
21/05/14
Ride share is not a uniquely Canadian thing, nope, they have it here too… I know I shouldn’t be surprised, just like I shouldn’t be surprised to see McDonalds and Burger King all over the place, So while I may have known in the back of my mind that people would carpool with strangers in other countries the possibility of actually using it while in Germany never crossed my mind. I got to experience rideshare in Germany yesterday (I’ll have to ask Toni again what the word for it here is). Lots of people choose to carpool this way since it is so expensive to own a car, riding the train is expensive and the bus (greyhound style) takes nine hours to travel from Berlin to Frankfurt. So a ride was found, with a lovely man named Harry… who spoke exactly five words of English: Yes, No, Frankfurt one hour. I was not the only passenger, but as the trip went on it became apparent that passenger number two (who never introduced himself or even really made eye contact with either me or the driver) wasn’t the conversational type. Harry turned on the radio (top 40 American pop hits) and we proceeded down the autobahn at a conservative 120km/h with people passing us as if we were moving backwards. About half way through the trip I got my translation app working, and since the countryside was so beautiful I thought I’d look up how to say something nice about it all. It took me another hour to get the courage up to point out the window and stammer “die Hoffe ist schon” which according to my phone meant: the farm is beautiful. Either I slaughtered the pronunciation or Harry thought I was asking when the stupid farms would be gone and when will we be in town? the response he gave was “one hour! Frankfurt, one hour” and went back to driving. I went back to sleeping and staring out the window. I was a bit crushed.
Brendan and Adrian picked me up at the Frankfurt Houptbanhof train station and we drove to the couch surf accommodations Adrian had arranged for us. After landing we went looking for phone cards, beer and food with Victoria, all of which we found but even that was enough of an adventure to justify a mid afternoon nap. Woken with the promise of beer and biking through Frankfurt we spent the evening riding through city squares, past cathedrals and opera houses and finished it all off with a beer by the river, (outside and in public and legal)
Our First show of the tour was in Flennsburg, we reached record breaking speeds (for Canadians) on the autobahn getting here today, though after polling our audience they said it was a pretty standard… touring the prairies would be so much better if we got rid of the speed limits. The show went well, sound was awesome, food was awesome, beer fridge was awesome. The venue is called das Volksbad which was a public bathhouse built in the 20s and repurposed to be a multi genre pub/restaurant/venue. Its 2am here so I’m going to go to sleep. The boys are downstairs drinking with the locals, jet lag messes with any sleep cycle. Tomorrow we get to be tourists and check out the area since our next gig is only an hour away. Its rather civilized and all.
Speaking of civilized the opening band taught me how to say hello like the locals as well as a few other important words to know.
Ich haben alergia gegen tomaten (I have an allergy to tomatoes)
Die hoffe ist schon (the farm is beautiful)- I have not confirmed that this is actually correct.
These are phonetic, from the band "Nora and the Ponies of Wrath"
Moin Moin (hello, also can be used to express sarcasm)
Arschloch (a**hole)
Shclampe (b*tch)
And that is my knowledge of the German. Thank goodness most people speak at least a little if not fluent English.
Ride share is not a uniquely Canadian thing, nope, they have it here too… I know I shouldn’t be surprised, just like I shouldn’t be surprised to see McDonalds and Burger King all over the place, So while I may have known in the back of my mind that people would carpool with strangers in other countries the possibility of actually using it while in Germany never crossed my mind. I got to experience rideshare in Germany yesterday (I’ll have to ask Toni again what the word for it here is). Lots of people choose to carpool this way since it is so expensive to own a car, riding the train is expensive and the bus (greyhound style) takes nine hours to travel from Berlin to Frankfurt. So a ride was found, with a lovely man named Harry… who spoke exactly five words of English: Yes, No, Frankfurt one hour. I was not the only passenger, but as the trip went on it became apparent that passenger number two (who never introduced himself or even really made eye contact with either me or the driver) wasn’t the conversational type. Harry turned on the radio (top 40 American pop hits) and we proceeded down the autobahn at a conservative 120km/h with people passing us as if we were moving backwards. About half way through the trip I got my translation app working, and since the countryside was so beautiful I thought I’d look up how to say something nice about it all. It took me another hour to get the courage up to point out the window and stammer “die Hoffe ist schon” which according to my phone meant: the farm is beautiful. Either I slaughtered the pronunciation or Harry thought I was asking when the stupid farms would be gone and when will we be in town? the response he gave was “one hour! Frankfurt, one hour” and went back to driving. I went back to sleeping and staring out the window. I was a bit crushed.
Brendan and Adrian picked me up at the Frankfurt Houptbanhof train station and we drove to the couch surf accommodations Adrian had arranged for us. After landing we went looking for phone cards, beer and food with Victoria, all of which we found but even that was enough of an adventure to justify a mid afternoon nap. Woken with the promise of beer and biking through Frankfurt we spent the evening riding through city squares, past cathedrals and opera houses and finished it all off with a beer by the river, (outside and in public and legal)
Our First show of the tour was in Flennsburg, we reached record breaking speeds (for Canadians) on the autobahn getting here today, though after polling our audience they said it was a pretty standard… touring the prairies would be so much better if we got rid of the speed limits. The show went well, sound was awesome, food was awesome, beer fridge was awesome. The venue is called das Volksbad which was a public bathhouse built in the 20s and repurposed to be a multi genre pub/restaurant/venue. Its 2am here so I’m going to go to sleep. The boys are downstairs drinking with the locals, jet lag messes with any sleep cycle. Tomorrow we get to be tourists and check out the area since our next gig is only an hour away. Its rather civilized and all.
Speaking of civilized the opening band taught me how to say hello like the locals as well as a few other important words to know.
Ich haben alergia gegen tomaten (I have an allergy to tomatoes)
Die hoffe ist schon (the farm is beautiful)- I have not confirmed that this is actually correct.
These are phonetic, from the band "Nora and the Ponies of Wrath"
Moin Moin (hello, also can be used to express sarcasm)
Arschloch (a**hole)
Shclampe (b*tch)
And that is my knowledge of the German. Thank goodness most people speak at least a little if not fluent English.