Haircuts, old friends and Frauke (again)

G´day,

And an extremly special welcome to Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord, Andrew and Scott. And Otto even though he´s no official follower, please note that I won´t do another edit for you. If I am wrong next time, just live with it...

After two month I had to get a new haircut...Germany is expensive, 12.50 Euro for 15 min haircutting...last haircut in Melbourne was $15...but the result is ok and now I´ll have a decent head for the next two month...
Yesterday evening I visited my old friends Micha and Dani in their "new" flat, well they have moved 3 years ago but for me it was the first time there, so it´s the new flat...

And I met one of my favorite four legged colleague of all time: Lemmy.

And he was really really happy to see me...awesome...but he got tired of all the tailwagging...

Michael and me had a lot of beer and talked and talked and talked, well after nearly three years there is lots to talk about but it´s funny that with some people you can just continue after a three year break as if you had met just yesterday...
Before that I was at Gaby´s and took some more Frauke pictures. She is soooooo sweet and she has such huge blue eyes. And she obviously doesn´t like to be photographed while eating...

Hehe...

And this is another picture of the proud mother and her daughter...

Ok, that´s all for today, take care and cya

My seventh follower! Welcome Scott...

G´day,



And a special welcome to Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord and Andrew and an extra special welcome to Scott who joined my congregation. Hey mate, how is it going? And btw, if you have money...well....you know...

I am sitting in my seminar now and enjoy the possibilities of Facebook. Having friends all over the world means that regardless the time someone is always online and equally bored...

Well, I am working on a blog entry for you (australian) guys on the 60th aniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany which happened last weekend. TV, newspaper and magazines are full with more or less interesting articles on who are we and where do we stand (we=the Germans). So I´m doing my own German´s birthday article but please note that this will take some time.

Ok, that much for today, have fun and cya later! Take care!

Random pictures, my friend Otto singing, recent German news on the German past and why Bavaria isn´t Germany

G´day again,

And a very special welcome to my congregation, Hi Emm, Josara, Julia, Cord and Andrew. I hope you are still reading and have not already given up on me. And I´m sorry that I became lazy but on days when I spend already 8 hours on the comp I don´t have the creative energy to do a decent blog entry. Well I don´t want my standards to suffer...

This entry will feature some pics from my parent’s garden.

The pond is quite beautiful and even has a tortoise living in it, the only drawback are the damn frogs. Apparently it´s frog mating season now and a male frog doesn´t buy a fancy car or flashy clothes to attract females, they think behave like Heavy Metal bands, the louder the better. And our frogs have Manowar qualities, so to speak. And they don´t stop at dusk, no they quack even louder. Even the old threat with the straw didn´t stop them, maybe they sense that unnecessary cruelty towards animals is not my cup of tea...

Anyway, frog sexuality is, apart from the noisiness, quite interesting. One can say that the frogs taste in sex would be either orgy or rather mass-rape. The pond is full of clusters of frogs, one female somewhere at the bottom and 20 males trying to score. The cynic in me reminds me that certain locations in the human world on a Saturday night very much resemble that behavior, well more civilised of course and with the help of alcohol but nevertheless... Btw, this is my mum trying to take a pic of me but I was faster... And this is my old workplace and Björn, my successor. Please note the Nick Cave pic in the top right hand corner. The underline says: "I don´t do it that often anymore but masturbation at my desk has always been a relief for me" This is my friend Alex, we know each other for over 20 years now and she came to visit me two weekends ago. I also have a pic of Alex in cool: Well, my sunnies will make anyone appear cool.

The weekend after I visited my old friend Otto, who was one of the first of my friends to breed. In 1998 he got his first son who was names "Jan". I was a little proud but Jan is a good name anyway. Last time I saw Jan was over 3 years ago and he was still a little shy boy but now he´s already a big guy: Otto and his woman Mickey have a patch in the communal garden with a little house and trees and veggies and stuff, so we sat there and drank beer. And talked and drank some more. And when it was dark we lit a fire and drank some more. And talked music and at one point (like always) we got the guitar and played stuff. I recorded Otto´s version of the old German folk song "König von Thule" at probably 4.00am after we have already finished the first crate of beer and were working through the second one. You can´t actually see anything but the sound is quite ok. Enjoy...

As I always wanted to use this blog to also tell some stories from Germany which won´t make the Australian news, here is a story I personally find quite interesting. In oder to understand the significance of the news I have to explain some historical contexts.

In the mid sixties the global youth movement also reached Germany´s students. Political awareness grew and the students started to organise themselves and do the usual urban guerilla activities, demonstrate against the war in Vietnam, wave Che Guevara flags and smoke pot. The special situation in Germany was that in the mid sixties many university professors and political officials still had a Nazi-past. Well the 3rd Reich has ended just 20 years before so the global generation conflict had the additional layer of fighting against the ghosts of the past. All in all the German political youth movement was not better or worse than in the other countries until the Shah of Persia came for an official visit in early June 1967. On the 2nd of June 1967 was a huge demonstration planed in West-Berlin against the Shah (symbol of a fascistic oppressive system, puppet of the imperialistic Americans and so on). During this demonstration the student Benno Ohnesorg was killed by a shot to the back of his head by the cop Karl-Heinz Kurras, from a distance of 1.5m. Benno Ohnesorg became a martyr for the student movement and the whole student movement got radical. Historians point this event as the birth hour of the German terror movement of the seventies.

Well that is all history but last week journalists revealed and proved that Karl-Heinz Kurras was an East German agent. So right now the newspapers are full of speculations if the death of Benno Ohnesorg and the resulting chaos was planed and directed by East Germany. It would kind of fit as they have supported the West-German terrorist groups in the 70ies but I guess you can´t prove anything here.

And the last note on Germany for today is the experience my sister just had in Bavaria. My sister will start a new job as a medical doctor shortly and doctors, as well as some other professionals, have to swear an oath on the constitution and sign some papers that they are not members or supporters of extremist organisations. So far so good, I had to do that also when I got sworn in to do the practical part of my studies and worked as a legal professional. My sister had to swear not on the German constitution but on the Bavarian constitution. And then she got this form she had to sign that she is no member or supporter of extremist organisations. This had a list attached with all the organisation the Bavarian country government considers extremistic. It had the usual suspects on them, like Islamic jihad and the revolutionary trotzkistic movement but it also had the political party "Die Linke" which is Germany´s socialistic party on it. "Die Linke" is currently in the German House of Representatives with around 7%. Not even the conservatives tried to initiate a process to find out if Die Linke might be a forbidden organisation. So in Bavaria you could be a member of a normal democratic party but you would have a note in your work documents that you are an "Extremist". That´s Bavaria for you...it might be beautiful and stuff but if you come to visit Germany, I can show you other beautiful spots with a better atmosphere...

No music today...

G´day,

Yeah I know...I got slack with my blogging but I´ll update the blog today and put some pics and a video up. I just wasted 2 hours trying to upload a song from my old band to the blog but it´s not possible. I will need to convert it into a video and I have no idea how to do that...

Ok...I´ll start the new blog entry now and it should be online in let´s say 2-3 hours...

Cya

More fun of being workless and Frauke

G´day,


And a friendly "Hi!" to Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord and Andrew. This blog topic will introduce Frauke, the baby girl of my Ex-girlfriend Gaby and Frank and will continue the saga of being workless in Germany, this time in a different location.

First things first: this is Frauke
Yes, I can hear my readers of the female persuasion go "Sweeeeeet" and feel their ovaries stir. But even though I don´t have ovaries I was thinking "Sweet girl", too. She´s now a little over 9 month old and teething which doesn´t seem to be fun. I learned about "Children teeth gel" and homeopathic stuff and that proud parents hardly talk about anything else than their kid. But fair enough...
This is Gaby counting homeopathic teething stuff and Frauke eying this skeptically. Looking skeptically at the world around her seems to be the specialty of this girl but I also saw her smile. Even at me...which was nice...

Every now and again Frauke decided that she rather cuddle with mum than looking at this strange guy (me) who made faces and behaved generally childish...well who can blame her?

It´s kind of strange that I seem to have a natural attraction to cats, dogs and babies, Gaby explained that usually Frauke strongly disapproves of strangers (and even regards her own grandparents as strangers) but I´m an exception...

On a different topic, the actual reason why I was in Münster that day was because I had an appointment with my personal placement officer. Please bear in mind that I worked for 5 years as editor for a labour and social law database and I might not be such an expert in this field as I was 3 years ago but I still have a profound knowledge of this matter. And even though he had my CV in front of him ("Ah, so you know all about this matter from your former workplace?") he did his once-speech-fits-all...for one hour..."As you now this are the duties....bla bla la...this are the rights...bla...bla...bla"...I escaped into the smile and nod approach which can be called the appropriate way of dealing with this sort of situations....tried and tested twice now.

At minute 50 came the revelation: the instant action in Münster is not clock making (mmmm, nicey clock) for two weeks but a seminar ("Being jobless for beginners") for three weeks. But at least I don´t have to go there, when I have job interviews or other job-market related activities. And somehow I have the feeling that I will have quite a lot of those next week...I´ll tell you how that went on Monday...I might even take some pics of the other poor sods in there...

Meanwhile I am used as a garden slave by my parents and will escape to my friend Otto tonight. Drinking beer in the communal gardens and maybe going out later...Ok so much for today, have fun and enjoy your weekend! Cya

The fun of being workless in Germany...

G´day!

And again a special welcome to my congregation, Hi Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord and Andrew. Sorry that it took me so long but I was freakin busy and every blog entry takes quite some time (author´s vanity...it must be good) but here I go. Today I want to tell you about how great it is to be workless in Germany.

First the legal basics: Germany is a so called "social market economy", meaning that there is a public social and welfare system that should prevent the unfortunate to starve to death. Well, over the last 10 years the system has been changed, re-changed and again modified and fine-tuned but as our government is not the strongest right now (we have a coalition of both the large parties, social democrats and conservatives), all the political decisions are huge compromises. The result is that they were unable to make a real change in the social security system and just modified the existing systems a little. Smoke and mirrors...but what can you do?

As a law abiding German I have already contacted the federal labour administration via internet from Australia and tried to register with them. I have already reported how unsuccessful that went...But when it was clear that I wouldn’t get any benefits from them I registered with the social welfare office.

Well my case was a little unusual and the officer had to ask three other guys there if a person who has worked in Australia would be considered as having worked in the European Union. My carefully applied lecture on geography seemed to go nowhere, common sense is not asked for, as long as it´s not written down somewhere Australia could be part of the European Union...oh, well...

When she found a law which stated that Australia is in fact NOT part of the European Union she gave me some (about 50) forms to fill out and then she continued to do it by the book:
She committed me to join a so called "instant action". This thingy is designed to prove that people are willing to work. For 2 weeks you have to show up somewhere and you are given jobs a brain amputated monkey could do. So on the one hand they told me that my application would take two to three weeks until the can tell me for sure if I get money but on the other hand they make me work the very next day...German efficiency at it´s best.

So I showed up next morning 7.45am at a tradie training center and told the guys: "Hi, it´s me I should be here. What do I have to do?" The first thing I was given to read and sign were the house rules. Let´s see, be there on time, well all right, call in if you can´t make it, well, fair enough, look after the tools your are given, not operating machinery without a safety instruction first, yeah, yeah, no weapons on the premises, WHAT? Hold on, no weapons, well I don´t usually carry knives, swords or assault rifles with me but that was the first time I actually saw something like that written down. What´s next? No alcohol, no drugs, no drug trading. Fucking hell? Where am I? Apprentice mafia drug traffickers and hit men association? But I signed the rules and promised that I would neither bring my guns nor my cocaine. My humoristic approach was not appreciated but so what?

I found out the reason for the rules when I met my inmates. The approx. 15 other guys were the type of person who would find the right answer to the question "What´s your name?" at least under a minute. The kind of guys who haven’t finished even basic school and in several cases didn´t even speak German. Well smile and nod...

The director of this facility came shook my head and told me that e always likes to have a little chat with the new inmates so we sat down in his office. I soon found out that even a cup of coffee was out of the question but I did get a mug of water. Then this guy told me that when my welfare officer called him to inform him he had no idea what he should do with a lawyer, editor and journalist as he is a trainer for metal working. I suggested I could sweep the yard but he told me that they do awesome metal clocks and that would be quite challenging wouldn´t it? Building a clock with your own hands could be fun. And it´s quite a nice clock. And I would have something I could actually use. And wouldn´t it be fun to build a clock? Nice clock, too...

Argh, I´ve died and woke up in hell with the manic clock maker and crack-heads with weapons. I swore to me that I wouldn´t take a shower here...

I asked if it wouldn´t be the best for everyone involved if I would just go home and fetch a book and sit in a quiet corner until my imprisonment for the day is over but that just got him started again....nice clock...something useful...could learn something for life...

I wished I had a weapon to shoot my way out of this but I had signed the rules. There was no escape at least for this day. So I sighed and said, well actually I always dreamt of doing something useful for once and building a clock could be a life changing experience and yay...nice clock...

That seemed to do the trick, he got all friendly and fatherly and said I don’t have to work too hard and yay they are all a big family here and if I want another mug of water I could just fetch me one and the break times are then and then and smoking area is there and here are the pars for the clock. Mmmm nice clock

I took several pieces of sheet metal and some plans and got a basic instruction to the machinery and the tools and started to cut the metal pieces into triangular shapes. Wow, wasn´t that nice? When I had the basic pieces in the right shape and measurements I was introduced to the fun of filing (in a raspy sense of way not the other one). And to tell you the truth, filing´s fucking hard work. Especially filing a round hole. I spend the rest of my day trying to get the hole round and failed miserably. My hole was more Australian, an oval. But luckily it was the end of the day and I could go home with sore muscles from all the filing....mmmm nicey clock...

Back home I came to a decision: nicey clock my ass! I move to Münster to escape the horrors of clock making. So the very next morning I called my welfare officer and told her I move to Münster and she is no longer responsible for me. And she was glad as that means less work for her. So everybody was happy apart from (maybe) the manic clockmaker who probably still thinks that it´s such a pity that I have not used my chance to do something useful for once. Nice clock...

More first impressions...price differences

G´day,

And a special welcome to Josara as she´s grumpy...I hope you feel better by now. Also a friendly hello to Emily, Julia, Cord (maybe) and Andrew. Well, in my first days back home I was shocked (positive and negative) about the differences in pricing for all kind of things, stuff and services. To all of you who keep complaining about the pricing for public transport in Melborne: shut the fuck up, you have no idea how cheap you are traveling. One ticket from Steinfurt (where my parents live) to Muenster which is about 25 kms costs 5.40 EUR (which is over 10 bucks) !!! Fuckin hell! A daily ticket would be something like $20. So stop complaining!

Same with petrol, one liter of normal unleaded gas is 1.26 EUR (approx $2.50!) like double price to OZ.

Arond the same are the things for daily use like foodstuffs and similar apart from Kangaroo meat which is a lttle on the expensive side here...

And for all of you who like alcohol, cigaretts and drugs, well Germany is your country. A box of beer (10l) starts with 6 EUR = $12...lol

Pack of cigarettes 4 EUR = $8

Illegal stuff:
(Disclaimer: I don´t do anything illegal and don´t take drugs and want to use the oportunity to warn all my readers that drugs are bad for your health and will lead you either to a life in prison or the madhouse, I just happen to know the pricing...)

Dutch weed around 5 EU/g gets cheaper depending on the amount 200EUR/100g
Speed: 10EUR/g, not the ridiculous pricing you guys are willing to pay for the same crap...
Coke: 40EUR/g

Please refraign from asking me to get you anything and send it via post! Come over and visit me and then do whatever yo want..

Ok, I´ll go and see some nice friends of mine playing live tonight, the awesome "V8 Wankers" from Offenbach. Tomorrow is labour day and the traditional street fights in Berlin will take place. I´ll keep you updated. Have fun, take cae and cya