Sep 2006

Well life is still ticking along just nicely over here, on the other side of the world. Thankfully the sun came back, and winter has held off for a wee bit longer. I get strange looks when I drop the boys off at school, when I casually stroll around in my shorts and t-shirt while the flash mummies are all wrapped up as if it’s the middle of a NZ winter. Although it’s not exactly tropical, I’d describe the temperature more as ‘fresh’. I hadn’t really thought about it but I have had a year long summer, so winter is going to be a bit of a shock to the system when it does arrive in full swing.

After Mum left, and carried on her way to Croatia and Bosnia on her religious pilgrimage – I got straight back into things and I joined the library and the gym. The library has reasonable size English section, €10 for a year’s membership so I am in heaven. The gym thankfully has quite a high number of staff who can speak English or at least a bit of Germish. I spent last week getting weighed, measured and condition tested, of which I was absolutely horrified at my initial analysis. But that’s why I signed up in the first place huh!? The gym works a little differently to home – hell what do I know I only went about 5 times to the one at the University in Hamilton. But basically I pay my monthly membership which is €39, and then I have access to everything, even free massages!! I have a personal trainer whenever I need one, literally, and they’re making up a nutritional plan for me for teaching me how to eat whilst in Germany. They have lots of classes running which will be perfect for me, and might be a chance to socialise a bit. Strangely enough I had already managed to loose 10 kilos since arriving, with out even really trying. I think all the walking in Italy, the decrease in consumption of takeaways and the reversal of eating patterns has helped considerably. Germans have their main meal at lunch, eat a very light dinner and seldom have junk food. But the weight loss still surprises me because all they ever seem to eat here is bread, cheese and meat. Hmmm.

I went to another BBQ with a different English speaking group, I was feeling absolutely awful but dragged myself along anyway for a nice sunny Sunday afternoon BBQ. I couldn’t eat a bite all day, but managed to plonk myself at one of the tables and didn’t move for nearly five hours. The group was mainly made up of British, but there were a few Americans, one Australian, and a few Germans. I was of course the youngest there, but it wasn’t a problem. I met a nice Scottish woman who is more than willing to off load all her old books to me.

As there’s never a dull minute when I’m around, I received a phone call from a young girl nearly two weeks ago claiming I had hit her car, a brand new ‘Smart car’. Yes another traffic incident! You would think the car crash before, and speeding tickets were enough wouldn’t you! One morning on my way to taking the boys to school, I had moved behind a car blocking a side street, to let another car coming up the main (yet narrow) street to pass. The car in front of me suddenly started to reverse and so I honked the horn to warn her not to hit me, as it then became obvious she hadn’t pulled over to let the car pass but was instead trying to get into a car park which I was now in. The other car coming up the street passed, and I went on my way. Apparently she is now claiming I hit her car, and scratched and dented it, then I left the scene of an accident and she has an eye witnesses. As it happened virtually right outside the house, and our names are on the front gate I imagine that’s how she got our phone number; otherwise they must give out personal information to people who have your license plate number. I am really peeved because I never felt any impact what so ever, neither did the boys, and if there was an impact surely it must be her fault for not checking her rear-view mirror?!? She told Frank I must have been in a hurry, that’s why I honked the horn and then drove off. I never thought there was an accident, so of course I didn’t stay. But it may get tricky because she claims she has eye witnesses, who could be bloody anyone (probably just one of her mates) and the whole thing could end up in court and get messy. The alternative is I pay for it to get fixed and it gets forgotten about. But as I have very limited income as it is, it would be a devastating blow and I really don’t feel I have done anything wrong. A whole big case of misunderstanding!! I have since seen the car parked outside the house, as she goes to the high school a few doors down, and I can’t see a mark on the car at all, but it could have already been fixed by now.

To add to the chaos, I came out of the supermarket the other day and low and behold, someone has driven into the side of my car, and dented it with out leaving any details! No one was around either so I couldn’t ask anyone what had happened. It is really frustrating because I know how careful I am whilst driving here, and it just feels like one thing after the other – and Frank and Nicole have enough things to think about without me adding to it.

The last few days have also been rather eventful, as Max got sick at school and so he got taken to the doctors and then admitted to hospital where he spent two nights. The health system works very differently to home, and instead of kicking them out of the beds ASAP they try to keep them in there as long as possible because the Insurance companies shell out hundreds of euro a day to the hospital. Max had a bit of a fever, stomach cramps and funny red spots all over his head, they kept talking about it being ‘Scarlet Fever’ but nothing is still clear yet as to what was wrong with him. He is now home, as Nicole refused to play the hospitals game, and it was obvious he really didn’t need to be there any longer. Frank is in China for work, and Oma and Opa are staying for a few days. I have been looking after Mike and keeping him entertained, which usually means playing soccer in the drive way, and making sure Max is ok.

But it’s not all work, yesterday I spent the afternoon sitting on a rug in the sun by an old castle and big lake in the park, and read my book, ahh bliss. Then for dinner we went to a nice wine garden along the Rhine River. I have been going to the gym nearly every day, I go for walks through Wiesbaden city centre and I’ve also driven into Frankfurt and gone to the English Cinema and saw ‘Das Parfum’ (sorry no idea what the English title is) and also ‘The Break Up’. I like to sit out in the garden and attempt reading a German magazine, and watch all the squirrels in the trees collecting food for the winter. The first signs of autumn are here, the tree lined streets are turning red and there are carts with big orange pumpkins on the sides of the country roads. Nicole has brought a few home, and the boys are well practised at craving them. I have been told I need to master the art before Halloween arrives, as each year they have a big party and go crazy with decorating the house. I also have five days off in a row at the end of next week so I am off to Berlin with Stefan, and he’s going to show me some of the sights and sounds. So one could say, life’s not to bad for me at the moment.

Well that’s all for now, can you believe I have been here almost four months? You better start thinking about Christmas and birthday presents for me, because it’s going to take a while for any packages to get here, with the way the German postal system operates. Hint hint!

Well the first day back to school for the boys this week. Mike has moved to the big boys’ school, a year ahead of the rest of his friends to start in a bilingual preschool, housed just a room away from Max’s class. Nicole and I were both surprised when we left Mike with his new teacher, and there was barely any reaction. He had been the king of his kindergarten, and was one of the bigger kids there and here he starts right back at the bottom without knowing a soul in his class.

Summer is well and truly over and it feels as if the weather gods have decided we won’t bother with an autumn this year, and let’s just skip straight to winter. I unfortunately do not own any winter clothes and am forced to endure the cold chill in the air. This summer has been one of the hottest recorded in years, and it also strangely happens to be one of the shortest. But the sun could come back, you just never really know.

Nice and early on Tuesday I was sent to pick up a family friend from the Airport, the last person I expected to see through the arrival gates was my very own Mother all the way from New Zealand. She had been planning a trip to Eastern Europe months before I had even mentioned my intentions of moving to Germany. So she had contacted Nicole, and arranged to come and stay for just under a week, before joining her tour group for the rest of the religious pilgrimage throughout Croatia, Bosnia and Italy. She hadn’t even told my grandmother she was coming, until the day before she left NZ. I was a little taken back to say the least, and I my first reaction was of course to swear. I didn’t take any notice at the time, but apparently a few people around us were quite startled with my reaction. Mum even pulled out the digi to start snapping away at my reaction.

When I had composed myself and recovered from the shock, I took her shopping in Wiesbaden – to get some of the winter clothes I desperately needed and to show her the sights. On Wednesday we did the tour through Mainz, and I took her to several churches (dutiful daughter that I am). On Thursday we went to the Kaiser-Friedrich Irish Roman Thermal baths, which are famous in the area, and of which I didn’t realise fully until I had gotten there, were ‘textile free’. So I had to cast aside twenty-one years of inhibitions and get back to nature, my only saving grace was that I couldn’t wear my glasses, and so I had no way of being able to see peoples reactions and expressions. So we spent the morning going around the different pools and saunas, the Finnish sauna had an air temperature of 85 to 90 degrees celsius. We even went so far as to have a Rasul treatment, where we had to cover ourselves in different mud, then sit for half an hour in a scented steam room before rubbing oil all over ourselves. The Germans are crazy about ‘spas’ and there is a whole health-craze phenomenon surrounding them, they are even covered by their health insurance. I am glad I stuck it out, and it certainly opened my eyes to a different way of life. Germans (and most other Western European countries) are surprisingly liberal when it comes to nudity and censorship. Throughout summer, it was not uncommon to see women sunbathing topless in the cities parks during their lunch breaks, and boobs are flashed all over the TV and in normal magazines, not at all like our reserved attitudes back home in New Zealand, a hang up I guess from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers.

Finally I took her on a tour of some of the villages along the Rhine. I even managed to find a historic Cistercian Monastery, a religious order my mother is connected with back in NZ. Thankfully, the monastery has been un-inhabited since the early 19th Century so it was more of a museum, than a religious institution. I took her to the touristy town of Rüdesheim, where we ate schnitzel and strudel then we walked amongst the tour groups of old ladies in twin-sets and loud touritsts along the famous ‘Drossel Straße’. The highlight of Mums day was seeing a small dog, with what appeared to be underwear covering its backside.

So even though it was an unexpected visit I got to show Mum some of the sights and sounds of my life as an Au Pair in Germany. She was impressed with how well the boys behaved, the standard of my driving, the life style the family lives and the ingenuity of the way the Germans do things or the way things are made.