So, I’ve decided to do it. I’m not an expat here yet but I’m hoping it’s only a matter of time 🙂 Would love it if you all hopped on over to take a look at the latest blog post – https://expateyeonfrance.blogspot.com/2024/04/french-plumbing-quelle-horreur.html – the blog layout, etc. is still very much a work in progress, much like French plumbing so please bear with me 🙂
And thank you all so much for being with me on the Expat Eye on Germany ride – here’s to many more adventures and laughs together!
With the forecast for last Friday being sunshine and 28 degrees, I decided to do what any professional, career-driven woman would do – take the afternoon off and go to the park. This seemed like something the French would approve of.
Given my (albeit limited) understanding of French people so far, working does not seem to be something that’s high on their list of priorities. However, from what I can tell, walking around – generally looking fabulous – and sitting around, eating and drinking, are things that they are very much on board with.
French people sitting around eating and drinkingFrench people sitting around eating and drinking
You get the idea.
Anyway, according to Google Maps, Parc Bordelais was an easy 20-minute walk from my flat – in a pretty much straight line so even I couldn’t get lost. There’s also a petit train touristique that does a lap of the park, which I definitely wanted to do; if petit train drivers in France work on Friday afternoons… unlikely.
After spending the morning arsing around working hard, I set off and, miraculously, actually ended up in the park 20 minutes later. I had done it – me, in nature, on a beautiful Friday afternoon in Bordeaux. This sure beat the crap out of working.
The park is absolutely stunning, a 28-hectare green space in the heart of the city, with around 3,000 trees, many of which are more than 100 years old.
Look at the little babies!
However, as I suspected, the petit train was not running – it only operates on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, which seemed a bit random but the French work in mysterious ways.
Why Wednesdays?
Anyway, after strolling around for a very pleasant hour or so, I eventually adjourned to the sunny terrace of the park cafe.
Bonjour, I would like a glass of (butchers name of wine), please.
Your French is excellent.
Hmm.
Non, non, madame! It is enough – in France, you only need to be able to order wine. And maybe bread.
And perhaps a pain au chocolat.
The barman raised an eyebrow.
No, wait! It’s not called a pain au chocolat in Bordeaux, it’s a chocolatine! See? I’m learning!
The barman beamed at me.
Slightly aglow after wresting victory from the jaws of defeat, I inserted my card into the machine.
Urgh, you’re German!
My card had betrayed me. Whenever I insert it, the language on the machine switches to German – which in this case, clearly, was not in my favour.
He took the card out of the machine like it was scorching his fingers, then handed it back to me as if fearful that being German might be contagious.
No, no, no, I’m Irish! I just live in Germany! Look! I also have an Irish card!
His expression transformed.
Irish!? I love the Irish – sláinte, what’s the craic, póg mo thóin!
Bah ha ha! This is the best service I’ve had so far in Bordeaux!
OK, I may have thrown the Germans under the bus a bit but it’s not every day you get a Frenchman telling you to kiss his arse in Gaelic.
Last night was my second time doing a pub quiz with two lovely French men in the Charles Dickens pub in Bordeaux. They took pity on the stray Irish woman sitting at the bar last week and invited me to join them again this week after we didn’t completely embarrass ourselves the first time. (We came dead last but they’re stuck with me now.)
However, I did pick up some interesting information – not about Asian flags, I’ve forgotten those already – but about my increasingly beloved and endearingly odd France.
1. It is illegal to be naked in France if there’s a chance someone can see you
This brought on a bout of panic when I remembered that I’d blithely waltzed out of my bathroom buck naked earlier in the day. Had I inadvertently broken French law? What even is the French law? Today I found out:
“Article 222-32 of the new penal code (applicable since 1 March 1994) stipulates: “Deliberate sexual display in the sight of others in a place accessible to the public gaze is punishable by one year in prison and a fine of one hundred thousand francs .”
Zut alors! Is being naked in your apartment considered a “deliberate sexual display” if the neighbours’ gaze can see it? How much can they actually see through the net curtains? The towels here are barely big enough to cover one boob – would they think that perhaps I was being coquettish? Peek-a-boob?
I decided not to take my chances and spent my lunch hour today buying a bathrobe. I also bought a yoga mat and a couple of dumbbells – just in case someone does catch a glimpse of my bits, hopefully they won’t deem them criminally offensive and shop me to the police.
Incidentally, it’s forbidden to wear a swimsuit in the botanical gardens. But I assume, based on the above, that that doesn’t mean they want you to show up in your birthday suit either.
They make jumping on the flowers look like way too much fun, in my opinion.
2. It is illegal to flush dead goldfish down the toilet
I suspect that this may be nothing to do with respect for the dead, but rather fear of dodgy French plumbing not being able to cope with anything other than… shall we say… the bare essentials?
???
Still, with no plans to buy a goldfish, have it long enough for it to die, and then figure out how to dispose of it, this one doesn’t pose too much of a problem.
Of course, I have saved the best for last…
3. It is legal to marry a dead person in France
Apropos loved ones that have shuffled off their mortal coil, it is completely legal to marry a dead person in France – although consummation might be tricky.
According to Wikipedia, “Posthumous marriage for civilians originated in the 1950s, when a dam broke and killed 400 people in Fréjus, France, including a man named André Capra, who was engaged to Irène Jodart. She pleaded with French President Charles de Gaulle to let her go ahead with her marriage plans even though her fiancé had died. She had support from the media and within months was allowed to marry her fiancé.”
Before you get too excited about moving to France and marrying Elvis though, you have to be able to prove that the dead person actually wanted to marry you and get approval from several civil servants and the family of the deceased.
Having thought about this literally all day – I mean, obviously – I’ve come round to the idea of marrying a dead man. Less mess, for starters. No droning on about boring man stuff or, worse, mansplaining it to you. Nobody stealing the covers or snoring like a train next to you.
Just a nice ring and a tidy little urn on a shelf that you can blow a kiss to on your way out the door in your little black dress. Black out of respect, naturally…
(Oh, and unlike in Germany, it is completely legal to make noise in France on a Sunday morning so if you do want to secretly flush a goldfish, that’s probably a good time to do it.)
Temporarily anyway*. The company I work at in Berlin (for now) offers the nice perk of being able to work from another country for one month out of every six – and so I chose France, Bordeaux to be specific. I’m on holiday here for one week and then working from here for all of April. If you’re asking, “Why France?”, the answer is: it’s France.
Having planned everything meticulously, the night before I was due to fly, I got a message saying that my flight to Amsterdam had been cancelled and I would now be flying through Zurich, two hours earlier than the original flight. Sigh.
Still, despite being up at 5 a.m., I sailed through Berlin airport and onto the plane, only for the pilot to announce that we had missed our slot (due to idiots not being able to put a bag in the overhead locker or under their seat and sit down like normal people) and so the flight took off over 30 minutes later than planned. Being wedged in the middle seat of the very last row, things were going to be tight in Zurich. But, after a mad dash from one end of the airport to the other, I made it and, just over an hour later, was setting foot on French soil. Miraculously, my suitcase had also arrived.
Having already decided to be lazy after all that hard work, I hopped (flopped, in reality) into the first taxi in the line.
“Where are you from?”
“Ireland, but I live in Berlin.”
“Oh, the Irish are good, nice people. The English too – but drunk. And the Russians. The Chinese are bad. And the French. Very rude. The Japanese are good.”
“And the Germans?”
“I don’t have.”
“Huh.”
“How was your trip?”
“A bit stressful, I had to run through Zurich airport.”
“Bah ha ha ha!!”
“What? What’s funny?”
“You said you had to fuck someone in the ass in Zurich airport.”
“No, I didn’t. I said I had to run!”
“No, you said you had to fuck someone in the ass.”
“Oh, right. Well, I meant run.”
“Bah ha ha! Is no problem. You try. My Ing-leeeeesh is very terr-eee-bluh.”
He then proceeded to try to prove this by rooting around in the glove compartment for his English phrasebook and starting to read out random sentences. I was too tired to try to formulate “Can you please keep your eyes on the road?” in French, so I just clung to my seat and prayed to sweet baby Jesus the rest of the way to my apartment.
After celebrating my survival with a glass of wine in the pub on the corner – again, it’s France – I sent the host a message to let her know I was downstairs. She came down to meet me, handed over the keys, gave me a quick tour, and then I was free to explore by myself.
Frankly, I thought she was taking the piss charging €50 per missing item, but I had no intention of taking a taken or a plaid since I didn’t know what they were so I supposed it was no big deal. I also wasn’t sure how something could be taken from my security deposit in advance if she only realised after I’d left but I promised myself I would be careful to respect the places…
That evening, I headed out on the town for the first time, not knowing a soul and with no particular destination in mind. Finding myself in a bar – quelle surprise – I got chatting to a girl who was rather obsessed with her dog.
“Do you also sleep with your dog?”
“Bah ha ha ha!”
“What? What’s funny?”
“You asked me if I fuck my dog!”
Hmm, clearly I would have to hone my French skills a bit. It seems to be very easy to be talking about something completely innocent or boring but a French person thinks you’re talking about fucking. This could also explain why I seem to be like catnip to French men.
Me: I like sandwiches.
French man: (Oh la la, the lady says she likes to fuck…) Here’s my number.
I have a steadily growing collection at this point – numbers, not men.
The next day, my search for a beret began. I know, I know, but I wanted to be wearing one in my online marketing meeting next week for a cheap gag. (Maybe I shouldn’t mention “cheap gag” in French either – could get me into trouble…) I hit Claire’s, C&A, H&M, Zara, Mango… no joy. Could it be that French people don’t actually wear berets?
I posed the question to my next pub victim that evening. Where could I find a beret? She didn’t know but had one that she never wears and would happily give it to me; I just had to swing by the shop she works at the next day to pick it up.
I walked in the following day but my new bestie was nowhere to be seen. I browsed a bit, picked up a bottle of wine, and went to the checkout. A man in front of me was buying every vegetable in the place so I had time to formulate what I wanted to say in French.
“Hello, is Juliette here?”
“Yes, but she’s on a break. How do you know her?”
“Er, she wants to give me a beret.”
If he was surprised by this, he didn’t show it. Off he went to get her. Juliette emerged from the back room, empty-handed.
“Oh, you forgot! No problem!”
“No, I didn’t forget but I couldn’t find it, I’m really sorry.”
“That’s OK, I’ll find one somewhere, see you around!”
Having exhausted a lot of clothing stores, I headed for the mothership, Galeries Lafayette – if they didn’t have berets, then there were probably none to be had in all of France. Sure enough, there they were! I decided €55 was a bit much for a one-off joke but €25 was doable. Funny is funny, after all. And so, this happened…
Not sure if I can be deported for this type of cultural stereotyping but hopefully, I can just distract the French by talking about fucking.
Stay tuned for more hilarious stories and observations from (temporary) Expat Eye on France…
Later that evening, it was time to brave the death stairs and head out in search of food. It’s hard to say whether Görlitz looks prettier by day or by night.
One thing I did notice was that it was eerily empty at 8 p.m. In Berlin, people would just be getting up around then; in Görlitz, I feared people had already gone to bed for the night. Still, I did manage to find a nice-looking restaurant and, as I was pretty much in Poland, ordered the bigos – a Polish stew consisting of Sauerkraut and mystery meat…
Naturally, by the time I’d finished, I was the only person left in the restaurant. As I sipped my wine, the Polish waitress eyed me like the inconvenience I was so I decided to buy a bit more time by charming her with the fact that I had once lived in Poland. (I hated it but she didn’t have to know that.) Suitably impressed by my surprising knowledge of her language (“thank you very much”, “beer, please”, “old nag” and “under the chestnut tree” – the last two were the names of bars), we chatted for a bit and I got to finish my wine in peace. Win win. I paid up and made my way into the night, hoping there was a bit of life somewhere.
Hmm.
I ran through my mental checklist of questions to consider before choosing a place to drink:
Is it a bar? Check.
Is it open? Check.
Decision made. A bit later, as the two girls next to me were preparing to leave, I asked them where the nightlife in Görlitz is. They exchanged a slightly puzzled glance – it seemed I was in it.
The next morning, I woke up in a fit of breathless excitement. Today was the day. I had a date with… Hollywood Great, Engelbert von Nordhausen! I had a cup of tea, showered and dressed, and skipped down the stairs of doom. Carefully. I’m not a complete idiot.
The weather had decided to play along for the scene of this momentous occasion.
I was planning on doing the 1 o’clock tour so I chose a breakfast establishment close to the bus stop. I sat down outside in the glorious sunshine and ordered.
It tasted as good as it looks
My food arrived really quickly, so much so, that I was done by the time the bus returned from the 11 o’clock tour. Watching the people stream off the bus, I decided it might be a good idea to book my ticket there and then, to be sure that I wouldn’t miss out. I ordered another cup of tea, left my coat and book there so the waiter knew I wasn’t doing a runner, and trotted over.
Love the licence plates in Görlitz – GR…
I accosted the driver just as he was getting off.
Hi, can I buy a ticket for the 1 o’clock tour, please?
Cztrzczycztyz.
Huh?
Cztrzczycztyz. (Looking slightly desperate)
Oh, you don’t speak German! English?
Cztrzczycztyz.
I realised that my time in Poland might have been better spent learning words like “buy” and “ticket”. So, I did the classic foreigner thing and spoke louder in German.
ONE. (Holds up finger) TICKET. FOR ONE O’CLOCK. (Points futilely at watch-less wrist) TOUR. (Points futilely at massive red bus)
At this point, the poor driver was frantically looking around to see if there was anyone who could rescue him. He managed to communicate that he had a colleague, pointed at his wrist and the ground I was standing on, and ran. I understood that I should come back just before one when his colleague would be there. Genius. I did also fleetingly wonder if he knew the German rules of the road. (To this day, I’m still unconvinced.)
I went back to the café, finished off my tea, and then did as instructed. I beamed at my new Polish bestie who hurried off to hide in the driver’s compartment. I successfully purchased my ticket from his colleague, who was also Polish but thankfully spoke German, and boarded. As I was the first person there, I had my pick of seats so sat right up front on the top deck. Brilliantly, even though there are essentially zero bars in Görlitz, there is a bar on the bus. I decided at that moment that the pandemic no longer existed and ordered a Radler.
And then we were off! Engelbert welcomed us all, introduced himself as the German Samuel L. Jackson (and wisely not the German Bill Cosby, which he also was) and we travelled at questionable speeds – careening around corners and sometimes on the wrong side of the road – through Görlitz, checking out the locations where movies like The Reader, Inglourious Basterds and Grand Budapest Hotel were made. Jackie Chan also jumped out of a tower window somewhere. When I wasn’t clinging to the railing for dear life, I sniggered as Engelbert referred to Brad Pitt and co. as “my colleagues”. I was pretty sure Brad wasn’t wandering around Hollywood returning the favour. But this was Görliwood and Engelbert was actually very entertaining in his own right, despite obviously sounding nothing like Samuel L. Jackson.
Grand Budapest Hotel – not actually pink
If you’re ever in Görlitz, have a spare €13 and an hour’s time, I highly recommend it. Just keep your hands off my Engelbert…
Tour done, I realised that that day was probably the “photo-taking day” as the weather wasn’t looking great for the rest of my time there. So, I wandered around for a bit, doing just that.
Despite everything being gorgeous, a couple of things caught my eye.
Everything in the Euroshop now costs €1.10, which seems to defeat the purpose of having a EUROshop.
2. I was standing on the grass, taking a picture of some flowers when an old German woman shouted at me that standing on the grass was VERBOTEN! In a fit of pique, I marched around the grassy area trying to find the sign that said that. There wasn’t one. I looked around for her to give her a piece of my mind but she was gone. Germans are pretty speedy, even the old ones.
Illegally obtained imagery
3. Behold, the German uniform…
Dressing up is not really a thing here. Queuing for ice-cream is.
4. German stag dos are a bit weird. They wander around town trying to give OTHER PEOPLE alcohol and, oddly, tiny bread, instead of getting sloshed themselves.
I’m getting married. The others are only here to drink.
Still, they looked like they were having a blast – and I have to say, I did too. Maybe some day, Engelbert will wander around Görlitz with his tiny bread and booze and I will become Linda von Nordhausen. Time will tell…
“This weekend, I am off to The Hollywood of Germany!” I announce with dramatic flair and jazz hands.
German 1: “What is that?”
…
“This weekend, I am off to The Hollywood of Germany!” I announce with slightly less dramatic flair and subdued jazz hands.
German 2: “Where?”
…
“This weekend, I’m off to The Hollywood of Germany. You’ve probably never heard of it.”
German 3: “Oh, you mean Babelsberg?”
“NEIN, Babelsberg is a film studio. Görlitz is The Hollywood of Germany!” The jazz hands are back.
“Why the fuck are you going to Dunkeldeutschland?”
“Because it’s The H… sod it. I give up.”
Dunkeldeutschland (dark Germany) is the not-very-nice name given to the former GDR and, even though the Wall came down in 1989, you’d be surprised how many “Wessis” still think this way. But not me. Nope, I was off to visit Görlitz, the easternmost city in Germany, otherwise known as Görliwood or… yep, you guessed it, The Hollywood of Germany!
Thankfully, the trains worked the way you’d expect German trains to work as I only had five minutes to change in Cottbus and, at 14:15 precisely, I was rolling into Görlitz. I bumped my wheelie suitcase over the cobblestones from the station to my AirBnB in the heart of the old town and arrived at 14:59, one minute before I was due to meet my host. Goddamn, I’m a good German.
On cue, a lovely, smiley lady by the name of Angela opened the door and showed me in.
I may have gasped a little when I saw the staircase…
… and made a mental note not to drink too much during my stay there. Or at least not while I was in the flat. Crawling back up the stairs, fine, falling down them, not so much.
Angela gave me a quick guided tour, handed over the key, and then I was on my own. The flat was huge, with a balcony, big comfy double bed, fully-equipped kitchen – not that I’d need it – more chairs than you could sit on in three days, and more lamps than you could use in a lifetime.
As I hung up the couple of dresses I’d brought with me, I did notice something odd though.
Why is the door buzzer in the back of the wardrobe? Anyone??
Mystery unsolved, I was off to check out what Görlitz had to offer. Mainly in the way of cake. Luckily, in Germany, you never have to walk more than around 20 metres before you hit a café or a bakery and, sure enough, there was Café Gloria, pretty much on my doorstep.
I selected a rich, chocolatey number and demolished it, all the while making rather porny “hmmmm, hmmmmm” noises. It was totally worth it. My cake craving sated, I took a couple of snaps of the square I was staying in – the Untermarkt (lower market).
That’s my gaff at the end on the left. €45 a night…
Then I decided to walk to Poland.
And no, your eyes do not deceive you. I mean, literally, walk to Poland. Görlitz is situated on the Neisse River and, when you walk over the bridge, you’re in Zgorzelec. (Don’t ask me how to pronounce it.)
Guess which side is Germany…
This is what still blows my mind about living in the EU (suck it, Brexit) – one minute, you’re in Germany, where they speak German, use the euro and customer service is questionable; the next, you’re in Poland, where they speak Polish, use the złoty (but accept the euro) and customer service is non-existent! Boom! No border control, no ID required, just toddle across a bridge and there you are!
The first indication that you’re in Poland is a burnt-out car on the river bank and massive signs advertising “Zigaretten”, which are significantly cheaper in Poland. It also only took around thirty seconds until I spotted a man swigging vodka from a bottle, and another five seconds until I saw a “yoof” clad from head to toe in stonewashed denim.
I immediately decided that I would spend my nights on the German side.
I found a slightly less terrifying-looking establishment and ordered a glass of wine which, disappointingly, cost €4 rather than 4 cents.
Poland. It’s not all bad. (Feel free to use that as your slogan, Zgorzelec Tourist Board. You are welcome.)
I sat there sipping away and trying to read my book, but really, I couldn’t concentrate as I was Sitting. In. Poland. Looking. At. Germany. Which, incidentally, is the right way to do it as I don’t think anyone sits in Germany looking across at Poland.
I took a few more photos on my way back but it was pretty overcast and doesn’t really do the place justice. In fact, it looks rather dunkel…
Back at the ranch, I had a rummage through the flyers there, but already knew what I had in mind for the next day – a bus tour on the Görliwood Entdecker (Explorer). If you’ve been wondering why on earth I’ve been referring to Görlitz as The Hollywood of Germany, it’s because over a hundred movies have been shot there.
German 3: Yeah right, what do they film there? Their own belly buttons? Har har har…
Me: (Smug Wessi prick, I’ll show him…) Er, no, actually. Try Grand Budapest Hotel, Inglourious Basterds, The Reader, something with Jackie Chan that I can’t remember…
German 3: Oh.
With great excitement, I read the flyer – a Hollywood Great as Tour Guide! Oh my God, it’s frickin’ Samuel L. Jackson! Oh no, wait, it’s the guy who does the voice of Samuel L. Jackson for the German market. Hmm, “Hollywood Great” seemed like a bit of a stretch – unless you’re intimately familiar with the work of Engelbert von Nordhausen. I was not so I googled him.
I would say the similarities end with the glasses but maybe that’s just me.
Stay tuned for Part 2 with me, sunshine, and Hollywood Great, Engelbert von Nordhausen…
As part of my bid to become German in 473,937,493 easy steps, one step really should be, you know, becoming an actual German. As I’ll have been in Berlin for 8 years in September, the requirement for getting citizenship, this is my plan for the end of the year. I just have to pass a naturalisation test – there are 310 possible questions with 33 on the test, of which, I have to get 17 correct (God knows who chose those numbers) – and demonstrate adequate German skills. As my German is good enough, but not good enough for me, I decided I wanted to improve before I take the test and, the best way for me to do this, is by talking to real, live Germans.
So, I posted on nebenan.de that I was looking to start a German-English exchange, online, where we could speak for an hour, 30 minutes of German, 30 minutes of English. I thought if I could get 2 or 3 people, that would be a win.
I guess I underestimated my neighbours.
Over the course of the next few days, replying to all of the responses pretty much turned into a part-time job. I now have regular online meetings with several people, one of whom is a retired lady who doesn’t really want to bother with her English; she just wants to help me with my German. Aside from doing that, she keeps me entertained with stories from her youth in the GDR, tells me her 85-year-old mother is more active than I am, and teaches me fun words like “Jahresendflügelfigur” (“yearendwingfigure”, or an angel to you and me). We met in person last Friday and she treated me to a slap-up breakfast in a lovely café, although I felt a bit guilty afterwards about ordering spring onions AND Speck on my scrambled eggs when I thought I was going to be paying for myself.
On top of the people who were happy to meet online, there were also a number of people who were utterly fed up with online meetings and wanted to meet in person. I was a bit reluctant at first but then I thought, what the hell – life has to go on at some stage and it would be really nice to meet some people from my neighbourhood. So, I booked a table for eight people at a pub just down the road.
It was around this time that I got an email from a lady who works at nebenan, asking if she could pass on my details to rbb 88.8, a Berlin radio station. It seems my little contribution to the community had been noticed and a reporter would like to interview me about my “tolle Initiative” as part of their “Lieblingsnachbarn – Geschickte von nebenan” series (Favourite neighbours – stories from next door). While the whole idea had been about improving my German, I wasn’t really sure I was ready to improve it on German radio in German but, like a big eejit, I said yes.
The evening of the in-person meet-up rolled around so I strolled over to the pub just before 5 o’clock. Being a good (almost) German and knowing how much Germans like an agenda, I’d prepared a speech in my head, had a rough idea of where I’d like people to sit – I’d roped in a friend from university so we’d have two native English speakers to six Germans – and was ready to set a timer so we could switch languages every thirty minutes. If only things like this were on the naturalisation test – I’m not sure you can get much more German than that. And, as it turned out, I was more German than the Germans, who were not punctual, wandered in and sat where they liked, and had to nerve to easily and fluidly switch back and forth between the two languages willy-nilly. Not even a hint of following an agenda…
I’d expected that we’d be there for an hour, maybe two, tops. I started off on white wine spritzers so that I would at least look like an upstanding citizen but the Germans hit the beer and wine like there was no tomorrow. You couldn’t imagine a nicer, funnier bunch of people – I think that everyone was just so delighted to be OUT again. Seven and a half hours later, we rolled out of the bar, mainly because the barman wanted to go home.
In the meantime, I’ve become good friends with one of the women who was there. As it happens, I can see her apartment from my balcony but we probably never would have met if I hadn’t organised this little shindig. (She sent me a picture of my apartment from her apartment the next morning, just to freak me out.) We all met up again last night at a Greek restaurant and are going to try to make it a monthly thing. Achtung, bar and restaurant staff of Pankow – if I book a table, chances are it’s going to be a late night.
On the day of the interview, it was bucketing down and I looked like a drowned rat by the time I got to the café. I had googled the reporter to see what she looked like and I waited outside until someone with a vague resemblance to that came along. She hadn’t been dripping wet in any of the photos or accompanied by the massive dog she was walking but I was pretty sure it was her and called out her name. She had also googled me so she wasn’t expecting a blonde. We were off to a confusing, soggy start.
We walked into the café and sat down, with my back to a wall so that the microphone could better pick up my voice. She asked me if I’d enjoyed the bullfight I’d gone to.
Me: What?
Silke: The bullfight. In Madrid. My son wants to know if you enjoyed it.
The penny dropped and I realised she must have gone – quite extensively – through my Facebook photos.
Me:Oh, God no, it was horrendous. I had toleave.
Silke: OK, good. My son said you would be a very stupid woman if you had liked it.
Once that was settled, we started chatting away like old friends. In fact, we were nattering away for around 30 minutes before we remembered we were actually there to do an interview.
The waitress’s photography skills weren’t the best but she was a master of staring at her own phone.
I took out my notebook, where I’d diligently written down all of the points I’d like to get through. Silke looked at me a bit dubiously.
Silke: You do realise that the segment is only 90 seconds, right?
Me: Yes, you’re right. I’d need my own talk show to get through all of this… (hint, hint)
She turned on the mic, prompted me with a few questions and I prattled away happily. I got in a few gems like “Die Leute hatten die Schnauze voll von online Meetings” and “Die Gespräche und der Wein flossen in Strömen” – the conversation and the wine flowed. It sounds better in English. Unfortunately, both ended up on the cutting room floor but I’m sharing them with you anyway.
Silke took a couple of photos of me for the website and we were done.
They didn’t all turn out so well…
As we said our goodbyes, she told me the interview had been “bezaubernd” (enchanting), the highlight of her day and that I was welcome to pop in and visit her at home if I was ever in the area.
Seems I just can’t stop making new friends now…
If you want to listen to the interview, scroll around halfway down the page until you see me looking like Kevin from Home Alone.
This morning, I had an (of course) online lesson with a group of students who work at a pan-European company. The Spanish and the Italians didn’t show up – 8 a.m. isn’t exactly my finest hour either so I can’t say I really blame them – so I was faced with eight Germans, one Dutch guy and a French girl. It’s a start-up so they all look like foetuses and have Very Important Sounding Management Titles in teams that, to my 44-year-old ears, have no business existing. Champions Team. Onboarding Manager. Conceptionist… No, just no.
Anyway, we’d been studying the present simple and present continuous for the last few weeks so I devised (i.e. stole from a website) a genius idea to use the tenses in a speaking exercise. I suppose most of you are wearily familiar with Zoom by now but, for those of you who aren’t, there is a chat function where you can send messages to individual participants. So, the idea was that I would send a student a word – it could be a person, an object or a verb – and they would have to describe it to the others who had to try to guess the word.
To demonstrate, I typed “Ed Sheeran” on the whiteboard and asked how they would describe him.
Ute: Ed Sheeran is…
Me: Yeah Ute, it kind of defeats the purpose if the person’s name is the first thing you say. Try again.
Ute: Oh, right. Erm, he’s a singer. He’s got red hair.
Me: Good enough. I think there’s only one. So, you all get the idea?
All: Silence and staring which you assume means “yes” in a Zoom meeting.
After one of the German guys described a “sneeze” as “like an explosion in your nose”, I thought my day couldn’t get any better but that’s the great thing about this job – people can always surprise you.
I sent “Boris Johnson” to one of the German girls.
“I don’t know who that is.”
I mean, really, I think the world would be a better place if none of us had ever heard of Boris Johnson but how was this even possible?
I sent it to another German and asked her to describe him. I’ll admit that my high hopes of witty, political commentary (or just bitchy comments about his hair and fondness for suitcases of booze) were starting to fall a bit flat at this point.
Lydia: Erm, he has blonde hair. He’s the Premier of England. (I decided this was close enough.)
Silence. Then the French girl unmuted herself to save the day.
Angela Merkel?
Me: Right. Three things: She’s a Chancellor, well, now ex-Chancellor. Of Germany. And, as far as I’m aware, she does not identify as “he”.
You might think that a night out in Herring Village would be, well, crap, but that’s only because you’ve never been out in Herring Village with me. Over some delicious goulash and wine in the Usedomer Brauhaus, I got chatting to the delightful Waltraut* after making a hilarious quip about probably holidaying in the wrong place since I don’t like herring, or any fish for that matter. We bonded over my knowledge of Ostfriesisch – and, by that I mean, the fact that I had heard of Ostfriesisch, not that I actually knew any. She didn’t either and she’d been living there for close to two decades.
Unable to persuade her to join me in O’man River, the bar with “the best live music in town” (the only bar with live music, as far as I could tell), I perched myself on the last available stool at the bar and enjoyed the surprisingly decent Bad Temper Joe. When he took a break, I politely asked him if he was always in a bad temper and he glared at me so I guess the answer is yes. And, if you want to know why a white German man is singing the blues, you’ll have to ask him yourself.
Somehow his head blended in with the background – probably won’t do much for his temper…
This I want for my own flat.
After a pleasant hour or so, I strolled on over to the hottest venue in town, i.e., the only bar that’s open past midnight. And that was where I met the lovely Lars.
Me: On the off chance I write a blog post about this trip, what would you like your blog name to be?
Lars: I am Lars.
Me: Yeah, but you can’t be Lars.
Lars: I am Lars.
Me: I’m not sure you’re getting this – you need a fake name for the blog. You can’t be Lars.
Lars:But my name is Lars.
Me: But you’re probably the only Lars on Usedom!
Lars: Na, und?
And so, Lars is Lars.
When we woke up the next morning, he offered me a coffee.
Me: Do you have tea?
And that was when he started rummaging around behind a chair.
What is he doing? Does he have a weapon back there? The coffee machine is in the kitchen so why is he rooting around behind an armchair in the living room? I guess if he’d wanted to murder me, he could have easily done it while I was asleep… Turns out, he had this amazing samovar back there. Sure, the tea took around half an hour to actually brew, but I’d never had a cup of tea like it. I went for a pee to pass the time. Upon my return:
Me: Do you know your washing machine could impregnate someone?
Lars: Hä??
Me: It has an “imprägnieren” setting.
Lars: Ha! No, imprägnieren, it’s like your boots, er, when they don’t let water in.
Me: ?? You mean waterproof?
Lars: Ja, genau!
I lingueed it and sure enough, imprägnieren can mean to impregnate or to waterproof. (Or to soak in the case of a washing machine.)
Me: Hmm, I wonder how many unwanted children there are in Germany because of this verb.
It was Lars’s turn to “??”
Me: Well, what if a woman says, “Hey Schatzi, can you imprägnieren me for Christmas?” and he does but what she really wanted was some nice, new, waterproof Jack Wolfskin gear…
Yes, this is actually how my mind works before I’ve even had my first cup of tea of the day. I am an awesome first date.
Lars: Well, I’ve got to go and help my Opa einwintern his Auto.
Me: Ha, einwintern, that can’t be a real verb!
Lars: Na, klar. To prepare something for winter. Einwintern. Steht im Duden.
I checked.
Me: OK, you’re right.
Like Germans are ever wrong.
Me: Can you einsommern something?
Lars: Why would you?
Me: I don’t know. Or einfrühlingen?
Lars: …
Me: Can you auswintern something?
I’m sure Lars was wondering at this stage if it was possible to einsilencen me but, utter gent that he is, he gave me his number for any and all possible future questions and dropped me off in the village before heading to his Opa’s and the einwintern challenge – which probably seemed like a breeze in comparison to the barrage of language questions he was faced with before his first cup of coffee.
I headed to a café I knew from a previous trip – OK, full disclosure, I’d been in Heringsdorf, for a few days, a month and a half before this trip and liked it so much, I’d decided to go back for a week – found a nice table outside, and ordered a croque monsieur and another cup of tea.
Schmidt’s Bistro No. 1 – I don’t know if there’s a No. 2… LARS! I have a question!I also had no idea what a Diplomatenkaffee is but have since googled – turns out it’s coffee with egg liqueur…
After I’d finished, the waitress came over and gave me a reproving look.
Me: I know, I’m sorry, it was really tasty but just a bit too much for me. Sorry, I’m really sorry.
Waitress: Yes, I know, I remember.
Like I said, it had been A MONTH AND A HALF since I’d been there and she remembered. Clearly I was the only person who had never finished a meal there. Then again, I was probably the only non-German on the island and Germans can actually handle German portions. This puny Irish woman has yet to encounter one she can conquer. I decided to order a glass of wine and show her that I could at least finish one thing.
Waitress: Wine? Like cold wine?
Me: Yes.
Waitress: Wouldn’t you prefer something hot? Like Glühwein? Or hot Aperol?
Me: Jesus, hot Aperol?? NEIN!
What is wrong with Germans?
A lot, clearly. Glüh Gin? I can’t even…
I paid up and headed over to my favourite Bude. The last time I’d been there, this guy had brought the house down…
The German, er, Elvis? Roy? Johnny? Just a very German German?? Let’s simply call him Schlagermann.
…but this time, out of season, things were a bit more sedate. Which was actually kind of good because you don’t really want an over-excited German landing on you when you’re holding a piping-hot Glühwein.
*Waltraut is not her real nameand, no, I didn’t give her a choice in the matter.
You might assume, as I did, that not many people would be crazy enough to want to travel to an island in the Baltic Sea at the start of November. You’d think I’d have learned over the last seven years never to underestimate Germans in Jack Wolfskin. And so it was that I found myself on a train to Heringsdorf on the island of Usedom, curled up on the floor outside a toilet. The Germans, as with the sun loungers in Mallorca, had reserved every seat on the train.
Happy travels.
An old lady who passed by (probably on the way to her comfortable, reserved seat) asked me if I wasn’t afraid. I said no, that in an emergency, it was actually the best spot to be in. Shortly afterwards, the ticket inspector wished me a pleasant journey; I wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not. Maybe it’s just an automatic phrase he trots out, regardless of whether you’re in first class sipping a flute of Sekt or stiff as a post, leaning on your backpack, praying your water bottle doesn’t burst all over your laptop. I passed the time by googling the places we stopped at that I couldn’t see out the window. Your travel writer is pleased to tell you that Eberswalde looks very nice on the internet.
Guess where…
By the time we were approaching Züssow, me arse was like a grape, as my dad used to say.
(No, I don’t know either.)
I was very much looking forward to a cup of tea and a slice of cake as I had almost an hour to kill before catching the next train. Alas, German efficiency kicks in when you least want or need it. The train driver announced that the 13:08 train (mine) was now leaving at 12:08. We would be arriving on time at 12:12 but the train would wait for us on the opposite platform.
If you ever want to see sensible footwear moving at the speed of light, this is the way to do it.
Just over an hour later, I got my stuff together and moved towards the door. The conductor asked me if I was in town for the “Kur” (a course of convalescent treatments). After a second or two of being impressed with myself for knowing what the Kur is and that this region is pretty famous for it, I was a bit offended that he thought I looked like I needed a Kur. What did he think was wrong with me? Although I guess my arse could have done with a nice massage…
And so it came to pass that I arrived in Heringsdorf an hour early. I had told the manager of the apartment I’d rented that I’d be there at three so my cunning plan was to finally get that cup of tea and cake and then stroll on over at my leisure. Unfortunately, it seemed that German efficiency had ended for the day. The first likely place didn’t open until five. The next café I passed was now a real estate agency, which was also closed. The last chance café had closed at 10:30, 10:00 on Sundays seemingly. I mean, who, in their right minds, is up, showered and ready to buy their Brötchen before ten o’clock on a Sunday!? Germans, that’s who.
I called the guy to tell him I’d be early and waited on the windowsill with my book. The weather at least was glorious, one of those perfect late autumn days. He showed up around twenty minutes later, a nice friendly man, who scored points by not asking me if I was there for the Kur. We sorted out the paperwork – there’s a special tax you have to pay if you stay in one of these spa towns – he gave me a quick tour and then left me to my own devices.
Finally, TEA! Of course, like a good German, I’d brought some tea bags along with me. Always prepared. There was just one problem – I couldn’t reach the socket to plug in the kettle. I did have six chopping boards but that’s not really much use when you just want to boil water.
Short people problems strike again
After some jumping, grunting, sweating and swearing, I gave up and moved the kettle to the bedside table. Finally, with cup in hand, I did a quick recce of the place to see how my “home-away-from-home office” could work. It couldn’t. Sockets beside the bed, too far away. Socket behind the TV, even a contortionist couldn’t plug anything in there. Socket over by the kitchen… if I swapped the coat stand and the table and chairs, and didn’t mind being wedged in a corner, that could work. I gave myself some time to consider the set-up and went for a contemplative wee.
It was only afterwards that I realised there were no towels in the bathroom. Huh. Maybe they were on the bed and I just hadn’t noticed. Nope, not there either. I rooted through every drawer and cupboard in the place. No towels. Scheiße. I didn’t really want to bother the guy again but this seemed quite important. I sent him a message and sat wondering if I could make a scarf / tablecloth combo work…
Maybe, just maybe…
He replied pretty quickly to tell me that no, there were no towels but that he had an emergency set he could drop off in a couple of hours. Immediate problems sort of sorted, I did what any sane person does when they come to the Baltic Sea – headed to the beach.
Bliss!
There’s something about being on the Baltic coast that really brings out the best in Germans. Everybody was in a great mood, walking around with their nordic walking sticks, metal detectors, dogs, kids, shovels… German guffaws filled the air and I felt that all was right with the world again. I located the nearest café, found a table in the sun and ordered.
It was as good as it looks. The guy who made it wasn’t half bad either.
Apart from being attacked by psychotic sparrows, this was the best I’d felt in ages. I ordered a second cup of tea and sat back to enjoy the people watching while pretending to read.
On my way home, I stopped off at the supermarket to pick up a few essentials. Then genius struck.
It wasn’t exactly German engineering standards, but good enough. I’d just have to remember to unplug it before I started drinking. Aside from the practical aspect of actually being able to use my laptop, it could also double as exercise every time I had to hop over it to cross the flat. And when the guy showed up again with the towels, I got him to plug in the kettle for me. He didn’t even laugh at me (that much).
I have no idea how many words that is – how rubbish is the new version of WP!? – but it seems like quite a lot so I’ll finish part one there. (Oh, wait, I just found the info icon… still crap though.) If I haven’t bored you to tears already, stay tuned for part two. There will be men.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sailaway from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~ Mark Twain
Expat Eye on Germany 