Monday Evening October 26, 2009
hahahhahaha let me continue a few hours later. So my husband comes home and we want to watch something on our Slingcatcher. I am a techie whore, I bought the coolest thing that allows me to watch my tv in America, it is my saving grace. Besides having internet, the tv is my closest friend, keeping me in touch with all things American, including reality tv :) So, I spent another 200 bucks buying this gadget and the 2 slinglinks. Ok so here is the problem, throughout the day the internet seems somewhat normal, AT NIGHT!?!? what happens to our high speed internet from T-mobile that we pay for??, it splits into whoever is using internet so more users, less speed, so our speed goes down to 69kbps instead of 1000 or just keeps freezing. In fact it freeeeezes all the time, my wifi, it freezes. Everything freezes and there is nothing you can do about it. We also wanted to see the only weekly english movie and guess what no one answers the phone there, AGAIN??!! so we decided again to just stay home, poor us. We can laugh or cry, its just how it is here.
What happens when nothing goes right, you have no expectations at all. Just happens and you live with it, begrudgingly but true.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Monday, October 26 2009
I thought I would try AGAIN to hold off on the negative comments and try to restrain myself from posting for awhile. I did have a very nice surprise bday in Austria which made it somewhat better. Well lets keep it brief, today I cleaned 4 filters, yes 44444444444 filters on the still broken washing machine and dryer by Siemens, which is supposed to the best (HA!) brand in Germany. Once again, no comment. In America, my beloved country I have a Maytag, and like the commercial says, I never see my Maytag repairman. There is 1, ONE filter to clean on the dryer and it has worked for over 15 years.PERIOD! Now this piece of crap in my GERMAN apartment, I have called the Siemens company, they came out cleaned a filter or two and then charged 132 Euros=$200USD . 5 months later, I am getting the same buzzing beeper, the one that DROVE ME UP THE FREAKING WALL remember? and an error message. I called Siemens around 4 times now and they insist that I clean the filter first and make sure "there is not a coin in the filter." Now, I don't know how big their coins are but r u kidding me/?!?! why would you make a product that allows a size of a COIN to fall through the filter? So there I was disassembling my floorboard, opening the machine, releasing the pump, unscrew the filter (which flooded the floor) ck for COINS and rinse it out and put it back in. I had to do this TWICE! then doing laundry today, my favorite chore esp with doing double the amount of loads cause the machines are the size of a bucket and they don't wash properly anyways. Another error message on my dryer buzzes, unbelievable, so I clean the air filter, the water filter and the bottom filter underneath my dryer. Now, thank GOD I had ordered the manuals in English months and months before because I have to disassemble all the parts of these high quality, German products. Now, I am much better at this tech stuff, home stuff than most girls, but THIS is still ridiculous. My husband doesn't even know where the filter would be, I will show him tonight. But that's always fun, calling German co's asking if they speak English, getting transferred taken a message or disconnected because the PHONE SYSTEM is like post war Germany and you still can get disconnnected or the other person can't hear you. YES YES YES it's not third world, it's POST WAR Germany like from the 1950's where the phone systems have problems, things are done in such a backwards way here, you can't get any variety, fresh spinach is unheard of and neither is fresh seafood, you have to get everything frozen. It's almost like East Germany, just slightly better. And btw, I met an Eastern German who happened to be my Siemens repair guy ;0 and he said he would much rather live in the old East German way, that there is too much to think about now, HAHHAHHAHAH! Socialism lives! and that it was much easier to have the govt do everything for you, he also said he has to work harder now and it's better the old way. He is very nice btw, but this made it so incredulous and that is the mentality of these people, so of course this backwards country will NEVER be as fine tuned as America. Take your social welfare, social health care and frozen spinach. I would rather have freedom, liberty, capitalism, variety, choice, independence and fresh seafood anyday!! PERIOD!
p.s. so let me just tell you the status of my wonderful cel phone service provider BASE, another fine German company with excellent customer service and great service period. So, I am still locked into an iron-clad 2 year contract, prison, jail, commitment whatever you call it. And after buying the NEWEST BEST MOST EXPENSIVE Blackberry phone from the US. I am stuck with a cel that still barely works. I had downloaded Apps, you know just like the Iphone, which I CANNOT GET because I live here, in freaking here, where an Iphone can cost you the price of a small car, and I can't start a new contract w AT&T cause I live freaking here, anyways.. So I think I had written that I signed up for the internet service w BASE and it never never never works properly, I can't even get Google maps to work on it. I have only been on my email a few times and most of the time I get network unavailable, network server down or some other error message. So, I went to my BASE store in Uggsberg, and he is Russian I think, barely speaks english but enough to understand and you would think this would be easy but it's NOT, NOTHING IS EASY IN GERMANY, NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING! NOTHING WILL WORK PROPERLY< NOTHING WILL BE EASY TO CALL OR COMPLAIN OR TO GET IT FIXED< EVERYTHING WILL BREAK< NOT WORK AND YOU WILL BE STUCK WITH IT OR THE PROBLEM FOR THE ENTIRE TIME YOU LIVE HERE! ok, so we ended up going like 3 times, I mean like taking a freaking tram ride to get there and only to hear no, there is nothing wrong with the service, my colleague is on vacation, etc etc. etc. SO, yesterday I went to the Munich BASE store waited 3o minutes while the 2 guys were helping others, you ALWAYS have to wait for everything here. Then came back later in the day and was told by the salesguy who I love btw, because he is AMERICAN! whoohoo, he had moved here when he was young and absolutely hates it here, we had a lot in common. It was great, so finally after months, months actually years of this Cel contract (prison, jail) that I was finally told what the deal is. I had told him that it is impossible to call BASE at .50 cents EUROS A MINUTE = .75 US cents a minute, wait lemme be clear: .75 US CENTS PER MINUTE< PER MINUTE TO CALL THEM. and he said oh no, others have to pay $2.50 Euros per minute to call customer service, this is the most MOST incredulous thing I had heard of, he agreed. Finally, someone who agrees and I am not the crazy one here. I wonder how much a 5 minute conversation would cost at that price, but wait they put you on hold first so it would cost more..no it's their incredibly EVIL way of not having you call customer service. So, he being cool told me that BASE co. sucks and that he wrote down on a note pad that T-mobile was the way to go. LOL. or cry whichever way you look at it.
SO, I had upgraded to an addtl $10 Euros a month for internet that didn't worked, he signed me up for an additional $8 Euros a month for the Blackberry service, which would allow my phone to sometimes work and then be at the mercy that it probably wouldn't work most of the time, because of their patchy service. I asked him under my breath, "how in the world, do I get out of this contract, prison, jail?" and he said you can't unless you get a rental contract if you moved outside of Germany. So I am racking my brain to figure this one out, am still stuck with paying $18 Euros =$27 more a month for shitty internet service. In addition to my monthly $20-30 Euros cel service. FUN FUN FUN and btw, he swore he would try to get the hell out of there, meaning Germany and move back to the states, poor guy, I completely understood.
I thought I would try AGAIN to hold off on the negative comments and try to restrain myself from posting for awhile. I did have a very nice surprise bday in Austria which made it somewhat better. Well lets keep it brief, today I cleaned 4 filters, yes 44444444444 filters on the still broken washing machine and dryer by Siemens, which is supposed to the best (HA!) brand in Germany. Once again, no comment. In America, my beloved country I have a Maytag, and like the commercial says, I never see my Maytag repairman. There is 1, ONE filter to clean on the dryer and it has worked for over 15 years.PERIOD! Now this piece of crap in my GERMAN apartment, I have called the Siemens company, they came out cleaned a filter or two and then charged 132 Euros=$200USD . 5 months later, I am getting the same buzzing beeper, the one that DROVE ME UP THE FREAKING WALL remember? and an error message. I called Siemens around 4 times now and they insist that I clean the filter first and make sure "there is not a coin in the filter." Now, I don't know how big their coins are but r u kidding me/?!?! why would you make a product that allows a size of a COIN to fall through the filter? So there I was disassembling my floorboard, opening the machine, releasing the pump, unscrew the filter (which flooded the floor) ck for COINS and rinse it out and put it back in. I had to do this TWICE! then doing laundry today, my favorite chore esp with doing double the amount of loads cause the machines are the size of a bucket and they don't wash properly anyways. Another error message on my dryer buzzes, unbelievable, so I clean the air filter, the water filter and the bottom filter underneath my dryer. Now, thank GOD I had ordered the manuals in English months and months before because I have to disassemble all the parts of these high quality, German products. Now, I am much better at this tech stuff, home stuff than most girls, but THIS is still ridiculous. My husband doesn't even know where the filter would be, I will show him tonight. But that's always fun, calling German co's asking if they speak English, getting transferred taken a message or disconnected because the PHONE SYSTEM is like post war Germany and you still can get disconnnected or the other person can't hear you. YES YES YES it's not third world, it's POST WAR Germany like from the 1950's where the phone systems have problems, things are done in such a backwards way here, you can't get any variety, fresh spinach is unheard of and neither is fresh seafood, you have to get everything frozen. It's almost like East Germany, just slightly better. And btw, I met an Eastern German who happened to be my Siemens repair guy ;0 and he said he would much rather live in the old East German way, that there is too much to think about now, HAHHAHHAHAH! Socialism lives! and that it was much easier to have the govt do everything for you, he also said he has to work harder now and it's better the old way. He is very nice btw, but this made it so incredulous and that is the mentality of these people, so of course this backwards country will NEVER be as fine tuned as America. Take your social welfare, social health care and frozen spinach. I would rather have freedom, liberty, capitalism, variety, choice, independence and fresh seafood anyday!! PERIOD!
p.s. so let me just tell you the status of my wonderful cel phone service provider BASE, another fine German company with excellent customer service and great service period. So, I am still locked into an iron-clad 2 year contract, prison, jail, commitment whatever you call it. And after buying the NEWEST BEST MOST EXPENSIVE Blackberry phone from the US. I am stuck with a cel that still barely works. I had downloaded Apps, you know just like the Iphone, which I CANNOT GET because I live here, in freaking here, where an Iphone can cost you the price of a small car, and I can't start a new contract w AT&T cause I live freaking here, anyways.. So I think I had written that I signed up for the internet service w BASE and it never never never works properly, I can't even get Google maps to work on it. I have only been on my email a few times and most of the time I get network unavailable, network server down or some other error message. So, I went to my BASE store in Uggsberg, and he is Russian I think, barely speaks english but enough to understand and you would think this would be easy but it's NOT, NOTHING IS EASY IN GERMANY, NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING! NOTHING WILL WORK PROPERLY< NOTHING WILL BE EASY TO CALL OR COMPLAIN OR TO GET IT FIXED< EVERYTHING WILL BREAK< NOT WORK AND YOU WILL BE STUCK WITH IT OR THE PROBLEM FOR THE ENTIRE TIME YOU LIVE HERE! ok, so we ended up going like 3 times, I mean like taking a freaking tram ride to get there and only to hear no, there is nothing wrong with the service, my colleague is on vacation, etc etc. etc. SO, yesterday I went to the Munich BASE store waited 3o minutes while the 2 guys were helping others, you ALWAYS have to wait for everything here. Then came back later in the day and was told by the salesguy who I love btw, because he is AMERICAN! whoohoo, he had moved here when he was young and absolutely hates it here, we had a lot in common. It was great, so finally after months, months actually years of this Cel contract (prison, jail) that I was finally told what the deal is. I had told him that it is impossible to call BASE at .50 cents EUROS A MINUTE = .75 US cents a minute, wait lemme be clear: .75 US CENTS PER MINUTE< PER MINUTE TO CALL THEM. and he said oh no, others have to pay $2.50 Euros per minute to call customer service, this is the most MOST incredulous thing I had heard of, he agreed. Finally, someone who agrees and I am not the crazy one here. I wonder how much a 5 minute conversation would cost at that price, but wait they put you on hold first so it would cost more..no it's their incredibly EVIL way of not having you call customer service. So, he being cool told me that BASE co. sucks and that he wrote down on a note pad that T-mobile was the way to go. LOL. or cry whichever way you look at it.
SO, I had upgraded to an addtl $10 Euros a month for internet that didn't worked, he signed me up for an additional $8 Euros a month for the Blackberry service, which would allow my phone to sometimes work and then be at the mercy that it probably wouldn't work most of the time, because of their patchy service. I asked him under my breath, "how in the world, do I get out of this contract, prison, jail?" and he said you can't unless you get a rental contract if you moved outside of Germany. So I am racking my brain to figure this one out, am still stuck with paying $18 Euros =$27 more a month for shitty internet service. In addition to my monthly $20-30 Euros cel service. FUN FUN FUN and btw, he swore he would try to get the hell out of there, meaning Germany and move back to the states, poor guy, I completely understood.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Monday, October 12 2009
I thought I would just grin and bear it, maybe it's just me, maybe if I try really hard I could try to get used to it and not complain and not make any posts on this blog for awhile. But alas, there's always a few things that get me going again, that make me chuckle. That makes me say, AHHH GERMANY here we go again. So the winter is fast approaching us and today trekking out to meet my husband for a quick lunch requires many winter dressing again and a runny nose when I return. I went to the neighborhood market to pick up pork belly, one of the most common meats here and ridiculously cheap, due to the high amount of fat. And alas, once again in the land of no variety or convenience, I was told it comes in on Wednesday. Ok, so I trek to the next market Edeka, and the pork belly is already cut up into 1-1.5 inch thickness which is useless to me, considering I was thinking of making spicy korean pork bbq, yes but begrudgingly I had to buy it and figure out how I would try to slice the thickness in half with a dull blade! We are busy planning the wedding in Salzburg, which is the only joy to my life right now. Although many of my friends will not be able to make it due to cost and inconvenience. But it will be fun to have it in a castle and the Salzburg trip was fun, nice people, beautiful places etc. but that's Austria. We had a couple over for dinner the other day, very nice she is German and he is Austrian. When my husband asked them if they didn't like anything they said, " Everything but no insects." I kid you not, I have to just laugh at those comments I hear. Even our wedding coordinator constantly referring to Japanese things even when I told him I'm from Korea. Ah, it's 1pm and I can hear the brats upstairs rushing up to start playing the horrible piano lessons again! Everywhere I go, I constantly get stared at, my husband says that it's because I'm pretty, NOT!! They just don't know what to do when they see an Asian, an immigrant, an alien in a foreign land! And these people are soo third world, sheltered and in their own little bubble, don't they watch TV?!~? hmm it amazes me. I guess it could happen in some dumb f(@* place like Alabama, US too...We will be traveling to many places, Graz, Vienna, Berlin, Frankfurt but I was thinking the only thing not fun about traveling here is the below freezing tempuratures outside! Then you don't even want to go outside, let alone tour around sorry! But layering in bundles of clothing with your earlobes frozen and the biting wind blowing on your face, so your nose is running and carrying an umbrella cause it's always raining is NOT FUN! Also, staying in 4 star hotels are ALWAYS a gamble here, you never know what you'll get. Sometimes it's a 2 star disguising itself, never trust the star rating system in European hotels! Last time our hotel was the size of a dorm room, I kid you not and it was a 4 star!! Sometimes the toilet room is so small you have to sit sideways! and bring your own toiletries to these exquisite 4 star hotels, because the only soap/shampoo/conditioner/body gel will be from a tube stuck on the wall. Like I said NO toiletries provided. I am trying to tune out the plundering of keys on that awful piano upstairs. I have to say these Germs are diligent about their activities! So no help with the cel phone yet, all my blackberry apps, google maps and sometimes even yahoo doesn't work. We will probably be charged now with no return but getting on a tram to the city, paying 5 Euros to get there and then if the guy that helped us before is not there, the other ones won't help us cause my name is not on the account and I told you before it costs .50 cents euros a minute to call them, so ONCE AGAIN, we are stuck with this shitty service! Ahhhh, Germany you always give me something to write home about!!! Oh but don't let me forget just last week, my husband thought for sure they were playing an english movie on a Tuesday for "sneak peek" as they call it, I told him I don't think so but he tried calling 10 times and typical nobody answers the phone anywhere here! So, we got dressed went and was told, no english movie, I asked what's the movie that we're not seeing? They said we can't tell you it's sneak peek, ahhhhh! the land of you will watch the movie we show you!! and it will be a surprise, gosh darn it! So, we drove home, no movie that night. Sad but true, but totally getting used to it! Also, many people for some dumbass reason don't have VM on their cel, makes you say WTF!! Third world!!!! Ahh, and don't forget carrying the myriad of different colored glass containers and bottles dropping them off every week, and the empty plastic bottles to the store, everyday and the amount of plastic and recyclables that seem to accumulate at a very fast rate. We take out the trash like every other day. The other day, I looked for the biggest ass trash can with dividers, couldn't find one, just the same size as ours, meaning all those Germs must be taking out their trash 3-4 times a week, going to the market 5 times a week, returning bottles every week, WHAT A COMPLETE WASTE OF ENERGY, EFFORT AND TIME!!!>!>>!! I walked by a store today and it was fill to the brim of bottles and glasses, imagine all the men hired to lug this shit back and forth and the gas and emissions caused by this, truly it's so genius. We should stick all the liberals in Germany and make it a total socialist country and see how much they like it here! "Recycle and Suffer" should be their motto "but get free health care!"
I thought I would just grin and bear it, maybe it's just me, maybe if I try really hard I could try to get used to it and not complain and not make any posts on this blog for awhile. But alas, there's always a few things that get me going again, that make me chuckle. That makes me say, AHHH GERMANY here we go again. So the winter is fast approaching us and today trekking out to meet my husband for a quick lunch requires many winter dressing again and a runny nose when I return. I went to the neighborhood market to pick up pork belly, one of the most common meats here and ridiculously cheap, due to the high amount of fat. And alas, once again in the land of no variety or convenience, I was told it comes in on Wednesday. Ok, so I trek to the next market Edeka, and the pork belly is already cut up into 1-1.5 inch thickness which is useless to me, considering I was thinking of making spicy korean pork bbq, yes but begrudgingly I had to buy it and figure out how I would try to slice the thickness in half with a dull blade! We are busy planning the wedding in Salzburg, which is the only joy to my life right now. Although many of my friends will not be able to make it due to cost and inconvenience. But it will be fun to have it in a castle and the Salzburg trip was fun, nice people, beautiful places etc. but that's Austria. We had a couple over for dinner the other day, very nice she is German and he is Austrian. When my husband asked them if they didn't like anything they said, " Everything but no insects." I kid you not, I have to just laugh at those comments I hear. Even our wedding coordinator constantly referring to Japanese things even when I told him I'm from Korea. Ah, it's 1pm and I can hear the brats upstairs rushing up to start playing the horrible piano lessons again! Everywhere I go, I constantly get stared at, my husband says that it's because I'm pretty, NOT!! They just don't know what to do when they see an Asian, an immigrant, an alien in a foreign land! And these people are soo third world, sheltered and in their own little bubble, don't they watch TV?!~? hmm it amazes me. I guess it could happen in some dumb f(@* place like Alabama, US too...We will be traveling to many places, Graz, Vienna, Berlin, Frankfurt but I was thinking the only thing not fun about traveling here is the below freezing tempuratures outside! Then you don't even want to go outside, let alone tour around sorry! But layering in bundles of clothing with your earlobes frozen and the biting wind blowing on your face, so your nose is running and carrying an umbrella cause it's always raining is NOT FUN! Also, staying in 4 star hotels are ALWAYS a gamble here, you never know what you'll get. Sometimes it's a 2 star disguising itself, never trust the star rating system in European hotels! Last time our hotel was the size of a dorm room, I kid you not and it was a 4 star!! Sometimes the toilet room is so small you have to sit sideways! and bring your own toiletries to these exquisite 4 star hotels, because the only soap/shampoo/conditioner/body gel will be from a tube stuck on the wall. Like I said NO toiletries provided. I am trying to tune out the plundering of keys on that awful piano upstairs. I have to say these Germs are diligent about their activities! So no help with the cel phone yet, all my blackberry apps, google maps and sometimes even yahoo doesn't work. We will probably be charged now with no return but getting on a tram to the city, paying 5 Euros to get there and then if the guy that helped us before is not there, the other ones won't help us cause my name is not on the account and I told you before it costs .50 cents euros a minute to call them, so ONCE AGAIN, we are stuck with this shitty service! Ahhhh, Germany you always give me something to write home about!!! Oh but don't let me forget just last week, my husband thought for sure they were playing an english movie on a Tuesday for "sneak peek" as they call it, I told him I don't think so but he tried calling 10 times and typical nobody answers the phone anywhere here! So, we got dressed went and was told, no english movie, I asked what's the movie that we're not seeing? They said we can't tell you it's sneak peek, ahhhhh! the land of you will watch the movie we show you!! and it will be a surprise, gosh darn it! So, we drove home, no movie that night. Sad but true, but totally getting used to it! Also, many people for some dumbass reason don't have VM on their cel, makes you say WTF!! Third world!!!! Ahh, and don't forget carrying the myriad of different colored glass containers and bottles dropping them off every week, and the empty plastic bottles to the store, everyday and the amount of plastic and recyclables that seem to accumulate at a very fast rate. We take out the trash like every other day. The other day, I looked for the biggest ass trash can with dividers, couldn't find one, just the same size as ours, meaning all those Germs must be taking out their trash 3-4 times a week, going to the market 5 times a week, returning bottles every week, WHAT A COMPLETE WASTE OF ENERGY, EFFORT AND TIME!!!>!>>!! I walked by a store today and it was fill to the brim of bottles and glasses, imagine all the men hired to lug this shit back and forth and the gas and emissions caused by this, truly it's so genius. We should stick all the liberals in Germany and make it a total socialist country and see how much they like it here! "Recycle and Suffer" should be their motto "but get free health care!"
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