GERMANY
So yesterday was our excursion to a place called Saarlouis. I said in the previous post that we were going to see a fort. Ohhhh, no. This is just my piss poor standard of German. When they told me it was a history trip, and we were going to a walled city, built to withstand siege, and that we were seeing 'fortwerke', I thought this was some fancy German word for all the above. It has the word 'fort' in it, right?
But, as many of you Germs will have probably realised, 'werke' is in fact the German word for factory. A fort factory? Nope, not 'fortwerke', but the Ford Factory. As in a car factory. I won't deny it took me by surprise when, after two hours on a coach looking out for a medieval looking town, we pulled into the Besucher Eingang of a big grey block adorned with the Ford Logo.
We were greeted by this small guy with a moustache who then gave us a pair of safety goggles and a pair of headphones so he could talk to use through his microphone, and loaded us onto a little bus, a bit like a rollercoaster train. And he drove us around the factory for an hour, which was actually really interesting; we essentially saw the entire process of building a car. Those robot things are real, and move in a weird, freaky way which makes them a little bit real. And the bit at the end was a lot darker, full of robots doing welding and blasting sparks and looking ridiculously like the ending of every Terminator film ever made.
So yesterday was our excursion to a place called Saarlouis. I said in the previous post that we were going to see a fort. Ohhhh, no. This is just my piss poor standard of German. When they told me it was a history trip, and we were going to a walled city, built to withstand siege, and that we were seeing 'fortwerke', I thought this was some fancy German word for all the above. It has the word 'fort' in it, right?
But, as many of you Germs will have probably realised, 'werke' is in fact the German word for factory. A fort factory? Nope, not 'fortwerke', but the Ford Factory. As in a car factory. I won't deny it took me by surprise when, after two hours on a coach looking out for a medieval looking town, we pulled into the Besucher Eingang of a big grey block adorned with the Ford Logo.
We were greeted by this small guy with a moustache who then gave us a pair of safety goggles and a pair of headphones so he could talk to use through his microphone, and loaded us onto a little bus, a bit like a rollercoaster train. And he drove us around the factory for an hour, which was actually really interesting; we essentially saw the entire process of building a car. Those robot things are real, and move in a weird, freaky way which makes them a little bit real. And the bit at the end was a lot darker, full of robots doing welding and blasting sparks and looking ridiculously like the ending of every Terminator film ever made.
Most of the car-making machines honestly looked like this.I say it was interesting; it was certainly good to look at. Whether or not the commentary lived up to the sightseeing aspect, I'll never know, because my headphones didn't work.
I discovered this after about 10 minutes in, just after I'd started wondering what they werefor and if anything was going to be explained. Then, everyone else on the coach laughed at something he said, which confused the absolute hell out of me at first, and then I put two and two together. So I had a silent trip through the Ford Factory and just smiled and gasped and laughed when everybody else did.
Then we piled back onto our coach and drove on to the city of Saarlouis itself, which had more in the way of what I personally would describe as 'Fortwerke'. It had big impenetrable walls and a moat. It still has a moat and its a wicked hexagon shape but thats difficult to see these days because of all the buildings and whatnot.
This map pretty much shows our exact journey. The dot is Saarlouis, the other end of the arrow is Neuerburg.
But, we went to a couple of museums and I understood about 30% of what we were told, mostly peoples names and dates, and just sat blankly but looking damn interested for the rest of the time.
I drew another nice picture of a church there as well, which from a scale and perspective point of view is a fucking abomination because I was strapped for time, but it still kinda proves I've been there. There were also some - what were they? German gangsta types? - who seemed to like it. "Hey Muchacho, sieht gut aus!". After looking up that word, I've decided I'm not a muchacho. I'm an Hombre, you bastards.
And I turned in pretty early yesterday, because I was pretty darn tired. I blame Herr Reichert and his BACKSTABBING USE OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN TIME PHRASES for this. See, in Germany, when you want to say half past the hour, it is said in the sense of 'halfway to the next hour'. For example, if I wanted to say 'half past 6', I would say 'Halb sieben' or 'halfway to seven'. Likewise, 'half past two' would be 'Halb drei' or 'halfway to three'. So after Herr Reichert kindly pointed out that we would be leaving at 'Halb funf' ('halfway to five, or 4.30am) and I rolled out of bed at 10 past 4 to walk through the pissing rain to the lonely lonely coach stop, I quickly realised he meant 'halb funf' in the way that we in England say it - half five.
Which left me unsure as to the meaning of every time given to me here, amid thoughts of why did he not use time phrases like I've been taught? Why did I not say 'thats a bit early', as I considered, and realised the truth at the time? Why did I not stay in bed an extra 45 minutes? Why is the internet not working again? Why can the Germans be such dickwads?
Things like that.
The final note is that after a very educational day out where I did lots of cultural things, on the way back home I saw signs to 2 places called Coxhausen and Bitche, and I turned into a 12 year old. Someday I will realise that I have to be more mature, but yesterday was not that day.
