"O'zapft is" - here we go!

Well, the Fassmeister and I are off to Munich this week, so the blog will slow down again. We're spending some time down around Berchtesgaden, too. I will be back to give my report on the Oktoberfestbier selection this year. While you're anxiously waiting our return,
Milk Your Cows! at the official Oktoberfest website.

Tschüs!

Bad Karma: Part 3 - Nicht Licht

Das Fassmeister moved into the house while I was in the States. Shortly after her move in, the lights started failing. OK, not just failing, nearly catching fire. She comes home one night, flips on the switch and there was a loud BANG, a SNAP, everything went dark, and she was left to search our German house for the location of the breakers. When the Fassmeister found the breaker (again, I was not there) she flipped it, and BANG! SNAP!

Her quote "This is nicht gut."

Well being a degree holding electrical engineer she determines to not mess with 220V (it's not the volts its the amps) especially since it's not her house. Time to inform the landlord. So we called the landlord (got the husband this time) and, of course, he was very concerned. This is the natural response.

He calls the electrician and has him call her at work. We speak no German. Landlord knows this. He has him call us, but it's o.k. because apparently the electrician had an english friend when he was 15 so he's good.

Well, the electrician is actually pretty nice, knows decent English, and loves Barley. In fact, when he came in the house and saw Barley, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a dog treat. He carries dog treats in his pocket all the time. All the time. So, the electrician is unaware of the fass meisters extensive degrees in electrical engineering as she proceeds to tell him the circuit breaker is flipped. So he marches down and tries to reset the breaker - bang, sparks!

His response: "Oh! Das ist nicht gut."

So with the help of fass meister flipping the breaker and the treat toting electrician testing the sockets he isolates the faulty electrical box. "O.k. I will be leaving now" he says - umm are you coming back? Will you fix it? "oh yes, I must call your landlord, I have to order the part and the painter must come in". I'm sorry what was that last part? The painter? Well it's a little known fact that Germany has a very thriving labor union system. And well of course the electrician cannont actually remove the light fixture because that would cause some paint chipping and well that must be fixed by the painter. Umm o.k.

Next morning, phone rings, fass meister answers, rattling on in German, umm "nicht deutsch, sprekenze English?" "nein" Nicht gut. So fass meister figures out that someone is coming by tomorrow morning at 0900. But given this is the third day in a row when there have been people showing up to the house, she's not really concerned. A few hours later the treat carrying electrician calls her at work to confirm that it's the painter who is coming tomorrow at 0900 and he doesn't speak any english so the electrician is going to come too. "Will das hund be there" Of course and das hund is excited that you are coming by.

So the electrician and the painter show up. The painter removes the faulty outlet and repairs the wall. The electrician informs the fass meister that he will return when the part comes in.

He came to fix the light when I was back but the Fassmeister was gone. The day before she leaves, BANG! SNAP! Another recessed receptacle goes out. I was unaware of this new development, and the electrician came, fixed the existing receptacle problem and left. Now, he has to come back.

Nicht licht ist nicht gut.

Bad Karma: Part 2 - Gnome auf einem Schwein

So, the last post was about the house, specifically. This one is about life after we signed the lease..... but before we moved in.

<FLASHBACK>

About two weeks before we signed the lease, the Fassmeister and I were out for the day, and we decided to go to go to a German flea market. The flea market is similar to the American style, but with different stuff. By different, I mean with a swastika. After the market, we decided to drive to the town of Biebrich. Biebrich is in essentially the docks area of Wiesbaden (i.e. on the Rhine), but much more upscale. There's a castle in Biebrich that is beautiful, and the gardens around it are extensive and quiet. We took Barley there and he let himself into the lake in the middle of the Garden. The lake is dug out and I had to pull him out by his harness. He's not very smart.

Anyway, while we were taking the bus back to our hotel, we saw this in a store window:

That's right, a Gnome riding a pig. Not this one, exactly, but you get the idea. The Fassmeister was in love. Luckily, we were on a bus.

Well, shortly after signing the lease, we had our 4th anniversary. The Fassmeister wanted to go to Biebrich. I'm relatively intelligent, and not masochistic, so I agreed.

Anyway, we went to the Mexican restaurant in Biebrich. The sight of a Mexican speaking German is hilarious (blah blah blah, insert PC comment here) . The food was really good, I mean really good. I was surprised, because I usually HATE food in Mexican restaurants.

So, while we were walking around, we, of course, had to go see the:

She had to have it. We walked into the store and asked the three people eating dinner in the middle of the store about the gnome. They were slightly confused. Apparently, it wasn't really "For Sale". But, for 20 Euro, we walked away with it.

Prepare for Karma
Well, we were about a block from the store when I shifted the gnome from "carrying it like a baby" to holding it from the base... the base broke. It hit the ground.

All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

The Gnome was no more. Shattered worse than anything I had ever seen, even worse than my dreams of being an Oompa Loompa .

Who could kill a happy gnome riding a pig? The house? Possibly...

Bad Karma: Part 1 - Garden of Eden

I've been in the good ol' US of A for the past four weeks, but I'm back in Germany now, and the Fassmeister is off on a different adventure. It's been a busy couple of weeks. Now that I'm back, I'll get back to the blogging. As I mentioned before, we've moved into our house. Well, the house we've moved into has, to put lightly, bad karma. Each one of these items most people would chalk up to either back luck, timing, carelessness, or purely a European oddity. The sum, however, can only be described as bad karma. I will identify each ominous event in the following blog entries....

We should have know from the start. The day we showed up to sign the lease, the landlord was going through the checkout with the previous tenant. Now, my German is not great, but the phrase "Zwei Tousend!" was mentioned several times in disgust by the outgoing tenant. Apparently, the poor guy had his wife and child leave to return to Scandinavia because they hated Germany so much. Well, in his heart break, he did a less than stellar job of taking care of the grounds, something the Germans can't stand. You must take care of the gardens, of course.

Supposedly the gardener the landlord has chosen to hire is going to charge her $2000 Euro to make the area look acceptable. Personally, I think one guy working for a day could do the job, but, hey, it's not my money. Apparently, she wanted to get the poor Nordsee monger to pay for this, and he refused.

Well, since this was such a big deal to her, we made sure to tell her that she can only expect the area to be as good when we leave, as when we got it. I certainly am not going to spend time "fixing" someone else's mistakes just to find out my repairs are not up to snuff either. I need a calibration point. This is totally unacceptable to der Hauswirt, so she was going to pay the gardener to get it to a "clean slate" look for us, so we can start anew. Since the previous tenant is unwilling to pay for this, she would have to. Last I heard, her and the gardener are in negotiations. The Fassmeister and I are quite satisfied with the current look. Stuff is overgrown, and the privacy is nice.