An Exercise in Patience

Once again, nothing happens quickly in Germany--unless you're behind the wheel of a car.

I finally decided to join the local "health club" even though people are drinking beer and smoking cigarettes on the first floor while you're working out on the second. So Skip went with me because some of the folks there speak really good English and others only speak a little. Germans who only speak a little English are reluctant to use it because they can't do it perfectly. You'd think once they hear my attempt at German, they'd be put at ease!

Anyway, the deal is that you can't join until you have a fitness assessment with one of the trainers and the first available appointment is in a week-and-a-half. So I can't go ahead and pay my money and start working out. I have to wait. These people are lousy capitalists.

Then from there I went into the town center. Headed into the little "convenience store" where I buy my phone card, train pass, etc and had to walk right back out again before even getting what I went in for because the smoke was so thick I could taste it. Ugggg.

So I get on the train to go get Maddie at school and one of the folks who checks tickets comes through. When you have a monthly pass, you get a plastic card that lasts for a year and each month you place a new stamp-size ticket in a little slot. My pass has already been checked twice this month, but this lady holds me up because the pass number on the plastic card has not been written on the little monthly part. She is telling me that this could cost me forty euros because my pass is not valid. While this is going on, I miss the stop for Maddie's school and have to turn around at the next stop. I end up getting off with a "warning" after she simply copies the number into the right place.

And of course this would be the day that everyone got this month's issue of the Radschlager, the magazine of the American Women's Club of Duesseldorf. And everyone keeps telling me how much they appreciated my little article on Thanksgiving on a day that I'm feeling anything but gracious and thankful. Careful what you put in writing. That must be why I usually didn't write down my sermons!