well...
first of all you need to know R.
R is a friend of mine who came to Leeds after living about 10 years in California. a job offer at the uni here was good enough to get him away from the ever sunny state of California...
i met him at an exhibition opening last year and we became friends as he is coming from germany as i do...
don't get me wrong. i am not particularly looking to meet germans while i am in england. it is that i am now long enough in england to feel home here and now i can get in touch with germans again without being reminded on my fatherland in an emotional disturbing way...
however...
R was struggling with his wife who at the beginning refused to come to england as she organised her life california.
originally she is from russia but was living in germany when R met his then future wife.
they were not sure of how the whole thing should work and they were even talking about divorce...
maybe i should never think of getting married...
last week i met R's wife L for the first time as in the meantime they sorted themselves out and are trying how it will work...
we met in a pub, R and L were a bit late and we started talking in german and so came to talk about her impressions of england...
well...
you would expect that she prefers the english system over the american one... you now what i mean... culturewise, social security etc...
to my surprise she was telling me that she likes germany most...
HELLO????
GER-MA-NY???
me: "when have you been there the last time?"
L: "i was living there in the 1980's..."
R (knowing of my feelings for germanys situation): "better don't go there, L..."
me: " %%$/&§?'***!!& - believe me! some things changed since then..."
does nobody read the news? germany is absolutely on the bottom since years. we had to pay lots of money for our re-unification in 1990 and 10 years later we paid for the currency-union of some parts of europe...
bla bla bla...
well...
to cut a long story short... she did NOT believe me... and we had a rather unlucky discussion that ended after the first pint...
don't get me wrong again...
we didn't have an argument. it was just disagreement on e-ve-ry little thing...
and every point she said had absolutely no substance. i had the counterarguments on absolutely everything she said...
until there was just nothing more to say...
did i mention that i hate unreflected ignorant people?... that is going to be a tough one...
well they are moving into their new house during these weeks and maybe get a bit more relaxed about things once settled in...
more news soon...
my girlfriend is coming back from holiday tomorrow...
i am happy!
take care
F