Wednesday, September 21, 2005

German Potpourri

DAY 3 of “Chancellor Watch” - The inconclusive poll has left Schröder and Merkel jockeying for power. By law, either one can become the next chancellor. But, it's the German president who can eventually weigh in and name a candidate if talks drag on.

A few updates…in no particular order…

* Tidbit #1 - it should be a crime to travel to London on business and see nothing except the inside of hotel and conference rooms. Two days in London and I have nothing to really show for it. I take that back; I have a stamp in the passport (future blog topic) and a Starbuck’s city mug.

* Tidbit #2 – A new blog topic will grace the start of each blog posting entitled “Chancellor Watch”. This little blurb will appear at the start of each day’s blog posting to provide nothing but a quick update on the status of the new German chancellor. And while we are on the subject, can I just say how refreshing it is as an American to see that the US is not the only country that has “election hiccups”. For once, we are not the only nation that is the brunt of bad election jokes and electoral circuses. So, Americans take heart: the United States is apparently not the only major western democracy unable to pull off an election.

* Tidbit #3 – After almost 5 months of waiting on the car order (yes, we ordered a standard black BMW, with leather seats, CD changer, and sunroof – that was the extent of our special options), we finally have our new car. Sans leather seats and sunroof. Heck: 2 out 4 ain’t bad. And to think, we waited all this time for that (she says with a smile on her face and a song in her heart).

* Tidbit #4 – We received a request by the landlord to have an apartment handover meeting. Excellent! Only been here 5 ½ months (heavy sarcasm noted). We sense there is another issue…more to come…

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

you are killing me... you can't have waited that long for a car and then not have it delivered to your specificaitons... shocking, even for European standards. Handover meeting after 5,5 months... that should work out in your favour really... whatever bigger or smaller damages there are to the appartment, make sure to flag those up as pre-existing... and maybe you can have a little satellite dish talk with the guys while you're at it... let me know if you need a German translator... ;-) ('nuff clues here)

Hachie Gal said...

To anonymous (and yes, I know who you are). Supposedly, the issue is a bit more murky. Buddy specified what he wanted to his company, they filled out the form (in German), and sent it to BMW. The rub comes in that the form was not correct, and we were not able to read this. Additionally, a certain allowance is provided by the company for the car, so either we take a bigger car/cloth seats, or a smaller car/leather seats, or pay for the difference between the allowance and what we want. Either way, we would probably have paid for the leather but the situation was never explained that way and so we had no choice in the matter. I guess we should be thankful we have a company-car at all.

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