Tschüß, Germany

Well, I’m sitting on my final train ride here in Germany – at least for this trip… We just left Hannover and now I have five hours to kill before arriving in Amsterdam. How will I use up this time? I guess I’ll write a blog entry. Heck, I’ve been getting a bit behind on writing up blog entries (you can blame Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’07 for that…) so I think I’m a bit overdue…

I guess this is the perfect opportunity for me to basically write up a final summary of the nine months that I spent living in Braunschweig – you know, the whole “things I learned” type of summary. I’m not going off of any notes here (nothing new there) so you will have to bear with me if this article starts deviating courses rather randomly. It seems that there was quite a bit that I wanted to mention on this blog but I’m positive that I won’t hit everything. I’ll try to do my best…

I’m sure most of you have seen the movie Pulp Fiction, right? Do you remember that scene where Vincent is talking about the time he spent in Europe (Amsterdam, I believe) near the beginning of the flick? He mentions how it’s basically the same as the states however it’s the little differences that seem to stand out so much. I always liked that scene however I now appreciate it at a much deeper level. According to Vincent, a Quarter Pounder is called a Royal in Europe. This is true – of course … metric system and all – however in Germany, if you order a Royal (actually called a Hamburger Royal) the default sandwich that you are actually ordering (at least currently) would be a Hamburger Royal TS (the TS stands for Tomato and Salad – the German word for lettuce). If you want the equivalent to a standard Quarter Pounder in the states, you need to order a Hamburger Royal ohne TS (without TS). There’s no need to worry about the “with cheese” addendum as cheese is also the default. The Hamburger Royal TS also comes with mayonnaise instead of ketchup … it’s not bad, but it’s just not the same… A Big Mac is a Big Mäc and no, they don’t have Whoppers at their Burger Kings.

Another interesting thing about the McDonald’s is the way they do the “value meals”. They’re called “menus” and, if you want large fries (Pommes Frites) and a drink, you order a “maxi menu”. The thing about the menus is that they are the same price (not much of a bargain, either) for whichever of the six sandwiches you choose – Big Mäc, Hamburger Royal TS, McRib, McChicken, 6-piece McNuggets or McFish. The price also remains the same regardless of the drink – one of the various sodas or even a shake. To give you an idea of exactly how much of a bargain these menus aren’t, a “maxi menu” with an additional sandwich on the side runs €8.18 (I placed this order quite often to use up the 70-some Euros of change that I acquired). That’s about $10.88! And to me, the beef just wasn’t the same quality as the beef used in the states. (Now there’s something I never would have imagined saying – a ringing endorsement to the American McDonald’s beef…)

I believe that I may have briefly alluded to the next little difference in at least one of my earlier postings; however I do think it is worth revisiting – the population density. No matter the time of day – or even the day of the week (except Sundays) – the main city squares are teeming with people. It’s pretty much like you are constantly living at some sold-out event at a major American sports arena. I guess this all ties in with the more laid-back work ethic and the lesser dependency on automobiles for transportation (bikes and feet seem to be the predominant transportation modes) yet I was always amazed at the number of people that were out and about. I suppose it’s a much healthier lifestyle as I did lose quite a bit of weight living here; it just seemed so interesting to me – a guy that’s lived his entire life hopping in a car to pretty much go anywhere (regardless of the distance…).

I suppose one of the negative little differences is the amount of graffiti. Sure, America has its own graffiti problem however it seems to be limited to the large cities and slums. Over in Europe, the stuff is everywhere! Not that it’s all bad – some of these masterpieces appear to be works of some pretty decent artists. It just soils what is still a beautiful countryside enough to stand out to me. I guess this could be no more than a byproduct of the large population densities however the multitude of idiots creating this graffiti aren’t really showing too much respect for their own homelands…

Smoking is most definitely much more accepted in Europe. You can smoke in any restaurant or bar and very few of them even bother to have a non-smoking section. The number of smokers is also much higher than you would find in any American city these days. Heck, I would say that, overall, the smokers appear to be the majority. It definitely wasn’t a positive aspect for me as I must admit that I’ve actually started smoking more than a pack a day since moving here – I guess that’s something I’m going to have to work on a bit when I return home…

It’s a bit strange in a way because (at least in Germany) the price for cigarettes is rather high. A pack (sold only in boxes – you can’t get soft pack cigarettes) will run you €4 (about $5.32) and there is absolutely no discount for buying in quantity – a carton (which, interestingly enough, doesn’t come in a box) sells for €40. Not only that, but the packs only have 17 cigarettes in them as opposed to the 20-cigarette packs sold in the states. So you end up paying $53 for 170 cigarettes. If I remember correctly (and it’s possible that I don’t), a 200 cigarette carton sells for $30-$35 in Colorado. I guess this is a pretty good counter-argument for raising the “sin tax” on cigarettes in the states – apparently the die-hard smokers (no pun intended) have no problem paying the higher prices. Many over here choose to “roll their own” cigarettes (in fact even I was doing this for a little while … until I got sick and tired of the hassle) to save some money as you can pick up a canister of tobacco (about one carton worth of pre-rolled cigarettes) for about €30. That’s still close to $40 American…

As far as sporting events in Europe, I only have to say one word – soccer. Soccer is HUGE in Europe! I mentioned in an earlier article that you could always find a large number of fanatic soccer fans at pretty much any train station on any weekend and this is absolutely true. Most of the yelling and screaming fans that you find at the train stations are the younger adults (I would say late teens to early twenties) but, upon living directly above a sports bar, I also discovered that this fascination with soccer is not only limited to the kids. It was common on a soccer night to have the yelling and serious noise making continue very late into the night – sometimes until 4:00 in the morning… Hindered my sleeping a bit, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it … I guess soccer fans will be soccer fans…

Recycling is big in Germany and the people living there seem to have no problem going through the efforts required to facilitate this. At several places throughout Braunschweig they have these recycle bins where you need to separate your recyclables into their correct categories (clear glass, brown glass, green glass, cardboard and some other ones that I never bothered to figure out) and deposit them into their corresponding bins. No “reward” is dulled out for going through this effort (although I do believe that you could get money back if you returned the recyclables to the stores – much like several places in the states) however these bins were often times seen full to capacity. The reason behind this, I suppose, is my next topic of discussion – German people always follow the rules.

I heard it said several times that when you are in Germany, you need to follow the rules. This statement is absolutely true and it appears as though the German citizens have taken the “rule following” to heart. Countless times I would notice people waiting at a crosswalk for the crossing signal to turn green. It didn’t matter whether there were any vehicles around at all, they would always obediently wait for the signal to cross. I attempted to wait with them, most of the time; however I will admit that there were several occasions where I just crossed the street leaving the crowd behind me. I realize that this is not proper traveling etiquette (when in Rome…) but standing there waiting for the light to change when no traffic was even visible just seemed silly to me. I actually almost got run over by a tram a few days ago due to my impatience, but that’s just because I’m an idiot and forgot about the added danger that the trams provide…

This brings me to my next topic – walking in Germany can be dangerous. Not quite as dangerous as Athens where the people seem to have a rather bad habit of driving on the sidewalks; however there are many more things to watch out for than one would find in a typical American city. You’ve got the horde of people, a lot of bikes (they ride in the same territory as the walking pedestrians most of the time), automobile traffic and trams. You basically need to keep on your toes at all times to assure that you make it to your destination safely. Perhaps this is why the crowds constantly wait for the crosswalk signals … yeah, it’s starting to make sense now…

One thing that actually surprises me a bit is the difficulties involved in dealing with German banks. And it wasn’t just the bank I used (Dresdner), two other contractors had similar experiences and all three of us were using different banks. I could understand a time delay for international transfers and such, but even transferring funds to German banks became multi-day (if not multi-week) ventures. And there’s nothing quite as satisfying as having funds withdrawn from your account and spending a few days in some unknown void before arriving at their destination. The worst part about it is, even if you go to your bank and enquire about the transfer in progress, the only thing you’re ever told is to wait because they apparently can’t tell you where your money is. When I tried to pay my German accountant her fee for my tax preparation, it wasn’t until a week later that I noticed the money somehow returned back to my account. I was never notified of the problem and actually needed to go back to my bank and re-send the funds. It’s a good thing I was able to check my account online (oh yeah, the website is only available in German so you can image what a hassle that can be) and notice the returned funds or I guess my accountant never would have been paid…

And get this – I closed my Dresdner account yesterday. There was €5133.24 in it, so I brought along my Wells Fargo checkbook expecting to have the funds transferred to my American account. Unfortunately Dresdner Bank doesn’t do that. Sure, there were several occasions in the past where I was able to successfully transfer funds between these two accounts; however when an account is being closed, the funds can only be transferred to another German bank. The result of this is that I ended up walking out of the bank yesterday with €5133.24 in cash! I also received my €900 security deposit back from my landlord yesterday which brings the total that I am currently carrying with me on my trip home to well over €6000! That’s damn near $8000!! I sure hope I don’t get robbed or anything…

Well, my train is currently arriving in Amersfoort which means the next stop is Amsterdam Centraal Station. I suppose this is a good point to stop writing and start preparing for the assuredly difficult task lying ahead of lugging my two wardrobes, an extremely over packed suitcase (it weighs about a ton…) and a very large notebook computer (and case) from the station to my hotel (it’s across the street – kinda – from the station however it’s a pretty long walk…). Thanks for reading my blog – hopefully you found it a little interesting…?

bis später,

Coriolis

Excess Baggage

Okay, first off, no – I am not coming home in a hot-air balloon. That was (as I am pretty sure anyone would have concluded) an April Fools joke. Sloof Lipra is, after all, no more than “apriL foolS” spelled backwards. It would have been an interesting trip, I suppose; however I am going to be returning (as mentioned earlier) on a Polish steel freighter. Yeah, I know what most of you Americans are thinking; however the Polish people have accomplished much in their history aside from just becoming targets for purely American jokes… Who knows? Maybe I’ll discover a new joke that begins, “So this American boards a ship run by a Polish crew…”

But that’s not what I am going to be telling you, the valued reader (all three of you…), about today. Today I want to share a rather interesting experience I recently had involving some of the luggage that I was needing to get home. And that last sentence is correct – I “was” needing to get this luggage home. I don’t need to any more; and if you read on, you’ll discover why…

Here’s the thing – as I’m sure I have alluded to in several earlier postings, I’ve actually lost quite a bit of weight spending the last eight and a half months over here in Germany. This, by no means, should be taken as a negative review of the German cuisine – far from it … the German food I have had has all been very good (except for this meat-gelatin dish that I accidentally had for lunch once). The reason that I lost so much weight (at least 50 pounds, although I do believe it is more as the 34 inch waist jeans that I purchased to replace my old 38” jeans aren’t quite as snug as they used to be) is a combination of the walking necessary for life over here (I never acquired any sort of vehicle other than public transportation) and my own unwillingness to go through the complications that always arose when acquiring food in eateries where English was not understood. (And yes, I am completely aware that learning German would have been a great thing – and I tried, half-heartedly – however the German language and I just don’t seem to get along very well…)

The way that this relates to my luggage issue is that I actually bought a couple suits (with two pair of slacks for each), something like three sports coats, some shirts and a couple ties prior to flying out here thinking that I would need them for work. I had four suits that I purchased some 14 years ago when working at EDS however they no longer fit the larger Americanized version of me and I donated them to charity before shelling out the $1800 plus for my new wardrobe. Turns out that I didn’t need the new suits – I could have shown up at work in shorts and a T-top and nobody would have even raised an eyebrow… I was unaware of this though and came prepared – a bit over-prepared…

It made the initial trip out here a bit more difficult as I needed to (by myself, mind you) haul two over-packed wardrobes, one rather large and completely stuffed rolling bag as well as an oversized laptop (my 17” screen HP Pavilion dv8000t desktop replacement machine) along with all the little accessories through the Denver International Airport and the Hannover Airport. I got very lucky and, as fate would have it, was able to get picked up in Hannover by my two cousins, Dale and Russ, who just happened to be vacationing in Europe at the time. They were nice enough to actually drive me to the Hotel Café am Park in Braunschweig and even helped me lug all the baggage up the three flights of stairs to my initial room. My trip home is going to be a different beast all together. I will be taking a train from the Braunschweig Hauptbahnhof (main train station – see, that German language is something…) to the Hannover Hauptbahnhof; switching trains in Hannover and continuing on to Amsterdam’s Centraal Station where I will be staying in a hotel for a couple nights before taking either a cab or a ferry to the Police/Customs station in IJmuiden followed by yet another cab ride the final two miles to the actual port where I will be boarding my ship. I think you can easily see that this trip is going to be much easier if my load is lightened a bit…

Due to all the weight loss, it ends up that the money I spent on the clothing prior to coming out here was a waste. Everything that I bought is now way too large for me. Taking this into consideration, I decided that I needed to somehow make it so that I wouldn’t need to be transporting these now over-sized outfits with me on my return trip – that would lighten my load quite a bit. My first idea was to ship these suits home beforehand and just pick them up again at my parent’s house in Allen Park, Michigan. Good idea, huh? Well, here’s how that went…

From all of the information that I was able to gather on shipping large items, it appears that you need to start off by getting large boxes. I packed up all my suits and sports coats into the two wardrobes that I brought with me and then needed to located a box (or possibly two) large enough for me to pack these wardrobes in. But I’m in Germany and have no local support. Where would I get boxes? It’s not like you can just go online and find a store that sells boxes; and, from what I had been informed by Jon who was doing pretty much the same thing for his return trip, the DHL (the European equivalent to UPS) office didn’t have any boxes that were large enough. Last Saturday I decided to just go for a walk and see what I could find…

As it turns out, I ran into what appeared to be the German version of a Home Depot about a mile or so down this main street from my apartment. They’d sell boxes, right? I headed in and started looking … and looking … and looking… I finally found where a couple of cardboard boxes where on display; unfortunately they were way too small for my needs. I then decided to go attempt to inquire with their Information desk. The first question I asked was the standard, “sprechen zie Englisch?” with an obviously negative response. The lady working the desk then made an announcement over the PA system and motioned for me to stay and wait. Shortly thereafter, this guy showed up from the back that spoke a little English and I, once again, went into my charade-talk mode and inquired on whether or not they sold any larger boxes. I got the impression that he understood as he asked me to wait there while he headed off back towards the back of the shop once again.

As I was waiting, another lady appeared and the first lady behind the Information desk motioned her toward me as well. This new lady also spoke a little English and I, once again, attempted to explain what I was looking for as well as tried to explain that there was already a guy trying to help me who instructed me to wait where I was. This didn’t seem to make a difference to her as she then told me to follow her and took me back to a display of these small metal boxes that they were selling. I then explained that I was looking for much larger, perhaps cardboard boxes for shipping purposes. She then began leading me toward the boxes that I found earlier and I was doing my best to explain that they were far too small when the first guy returned with two very large, rather beat-up cardboard boxes which he then gave to me. I asked if I needed to pay for them and it was made clear that I could just take them. Sweet! Although the boxes seemed a bit excessive, I figured I could make them work. I thanked the nice employees and headed out of the store with my found treasures…

So there I was, a mile (perhaps a mile and a half) from my apartment now in possession of two very large (they were folded at least) boxes that I awkwardly hoisted onto my head and started walking to the nearest bus stop. I hopped on the next bus and took it a large portion of the way back to my apartment then wrestled these boxes up the elevator and into my dinky little apartment. It wasn’t until returning to my apartment that I was first able to see what kind of boxes they were. The first one was a huge rectangular box that happened to be missing one very crucial flap and the other was some sort of strange-shaped box that I was never even able to figure out. In the end, these boxes were not going to work. Oh well, it was nice enough of the people to give them to me; however my next move was to drag the boxes out of my apartment, back down the elevator and straight to the recycling bin that I knew of a few hundred meters away…

A large portion of the rest of that day was spent lying in my bed as I had screwed up my back wrestling with those boxes. I’m thinking that I somehow re-triggered the injury suffered when bruising my tailbone in Amsterdam a couple months ago as the pain came back with a vengeance. It started off mild, but as time went on the act of merely walking became a choir. I’m very glad to say that everything got better the next day; but I took this as a sure sign that I don’t want to be lugging all this extra luggage with me on my farewell journey. I guess I am getting old…

Okay, so the box idea was pretty much shot now – I wasn’t about to attempt that again. What was I going to do then? I was thinking I could ship the extra weight back by just shipping the actual wardrobes, themselves; but this is Germany. When you’re in Germany, you follow the rules – that’s just the way it is. I didn’t think that DHL would ship the wardrobes unboxed and my previous attempts to find some sort of luggage concierge service came up with a $600-$700 price tag. There’s no way I was paying that much to ship clothing that no longer even fit me. I remembered visiting a couple second hand shops here in Braunschweig a few months ago with a fellow contractor that was looking to buy a sports coat for the Christmas party. I briefly considered trying to sell the stuff there about a week ago but decided to avoid the hassles of communication that I was sure to encounter. Whilst speaking with my brother on the phone after the box ordeal, he got me to reconsider. He suggested I sell the stuff rather than risk throwing my back out attempting to bring it home. Okay, so my next attempt was to sell it…

Early Monday I decided to remove all of the extra crap I stuffed in one of the wardrobes and took that wardrobe along with all the clothing from the other wardrobe with me as I headed out to the second hand stores. Upon entering the first store, it was made very clear to me that they weren’t interested in purchasing anything from me. They didn’t speak any English; however I clearly got the impression that they weren’t interested. Okay, fine – I’d try the other store I knew of. Different store – same results. The proprietor of this second store appeared to speak English pretty well and I asked him why a second hand store wouldn’t be interested in purchasing damn near brand new suits and he mentioned something about some sort of large corporation that does all their purchasing. I told him that he could have everything (including the wardrobe) for €500 but he wasn’t about to buy anything. Remember, this is Germany- you follow the rules…

Well, what I did next is a bit crazy – I’ll be the first to admit it. I headed back to my apartment, went directly to the room where my garbage is collected and threw away damn near $1800 worth of brand new suits! I kept the shirts as they’re not very heavy but everything else went in the trash. I also kept both wardrobes as carting the suitless wardrobes with me on the trip shouldn’t be too cumbersome…

Lesson learned through all this – never bring more than needed on any trip. After all, at my age, traveling light might actually save my back…

bis später,

Coriolis

See the World

Well folks, here’s an interesting twist – I’ve decided not to travel home on a working freighter; instead, I’m going to be flying home the old-fashioned way – hot-air balloon!

It’s going to extend the trip a bit as I am going to have to basically go east rather than west and the length of the trip is going to be governed completely by the various weather conditions encountered; however I do believe that this little bit of “thinking outside the box” should most definitely assure an interesting journey. There is always the possibility that I might not make it, but life’s full of risks and I think I’ll be okay…

I met this guy – a Mr. Sloof Lirpa – at this Irish pub yesterday evening and he informed me of this rather interesting bet that he made with is buddy. You see Sloof’s one of those eccentric multi-millionaires with a LOT of free time on his hands and he’s a well-seasoned balloonist. He’s completed many rather time consuming (and distance consuming) trips in the past, but he has yet to try the coup de grâce of the ballooning world – the round the world trip. When mentioning this to his buddy just a few weeks ago, he pretty much got dared to do it. He mentioned that a wager was involved however never actually told me what the stakes were – I’m assuming it’s quite a bit; although Sloof seems to me like a guy that would do pretty much anything if anybody’s fool-hearty enough to doubt that he actually would…

The coolest part is that, although Sloof usually does these trips as a lone traveler, he invited me along for the ride (well, a large portion of the ride as I will be leaving the balloon at a still to be determined landing somewhere as near to Detroit as we can manage). I was telling him how my work here has now ended and that I was planning on heading back to the states soon and he seemed more than happy to invite me on his little trip. He said that it would be a nice change to actually have another along for the ride since the conversations he usually has with the voices in his head are becoming a bit repetitious as of late. I’m hoping that the many stories of my own life (many of which can be read earlier in this blog) will be enough to keep him interested so that he doesn’t decide to throw me out of the journey somewhere in the middle of the Ukraine or anything… Nah, this guy seems pretty “on the level” (well, if you discount the conversations he frequently has with “voices in his head” and all, but we all have our little idiosyncrasies, right?) – I’m sure he won’t leave me abandoned…

Not only that, but the trip ends up being no cost to me! How sweet is that? Sloof said that he would gladly cover all the provisions for both himself and me – he is, after all, a multi-millionaire. I figure that he would be more than happy to pay my way just for the added companionship he would be getting. Heck, I’m worth it!

So anyway, we’re currently scheduling departure in the next couple of weeks. This changes my plans a bit as communication during the journey will be extremely limited. I figure I’ll just try to keep in touch with my parents at any rest locations we end up landing in and pretty much take it from there. I’ve always wanted to “see the world”, and what better way is there than by hot-air balloon?!

bis später,

Coriolis