Valentines Day and Germany

No those two things aren't really related to each other, Germans don't really celebrate love. I think they're more into hate. They won't even hold the door for someone.

Honestly how many times in the has someone way ahead of you insisted on holding the door for you forcing you to awkwardly and quickly hurry to the door so they don't have to wait too long? It's practically a daily occurrence, right? But its what you do. Not in Germany. I've been here more than 5 months and not one person has held a door open for me.

Furthermore I was going to class one day and when I get to the door there is this little old cleaning lady trying to get her janitory cart thing through the door. Her mop was falling over, and the door barely opens 90° and what's the German there doing? Waiting and looking annoyed that she's taking so long getting her cart in the building. Had itoccurredd to him that if he just held the door for the LITTLE OLD LADY he'd already be in the building by now? So as I held the door open I gave him my best Way-To-Go-Self-Centered-Ass-Hole-Prick-Can't-You-Hold-The-Door-For-Someone-?-Look but I'm not sure if I got the point across.

Okay now I'm completely on another topic...

All I was going to say is that I commiserated the holiday with German wine and German chocolate, yes, self-bought of course, and that's about all.

And about Germany I was going to say it is crazy. And this is why:

Stereotypically people think Germany is very efficient, organized and systematic. However Germany is infact the polar opposite. Take any simple task, procedure or activity and Germany will prove to you time and time again that it has found a way to make it as difficult as possible.

Whenever you go to a swimming pool at home its usually a fairly simple procedure. You give your money to whoever is working there and you get a Sharpie mark on your hand, or if the place is really high-tech maybe a stamp on the hand. Not in Germany...

I went swimming at a pool in Stuttgart last Friday, and to get in you buy a blue plastic coin from an automated machine. You have to select how long you want to be there, and student or adult ticket.

Then you put the blue coin in a turnstile (I'm sure that word is misspelled but Blogger is being a little B right now) thingy, wait for the coin to come back out, and then walk through. If you've bought a student/youth coin a white sign above your head starts flashing (it says "Youth" in German) to alert the people, that do in fact work there but couldn't possibly be bothered to do anything, so they can make sure you aren't lying to the machine.

So now this blue coin of yours is as important as life itself. If you lose it you have to pay to get out again.

Now the locker room...Alll the changing rooms are these bizarre two doored contraptions. So you walk in one door and the only way to get out once you've closed the door is to pull this even morebizarree lever thing, at which point the doors fly open into you. Honestly I wish I could have taken a picture of it, but I am fully aware that having a camera in a swimming pool locker room would be a tad inappropriate.

There was something more to say about the crazy German pool but now I forgot, oh well.

P.S. I get to be a pirate again tonight!