I'd like to start today's blog by wishing a very Happy Birthday to my favorite little man... Kaden! :) He's 2 years old today!! I can't believe how fast time flies!! It seems like only yesterday that I was holding him when he was only a few days old...
That was then...
This is now... This is one of my favorite pics of the two of us... :)
I still can't believe how quickly he's grown! Either way, I hope you have a wonderful day, Kaden! My wish for you... is that all your wishes come true! I love you and miss you lots, little buddy! :) (And, yes, I do realize he can't read this, but it's the thought that counts, right? :))
As of today, we have 20 days until we come home for Christmas... yay! I can't tell you how excited I am to come home! Especially after this past week here in Germany... For some reason, I think I may have angered the natives, because in terms of interacting with the people from here, it's been one heck of a week... yikes!
It started last Friday, while I was on the bus. There were only two of us on the bus... Me, and a little old lady sitting way in the back. Well, we were stopped at a bus stop and we were sitting there waiting for people to board. I had my iphone out and I was using it to send an email to my sister... For the record, I was not talking on the phone, I was merely sending an email. Well, I suddenly hear the bus driver babbling away about something. (Now you have to understand something here... Being that the majority of the time I have no idea what people around me are saying because they're speaking in a different language, I have gotten very good at tuning people out... That's right, half the time I don't even pay attention when I hear someone talking...) Anyways, I vaguely heard him babbling about something, but I continued to focus on sending my email. I then heard the man babble something again, this time in a much harsher voice, and I still continued with my email. He then started speaking very loudly and very harsh, and that finally got my attention. So, I looked up and the driver was shaking his finger at me and babbling in German. I must have had a very puzzled look on my face, because he started babbling and pointing his finger at me again. At that point, I was completely clueless as to what he was saying... He finally pointed to a sign at the front of the bus, almost hidden by the mirror, and it showed a picture of a cell phone with a big red "X" through it... I looked at the sign, looked at him, and looked back at the sign, all the while thinking, "WHAT?! What kind of ridiculous rule is that??" Either way, even though I thought it was an extremely dumb rule, I decided that I'd better put the phone away... It was a cold, rainy day, and I didn't feel like being kicked off the bus and have to walk into town. :) To this day, I'm still completely baffled as to why you can't use a cell phone on the bus!!
A few days after the bus incident, I had another run in with someone... This time it was over a shopping basket. I had walked to the store and once I got there I realized that I'd forgotten my shopping bags, and heaven forbid, they should have bags available at the store. So, Brian had taken the car to work that day, and he was scheduled to get off work shortly, so I called and asked him to pick me up on the way home. I figured that would be easier than having to carry all of the groceries back without bags. So, I went in and did my shopping. After I went through the checkout, I placed all of the groceries back into the basket, and I went out to the lobby to wait for Brian. About 30 seconds after I stepped into the lobby of the store, the cashier storms out there, stops in front of me, starts pointing at me and then the basket, and is babbling something in German. (I'm assuming that she thought I was trying to steal the basket... Nice!) I looked at her, and said in my best German, "Ich spreche kein Deutsch." (which means "I don't speak German."). Apparently she didn't care about that fact, because she proceeded to keep babbling on in German. At that point, I wasn't too happy about the situation, so I retaliated by looking directly at her and speaking in the fastest English I could muster (which, for me, doesn't take much to do! :))! I figured, if she can do it, then so can I! :) It definitely caught her off guard, and she said a few more things and then turned around and marched back into the store... HA! Brian pulled into the parking lot shortly after that, so I unloaded all of the groceries, and then took the basket back into the store and threw it on the floor in front of her... I think after that, she must have realized that I wasn't trying to steal her precious shopping basket. :)
The following day, Brian and I had an issue at the gym... We had just gotten there, and I was ready to do some ab work before cardio... So, I went over to the ab equipment and started doing my exercises. The gym employee comes directly over and informs me that I can't use the equipment because I didn't have a towel... WHAT?! Apparently, they require everyone to use a towel... I'm assuming that they think this is the way to keep their machines and equipment clean... However, they don't provide them for you. They don't even provide the disinfectent wipes to use. Instead, they must think it better, to have people use their sweaty towels on the machines instead... eeww! At that point, I was furious... I had had it up to my eyeballs with rude German people, who have no rhyme or reason for their oftentimes ridiculous "rules"... ugh!! I think I gave the employee the dirtiest look known to man, and I joined Brian on his machine (that's right, Brian had brought a towel, so he could use the machines...). I still am baffled by the nonsensical rules they have here. For instance, they require the use of towels on their machines, and they call me out for not using one, but they allow people to come into the gym, whom smell like they haven't showered in the past year, to work out on the equipment... I just don't get it!
And, to top everything off, I went down to city hall today to try to get my visa taken care of. I sat and waited for an hour... When my number was finally called, I went to the next window and sat down. There was an older woman sitting at the desk... I gave her all of my paper work and waited for her response. She then starts speaking to me quickly in German. I then told her in my best German "Ich spreche kein Deutsch. Ich spreche Englisch." (I speak no German. I speak English.) She looked at me and started speaking in very fast German... Oh boy! All I could catch was "nicht Englisch", which means "No English". She just sat there shaking her head and repeating the same thing in German. At this point, I'm asking her, and everyone around her, if anyone speaks English. Now, maybe it's just me, but if you work at City Hall in the Visa office, doesn't it make sense to speak English, being that you're working with people from all over the world, who are trying to get their visa?! C'mon... English is the language of business, so if you're working in a government office, you should probably know it! But, this woman didn't... And, very true to the German culture, no one made an attempt to jump in to help me... even as I asked if anyone (or rather gestured) if anyone around knew English... And, there were plenty of young people around, who probably knew a little English (they start learning it in school, as a required course, in 1st Grade!). Everyone simply stood and stared while the woman proceeded to yell at me that she didn't know English and I should speak to her in German. She then motioned for me to leave, and she turned her back to me and started working on her computer... So, all the while fighting back tears and a few not so appropriate words, I gathered my paperwork and stormed out of the office! Let me just say, she was one of the rudest/meanest women I have ever met!
Needless to say, based on my experiences over the past week, I'm currently looking forward to coming home in a few weeks, back to a little bit of normalcy. Now, don't get me wrong, I've met many very nice people here and I do thoroughly enjoy the experience of being here, but I have dealt with one too many rude people recently, who are not good representatives of this culture. And, I'm also finding some of their rules here to be rather odd, to say the least. :)
Well, I'm going to sign off now, seeing as how I practically wrote a book today... Can you tell I'm a little frustrated?! :) Before I go, I wanted to leave you with a picture of our little Christmas tree, which I bought at the market today after my unpleasant experience at City Hall... Just looking at it cheered me up a bit... It's kind of like the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree! :) I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Miss you lots!
1 comment:
Oh, those Germans! Always a stickler for the rules! Glad to hear that you are coming back for Christmas in the states!!
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