A Hotel Story

This is a story to keep in mind during these holiday parties you might attend in Germany.

Years ago, as a contractor....we had a party at a local German castle-turned-into-a-hotel.  They had several floors and it was well built.

My division chief was a gal who was married, and she felt this would be a special night....so she and the husband rented a room in the castle.

As evening advanced and the party started to wind down.....she told the husband that she was leaving for the room and he ought to be there in twenty minutes.

About halfway up the stairs ...up around the third floor, on her way to the fourth floor....she needed to use a toilet badly, and stopped in that hallway for a minute at the toilet next to the door.  One of the hotel folks came by and locked the toilet door, and the hallway door because this wasn't going to be rented out that night.  Naturally, they didn't check to see if anyone was in the toilet.

The husband advanced onto the room....finding no wife.  The wife was yelling and screaming in the toilet a floor below but no one could hear her.

The heat was turned off for the third floor....so the temperature started to decrease.

The husband went to the management after an hour....worried over the wife.  She wasn't to be found.  They checked the parking lot, and various locations.  I'm guessing they suggested that maybe she might with another guy (a natural Germany suspicion of things).

My boss sat there as the temp got down into the forties in the toilet, until around 6AM....when they unlocked the door.

She was peeved.  The hotel guys were sorry.  And the husband could never explain why he didn't make enough of an effort.

So bear all of this in mind for this holiday season....as you might attend an odd party or two.

A Moment of My Time

This is a blog written by an American....detailing perceptions that some Americans get....after a while of viewing German TV and German commentary. Basically, Germans won't naturally come up to your face and tell you that they hate you.  They kind of draw things out in a polite sense....that you (the United States, as if you are that actual figure)....have screwed up.

Its never anything personal....but simply a thing that bothers them about America and certain behaviors of America.

Naturally, you are a bit shocked, but then you realize...being an American....you generally have some dislike tendencies yourself....like you are from the south and have a dislike of anything from California, or you grew up in New York and make jokes over folks from Mississippi.  So maybe those Germans are just acting that way.

But they want to correct you on this. Its not like hating California or Californians. Nope....just not like that at all.

First, you must realize, that you Americans are gluttons. You waste so much. You drive 8-cylinder cars which are totally unnecessary. You run pick-ups around getting barely 15 miles per gallon. You are totally wasteful.

You have houses of 3,000 square feet and you cool it with a massive air conditioner. You have a freezer in the kitchen and a freezer in the garage, plus a second fridge in the basement where the guy of the house keep his cold beer. You have a front yard that is a full acre in size, which is totally unnecessary.

You have a car for your sixteen year old daughter or son, which is totally unnecessary.

You even buy 150 percent of the food necessary to survive. Then they start to pile on the wood and let you know the other bad things about Americans.

Patriotism is a bad evil thing....and you Americans are the worst at this. Your flag business, your national pride, your holidays to honor the military dead....make patriotism into a terrible thing. You allow some idiot country and western singer to write up a song and sing it proudly about "kicking butt" whenever necessary. These are all bad things.

They start to talk about the poor Americans and no health care....that you ought to redistribute your wealth from the rich to the poor. You ought to take care of everyone, from the employed to the unemployed. You ought to give away free health care. You have no compassion for your fellow citizens.

Eventually, they will come around to the death penalty, prisons and guns. They'd like to let you know that the death penalty is very uncivilized and totally the fault of having no real distribution of wealth to the poor in your country. Those people in the prisons.....half of them should not be there.

As for guns....its totally wrong for so many weapons to be in the hands of the public. There should be control....a process to be trained on weapons and a process to sell weapons and a process to secure weapons in a safe within your house. Americans are killing themselves with so many weapons.

They will toss in religious problems at some point. Americans are perverted in their nature of religion, with televised religion 24-hours a day. Religion controls so many of the laws and often harms the society at hand.

You Americans create a moral wave that hinders society and makes life miserable.

Finally....for general measure.....they will get around to Bush, Iraq, Afghanistan, New Orleans, and Hurricane Katrina.

At the conclusion of their hot-winded episode....they pause. They want you to respond. They want debate. They want you to attempt a feeble comeback so they can blast you a second time. They'd like to walk home that day and feel good that they proved their point yet again.

So you allow a long pause. Looking the guy in the eye....you make a brief but pointed statement.

We are sorry for taking in millions upon millions of people who left their homelands in search of a better life.

We are sorry for having a form of government that allowed them in the front door and allowed them to make their lives twice as good as they had in the old country.

We are truly sorry that their children grew up in such a society and became easily accepted as one of the locals.

We are sorry that that we didn't make language requirements to force these people to all speak one common language upon arrival.

We are sorry for maintaining a military capability that provide rescue relief to the entire globe and move a million tons of cargo per week if necessary for a country in distress.

We are sorry that folks in New Orleans wouldn't evacuate their homes for shelters far from the affected area.

We are sorry that we make too much money and squander on what things we don't deserve.

We are sorry for buying your Audis, your BMWs, and your Mercedes. We thought they looked pretty neat....though very expensive....but since you had some for sale...what the heck!

We are mostly sorry for being a bit patriotic and over-zealous.

We are sorry for being the crowd that can't grasp the word "impossible".

We are sorry for creating legends like Babe Ruth, Steve Jobs, Microsoft, Vince Lombardi, and Larry Bird.

We are sorry for waving flags...especially over the Normandy Beach on the 6th of June 1944. We are also sorry for waving flags over Nazi Germany in 1945.

We are sorry about the prisons that house criminals....we'd like to let our criminals roam free like they do in Germany. We'd like to apologize for our guns that we keep in the basement or the hallway closet. We had to fight off some British rowdies in the 1700s and just haven't gotten over that little episode where no military could cover our butt.

We are sorry for feeding 100 million outside of the US. We are sorry for growing way too much corn, wheat and soy beans. We are sorry for using all that fuel to grow all those crops. We are sorry for producing way too much cattle that end up on tables in Europe, Japan and Asia. We are sorry for having the transportation sector that can move a massive amount of cargo each week.

We are sorry for alot of things. We are a pitiful lot.

We have no Roman culture, no French works of art, no real German gourmet cooks, no fancy British castles, and no great Shakespeare-like writers. We don't have Irish pubs where everyone sits around and talks constantly day in and day out of their sad woes and sorrows. In fact....we don't even have folks sitting around thinking of what terrible folks Americans are.

We'd like to have a society like that in America...that could daily think and dream of various ways to talk down America....but we're a bit busy, and we really don't have time to squander. We'll put your criticism on our list of things to fix...but its likely to be around the second five hundred things we gotta fix.

So here is the final note....as you've tossed all this choice criticism onto us.  We are probably the only country around where folks would invite you back to our front porch....after you cut loose on your criticism.  We are a bit foolish and naive.  We probably aren't as charming or witty as you.  Maybe you'd eventually come to ask why anyone would be nice to invite such criticism and keep allowing such friends and guests to continually come back.

Life on the Fast Lane

ADAC is the German automobile association that does a lot of research on cars, the autobahns, roads, safety, and anything automotive.  They publish a monthly magazine where a hundred significant things are laid out in a usually interesting fashion.  Well...this week, they came out with a report on toboggans....those fine and fast sleds that Germans are thrilled to operate.

It's best to say that ADAC always comes down hard on safety.  In this case.....they went out and found around two dozen toboggan runs.  The majority had issues of safety.  Barb wire was even written into the comments....as being fairly close the run.

As an American who grew up in the south....I never had the thrill of toboggans.  Through my Germany years....I did it twice, on very short hillsides....which tend to be safe.

I would offer up this advice that if you've never done it and see an opportunity while in Bavaria or anywhere in Germany for that matter....it's best to pick a simple toboggan and a short hill to get some practice.  Don't rush out to buy one....because the lack of control might eventually dawn on you while on your first run.  It's not exactly something that you can stop easily with.  So borrow or rent one....and grasp the fair amount of risk involved.

As for ADAC's comments?  Well....if you read the magazine religiously....you probably would never use autobahn restrooms, eat at any restaurant on the autobahn, or ride any vehicle on a mountain pass.  That might say something.