Saturday, March 21, 2009

Stage Four - Germany (Part One)



Greetings followers,

Apologies for the delay in correspondence from your fearless leader. I have been living in a land of no Internet, no landline, and no cellphone. But being the courageous crusader of the people that I am, you were never far from my thoughts, so I have written blogs anticipating time to get them up. Why not just go to an Internet café and write them you ask? A) because I am living in a small town that doesn’t have a café, let alone an Internet one and b) the computers in Germany have the z and y keys around the wrong way, no question mark symbol (that I can find anyway) and an o with two dots over it where the @ symbol should be. It’s all too hard.

Anyway, I arrived here in mid February and immediately proceeded to infect the entire family I am staying with with a nasty combination of bugs from a month worth of States/ Canada/ England hopping. Seriously, I have never felt so dreadful in my life. This mystery illness was worse than Glandular Fever and the time we thought waterskiing in Lake Taupo in July would be “ no biggie” put together. What’s worse, the children didn’t actually show signs of the illness until they got to their elderly grandmother’s house, and proceeded to infect her and her other daughter. What a first impression. I guess that’s one way to dominate a country - infect all the inhabitants and have them crumble around you. However, there is a chance Germany will get me back. Now that I am recovered, there is a nasty strain of rubella going around that is apparently immune to the inoculations we got in form two and then pretended we were too sick to go back to class having been infected with measles, mumps and rubella so ate cookies instead while lying down on the benches.

However, the happy news was that I did recover from my illness in time to investigate the custom that is Karnival and attend my first Karnival Party. Karnival is a week long shindig in Cologne where people get dressed up, anything goes, and the revelers chase away the Winter to bring on Spring. It’s kind of like the Wellington Sevens on crack. However, here in Dornach we did it a little differently - the party lasted two hours, the attendees were aged 5-9 years old, and we held it in the school hall, but still, I rocked Karnival!!!

Upon full recovery of my illness I set about building a life for myself in this strange snow-covered landscape so I could properly investigate German family culture. I enrolled in a five week German course (of which I missed the first week and a half - oops) and also a fitness class. The town may have less than 700 residents, but imagine my delight to discover it does have almost the full range of Les Mills classes! Body Balance is my new favourite thing EVER! In my first class the teacher, who had been to New Zealand only a few months previously to become a fully-fledged Les Mills instructor, proceeded to tell the entire class that Les Mills classes were from New Zealand, and so was I! Wow! Everyone looked at me like I WAS Les Mills, and spent the first 40 minutes of the class watching me since they thought I would be an expert. If I had known the German to say, “I may come from New Zealand, but that doesn’t mean I can do this class any better than you can build a Mercedes” I would have, but in the end my inability to touch my shoulder blades with my feet did the talking for me.

German school was also an interesting initial experience. None of the other people in my class speak English, so it is really good for my German. However, some of them seem to be a little confused about where NZ is. The first man, from a country deep in Africa that I didn’t understand when he told me, nodded and said in, “Ahhh, NewZealand, high in the North.” No no, we’re quite far in the South, I told him. “No you’re not,” I was informed. “You’re country is high in the North and you speak Ukraine-ish” (also commonly referred to as Russian for those playing at home). I think I had just about convinced him I knew where NZ was and was fairly confident it was English we were speaking there when a 58-year-old man from Iraq told me he speaks English. “Ahhh. Umm, good,” I told him. And then he said to me, “How you see the Germany?”
“Um, sorry, what?”
“The Germany! How you see the Germany?”
“Um, with my eyes?”
“NO! HOW YOU SEE THE GERMANY!!!”
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU!”
“You! You no speak English! I speak English! I write, I write.”
He then proceeded to write down this sentence.
‘How you sie the Germany.’
“I’m sorry, I still don’t understand.”
“YOU NO SPEAK ENGLISH! I SPEAK ENGLISH! YOU NO SPEAK ENGLISH!”
I point at the word sie. “THAT’S not even an English word!”
To which he screwed up the paper, stormed off, and said, “YOU no speak English.”
I thought I had made an enemy for life until the next day he smiled at me, waved pleasantly and asked, “Stephanie, how you see the Germany?”

I also had an interesting experience when I walked in a bit late one day (following a frightening encounter with an Albanian bus driver who tried to kidnap me - seriously, it was terrifying and I made some high-pitched noises that would have put Mariah Carey to shame. I will explain in detail later, but at this stage I prefer not to re-live it. To my dismay, this would eventually become the first of many horrifying encounters with very pushy and very creepy men where I would be followed, watched, grabbed at and even drawn) and frantically unpacked my things, leaving my iPod on my desk. The man from Ukraine who was sitting next to me said, “iPod?” In a basic German conversation that I’m sure was still a crime against the German language, we managed to put together something along the lines of;
“Oh yes, um, it is an iPod.”
“Can I look?”
“Of course, no problem.”
He stared at my iPod with such amazement and wonder that I realized iPods are probably a bit of a novelty in Ukraine, and let him play with it until the battery went flat, feeling simultaneously guilty that I came from a privileged country where everyone and their grandmother have iPods, yet a little pleased that I could afford him this small enjoyment.
The next day he came in and smiled at me and said, “iPod?” I set about getting my iPod out of my bag for him to play with when he pulled out a brand new iPod Touch and said in what I suspect is the only English he knows, “You must upgrade.” While I thought he had been marveling at the wonder that is the iPod, he had actually been looking at an ancient relic of third generation Apple technology, wondering how this thing was even still playing music, probably while laughing at my shocking music collection.

Somehow, although my German skills are much weaker than I had thought, I managed to pass a test that put me at the equivalent of Bursary level German. So I am learning the stuff that I was apparently learning in seventh form, except this time I‘m trying to understand it instead of passing Alana notes about how in that dress Frau Badenhorst looks like a pig riding a donkey. But seriously, there are 20 different words for “the”, a bunch of random words that make all the verbs go to ridiculous places in the sentence in varying forms, and 20 variations of each word depending on which gender they are (EVERY noun is assigned either feminine, masculine or neutral, and you’re expected to just know them), whether they are occurring in the past, perfect, future or present tense, and what verbs they are being assisted by. Alana, how we ever passed German is beyond me. Thankfully, I have Heidi Klum on my side giving me weekly lessons with Germany’s Next Top Model. Heidi Klum; supermodel, TV host, singer, mum, wife, German teacher - is there anything that woman can’t do?

But the thing I am remembering most about being back at school every day is the physical, all-encompassing, soul-biting pain of when the teacher rubs off the blackboard but leaves the tiniest bit of a chalk behind. It’s a deep ache from well within my chest that urges me to jump off and rub it off, while a feat of superhuman willpower that someone manages to keep me in my seat. Also, remember how much we hated being told not to chew gum? Well, after sitting next to Yasmine, the Turkish I-can-chew-gum-with-my-mouth-open-using-every-mililitre-of-my-saliva-and-putting-all-the-muscles-in-my-face-into-it-so-that-it-drowns-out-everything-the-teacher-is-saying-and-makes-your-ear-explode gum-chewer, I totally understand, and would like to take this opportunity to apologise to every teacher of every class that I ever chewed gum in.

Finally, a quick word about so-called German efficiency. Example:
New Zealand, Sunday, 2pm
You know what? I feel like opening a bank account today. I’m going to rock into any bank in a mall that I like and do it. [Half an hour later] Look at me with my sweet bank account, Eftpos card, with the PIN that I chose, and Internet and phone banking all ready to go. Oh happy day.

Germany, Monday, 1pm
I’m going to go and open a bank account. Uh-oh, they are all out for lunch from 12:30pm to 2pm. How strange. I will come back tomorrow.

Germany, Tuesday, 2pm
“Hello, I would like to open a bank account.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Um, no.”
“We are too busy to help you” (FYI, there are 10 people working in the bank and no customers). “Please go away, ring us, and make an appointment.”

Germany, Wednesday, 9am
Ring, ring. “Hello. Can I please make an appointment to open a bank account today?”
“No. Come in tomorrow at 3pm.”

Germany, Thursday, 3pm
“Hello, I am here to open my bank account.”
“Come this way. Fill in these forms. Thank you. Goodbye.”
“Um, where is my bank card?”
“We send that to you in the post.”
“Oh. Can I register for Internet banking?”
Sigh. “Fill in these forms. Sign here. Thank you.”
“Thanks. So do I just go online and sort it out?”
Strange look. “No, we will send you a letter.”
“Oh, okay. Um, thanks.”

Germany, eight days later
Oh look, mail for me from the bank. It must be my bank card.
“Hello Stephanie. Here is your card. Please come back to the bank to load your PIN number. Within a few days of your visit you will be able to use your card.”

Germany, on Monday (because the banks are closed over the weekends)
“Hello, I would like to load my PIN onto my card.”
“Do you have your passport?”
“Um, no? Why do I need my passport? Your letter says nothing about a passport.”
“Please come back tomorrow with your passport.”

Germany, Tuesday
“Hello, I would like to load my PIN onto my card. Here is my passport.”
Gives me a letter. “Thank you, goodbye.”
“Wait, what’s this?”
Sigh. “Your PIN.”
“But I haven’t picked my PIN!”
Strange look. “You don’t PICK your PIN. We give it to you.”
“Oh. Okay. Um, also, I haven’t received my letter about Internet banking yet.”
“The letter takes two weeks. Goodbye.”

Germany, Friday
Oh look, a letter for me, it must be my Internet banking.
“Dear MR Stephanie Taylor. Here are your forms for Internet banking. Please sign them, bring them back to us, and then in a few weeks we will send you a letter confirming you have Internet banking, and 80 codes so that you can use it.”

This ludicrous inefficiency and lack of customer service will be immediately rectified on point of domination, but, in the mean time, I have conquered the banking system! I think... And I also have a cellphone number! (Similar drama, but we don’t need to go into that again). I’m at 004915227734471 for those wanting personal contact. German bank account, German cellphone number - ich bin ein Germaner!

German domination is going swimmingly. Will update you soon on progress, as well details on impending trip to Gallipoli for ANZAC Day.
Much hearty German love,
Stephanie xx
P.S This is a picture from a really cool castle that I went to, that I'll refer to in the next blog. It's too hard to figure out how to unattach the picture, and I put it on the wrong post. Ooops.

No comments:

Post a Comment