Goethes Geburtstag

Today is the birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, probably Germany's most celebrated writer, poet, playwright and all-round literary deity (he would be 261 today, if people lived that long).

Baby Johann was born in a house on Großer Hirschgraben in Frankfurt am Main. You can go for a look at the Goethehaus (in the city centre) and have a tour. However, it's not actually the same house. It is in the same location and looks just the same, but it had to be rebuilt after the original was destroyed in WWII (this goes for most of the 'old' things in Frankfurt actually; the 'Alte Oper' isn't really so 'alt' at all, having been finally rebuilt in 1981).

Crowds assembled outside the Goethehaus

Goethe is also commemorated with a Straße:

A Platz with its own Parkhaus:

and a fancy statue:

Amongst other things.

Frankfurt is very proud of its famous son, so please raise your glasses and join me (and no doubt the rest of the city) in saying:

"Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Goethe!"
Happy birthday, Goethe!

Donner und Blitzen und Popstars

The rain is falling hard over Frankfurt. At about seven o'clock the sky dimmed and it started to pour with rain. I heard thunder and saw the flash of lightning and a little girl was running along the street outside the kitchen window and squealing as her umbrella wasn't quite as good a protection from the elements as she had hoped. And it was supposed to be 27 degrees today.

I decided to use my time indoors productively and watch 'Popstars: girls forever', which is the German version of  'Popstars' of course. Here it is not a talent show, but a 'Casting-Show' and from the subtitle you may also have gathered they are trying to form a girl band this year.

http://www.prosieben.de/tv/popstars/

The panel has its own version of Paula Abdul, Marta. During one candidate's rendition of 'Beautiful' by Christina Aguilera, she crouched behind the desk and danced among the jury's chairs, while lip-synching to the the song.

There were of course the usual stories and oddities as on any Casting-Show. There was the punk who told the presenter she was her ideal woman and then it cut to a VT of her telling her sob story of how she used to do drink and drugs. The jury liked her but not her singing.

A girl called Marie arrived dressed in her Oma's old frock and 70s sunglasses and then sang "the only song I like from the charts", 'Soul Sister', to great effect. At the call-back somehow her Facebook profile had been sourced and it was revealed she was just an actress and didn't really dress in Grandma clothes at all (I don't see the problem myself of course) and the choreographer man on the panel shook with rage that the jury had been used as an experiment.

It is still raining in Frankfurt and now I think it is time to go to sleep, with the not so gentle pattering of raindrops on the windowsill. Gute Nacht!

More Adventures with Saturn and bureaucracy

I needed to buy a mobile phone. After two and a half weeks I realised maybe waiting until another weekend when I would inevitably make plans/forget to purchase one, I hit Saturn after work.

After some time comparing the Handys (mobile phones) on offer, I decided a Samsung on T Mobile looked like the best choice. So I took it to the till (somewhat logically, you might think). However, it had to be registered first. So I took it to a sales assistant in the phones department. I asked them about the tariffs and another salesperson kept trying to tell me about mobile Internet, but I wasn't intreseted.

So I asked if I had to register the phone. I did. The salesperson asked if I had ID. I offered my driving licence. This isn't classed as ID in Germany. I went home.

On the way home I got a little lost in the music I was listening to, and consequently a little lost in Frankfurt. I missed the turning I would usually take so think I added about a kilometre to my journey. Oh dear. But I got to see a different part of the city which is always good.

The next day I went back to Saturn after work. I had my ID and had fortunately packed my Anmeldungsformular (registration form) in my handbag too, so I could prove not only my identity but also my address. I am not sure why mobile phone companies need so much information, perhaps it is to stop people buying mobile phones and using them for evil means, like they always seem to do on CSI. They can never track down those unregistered Pay As You Go mobiles! And that Germans don't seem too fussed by the amount of personal information you have to give to people (ok, Saturn employees) to do anything also seems a little at odds with the recent German fixation on the evil that is Google Street View, and that Google is becoming, basically, the new Stasi.

The cover of this week's stern magazine:

How the Internet company wants to traffic pictures and details of our lives

So my phone was registered, after some initial problems the salesperson had finding 'Großbritannien' on the list of countries, after looking for 'England' and 'Vereinigtes Königreich' beforehand. I took it to the till, got some rubber stamps and took it home. I opened up the packet and found some PIN numbers behind scratchcard-style panels, but didn't need them in the end.

Meine Pflanze fährt schwarz

My plant is skipping the fare


Yesterday I woke up at 0845 after my housemate advised we should get up early to have time to go to IKEA and the Wiesbaden wine festival. I didn't get out of bed until 0930 though and I was the first one up. She decided she didn't need to go to IKEA in the end, but me and my other flatmate still did. So I got myself ready and made a checklist of what I would need to buy from IKEA, and then I checked how we would get there:

table lamp, scissors, wastepaper basket, rug?, coat hangers, mirror, storage?

We made sure we knew where we were going and then set off. We felt we were sensibly dressed in our jeans and cardis, until we left the front door. It was 27°C. Nonetheless we proceeded to Grüneburgweg U-Bahn station (yes the site of my recent fright) and got the U2 in the direction of Gonzenheim (not Gonzenhem as I managed to write, above). Kalbach was the 11th stop. We discussed Germany's love of dubbing television programmes and films. They're dubbed well but we'd still rather watch the originals.

We got of the U-Bahn at Kalbach. It already felt like we were a long way out of the city. The skyline was on the horizon and there were fields the other side of the tracks. We went to wait for our bus. The carpark next to the station had a strange feel and parked right in the middle was a mushroom-coloured car that was at least 30 years old. It was a little too much like looking at a scene from a late 70s cop show and that car would explode at any moment. The 12 minutes until the bus arrived could not pass quickly enough.

Three teenage boys (let's say they were about 13) were also at the bus stop. They asked us if the bus went to McDonalds. "Keine Ahnung" was my response and they went back to studying the route map. Surely they could just go into town for a McDonalds?

We boarded the bus and sat down. We went round the semi-rural streets and stopped at the McDonalds. We got to Gewerbegebiet Nieder-Eschenbach and alighted. IKEA was obvious enough but the entrance wasn't so we just followed the other alighting passengers across the car park and hoped they had more of an idea than we did. We found the entrance and got our yellow bag and trolley and skipped the furniture displays.

IKEA is pretty much the same everywhere, as far as I can gather. The prices are in Euros in Germany though, and the lingonberry drink is fizzy not still. We got very confused by the self-service tills and I was saddened it would not accept my IKEA Family card because it was not German. Then I forgot to pay for my mirror so had to use the self-service machine again, and this time it did a different process with my bank card which was rather confusing. Next time, we are going to a proper till.

We went up the escalators to the restaurant and got our portions of köttbullar and lingonberry drink (as previously mentioned). It was a pretty scenic view for an IKEA as well (beyond the car park at least):

After we bought our Swedish godis (and I bought some plain crisps as I genuinely don't know where else to buy them in Germany as yet) we headed back downstairs to try and get out of the shop. We ended up walking half way around the Markthalle again and then had to show our receipts as we once again walked past the tills, to show we were not ostentatiously stealing two bags of homewares, a mirror and a plant. The lady told us to use the lockers next time. 

We waited in the baking heat for the bus. I used my mirror as a sunshade. Then we got back on the bus and couldn't work out which tickets you needed so decided to be Schwarzfahrerinnen (fare dodgers) for the short stretch to the U-Bahn, where we would once again acquire legitimate tickets back into Frankfurt. I was slightly terrified. We were hardly inconspicious with our outsized IKEA purchases and I started to convince myself this was the one day that the northern suburbs of Frankfurt would have a crackdown on those riding without tickets.

Die Schwarzfahrenpflanze
The fare-dodger plant

Of course, that did not happen and we got to Kalbach (the mushroom-couloured car had still not exploded), bought our tickets and resumed our journey back to Grüneburgweg. A lady sat next to me and commented on the sun. It was very warm. By the time we were back at Grüneburgweg we couldn't wait to get home and drink some iced water. Luckily we still had some ice left from my 'welcome party' so we got our iced water and then had a little rest. 

On keeping up to date with local news

"Did you hear someone got shot at the central station on Thursday?"

"What?!!"

While enjoying some evening drinks with co-workers on a balcony on Friday, the conversation came upon this shooting incident. One of the people there had been walking by the station and heard the two shots. She said the police shot two men as they tried to rob a bank. What an exciting tale!

However, the events which actually went on seem a bit less exciting.

http://www.fr-online.de/frankfurt/festnahmen-nach-schiesserei/-/1472798/4573198/-/index.html

Shots were fired in front of a bordello in the area of the main station. One man has a poorly arm. Several people have been taken into custody. SWAT (die Sondereinsatzkommando) were called out. Around 15 people (mostly prostitutes) were taken to the police station as witnesses. No-one's life is in danger. Some other people were arrested, but not in connection to this shooting.

Don't worry, I don't hang around the area by the train station. And I will start reading the local news.

Das Vokabelheft

Yes, I really have learnt something since coming to Germany. In fact, I have learnt some German. Despite beng well prepared on the language front (so I liked to think), there are still a lot of German words I do not know. But I'm getting there.

At work, there is a lot of computer-related vocabulary to learn, like der Reiter (tab, as Internet browsers have), das Laufwerk (hard drive) and Spalter and Zeilen (columns and rows on Excel). Then there are the more everyday words you thought you must surely already know, like erhalten (to receive) and gegebenfalls (if necessary). There are the words you need to know for official purposes, like die Lohnsteuerkarte (wage tax card), the ones you want to know to explain that it rains a lot in Sheffield because it is in a valley (das Tal) and the ones you want to know so you can find out what the witnesses on the cop show claim to have heard as the shots were fired: they thought the 'strange tock tock tock' was a woodpecker (der Specht).

Deutschland: Land der Stempel!

Germany: Land of the rubber stamp!


I thought I would 'pop in' to Staurn, the electronics megastore on the Zeil, in my lunch break today to swap a faulty (and somewhat moustache-like) headphone/microphone headset. My first error. I went to the till to tell them that the item was faulty and I would like to bring it back. "Sorry, you have to talk to a salesperson in that deprtment."

So I trotted apparently miles across the vast shopfloor to Computer Zubehör (accessories) and asked the salesman there if I could return the faulty item. "Sorry, you need to go to the service desk."

So I trotted more miles across the vast shopfloor to the info desk (another error on my part). I asked them if I could return the item. "Sorry we can't help you but the security man there will give you a form."

So I went over to the security man who looked at the item and looked at the receipt and filled in a form to say I had brought the item with me and it wasn't stolen. He signed it and stamped it so I asked the lady on the counter if I could return it now. "Sorry but you will have to ask a salesperson in the department you bought it from."

So I trotted off across the vast shopfloor back to Computer Zubehör. "Can I return this now? I have a form!" "Sorry no, you need a bigger form, go ask at the service desk."

So another epic journey across the vast shopfloor, back to the info desk. "Can I return this?" "Sorry you need the service desk over there." Cue another expedition through the aisles of electronics.

I reached the service desk. The queue was very long and not moving anywhere. I had to get back to work.

Work finished early so I decided to 'pop back' to Saturn - surely the service desk would sort this out and I would have a Gutschein (gift certificate) in no time at all!

I queued up at the service desk. I was first in line but both staff members on the desk were occupied: one by a man having an in-depth call on his mobile about what to do about the item he was returning, the other by a family arguing with him and his manager about the finer points of German retail laws. I waited.

I considered the German love of forms and rubber stamps

Another position opened and I was called to the desk. "Can I return this please?" "When did you buy it?" "Saturday" "Oh yes, definitely a gift certificate." The man looked at the form and photocopied the receipt. Then I had to write my name and address on the paper. Then my form got another rubber stamp. "Now you need to take this to a salesperson at the department."

So I trudged what seemed like miles across the vast shopfloor. When would this end?! I was back at Computer Zubehör once again. A different salesman was at the counter this time. There was a form to fill in on the computer. He said he spoke English but I said I needed to practise my German and he seemed happy enough. I had to give him my name and address. I almost forgot how to say "drei" which wasn't the best start. He printed out the form. Then realised it was the wrong form. Then had to fill it all out again. Then he went to check with is boss it was all right. "So is this a gift certificate then?" "Oh you can get your cash back if you want, you just have to take this to the till."

So en route to the till I picked up a different brand of headset. I went to the till. I gave the cashier the form. I paid the 3,00 EUR difference. I had to sign the form to say I had had my refund. I finally left Saturn.

Was it really worth all that for 9,99 EUR?!