A little bird and Germany (Crazy rants No. 1)

The German economy always seems to be doing well and if information is king then it is no wonder as Germany must have more information on people living here than Facebook and Google put together. Not sure why we worry so much over these social network companies.

Anyway this is going to be the first of my mostly once weekly rants.

After spending days filling out forms for the authorities, I finally managed to get it all together in some form of graspable chronology. It was now time to descend the hill via my favourite route, the Zigzag path (Zickzackweg) (now renamed the ´Footpath into town´!:) and post the documents. It is overcast but quite nice for walking as it is cool and dry. At the very start of the descent I come across a chaffinch, which seems totally unperturbed by my appearance and allows me to take numerous close up photos. It may be a young one and unaware of the dangers some humans can pose. Anyway it puts me in a good mood as I descend as I now have photos to post on my blog later.

I stop by at the tourist office to photocopy some of the documents before posting them. I have copied documents there in the past. So I ask the woman if I can use the copier … and the conversation goes roughly like this:

Woman: “Für was?” (“What for?”)

Me: (“For documents … A4 size”)

Woman: “Ya, was für documente?” (“Yes, but what documents?”)

Me: (“Personal documents”) (I point to an A4 sheet on her table with some text on it)

Woman: “Wie Viel?” (“How many?”)

Me: (“10 or so”)

Woman: “Wo sind die den, Sie haben nichts in deine hande?”(“Where are they then, you have none in your hands?”)

Me: (“They are in my rucksack”)

Woman: “Geben Sie mir” (“Give them to me”)

Me: (“Can I do it myself”)

Woman: “Nein, das geht nicht, die kosten 25 cents” (“No, that´s not possible, they cost 25 cents”)

Actually, it was a bit more drawn out than that and terser on both sides.

Now I am thinking I do not trust this woman with all my personal data from the past 40 years, they have a habit of making mistakes while copying and keeping back those copied sheets.

So I say one last time that I have used the copier in the past but she refuses to let me use it and as a passing comment says:

Woman: “Wir sind kein copyshop” (“We are not a copy shop”)

Well that´s news to me, she could have said that to start with.

So I head out making my feeling known and check the nearby photo shop. They have no copier and the owner points me back to the tourist office. I say I tried there and he looks around bewildered. Maybe you can try the post office but he does not look too convinced.

I was going there anyway so I thank him and continue on to the post office. Success! Copies and post all sorted for 4.85 euros.

However, on the way back I cannot stop thinking about the exchange I´d had in the tourist office. Thoughts of the Gestapo, Nazis and other negative traits of Germany begin to fill my mind.

One of the first shocking images I ever saw on a black and white TV was a large wooden cart/wagon piled high with the white skin and bone corpses of a dead concentration camp victims. I was about five or six years old. That image never left me and even today I can recall it vividly, especially when I have negative thoughts about Germany.

Then I begin questioning, why did I come to Germany. Of all the places I could have gone, I chose Germany, why? It is truly a mystery to me as I had no particular love of Germany. I had visited once on a student holiday trip before coming to live here so I did have some idea of what it was like and that was mainly positive. Excellent beer, fantastic forests and a very different culture to the one at home. I had chosen my path to Germany while at college by writing to Porsche and Opel for technical drawings for a final project and that process led to Porsche offering me a job in Germany.

As a Ford sponsored car design student I had experienced working in big car companies and knew that was not for me. I suppose I considered Germany the place to go for car design as they were technically the best in the world even though they fell short when it came to styling, so maybe I felt I could be useful. Whatever the reason after moving there at the age of 22 the rest of my entire life revolved around Germany even when working on the other side of the world. It seemed like there was no getting away from it and when I experience people in Germany, especially bureaucrats who act like Nazis my blood begins to boil and thoughts of escape fill my mind. Admittedly it does not take much to trigger that reaction in me.

So anyway I made my way back up the hill (300m) muttering to myself and to my surprise found myself on top sooner than expected. Anger has a way of energizing you and gives you power that can be quite surprising at times. I had reached the top without a break (I usually take two) and felt fit as a fiddle, no huffing and puffing or thumping heart beats. It reminded me of an incident I´d had with the Spanish authorities while at the police station trying to sort out my Residencia documents. I was so enraged that when I returned home I went past my second floor apartment and tried to enter the flat above mine on the third floor, totally oblivious to the fact that I had climbed an extra floor:)))

That´s this weeks rant over … more next week, maybe.