Hey it’s friday night and I’m at home writing in my blogizzle mah nizzle.
The fun never stops.
Actually, I’m taking it easy this weekend. Maybe I’ll right about last weekend and what I can remember of it. Maybe.
Work thoroughly sucked ass this week. Thank you Jonathan Ive and your team of crack engineers for making the iMac so freakin’ difficult to open up and service. Who knew that swapping a hard-drive from one iMac to another could take 3.5 Hours. Next time of course will be easier but damn! Other than that its a cool little machine.
Moving right along
One of the many things that some Americans can take for granted, depending on where they live, is 24 hour grocery shopping. Whenever I was living on my own it was no big deal to go grocery shopping at 10pm, 12am, 2am. It was convenient. I could fit it anywhere into my schedule. Most of the time it was done at a reasonable hour but if I had been in a recording studio for three days and was the last one to leave a session (The assistant engineer is always the first to show and the last to leave), I could always find something open at any time and go grocery shopping.
In Germany and, from what I understand most of Europe, it is different. Generally shops open at about 9am and close about 6pm maybe 7 on weekdays. That is about the same in America for most shops but usually not Grocery stores. On the weekends the shops open at 9 maybe 8. To be honest I don’t know when they open here on the weekends. I’ve never been up and out of the house before 10am here on a Saturday. Well, I probably was but it wasn’t because I had to be the first in line at Pennymarkt. Most stores close then at 4pm. On sunday the grocery stores are not open at all, so you have to make sure you have food for the weekend. If you don’t, you have 3 options:
- Gas Station: Mmmm, overpriced packages of pre-made sandwiches, jerky, bread and beer.
- Restaurant: A viable option but possibly expensive. Plus if you are a Sunday Slacker this means you have to put on clothes and venture into public. Hmm.
- Starve: Its just one day. You can tough it out til Monday morning.
There is a fourth option which is to conveniently physically locate yourself at someone’s place of residence around a mealtime. I’ve never tried it in Germany though. A lot of times I’m afraid of being to forward here so I wouldn’t do it. German’s are not as open and “Oh hey! C’mon by for dinner” as Americans. Some are but it is definitely less common. But say you are over at your pal’s house around 5 or 6 on a Sunday afternoon:
Hey, Wanna eat with us?
Aw naw that’s alright. I got something at home.
Are you sure? It’s no trouble.
No thanks. I’m all set.
Oh Well. Suit your se–
Well alright. Since you twisted my arm
When I first moved here and didn’t understand the whole bumrush ALDI on a saturday at 3:55pm right before they lock the doors mentality, I would miss the shopping hours and eat whatever I had. This let to some creative culinary concoctions. Really fancy things like “Senf auf altem Brot”, “Schinken auf meiner Mitbewohnerin geklauten Kekse”, “Nudeln mit den Reste” and don’t forget “Gurken aus dem Glas”.
But now I got my shit together and will be running my errands tomorrow bright and early at around 1pm. Maybe.