 weeks early and put a massive smug tick next to “cards” on my pre-christmas “to do” list. The day before I was due to go home, I opened my mail box and the 25 cards fell out of the box. “return to sender”. I LITERALLY COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. At the time I didn’t realise there was such a concept as “postage by size”. So I went to the post depot with steam coming out of my ears, demanding to know why the cards had been returned. They would never get there on time now, I was almost crying in front of the unsmiling post office man. He told me the cards didn’t conform and I would have to pay an extra 1 euro something per card. At the time, there was no question that I would give this man 30 euros to post these cards. I was still feeling the post-student pinch…So I ended up putting the cards into normal conforming sized envelopes because then you only had to pay 55c per card, rewriting all the addresses, probably mixing the cards and envelopes up in the process….

So to my Auntie, I hope you got the card, and Happy Birthday!!!

Bum Splinter

2007-04-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

You know how you sometimes think “that could only happen to ME!!!!!” ???

I think that quite often, like I have been in every type of emergency vehicle you can think of, by the pompiers in the South of France when I fell off my bike and broke my collar bone, by the mountain rescue when I got hit in the jaw by a ski lift in Hinterglemm,Austria, by the French “Baywatch” near Carcans when I stood on some paralysing stickleback fish while surfing and couldn’t move my leg, and the Deutsches Rotes Kreuz in Heidelberg when I took a turn at work.

So to add to this list of injuries comes the “Sahnehäubchen” (icing on the cake)….my BUM splinter.

I was sitting on the balcony on a bench at my mate Kirsty’s flat with Cheryl, and so we could chat a bit more personally, I kind of swivelled on my bum to meet her eye to eye. As I did this, I felt a searing pain in my left buttock cheek. The bench was a bit splintery and I had managed to sit right on top of it. I now had a hole in my trousers and an one inch piece of wood stick out of my bottom. Cheryl tried to pull it out. Good thing am not shy. And I was pretty sure she had got it all …. That evening I was due to fly to Scotland to meet my then-boyfriend’s parents, so I wasn’t looking forward to sitting in the plane with a sore arse. To add to this, I had been out with Eleanor the night before and consumed a garlic pizza. It must have had about 4 whole cloves on it, cos when we woke up in the morning, the whole room reeked. You know how normally, you can’t smell it on yourself….well we could…..it was seeping out of my pores, it was highly unpleasant….

So I digress, but basically, was not in the greatest state for making a good impression!

It turned out to not bother me at all, until about 10 days later, I was back at work in Germany, one of my short skirt days, and as I adjusted my skirt at my seat, I felt a pain in my buttock!! I found the tender area and remembered the splinter incident at Kirsty’s. Upon close examination, I ascertained that there was in fact something hard embedded in my bum. I told Marianne, my then office mate “Maz…..I think I have a splinter in my arse”…”Och….(she is Scottish)….gae’n see the Ambulanz”…(the nurses onsite at work)…..

Well, I thought, removing an embedded bum splinter is not something I can do on my own, so maybe not such a bad idea, and if I do it here I don’t have to pay the “Praxisgebühr”*. So I go in, no need for an appointment, most efficient and address the lady at reception. She says “how can I help you?”, I say, “Oh, I have a splinter”. She turns aways on her swivel chair to search for my records and says “Where is the splinter? Finger?”….I don't want to make a big deal of this, so as nonchalently as I can, I say "No, it's in my 'Po'" (bum).

“Oh”, she musters.
“OK, then, pop up on the bench”. At this point, I realise I am wearing a very tiny g-string…it’s so embarrassing…like when you go to the Orthopäder and he asks you to take off your trousers, stand in front of him and “bend over” so he can check your spine, and you have merely 2 cm wide bits of ribbon covering you! Motto: ”always wear big knickers….always wear big knickers….” As this splinter had taken me somewhat by surprise, I have to swallow my embarrassement. She takes a look, I am balancing on my side in a position a little like the recovery position, with my bottom and g string in full view of the entire room…We have mentioned “Diskretion” before!!” I ask her to pull across the screen…She gets a needle and starts trying to tease out the offending object. “It’s really deep”, she says, and the light is so bad that she asks a colleague to join the party, to hold a lamp so she can see better. So the two nurses are there, staring at my bottom, discussing how they have never seen anything like it…”ich habe so was NIE gesehen”….still no luck. The nurse explains that the skin has begun to grow around it, and that I must therefore have a very ineffective immune system, because otherwise it would be infected and much more painful….Well at least I am not like a German allergic to “Milben” (mite) “wheat” “Pollen” and “Staub” (dust)!!!! Eventually the first nurse says “Frau Dowle”, I’m going to have to make an incision to get it out. This requires the services of a third nurse, to hold the skin taut and she makes the small incision. One nurse is holding the lamp, one nurse is pulling the skin around the splinter apart with both hands, and one is cutting into me with a scalpel....So how many nurses does it take to remove a bum splinter??? Three apparently!!!

Eventually, she manages to remove it, a one cm long piece of Kirsty’s bench. Buried half a cm horizontally under the skin. Still can’t understand how it wasn’t sticking out, but was lying flat under the skin, having also made its way through the material of my trousers but still. The nurse asks if I want to keep it. I say “Jawohl”, I want to show Maz I wasn’t exaggerating, and she puts it into a little pot for me…

I wonder how am going to record my time for this "Aktion" ;-))

* Praxisgebühr die - A new German health insurance charge starting in 2004, which required a "doctor's office fee" from patients for the first doctor's visit in each quarter.

The Friendly German Policeman

2007-04-18T02:12:00.000-07:00

I stood on the platform and watched the ICE train pull away from Heidelberg station. My friend was on the train, leaving Germany forever on her way back to the North East. In a somewhat melancholy mood, I made my way back to my bike, just wanting to get home and phone my mum. The lock on my bike had been a bit stiff for a couple of weeks…..nothing a bit of brute force didn’t fix….so I put the key in the lock and turned it as hard as I could. The key snapped off inside the lock. NOOOOO!!!! I couldn’t believe it….I had a spare key at home, but I couldn’t pull the bit of the key out that was stuck in the lock with my bare hands….. Dammit, I though, why didn’t I invest in some WD40?????

I walked home and fetched some tweezers, thinking I could maybe tweeze the broken bit out, and also the spare key, walked back to the station, and started trying to pull it out but to no avail, there was absolutely nothing to get hold of…..I was so annoyed, I cannot function without my bike, and I had no desire to walk home again. So I decided to try and buy and little saw so I could saw through the lock.…I went to Bauhaus (a bit like Do It All) and found something I thought could do the job….went back to the station and get down on my hands and knees, trying to saw through the metal lock with the saw. Trouble was the saw was probably only meant for plywood, because it was completely blunt after about ten seconds!!! I perservered, frustration increasing with every oscillation. Then I sensed something...like you know you are being watched....there was a presence behind me…..a tall shadow of a man….I turned around very slowly in my squat position, head still down and saw some black-booted feet, and as my gaze drifts upwards I am confronted with a beige pair of trouser, a gun in the pocket, and finally a green puffer jacket bearing the word “Polizei” on the sleeve!! (Did you know German police force is the only one in Europe whose uniform is green???)

“Was machen Sie denn?” (What are you doing) says the policeman. I think this is a stupid question, because it is obvious I am sawing through the lock of a bike at Heidelberg’s Hauptbahnhof….so I tell him “ich säge” (I am sawing) and I turn back round and carry on my futile attempt to retrieve my poor bike!! I realise it looks bad….He clears his throat, and doesn’t move…..”Can you prove this is YOUR bike” he says, I have the distinct feeling he is desperately trying to keep a straight face. I said to him, pointing at my very old fashioned, rusty, and aesthetically displeasing granny bike “No, sorry, I don’t have a “bike ID”, do you think if I wanted to steal a bike, I would choose to steal this one? I got this off the Sperrmüll*”, then in a flash of inspiration I show him the broken off bit of key that is still on my keyring, now merely a plastic square with a jagged edge….HAH!!!!….see ….it IS my bike, I say, holding up with lock with the broken off bit against its former other half on my keyring…he says “Wait here” and he goes off ….oh no I thought, is he going to arrest me for being cheeky. I thought he was going to come back with a notepad to take my details ...I cannot prove who I am, cos I never carry any photo ID around with me. The only thing I have is my passport. so i figure I am in for a nasty fine…He reappears 5 minutes later bearing an enormous pair of wire cutters!!! And starts trying to cut through my lock with these one metres levers!!! He says “Are you a student?”, everyone asks me this, even people at work, its just cos you don’t finish your degree in Germany until you are at least 30…”No” I said, and told him the company I work for, which is a very good one….he says “If you work there, why on earth are you riding a bike like this???” CHEEKY!!! I love my bike, despite its age. It has “Rücktrittbremsen” (where you have to cycle backwards to brake), is lime green and has a silver basket!! He is working up a sweat, I even think I hear him swear, he is probably regretting ever approaching me!! He takes off his policeman’s cap, respiring and perspiring heavily…and finally “JA!!” he jubilantly makes it throught the final strands of plaited metal…..I thank him very much….and realise it’s the first time I have a story to tell which isn’t moaning about various members of the German population!!

*Sperrmüll
When you see lots of trash spilling out onto the streets in Germany, don’t worry because it doesn’t mean the garbage men are on strike. Chances are it’s Sperrmüll day. The Sperrmüll is basically the bulky refuse that you can not get rid of in a regular trash collection. Depending on where you are in Germany, there will either be specific Sperrmüll days, or you have to make an appointment to have your Sperrmüll picked up. Either way it’s a good opportunity to get rid of your junk.

"Keep Germany in Order (KGIO)" agents (aka German Pensioners)

2007-04-16T23:41:00.000-07:00

Who do German OAPs think they are????? I feel like saying "tut tut tut, the elderly of today!!!" I had made it to work for 6.55am because I had to leave early to go the Orthopäder again and the only appointment I could get was at 15.40. Despite this fact, I was not running late, and I was not going fast in any way, shape or form as I entered my Tiefgarage at floor -2, in fact, I was in first gear. As I approached the final ramp leading to my space, I noticed a couple of men with some sort of painting machine, so I stopped and one of the men came towards me. It was the caretaker (Hausmeister) of the apartment building who had recently saved my bacon twice in a matter of days. Firstly, I had left my favourite gym bag outside all night in our yard for some reason after parking my bike. It had all my favourite gear to sweat in in it, and then, when I locked my entire set of keys for everything in the cellar whilst retrieving my skis, he had got a spare set for me and let me back in. So I thought he was coming over to say hi, ask me how my day was, and thank me for the Belgian truffles and nice card I had left for him to thank him for his help! So I wound down the window with a smile on my face and was awaiting his greeting of recognition. However, he SHOUTS at me WAGGING HIS FINGER “das ist keine Rennbahn, junge Dame!” (This is not a racing track, young madam). I should have asked him if he has ever seen any cars on the Hockenheimer Ring going around in first gear!!!! Then he says patronisingly “hier wird Schritt gefahren” (basically drive as fast as you walk, OR drive in first gear, which I was doing!). I was so incredulous. I WAS in FIRST GEAR. I am now feeling rather ambivalent now towards this man, who last week I thought was quite sweet, cos I had had 40 euros in my gym bag when he found it! Then I remembered how he has also shouted at me for using the wrong colour rubbish bag for my rubbish (err… GET A LIFE!!!).

The point is, Germans who get above a certain age appear to slyly graduate into secret service “Keep Germany in order (KGIO)” agents. Once I was crossing the road at Bismarckplatz on my bike, along with about half of Heidelberg. Almost all on bikes. So because there is such a mass of people, no one is really paying attention to the normal “overtaking rules”, ie/, you only overtake on the left. The crowd crossing the road resembles the plastic jockeys in that game at amusement arcades that I used to play when we visited my Great-Grandma in Whitby, the one with the horses, where the red or blue jockey normally wins, cos you only bet 10p on him. But until ¾ of the way down the track all 6 jockeys are oscillating back and forth, one minute the blue one’s ahead, then the green, then fleetingly the 2 pound-win white jockey, before the red or blue makes his “Endspurt” (dash for the finish). So we all slither slowly across inch by inch, in the manner of snail and I make my way to the supermarket Penny Markt. It is about 100m down the road on the Bahnhofsstrasse. As I am locking up my bike, a secret service KGIO agent around sixty years old comes up to me looking really distressed. She literally screams at me, wagging her finger around in front of my face. “You overtook me on the right”. You gave me such a “Schreck” (shock). Errrr. Excuse me, I said, noone was obeying the overtaking rules, it was impossible to without causing an accident in this particular case. Like if there is Stau (traffic jam) on the Autobahn you don’t obey the overtaking rules, you just get as far forward as you can, in which ever lane you can. ROAD HOGS RULE. It just makes me so mad that she is being so aggressive towards me, when I have not done her any harm whatsoever, I didn't bash into her, steal her shopping, cycle over her toe, cause her to fall over...PLUS SHE is insulting ME by standing in front of me in socks and sandals, but i don't say anything! So I actually say to her, in English “Really Madam, do you not have something better to do?!!”. The point is, if she had said NICELY, without WAGGING her knobbly finger in my FACE “you really gave me a shock”, I would have apologised, even though I think she is totally exaggerating and making a mountain out of a molehill and adhering to her KGIO agent handbook. I don’t know why she picked on me. KGIO agents appear to have the ability to pick out poor Brit expats who are, in fact, paying for their bloody pensions from their hard-earned far too high taxes, whilst forgoing the right to get a pension in their own country due to lack of national insurance contributions! Maybe I just stood out in the mêlée, whatever, I can’t believe what I have apparently “perpetrated” is worthy of her pursuing me for 100 m to the supermarket for my KGIO arrest. As far as I am concerned, she should practice what she preaches, cos if she herself is so bothered about the overtaking rules, she should have crossed the road on the furthest most right side, because she is an old doddering woman, and this would have enabled half of Heidelberg on bikes to pass her in a manner that would have been more pleasing to her.
BIG FAT RAAAAAH.

KGIO agents also like to hang around post offices. At christmas I decided to go and buy the stamps for my christmas cards with the coppers I had collected all year!! In Germany, they have stamps machines on the streets and in the post offices and you can choose to the cent the value of the stamp you want to buy. So i took my pot of coppers and started feeding them into the stamp machine. You can only put 15 in in one go, before they all klunk klunk back out into the bottom bit you pick the change out of, so I was accumulating a little pile of 15 and 30 c stamps, depending on if I was feeding 1c or 2c pieces. Now, I was there an awful long time, but everytime someone came along for a stamp, I let them go in front. But I know a KGIO agent has been observing me, and is just itching to stick his oar in. Let's recap: It is a STAMP machine. Nowhere on the stamp machine does it say "You may not feed this machine merely with 1 cent pieces", nowhere does it say "You may only buy one stamp at a time"...and I am letting people go in front of me very considerately! I am doing noone any harm. But the old man KGIO agent is absolutely outraged at my behaviour, comes over and shouts "Das dürfen Sie doch nicht machen!!!" (You can't do that!!) "Sie machen das Automat kaputt!!!!!" (You'll break the machine) "Hör jetzt sofort damit auf!!!!" (Stop this immediately). I look at him sweetly, and continue to feed the machine. WHO IS HE TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO???????? MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS YOU BORED OLD MAN!!!!!!! I say not a word. I just smile, it feels good to make him even more outraged. He carries on ranting but I turn a deaf ear, continuing to let people go in front of me.....Why exactly did he feel the need to shout at me....what is the real reason??? I will never understand!!

See also Waiting Room Wrath.

British Meeting and Greeting Skills Subpar??

2007-04-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

Meeting and Greeting

Every nationality has its good and bad points. Germans are organised but anal, French are charming but unfriendly….but for me the absolute worst thing about British people, at least, your bog-standard British person, is that they are completely rubbish at introducing themselves and/or introducing other people to each other.

I was invited to a party, a fancy-dress party, no less, where the theme was “dress up as a pop star!” This party was the 18th birthday party of my friend Lizzie’s friend’s little sister. The idea was for us to dress up as the Spice Girls along with some of my friend Lizzie’s friend’s friends and embarrass the hell out of the little sister. I was “Baby”. Lizzie was “Ginger” and we were to meet up with the 3 other Spices, “Sporty”, my friend Lizzie’s friend that I had already met at Queen’s Day in Amsterdam in 2004, and 2 friends of my friend Lizzie’s friend (Posh and Scary) that I had never met.

Lizzie and I arrived at Sporty’s flat. Inside, Scary and Posh have already arrived, and the boyfriend of Sporty is also there, engrossed in some rubbish Saturday night TV programme.

We walk in. Now in Germany, there are strict rules about what to do. I would walk in, everyone would stand up, and either the guest (Sporty) or the actual people there, who all know each other, would clearly orient themselves into a position for the obligatory handshake, eye contact and address “hi I’m Baby, hi, I’m Scary, pleased to meet you”. No German worth their salt would merely scoop another handful of crispy bacon Quavers, completely ignore a new guest and turn his attention back to the “rubbish” Sat night TV!! But this is exactly what happened. And precisely because I have become half “eingedeutscht”, (semi-germanified…..but only very slightly…honest), I can’t remember if I should just play along with this brutal British lack of greeting etiquette, or if I should make the first move.

I decide to try and impose some of my adopted greeting behaviour and make the first move, but it is difficult when no one is acknowledging your presence, and they are all much more engrossed in some kid falling into a bucket, or someone sledging into a tree on that programme where you send in “genuine” videoed catastrophes….ah yes I just happened to be sitting next to the trampoline with my video camera when it collapsed….I digress

So I stand there feeling a bit gormless. No one offers me a seat, Lizzie has brought some beers, so she offers me one. Let me set the scene....this flat is a bedsit, a small bedsit, which makes me all the more incredulous that everyone is manging to ignore me!! As far as I can see there are 3 options. Either Lizzie introduces me to the others, as she knows them all, or Sporty does, as its her house, her bloke, and her best mates, or I forcibly approach each one, sit on their knee to impede further viewing of aforementioned TV programme and say “I am Baby, we are going to a party together tonight HOW DO YOU BLOODY DO?????”.

In the end, I resign myself to standing behind the sofa sipping a warm beer
They eventually warm up, it turns out Posh has decided she wanted to come as Cyndi Lauper and has brought along a substitute of posh in the form of a photo of Posh’s head stuck on the head of a broomstick. Well, in terms of physique that is actually quite accurate!!!

The crazy thing is, when we arrive at the party, the little sister, who has no clue who I am except the Baby part of her big sister’s Spice Quintet, comes up to me, flings her arms around my neck, kisses me and says “you look so pretty!!!”…..This greeting behaviour really confuses me!! Even I, as a quite militant opponent of the German “Rules” have to admit that their greeting rules really do have some use!!!!!!!

UK: Going shopping with my mum

2007-04-12T20:42:00.000-07:00

I wouldn’t say I HATE shopping, but I don’t like to do it for too long. I run out of stamina, plus it is only fun if I am not looking for anything in particular. If you say “I need some black ¾ length black trousers, what are the chances you will find them? ZERO. And should you actually succeed, what are the chances that they will only be left in sizes 6 and 16?? (I am a 10…..)

I am always amazed at my mum’s energy. She will out-shop me every time. I’m like, “Muuuuum, can I sit down?” after an hour, my shopping stamina not conducive to day-long shopping marathons, especially not in London. London shopping on Saturdays….NIGHTMARE, trying to find your way around the massive Topshop at Oxford Circus DOES MY HEAD IN…..IT IS HUGE. The thought hasn’t even crossed her mind to sit down. And the thing is, even though I am a nightmare to go shopping with, she will always come with me, wherever I want, quite selflessly, hold the clothes and pretend half of them, like the boob tube and the mini skirt, are for her when I have chosen 11 items and am only allowed to take 6 into the changing room.

I know she prefers to go with my brother. Whereas I don’t know what I am looking for until I see it, my brother is easy, he knows what he likes and what he wants. Plus, they share a love of classic, classy, well-cut, good quality clothes by e.g. Lacoste, French Connection, YSL. I have a passion for cheap, quirky, only-in-for-one-season, sometime wonkily hemmed clothes that go bobbly. I don’t really like labels, cos I prefer to have a high turnover of clothes cos I get bored, and bin them without feeling guilty. If I spend 100 quid on a cashmere jumper, I know darn well I will have shrunk it to half its original size before I have even taken it out of the bag.

My shopping technique…What I do is enter a shop, scan it half-heartedly and declare “Don’t like anything!” or “It’s all boring!” And of course, my mum says, quite rightly “How do you know??????????” She will pick something up, say “this is nice”, to which I will say “don’t like it”, or “Are you kidding me?” then I will do a mini tour of the shop, return to the same rack, pick up the same article and say to her “Do you like this?” How on earth can she tolerate my shopping behaviour???

OK, I am a strenuous shopping sidekick, but Mums must also follow certain rules when out shopping with daughters:

Even though I am a size 10, and I really am…she will always pick me out a 12 if she sees something she thinks I should try on. OK, sometimes, I do need a 12, being of hour-glass proportions, you can never tell how things will come up. But she could at least do me the courtesy of pretending she thinks I am a ten!!!

I will whip across the curtain in the changing room…all ….”ta-dah” and posing if I am particularly excited about something I have just tried on, and all I want her to say is “It’s lovely, darling”, and she says “turn around” cos she wants to see if Í have VPL or how tight it is across my back.

“do you like it, mum?” and she looks puzzled and says just “ummmmmm”
“if you don’t like it just say you don’t like it”….God I am so impatient
“MUUUM, just SAY you don’t like it”…..why am I so horrid when she has given up her time to come with me???

UK Arrivals....feeling a little lost of identity

2007-04-06T04:06:00.000-07:00

I feel a little strange. Having been living in Germany since the end of 2001, never having worked in a proper British office environment, not having a clue about income tax, or council tax, or national insurance contributions, how mortgages work, or what car tax is for, I feel a bit of an outsider when I arrive back on our fair Isle.

The trouble is, I also feel like an outsider when I am in Germany. Because I cannot really relate to many Germans, I don’t love Germany in the same way I love France, I am not in love with the culture, the politics, the local Müllentsorgungspolitik (rubbish disposal), and fundamentally, most conversations I overhear at work between Germans leaves me feeling cold inside. There is no banter, at least, of a kind I can partake in and enjoy.

Stepping off the plane is strange. You are back….but where? Is this where I come from? Is this where I belong? It’s like a monoglot’s paradise, despite the fact that there is a greater variety of people of all creeds and colours and cultures here than I have ever experienced anywhere else in Europe. “Welcome to London”….I feel proud. Yeah I do. And as I walk to collect my baggage I ask myself if I could live here again….where people just seem warmer, ok, they may talk a lot of pointless shit, beat around the bush, and consume far too much alcohol, but something in me feels that this is the place to be.

As I had been on the bus to the plane back in Germany, I was standing next to a couple of beered up Irish guys. Typically cheeky charming types, One of them saw an extremely attractive Hispanic looking girl standing on the other side of the bus and he exhaled most admiringly saying “phwoarh, jeeeeez” at the sight of her. I smiled to myself and had a private giggle, which he noticed and as I looked up at him he said grinning “you too….”, after the passport episode I knew he was taking the p. At baggage reclaim I accidentally knocked into him and he shouted “hallo again”, I ran off. Can’t take the teasing…!! There is a massive sign at passport control saying “UK Border” Am thinking, we are in the middle of Essex in what way is this a border…of course at the British passport control they don’t even look at my passport picture….OK, this isn’t a good thing, but I was kind of relieved although I won’t be when my legs get blown off in the Tube, but anyway….

My disillusion that coming back to the UK would somehow be an escape from Germany was scuppered by all the Germans swarming all over the arrival area….I can hear a harassed father shouting exact instructions to his son of how to push the trolley through the arrivals lounge “wir machen jetzt ein links…” I roll my eyes.

Eventually, my Mum and Dad arrive to rescue me. Living on your own abroad really does lose its appeal after a while, and I just wanted to be rescued. My Dad is always pleased to see me, but his immediate goal is to get back to the car as quickly as possible to avoid paying the 1.50 pound parking fee. So he grabs my pink trolley-dolly case and shoots off on a mission. Except he is really bad at remembering where he parked his car. He is widening the lead, the pink case merely a blot on the horizon of Stansted airport’s carpark. Mum and I get to the car first. We have lost Dad. He says “we parked at F, didn’t we?” Er…no, it was “G”, my Dad doesn’t believe her but the car is standing quite obviously at G, and he is the one with the keys. What is it about sirens that makes grown men regress 40 years? We hear an ambulance. “Listen”, says my Dad, “it’s an ambulance”, as it is obvious you can’t not hear it, we feel no need to respond. It’s merely a statement of fact, not something that requires an affirmation. My dad repeats…”Listen, an ambulance”, “YES” chorus me and my mum.

German Passport Control

2007-04-06T02:45:00.000-07:00

Anal anal anal….

I was standing at the passport control to board my flight to London, grasping my brand new shiny 10 year passport in my hand. I was really proud of the picture. In my previous passport, I resembled a member of La Résistance, pouting, scarf around neck, all in black, severe bob. In this picture, I have to say it…I look really nice….and not at all pasty.

So I approach the guy at passport control. I think passport controllers have been taught to smile, because the last time I came back into Germany, they were laughing and joking with everyone, and these guys are too. The guy on the left beams at me….I feel a bit weird. I swear they have been on some “smiling camp” cos they never used to be like this, I feel unsettled. Passport guy opens up the passport at the back page and holds it up to me, and looks and the picture, and back to me. Then he looks across at the other guy, shows my picture and gestures towards me. Apparently, I am looking so shit today, that he can’t tell it is me in the picture. OK, I have my hair in a ponytail…but isn’ t the point of the new (and insanely expensive – especially if you have to apply for one via the British Consulate in Düsseldorf) biometric passports, that they go on your face proportions, not your hairstyle???? Granted, I have bags under my eyes, I haven’t seen the sun for a good few months, but come on!! Then he asks me for another form of ID. I start laughing, he stops laughing. I knew the smiling was too good to last. I cannot believe it. There were stories in the paper last week about how they weren’t even asking Muslim women with full chador to remove them and this guy is questioning my identity cos my hair needs a wash. Here's why. I didn't go to bed til 1am because I was at my band practice, I packed and cleaned my flat, took rubbish out etc. from 7-9 am, worked in a dimly lit gloomy office from 9-7pm and then driven 100km to the airport and stood in the frigging check- in for 30 mins!!! For Christ's sake let me get out of this Goddamn rules-ridden country and go home!!! Not to mention the bitch at the security control, who shouted at me for disrespecting the Abstand…..for goodness sake……..why do you need discretion when you are taking your keys out of your pocket and trying to down the rest of your Evian before going through the control to the waiting frisking people, poised like air traffic controllers with their lollipop-shaped metal detecting devices. I digress…
I tell him, no I don’t have any other ID. British people do not carry ID cards (Ausweise) and my driving licence doesn’t have a picture, because it is also British one, of the old paper variety. Of course, this is absolutely incomprehensible to your average Gerry. But seeing as how they can’t prosecute me for only carrying one form of ID, they discuss what to do. They ask me if I can speak German. I’m like “Deurghhhh” This question never goes down well with me. The second controller guy then scans me, tells me to stand still and he holds his hand perpendicular to his face, as if he is the Pope blessing me with the sign of the cross. He says “You are wearing a lot of make-up in this picture, I assume”, HOW RUDE!!!! "It could be her", the guy says... I am just laughing now. He is not. He says I shouldn’t have a picture like that in my passport if I don’t look like it in real life. He says my hair and skin are a completely different colour. As if I have perpetrated a crime akin to high treason by exercising my right to look my best in my only form of photo ID. I tell him I WAS NOT wearing lots of make-up in the picture, but that I didn’t sleep very much last night. he says, "well you certainly had a lot of eye make-up on"...The cheek!!! I tell him to look at my nose. Then he says, yes, it’s her…..They finally let me through…I am so ,..... incredulous. Oh well it isn’t the first time Germans have driven me to such distraction, and it won’t be the last!!

I found a PINK hair

2007-04-03T03:23:00.000-07:00

This is not really that interesting….forewarning, but it should be documented…..

Most people worry about finding grey hairs but something much more disturbing happened to me!!! I was hiding under my hair in my post lunch lull in front of my computer having eaten too many spätzle again, heavy stomach due to the company’s catering services, staring at the front of my hair against the light…..and I my hair is basically blond but has millions of different colours, dark, blonde, white, brown, it’s really quite interesting, then I found streak of reddish ones and I though, hang on that is weird, then I located the strands emitting this reddish shine and I found one that was PINK. I pulled it out and held it against a piece of paper…..definitively pink!!! And the really weird thing is that it changed colour, first inch pink, then second inch blond, then third inch pink again….I thought there is no way I could have accidentally got felt tip pen in my hair cos I haven’t used felt tip pens for about 13 years….

So i not only have pink hair, I have pink and stripy hair....I may resemble a piece of Battenberg cake before too long....

Does anyone else have (natural) pink hair???

2 Days in Tirol

2007-03-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

Austria: Two Days in Tirol

In a vastly extravagant move, last year I decided to buy own skis, despite not living anywhere near the mountains and paying at most a biannual visit to the slopes. So I was suffering from a “conscience terrible” when March approached and I still hadn’t made it up a single “schlepplift”….i had a free weekend so I decided to enlist my mates to drive with me to Austria. The problem this year was that there was really little snow, so Rifka suggested skiing on a glacier!! Getting my skis out of the cellar produced the first trauma of the day, when I carried my skis to the car, then realised at the car that I had left my keys in the cellar and the door had shut and locked automatically behind me….Not a good start!! Going to a glacier meant a long trek for 2 days (522km to be precise) but we are game girls, so we all took off half a day off work to brave Friday’s “Feierabendverkehr” around Munich!!

We headed through Stuttgart, Munich, bought the Vignette to cross the border to Austria and although traffic was heavy, we never really had to sit in any jams! By the time we got to 30 km from our destination, I knew that this is where the fun starts, and I mean that sarcastically, cos it’s all very well following a few motorways in the right general direction, but finding an actual Gasthaus in the middle of the mountains is something else entirely! We were all in good spirits, despite the cramped conditions, 3 girls with the associated luggage and 2 pairs of skis and ski boots in a little Peugeot 206 are not the best conditions for what turned out to be a 7 hour journey! The other thing is the feeling of escaping Germany. You cross the border onto the Austrian A12 and suddenly you feel a wave of relaxation wash over you. It is hard to describe, Austria feels like a total chill out zone, less frenetic, less anally-retentive, less structured, the first thing you notice is the pace of the motorway traffic, cos everyone is forced to halve their speed as they actually have a speed limit in Austria….and enormous speeding fines!! (amazingly, don’t know this from experience, but heresay!!). And it’s all so twee, of course when it’s dark you can’t see the mountains, but once we hit Mayrhofen we started to ascend. It was well windy…and dark, and I had been driving for six and a half hours, the other problem was that although I had a booking confirmation for the hotel, I was a bit confused about which actual town it was in, cos it said “Hintertux” on the confirmation, but in the text it mentioned “Juns”. And all the houses have names rather than numbers, so you can’t enter the address into a route finder!! We drove through Finkenberg, Vorderlanersbach and Lanersbach where we stopped to look at the map…I was convinced we would never find the hotel because of the "laisser faire" attitude I always have that always ends in disaster “Oh I’ll find it” always turns into a 3hr detour!! At this point, 7hrs from our starting point and 10 km from our destination, Catherine says “Do you want me to drive?” ;-))

After only driving back and forth through Juns twice I spot the Haus Bergsonne, our guesthouse, park and we enter the house. We are met by a guy who looks a bit like an escaped convict with a touch of “Austrian Chav”, dead skinny, loads of tattoos, smoking a roll-up, chavvy rings, and a long black beard, wonky eyes, and he really slurs his speech, drunk possibly… turns out, this convict guy is British, but none of us can really understand him and we cannot pin down his accent! I glance down at his feet expecting to find a ball and chain draggin behind, but there is none. His wife appears, she has the special Austrian/German lady crimson hair rinse, she is a portly woman with a potentially charming face, but she looks at us crossly, hands on hips, and says “there’s three of you??” really accusingly!! I firstly panic and think “I did book 3, didn’T i?” thinking my recently aquired scattiness had let me down again…She shouts at her husband….“you said there were only two“, she is obviously embarrassed becasue they haven’t made a third bed up. And he said „a man made the reservation“….i am thinking „my voice isn’t that deep, then i remember that i actually made the reservation on the Internet, so whoever has booked this room isn’t me, but i decide to keep quiet, knowing i have confirmation and just hoping that the Juns i booked the hotel for isn’t Juns in Switzerland! We are accompanied to the room by the strange British man and he makes up the bed….we are all dying fort he loo, but cos he is there we are all too embarrassed to go! Ist a nice room, roomy, balcony, large windows. I am happy with my choice and girls seem so too. I ask where we can get some food and we head to the Tuxerstübl down the road, passing a young couple (man and woman) ie 2 people, potentially the man who made the reservation for the room we are now occupying, and they are from mannheim according to their car number plate…but we have made our mark on the room now!! The Tuxerstübl is a lovely old style chalet which smells of steak beer and cigarettes…i have the biggest schnitzel of my life.

There are some very drunk Dutch people there. When i hear Dutch, i just get the urge to join in….“Wat ververlend!!“ i couldn’t help uttering….shhhh say the girls….they are scared they'll come over and start up a conversation...i am such an embarrassment!

We get back to the hotel it is still quite early. We start a discussion about airing the room, because it’s a German obsession and we come from a place where you paint the windows shut! Catherine says “Shall we lüften”,…..”Stoß or Kipp”**….It is so funny, our Denglish conversation descends into a ten minute belly aching laughing marathon, as we discuss the merits of wearing a scarf if you have a cold, how to keep your kidneys warm and how we are actually “intercultural subjects” then catherine pulls back her duvet to check for the convict man’s beard hairs and finds 2 cigarette burns, one (possibly) beard hair and a dubious looking brown stain, which we decide (optimistically) must from someone “eating caramel pudding in bed again”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAivsTOE7XI

After skiing the next day we drive around aimlessly looking for some hotel with a swimming pool and most importantly….a sauna area. My scattiness bites me on the bum again as I realise, having told the girls several times to not forget to pack their swimsuits, that i have only packed my bikini bottoms, not the top...so having scoured my pink trolley dolly case unsuccessfully to search for a bra that might pass for a bikini top, Rifka, so organised, bless her.... lends me the swimming top she normally wears under her wetsuit to go kayaking....it doesn't really go with my red and pink O'Neill bikini bottoms, but I am really not sure where else to find a bikini in the middle of the mountains! After driving 16 km in one direction with no success, we end up where we started, pay 8 euros to use the Hotel Bad’s swimming pool. Then 3 problems arise. We walk in…it was supposed to be a “Thermalhallenbad” ie hot. But that it was not. I was hoping for a steaming 40°c pool!! Next problem…there was a sign saying “Please wear a swimming hat”…Catherine actually had one, I couldn’t believe it!!!….she had the whole works, from her flip-flops (no good German goes near a pool without them for fear of contracting “Fußpilz”**) to her goggles…so she was ok, but Rifka and I still had a problem. So Catherine gives Rifka her hairband to tie up her long hair cos she has the hat, and I tie mine back, I look bald with short blonde hair scraped back anyway. The pool had the aroma of washing that you forgot to take out of the machine for 3 days. The “sahnehäubchen” was that there was another sign saying “Sauna is for hotel guests only”. The guy who took our money at reception really could really have have informed us of this before taking our hard-earned cash!!! Sod that, think Catherine and I, we’ve paid 8 euros to swim in a freezing cold smelly pool…we’ll sneak in. You need your room key to get into the sauna area, so we wait outside the door. And eventually 2 guys walk out and we sneak in. We are well chuffed with our cunning. We strip off, it’s a naked sauna, and it’s surprisingly large. It has a plunge pool and a quiet area, as well as 2 saunas and a steam room. We really stick out like sore thumbs, we don’t have the yellow and white stripey towels that guests have, so we are obviously imposters! Plus we obey zero sauna laws…..we are giggling like schoolgirls in the sauna, when it says “bitte nicht lärmen”, I can’t stop laughing because Catherine is still wearing her Speedo swimming cap in the Finnish sauna….totally naked, I imagine it melting and welding onto her head, I give her my hairband and she takes off the hat to tie up her hair. It’s so funny, i can hardly breathe, not cos of the heat. Second rule we broke was going into the sauna with flip flops on, and Cath puts them on the bench with her swimming hat….DIRECTLY ON THE WOOD – ITS ENOUGH TO GIVE ANY GERMAN A HEART ATTACK. An elderly Austrian man walks in and moves them. I think he is going to give us a bollocking for a) placing something on the wood without a towel inbetween b) giggling and c) not being hotel guests. But he just says “they might melt”…that would NEVER have happened in Germany, they would have had us turfed out….what a cool dude….although being told off by a bollock-naked old Austrian guy might have been quite amusing in itself! How seriously can you take that??!

So dinner time approaches one again. Here is the dinner time constellation. Rifka needs food ASAP cos she has a poorly stomach, Catherine is vegetarian and wants more choice than just a plate of cheese noodles and I want steak and not too much conversation about pros and cons of various eating establishments. So that was the dinner time challenge….as is becoming all too frequent, we drive back and forth and try 2 restaurants that are full to bursting…no go…We end up with Tirolean cuisine….which really doesn’t cater for vegetarians, but there really is nothing else!!! We check out the menu. I find a steak on the specials page, so I am happy, and Rifka debates whether to have “Rinder Roulade” or Hirsch…..the dirndled waitress comes to take our drinks orders, I order a Hefezweizen and get a “spezi” (coke and fanta mix), then she takes my order but tells me they have RUN OUT OF STEAK. So I order a Holzfällersteak (but pork!) and Rifka orders her Rinder Roulade with rotem Kraut. Then catherine, sitting very erect and regal with her glasses perched on the end of her nose peers over the lenses at the waitress and says, “I’ll take…..the chips”. I start to laugh again, trying to conceal the urge to giggole in front of the waitress. It’s just so funny cos of the way she says it, I can just imagine Cath’s next question to the waitress being “can you recommend a good red to go with those?” or “From which variety of potato did the chips come”…The waitress then actually says “Do you want anything with that?” and Cath says “hmmmm ….I’ll take some ketchup”. 40 minutes later, the food has not been served and I realise that not one of us has fulfilled our dining requirements. Rifka still has no food, I don’t have my steak and veggie Catherine is stuck with plain chips!!

Hungarians...friendly, shy or rude??

2007-03-12T15:05:00.000-07:00

People had told me that the Hungarians could be somewhat reserved, but I had had nothing but good impressions of my colleagues in Hungary....they had never ignored the phone when they could see my number on the display, obviously about to pose the same question for the seventh time about something very technical I couldn't understand. That impressed me because I would definitely have not answered my call :-) The taxi driver was very sweet, he couldn’t speak much English, so I got my guidebook out and started trying to communicate “Hogy vaj?”, I say….he makes a sort of strange noise…then he laughs as he realizes what I wanted to say…how are you?…
As I walked into the office, I wasn't expecting there to be balloons and cake, but it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I assumed my colleagues would know it was me, slightly tired looking blonde British girl and that they would come and find me. It was an open plan office, with loads of mini cubicles, and I had no idea if the 2 guys I was sitting with were people I had discussed my band with on the phone and told me they’d take me bowling – these guys didn't introduce themselves and I wasn too shy to introduce myself! After a little while, having glanced round teh room to find a face that was likely to belong to a colleague called Tibor, I looked in Outlook to find Tibor's extension number so I could say “I am here please come and find me"... , i'd love a coffee” (See kavé blog). As i called I was half expecting to discover Tibor to be the guy sitting next to me and for the phone of my neighbour to ring... Tibor answered and a tall good looking guy appeared from around the corner!! He showed me the canteen and the coffee machine (incomprehensible), which was nice of him. But unfortunately, the bowling trip never materialized and that was almost the only time I had any chat with him. Only one Hungarian colleague in 10 days asked me if I would like to go to lunch. I think they were as shy of me as i was of them.... I ended up not going to lunch much....I was scared of “Future Catering”, despite the jolly cook guy serving, who had a squint….and always gave me extra cheese…. Luckily I had a couple of ex-colleagues on site so I could do things with them.
So the strange thing is, although none of them seemed in the least bit bothered by my presence, they seemed all sad I was leaving. And everytime I sneezed, which was at least 10 times a day, probably due to my weekend marathon trek about Budapest in the snow, and severe lack of vitamin intake, the entire office chorused the Hungarian equivalent of “bless you”. And the Hungarians are certainly not so reserved amongst themselves. Hungarians are really not scared of PDAs (public displays of affection). On one occasion, feeling somewhat in need of a hug after 2 days of not really speaking to anyone and no loving calls from a single person except Thomas to see if I wanted to share a curry instead of go to the canteen, and an extremely rushed and unrelaxed call from another friend, who had purloined a phone to call me on from Paris, I got on the tram at Margít Híd and was confronted by not one, not two, but three snogging couples within a 2 metre radius. One guy had his hand down the back pockets of a girl’s jeans, one girl was sitting on top of a guy on a single seat, and the other pair, who didn’t look like the kind of people who would do snogging in public, were into their third round of tonsil hockey. I was of course just jealous! I remembered the rebuff I’d received from Scottish ex Andrew when we were watching football with his mates in the pub and I’d placed an affectionate and subtle hand on his thigh “If that’s the kind of guy you’re after, you’re with the wrong bloke!” he’d hissed....
So basically, I don’t think Hungarians are rude, I think they are just a bit shy. They write and speak really good English, and they must have a lot about them to master their own impossible language….plus they are chivalrous…They always always opened the door for me, let me walk first into the lift, even letting me go through the security gate at the airport first. I was impressed. German men, almost without exception, rarely open the door for me, even when my hands are full !!!!

German Doctors: Could I be anymore embarrassed?

2007-03-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

Germans like to be naked in public, it’s the only place in the world where I have seen a man undressing at the swimming pool NEXT to the locker. They don’t seem to have segregated changing rooms. So he is there with his Nivea, giving his body a good moisturize, absolutely starkers, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world…which it is…except not in the world where I grew up!! Being naked in the sauna is the absolute norm…they even have naked evenings in normal swimming pools….There is no such thing as discreet…….

This applies equally to medical discretion, sometimes there are issues you would rather were handled with a little sensitivity.

I was suffering from a really horrible kidney infection, I had already been to the emergency doctor at 4 am on Sunday monrning, that story is really worth a blog of it’s own…but anyway, there I was told I had to go to my normal doctor. Firstly the doctor asked me if I minded a student sitting in on my consultation, I didn’t really mind, but I kind of would have rather she hadn’t been there…So I told him I had been to the emergency doc and that I had a kidney infection. Without asking any further questions he says…”dann müssen Sie eine Probe abgeben” ("you have to give a sample", woe is me) and tells me to go and sit in the waiting room. I am a bit confused, you don’t really want to ask, “how?” or “where?” it’s all a bit embarrassing, and not the sort of thing you can just "do as the mood takes you"...but I take a place obediently in the waiting room and await further instructions. The receptionist then shouts “Frau BGA” and strides over to me and hands me a plastic cup with a lid IN FRONT OF EVERYONE in the waiting room, I was MOR-TI-FIED. She tells me IN FRONT OF EVERYONE to wee in this cup and put it through the hatch in the toilet. So I do this and go red-faced back to the waiting room. I keep asking myself….”is that normal?” Is everyone looking at me going "We know what you've been doing"...Surely that is against all decency and Hippocratic oathness? ODER??? I assume the doc is going to invite me back into his consultation room, but no….the RECEPTIONIST returns to the waiting room, WITH my sample, IN FRONT OF EVERYONE shakes it a bit, HOLDS IT TO THE LIGHT like it is a 2003 Chardonnay and says, “Sorry we can’t use this, you have drunk too much water, come back tomorrow morning and give us another”. At first I feel a bit sorry for her as her job description obviously includes "wee testing", but then she hands me ANOTHER plastic cup IN FRONT OF EVERYONE....AGAIN!!!! Now I am reeeeally seething with a combination of embarrassment, anger and pure incredulation. I want to say something, but first I need to do some cultural research…is this NORMAL??

Next day, I have my new sample ready to go and am at home trying to decide the most modest and fitting way to transport the sealed plastic cup, I don’t want to just whip it out of my handbag and hand it over, so I put it into a plastic bag, checking it can’t leak in my handbag…..hmmmm my leather handbag normally smells of ‘l’eau d’issey’, not ‘l’eau d’urine’. Lovely. I arrive at the doctor’s and a different woman is on reception. Thank God, I think, maybe she has more compassion and just plain common decency!! I don’t want to hand over the beaker, so I decide to wait until I am asked for it, and take my seat in the waiting room. After a couple of minutes I hear a voice,…..it’s the receptionist from yesterday…..she had been hiding in the back reception, she booms out from the back into the waiting room “Miss BGA, did you bring a sample?” (“Frau BGA, haben Sie eine Probe dabei” ). Mortified ashamed, bewildered, confounded, confused, discombobulated, disconcerted, chagrined, disgraced, embarrassed, humiliated….just a few adjectives that spring to mind. Is nothing private???? I can’t believe I have to pull a pot of wee out of my handbag and hand it over to the receptionist in full view of the ENTIRE waiting room. I would rather fly back to the UK and wait 9 months to get treated on the NHS than go through that again!

The Pfalz - Where Customer Service Excels Itself…

2007-03-12T03:54:00.000-07:00

What happens in Germany when the sun comes out?? The entire population spills onto the street in search of ice cream and a comfy spot on the terrace.

So it was, I joined the throngs exultantly, got in the car and headed to the beautiful Pfalz…otherwise know as Rhineland-Palatinate…Biggest wine growing region of all Germany, driving through the hills is always a joy, apart from sharing the roads with anyone whose number plate starts with “DÜW", or "NW” … You drive through beautiful picturesque villages with tiny houses, little places where you can déguster the wine, guess Americans would call it "quaint"…and I always wonder how many beautiful towns were destroyed and how Germany would look if there had never been a war….

I realised I was very thirsty as we approached Neustadt, my camarade informed me that we would go to the lovely Altstadt (old town) and find a nice terrace to sit on and get an ice cream, coffee, coke, and piece of cake!! First of course, we had to sit in the traffic jams in the narrow roads and fight with the rest of Germany going to visit the “Easter Egg” exhibitions for a parking space.….I resisted the urge to get a can of Coke in the Shell garage, and put up with my parched mouth with the pure anticipation keeping me from dehydrating completely!

Half an hour later we have parked and are on the search for liquid refreshment, preferably outside, it may only be March, but I don’t need my jacket!! We find a beautiful old barn-type house, it reminds me of France, old stone building, with ivy climbing up the walls….we walk through the gravel and ascertain that there are no tables in the sun, typical, but expected…but it’s nice just to be outside, in the fresh air, and getting a drink, the situation is getting serious now, I am getting a headache, all I want is a Coke, not long now……

We sit on the terrace, not really talking to each other, for we both need our highest concentration levels to try and attract the waitress. Obviously, we are sitting there, menus shut, no empty glasses on the table, obviously, we are extremely potential candidates for “being served”. It isn’t rocket science. The waitresses are wearing dirndls, as the first waitress looks through us, I think, well, she must be quite stressed today….but then I wonder if the dirndl bodice hasn’t restricted the blood flow to not one, not two, but three waitresses brains, or perhaps we have borrowed Harry Potter’s invisible cloak, for I am convinced after 20 minutes that we are well and truly invisible! Other people get served, other people get their drinks, but somehow, we have evaded all service!

Finally a waitress comes to us and says “Ich komme sofort”, (I’ll be right with you), but I just don’t believe her, so we leave….perhaps somewhere else has better service?! So the quest for refreshment continues, all the terraces are packed-to-bursting and there are people queueing….we briefly consider a Greek restaurant, but I get stroppy, cos I want to sit outside, and I don’t want to eat Greek food at 3pm when I have been looking forward to an ice cream. So we find a kind of café you’d expect to find at a train station, primary-coloured shop sign, plastic garden furniture and a waitress whose cleavage is making interesting viewing for all the Pfälzer men, particularly cos when she bends forward, you can see her bra through the gape….it’s great fun watching the men’s transfixed eyes …. She also has twotone painted fingers, and I have a sense of déjà vu, as we can’t seem to attract her attention to order either. I decide on a “gemischtes Eis” and Milchkaffee, and my companion disappears inside to choose some cake. When he comes back, I still haven’T been served, but eventually, would you believe it, 70 minutes after parking the car, we order…we order the cake explicitly saying the “apple cake on the left”, order my ice cream, the coffee and sit back….and sit back….and then sit up and wonder why the people who came after us have just been served… we manage to pin down the waitress, who looks very harassed when we ask about our order …she gets out her pad, flicking through it….. we repeat her order and we get our brush off “ich komme sofort” …it’s becoming all too frequent today… she comes back with one milchkaffee and a cappucino,, we say we ordered 2 milchkaffee….she gets out her pad again, “yes it was definitely 2 milchkaffee”….then she say there is no apple cake left, only Nußkuchen….we say we went inside and when we ordered there was plenty of apple cake left…explicitly on the “left hand side” and we had clearly stated….she tells us there is no way we could have seen apple cake because it has run out….we have had enough now, I say “shall we go to MacDonalds?” a bit too loudly, I want to scream with frustration by this point….and we get in the car and drive to Bad Dürkheim, narrowly avoiding a run in with a big BMW, as if the afternoon hadn't been stressful enough. Even though I was only joking about going to MacDonald’s..we end up in the Kochlöffel (bit like MacDonalds). I have said it before, but these fast food places may be souless, but at least they are reliable…. It wasn’t my idea of a day of fresh air, greenery and exercise sitting in the stench of saturated fat, pommes and bratwurst, but at least I got watered and service with a smile.

Budapest: What do I have to do to get a decent cup of coffee??

2007-03-07T05:05:00.001-08:00

I have to ask myself, if 10 days in Hungary make me desire so many things I didn't realised I even liked, what the hell would I be like after 4 weeks living in a straw hut in the middle of Kenya, like my friend Jess did? Perhaps the more different something is, the easier it is not to miss the things….. Maybe the more similar something is, the harder it is to cope with the minor deviations and things not being "just so"?
Firstly it's the office. Same company, same e-mail account, same colleagues, same work, same everything - almost, except here, everyone ignores me when I walk in, when I say "this is a really nice office", they don't say "Köszönöm! (Thanks)", they reply "well what did you expect? That we'd be sitting on bicycles cycling to generate the electricity?" Blimey...!!!….I can't talk on the phone, because the office is open plan, and because I have no headphones I can't listen to music. Normally at 3pm, I get this overwhelming desire to hear a particular song…this song is always the one I am obsessed with that particular week…But I am feeling like junkies must feel when they are desperate for a hit, my heart is racing...I want to turn up the music so loud that I can feel blood trickling out from my ear drums…but I can't….and I didn't have the foresight to get myself and iPod before I left. I want to sip on my morning coffee and not start have to stop immediately because my heart starts to race and my hands shake uncontrollably….how nice would it be to go up to the coffee machine and know what you are choosing, because there are five buttons and I only recognise the one that says Cappucino. This is, unfortunately, of the instant variety, where you can totally taste the powdered creamer, one sip is ok, the next is also ok, but then you just start feeling sick, and the revulsion increases in indirect proportion to the cooling down of the coffee... So the remaining buttons say Tejeskave, Uzsannakave, Feketekave and Jegeskave. It's like Russian roulette to see if you can avoid the one that's going to trigger a heart attack from pure caffeine poisoning. I did learn the word "tej", meaning "milk", so "tejeskave" was obviously "white coffee", in German they would say "Milchkaffee", which is more than your normal white coffee, it's normally a massive bowl of delicous aromatic coffee, with just the right amount of foamed milch….After pressing "Tejeskave" the machine started whirring. But when I plucked the cup out from the the machine, I practically had to stick my head inside the mug to locate the liquid. I guess Hungarians see coffee as more of a "hit" like a "shot" than a drink you sip at for half an hour over "The Sun Online" whilst perusing the lunch menu.
And, how can any Brit live without a good cup of tea for 10 days? The thing you don't realise, until you can't have it anymore, is how it gives you a structure to your day. So a typical start to my day is wake up, put kettle on, go back to bed while kettle boiling, make tea, fetch milk, pour tea, go back to bed. In Hungary it was, wake up, realise you are parched and wonder if it's ok to drink the tap water in the bathroom, get up, ignore the hunger pangs and get out of the five star hotel as quickly as possible so you can get some sort of replacement from the aforementioned coffee machine.
Then it's the same when you come home, first thing i do in Germany is throw my coat down on the floor somewhere, kick off my shoes, find my slippers (normally can't) and put the kettle on….in Hungary, you will either just not go home to avoid the tea void…or have had the organisation to at least have bought some water, and probably paid 10 times too much for it because you can't distinguish 1000 forint (4 euro) from 10000 forint (you do the math) in a panic at the kiosk ….trying not to make it obvious you can't make out one note full of "0s" from another, and therefore that you are in fact foreign, obviously not going to know how much they've asked you to pay on the spot ie how much 1000 divided by 225 forint equals in euros to give you a rough idea and what is a sensible price for a bottle of water, and lastly that you can't argue back even if you do think you've been ripped off!
This is how I developed a MacDonald's habit in Hungary. And I am not even ashamed to admit it. There is just nothing like knowing what you are getting, especially after a major coffee/tea drought. I frequented at least 6 different ones in my 10 days. Mainly on the lookout for coffee to feed my caffeine habit rather than for food. One of them was next to Ngugati train station and has to be the most posh and chic MacDonald's on the planet. You could practically hold your wedding reception in there, chandeliers, clean, plentiful seating, which wasn't tacked to the floor (which I always thought most cruel considering it is a fast food joint and therefore not necessarily catering from a furniture perspective for the skinny people who can actually squeeze into the chairs!!)…but i digress….you know what you have to pay because you can read the menu…. I knew the word "sajt" (pronounced "shite") for "cheese" so could order a sajtburger…and well….what more could you want…. But of course I didn't know where any MacDonald's were as I started my Saturday day long jaunt around Hungary's beautiful capital. So when I alighted the tram on the Pest side of the Margít Híd and there was a Macky-d's directly in front of me, I really thought all my Christmasses had come at once. Pure utter unadulterated joy flowed through me at the familiar sight of those so shiny golden arches. I ordered my "American coffee", took a photo of it, (yes, I am sad) then took a sip and burnt my tongue so hideously that I had to abandon the rest and go and stick my tongue under running water…..The irony is that Hungary is famous for its wonderful cafés, all along Andrássy ut, the road that leads from Hösök tere (Heroes Square) back down to Deak Ferenc Ter. But they were for another day….

Budapest: Five (or not?) Star Hotels

2007-03-07T04:56:00.001-08:00

Prologue
*****As of November 2006 we will completely refurbish all 310 bedrooms of the Corinthia Aquincum Hotel. The renovation will take place in two phases: half of the rooms will be refurbished during the winter/spring period of 2006/2007, and the remaining half during the winter of 2007/2008.The deluxe bedrooms will offer guests a perfect oasis for relaxation. The new style and design with its warm colours and comfortable settings create a luxurious environment where even the most demanding guest can feel at home, whether on a business or leisure trip. The deluxe rooms will be equippped with unique, custom-made artifacts. A good night’s rest is ensured by the latest top quality fluffy duvets with double oversized feather pillows, complemented by an exclusive line of guest amenities*****
It doesn't matter where i go, I always end up in a hotel room next to one that is being refurbished. It was the same in New York with those spitting Chinese workmen...it's never "we are delighted to welcome Miss BGA into our plush prestine newly refurbished room", but "Miss BGA, we are placing you in one of our oldest mankiest unrefurbished rooms, with above average noise levels. We apologise for the inconvenience" 'The noise pollution laws don't even protect me...they are allowed to start banging at 8 and carry on til its post meridian equivalent....
5 Star Hotels
I was most excited to be staying in a 5 star hotel...imagining the fluffy towels, the internet hotspots, the flowing minibar and freebies strewn around the room. Getting out of the rather smart lift, everything was still going to plan...except that no porter was available to carry my bags... I was vaguely relieved, I wouldn't have known how to tip, not to mention that i had no "forint" yet , luckily the cabbie accepted euro, more advanced than the UK, no way a cabbie would accept euro there.. I pause to find the numbers and notice on the wall in black marker pen 202-240.....BLACK MARKER PEN?? Things are taking on a new shape. the bubble's surface is quivering ..i had already been told there was no breakfast included in my room fee of 119 euro. I would have to pay an extra 18 euro..."For the 10 days?" i venture, only to be made to feel as small as a bit of giant's dandruff, "no, per day", the smiley receptionist told me....ok, reasonable...18 euros per day for breakfast for 10 days is 180 euros, my entire "Verpflegungspauschal" is only 230 eruos.... think i will pass...
I walked into my room, first thing I noticed was that it smelt musty....and the carpet was kind of green velour, and the curtains and bed spreads were of a sort of green/pink/salmony oragne swirly pattern....still trying to work out how it differs from the IBIS i stayed in with Sietske for 50euro in Montpellier....and that had breakfast included!!! Kept thinking, don't be a Western snob, when images of communist east european pre wall fall tv images flashed through my head...
Hey but musn't complain ...perhaps there is the beautiful Danube view I have been looking forward to... Numb with disappointment now, i took in the pre-capitalist times grey and desolate looking appartment. There is an Internet LAN calbe, but you have to pay for it....118 euros doesn't stretch as far as it used to.....
Come on, I think, don't be so darn British....see the positives....The spa area really is something.....I did get a fluffy bathrobes and i trotted down to floor -1, slightly trepidly....i don't really look like someone who stays in a 5 star hotel, after all, I forgot to pack a hairbrush...After figuring out how to open the lockers, luckily they also have instructions in English, i padded in the oasis.....i felt like i was walking into a pastel watercolour, all pinks and sky blues and warm gold and terracotta.....cosy Liegerstühle and my own fluffy blue towel.....heaven. And for the first time I feel lucky, can see myself in the domed roof. I can hear the sprudel of the jacuzzi and the water falling from the the ceiling in to the pool....
There was a sign on the changing room door that clearly stated "We ask all patrons to kindly shower before entering the pool". **** that, i thought, i had a shower this morn, i had asked the man at reception how warm the water was and he said 26 degrees....hmmmm.....am i really going to have a hot shower then get into freezing water?? No way... I decide to splash some water on my hair so it looked like i had had a shower to the unsuspecting eye....and tiptoe to the pool which has some shallow steps to aid entry...or rather prolong the agony. It was freezing....and i could see the moustached Bademeister looking at me waryly, plastic flip-flopping along towards me... i must have been stupid to think he's never seen this old trick before...but he doesn't come over to me, and haul me out as i fear, it takes me 5 mins to fully immerse myself millimetre by millimetre slowly in the most painful way how, and i can see 3 men laughing at me, they can p robably see my nipples..... I keep saying tomyself "what is wrong with you, you can't catch a bus and you can't immerse yourself in cold water - what's up with you you southern softie??
The 2 women already in the pool look at me territorially. ... I kind of understand, I get a bit like that too...One old lady is wearng a bath cap that does up under the chin, the other one has deffo had a boob job...after a few lengths the boob job women starts traversing the pool, strange, i though, i wondered if she was trying to make a point, almost circiling me like a shark.... I was convinced i had offended her, perhaps i had splashed her during my crawl?? In any case she was deffo staring. It's only when i got out and caught a glimpse of myself in one of the many mirrors that I understood why....as my tar like mascara tears leave vertical tide marks down my face....the bademeister is shaking his head at me. I can imagine he is tut-tutting in Hungarian...I guess he's worked me out...
He didnÛt hold it against me though. After the exhaustion and stress of the day, i fell asleep like a baby on the cushioned recliner and he had to wake me up cos they were shutting, i almost wished he'd left me there...

Germany: Waiting Room Wrath...

2007-03-06T08:54:00.001-08:00

The pain of an “out of alignment” pelvis can only come second to the pain of a German waiting room. I arrived for my pelvis crunching and rib straightening, the second time, I might add, in 3 weeks having been told that I would have a lengthy wait as it was an emergency case. So not feeling the best, I walk into reception…clever of me to get here so early, I think, for it is practically empty, aside from an old man loitering around the entrance to the waiting room and a lady at the reception. Perhaps I won’t be here til lunch time, after all, I muse….So I walk in and stand in line behind the woman. I can sense a sort of uneasiness, shifting from the man loitering at the entrance to the waiting room…then I hear him grunt “junge Fräulein!!! – es gibt doch einen Diskretionsabstand!!! (roughly translated as, “keep a discretionary distance”. I glare at him with my best evil eyes, firstly because, I do not consider 4m distance a necessary discretionary distance in the waiting room at the orthopedic doctor, and secondly, in my experience, there’s no such thing as discretion in any sense of the word in German waiting rooms. (see GP story) The man looks “muffig”, a bit musty, grumpy, big red nose (alky), growling voice (40-woodbine a day), oversize glasses, bushy eyebrows, sleepy droopy eyes and a thick mop of wiry grey hair. I take my place behind him in the hall, a very narrow and short passage, with a draught you’d expect in a house of its age, thinking how ludicrous, the waiting room is 4m square and heated, but I cannot go in. I thought of all the rude things I wish I was quick enough to say back. Thing is, “Diskretion” is all very well, but people are now starting to fill up in the tiny corridor, the man has taken his place at the reception desk, and the people coming in behind are looking at me as if to say “What the f*** are you loitering by the door for - ???” But I am loathe to walk further in for fear of him shouting at me for disrespecting his “Diskretion”. So unfair, what have I done to deserve everyone’s wrath and scorn at 7.50 am on an otherwise fairly pleasant Tuesday morning. The guy behind me who's wearing a tracksuit sniffs at his armpit and a lady in the queue tries to subtley pick her nose with a tissue wrapped round her finger. Lovely. Then an approximately 50 year old lady, with that typical Austrian/German old lady purply hair rinse walks straight in and goes straight to the the desk. The people huddled in the corridor get restless and start diverting their frustration towards me again…asking me if I am actually waiting or not. I can only hope the old lady takes the hint and gets her arse to the back of the queue, but of course, she doesn’t. So I have to either accept she has pushed in and “get over it”, or take on the “Excuse me Frau X, have you forgotten about the “Diskretionsabstand”, which of course I can’t do, because I am Britiish, and my stiff upper lip won’t allow it. Incredible how long it can take this man to bloody say. “my name’s Bill, I am here for my 8am appointment”, if you have ever been to a German medical institution, you’ll know that it is never that simple! He is asking the normal sort of stupid pointless questions and despite the 4m “Diskretion”, I can hear ever word, cos he talks like a foghorn, so really what was the point of the Diskretion in the first place?? While the woman behind reception processes something, he stares at the woman who has pushed in front of 20 people and says – precisely nothing. I am wondering why he had the nerve to tell me off when I made and innocent mistake, whereas it’s bloody obvious there are 20 people cramped in the corridor and this woman is just plain rude. I wonder if the man knows the torment he has thrust upon me and can only hope my dagger looks will pierce his conscience.

Horrors of public transport - The reason Hungarians drink Unicum

2007-02-15T06:23:00.000-08:00

The horrors of public transport have been flooding back to me.....it's a hard decision: risk your life running across a main road in unsuitable pointy boots whilst massive trucks zoom past, or risk waiting another half an hour in the freezing temperatures with scary-looking unpleasant smelling Hungarian drunks. I have no choice I have to ask them the way to the Hév stop, because the pavement inexplicably stopped and the only way to Kaszasdûlû in order to make my connections to meet a very punctual Naomi is by bus..... We are all still standing trying to cross the road towards the bus stop.... I muster the courage "angol??" I say...and to be fair, they are very friendly, from what I can tell. Our communication somewhat impeded by my lack of Hungarian pronunciation skills, I try pronouncing Kaszasdûlû correctly----ka-sash-derr-leurgh.....trying not to make my pronunciation too Slavic for fear of making a magyar mishap....Luckily I'd had the foresight to write it down on a bit of paper....but too late, the bus sweeps past while we are all still standing on the other side of the road....
So i cross and stare through my frozen eyeballs (can vitreous humour freeze??) at the blur of headlights and street lamps, the oncoming commuter traffic zooming by, the cold wind finding a way to my bones through my Mexx fake sheepskin coat. I used to do this every day for 3 years, I have officially become a car-driving wuss, 5 mins, ok, 10mins....have paced up and down several times now...and as i stare at the lights, I keep thinking i am hallucinating the upper headlights of a bus, I can't tell if it's my myopic vision playing tricks on me, (I forgot to pack my glasses) but the lights keep moving towards me, I make out the square shadow of the bus, OH JOY, but the bus has no number on the front...what the...??? The Hungarian drunks gesture to me to get on, I don't know whether to trust them, but I figure it's worth the risk....
My jubilation multiplies fourfold as I spy a free seat....the FIRST FREE SEAT....3 days, 6 bus journeys, NO free seat....so I bound up and the dodgy looking brownish stain on the PVC seat explains its vacancy....oh well, I stand, a numb hand barely reaching the hook hanging down from the bus ceiling to support myself and look down at my feet, noticing the skuff on my new pointy boots.....
In my extreme concentration to remember the name of the work's bus stop Zahony Utca, I remember I don't have a clue where I actually got on. So there's me on the return journey, my cold wet feet looking forward to the moment I step into the jacuzzi at the wellness area in the hotel, and we come up to the stop Szentlélek Tér...seems familar, but aren't I going to Zahony Utca??? D'oh, that is the stop TO work, not back ... It is one of those split second decisions, get off, stay on, get off, stay on...I stay on, squiniting with my square post work eyes through the steamy window and seeing my hotel, conveniently situated near the bus stop, pass my by. Oh well, I think. Not so bad, just get off at the next stop, can't be that far. I'll get off and walk. Except that that is the last stop in Buda....and it's raining...and we are now heading over a very large bridge (Arpád híd) heading towards Pest. By this point I know I am going to have to bus it back, but at the next stop, I try to get off, I'd even worked out which button to press to request the bus to stop. Feeling mildly smug, I stand by the doors. The bus stops. The doors don't open. I look frantically around for door opening button. They only say STOP, not open or a helpful symbol!! Noone seems to grasp the gravity of the situation, everyone sits motionless in their seats.. I AM TRAPPED ON THE BUS...and it signals and drives on ahead.....So I am still on the bus, my feet are cursing me for not being more organised/au fait with the intracacies of Hungarian public transport and I figure I am going to have to wait until someone else gets off the bus. I cross the road, I am thinking, don't do anything rash...THINK about where you are going. But there are four lanes of traffic and it's an intersection, I still can't remember the name of my stop, I know it began with Sze....but so did about 25 other bus stops, the reason being, i discover later, is that Szent...means Saint.....a common Budapest busstop prefix....
One hour later, my four minute bus journey comes to an end. Instead of heading to the jacuzzi, i have to head to the bar for a unicum* to warm my cockles....

*Unicum is a Hungarian herbal bitter liqueur, drunk as a digestif and apéritif.
According to legend, the drink was initially presented by an ancestor of Zwack founder József Zwack to Kaiser Joseph II of Austria, who proclaimed "Das ist ein Unikum!" ("This is a specialty!"). The liqueur is today produced by Zwack according to a secret formula including more than 40 herbs and aged in oak casks. During the Communist regime in Hungary, Unicum was produced by a different formula. After the fall of communism, Péter Zwack returned to Hungary and resumed the production of the original Unicum. The flavor of Unicum closely resembles that of Jägermeister, but it is considerably earthier and less sweet.
Recently Zwack has also launched Unicum Next which is more citrus flavoured in character. In Hungary it is marketed towards the female drinker, and often appeals more to the Western palate.

The power of the "x"

2007-02-15T05:12:00.000-08:00

Signing off from emails and letters
Every day of my life I am faced with a dilemma…how does one sign off from various forms of communication? It’s not really a problem at work. There are rules for all the languages….if you know a colleague well you could write “Cheers”. I hate writing “cheers”, but it’s so much less stiff than “Regards,” and “best regards” is just way too poncy. So then I started to write “Cheerio”. Which is also totally “what ho, Henry”, which also doesn’t represent me either. There is also “bye for now”, which just reminds me of my piano teacher…. Typically in true German practicality, it’s easier, just write “viele Grüße”, whether you know them well or not!! You’ll often get a short “Gruß” from a grumpy developer, (what? Just ONE greeting…well didn’t you know there is a severe global shortage of greetings)….I always think “you might as well have not written anything at all”. But this lack of emotion, isn’t meant to offend, for developers, who don’t have emotions anyway, it’s really just a practical thing…who gives a shit about being friendly if you can save those 6 letters…imagine how much less work your fingers do per day if you save 6 letters per email….if you are writing 30 emails a day (and that’s only the business ones)…you do the math…. An old boss of mine, who like to think of himself as a pretty worldly sort, used to write “Ciao”, somehow this faux Italiophilian pomposity seriously makes me want to hurl, why do I think this is so intensely pompous?? Some attempt show off his grasp of the Italian language, or how he rates on the “multi-culti” scale…well we do work in a global KM team!! This, inexplicably, has something to do with this particular man, since I wouldn’t find this so stomach-churning if certain other colleagues were to write it! Still, give him his dues, at least he spells it correctly, and doesn’t try to germanise it to “tschau”…. The icing on the cake has to be another German colleague. He is the kind of guy who likes to add all this academic titles and exact position in the company to his email signature, and is immensely proud of his American English (there really is nothing worse than a German speaking English with a pseudo American accent) He writes “Best”….eeeeyyooooouuuuuuu.

So work is one thing, but what about private emails….The mysteries of the “x”***. I never realised til I started having things to do with foreigners, i.e. German and French pen pals, that they don’t have a clue that this letter indicates a sign of affection. When I started thinking about it, I realised, yeah it is really bizarre thing, like driving on the left…and all those other little things that you can only start considering strange about your own country until you have detached yourself properly from it. Christina, my German exchange partner from school said once “Kate, why do you always make these little “eekses” at the end of letters?” I explained they were sort of kisses, but not real ones, didn’t want her to think I was a lesbian….

So how can the presence of these “x”s, or lack thereof, totally make or break your day??

Well firstly, it depends on who the mail is from…everyone has their own “x” etiquette. My etiquette is that I don’t have one. Sometimes I’ll write “lots of love kate xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx” sometimes I’ll write “kx, or “xxk”, or “aktex”, am not known for my accurate typing skills, at least in my private mails, I do make some sort of effort with my business ones…And I guess this unpredictability must be most confusing, or perhaps this mirrors my personality i.e. never really feel the same from one day to the next, either really happy, or really sad, but never really “on the level”. Maybe it’s my way of wearing my heart on my sleeve. My mate, Eleanor, always always without fail writes “El xx”, always, big E, two “xs”, obviously she does have emotions, but she is much more structured and organised than me. She would never leave the washing up in the kitchen overnight, (or even all fortnight, cough) but I never can tell if she is happy or sad, I didn’t know that her Granddad had died, or that she had split up with her boyfriend, or bought herself a pink vibrator!! Similarly, Naomi, who always writes perfectly typed and grammatically correct texts and e-mails (God, I so admire her for that), always writes “Naomi xxx”, sometimes two, …what does this variation mean? Doesn’t she like me as much today?? Have I offended her?? Has she had a row with her husband? My Dad always capitalises his single X and if he didn’t I would be most perturbed.
You can practically psychoanalyse people’s moods from the x-usage….One day my friend, Cath, wrote me a very unemotional and informative mail, it was a statement and at the end there was no signoff…. No xs, no name nothing, so I replied and said “Are you ok?” This divergence from her usual behaviour really really disturbed me. And then when she hadn’t replied after half an hour (extremely unusual), I was convinced that she hated me and that I had done something to piss her off… I even went as far as to mail Lizzie in London and say “I think Cath’s in a mood with me, what shall I do?” If she#d asked me why I thought she was pissed off at me, I would have felt really stupid saying..”erm,…she didn’t write a x at the end of her mail…..turned out she hadn’t replied cos she was busy messaging Perry, and she was, as it turned out, pretty down that day. She told me I was very perceptive!! But that is merely the power of the x.
There are millions of variations and interpretations…but then it gets really interesting…

Then there is the flirty X. Here’s a dilemma. You have started a flirty email relationship with a colleague, how do you sign off the email`? You don’t want to be too forward, and you don’t know how the x is received in certain male camps. But one thing is clear. Apart from a developer “Gruß”, you cannot ever predict how a man will sign off. So what do we do? We wait and see what they do. 9 times out of 10 you are immensely disappointed. My ex-boyfriend, Tom, always used to write “yours, Tom”, even in birthday cards!!! I am not your f****** great-niece!!!! I tried to bring up the subject, I couldn’t believe anyone had the ability to offend me so much unintentionally. “Yours, Tom”…. Pragmatic enough, I suppose. The L word had not been mentioned, at least not from his side. So then you get a bit silly. You start playing a game of get your own back, even though they don’t know they are the opponent, or even that there is a game. I started to write “yours, Kate”, (I still do that today, tongue-in-cheek, in our biannual email exchange) but the pointlessness of trying to get a reaction out of someone, who doesn’t have a clue they are being wound up, is as frustrating as trying to catch a Hungarian bus.

***Why Does X Stand for a Kiss? There are several theories of why X has come to represent a kiss. One hypothesis looks at the mathematical meaning of X, where it can signify zero or "(an) infinity (of delight)." It can also "multiply" love and joy.
"However, the prosaic explanation of this romantic sign may be twofold. Originally it represented the formalized, stylized pictures of 2 mouths X touching each other--X. But then, a little more complicated, the kiss entered the cross by a chain of events and really owes everything to men's lack of education.
"Early illiterates signed documents with a cross. They did so for an obvious reason. A cross was so simple to draw, and yet, being also a sacred symbol, implied the promise of truth. But to solemnly confirm further the veracity of what had been endorsed thus, the writer kissed his 'signature,' as he was accustomed to do with the holy book. And that is how, finally, by its very association, the cross came to be identified with a kiss."
© 1975 - 1981 by David Wallechinsky & Irving WallaceReproduced with permission from "The People's Almanac" series of books.All rights reserved.

Budapest: Hotel rooms...

2007-02-10T16:39:00.000-08:00

How hard can it be to design a room to suit the business traveller? What do we want, do we really really want?

Well if you're a woman, you want lots of room for hanging up your clothes, and drawers. What you don't want is those annoying coat hangers they have invented to try and prevent wooden coat hanger theft!! I have always found them most unnecessary, I mean, you can get a 10 pack of identical wooden hangers from Ikea for 2.99. You'd have to be well pikey to steal them...
The annoying thing is firstly, the wardrobe is designed for a midgit. Even I have to duck my head to locate the rail...then you can't simply hang up whatever heavy coat item you require with one hand because the slot on the bit attached to the rail is so narrow and doesn't stay put so you need to grab the top bit on the rail with one hand while guiding the hanger with the other, and you can guarantee that by the time you've got this far - assuming you haven't already snapped it across your knee in frustration - that whatever you were trying to hang up has fallen off.....Plus, how are you supposed to hang up your trousers? These particular hangers have no cross-bit....are you supposed to fold up your best and carefully ironed Jane Norman trousers with the complicated crease down the front and squeeze them into the 20x90x10 cm drawers provided??

Pointless furniture. The only thing worse than inadequate furniture is pointless furniture. Once you have passed the wardrobe (empty because of the inadequate coat hangers) there is a kind of sofa, but it isn't really a sofa, it's just a gap in the static wall furniture, where they put some flat cushions, one vertical, one horizontal. Maybe a large drawer in this spot would have been a better idea, for it is hard to imagine the pleasure you are supposed to derive from sitting on this hard vertical "bench" staring at the blank wall of the entrance passage two feet in front of you...or maybe they put it there in case you needed a "breather" en route from the door to the bed? The bathroom....there is a phone right next to toilet, because of course it's is great import to be able to answer a phone to perhaps a business associate from your five (supposedly) star hotel mid-wee....

Oh, but there is something worse than inadequate and pointless furniture...it's furniture that is useful and great, but placed for the Dutch people of this world well out of reach of your average five foot four female Brit. A marvellous mirror, that blows up the pores on your face to crater proportions, with spotlights and magnifier....great for whiling away a lonely Budapest evening, was not to be available to me for blackhead beobachtung, without dragging the chair from my "dining room" (small table and chair) to the bathroom to stand on...perhaps that explains the phone...in case you fall off the chair and need to call for help.

So I mentioned narrow drawers but did I mention the length? They are so long that I need that contraption my Granddad used to have for picking things off the floor when he couldn't bend over for reaching the things that were flung to the back of the drawer when I slammed it shut (I had an excuse, I have coat hanger issues), plus the mirror upon the wall is badly lit and so far away that i have to practically balance on my hip bones at a 45° angle if i want to put my mascara on...it's the same story in the bathroom, except there at least, I can give the bruises on my hip bones a break, stand in the bath, to sit up on the sink to achieve the necessary proximity for make-up application.