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The clock is ticking...
Dec. 3rd, 2006 10:25 pmGerman punctuality is one of those things--"you'll learn it if it kills you". Well, I'm learning it, and it's killing me dead anyway.
See, whereas in the States, "meet me at 7" has the context of "and I might show up five minutes early, in which case I will wait around for a reasonable time until you show up, or maybe I will be five or ten or even fifteen minutes late, depending on traffic, life, and other Acts of God, in which case I will expect you to still be there when I get there".....
...In Germany the unspoken context is "I will pull up at precisely 6.59, and will pull away at 7.01, whether you are in the car or not".
Must be a result of being to close to all those clocks in Switzerland. The enormous mass of pocket watches and grandfather clocks and table clocks and wristwatches and cuckoo clocks (which have leaked over the border and into Schwarzwald) must create a black hole of ticktocking, only instead of time slowing down after passing the event horizon it becomes imcreasingly more precise.
Getting left behind hasn't happened to me yet, thankfully, but I'm sure it's only a matter of...time. Like a bomb waiting to explode. In my face.
As a side note, my host mother totally won this round- I consented to drink this fruity beverage before I realised it was alcoholic and couldn't renege cos of the polite. You know. Argh. I let my guard down cos she stopped spiking my other drinks, probably in anticipation for eggnog and cider. Shit, scheiße, and merde for good measure.
See, whereas in the States, "meet me at 7" has the context of "and I might show up five minutes early, in which case I will wait around for a reasonable time until you show up, or maybe I will be five or ten or even fifteen minutes late, depending on traffic, life, and other Acts of God, in which case I will expect you to still be there when I get there".....
...In Germany the unspoken context is "I will pull up at precisely 6.59, and will pull away at 7.01, whether you are in the car or not".
Must be a result of being to close to all those clocks in Switzerland. The enormous mass of pocket watches and grandfather clocks and table clocks and wristwatches and cuckoo clocks (which have leaked over the border and into Schwarzwald) must create a black hole of ticktocking, only instead of time slowing down after passing the event horizon it becomes imcreasingly more precise.
Getting left behind hasn't happened to me yet, thankfully, but I'm sure it's only a matter of...time. Like a bomb waiting to explode. In my face.
As a side note, my host mother totally won this round- I consented to drink this fruity beverage before I realised it was alcoholic and couldn't renege cos of the polite. You know. Argh. I let my guard down cos she stopped spiking my other drinks, probably in anticipation for eggnog and cider. Shit, scheiße, and merde for good measure.
