Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

Well, our grandiose plan to jaunt off to some quaint little Austrian
village this weekend was pummeled like a peasant under the fall of a
trebuchet round. Instead of learning to widdle my own cuckoo clock, I
was standing in line with customer service for two hours trying to get
Jaime's cell phone squared away. Why Saturday at 11am you ask? Well,
that's the only time the manager could meet with me. What's great about
Germany, is also what really sucks about Germany, they are straight
forward, what they say is what they mean; no wiggle room. I'm on board
with this 99% of the time, but in this situation, I'm not. I signed a 2
year contract with an agreement to pay a discounted rate for the phone,
and pay the bills automatically out of my checking. Good to go, the
store approves me, activates the phone, then I leave. All is well in the
world. The next day the phone stops working. We call customer service
and I go back to the store and after another round of sign language and
charades I'm told that after further review, my bank account was too new
and that they needed some other means to guarantee my payments. They
want 150euros. I said, thanks but I'm not down with that new and
improved plan, so I'll just return the phone and move along. NIEN NIEN
NIEN, DAS IST FORBOTTEN. I'm told and I quote "You sign a contract to
us, you must oblige" to which I, still thinking this will easily be
resolved with a good translator, reply "No, I signed a contract for a
1euro phone and monthly service, not a 150euro phone. Your system
approved me yesterday, so I signed. After the fact you tell me I owe
150euro, that's not happening, here's your phone". They disagree, to
them a contract is a contract. PERIOD. I argue for a few more minutes
then leave and come back the next day. I get a great German girl, who
speaks excellent English and who agrees 100% with me. She calls the
company, argues my case, even calls the President of Media Markt (Like
BestBuy) where I bought the phone, but nobody can convince the T-Mobile
reseller to cancel the contract. That was my Saturday.

On Sunday we went to our new Church, which was good. It was a little bit
of culture shock for us because the preacher, who had been in Asia for
the last 20 years prior to coming to Germany two years ago, didn't speak
in the politically correct manner in which American's are used to. I
came to the realization that American's, stereotypically, are too
sensitive. This is why I say this; The preacher, when talking about a
girl who was getting baptized said to her "you will fit in there (the
box of water), don't worry, you are a little Chinese girl" Jaime and I
looked at each other as if to say without words "whaaaa did he just
say". But we chalked it up to bad hearing. Then later he was asking
newcomers where they were from, which in and of itself was a shock to me
that he would ask newcomers to stand up in front of 300 people, because
I'm about as outgoing as an EMO turtle, these two black girls stood up
and answered Vaingengen (a nearby town), at which time the preacher said
"Vaingengen, I thought you were gonna say something like some
town in Africa or something". At hearing this, Jaime and I ducked,
expecting a 1-800-Ask-Gary begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-800-Ask-Gary end_of_the_skype_highlighting banner flying airplane to come flying through
the sanctuary at that very moment. But quite the contrary, the girls
said "yes, well we came from Kenya last year" and everybody reacted as
if it was normal. See, he meant no harm by what he said, he genuinely
meant that he thought that they might be from Africa, because this is an
International Church, and all nationalities attend from everywhere and
on top of that Germans say exactly what they mean, no hidden meanings,
no alterior motives, which is good. I guess I'm just used to the way
American's get their feelings hurt so easily. Imagine an American
hostess telling a patron that they were to fat to sit at that booth;
lawsuit city. Not in Germany, if you ask how the jeans make you look, be
prepared to hear "well they push your fat up over the top in a muffin
like fashion and your butt is too wide for this style".

After leaving church, we made a spur of the moment decision to make the
drive to Ramstien Air Force base. Of course I didn't google it or look
it up, I just started driving, and about 30 minutes into our drive I
turned on the GPS...ARRIVAL TIME TWO HOURS!! It wasn't so bad, the hum
of the car at 105mph put everyone to sleep, and we arrived in 1hr 30min.
Now, if you have any experience with the military, you know that the
Army has the crappiest bases and the Air Force has the best bases, and I
can attest to this as I spent 6 years on an Army post as an Air Force
guy. But I had no idea what was in store for me at Ramstien. Ramstien
is the EUROPEAN hub for the Air Force. All the guys coming to and from
the war stop here. All the Space "A" travel stops here, basically, any
flight in Europe comes through Ramstien. On the Stuttgart Army
barracks we have a little food court with Popeyes, Pizza Hut, and
Charley's. On the other base is a Burger King truck. At
Ramstien.....they do R&R right. They have a Chili's restaurant, and a
Macaroni Grill ON BASE. Then they don't have a BX, they have A MALL.
With a food court that rivals the Brandon Town Center food court,
complete with a Johnny Rocket's. Unfortunately though, even though the
infrastructure is there, the on base food is just not the same as it is
in the states, and I don't know why. It's close, but a little off.

Anyway, this week, we are going to try to get Jaime's phone issue
resolved and check out our first Fest downtown. Maybe we'll get out of
town this weekend, do something exciting? I'll lead my family into some
great adventure that they will undoubtedly write songs about later in
life.