A post to pass the time
// September 8th, 2007 // other
This week I traveled to the end of the world. By the end of the world
I mean the edge of the city center of Leipzig. Its about as far as I ever travel from my happy city center bubble. I wonder how much of Germany I’ve actually seen, and how naive my view of it is from the safety of sudvorsadt or the park. Travel for 10 or so stops in the wrong direction and you reach what feels like the german “slough”, only even more hopeless. At least slough has the travel infrastructure for a quick escape. The area I was in made escape feel pretty futile. To say it felt soviet would be an understatement, I’m pretty sure if it had been night i’d have been mugged for my teeth. Whether the bars on all the windows were to keep people in or out, I’ve no idea.
I was going to get jabs for a foreign holiday I’m planning. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten what jabs I’d ever had, the name of my gp, doctors surgery, place of birth, my name and occupation. Not a total surprise I managed to forget both my phone and bank card pin after not using them for one week when I was in the UK. I make fish look like elephants, quite an achievement. What where we talking about again? Ah, the end of the world – duck.
Anyway this was my first chance to see the german medical system in action. I figured they owed my big time considering i’d been so generously donating 84% of my salary too them for the past year. Oh no wait, apparently I would still have to pay as these sorts of jabs are not necessary apparently. The NHS might not be quick, theres a good chance you might die waiting, hospitals make you sicker not better, but they don’t have the cheek to charge you for the privilege. So, at the end of the world, cheque book in hand, hoodie off I was hit with 6 different drugs, 3 in each arm. The nurse tried to distract me by asking the best time of the year to visit England. I told her August. Why? I’m not sure its pretty much the same all year round as we’re guinea pigs for all new one season year. But its the default reaction to that sort of question. Next time I’ll mix it up and throw in something random like Shrove Tuesday or April fools day.
I have no plan what I would write about next, I could tell you about my friday, spending the rest of the day with two immovable limbs hanging from my shoulder, talking big questions with Matthaus, talking about stereotypes, languages, cultural differences for the 1m time with some of spread gang at a club. But then its all gone a bit online diary. I prefer to get my therapy off line and then come and write the conclusions online. So maybe I’ll skip that part. See you at the conclusion, happy Saturday!
