Germany:The Land of Opposites!

15. April 2005

Hey all!

Here’s to all those who think that being totally independent is something great: It is indeed a great feeling, to be fully responsible for yourself and to have so-called ‘freedom’, but trust me, it is very SCARY. Especially in a strange land, like Germany, where many things work in opposites.

Let me describe my first day here in Germany...

I came to the Frankfurt Airport, and congratulated myself as being smart enough to find the right gate, as I thought. Thus I sat down to enjoy the wonderful sunrise (will load it in once I have the time and know how to) Nearing the Boarding time, I thought it strange that no one was at the gate. So having picked my choice of free newspapers at the airport, I gathered my stuff, walked up and asked one of the staff. She was friendly, and told me that I was at the wrong gate; the airport has changed the gate. So a little worried but not alarmed, I went on my way to find the gate. Suddenly the lady I asked ran up to me, and said,”Tut mir leid, aber Ihr Flug wird ganz bald fliegen, also muessen Sie sich beeilen. Schnell rennen.” (translation: I am sorry, but your flight is leaving soon, so you must hurry. Run quickly!) So imagine me with both large handluggages, my newspapers and my windbreaker, running through people, saying “entschuldigung” all the time…and this is through Frankfurt Airport, a monstrosity of an airport. There are millions of gates to navigate, and the long colourful tunnel (remember the one we went through on our way to the choir Olympics?) full of people just taking their time to go somewhere. The many couples and elderly people I had to rush past and say sorry to, and finally I arrived at a gate, that led me to…a BUS. Frankly, I panicked, until I saw the sign: Zum Flug LH 770.

The airport was so large that it took the bus about 10 min to take us to the plane, and we alighted the bus, and boarded the plane. It is like in those movies, in which the president alights the plane and waves to the people, where there is a stairway that takes you up the plane, so what we need is a little imagination=) The great, important ting (haha!) moves up the stairs gracefully, smiling graciously to her people…and runs right smack into reality, with the loud droning of engines and the bitterly cold wind. *Here I must really thank the inventor of the windbreaker, it has saved my skin, literally, many, many times.

I met with a very nice couple on the plane, who offered to bring me to the Hauptbahnhof (howpt-bah-n-ho-f) where I could find my way to my apartment, in case my colleague did not receive my email saying that I would be arriving earlier. (I met many nice people on my flight, one of which is the Ukrainian guy who sat next to me. He came from New Zealand-right on the other side of the globe from Ukraine!- and is an electronic engineer, while many other New Zealanders are farmers…quite the opposites guy, isn’t he? Learnt quite a lot about New Zealand from him…like if you take the population of sheep and divide by that of the people, everyone has an average of 10 sheep.)

So, I reached the Nuremberg (or Nuernberg) airport, and no one was there to pick me up. But with some phone calls and all, I got picked up by my colleague, a Chinese called Mr Sun Yi. (Sunny, see, I knew you would be with me in spirit!) He is in his 5th year at the Nuernberg-Erlangen Universitaet, and he drove me to his hostel where he lived with his girlfriend. So the first ‘real’ language I conversed in in Germany was CHINESE. No one can blame me for getting my bearings wrong… Anyway, we went to their university later on, and I got to see the library there. Seriously, nothing is as bad as those horror stories I have heard of German Universities. And you know something? Germany really has a very international selection of students. Alone in Nuernberg there are thousands of Chinese students, and many Chinese businessmen. Also, bin ich in China, oder was?

I finally got checked in my apartment. And it is really a big apartment. I have
- A kitchen with everything you need to cook
- A Dining room with an antique cupboard, radio, fridge
- A Bedroom, complete with sofa, a TV with cable that gives you 30 + channels
- A Terrasse, or terrace, with a table and space to hang out my clothes
- A Garden, with a cherry tree that is in full bloom right now and will give me lots of cherries in June.
And ALL these for me alone, alles fuer mich allein, ganz, ganz allein.
What more can a girl wish for?
Yep, one only thing, I guess…an internet connection.

Thus I set off to unpack my things, and found out that, surprise! All the sockets and adaptors that I brought from Singapore cannot work, although they are 2-pin plugs, because the sockets in Germany sink into a circular hole which has a really funny shape. Being desperate, I wracked my brains (not many of them by then cuz I hadn’t slept for about 30+ hours), and found out that being a small town, my town (Altenfurt) does not sell any elektronishe Sachen. So I tried fixing the adaptors on my own, without a screwdriver, thus I used my kitchen knives. Let me just advise anyone who tries to do that NEVER to do that. I ended cutting myself two times, twice so deep that I used up my supply of handiplasts and had to buy more. And antiseptic lotion too. It is rather funny when you think back on it…two large bandaged fingers for the eyes of all those people to whom I asked questions. You see the same questions reflected back in their eyes: What on earth has this girl tried to do?

The next boo-boo (is that the correct word for it?) or mistake I made was to close my room door. I had the keys, but I just could not open the door, even if I pushed on it with my entire strength. My landlady had to go to her daughter’s house, so it wouldn’t have been nice to disturb her with a mediocre question like,” Entschuldigen Sie bitte, ich weis nicht, wie ich die Tuer oeffnen kann.” (Translation: Excuse me, I don’t know how to open the d*** door.”) Thus hoping that I would go for lunch and coming back to find out that it was all a very bad daydream, I went out to get a Doener, came back, sat outside my room door to eat, and all the time I was thinking: How comical. Here I am, with the keys to the door, nevertheless I am still locked out of my apartment. After I feel the strength from the Doener come back to me again, the door was, as expected, still locked. Out of desperation, I called my landlady, who told me to look for her sister, who was her neighbour. The good-natured old lady came in smiling friendlily, then she did a strange thing: she pulled the handle, which held fast, while turning the key, and then pushed the door open. WOW. The land of opposites…to open a door that opens inside, you pull it, and not push. Apparently it is ganz anders (holly different) in Winter, then you can just push the door open. Uh-huh..

I wanted to travel to the Altstadt (historical city-centre), but I guess I was just too overwhelmed by all these in one really long day (which lasted about 40 hours!)

So, all these in a day’s work. Frankly, I thought I wasn’t bad at all. I survived. Or is this the famous “Ah-Q” spirit?