If you weren’t aware, Germans apparently LOVE the square, flat pillow. I don’t understand it, as it is pretty much about the same as sleeping on no pillow, but it seems to be all the rage here. I have been waking up with backache from the hard-as-rocks mattress and a permanently crimped neck from the lack of suitable pillow.
I had the foresight yesterday to google directions and write them all down. My first stop was to be a store called “Real”, which the interwebs promised to be some sort of German Wal-Mart. While driving there with my hand-written (wrong) directions, it occurred to me that the youth of today will never have to experience such hell. I remember the days of maps spread wide open, looking for landmarks and going in circles, circles, circles. Well, I experienced that today, and let me just say THANK YOU AL GORE FOR INVENTING THE INTERWEBS. After some aimless driving and purely accidental navigation, I finally ended up at the Real.
And yes, boys and girls, it IS like a German Wal-Mart. Except that it has a bakery, a travel agent, a weird flea-market looking stall, a tobacco shop and a hair salon. Truth. Inside it is like a combination Costco + liquor store + low budget grocery store + ghetto Target. And I’d like to add that the employees also didn’t disappoint. They were true to the Wal-Mart spirit of slow movement, heavy sighs and an almost religious effort to ignore the customer.
So, there I am, wandering the many aisles of German bounty, desperately searching for a GPS. Up and down I went. I found televisions, keyboards, headsets, batteries, electric shavers, coffee makers, home security systems - but no GPS. I was approaching annoyance, as I had specifically googled in advance to be sure this store carried what I needed. I finally turned my data on (remember my ghetto phone that only gets 250MB of data a MONTH? Well I’m already up to 100MB. Thank goodness I can get a real phone tomorrow) - and I went to my iTranslate and typed in “Do you carry a satellite navigation system” and then I walked up to the information desk and showed the nice man the screen.
He sat there, looked at me, looked at the screen. Looked at me some more, and then looked at the screen. Then started laughing. “You want GPS?” he says. “Ja!!!” I all but yell back. My happiness knows no bounds. Not only do they have what I am looking for, but I seemingly have found the one person in this town who speaks passable English. No matter that he looked like Orville Reddenbacher.
Thirty minutes and a few crazy conversations with the checkout lady later, I was happily off to explore with my brand new Tom-Tom. To say that I felt like a weight had been lifted was an understatement. This thing works in 45 countries - nothing can hold me now!!
So off I went to Ikea, and to my first experience on das Autobahn. I should start by saying that it has been absolutely pouring today - I’m talking windshield wipers turned all the way up, limited visibility, rain on the roof the car sounding like Riverdance, pouring. Or, as the Germans seem to perceive it, no big deal and lets go 9000 mph because we can. I am a defensive driver by nature, which is good, because I’m pretty sure that I could have been run off the road at least eleven times today. I might be crazy, but when I CAN’T SEE THE ROAD DUE TO RAIN I am not going to be zipping along at 100 kph. I’m going to stay in the right hand lane and go a more moderate 80 kph, and allow for a safe distance in front of me. That approach, however, did not seem very popular with my fellow drivers.
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It’s weird driving in metric, although going 100 kph seems awesome. I did a quick conversion and it is only 62mph, but the mental effect of going three figures was incredibly exciting. So I finally got to the Ikea - and then remembered why I don’t shop at Ikea. People EVERYWHERE. On a freaking Monday. And it isn’t a holiday. And it was working hours. And the place was huge, and everything was in German. Thank goodness the store had free Wi-Fi, as I spent most of my time translating things to ensure I was buying what I thought I was buying.
When I went to check out, I was extra diligent as I had been warned that only 2 lanes take actual non-German cards. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bank card or credit card, if it isn’t from Germany, they won’t take it in that lane. The signs were beyond confusing, even with my handy translator - so I just gave up and picked a lane that looked like it had a lot of foreigners in it. Biiiig mistake. Huge. I went to pay and I swear the cashier nearly had an aneurysm. She started yelling at me in German and then pointing and then got on the cashier batphone to someone else and began yelling some more, and sighing and putting her head in her hands, and generally acting like I had just told her David Hasselhoff had met an untimely end at a Hard Rock Cafe in Berlin. Girl was freaking OUT. I kept apologizing - “Es tut mir leid! Es tut mir leid!” (which I’m pretty sure is German for “It’s all my fault”) but to no avail.
Finally, this really nice woman came by and rescued me. She took me to the right lane, kindly explaining that the signs are indeed confusing and that only lanes 6 and 11 are good for the future. I was checked out with minimal fuss - but when I looked back at that cashier, she was STILL having kittens over the whole situation. I sure hope that maybe someone takes her out for a beer later, or something. I’d hate to be responsible for her losing it and going all postal up in the Wallau Ikea.
On my way back, there was “Das Verkehr” (traffic) and so my GPS re-routed me through central Wiesbaden. It took me about 2 minutes of driving before my brain was going Yes Yes Yes I want to Live HERE. I don’t know about all of the town (still need to explore) but the street I was on was gorgeous. Reminded me of Paris or central Barcelona. Beautiful old buildings facing the street, with balconied apartments. I’d take a studio to live in something like that. So at least now I have a few streets to tell my relocation helper lady when we meet tomorrow.
And that is it for today’s adventures. Tomorrow I get to fill out loads of paperwork and open a German bank account and then (fingers crossed) get a real, live, complete-with-data, phone. I’m also super excited about giving my new mattress pad and pillows a try tonight. Getting crazy up here in Ingelheim! :P
E-Fed Out.
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