Achtung, Baby!

Mood: Exhausted

Theme Song: Anything by Herr David Hasselhoff, including that awesome video of him eating a hamburger

Sitting in my hotel room in Munich, totally exhausted. I had to get up at 2:30am GMT to make my 06:30am flight this morning. Even though I took an Ambien and went to bed around 7:30pm last night, I still didn’t really sleep. I never do when I know I have to get up at an ungodly hour. I managed the drive to Gatwick without incident, but I was so tired that I - a) parked in the South Terminal parking lot when I was flying out of the North Terminal (got all the way to security before it was pointed out to me that I was in the wrong terminal - and so I got to take the intra-terminal bus complete with drunken British rider) and also b) managed to leave my clear plastic bag full of my liquids behind at security. I hope I didn’t freak anyone out by abandoning my travel-size Aquafresh and miniature hotel conditioner (that I stole from my last hotel). Of course I didn’t realize that I left these behind until I checked into my hotel this evening. Luckily the nice German guy at the desk gave me a free travel-size toothpaste.

I took my first EasyJet flight - and aside from the cattle stampede to board (there are no assigned seats, so its worse than Southwest with its A, B, and C groups), I found it to be just fine. I ended up with a whole row to myself since only insane people take a flight at 6am, and I managed to get about an hour’s worth of semi-sleep. You know, I hate to point this out because I don’t want to pick on the British race as a whole, but I have noticed some legendary halitosis over here. As in so bad I want to gag stanky breath. And by and large, it is all the same noxious odour. (It’s a British smell, so it gets the extra “u”). So… either I’m hyper-sensitive to funky breath or there is something in the food/water/tea that causes people to smell like they are rotting from the inside out. I don’t know what it is, but it is really, REALLY difficult to be near.


*Note - my British friend Jess does NOT have stank breath or stank anything. I just wanted to clear that up. I am speaking strictly of random weird co-workers and a cornucopia of strangers at Heathrow/on the Eurostar/on the parking lot bus/etc.

After I cleared immigration and came out to the taxi stand at Munich airport, I was rather confused because there was no sort of taxi queue at all. Just a bunch of taxis all lined up, and I didn’t know where to begin. I also didn’t know which ones were “real” taxis and which were gypsy cabs. It didn’t help things that a scary looking swarthy dude hopped out of one of them and started screaming at me (in heavily accented English) “You! You miss! You in cab! Now! In the cab, go! You!” I may be missing a few words, but that was the gist of his outburst. I looked at him and said, “Oh, nononono. HELL no. Not at 9am. I need someone who speaks English”. I didn’t add “and also doesn’t look like they want to knife-rape me in a dark German alley”. I went back into the terminal and found a group of men having a bit of a koffee klatsch. After busting out my horrid German “spreich-en-zee Aing-lisch?” I found a non-felonious looking one to take me to our German offices.

On the way there I couldn’t help but notice how flat - and boring - the area on either side of the highway was. I was also cracking up at the signs I saw saying “Ausfahrt”. Until I put two and two together and figured out that there couldn’t be that many places with the same name and it had to mean “Exit” or “Warning”. (Turns out it meant exit - its still damn funny.) It was nice to be on the “right” side of the road again, though. And no roundy-roundys! Just normal turns and exits - yay!!

Oh, and people over here put a melodious sound to my last name - its “Fey-der-mahn”. No “Feed-er-man”. Or, as I recall from one really bad visit to the doctor’s office when I was little, “Urn Fid-dermun”. And that’s on the real, yo.

We had lunch in the office park “canteen” - basically a cafeteria that offers a discount to the companies who are in that area. I had roasted chicken - Henckel something or other, a tomato and “oh-live” mix (pronouced “oh” and “live” like “Live! In concert…”), and yellow rice. It was pretty good, once I picked out the olives. I was shocked to see that weinerschnitzel is not a weiner at all, but some kind of flat pork patty. And german potato salad looks nothing like I remember from countless Cincinnati picnics.

I had dinner with a colleague at a pretty nice restaurant near the hotel, where I had a real German riesling (not super sweet like in America). I also took advantage of the restaurant’s “Steak Happy Hour”. Seriously, with a name like that, how could I not? The menu even said, in English, “Happy Steak Days!”. It came with some vegetables and a baked potato with a dill yogurt sauce that was surprisingly good. I passed on the espresso because I’d actually like to sleep again this week.

Tomorrow is more meetings and then back to Gatwick on the evening flight. It snowed a bit this afternoon so I hope it doesn’t keep up again tomorrow, as I’d really like to get home at a reasonable hour. The good news is that I’ve got a “tea” date with some work friends on Saturday and I am going to try to get together with the two women I met at last weekend’s housewarming party. Trying to enjoy my weekends at home before the whirlwind travel later this month wherein I will hit Canada, the U.S., Mexico, possibly Japan and then Brussels. All within roughly 3 weeks. Yeah, I know I asked for this, but it doesn’t make all the long flights any more fun!!

Before I literally pass out, some more random thoughts -

• It is SOOOO American to say “Have a nice day!”. No one in England does that, and I can’t seem to help myself!
• At the end of a phone conversation, the Brits will say “Bye!” but put a high inflection on the end like it is a question almost. Totally confused me for the first few weeks I was over here.
• I told one of the ladies in the neighbourhood that I was decorating my flat and she thought I was painting and renovating the place. Turns out my version of decorating (i.e. hanging a few pictures, putting out knick-knacks, etc) does not jibe with the UK version.

I can’t stress this enough - Americans are UNBELIEVABLY spoiled by convenience and service. We aren’t used to waiting for things and we like to get what we want, when we want it. I literally have to stop myself from getting pissed off when I encounter a situation that in the U.S. would be deemed “unacceptable”. For example, terrible service. Over here, its kind of like “just deal with it”. Or waiting in line for ages… and ages… and ages. It just happens. And I’m pretty sure that “the customer is always right” has never made it across the pond.

Off to try to fall asleep, though I’m pretty intruiged by all the American TV that is dubbed over in German. EVERYTHING is funnier in German. So far I’ve seen German American Idol, German Cops, CSI: New York (in German) and now Desperate Housewives. Sadly, in the case of the latter, changing the language hasn’t improved the programming at all.

Federman out.
Guten Nacht, y'all..