FREEDOM

 

 I told of Soljanka/Solyanka some time ago and that all my three T´s were from East-Germany.

And maybe some of you thought, "what? - 'East'-Germany?! Is Germany not united since 1989???"

 

It is. 

 

On paper.

 

I remember a school-colleague. 

Her parents were "rich" and came "to The West".

And she complained!!!!

In GDR someone would´ve told her what to do with her life.

Become a baker. Butcher, whatever.

 

(Now we do it as in "The East", thank you, Corinna. Pic taken yesterday in Braunschweig.)

 

Well in "the West" no one TELLS you what to do!!!!

You have the freedom of the world!!!! You CHOOSE! But that´s also responsibility for your life and she hated that.

Mind you, I struggled, also. Made a test and they said "you can study anything you want, according to this."

a) not helpful

b) not true (ME in mathematics or such, forget about that! I can count to three, and that´s about that - Calculus, what we call Infinitesimalrechnung was nothing I enjoyed)

 

 

What shocked me truly was... she hated democracy. She hated West-Germany. She hated (or feared)  FREEDOM.

By golly, I took the wrong choice but can proudly (???) call myself a graduated engineer (now without a job).

I started all over - and likely again, too.

Hopefully.

But to grow up in a place... well, we get an idea, thanks to Corinna.

Some things are not available. Period. Shelves empty.

Wonder what became of her?

 

I do cherish freedom, I have an idea of other places - I luckily only read about but also see here.

Women in a burka and even worse, a hijab, I see that here in ("West"-) Germany, in Braunschweig, in "our" quarter. 

The "husband" carrying the purse, the woman is packed with groceries, walking behind him. And yes, she is smaller. What is love? Not caring, obviously...

To freedom, says Henry 🦁

 

Now, this is soooo long ago, but it stuck to my mind. How this girl hated/feared freedom.

 

 

THERE You Go - LAUGH In SNOW

Snowy greetings to my Aussie friends, especially - I had to grin seeing this.

In Germany the "right" side is the right lane, in Australia the left.

Stand on the escalator?

In Germany... doesn´t matter, peeps are dumb - in Australia they´re more efficient - stand to the...

.... so others in a hurry can pass by you easily, clever, eh?

Loo? Go to a loo. D'oh. The first day I always try to turn the handle the wrong way.

Same when I´m back in Germany (not that we went (!!! hello, Corinna) to pubs that often).

ALDI?! What?! Now, what, left or right?! 

Right, in both countries - last time I was in Perth, maybe they´ve changed that, those stubborn Germans. Unlike all other stores... German rule!

I remember an E-mail from a Perth friend, two actually, in a straight row.

She went to ALDI.

And complained.

She had to buy a bag!!! She had to pack her grocery herself!!! (huhh, really....)

Next mail: THE TROLLEY DID COST MONEY!!!! (you don´t say)

I read the mail(s) in my lunch break and that icky, curious colleague... boy, he "died" not knowing what I´m giggling about.

So, walking through the nasty winter weather to the market yesterday....

... I smiled thinking of the craziness of left and right.

Since I broke my arm and had to do everything with my left hand for 6+ months I mix that up anyways, left and right.

And booooy, I remember first time I sat at the wheel here...

Surprisingly the left hand manages the gears quite quickly as you at least have the same system.

But at first I thought, nah. Can´t change gears with my left hand!

Fun times, coming back to Germany and turn right - yahaaa! I - it was luckily Ingo´s old village with few cars - I ended up on the wrong side of the road (oh, come on. 7 months on the "wrong" side, "right"?)

Went with a friend on a country road and there was a roundabout at a construction site (roundabouts are very rare in Germany).

No other car.

Didn´t know what to do!!!! Which direction? (Would be irrelevant as there was no other car but my friend needed to tell me - the "overly correct German"...). 

When we tried to sell our car in Freo '99 there was the USS Constellation (you know, that "lille boat")  open to public and we all wanted to get in from the left. The US marines got nuts... from the RIGHT!!! LOL (No they were super-friendly, but a tad tired of telling everybody: wrong direction!).

 Know what I mean?

Henry 🦁? Confused...

He stays in Braunschweig and will roam the city come New Year´s on the "right" side of the road making sure everyone is home safely (pic: at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Text: 1166 erected by (Duke) Henry The Lion as symbol of his might and jurisdiction.)

 

Addendum: And. Weee ...

They assume winter 1977/78 might return. I remember that. The snow shoveled to the side was that high, on the way to school I could not see the street!

 

And yes. We.went.to.school.

What in summer was a 5-minutes-walk was a "tad longer" and many wore socks over their boots in a weird hope it won´t be as slippery.

Oh, please not again.

Even Ingo could not see the streets, and he is not really small and he was already 13 years old.

Hope this is not the beginning, but the end! They advise people to stay home and if they MUST drive, take a blanket, hot drinks, enough fuel. Don´t go into the woods, can be life-threatening... Glad Ingo has a day off tomorrow.

(00:30 a.m.: SUPER BOWL 🏈)

But, "sunny side": Corinna is a bit banned from the news due to the weather-warnings.

10:51 a.m.:

 

LITTLE things

 

The other day at the grocery an elderly, tiny lady asked me (!!! I am not even 1,60m anymore, thanks scoliosis) to give her something from a shelf high up.

Yes. Laugh. I tip-toed, but managed.

Three (!!!)  darn bottles of water. 

Why? Why didn´t she ask a tall person??? (there were others)

 LOL!!!

 

And also: We have healthy, great water from the tap here, too, but, well, I was happy to help, of course.

Like a comic, a tiny asking a little...

 

 

THEN.

Later I came out of our main door and BOOM! 

Our maintenance-guy doing his work, looked at me (or my happy hat) and gave me the BIGGEST smile :-)

 

It´s the little things, too, that make life worthwhile, right.

 

Off to the market. 

Last time the lady who gave me tomatoes only ONCE before remembered me even, thanks to Gurri and my Happy Hat and knew which tomatoes Ingo likes, hence.

It´s a small world 😃

To a happy day!

Henry 🦁

Funny enough... Henry is even topped by his big Brother, the so-called Long Henry, the chimney of our power station, in the background 🤣

And no, the tiny lady could not have asked Ingo as he was not with me - you know the stupid one trolley per person-thing... I still shake my head and if the Nieces have children some day and I´m an old lady I´ll tell them of Corinna and the stupid that came along with that in 2020/2021!

 

So. Long underwear? Check. Thick clothes, cam, check. Yikes, snow outside. Off to the market now really...

My Life (According to...)

I'm so behind in telling and showing you what fab stuff we are allowed to see and be part of!
I'm still on Thursday.

I have to admit.... (don't tell)... I cannot read an QR-code.
So, in order to visit "Yianni Agisilaou: The Simpsons Taught Me Everything I Know", which I ordered online, I made a .pdf-file, put it on my SD in USB, went to the office and asked if they can print it.
Weeee....

Fringe is all over, LOL!

The manager looked... sorry. And said: "We're not allowed to put anything in our PC..." (and then) ... "aw, OK, you're German, I do trust there is no virus attached" and printed - and guess what????
No one asked for that stupid code, but my name!!!!!
Try that in Germany, rules, are rules there...

So to The Shoe Bar & Cafe we went.

And, guess what.
We were too late.
Haha, joke. We were among (!) the first ones and hence had to wait and time to have a look.

Have you ever wondered what shop assistants did say... 15 years ago when there was no one to serve?

Bliss for today's technology - yes or no?

Well, they put us in first row, but nothing bad happened.
Sad thing was: Us (not by choice) stupid Germans get everything translated which means the American quotes we had no idea of and the voices he copied so well we only knew from a DVD we could watch in the original...

It was fun but did not reach my expectations according to the title (remember: "The Simpsons Taught Me Everything I Know").

I had the worst nightmare, too!!! I was in Braunschweig Zoo, by myself and everything was different.
A very tall, mean, very aggressive lion with a huge mane growled at me.
and he could've jumped over the fence at any time.
Other animals, amongst wild dogs (I am afraid of even tamed dogs)roamed free and there was a young lion with them... at the exit.
Long story short:The mean lion scared me a couple of times but the young lion shielded me and saw me out. And he came back to say hello.

One guess Ingo had was this:

And NO. I am NOT homesick!!!
Are you when you are somewhere else?

Now, If I Was French - Of Prejudice And Humor (?)

If I was French I might be p... - two words come to mind here!

This was the only poo-tickets of "our" brand I could get! So, if you are French indeed, bare with me, I had no choice!
But I have a nice story instead.

I was just 18, my ex and I wanted to take a bike-tour through England, so we put the bikes on top of the car and went to France to set over from Calais to Dover with the bikes.
I looked for a farmer to leave my car there for free (including the car-keys, nothing on paper, but they were honest people, all went well).

4 generations under one roof and they invited us for supper, too.

And Granpa certainly had been in WW II.
We were/are Germans.
I expected the worst! I mean... I was full of prejudice!

His accent was very strong, so his son translated to "normal" French.

Guess what he said?

Why... do you leave your car here? Where do you wanna go by bike, how long.....

Not ONE stupid word about the darn war!
To him... it was history and clearly not my fault.
If I was a person more brave I´d hugged and thanked him, too! And maybe he even wouldn´t have understood why!

Well, what do you think of this limited edition with all the "typical French" motives (there is also "la voiture, des l'oiseaus"... (I still have the book "Le petit Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and I still can read it, too).

Do you think it´s funny, do you think it´s full of "prejudice-items" or do you think it´s plain rude?

Oh, here is another Henry, nearly forgot about this ;-)

(Not) Cold Feet

The other day I saw this girl who has no balcony and is not willing to walk the 3 minutes to the park but wanted to enjoy the sun anyways.

Well, why not, right?

But now this...

My socks-season is long over!
Do you wear woolen socks in 30C?

I could´ve asked, right? But you know me, I just don´t dare!
I get cold feet last second ;-)

Hmmm... June. Summer is near!

Sure tastes like it!

Addendum: I´ll see the new doc not in July. June 21st - the meteorologic begin of summer - hope that´s a good sign!
The lady on the phone was super-friendly, too.

Times Are A (Rapid) Changing

On the way home from the "pipe-tour" Ingo pointed out something I just always quickly passed by without noticing.

This copy shop had some services on offer no one needs in such a place anymore.

Do you remember using floppy disks?
Soooo long ago, right?

No internet at home? What?!
Going to a store to get your e-mail??

I wonder... they still work with "CD-ROM" or did they simply forgot to scratch it away to remembrance-only, too?

Is there any technology you miss?

Some Dumb Concepts

Healthy snacks are good, right, like, say, an apple.
An apple that you can just put in your bag cause it has a natural packing, it´s skin.

There must be really people who are willing to buy 80g of sliced apple in a plastic bag for €1 when you can get a whole 1 kg for €1,99!

Who are these people, I wonder???
How lazy do you have to be, and how stupid, money- and environment-wise.

As dumb as this concept, I think:

And I really see in astonishment how many young people smoke again!
Not that sweets...
For crying out loud.

And we all agree on this being unnecessary...

Those 80g really ... Old (wo)man yells at Cloud and gets the cam out!

Bienvenido?

... or rather not?
But first things first:

Yep, that is a statement :-)

Saturday was quite a day. There was the much-discussed Neonazi-demo. Along with a festival celebrating tolerance in Germany:

We chose the second, as you could guess. We chose tolerance, love and respect. And variety. Which also reads "freedom" - something I would not want to live without.
Ingo had Ćevapi. It was really un-German, I had no clue who when how much paid? But everybody was friendly and had fun.

And, we felt welcomed, for sure.

And had a very, very nearly Cuban-like:

Mexican Coffee.

Yes, 50 cent!!!

Heaps of food to find...

Yes. Despite EHEC, we gave it all a go.
What I found? Hmmmmm..... in Darwin I had every day - actually twice every day and for weeks - the yummiest Spinach-Cheese-Pie ever.
Always bought two, ate one straight away and kept one in the front of the car, right behind the glass - so it stayed warm all day long - made a yummy dinner for sure.
(I´m talking of 1995. 1999 the Deli was gone and I was oh-so-sad about that. Was.So.Yummy. Please take that as a short report from the Land of No Pies. Buhu.)

And after walking around long enough I found: Spinach-Cheese-something. Can you imagine I nearly drooled - nearly, not really, I promise.

So. I gleefully ordered three of those small Spinach-Cheese-things.
And was told I´ll have to wait.
I wondered, but said, sure, no problem.
So, I waited. And nothing happened.

You´d like a clue?

No idea if that woman in the grey shirt was served? Bet the woman behind her was.
I was - not.
After some minutes (!) a man came by my side and ordered. And was served. Immediately.
I left. No words needed.
Was it my short skirt? That I was wearing a summerly top? That my head was naked? That I ordered, with Ingo (man!) standing behind me?

Huuuuhh. I have no idea, maybe there was a lack of tolerance from the man who was supposed to serve me?
Uh! No. Sorry. A man never serves a woman, how could I forget?!

I was hoping our local newspaper, newsclick would do a report. So I can give my opinion, too. About who is showing tolerance and respect. But all I find is about the "event" the Neonazis gave.
Huh, strange, no?

I have to say: All other participating parties were friendly and it was a niece nice event.
I also have to add: a) I didn´t expect better (did I? I tried to order, so guess I expected better) and b) I wonder if it´s wise to hit the "publish"-button. But then c).... who in this town apart from Ingo reads this? And Ingo witnessed it first hand anyways.
Braunschweig, I love you, my dear home-town. You, and your tolerant citizens.
As for Spinach-Cheese-Stuff? Either go to Darwin or m Make your man cook you some.

And in the meantime. Go to one of your local breweries, like the Schadt´s...

and enjoy:

Others may prefer the cheaper stuff, nicely cooled in a place like this:

Yes, total cliché, I know :-)

The evening was some BBQ - now.... don´t you wonder, too:

Huh?

How come we´re the only ones making use of our balcony in this fantastic weather?

And why is it that fat fly always bumps against the window and misses the open door to said balcony?!

And why am I home?
I was supposed to be in my old home-town today and help my Mum pack for her second apartment.

But she got stuck in traffic yesterday - took her 5 hours (!) from Uetersen where she buried her oldest Sister. That´s some 250 km.
And now she´s just plain exhausted.

So. I´m off now, cleaning the kitchen (what else is a woman supposed to do on her day off? ;-)....)

Nah, really. It´s sad that one certain cultural group kinda destroys an otherwise nice event.
Do I add "again"? I do click publish. Now.

Addendum.... Went over to the French place and ordered a Quiche. Quiche was out, got some Cheesy Cake which was quite yummy, too. I was served immediatly. By a woman. A French woman in a summerly top. Cause we have summer. No need to wear a coat. Or hide your hair.
And yes. I´m still pissed. Like... hello?! No.Surprise.

Addendum II.... Having picked that subject, I might add another story. From last Tuesday.
I was alone in the city, without Ingo. Because I went from Wolfsburg straight to the deep-garage near "my" company to have the yearly talk to the Boss. After which he sent me to a Doc due to my ear. After which it rained. Thick, fat raindrops, cold ones. And I was wearing Jeans and T-Shirt.
Walking as close to the buildings as possible. A two km-walk.
She was wearing a headscarf and a coat, she was taller and bigger than me - and she "ordered" me to make space for her. Which I did. Without Ingo.
After working 8 1/2 hours, driving 1 1/2 hours, having a 1 1/2 hours-talk with the Boss and spending 1 hour (or maybe and a half? ;-)..) at the doc. I have to make space for a woman who very likely does not speak my language, lives in my country and does not work. Something is not right here. And no. I´m no Neonazi.
Publish. (afraid to tell "my" truth)