My little blog

The story of my couch or: Bolagret sucks

2011-08-24T00:47:00.005+02:00

This post is dedicated to Bolagret, a Swedish furniture company from hell.

Compared to Bolagret, furniture shopping at IKEA is a zen-like experience.

But let's start from the beginning. In March I decided to get a new couch. After browsing the 2,7 furniture stores in Sweden with acceptable offers I finally ordered a very nice couch at Bolagret, a Swedish furniture store I back then was very fond of - probably since I had never bought furniture from them before. When looking back now, I should have seen the signs already back then that something was wrong: It took the lady at the checkout for example 'only' half an hour to process my order (yep, Sweden is unfortunately the country of service snails...), including a very rude "You don't have enough money on your account." comment when the first payment try did not work. Later it turned out that it actually was their creditcard reader that did not work. But nevermind. Being insulted and accused is actually one of the less bad things that happen to customers in Swedish shops.

So after some struggle the couch was ordered and paid and I was told delivery time would be 4-8 weeks. Yes, I know, you could wonder why that takes soooo long, but as I said before, we are in Sweden here, you are not surprised by such things. I was actually happy they were able to deliver the couch at all and that it was not sold out like so many other things (alcohol, bread, winter jackets, etc) in this banana republic. So we waited patiently for the couch. 4 weeks. 5 weeks. 6 weeks. 7 weeks. After 8 weeks we were still sitting on our temporary "couch" - an air mattress. Yes, that had white trash written all over it, but hey, we were willing to sacrifice 2 months of comfort for our dream couch.

When I was about to contact Bolagret after 8 weeks to ask where the hell my expensive couch was or if they maybe already had left the country with my money instead I suddenly got a note from the delivery company, stating they would come that Wednesday and deliver the couch between 8 and 12. Great that they only needed a 4 hour-window for this delivery. Who doesn't like to take vacation to get his couch delivered? But anyway, this is Sweden I tried to remind myself. So that Wednesday we waited patiently for the people from DHL. We were actually so excited that we already deflated our air mattress couch in ecstatic expectation of a real couch. At 12.15 the DHL people 'already' arrived. So we went outside to greet them and tell them which floor exactly they would have to bring the couch to. After all, we paid 50 Euro (FIFTY) for the delivery.

Well. Let's say that did not work out as expected. Instead, the DHL guy dropped a gigantic couch wrapped in a lot of very dirty plastic foil on a EUROPALLET right in front of our appartment building and just left. It took some minutes until I understood that he would not come back and that we would have to carry the couch upstairs on our own. That was of course very easy. I don't know if it was the extremely dirty packaging, the fact that the heavy couch was packaged as one and not two packages or the 25 kilo heavy europallette that we got on top of that, but it took almost 1 hour until everything was up in our appartment. After we had removed the dirt from our faces and changed into clean clothes we started unwrapping the couch.

Unfortunately, what we unwrapped was not the couch we had ordered. It had taken stupid Bolagret more than 8 weeks to deliver a couch in the a)wrong shape b)wrong fabric c)wrong colour and d)wrong modell! I have to say that I was first so confused that I started wondering if maybe I had actually ordered that couch. But after taking a second look at that hideous brown corduroy couch (I know!!! who on earth buys something like that?!) I realized that there was only one party to blame here: BOLAGRET. So I called their customer service and asked them kindly where my couch was and whose couch I was giving shelter to.

First thing I noticed when calling Bolagret's "Customer service": They did not apologize. Instead they asked me if I was sure that it was the wrong couch. Yes, you can imagine the level of my pulse. After having reassured them that it really was not my couch that I had received, they promised me to look it up and get back to me asap. For the rest of the day I did not hear anything from them. So what does a labile German customer do who ordered a very expensive couch and does not know where it is or if it exists at all? Exactly, I wrote some words of choice on the facebook wall of Bolagret. And tada, they reacted within 15 minutes and promised me to ring me first thing the next morning.

Morning turned into afternoon and finally Bolagret called me. Unfortunately they did not have any answers to my questions. Even worse, they were even not sure anymore that my couch had been produced at all! So I had to wait another day. Pulse was now very close to 1200. On day 3 they finally managed to track down our couch in Stockholm (excuse me?!) and told us we would get it in one week. I also urged them to remove that brown Alien couch from my appartment immediately. Bolagret promised to send someone to pick it up the day after. And the day after they said they would come one day later. And another day later they finally decided to exchange the couches at the same time. The fact that we had to live with a strangers couch on a europallette that was blocking our living room for one week was not really interesting for them.

After another week finally the day of couch-exchanging came and we awaited the arrival of the couch we had ordered. This time delivery was scheduled between 2 and 4 since I had refused to sacrifice one half day for this again. A little after 4 our couch arrived. My first move was checking if it was the right modell this time. You know, it was getting a little crowded over there in our living room, I was not sure if we could fit even more Bolagret couches into our apartment. After all we are not a furniture storage, even if Bolagret apparently thought so. But to my great relief it was the right couch. This time the DHL guy even helped us to carry the couch upstairs - but we also had to help him carry down the wrong couch. Nevermind. So here we were, standing next to our unwrapped couch. The atmosphere was very tense since we only expected something to be wrong.

And we were right. When we wanted to assemble the couch (no, here in Sweden that is not included and yes, I know, banana republic!) we searched and searched for the legs for the couch and we could not find them! Well, why couldn't we find them? Maybe because they had not been delivered! I mean, sure, what was I expecting at that point? That Bolagret would give me the stuff I paid for without a fight? Noooooo. So I called for the 450th time their 'customer service'. I actually already knew the people by name. The customer service's reaction was "Are you kidding me." followed by "You have to look again under the couch for the legs". No excuse, no "I am so sorry that we fucked up" - no nothing. After I had convinced the lady with my voice shaking from anger that there really were no fucking legs, she agreed to UPS them to me. Actually inbetween she apparently was so intimidated that she offered to bring them by our house personally. In any case, she promised I would have the legs the next day around lunch time and they would be sent to my office which was great since I was running out of vacation days to take for receiving couch parts.

So the next day I stayed in the office until 5. No legs, no delivery. The next morning I called UPS just to find out that it would take two more days to deliver the legs. I thought that was great, since I don't mind waiting for 8 weeks for a couch, get the wrong one, wait one more week for the correct one and then wait another week on top of it to be able to assemble it. I decided to once more call the customer service to tell them how great this all was going. And this time I wanted to not only scream and shout at them to restabilize my mental health, no, I wanted a compensation.

I know what you are thinking now. Compensation? Did Bolagret after all that drama not offer a compensation voluntarily? Haha. Welcome to Sweden. They actually REFUSED to give me a compensation! Why? I quote: "You must understand, this couch has already cost us so much with that redelivery, we hardly earn something from this." I answered calmly that I am really sorry but that I did not ask them to deliver the wrong couch in the first place, that I had paid for delivery and had to carry 2 couches instead of 1, that I had waited 10 weeks for the bloody couch and that even if their company would go bankrupt it would not be my problem. I deserved a compensation. After she still refused, I forced her to discuss this matter with her boss.

You know what I got in the end? A fucking VOUCHER worth 50 Euro. And you know for which shop? Yes, Bolagret. When their customer service told me this I was so shocked and in disbelief that I actually was speechless. And we even had to go to their goddamn shop to pick the bloody voucher up. And guess what. When we arrived at the shop nobody knew anything about a voucher. So I made my final call to the customer service and 1 week later we got the voucher via mail. I mean, how dumb can a company be?! Even almost 3 months later I am still so pissed-off that I get a strange desire to set fire to the Bolagret shop every time I pass by. We tried twice to find something in this shop to buy so we could get rid of the bloody voucher. But we can't. Bolagret still makes me sick.

So what will happen next? I am actually thinking about burning the voucher. In front of the Bolagret shop in Malmö. A manifestation of what I truly think of Swedish customer service:
Sweden, you still can learn how to treat customers right, it is not too late yet!

And Bolagret: Pardon my language, but GO FUCK YOURSELF.

Zara Online Shop spielt mit Google Translator

2010-11-01T22:47:00.001+01:00

Interessante Produktnamen im neuen Zara Online Shop...ob man jetzt eine Umschlagtasche (?) aus Fohlenleder sucht oder eher hinter einer Wickelmattentasche (??) her ist...da ist für jeden was dabei...Minimalisten entscheiden sich für die Umhängetasche Blasebalg, während es für Shopper mit etwas opulenterem Geschmack die Umhängetasche dreifacher Blasebalg gibt...und für Avantgardisten bietet Zara "Bowling Zigarettenspitze". Es darf angenommen werden, dass es sich dabei auch um eine Tasche handelt. Allerdings hoffentlich nicht aus Fohlenleder...

My time in Sweden in Facebook updates

2010-09-11T00:49:00.006+02:00

2008-2010. And yes, most of the time I actually enjoy being here - even if my updates seem to say something else. When reading please keep in my mind that after all I am German - complaining is not an expression of negativity, it is our favorite pastime!

The famous oh-so-fabulous Swedish summer - all I say is: 8 degrees in August. EIGHT.

How can you tell that you are in Sweden? It is August, you're sitting inside and you are wondering 2 things: 1. when will they finally turn on the heating 2. why you left your fleece jacket at home...because it is max 10 degrees outside.

‎12 min of cycling and I look like I swam through the Öresund. Finally traditional Swedish summer weather!

Britta wonders if Swedish marketers either have a very dark sense of humour or are insane: I just saw a very unappetising TV show on food hoarders and who sponsored it? A Swedish bread company! Interesting branding strategy.

Britta is back in Sweden..........oh wait, the enthusiasm is missing.

Britta saw a Vodka bottle for 5 Euro in a supermarket today. I was so moved that I took a picture of it (!) and almost cried tears of joy. That it what 2 years of Sweden and its bloody Systembolaget do to you, children!

Britta thinks you know you've officially integrated into Swedish society when you run panic-stricken to Systembolaget to buy alcohol for a party that is still THREE days away and pray on the way that there is at least some kind of alcohol left.

Britta has on the way back home met 100 reasons why alcohol is state regulated in Sweden. Actually, given what I saw tonight, I have to say that those Systembolaget commercials are actually not exaggerating at all, they paint a quite realistic picture of what goes on in Sweden after 8pm.

How can you tell that it is summer in Scandinavia? It is almost too warm for gloves and a fleece jacket. But only almost.

Neuester In-Drink in Schweden - Rose Wein mit Fanta. Dieses Volk hat wirklich absolut keine Trinkkultur.

Schweden können nicht nur kein Brot backen, die können auch keine Gurken einlegen. Ich verhunger hier noch mal.

Britta has just spent 5 min of precious lifetime picking raisins out of my müsli. Seriously, why do Swedes have to put a ton of them into a single package of müsli?!

Britti will aus dem scheiss Småland abgeholt werden. Sofort. Und bringt mir ne Laugenbrezel mit!

Am 8. Tag schuf Gott die Sonne und sprach zu den Schweden: "Guckt euch die nochmal gut an, die seht ihr so schnell nicht wieder!"

Britti möchte aus dem Småland abgeholt werden. Hier schneit und friert es und es ist immer nur dunkel, so hab ich mir Schweden nich vorgestellt!

Britta just spent 10 minutes of precious life time spelling my name. I love Swedish customer service. Most frequently used word: No. Actually, probably the only word used by them.

Britta thinks you know you live in Sweden when it is mid June and you find yourself dressed in a fleece jacket, socks and the warmest pair of pants you own, wrapped into a blanket, sitting on the floor, trying desperately to activate your radiator

Der nächste Schwede, der meine 3 Waschmaschinen blockiert, is dran! Was kapiert dieses Volk an 2.5 Stunden Waschzeit nicht?!

Britta hat die Schnauze voll: Kaputter Rücken, lärmende Technonachbarn, kalte Heizung & widerliches Brot. Klein-Britta will aus dem Småland abgeholt werden - SOFORT!

Britta feels sorry for the Swedish people. ICA really is the best supermarket they offer you here? Sad!

Britta thinks: Dear Swedish state, if you want me to pay for parking, then please put a functioning ticket machine within reach.

Britta's kitchen is full of drunk, ugly, desperate, trash-producing Swedish male zombies. Happy Valentine's Day!

Britta thinks that the most annoying thing about Sweden, besides their bread, snus and supermarkets, definitely is snow.

Improving Sweden - Part One

2010-09-02T21:51:00.007+02:00

After 2 years of constant (but absolutely justified) complaining about and criticizing of my current host country Sweden, I feel it is time to give something back. Sure, Swedes neither know how to bake proper bread, nor are they capable of driving a car or let alone customer service, but I should not forget that this country also gave me some really great things - kanelbullar, kebab pizza, godis...and my boyfriend.

Don't get me wrong, I totally think I complained for the right reasons and to a decent level (I could have written alone 10.000 entries more complaining about Swedish bread e.g.). But I fear that now after all those complaints I have left 8 million poor Swedes (who thanks to me suddenly became aware of their country's deficits) helpless in front of their crushed image of their home country, looking with their big blue eyes full of expectancy at me, not knowing what to do next. So instead of solely nagging about what goes wrong in Sweden, I decided that it is time for a change of strategy - it is time for con- and not destructive criticism. Therefore I will start a program today called 'Improving Sweden' in which I will give Sweden tips on how to become a better country. Yes, you may call me Mother Teresa.

So, the first thing we have to fix in Sweden is the huge problem with the supply of basically any product you can imagine. In large parts of the world, the supply/demand curve looks as following:Meaning there is actually a point where demand and supply reach a point of complete balance. Not so in Sweden. Since here the concept of supply is not very established, the curve looks like this:Yes, supply of products is very limited, meaning demand is unusual high and can never be fully satisfied. If you want proof for this, just try to get a package of not-yet-expired bread in a Swedish supermarket on Sunday. Or try to get a proper winter jacket later than September. Or, if you are especially naive, go and buy the alcohol you need for Saturday night on Saturday morning. Muhahaha. Good luck. This is what you will find:

And these examples are no exception, they are the rule. The Swedish version of 'The early bird catches the worm' would be 'The early bird is already too late and the worm is out of stock till next month'. Sometimes one can almost wonder if Sweden maybe after all is still a little bit of a developing country. With its product scarcity and problematically low supply flow it almost resembles a prettier version of the former DDR (German Democratic Republic).

Therefore my request to Sweden: Produce and buy more products! Build more warehouses to store them in! And distribute them in time and not 2 months later. Thank you and happy shopping!

6 clear signs that spring is arriving in Sweden

2010-03-23T14:25:00.003+01:00

1) the snow turns into rain
2) minus degrees are substituted by tropical 4 degrees plus
3) Swedish girls start wearing their thin leather jackets again (5 minutes of sun and one degree above zero are apparently the perfect weather for spring fashion. maybe someone should tell them that it does not help putting on an XXL scarf when you only wear a leather jacket)
4) there are tons of grit on the streets. If snow and salt haven't managed to kill your shoes, these little crushed stones will.
5) suddenly there are people again! Like moths the Swedes are drawn towards the light and if there are 5 minutes of sun a day, you can be sure that they will all come outside and enjoy their first coffee in the 2 degrees warm sun, wrapped in 2 blankets, jammed between 4 umbrella heaters. So much about environmental friendly.
6) the supermarkets start selling Påskmus. That is basically rebottled Julmust, a Swedish version of Coca Cola that is completely undrinkable for foreigners because it is disgustingly sweet and artificial.

Vad händer i Sverige?

2010-03-23T13:45:00.003+01:00

Der typische Schwede

2010-01-30T15:54:00.005+01:00

Nachdem ich meine gestrige Huldigung an den Schweden im Schnee fertiggestellt hatte, fiel mir auf, dass da noch weitaus mehr Material in meinem Köpfchen ist, das niedergeschrieben werden will. Und da man draussen immer noch nix verpasst weil es ja unverändert Winter ist, dachte ich mir, wieso nicht zu einem kleinen Rundumschlag gegen (die) Schweden ausholen. Das heisst natürlich nicht, dass ich noch zum Rückwanderer werde und Vox bald meinen Umzug nach Deutschland filmen kann, aber manchmal geht einem dieses Volk hier mit seinem Durchschnittsstaat einfach auch mal auf die Nerven. So wie heute. Deswegen jetzt mal ein paar random facts über den Durchschnittsschweden:

Durchschnitt ist eines der Leitmotive in der schwedischen Gesellschaft. Gleichberechtigung, alle haben Recht auf das selbe, wir sind alle gleich...blablabla. Im Grunde ja auch sehr lobenswerte Gedanken, aber: Der Schwede hat das mit dem gleich sein etwas übertrieben. Unentwegtes Gleichmachen von allen plus kritisches Beäugen von überdurchschnittlicher Leistung hat Schweden in einen Durchschnittssumpf verwandelt, in dem alle mehr oder weniger gleich viel verdienen, mehr oder weniger gleich schlau sind und vor allem mehr oder weniger gleich aussehen. Die Männer groß, schlank, ziemlich kurze Haare, die obligatorische schwarzumrandete Intellektuellen-Brille auf der Nase und die enggeschnittene Hose an den Beinen. Die Frauen groß, schlank, blond(iert), gekleidet in schwarze Leggins und einen riesigen T-Shirt Sack, begleitet von Asi-Palme auf dem Kopf (tagsüber) oder knallenge Minikleider mit superhohen Plateau-High Heels (abends), gerne kombiniert mit 1-2 Tonnen Make-up im Gesicht. Inklusive Selbstbräuner. Oh, wir sind ja alle so natürlich hier in Schweden.

Und wo ich gerad schonmal dabei bin, über die Schwedinnen herzuziehen, muss ich auch unbedingt deren super soziale Fähigkeiten erwähnen. Mir geht immer das Herz auf, wenn ich beim Sport sehe, wie die sich vor der Tür zum Gruppentraining drängeln, dann, wenn man rein kann, sich ohne Rücksicht auf Verlust in den Raum pressen, durch gekonnten Einsatz von Ellenbogen sich den Weg vorbei an der Konkurrenz zu den Stepboards bahnen und dann, wenn sie ihren Wunschplatz eingenommen haben, diesen so verteidigen wie sonst nur wilde Tiere im Dschungel ihre Beute. Wirklich, das grenzt schon fast an einen Fall für Amnesty International.

Als Ausländer kann einen solch Verhalten schonmal befremden, vor allem, wo die Schweden ja sonst einen so friedlichen Eindruck machen, wenn sie beispielsweise mit unendlicher Geduld und mildem Lächeln auf dem Gesicht Nummern ziehen und stundenlang an der Käsetheke warten. Aber unter dieser Engelsaura verbirgt sich ein nicht geringes Aggressionspotential, dass gerne beim Sport oder beim Autofahren ans Licht kommt. Oder aber im Ausland. Ganz anders als in ihrem eigenen Land, können sich die Schweden im Ausland nämlich immer daneben benehmen oder sagen wir mal lieber "sich geben, wie sie wirklich sind". Wieso? Na, weil es im Ausland billigen Alkohol gibt! Und den braucht der Schwede ja, um sich richtig gehen zu lassen. Deswegen wimmelt es in Thailand, vor allem in der Winterzeit, nur so von Schweden. Billiger Alkohol und dazu auch noch Sonne und Wärme, das sind ja gleich drei Dinge, die die Schweden so nicht kennen. Achja, und billige Fälschungen von Markentaschen. Sehr interessant, wie viele Schwedinnen ein paar LV, Prada und Chanel Täschchen im Schrank haben. Wer es finanziell nicht nach Thailand schafft, der absolviert in Ägypten das gleiche Programm.

Aber gut, man kann es diesem Volk ja nicht übel nehmen. Vom Staat steuerlich belastet und um angenehme Dinge wie Alkoholgenuss, Zigaretten rauchen und schnell fahren auf Autobahnen gebracht, müssen die armen Schweden schon ins Ausland flüchten, um mal so richtig die Sau rauszulassen. Und das Positive daran ist ja: Die Schweden, die sich im Ausland daneben benehmen, die sind erstmal aus Schweden selbst weg! Das heisst, ich hab ein paar Ellenbogen weniger zu fürchten, wenn ich mich in den wöchentlichen Kampf um das letzte Stepboard begebe. Von daher, hängt ruhig noch ein paar Wochen Urlaub dran!

Snö Snö Snö - ach nö.

2010-01-29T17:38:00.006+01:00

Während draussen mal wieder tausende weiße Schneeflocken runterrasseln und Lund weitgehend unbegehbar machen, habe ich endlich mal wieder Zeit und Muße, mich ein bisschen in meinem kleinen Blog aufzuregen, bzw.mich über Schweden und seine Einwohner auszulassen. Leitmotiv ist dieses Mal wegen seiner Aktualität das Problem Winter.

Da bin ich extra noch nach Südschweden gezogen, bekannt für milde Winter und sehr niedrige Schneewahrscheinlichkeit, und was ist? Ich geh morgens vor die Tür und denke, dass ich in scheiss Kiruna (quasi schwedisches Nordpol-Dorf) gelandet bin. Argh. Seit Dezember haben wir hier nämlich eine geschlossene Schneedecke. Gut, die Romantiker da draussen könnten jetzt natürlich sagen "Aber Britta, Schnee is doch schön". Aber was diese realitätsfremden romantisch-verblödeten Vollidioten vergessen, ist, dass Schnee im Alltag überhaupt nicht schön ist! In der Praxis heisst das nämlich: Verkehrschaos, kalt, nass, eklig. Kurz: Totaler Zusammenbruch des öffentlichen Lebens. Und in Schweden macht Schnee noch eine Spur mehr Spass, denn aus irgendeinem Grund hält dieses Volk nicht so viel von Schnee-räumen, geschweige denn mal ordentlich Salz streuen! Nein, im besten Fall kommt da mal alle Jubeljahre eine einsame Schneewalze vorbei und es wird halbherzig ein bisschen Rollsplit (??!!) auf den durch die Walze schön festplanierten Schnee gestreut. Noch besser wird es dann nach 1-2 Tagen, wenn der Schnee tagsüber immer so schön anschmilzt, nur um nachts dann zu einem riesigen Schneegletscher zusammenzufrieren, der unter Umständen ein bisschen glatt sein könnte. Aber nein, halt, wir haben ja 3 Splittkörner draufgestreut. Das hilft natürlich enorm.

Naja, egal, zusammenfassend kann man sagen, dass das Auftreten von Schnee einem hier in Schweden doch ziemlich nahelegt, bloß drinnen zu bleiben. Für 1-2 Tage geht das natürlich auch. Aber problematisch wird es, wenn es so wie jetzt wochenlang weiss draussen bleibt - wenigstens für uns, die armen Immigranten, die ein bisschen soziales Leben und Abwechslung brauchen. Nicht so die Schweden. Die atmen wahrscheinlich auf, dass sie endlich noch mehr zu Hause bleiben können als sie eh schon sind. Schliesslich war man ja schon in den 2.5 Frühjahrs-und Sommermonaten "die ganze Zeit" draussen. Zu viel Kontakt mit der Aussenwelt is ja bekanntlich nix für den Schweden. Also lieber schnell noch das Süsswarenregal vom lokalen ICA Supermarkt leergeräumt, bei IKEA 3 Familienpackungen Teelichter geschnappt und ab in die heimische Höhle, Türe zu und Klingel abstellen. Jetzt wird nämlich "gemyst". "Mysa" ist ein schwedisches Verb, dass bis jetzt noch nicht erfolgreich in andere Sprachen übersetzt werden konnte. In etwa bedeutet "mysa": zu Hause auf der Couch im Kerzenschein in Jogginghose rumsitzen, Süssigkeiten fressen und TV gucken. Wahnsinnig spannend. Und das jeden scheiss Abend ab dem ersten Zeichen von Winter - sprich ab dem 1.Oktober.

Naja, das einzige Licht am Horizont ist die vage Erinnerung von letztem Jahr an das Frühjahr, das irgendwann im April "plötzlich" den Winter beendete und alle Schweden aus ihren Löchern kriechen und in die Stadt gehen liess, bevor sie sich alle in ihre Ferienhäuser zum privaten Genuss des 3-wöchigen Sommers absetzten. Wenn sich die Schweden bis dahin nicht totgemyst haben, gibt es für 2010 vielleicht ja auch noch Hoffnung. Bis dahin werde ich, gewappnet mit High-tech Daunenwinterjacke, Gummistiefeln und Doppelfleecehandschuhen, versuchen, dem Winter zu trotzen und dabei jede einzelne Schneeflocke beschimpfen, die mir begegnet.

Jag gillar Sverige, trots allt.

2009-11-13T00:16:00.004+01:00

Oh, and before some people now assume again (completely wrongly) that I do not like Sweden, here my top ten of things why I like living in Sweden so much:

1) hardly any traffic
2) Swedish fashion
3) extremely handsome population (including my handsome boyfriend)
4) godis
5) 'Sveriges fulaste hem' and 'Lyxfällan'
6) kanelbullar, chockladbollar, punschrullar!
7) no stress
8) köttbullar
9) round knäckebröd
10)nature (somehow feel like I have to write that)

So: Sverige, jag älskar dig. Men ibland finns det room for improvement.

Service desert Sweden

2009-11-12T23:25:00.005+01:00

"Service" and "Sweden" -
the only connection between these two is that they both start with a "S".

I am from Germany. And shop assistants/waiters in Germany are not famous for being the most polite or most helpful ones. Actually a lot of them are fucking unfriendly and on the border to brazen. So I thought that it could not get much worse. Haha. HAHAHA. How wrong I was. Because, how unfriendly those people might be, at least they usually help you if you ask them to. Sure, they might put on a face full of pain and disgust that a customer actually dared to approach them, but except of that, you usually more or less get from them what you want.

This seems to be not necessarily the case in Sweden. Let us look at a case study I conducted (involuntarily) yesterday when shopping in Malmö. I was in the best shopping mood, I was craving for some cool shit to spend my money on. In addition, a new perfume was also on the agenda. So, first stop was a perfume store. Or maybe we should better call it "perfume museum". Why? Because you were not supposed to touch the perfume bottles! Instead they were protected from customers by a sort of fence. I call it the Swedish drugstores' answer to the Berlin Wall. I am not sure if you would be shot when trying to surpass that, but I can easily imagine that. Anyway. So we are in that 'store', staring at the perfume bottles from a distance and wondering how we could test them. 'Fortunately' a shop assistant is near. Not to help us though. This woman, according to her facial expression she must have been on crack and ecstasy and 500 boxes of Snus at the same time, smiles at us and asks the rhetorical question "Can I help you?". Of course she does not expect a "yes" answer. When hearing a "yes" she would probably disappear within one millisecond. So we are clever and avoid using yes. Instead we say "We are looking for a new perfume..." And what does she reply? "Oh yes, you can have a look at the bottles." Excuse me?! Did I miss something? Is there a way you can make a spiritual connection with the fragrances and smell the perfume without actually spraying it? Needless to say we left that store pretty soon after that. Only looking at perfume, not so much fun. Plus I do not get why they have to protect their perfume from potential buyers. Seems that they think of their customers as criminals. Lovely.

So it was time for the next stop. After that fiasco I knew there was only one place that could comfort me and soothe me. The holy Zara store. I really love Zara. During my time in Spain I nearly lived there. The one in Malmö is actually the worst Zara store ever, always a mess, always everything I like sold out, always size S non-existent. But anyway, you have to work with what you have available and because the next Zara is 3 hours away, Zara Malmö is the only option. So I went in there. And I even found a shoe I liked. I say 'shoe' here because there was only one shoe of the pair. After having proactively already searched the whole store for the second one, I had to do what is worst in Zara Malmö: ask a shop assistant. The collection, tidiness and sizes might suck in that Zara, but the personnel - even worse. Incredible. I cannot even put into words how unfriendly they are. Anyway, so I found the first shop assistant standing next to the only tidy table of sweaters, touching the sweaters. I asked him if he maybe knew where to find the other show. First he tried to ignore me. But I stayed.

At the second try he looked at me, looked into the store and says "Dressing room.". So I went into the dressing room where there were huge piles of clothes and started to go through them to look for the missing shoe. Suddenly I was interrupted by an even unfriendlier female shop assistant turned zombie who was wandering until then pretty aimlessly through the store. But now that she found a victim she was alive again and bitched "The dressing room is closed.". But I was not gonna give up so easily. I told her that her colleague send me there to look for the missing shoe. Without a second of hesitation she said "It is not here.". For a short moment I was impressed how she can know that. Since there were two huge piles of clothes and shoes which did not look sorted at all. Maybe she had X-ray vision?

Of course she hadn't. And when I retreated from the changing room, a third shop assistant dragon shouted towards me "we are closed!". It was not even 18.00. I hate shopping in Sweden.

But don't worry, there is a happy end. Not for Zara Malmö, but for my faith in service. Today I was at two supermarkets, the place where you least expect customer service. AND THEY WERE SO FRIENDLY. Maybe that is the answer: I will only go shopping in supermarkets from now on.

Who needs Zara Malmö when you can have ICA and Willys?

Das perfekte Schwedendinner

2009-09-06T17:19:00.003+02:00

Passend zu meiner negativen Grundstimmung momentan gibt es heute einen kleinen Einblick in die schwedische Küche. Vorab muss man sagen, dass Schweden leider kulinarisch nicht Italien oder Frankreich oder wenigstens Deutschland ist. Ne, das Land spielt in einer anderen Liga. Gut, manche Sachen kann man hier auch ganz gut essen, aber die sind dann leider so teuer, dass man da nicht unbedingt viel von essen kann. Ich sage nur: einzeln abgepackte Paprika. Eigentlich nur verwunderlich, dass noch kein Securitymann in der Gemüseabteilung Wache schiebt...bei den Preisen könnte es ohne weiteres ab und an zur Obstbeschaffungskriminalität kommen...

Also, stellen wir uns mal vor Olle Svensson, der Durchschnittsschwede (Durchschnitt sind die hier ja alle irgendwie, das ist das schwedische Gesellschaftsmodell), lädt zum Abendessen ein. Was ständ da wohl so auf der Karte?

Vorspeise: Erstmal ein paar Schnapsgläser Punsch, die unter wildem Gesinge von irgendwelchen unsinnigen Trinkliedern runtergekippt werden, um die Stimmung aufzulockern und auch den schwedischen Gästen zu ermöglichen, sich an der Unterhaltung zu beteiligen. Nüchtern reden die nämlich nicht. Damit einem diese widerliche Sorte von Alkohol nicht sofort wieder hochkommt, serviert Olle ein paar Knäckebrote mit wahlweise gesalzener Butter oder, viel schlimmer, einer Substanz genannt "Kalles Kaviar". Den Begriff "Substanz" verwende ich hier absichtlich, da ich leider nicht genau sagen kann, was in dieser Paste drin ist. Aber sie schmeckt wirklich ganz ganz scheusslich. Total versalzen, mit einer Note Fischeier und verrottender Algen. Kommt optisch an Fischlaich.

Zwischengang 1: Auf diesen kulinarischen Schrecken gibt es erstmal wieder ein paar Schnapsgläser Punsch und eine Packung lecker Snus, dem allseits beliebten Kautabak. Ab damit in die Backe und wenn man aussieht wie ein Hamster, dann snust man richtig.

Hauptspeise: Hmmm...jetzt darf man sich auf ein richtiges Highlight der schwedischen Küche freuen: Olle serviert megastinkender eingelegter Fisch aus einer roten Konservendose (weiss den Namen leider nicht, aber Finger weg, das Zeug stinkt auf Tage die Wohnung voll). Dazu herrliches schwedisches "Brot". Der Begriff Brot wird hierzulande allerdings etwas anders gedeutet: So haut der Schwede nach Belieben viel Zucker und Beerensirup in sein oft pappiges Brot und backt es so, dass es sich wirklich nur 0.5 Tage hält und essbar ist. Geniessbar ist es aber sowieso auch dann nicht. Auf dieses süsse Brot wird dann ganz dick extrasalzige Butter geschmiert, um den hohen Zuckergehalt etwas zu drücken. Könnte man natürlich auch denken, naja, lasst ihr halt mal Zucker aus dem Brot, dann braucht ihr auch eure Butter nicht salzen, aber der Schwede hat es nicht so mit Logik.

Zwischengang 2: Noch mehr Punsch, noch mehr singen und noch mehr Snus.

Dessert: Ja, fast geschafft. Aber halt, nicht so schnell. Jetzt gibt es noch ein bisschen mehr Zucker. Zirka 1 Tonne für jeden Gast. Serviert entweder in Form von zuckersüssen Marzipanmandelteilchen genannt Manzariner die komischerweise eine giftgrüne oder knallpinke Farbe haben (hachja, die Schweden, dieses Naturvolk) oder ein Turm aus einer Art betonhart gebackenem Eiweiss, der von Zuckerguss zusammengehalten wird. Dazu gießt Olle seinen Gästen kräftig teerschwarze Brühe in die Schnapsgläser, die er dreist als "Kaffee" ausgibt.

Um 22.15 ist dann das Dinner vorbei und Schlafenszeit. Höchste Zeit, nach Hause zu kommen, die Bordsteine sind ja eh schon seit 4 Stunden hochgeklappt.

Let's go outside...next year!

2009-09-05T19:52:00.003+02:00

So...today autumn has "finally" arrived in Lund, after approximately 3.5 weeks of what the Swedes call admiringly their "magic Swedish summer". Looking at Wikipedia, summer is defined as "one of the four temperate seasons, marked by the warmest time of year with the longest days, and lies between spring and autumn". Let's see: Yes, the Swedish summer actually lies between spring and autumn and yes, it is the warmest time of the year. Although "warmest" is to be regarded relative here: If the other months of the year you mainly have crappy weather with either rain, storm, snow and (felt) temperature around or above zero degrees (or, also very likely, all of that), then the modest 26.5 degrees reached in Sweden really do feel like Caribbean temperatures. Anyway, I am not going to complain about the summer here, cause the few days that there is summer here it is really nice. Plus I do not want to make the summer angry so that it thinks "fuck it, I won't come back next year at all then".

No, what I want to talk (read:complain) about this time is the Swedish behaviour connected to the arrival of autumn. During summertime, they cannot be outside enough. All the free time available they are fishing, swimming, sailing, sunbathing and sitting outside. Even if it is 10 degrees and thunderstorm this does not keep Swedes from enjoying hardcore-overpriced beverages outdoors. As long as the calendar says it is summer. But as soon as it is autumn, kawum, all Swedes run inside and hide in their houses. They only come out to either work or get food. And this lasts at least until April, until they have been persuaded by permanent sunshine to come out again. I mean, of course it is very nice to be inside in a cozy warm apartment, drinking some hot chocolate and reading books when it is autumn weather outside. But if you do that for almost 6 months in a row, that cannot be healthy.

For foreigners, this "homeyness" is actually quite sickening. Cause no matter what cool activity you have to offer, it is very likely to be declined by a simple remark that "why should I leave the house, I have everything I want here". Yawn, how exciting. Anyway, although I might not agree (AT ALL) with this kind of autumn/winter behaviour, it definitely helps me to understand 2 other Swedish phenomena: IKEA and pick'n mix (Swedish: godis, a huge variety candy from which you can select yourself). With that much time being spent at their home like probably nowhere else in the world, it is clear that Swedes pay special attention to their furnishing. Moreover, the rather complicated assembling of IKEA furniture can be seen as a kind of entertainment that brings joy into the Swedish homes during the cold season. I mean, assembling a MALM bed or a BILLY shelf can easily take up 1 to 3 weeks. It is only tricky if there are parts missing, cause that would mean the Swedes have to leave their houses to get them. But maybe they make an exception for Ingvar Kamprad. Pick'n mix has the advantage of supplying them with loads of sugar so they might be able to weaken the severe depressions you definitely get here in autumn and winter time. Otherwise half of them would probably already have tried to kill themselves by mid december, for example by jumping from a Billy shelf. Although that of course wouldn't work as the shelf, true to IKEA quality, would already break down by the sight of a Swede trying to climb it.

Ahhhhhh, I want summer again!

PS: Of course I still like Sweden. And I am sure that not all Swedes are like I described them. But God, stereotyping is sooo much more fun!

Und der Award für die Servicewüste 2009 goes to...

2009-08-14T00:24:00.006+02:00

...DEUTSCHE TELEKOM!

Glückwunsch! Das 10. Jahr in Folge! Aber kein Neid, die deutsche Telekom tut auch wirklich alles, um sich diese Topposition zu sichern. Allein die Tatsache, dass ich mich darauf verlassen kann, dass, Finanzkrisen, Naturkatastrophen oder Spitzeläffaren zum Trotz, T-Online doch jedes Jahr daran denkt, mindestens einmal auch mir eine wunderschöne Komplettstörung des Kommunikationsapparates zu bescheren, bestätigt die Telekom doch schon als Servicedesaster Nr 1. Aber halt, war es letztes Mal noch eine ordentliche Abstellung und Lahmlegung von Telefon und Internet plus ein ungewollter Tarifwechsel, ist es dieses Mal "nur" der Internetanschluss für den stationären PC, der nicht geht. Aber nicht zu früh freuen, so etwas kann, wie wir gleich sehen werden, mitunter noch viel schlimmer sein als eine Abschaltung des Anschlusses. Hach, was wünsche ich mir gerade sowas "einfaches" zurück!

Was ist also dieses Mal passiert? Unser PC, der mit einem Kabel an das Internet direkt angeschlossen ist - nein, geht ja momentan nicht, also: sein sollte - empfängt kein Internet. Und das, obwohl er das jahrelang einwandfrei gemacht hat. Ja, mit genau demselben Internetkabel und genau derselben Software. Die musste ich lediglich letzte Woche neu draufspielen. Linux. Installation kein Problem, gibt sogar einen netten Assistenten für die Installation des Internets. Den Assistenten hab ich schon einmal benutzt und ohne Probleme Internet gehabt nach der Installation. Tja, da hat die Telekom wohl damals geschlafen und es verpennt, ein paar Hindernisse einzubauen. Aber macht ja nix, dafür werfen sie mir dieses Mal doppelt Steine in den Weg. Als Internet also nach mehreren Versuchen noch immer nicht gehen will (ja, liebe Servicemitarbeiter, ich habe auch schon den Stecker rausgezogen/alle Kabel nochmal reingesteckt/alle Kabel kontrolliert/neu gestartet/formatiert), hilft nur eins: Der Anruf bei der Höllenline.

Das blanke Grauen. Schnell kommen furchtbare Erinnerungen an die letzten Male auf. Stundenlanges Warten, Terrorbeschallung mit furchtbarer Telekom"musik", inkompetente Mitarbeiter, dubiose und unverschämte Techniker und dazwischen immer Warten Warten Warten. Stundenlang. Wenn nicht sowieso von vornerein besetzt ist und man a)nicht durchkommt oder b)durchkommt, aber sofort danach aus der Leitung geworfen wird. Aber gut, hilft ja nix. Also anrufen. Warten. Nach ein paar Mal weiterverbinden habe ich dann auch schon jemanden dran, der sich als Techniker ausgibt. Und sowas von unfreundlich ist! Von oben herab befragt er mich erstmal mit genervter Stimme zu meinem Problem (eigentlich ja nicht mein Problem, sondern das von scheiss T-Offline!) und rät mir dann, mal alle Kabel rauszuziehen. Jaha, aber wenn er denkt, er könne mich so einfach loswerden, hat der sich geschnitten. Ich bete ihm also vor, dass ich das alles schon gemacht habe. Ja, auch den PC neugestartet. Ja, auch das Kabel rausgezogen. Ja, das Kabel auch wieder reingemacht. Schade, muss er sich doch noch weiter mit mir beschäftigen. Aber nein, halt, da kommt ja seine Chance! Mein Betriebssystem, Linux, ist "nicht sein Bereich".

Na hätte mich auch gewundert, bei der Telekom haben ja alle keinen Bereich. Er könne mich ja mit einem Experten verbinden...aber halt, vorher möchte er mich doch noch gerne etwas beschimpfen. Also behauptet er einfach frech, obwohl er wie selbst zugegeben keine Ahnung von Linux hat (denkt wahrscheinlich, das wäre eine Handymarke oder Eissorte oder sonstwas!), dass ich da ja absolut gar nichts konfigurieren dürfte, dass das alles alles falsch sei, ich da wahrscheinlich jetzt alles alles kaputt gemacht hätte und man sowieso einfach das Kabel in den Rechner stecken muss und dann geht das von selber. Ja, bei manchen geht das ja vielleicht auch, aber bei dem PC nicht und ich habe da NIX falsch konfiguriert, sondern genauso wie beim letzten Mal und da lief es JAHRELANG auch prima. Als ich das behaupte, schallt mir nur ein "Nein" entgegen. "doch." "nein." "aber es ging doch..." "nein". Gut, wer die Telekom kennt, weiss, da redet man gegen Wände. Dreifach verstärkte Beton-Metallwände. Also gebe ich nach und verspreche, nochmal alles neu zu installieren und es dann zu probieren. Dauert auch nur zwei Stunden und, oh Wunder, was passiert? Genau, nix! Also neuer Anruf, dieses Mal kann ich mir den Spezialisten-Termin erfolgreich erbetteln.

Der Spezialist ruft auch sogar an. Und ist auch sogar ganz nett. Kann mein Problem leider aber auch nicht lösen. Wäre ja auch zu einfach gewesen. Meinte aber, vielleicht Netzwerkkarte kaputt. Mal neue kaufen und probieren...das mache ich morgen. Ich habe die seltsame Ahnung, dass das nicht das Ende der Story sein wird. Beten wir, dass die pinken Service-Terroristen nicht auch noch das Telefon abschalten.

I love you two, too.

2009-08-08T22:53:00.000+02:00

The inevitable influence of Sweden

2009-07-22T22:07:00.003+02:00

Since I moved to Sweden, I....

1. am addicted to punschrullar

2. started drinking tap water (jaaa, I know igitt! I still think it is pretty disgusting, but the bottled water is even worse and Evian is unfortunately out of my budget. 6 bottles cost almost 9 Euro! Plus they hardly ever have so "many" bottles of Evian in stock!)

3. drink sparkling water with such nice natural flavours as lemon-strawberry-mango-peach-pear

4. think leggins are a real alternative to trousers. Though, I still have not quite reached the point where I think you do not need to wear a top that covers at least your ass with leggins. If I ever reach that point I either have a) achieved the body of a supermodel or, more likely, b) lost my mind

5. have recognized how incredibly important good bread is

6. also had to realize that there are apparently people out there who, for some completely non-understandable reasons, think it is a good idea to put sugar into bread (note to Sweden's bakeries: It is NOT.)

7. reduced my alcohol consumption radically (and involuntarily. but alcohol prices do ruin me. I manage to survive on my imported German booze, but I do struggle.)

8. do think that every bottle of wine below 6 Euro is unbelievably cheap.

9. cry tears of joy every time I see the alcohol sections in German supermarkets. (Words cannot express how grateful I am that I did not have to grow up in Sweden. How do you explain your youth sins without alcohol? Or, even worse, how do you survive your youth without alcohol?)

10. think Germany is Poland! At least pricewise!

...to be continued.

PS: Of course jag älskar Sverige :)

Graduated!

2009-06-19T00:49:00.004+02:00

After one year of assignments, research proposals, articles, presentations, quizzes, ake home exams and one master thesis I am officially graduated! And when I say graduated, I mean grAduAted for the insiders :)

Congratulations to the class of International Marketing and Brand Management 2008-2009!

Family in Sweden

2009-06-19T00:40:00.004+02:00

...and of course, it rained again, it was cold again and, last but not least, it was stormy again. Ah well, then again, you don't move to Sweden for the weather.

May and early June

2009-06-19T00:38:00.001+02:00

Roadtrip with the girls

2009-06-19T00:25:00.002+02:00

H&M - or 100 ways how to fuck up

2009-05-23T00:16:00.007+02:00

So....I was watching Sex and the City - the movie today once more and when I saw all the clothes Carrie moved back and forth between her old and new apartments, I knew it was about time to go and buy something nice for me again as well! Only problem: At midnight, even in Sweden all shops are closed. But hey, what did God invent the Internet for? Online Shopping! So I decided to dedicate myself to online shopping and, as I am truly integrated into the Swedish culture by now, I chose www.hm.com as a starting point. Turned out it was more of a starting point for a e-tailer fairy tale gone bad than for a lovely shopping trip. What happened. Oh well.

There are so many little things which I totally hate about the H&M website. I mean, sure, 2 years ago that website was even worse, but considering H&M is (still) among the top fashion retailers worldwide, I don't want a website which is "not as bad as before", no, I expect a website that is FUCKING AMAZING! Something inspiring, rich and easy to navigate.

Haha.

Wahahaha.

Well, if you want to build a website like that, do not look at H&M's site. Inspiring? Oh well, putting a version of your damn boring magazine online is not that exciting. And spamming the whole Internet plus the website for weeks (or, like it felt, for months!) with that bloody average Matthew Williamson collection is also not that creative. Of course the collection looks acceptable if you let a topmodel like Daria wear it. She could even make a concrete block look nice. Not that Williamson's clothes are all ugly. No. But they are also not great. They are boring, over-priced, ill-patterned, bad-coloured things. Maybe some of the accessories would be still bearable. If you managed to get through the extremely strange and user-unfriendly presentation of the collection (think twice about clicking on an outfit for further details, because you will not be able to get back to the overview. back buttons are so last year I guess) and clicked on one of the accessories....too bad you wasted your time on that, cause EVERYTHING is sold out. You cannot even look at the sold out pieces in detail anymore.

However. You didn't want that overpriced shit anyway, so you switch to the normal women collection. Unneccessary to mention that the stuff shown there is either:

1) so old it is not sold anymore
2) non-existent because it only makes it into 2 shops worldwide
3) plain ugly
4) the same dress/pants/shirt/bra you bought back in 2003, just in the 100th different colour
5) already sold out.

Anyway, so we imagine you still, by accident, found something you actually could picture buying, and, even more incredible, picture yourself wearing. Well, hopefully you do not plan to wear that outfit still in 2009, cause delivery time can take up some weeks or even months. Of course you will have to order the clothes in at least 3 sizes to maybe get one size that fits. And of course it will be a drama to return all the other clothes (well, no suprise, H&M does not want that ill-fitting shit either!). Plus you will have to pay an additional 5 Euro for delivery anyway. Oh great.

Well, people from H&M, would you mind to remind me why exactly I should order online again? Maybe because of the 5 Euro discount coupons you keep sending me, which only are valid for online shopping? 5 Euro? Woohoo, I can hardly cover the delivery costs with that.

Nej, tack!

Highlights of April

2009-05-02T00:53:00.002+02:00

Spring in Lund

2009-04-06T20:40:00.001+02:00

I want Summer. NOW.

2009-03-22T22:46:00.002+01:00

Brittas kleines Schweden ABC

2009-03-22T16:08:00.004+01:00

Nachdem ich ja schon insgesamt mehr als ein Jahr in Schweden unter Schweden lebe, habe ich mir gedacht, dass es mal an der Zeit ist, mein großes angehäuftes Wissen über unsere lieben nordischen Nachbarn zu teilen. Heute in Teil 1 meines Schweden ABCs:

S - wie Snus
K - wie Kaffee
A - wie Alkohol

Diese drei Dinge haben nicht nur ihre Zugehörigkeit zur Genussmittel-Kategorie gemein, sondern sind auch die drei besten Beispiele für die doch relativ suchtanfällige Natur des Schwedens. Fangen wir mal mit dem Harmlosesten, Kaffee, an:

K - wie Kaffee. Oder auch: Eine pechschwarze, megabittere, flüssige, sehr starke Brühe (oder: Plörre), die der Schwede gerne ohne Zucker und Milch zu sich nimmt. Und zwar in großen Mengen. Die Schweden führen nicht ohne Grund den Verbrauch von Kaffeebohnen pro Einwohner im internationalen Vergleich an. Abgesehen von noch relativ normalen Kaffee-Konsumgelegenheiten wie Frühstück und Kaffeepause wird hier auch zu absolut jedem Essen essentiell Kaffee getrunken. Ja, auch zum Mittagessen. Obwohl das vielleicht auch ganz schlau ist, dieses Gebräu in Verbindung mit Nahrung aufzunehmen, dann ätzt das eventuell nicht gleich die komplette Magenschleimhaut weg. Ich persönlich, obwohl leiderprobt in Sachen Kaffee nach all den Jahren in Holland, kann den schwedischen Kaffee nur in Kombination mit 1 Liter Milch und 5 Stücken Zucker trinken. Noch schlimmer ist allerdings das Gesöff, das einem hier unter dem Tarnnamen 'Cafe Latte' serviert wird. Sowas von stark und bitter und schwer im Magen liegend, bäh. Und 'Latte', also Milch, hat diese Kaffeespezialität auch noch nie gesehen meiner Meinung nach. Aber gut, man kann ja auf andere Getränke ausweichen. Zum Beispiel:

A - wie Alkohol. Wird hier nur in speziellen Läden, sogenannten Systembollagets, verkauft. Kennzeichen der Systembollagets: Bescheidene Angebotsvielfalt, sehr bescheidende Öffnungszeiten und noch bescheidenere Preise (bestialisch teuer is das Zeug hier!). Wer für eine Flasche Vodka 25 Euro bezahlen muss, überlegt sich gut, ob und wann er sich betrinkt. Allerdings muss ich auch sagen, dass ich, nach zahlreichen Begegnungen mit sturzbetrunkenen Schweden, langsam auch der Meinung bin, dass die kontrollierte Abgabe von Alkohol an Schweden gar keine so schlechte Idee is. Die saufen sich sonst zu Tode. Oder fallen noch öfter in Clubs und Bars um/auf arme Ausländerinnen wie mich drauf. Nene, dann lieber den Alkohol rationieren. Den Schweden bleibt ja noch immer eine letzte Domaine, in der sie ihre Suchtlust ausleben können:

S - wie Snus. Absolut abartige Eigenart aus Schweden, eine Art Kautabak, der im Rest der Welt GOTT SEI DANK verboten ist. Wie muss man sich Snus vorstellen? Wie eine Art kleiner Teebeutel voll mit Tabak, der zwischen Lippe und Zähne geklemmt wird. Gibt es in tausend Sorten, inklusive Blaubeere, Vanille, und wahrscheinlich auch noch in der in Schweden so beliebten Kaktusfrucht-Geschmacksrichtung. Für mich ist es zwar absolut unverständlich, was so geil daran is, sich sozusagen eine Zigarette in den Mund zu stecken und daran zu lutschen, aber gut, irgendwas muss Snus haben, denn halb Schweden hat diese Tabakbeutel im Mund. Andauernd und überall. Total süchtig macht das Zeug, schlimmer als Kokain und Crack zusammen, und angeblich kann man davon auch Löcher im Zahnfleisch bekommen. Herrlich.

So, das war's für heute, beim nächsten Mal gibt es dann so spannende Themen wie N - wie Nummer ziehen und W - wie Warten.

Autofahren im Kreisverkehr versteht der Schwede nimmer mehr

2009-03-22T14:40:00.007+01:00

(Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/)

As promised in the entry about zebra crossings, I will also try to explain the phenomenon of the (for Swedish mindsets at least) incredibly complex roundabouts that are gaining more and more popularity today. So what has theory to say about roundabouts? According to beloved Wikipedia, roundabouts 'operate with yield control to give priority to circulating traffic and eliminate much of the driver confusion associated with traffic circles and driver wait associated with junctions that have traffic lights'. Wow, that's a lot of information packed into one sentence, so let's split it up:

1) 'roundabouts operate with yield control to give priority to circulating traffic': Many of you might think of this as a given fact that does not need further explanation, but believe me, this statement is not as clear in the minds of Swedish car drivers as goes for the rest of the world. How do I know? Well, more than once I had the possibility to encounter the confusion, if cars in the circle have priority, personally: Little Britta, completely conform to all rules, driving inside the roundabout, and suddenly almost crashing into an idiotic other car driver who decided that entering the roundabout at the same time that I was passing him was a good idea. And the best: These guys even honk and swear at you because they believe they are right. Tragic.

2) 'roundabouts eliminate much of the driver confusion associated with traffic circles': Wahahahaha. Well, that clearly does not go for Sweden. The design of a Swedish roundabout is already nothing but confusing. A million random lines that illogically cross, merge or suddenly disappear suggesting between 2 and 200 possible lanes, topped only by a mountain-like pile in the inner part of the roundabout, which makes it impossible to drive clear-sighted because well, you simply cannot see anything! No surprise Swedish car drivers look like scared Bambis when they are approaching a roundabout.

3) 'roundabouts eliminate driver wait associated with junctions that have traffic lights': Hmmmm...hihihi. Again, might work in all other countries of the world, but unfortunately not in Sweden. Whenever I leave my home to go somewhere by car, I have to pass a two lane-roundabout. 'Great' you might think 'two lanes = twice as quick traffic, half the time of waiting'. Nonono, wrong calculation, in fact it is more like: two lanes = twice the time waiting. I have spent a considerable amount of my time here in Lund waiting at roundabouts just because the car in front of me refused to enter the roundabout if the two lanes were not empty. And by empty I do not only mean two empty lanes at your entry to the roundabout (which already contradicts the whole functioning idea of roundabouts, but anyway), no: The Swede seems to prefer his roundabouts to be completely untouched and empty before he eventually dares to enter them. In the beginning I thought it was still rather cute how all these car drivers in Lund wait like little shy mice at the roundabout, their facial expression somewhere inbetween anxiety, confusion and pure fear. But on a daily basis, this gets pretty annoying as it is consuming my time. Time I need for queuing in Swedish supermarkets. But that's a story for next time.

So, summing up I would highly recommend the Swedish government to broadcast a TV programme to their car drivers which explains the roundabout. And then all of them should be flown to a random roundabout in Holland for a one day driving training.

Survival of the fittest, not everyone might return, but believe me, the ones that come back will be masters in 'roundabouting'.

Zusje in Lund

2009-03-15T16:20:00.001+01:00

Say hello to Brifi...

2009-03-15T16:08:00.002+01:00

...the daughter of Britta and Figo. Doesn't really look like any of its parents, but who cares ;)

Flashback

2009-03-10T23:11:00.000+01:00

How could I forget how good Garbage sound?!

Zusje in Lund

2009-03-08T20:36:00.003+01:00

Nightmares during daytime

2009-03-03T17:44:00.007+01:00

A good advice for all of you: Don't sleep during the day. It has nothing to do with relaxation or pleasure. Sleeping during daytime always causes stress for me because I always get nightmares. And as I am a visionary person, I have very interesting (read: extra bad) nightmares. Highlights of today's nightmare: Third world war, vampires and a bunch of angry men wanting to beat me up because I parked on their parking space (which I did not, just to set the record straight). I think I will cuddle up to my beloved Klappar Skalbagge now and try to recover from sleeping.

Good Night!

How many handbags does a girl need?

2009-02-27T11:24:00.002+01:00

With this existential question in mind I woke up this morning, so I tried to calculate the ideal number of handbags that one needs to have. Not so easy! Let's see:

1) Colour: You need at least a black handbag, a brown one, one in warm colours (red/pink), one in a metal-like colour and a light-coloured one. Minimum. Makes 5 handbags.

2) Size: Essential are the following ones: Very big (potentially staying somewhere over night but not wanting to intimidate your date with a suitcase), big (daily use 1), medium big (daily use 2), medium (daily use 3), medium small (daily use 4, you need some variation after all), small (going for drinks), very small (parties). Makes 7 handbags.

3) Fabric: At least (better: more than) one made of leather, one cotton, one futuristic fabric and one waterproof (for the outdoor girl ocassions). Makes 4 handbags.

4) Details: Extremely important. Must have: One studded, one glittering, one with fringes, one with rhinestones. Makes 4 handbags.

This leads us to the following calculation:

I need more handbags!

Klappar Skalbagge went shopping

2009-02-27T11:03:00.002+01:00

Tante Britta war einkaufen

2009-02-27T01:09:00.001+01:00

¿Que hay nuevo en Lund?

2009-02-11T10:58:00.001+01:00

Lalalala

2009-02-10T22:30:00.000+01:00

Guess who's back!

2009-01-30T16:20:00.002+01:00

DIE ASIPALME!

...obwohl die ja auch nie so richtig weg war, wenigstens nicht aus meinem Herzen. Besonders praktisch ist die übrigens, wenn, wie bei mir, die Haare durchgestuft und vorne deshalb viel kürzer sind. Da hilft dann nur noch eins: Zopf mitten auf dem Kopf!

The only good thing about birthdays...

2009-01-30T15:09:00.001+01:00

...the presents! Can't wait to unwrap them tomorrow!

Zebrastreifen, Zebrastreifen...mancher wird dich nie begreifen!

2009-01-29T10:13:00.006+01:00

Dear Swedish Nation,

Above you see a typical example of a zebra crossing. Due to some strange unknown reason, the meaning of it seems to be mysterious and unknown to you all. So here are some key facts:

1. a zebra crossing is not a type of road decoration, but has the function of a traffic sign.
2. pedestrians always have right of way on a crossing like that
3. this means for all you car drivers out there that you should approach zebra crossings slowly and stop when you see someone crossing it. you should NOT, as is common practice right now, speed up and try to hunt down everyone on it.
4. for pedestrians and bikers this means you can easily cross the street WITHOUT panicking, stopping abruptly and letting 500 cars pass until you eventually dare to cross the street. Car drivers are not stupid, they sense your fear and will take advantage of that. So if you want to cross, you have to show them that you know your rights, that you are very confident and that the sight of a car approaching the crossing at the speed of 120 km/h will not stop you from walking. They eventually always stop - after all it is pretty disgusting to have body parts of pedestrians all over your hood.

Up next: The mysterious phenomenon of a roundabout.

The secret star of this christmas

2009-01-26T23:53:00.001+01:00

Say hello to the latest addition to our family, Klappar Skalbagge from IKEA .

Swedish Music

2009-01-22T17:50:00.001+01:00

No no, it is not all of high quality what comes from Scandinavia! Especially remarkable the band's name: Bodies Without Organs...

Er is er eentje jaarig...

2009-01-17T14:12:00.003+01:00

...hoera, hoera!

At Home

2009-01-06T23:51:00.002+01:00

My last two weeks summed up: Christmas, presents, food, more food, catching up with friends, even more food, shopping, snow (uah!), temperatures below zero, more shopping, my first proper trainers and shopping in my own wardrobe (highly recommendable, saves enormous amounts of money which can be reinvested, for example in nice Adidas trainers!).

Copenhagen & Malmö

2009-01-06T23:45:00.004+01:00

Have a very Merry Xmas...and a Happy New Year!

2008-12-29T20:44:00.000+01:00

Home, Sweet Home

2008-12-21T18:00:00.003+01:00

Finally, after 10 hours of driving over several highways and bridges plus a ferry trip where I almost didn't find my car ('It is parked on F4.' 'F4? We don't have such a thing as F4 here.') I am HOME. Finally back in the country of the Euro and moderate prices! God, in comparison to Sweden, everything is so cheap here! And you can even buy alcohol in supermarkets! Paradise.

I still hate snow

2008-11-22T00:22:00.003+01:00

It started snowing. Wähhh.

Baking with Sofia

2008-11-22T00:20:00.001+01:00

Trelleborg, Falsterbo and Lund, Lund, Lund

2008-11-16T21:51:00.001+01:00

Svenska för Nybörjare - Swedish for Insiders

2008-11-15T23:50:00.000+01:00

Scandinavian Languages cause Trouble

2008-11-15T23:41:00.001+01:00

Copenhagen

2008-10-30T21:09:00.003+01:00

New future plans: Marry a Dane and move to Copenhagen. More precisely: Marry a rich Dane and move to Copenhagen, because Copenhagen is besides being one of the most beautiful cities also one of the most expensive ones unfortunately...

Lu Lu Lu Lu Luuuuuund!

2008-10-25T11:33:00.003+02:00

The Sound of Lund

2008-10-18T20:55:00.003+02:00

and by the way: Absolute Peach and Absolute Rasberry Vodka are evil. VERY EVIL.

Zusje in Lund!

2008-10-13T23:40:00.003+02:00

Göteborg

2008-10-13T23:36:00.005+02:00

...and unlike Stockholm 2 years ago, this time we made some time for cultural activities...we actually spent a substantial amount of our sunday in museums! Nice side effect: You cannot spend money there as you cannot buy anything. Oh yes, and it also feels good to act a little intellectual from time to time ;)

I love Nature?!

2008-10-13T23:34:00.003+02:00

Look what almost 2 months of Sweden have done to me...I started actually enjoying nature! Scary, isn't it?

Skåne rocks!

2008-09-27T21:41:00.001+02:00

Party in Malmö

2008-09-21T11:13:00.002+02:00

Happy Happy Happy

2008-09-14T12:47:00.001+02:00

I love Lund

2008-09-08T12:28:00.002+02:00

Finally arrived in Lund

2008-08-28T18:24:00.004+02:00

PS: Who thinks that Munich in South Germany is a very expensive city should go to Sweden. Compared to Lund, Munich is Poland.

Er is er eentje jarig...

2008-08-23T00:26:00.001+02:00

ALLES LIEBE ZUM GEBURTSTAG!

...und Du bist noch immer und auch für immer die Einzige, die mir in einer Notsituation den zweiten Twix Riegel abnehmen darf ;)

Drama bij de Kapper

2008-08-21T14:08:00.004+02:00

Ik ben boos. Ik ben erg boos. IK BEN HEEL ERG BOOS!

Vandaag ben ik bij de kapper geweest. Natuurlijk in Nederland, want tot nu toe heb ik alleen goede ervaring opgedaan met mijn nederlandse kapper. Al ruim 6 jaar ga ik er alle 2, 3 maanden naar toe en krijg een mooie kapsel inclusief een mooi kleurtje. TOT VANDAAG. De eerste tegenvaller: Ik kreeg een nieuwe kapster toegewezen. Nou, eigenlijk een best aardig meisje, dus valt nog mee dacht ik. Hahaha. DUS NIET! Toen ik haar aangaf wat met mijn haar moest gebeuren had ze al behoorlijk problemen om dat te snappen. En ik had niet eens een wilde visie van een megastylishe bob in vijf kleuren met low- en highlights! Nee, ik wilde alleen zoals altijd een beetje blonder worden met lichte plukjes erin en gewoon weer een kapsel, dat iets mooier valt. Ahhhhhhh. Nou, dat was te veel voor haar. Heeeeel onzeker begon ze te knippen en iedere 5 minuten moest ik haar corrigeren en aan haar vertellen, waar nog wat af moest. Uiteindelijk kwam een oudere kapster er bij en probeerde te redden, wat er nog te redden was. Goed, dacht ik, kapsel is al kut, maar misschien kan ze tenminste mijn haar mooi kleuren. Grrrrr. Dat was ook drama. D-R-A-M-A. 6 keer (ZES KEER) moest ze naar de andere kapster lopen om te vragen hoe zij precies het kleuren moest doen. En dan de highlights. Ik heb zeker 10 keer heel duidelijk aangegeven: HOU HET NATUURLIJK! Ik wil namelijk zeker geen platinumblond. En wat gebeurt? Na 15 minuten inwerkingstijd van de kleur kijkt zij op mijn hoofd en zegt: Zo helemaal totaal platinum mag het worden?! Ik was echt verbaasd van zoveel stommiteit. Bovendien zat zij de hele tijd met mij te kletsen, wat eigenlijk wel fijn is, want ik ben natuurlijk ook een communicatieve type, maar als ik 3 uur bij de kapper zit, dan wil ik wellness talk en geen urenlang verhaal over zo'n drama-boek dat zij had gelezen over mishandelingen in Afrika! Sorry?! Ahhhhhhhhh. Nou, uiteindelijk heeft zij het haar dan nog 'gestyled' totdat ik volgens haar net uitzag als Marilyn Monroe, terwijl ik me eigenlijk voelde zoals Marilyn Monroe on crack nadat ze in een stopcontact heeft gepakt. En dan heeft deze plezierige ervaring me nog 90 Euro gekost. MERCI! Daar ben ik echt voor de laatste keer geweest. Zweedse kappers, ik kom eraan!

My thoughts on Bavaria

2008-08-17T19:18:00.007+02:00

Yes, I did it...I traveled to the South of Germany and dared to spend almost one week in (what is at least for me) the most suspicious province of Germany: Bayern aka Bavaria. Don't get me wrong, usually I am a very open-minded person...but when it came to Bavaria and its inhabitants, I had quite some (read: a lot) prejudices. So, what did I learn on my vacation down south?

1. Bavaria really rocks when it comes to highways, petrol stations and traffic. God, the highways are sooooo empty down there! Even in the area of Munich I did not get into a single traffic jam. Very refreshing when you are used to the Netherlands, where traffic jam is standard and where people slowly refuse to believe that there was a time when you were able to get from Amsterdam to Utrecht in less that 2 hours. Second big plus: The petrol stations. In the West of Germany (NRW) we have thousands of highways, but hardly petrol stations. In Bavaria there are petrol stations everywhere! Every 20 km there is a petrol station - and a fucking huge one!

2. Very positive as well: Bavaria is very safe. For comparison: When I lived in Rotterdam, I was extremely happy every morning when I walked to my car and it was not damaged. In Utrecht, I was glad when I walked to my car and it actually was still there and not stolen. In Munich, some people even leave their radio inside over night! And nothing happens! Incredible. But a good advice, people from Bavaria: Don't even think about doing that in NRW or Holland.

3. Law and Order: People in Bavaria actually follow the law! I learned that the hard way when I crossed a street in Munich though the traffic light was still red. Common practice in Holland, but an almost criminal act down there. And same goes for cars! People actually stop when the traffic light switches red! Even more surprising: They already stop when it shows orange! No wonder that Dutch people always drive quite slowly in South Germany...they are simply shocked and insecure! In Holland, traffic lights are decoration, and that's it.

4. Food: Well, of course nothing beats Dutch fries, but I am addicted to all kinds of Laugen-bakery products: pretzels, breadrolls, croissants...yummie! On the other hand, sorry guys, but the beer is not really tasty. And I found out why they always serve beer in 1 litre glasses: Because there is hardly alcohol in it! It tastes more like water. Disgusting water.

5. Language: Hihi. Hihihihihi. Well, no offense, but that's no language they are speaking down there. Could someone go and teach them some proper Hochdeutsch?

6. People: Well. Well well well. To evaluate this point, I have to divide Bavaria into two sections: Munich and not-Munich. For example people in and near Regensburg are very nice; two of my dear friends, Anke and Johanna, live there. In Kempten, where I visited exile-NRW girl Nina, the people were also quite sweet. But in Munich...well. Strange zombies is maybe the best way to describe them. Looking at some of the younger population running around there only intensified and verified my prejudices: They are arrogant, strange, pretty dumb and exhausting to have around. And I know that, I withstood the company of 3 dumb Munich Paris Hilton wannabes in a café for almost 20 minutes. And when I was later on standing on a street and looking completely helpless into my map, two Bavarian guys took advantage of the situation and started talking to me. In the beginning I was very confiding because I was so naive to believe they would show me the way. Hahaha. Though I did not completely understand the verbal trash they were producing, I think they had other plans with me. And very interesting: Boys in Munich seem to have a hard time understanding the word 'No'. Maybe they were not used to it or maybe they didnt understand proper German. However, in the end I think I can claim that I taught them the meaning ;)

7. Special points: But Bavaria gets a special point from me for...tadaaaaaa...bras! As I told you in one of the last blog entries, in NL and NRW there are hardly normal, not padded bras available. But in Bavaria they had huge selections of normals bras in every fucking store! Even at fucking push-up mecca H&M! Unfair! Do I have to move to Bavaria to get access to normal bras again?

All in all I have to say, I was positive surprised. Bavaria is a quite nice place to spend some time...clean, safe, relaxed and rich! I seriously think about going there for some time after Sweden...more than 80% of the job offers I get are from the South. And you know, in case of doubt I always follow the money ;)

Vintage Sweden 2006

2008-08-17T18:40:00.002+02:00

Wenn ich groß bin kommt der Orientierungssinn schon noch...

2008-08-03T00:08:00.007+02:00

Jaha, diese Auffassung habe ich, die unangefochtene Queen des Verfahrens und Verlaufens, tatsächlich lange Zeit gehabt. Wenn ich als kleines Mädchen mit meinen Eltern unterwegs war, fand ich es immer überaus erstaunlich, dass die immer ihr Auto ohne Probleme wiederfanden, egal in welcher fremden Stadt wir waren. Da ich ja ein schlaues Kind war, schlußfolgerte ich damals also, dass, 1) wenn man erstmal erwachsen ist und ein Auto hat, man sozusagen instinktiv weiß, wo das steht und 2) dass man sich folglich nicht mit den Themen Orientierung, Himmelsrichtungen oder Karten lesen befassen muss, weil das alles schon von selber kommt. Also zockelte ich immer schön ignorant hinter meinen Eltern her und versuchte erst gar nicht, mir mal den Weg zu merken. Später übernahmen die Navigationsrolle dann Freunde und Bekannte. Das lief auch genau 18 Jahre lang eigentlich perfekt und ohne größere Probleme. Bis ich eines Tages den Führerschein und ein eigenes Auto bekam. Das Navigieren durch den Klever Großstadt-Verkehr meisterte ich noch ganz gut, aber schnell machte ich eine schockierende Entdeckung: Nur weil man ein Auto hat heißt das noch lange nicht, dass man das einfach wiederfindet, geschweige denn, dass man immer den Weg findet... Ich hab in meiner Autofahrer Karriere zwar schon extrem viele Wege gefunden, aber leider führten die meisten davon nur bedingt oder gar nicht zum Ziel. Am Anfang schob ich meine Orientierungsprobleme noch auf die neue Mobilitätssituation und war mir sicher, dass der Orientierungssinn mit etwas Praxis schon noch geweckt würde.

Das war 2002. Jetzt, Mitte 2008, muss ich sagen: Ich glaub ich kann das Warten aufgeben. So oft, wie ich mich schon komplett verfahren habe, mit 10 Seiten Map24 Routenausdruck auf dem Beifahrersitz, einem Puls kurz vor dem Nervenzusammenbruch und der Befürchtung, dass ich wohl nie mehr mein Ziel erreichen werde, kann das einfach nichts mehr werden mit mir und der Orientierung. Gott hat damals einfach vergessen, mir ein Navi einzubauen. Und zusätzlich hat er:

- bei einigen Teilen der Welt die Beschilderung vergessen (hallo holländische Innenstädte! Wer schon mal durch Den Haag geirrt ist auf der Suche nach einem Hinweisschild, auf dem was anderes ausser Parken steht, weiß wovon ich rede...)
- in fast allen Stadtzentren der Welt die Straßennamen in viel zu kleiner Schrift und im falschen Winkel an die Kreuzungen geschrieben (als Autofahrer kann man die Namen erst im Rückspiegel entziffern, also wenn man schon vorbei ist!)
- Map24 und den anderen Online-Diensten wohl nicht zureichend ihre Aufgabe, das Berechnen einer richtigen und realisierbaren Route, vermittelt (gerade bei Map24 werden links und rechts nach belieben verwendet und gerne auch mal vertauscht, ganz zu schweigen von fehlenden Kreisverkehren und fünfspurigen Kreuzungen, die in den 10 Jahren ihrer Existenz irgendwie zu unauffällig waren, um von Map24 und Co registriert zu werden und natürlich den falschen Autobahnabfahrtnummern)

Gut, eventuell trägt zur Situation auch noch bei, dass ich:

a) absolut keine Karten lesen kann: Ich kann stundenlang vor so einer Karte mit einem fetten 'Sie sind hier' Punkt verharren, weil ich mir nicht sicher bin, wie der Punkt zu interpretieren ist, geschweige denn aus welcher Richtung ich gekommen bin...sobald ich mich dann auf eine Fahrtrichtung festgelegt habe wird die Route auf der Karte nochmal genau nachvollzogen, und zwar mit meinem Kopf in Fahrtrichtung...das ist übrigens auch der Grund dafür, dass ich manchmal vor meinem PC sitze und meinen Kopf im 270 Grad Winkel zum Bildschirm halte. Gut, helfen tut das nur bedingt, in 50% der Fälle bin ich nach 10 Minuten wieder an der Karte, weil ich in die genau falsche Richtung gefahren bin. Aber hey, learning by driving!
b) mir auch keinen Weg merken kann, wenigstens nicht die ersten 10-20 Male
c) es mit Himmelsrichtungen auch nicht so hab...als Kind vertrat ich lange die Auffassung, dass Westen immer links von mir, Osten immer rechts von mir ist usw. Deshalb fand ich es auch höchst seltsam, dass manche Leute dann noch einen Kompass nötig hatten. Gut, heute weiss ich, dass meine Theorie nur bedingt stimmt, aber wirklicher schlauer bin ich in all den Jahren nicht geworden.

Natürlich fragt man sich jetzt: Wieso kauft die sich nicht einfach ein Navi? Ich gebe zu, mit dem Gedanken habe ich schon öfter gespielt, letztens erst wieder, als ich auf der Suche nach dem dubiosen Stadtteil Düsseltal zum vierten Mal den Rhein überquerte. Aber: Das ist mir einfach zu teuer! So ein Teil kostet ja locker 300 Euro, in meiner Währung also mindestens 4 Paar Schuhe, und da investier ich das Geld doch lieber anders! Ausserdem sind Navis auch nur was für Luschen, wir echten Hardcore Autofahrer fahren mit fehlerhaften Map24 Routebeschreibungen und schwammigen Übersichtskarten! Und wenn man dann nach 2 Stunden Irrfahrt, 10 Nervenzusammenbrüchen, 20 U-Turns und 100 extra Kilometern am Ziel ankommt, dann ist man stolz und freut sich! Nichts geht über das Gefühl, das man hat, wenn man schon alle Hoffnung aufgegeben hat, aber dann das rettende Straßenschild mit dem richtigen Namen entdeckt! Besser als Schokolade, Alkohol und Shoppen zusammen.

Zum Schluß gibt es hier nochmal meine Top 5 Irrfahrten:

5. HOUTEN: Eigentlich kannte ich die wirklich übersichtliche Innenstadt von Houten ganz gut nach 8 Monaten. Dachte ich zumindest. Bis ich eines Tages zum ersten Mal statt im Parkhaus auf dem direkt daneben liegenden Parkplatz parkte und mich auf dem Rückweg so verlaufen habe, dass ich letztendlich völlig entnervt zum Parkhaus gelaufen bin, durch das Parkhaus durch bis zur Ausfahrt und dann nach 30 Minuten endlich den Parkplatz gefunden habe.

4. SALAMANCA: In Spanien war ich Gott sei Dank ohne Auto unterwegs, aber das heißt noch lange nicht, dass ich mich da nicht auch verirren konnte: Ganz am Anfang habe ich es fertig gebracht, auf der Suche nach dem wirklich ziemlich zentralen Stadtzentrums ganz Salamanca einmal zu umrunden und mir dabei noch eine 7 cm (wirklich!) große Blase zu laufen. Was war die Folge? Ich kam über eine Stunde zu spät zum Sprachkurs und konnte eine Woche nur noch mit Turnschuhen und unter großen Schmerzen laufen. Aber den Weg habe ich immerhin nie mehr vergessen.

3. KÖLN: In Köln habe ich mich zwar nicht schlimm verfahren, dafür aber auf der Zielgeraden: Ich hatte noch genau 1km bis zu meinem Ziel und was passiert? Zack, falsch abgebogen, Drama. Michael, meinte darauf: 'Anhalten. Sofort anhalten. Fahr sofort irgendwo rechts ran und warte auf mich, ich komme.' Baby, dafür bin ich dir auf ewig dankbar :)

2. DÜSSELDORF: Auf meinem Weg ins Düsseltal fehlte bei Map24 erst die Strasse, auf die ich von der Autobahn abbiegen musste ('Verlassen Sie die A57 und fahren Sie weiter auf die .' Kein Scherz!). Danach wurde noch einmal links mit rechts vertauscht und voila, fertig war das Chaos. Aber hey, ich kenne jetzt Düsseldorf wie meine Westentasche und habe den Rhein auf allen im Umkreis von 20km vorhandenen Brücken innerhalb von 2 Stunden mindestens 4 Mal überquert. Und ich habe das gesamte Flughafengelände umrundet!

und unangefochten auf Platz Nummer 1:

1. DEN HAAG: Als ich in Rotterdam gewohnt habe, wurde ich nach Den Haag zum Essen eingeladen. Zeit 20.00, Entfernung so 20 Minuten, also bin ich (ich kenn mich ja) um 19.15 los. Wann kam ich an? Völlig entnervt habe ich gegen 21.00 meinen Kampf mit den Straßenschildern in Den Haag aufgegeben und am Bahnhof geparkt. Da wurde ich dann netterweise abgeholt und persönlich vom Gastgeber zu seiner Wohnung geführt, nur um zu merken, dass ich am Anfang meiner Irrfahrt circa 10 m daneben schonmal gehalten hatte. Ja, das war schlimm. Aber den Weg hab ich danach im Schlaf gefunden.

PS: Nur weil ich mir kein Navi kaufen will heißt das natürlich nicht, dass ich ein Geschenktes nicht annehmen würde ;)

Not so Wonderbra: The Bra Crisis

2008-07-30T03:00:00.011+02:00

I have a problem: I have a cup size of 75 B/C and - even worse than the differing cup sizes in all European countries - I am satisfied with the size if my breasts! Huge problem nowadays! You wonder why? Let me tell you:

Back in the good old days there was a time when only normal bras were sold in lingerie stores, no padded bras, let alone push-ups. Paradise. As someone with a half-normal cup size you went there, you had a lot of choice and you were able to spend half your salary on new bras easily.

Well, as I said, good old days. What happened? Slowly the mean push-up and padded bras took over the power and shelf space in shops. And suddenly, in 2008, there are hardly to no normal bras left! I swear, I am not kidding. At an average H&M you have at least 40 versions of push-ups and maybe 4 or 5 normal bras. That's it! Needless to say that those bras are usually pretty impertinent or better: incredibly ugly. Wear these bras and your cleavage will get depressions. It is a huge drama. I have tried everything from changing my shopping habits to more expensive stores (useless, the same problem there) to even trying to buy a push-up (but that makes me look like Pam Anderson). By now I am angry and exhausted. Actually that exhausted that I bought an ESPRIT bra (at least from Esprit collection, but still) last week. Yes. The situation is really bad. I started buying Esprit. The end is near...

Di Da Dublin

2008-07-22T22:12:00.006+02:00

The first city I did not spend most of my time shopping...the prices in Ireland are faaaaaar too high!

PS: Yes Matthias, I drank a WHOLE Guinness...by myself! You should be very proud of me ;)

5 Golden Rules for Russian Learners

2008-07-14T18:47:00.002+02:00

More or less 9 months ago I started learning Russian, or better: 9 months ago my war with the Russian language started. Now, almost a year later, I am a master of the Russian handwriting (unfortunately my German writing suffered a bit), I can read quite well (which does not mean that I understand what I read) and I have made my way through 4 Russian studybooks, including one from former East Germany, and 6 Russian children books (where I learned that the Russian chicken says 'gagaga' and the Russian dog 'bababa'). I was forced to sing Russian Christmas, summer, winter and birthday songs and spent about 1000 minutes of my life saying 'bibibi' to get the pronunciation of the letter 'hard i' right - which turned out to be Mission Impossible, at least in my eyes.

In short: After dedicating a substantial part of my life in the last months to this 'language' (or better: top secret code), I felt like writing down some of the rules about Russian I learned up to know for the brave people out there who dare to learn it as well...so here we go:

1. Better give up any hope right away that one fine day you will be able to pronounce more than 10 Russian words in a row the right way. For example, just because there is the letter 'o' in a word doesnt mean that it is pronounced as an '0'. In fact there are a lot of possibilities for our little 'o'. It might feel like an 'a' or an 'e'...but hey, most of the time you have a chance of 30 to 50%!

2. Dont be confused when the alphabet suddenly expands and includes three (yes, three) versions of the letter 'i'. Believe me, one day you will wake up and recognizes that having three 'i's is essential. You might even start feeling sorry for the Europeans that they only have one.

3. Letters can be pronounced hard and soft. In all European languages I know letters are always soft, meaning my mouth is not used to pronouncing letters hard. That sucks!

4. Compared to Russian grammar, even German grammar is a piece of cake! In Russian grammar you have approximately 90% more rules and 9000% more exceptions and irregularities. Actually regular things are ruled out by exceptions by far. But hey, even Russians have problems from time to time with their grammar, at least according to my teacher. Every time I create a mix of wrong forms again she calms me down by saying the people at the bottom of Russia's society also have problems with that. Great! So when I will visit Russia one day, I will spend my time chatting with criminals because they will be the only ones understanding me.

5. For every verb there are two verbs in Russian. I would love to tell you why that is, but I still did not completely understand that topic myself. But a good advice: Use them 50:50, speak very quickly and have your conversation partner downing a bottle of vodka, then he might not realise.

Though the Russian language regularly drives me crazy and takes up a lot of my brain capacity (sometimes I have so few space available that I cannot calculate the discounts at H&M)...I still love it. It looks beautiful, it sounds beautiful and its the language of the nation with the biggest oil resources! Plus: The VOGUE Russia is the best magazine ever. And as some of my future plans involve a Russian oligarch, an oilfield, a nice palace near St Peterburg and a loft in Moscow, it is an investment in my future as well...I might not be able to read a book of Puschkin, have a conversation about something different than the weather and my pronunciation might be more like a new language itselfs, but hey, whatever! At least I can understand the essential question 'Do you want to marry me?' and answer it in a correct way by now :)

And for the Russian ones a short taste of how close (not) to a Native speaker I am:

привет! меня зовут Бритта. мне 24 лет я живу в германии в маленком городе у меня одна сестра. её зовут Улрике. мои хобби - мода и читать. я тоже люблю путешествовать. я хочу пойти в санкт петербург летом.

Happily unemployed!

2008-06-30T22:20:00.003+02:00

Freedom! Goodbye horrible working life, hello freetime...and hello organization, planning and dentist...but hey, nothing's perfect and I need something to complain about anyway :)

Boatgala 2008

2008-06-14T16:30:00.002+02:00

This is what happens when you give me too much Ibuprofen 600...

2008-06-09T21:50:00.002+02:00

I start having hallucinations and begin seeing the Klappabäver from IKEA as a human being...although, if you ask me...the Klappabäver definitely lives!

The best thing about the Euro 2008?

2008-06-07T22:35:00.003+02:00

Seeing Luis Figo, world's most gorgeous football player, no, world's most gorgeous man, again! Unfortunately the Portuguese trainer was dumb enough to not list him for active participation this year, but at least he is at every game of Portugal.

The huge gap that Figo left in the Portuguese team is supposed to be filled by Christiano Ronaldo, the metrosexual princess you see above on the right. I mean, excuse me??? Look at him! He travels with Louis Vuitton hand baggage (should be only allowed for girls!!!), loves to wear lots of jewelery, is a victim of his own styling addiction and is not comparable to lovely Macho I am the Man Figo at all, let alone that he is suitable as a substitute.

Bring Figo back. Now!

Auaaaaaaa

2008-05-29T21:01:00.004+02:00

Aua! Aua aua aua! A quite painful and exhausting week is hopefully over soon...on Monday I went to see my dentist because one of my teeth got a root infection which was really painful. So he killed it by removing the nerves (and showing them to me, bah) and putting a disgusting medical filling into it (ideal way of losing weight). And all the time he kept on talking about how great and beautiful and perfect this tooth was...great straight and huge roots, perfect size, blablabla...which was quite bizarre as the fucking tooth was a)causing a lot of pain and b)was dead anyway. He even took a photo of it, no joke! Anyway, at least he gave me strong anesthesia so I didn't feel anything for the next hours. Unfortunately since the anesthesia is gone the pain has more or less returned, keeping me from sleeping and often from eating as well. God, I look like a wreck at the moment! Anyway, I keep fighting the pain with my lovely Spanish Ibuprofen 600 pills and my secret cure, frozen towels. Cant wait for the weekend, which I will spend entirely in my bed, sleeping on a frozen towel-pillow and having ibuprofen for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Maybe next time God could not only give me nice teeth with enormous roots, but also ones with an enormous health!

Shop Shop Shop...

2008-05-25T22:42:00.000+02:00

...til you drop. Above you see (part of) my salary :).

Freedom! Education!

2008-05-21T22:01:00.005+02:00

Freedom!
Education!

and most important:
Parties and Alcohol!

Yes, after nine months of slavery I will stop making tons of money and will start feeding my brain with some tasty stuff....I am accepted for a Master in International Marketing and Brand Management in Lund, Sweden! Ahhhhhhhh! Can't put in words how glad I am that my masterplan worked out in the end...after I already gave up all hope and started looking for a plan B...but now it is official: From end of august onwards I will be in Lund supporting the Swedish retailers :) And all of you have to come and visit me! I will stay for ONE year...yeah, I am slowly settling down!

Britta geht in die Sommerpause!

Figo meets cat, cat meets God

2008-05-13T15:59:00.005+02:00

"The Inter Milan footballer Luis Figo faced protests from fans after he was accused of deliberately running over a black cat at the club’s training ground following a string of bad results."

Oh yeah, my baby Figo is so well-known for always behaving and never being aggressive...but hey, as long as he only runs over black cats and not blonde girls...who cares?!

Retouch my body

2008-05-12T20:58:00.003+02:00

For all us poor victims who have been terrorized by Mariah Carey, her strange 'I love myself so much' videos and her horrible 'songs', here is a cool parody of her latest nightmare, 'Touch my body':

And for convenience, here are the lyrics once again...enjoy! :)

You know I'm gettin' older
And I've gained some weight, too
In my imagination I am just 22
I'm way too busy to do Jenny, Weight Watchers, too
The fast food is to blame, cholesterol's through the roof

If there's a camera up in here that's takin' photographs of me
Then it's true, that you
Must sign this confidentiality agreement right here
tellin' you, what to do
'Cause if you run the pics you got without the use of PhotoShop
I will hunt you down
'Cause baby this is show business, nobody wants the truth
Don't even try it, this is my diet

Retouch my body
Stretch me some more
Take off sixty pounds
Then take off ten more
Retouch my body
Re-size my head
Clean up my skin
Please tone down the red
Retouch my body
Lipo my thighs
With your computer mouse
I'm as big as a house
Retouch my body
Remove every curve
I'm goin' to the mall to get a soft serve

Give me a tiny waist because I eat like a slob
Remove a chin or two and how's about a nose job?
Erase under my eyes where it is wrinkled and dark
Your resume says that you worked on Jurrasic Park

If there's a camera up in here that's takin' photographs of me
Then it's true, that you
Must sign this confidentiality agreement in blood
or else you, will get sued
Cuz if I end up on Perez, Hilton lookin' like a lez
I will hunt you down
'Cause baby this is show business, nobody wants the truth
Don't even try it, this is my diet

Retouch my body
Don't wanna look tragic
So call In-dustrial
Light & Magic
Retouch my body
Make me look lean
Like fat-ass Oprah
on O Magazine
Retouch my body
Even out my tits
And make sure that this haute couture size 2 fits
Retouch my body
Blur it some more
Come on and give me what I'm payin' you for
Retouch my body

I just want some gummi bears, I refuse to take the stairs
Make me fuckin' young and sweet
Get rid of my celluleet
I don't want no photo, boy
I want an oil painting
Retouch my body

Retouch my body
Don't cause any trouble
I am in denial
Don't ya' burst my bubble
Retouch my body
Just look at Madonna
In real life she looks like
An ancient iguana
Retouch my body
And if you can of course
Try to make me look
Like less of a horse
Retouch my body
I've no other choice
I only wish you could retouch my voice
Retouch my fuckin' body!

PS: Time to retire, Mariah!

Words of Wisdom

2008-05-08T20:32:00.004+02:00

" Was'n das für 'n wundervoller Hintern
der da neben an 'nem Tresen steht
und der Typ der da am Hintern noch mit dran ist
hat sich grade zu mir umgedreht
Und ich lach ihm zu oh prima den nehm ich nach Hause mit
und da lehn ich mich zurück und lass dem Mann den ersten Schritt
Mir geht's so gut, weil ich 'n Mädchen bin, weil ich 'n Mädchen bin
komm doch mal rüber mann und setz dich zu mir hin
weil ich 'n Mädchen bin, weil ich 'n Mädchen bin
keine Widerrede mann, weil ich ja sowieso gewinn, weil ich 'n Mädchen bin
Und der Hintern kauft mir viele schöne Sachen
und dann lädt er mich zum Essen ein
klar lass ich mich auch ganz ohne Kohle küssen
doch wenn der meint das muss so sein sag ich nicht nein
Ich bin so froh dass ich 'n Mädchen bin ,dass ich 'n Mädchen bin!"

Zeitlos und so wahr ;)

Ban children from stores!

2008-05-01T13:23:00.006+02:00

"I hate all children. For other people, it's fine, but not for me."

(Karl Lagerfeld)

Oh how wise is Karl Lagerfeld! He is absolutely right about children. I mean, I never really liked children, but I always thought that someday I might get some motherly feelings for them...Hahaha! No way! The older I get the more those little monsters seem to get on my nerves:

Example: I am in the queue in a supermarket, waiting for my turn to pay. Of course there is at least one mother with her children (favourite combination: One baby and one child aged 4) waiting next to me. Needless to say that the baby spends all its time crying in dolby surround, maximum volume. The other child first stares at me and tries to gain my attention. But that doesnt work with auntie Britta! Other people might think 'awww, look that child is soooo cute', smile at it and maybe even talk to it...but they will soon regret that, as little child once it has the attention gets really annoying...so here is what I do: First I ignore the child completely. Even if it screams into my direction or moves its fingers into the direction of a power socket (the mother should protect her child, thats not my job). In the second phase I give the child my coldest and most ignorant look and most children are quite clever, they get the message 'Stop getting on my nerves before I take away your Barbies.' In very special cases that doesnt work. Dont panic! Take your mobile phone, call your sister or your friends and tell them in a quite loud voice that you are waiting at the supermarket's checkpoint and that a little, ugly, ill-bred monster is getting on your nerves. The child might not understand what you are saying, but his mama 110% will. And usually she disappears with a loud 'seems like children are not wanted here' to another checkpoint.

I think the easiest solution to this problem is obvious: Ban all children from stores on weekends and during the week between 2 and 9 pm. And their temporary crazy mothers as well.

I wanna be little again

2008-04-28T20:53:00.004+02:00

Back in the good old days...I was allowed to sleep whenever I felt like it and for the rest of the day I was basically hanging round in my bed. When I wanted to explore the world a little I just called my personal carriers, Mama and Papa. When I wanted something to eat, I simply screamed and voila, my food was served. When I was interested in someone's property, all I had to do was use my Bambi eyes, cry a little and voila, I got what I wanted....ahhhh, those good old days. Nowadays my biorythm is destroyed due to the fact that I have to get up every working day at 7. In the morning! I cannot hang around in my bed, but instead have to leave my cozy blankets and trade them in for a bloody cold office. And I am not carried there, I have to walk myself (to my car, but still!). When I am hungry I can scream as much as I want, all I would get offered is a ' Shut up ' or, even worse, Dutch bread. When I want something like, let's say a Louis Vuitton purse, I could spend the whole weekend crying for it and my parents would still not see the sense in buying me a LV bag...in short:

Life pretty much sucks once you've grown up!

Little Girl in the Big City of Money

2008-04-18T21:09:00.009+02:00

Due to a continuous lack of cashflow into my direction (in turn, the cash flows away from me in a permanent manner at a high level) I cannot live like I am supposed to be living (no Louis Vuitton and Chanel, no Mercedes, no Moet et Chandon!). Which sucks. Big time. And I am realistic, I won't be earning millions on my own anytime soon. Not due to my own incapacity, of course, but it is the fault of all those fucking companies who won't offer me CEO jobs! Anyway, because I am German, I have plan B and C:

B Marrying a rich Russian with oil

C Being listed at the Stock exchange (not that I have a good business idea, but that is not necessary, right?)

Or, of course...you could all just donate some money to me :)

Public Transport

2008-04-09T21:10:00.006+02:00

Ever since I was a young girl, I knew that the only acceptable mean of locomotion is a car. Therefore I am very sceptical when it comes to public transport. A short busride at the airport or 10 minutes subway - no problem. But when this 10 minutes limit is exceeded it starts getting really hard for me. I dont know what I hate most about travelling long distances by bus or train, but among the top things are:

1) the unreliability (the chance to arrive on time is smaller than that of finding a handsome, normal Dutch guy (and believe me, that is already close to impossible))
2) the horrible people travelling with you (uaaaah. especially in local trains you have to face sooooo many zombies who were clearly overlooked by evolution and selection!)

Anyway. Some few things are worth a travel by public transport. For example a weekend in Frankfurt with my dear friend (and gossip sister) Beate. So last Friday I started my journey. 5 hours with changing trains twice. First I had to survive 1.5 hours in a local train. Uah. God, I have never seen so many ugly dumb people! For the first hour I managed to defend my 4 seats with consequent staring out of the window and ignoring eye contact. But then some strange young guy who looked like a wannabe business man dared to sit down on one of my seats. Not enough with that, he even tried to start a conversation. But, haha, clever me, I was prepared! I simply acted as if I didnt understand him and underlined that with my Russian Vogue. After 90 minutes I was released from that Horror train and upgraded to an Intercity train.

After 20 minutes of standing I 'already' found a seat (oh yes, so much fun standing in a train, especially with three bags!). Though I was sitting next to two 'women' in their thirties, type: Esprit clothes, eating bananas and muesli and reading some intellectual shit (no idea what, I just noted that the ratio of pictures to text was very low), there were also some people looking a bit more normal. Thanks god! After half an hour I was done with reading and eating (my nutrition during public transport strictly consists of chocolate. I need so much sugar because I am constantly angry). So what next? I was really bored. So bored I started flirting with an (goodlooking!) Indian. Very recommendable! Makes things so much more interesting and makes time fly by!

Only problem: Time did not only fly by, our train was also late! Exactly 6 minutes! And I had exactly 4 minutes to change trains! Thanks God the fucking next train at least waited. In the end I arrived, surprise surprise, on time in Frankfurt. Right after my arrival Beate and I started drowning my public transport memories with a lot of sparkling wine. Actually too much of sparkling wine...but that is another story :)

Valencia? Valenciyeah!

2008-04-01T19:42:00.005+02:00

888 km traffic jam

2008-03-25T18:56:00.007+01:00

888 km traffic jam this morning in the Netherlands.

No, I am not kidding. Amazing for a country where the distance between the most Northern and Southern cities is hardly 300 km. What was the official reason for this disaster? The weather. Oh yeah, there were maybe 2-3 snowflakes which immediately melted as soon as they touched the ground. That is very dangerous! So what was the true reason for this traffic jam waterloo? Dutch people cannot drive. Never have, never will. Usually it takes me 90 minutes to go to Utrecht. This time it took me FOUR hours. An awful lot of fun!

When will God finally take away their cars?!

Prettige Pasen 2008

2008-03-23T11:07:00.005+01:00

Happy Easter

2008-03-23T08:53:00.002+01:00

Veni, Vidi, Shoppi!

2008-03-17T20:33:00.003+01:00

Or in other words:

I came, saw and bought!

Now I am close to broke, my feet hurt, I am really tired and will have to live on water and bread for the next weeks ...but, more important: I finally have found something to wear for spring :) My top three tips for shopping at the moment:

1) Take a look at the stuff in H&M's children department. The shirts and dresses fit people up to almost 1.80m nowadays!
2) Though Zara still has not managed to bring a nice spring collection to their stores, they are at least discounting their stuff! Bargain alarm!
3) Yes girls, we can finally return to H&M's lingerie department! They started selling normal bras alongside their huge army of Push ups again. Alleluia!

Happy shopping everybody :)

History

2008-03-11T20:46:00.008+01:00

I found this picture featuring the most important persons in history at Andre's blog...so, let's see if you are an expert in history: Which pic is incomplete and which pic features ALL important persons in history? (Click on them to see the pics in better quality...such an amount of important people doesnt fit into my modest Blog-Pic-format...)
***************************
*********************
**************
********
**************
*********************
***************************
Well, obviously it is the second one!

I mean, hello? How could that painter forget the three most influential women...of the Playboy Mansion?! :)

On the radio

2008-03-05T23:27:00.010+01:00

There are three things I heavily dislike about living in the Netherlands: The 'bread', the traffic jams, and: Their Radio programmes!

Coming from the beautiful part of Germany that NRW is, I am spoiled when it comes to radio programmes. We have the superduper mega radio station Einslive and they have the coolest morning show ever. Love the two guys. But unfortunately here in Utrecht I cannot receive Einslive via a normal radio. No problem, as long as there is an internet connection within reach. So when I get up and get ready in the morning, I can enjoy my favourite radio channel without problems. But, as soon as I am in my car on my way to work, I get confronted with the very hard reality of what is Dutch radio: T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E! Their morning shows suck soooo much! Why?

Let me briefly sum up:
1) they hardly play music
2) twice an hour they tell you about every fucking single traffic jam in NL (and believe me, those are unknown dimensions!)
3) their presenters are horrible! They have annoying pitchy voices, talk only bullshit, laugh about their own bullshit and are noisy!
4) they do not only play jingles in between, no, they play whole songs! Those songs are often versions of a Euro trash hit back from the 90s, mixed with a nice beat (gotta wake up anyway) and including some Dutch singing completely senseless stuff like: 'Out of bed, into the traffic jam, oh yeah, nothing moves anymore, its gonna be a sunny day!' And this is an original translation, I wish I was kidding!
5) they play sooooooooo stupid games like ' traffic jam bingo'. No further comment necessary here.

But I found the solution! My radio-alarm clock doesnt wake me up with Dutch radio any longer but instead uses the noisy sounds between radio channel frequences (the first days you wake up and think its war, but believe me, even that is better). And for the time I have to spend in my car there is a tiny thing called MP3 player. Ah, I am such a genius ;)

Welcome back home!

2008-02-29T07:52:00.001+01:00

Verpeilte Drecks-Zugvögel scheissen mein Viertel und mein Auto voll. JEDEN TAG!

2008-02-21T18:03:00.006+01:00

AHHHHHH! Ich bin soooooooooo sauer! Seit genau einer Woche und einem Tag terrorisieren verfickte scheiss Zugvögel, die anscheinend ihr Navi verloren haben, meine Nachbarschaft! Die Viecher treten in Schwärmen zu tausenden auf, wenn es dämmert, drehen ne Stunde lang Formationstanz-Runden über Kanaleneiland (da wohn ich) und scheissen alles zu! ALLES! Der ganze Boden ist voll mit Vogelscheisse! Ganz zu schweigen von den Autos! Jeden Morgen muss ich MINDESTENS ZWANZIG Vogelschisse wegmachen! Und dabei war ich am Wochenende extra in der Waschstrasse! Wahnsinn. Niemand weiss woher die Viecher kommen (mich erinnern die an Hitchcocks Vögel!), geschweige denn wann die mal wieder abhauen. Das ist soooo eklig! Man kann abends noch nicht mal mehr vor die Tür! Der Sohn von meiner Nachbarin hat auch schon was abbekommen...während ich diese Zeilen hier in mein Notebook hacke fliegen die verfickten Biester übrigens wieder mal. Wenn die nächste Woche nicht weg sind, dann hole ich die höchstpersönlich vom Himmel...Also, wer nen Abnehmer für ein paar Tonnen Daunen weiss, bitte melden!

Die Jugend von heute / The youth of today

2008-02-16T21:46:00.005+01:00

Since I am officially an old woman now with my 24 years of experience and wisdom (haha), I think the time has come for me to write down my thoughts of the ‘youth’ today. With youth I refer to all boys and girls aged between 13 and 19, or, in short: To the little monsters. Let’s start with a short, yet detailed description of these ‘human beings’:

I am sure all of you have met thousands of teenmonsters themselves. We all probably have been disturbed by them during social activities more than a million times. You meet them everywhere: While shopping, while partying, while taking a coffee break…simply everyfuckingwhere. So what do ‘they’ look like? Well, in short: HORRIBLE. The usual boys’ looks range from wannabe-50 Cent (yes, including the bling bling!) to wannabe-David Beckhams (completely overstyled and overdressed) with some hardcore guys even trying the style of lovely fresh-faced sex bomb Pete Doherty (keywords here: skinny jeans and a ridiculous hat). Whatever style might inspire their ‘wardrobe’, some characteristics are common to all of them:
1. the ‘fuck you’ face
2. the cigarette (usually carried around in the corner of the mouth)
3. deafness (they listen to the music on their iPod/mobile phone on full blast while walking through the city and stay completely straight-faced)

So, let’s look at another interesting group, the girls. Within their group there are more different dressing styles, or better: examples of how you should not dress. Some things are common to all of them:
1. Clothes should NEVER EVER fit! Jeans are only sexy when they are bought 3 sizes to small and when they give you a very good muffin-top.
2. You can never show too much cleavage and no, a skirt does not necessarily have to cover your ass.
3. Make up should be applied in such a manner that it is visible to everyone within a range of 3 kilometres.
4. Your hair only looks good when you keep bleaching, straightening, curling and applying 1 litre of hairspray or wax (for the political correct girlies who want to save the ozone hole) every single day.

Now that we know how they look from the outside, let’s have a look what’s going on inside! Well, I have to switch from my very objective to a fairly subjective perspective here as I, up to now, unfortunately never had the pleasure to get insights of the deep complicated soul of a teenmonster….oh wait, maybe there is no soul in there anyway?! Probably they have sold their souls to Jamba for a package of mobile phone ringtones.

No, seriously, I often wonder whether there are active brain cells left in their little heads or not. Cause if you look at them or listen to them, you really get more than enough reasons for doubting that. To explain what I mean I will describe the daily routine of an imaginary teenage girl, basing my description on my rich and extensive experience. Let’s call her Mandy:

Mandy is 16 years old and lives in a middle-sized town. On a regular Friday morning, Mandy gets up, gets on the nerves of her parents and then gets ready in the bathroom (duration: 1 hour +). At some point Mandy gets on the bus to school. Once she arrives there she does not go in, but first meets up with her ‘girl gang’ to gossip (talk bullshit) and smoke the first cigarette(s) of the day. During school time Mandy shuts down all her brain functions cause all she does during classes is sitting there and using one of the two faces:
1. staring, demonstrating she is not interested and thereby warning the teacher to not even try to force her to think or
2. saying ‘I don’t know’ for the very unlike case she is asked a question. This gesture sometimes has to be underlined with a crossing of Mandy’s arms so the teacher gets the message ‘I am not interested’.

When school is over, Mandy meets up with her girlfriends to recharge her batteries from all this exhausting stuff. And where do they meet? In the city centre. After they have smoked a package or ten of Marlboro Lights (you know, less calories, these girlies are clever after all! I mean, all this nicotine in your lung easily adds 2 to 4 kilos to you body weight!), they enter MY holy area: The H&M store. Thanks god they at least do not buy my clothes. No, Mandy wants something sexy for the party tonight! So she disappears into the changing room with 20-100 too short skirts, tops and dresses plus some sexy lingerie (God, the lucky boy tonight - who doesn’t dream of a sexy orange Snoopy push up?). Not necessary to say that she is accompanied by 3 to 6 of her equally dumb friends. The next two hours Mandy tries to squeeze herself into the far too small clothes and spreads wisdom (for the Germans some quotations: ‘Boah Chantalle, biste mir böse wenn isch mir das gleische top kofe wie du? Das passt misch so gut’ ‘Näää Nadine, der Tom der hat mit der Steffi während der noch an der Nicole dran war. Ey voll der Asi ey! Ey voll asozial ey! Und dann hat die Steffi das rausgekriegt mit der Nicole, die hat nämlich den Tom mit dem Handy-Finder von Jamba beim Fremdgehen erwischt!’). However, finally Mandy ends up buying the first (and only) piece whose seams don’t explode immediately.

The rest of the afternoon Mandy spends in front of the television, watching the highly intellectual channel Viva. For all you non-Germans: Viva is a music channel. No, better: Viva once upon a time was a music channel. Nowadays it is a channel that sometimes plays a music video in between crazy presenters and endless commercial breaks. Anyway, Mandy watches. Also the commercial breaks. Why? Because Mandy wants to pimp her mobile a little more! She needs a new ringtone, a new screensaver plus some games and videos! Thanks god Jamba exists. Jamba is a very nice company that sells mobile shit for too much money to teenagers and forces them into contracts and thereby into bankruptcy sooner or later. Anyway. Mandy buys a new video ringtone of the great song ‘du hast den geilsten Arsch der Welt’ (trust me, you do not want a translation of this one). After the commercial break: A music video! Ahhh! And even one of her favourite group - Tokio Hotel! For those of you not knowing them: Don’t worry, these 4 ‘boys’ will probably also conquer your country soon as they have already expanded their power from Germany to Holland, Sweden and even Canada. Tokio Hotel consist of 2 boring guys whose names are probably not even known by their fans and 2 completely crazy teenage baby boys. The singer, Bill, looks like he has bitten into an electrical cable and afterwards fell into a huge pot full of make up. His German is Eastern and his English is hardly identifiable. His brother Tom (or Tim? Don’t remember, sorry) always wears a cap from which his ‘dreadlocks’ seem to grow. To me it more looks like he is wearing an octopus on his head. They have an IQ of 10 - together. Anyway. Mandy loves their songs and thinks the guys are so hot! Some hours later: change of location. The previous hours Mandy and her girlfriends locked themselves in the bathroom as they removed any sign of naturalness from their faces and by the way also managed to expand the ozone hole by at least 100 time 100 metres. Now they are at a very hip and cool disco (Dorfdisco), downing some nice alcopops (colour: glow-in-the dark) and checking out the guys. Of course, very important also for this occasion: The ‘I am not interested’ face. Only problem: The guys are also wearing that face tonight…so the evening ends for Mandy with her totally drunk been driven home by her parents - at 12 pm.

I'd like to end my blog entry with a message to all the little teenmonsters out there: Look, granny Britta totally understands you are all going through a difficult phase right now, nobody understands you blablablubblub. But would you mind staying inside and not going out until you have managed to look and act normal again? Thank you!

Non-smoker Anniversary

2008-02-12T22:19:00.000+01:00

I am officially Saint Britta from today on (at least when it comes to cigarettes): Since six months (169 days, 4056 hours and 243360 seconds) I am a non-smoker. I have to admit, after all I have started believing it was not such a bad idea to give up smoking (for now): I save a lot of money which I can in turn spend on additional shopping (if I smoked every day one package (which I never did, but that's not important), I would have saved nearly 700 euros by now!), my clothes do not smell and, best part, I am totally unassailable! Example: Usually when I critiziced my sister, she always responded something like 'yeah, but you smoke, thats much worse'...hahaha! these days are over! Nowadays I can criticize my family the whole day long...Love it!

Het is altijd lente....

2008-02-09T21:05:00.000+01:00

Spring is coming! I know, some of you might think now 'What? But its only february!'...but hey, in the world of fashion, that means that its almost time to prepare the collections for winter 2008-2009 :) And because I believe in the saying 'The early bird catches the worm' (at least when it comes to fashion), I spent my last weekend shopping for new spring stuff...I mean, after all I am pretty sick and tired of all the white, brown and black colours that dominated the winter clothes, so I simply had to buy new fresh colours! Unfortunately ZARA wasnt as quick as I was, meaning there was no sign of a spring collection, but I'll check back in a bit and then I am planning on shopping away my whole budget (and probably even more)! The spanish designers fucked it up when it came to the winter collection, so I expect some compensation for this shock!

New season=New Shopping reason!

Vintage Britta

2008-01-30T20:17:00.001+01:00

24 years later and the only thing that changed is....the car! :)

Perfect Bday Present

2008-01-29T22:22:00.000+01:00

Just in case you have some millions to spend on hand and are still looking for a nice present for my birthday on Thursday (that even rhymes :), you might want to call Mr Karl Lagerfeld and ask him to deliver these two gorgeous outfits from his latest collection...Oh, and they are Haute Couture, so try to act not too surprised if one dress costs more than your annual income...I mean, whats more important? A happy, nicely dressed Britta or silly stuff like a car, a flat or even food?!

Welcome back!

2008-01-27T22:33:00.000+01:00

Uiuiui! Good news! Girls of the Playboy Mansion finally came back to Television! Meaning: My sunday evenings finally make sense again! And how did my three favourite superbrains celebrate their comeback? By drinking champagne, throwing a pyjama party, downing more drinks and, the highlight, trying to wrap the neighborhood with toilet paper. Yes, toilet paper - thats what I love them for ;).

WELCOME BACK GIRLS!

Disaster of the day, nr 2

2008-01-17T21:00:00.003+01:00

After that Ryanair disaster, I thought my day couldn't get much worse. Oh how wrong was I! Finally, after days of waiting, H&M put pics on its website from the new spring collection. Yes, the pic above does show pieces of this 'collection'. No, I am not kidding you. The outfits above are really clothes that H&M expects me/us to wear this spring! I mean, don't get me wrong, I love to play fashion and I love daring outfits. But THIS is not new and exciting stuff, its CRAP! H&M describes it as 'tailored classics meet global style'. HAHAHA! I'd rather go with 'completely mixed-up pattern-disaster'. And please designers at H&M, look up the word 'tailored' in your dictionary. It sure does not describe in any way those ill-fitting clothes above! What has happened to H&M? Over the years, they really lost their ability to make wonderful trendy clothes...and now they seem to have lost their mind as well! Whatever they are consuming up there at the design HQ: Better stop taking it guys! Seems that this substance limits nerves and eyes significantly!

And now Ill go and pray in front of my wardrobe that Zara at least manages to bring out a good spring collection. Otherwise you wont see me till summer cause I wont be able to leave the house due to a lack of clothes.

Fuck Ryanair!

2008-01-17T20:25:00.002+01:00

Wow. After an investment of only about 3 hours of my lifetime (not to mention all the nerves that I lost during that time) I finally managed to book a flight via Ryanair. And I am a VERY unhappy customer. Or better: I am extremely pissed off! Anyone recently (tried to) book a flight with Ryanair? First of all, their flight schedules are, lets say, pretty clear-arranged, better: pretty empty. You can be happy if you can choose between different days! And better forget immediately about fulfillment of any deluxe preferences like 'I want to arrive during day time.' Anyway. So the next annoyance: The flight's price. Of course, we are all aware that the days of dumping prices are unfortunately over and that you have to add some taxes and airport fees to the flight prices. Still, at Ryanair they take this to a whole new level: After you selected a flight, you are guided through some steps, with each of them containing a lovely little new fee...first tax, then airport fee, then a fee for luggage (payable for BOTH flights), then administrative fees and finally, my favourite one: THE CHECK-IN FEE!!!! I mean, as far as I am concerned, one HAS to check in at the airport to get on the plane, right? And fucking Ryanair lets you pay for every check-in! Oh yes, and of course you also have to pay a fee of 10 Euro for ANY kind of payment. Nice to know you have the choice! So in the end, my final sum-to-be-paid consisted for about 30% of the flight price and the rest was related to dubios fees. I am still boiling with rage! Hopefully I will get at least a seat inside the plane...probably theres even a fee for that!