A small piece of comedy, aka the story of an imigrant
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Well here you go people with a (not so) funny little thing I wrote late at night over here, while being pretty tired. Incase you like it I might continue it. It has tons of grammatical errors and I take no responsibility in whatever way it might not offend you :)
A little piece of comedy, or the story of an immigrant.
Welcome Ladies and Gentleman to this play. Here you see a 13 year old schoolboy, his way too old manic depressive father and his loving friendly mother. All in all they are your crazy average family that suddenly had an idea. They wanted to go to Denmark. Well not so suddenly. After all, there is a bit of preparation to be made. Such as selling the house and other minor things… oh sweet naivety of youth!
It all started out well. We sold our house in Germany, had everything prepared … wait everything prepared? Oh no not everything. There was that matter with the piano for example, which the moving company didn’t want to move as it wasn’t in their inventory. But I digress.
Back to the point, we managed to reach Denmark with slight headaches, a shitload of problems and last but not least our dear animals that were drooling on our naked legs due to it being over 50°C in the car. This story is meant to dishearten you from any attempt to be as stupid… excuse me, to be as “trusting” as we were.
The first hurdle everyone has to take is to manage to get his “opholdskort”. What is hidden within that cute sounding word is a nightmare of unknown proportions to anyone not familiar with the Danish mentality, aka “ta’ det roligt”, take it easy. What would usually take about 1 – 2 weeks in every normal state to acquire takes at least a month to two in Denmark. Why? Well because the people in every government building, bank etc work from 10 – 16 o’clock. Every attempt to call a nanosecond late will be rewarded with the mailbox of your local community center. After about 4 months of bantering, headaches, coffee addiction, a nervous breakdown, terror calls, nightmares, insomnia and other insignificant side effects, we finally managed to get our license to stay in Denmark. Oh boy… what we went through.
However to pass said first hurdle, you need the epitome of modern technology. A telephone. But don’t think that you can get a normal wire telephone that easily… If you thought you could, you don’t know the Danes. On that dreadfully nice summer day, about five days after we moved into the new house we decided that it was about time that we needed a telephone. Cell phone calls into foreign countries eat your money away faster than Elfen-Lieds post count goes up, so we decided that it would be the time to face our terror. We went to the office of the Danish official telephone company that is supported by the state (I guess), known as TDC. There we saw it. The nice and friendly clerk that had this nice face and “Ta’ det roligt” written all over it. Here is a memo of the following conversation uncensored:
“We would like to get a telephone line”.
“ISDN or normal?”
“ISDN please if possible.”
“No problem. Whats your name?”
“XXXX-XXXX.”
“Thank you. Where do you live?”
“XXXXXXX”
“Thanks got it. Now all I need is your health insurance card.”
“EXCUSE ME?!!!!”
Thinking that everything would be fine my father gave him his health insurance card. Sweet naivety.
“Whats that?”
“My health insurance card.”
“But it isn’t yellow. I need your yellow health insurance card.”
“I don’t have a yellow health insurance card.”
“Are you from a foreign country?”
“Yes, I am from Germany. “
“Than you need to get your opholdskort, which gives you access to your yellow health insurance card.”
“But for that I need a telephone.”
“Sorry. No opholdskort, no yellow health insurance card, no telephone.”
With a disheartend look on our face and grunting noises we walked outside the shop, trying to find a way out of our misery. My school headmaster brought the solution. “Why don’t you just get a replacement temporary one, until you have your temporary one.” But yes of course!. In about 4 more weeks we had our telephone and everything went fine for 3 days. Than the cables were flooded.
Another nice habit of the Danish folk is that they call everyone on their first name basis and without any title when talking directly. Also if talking indirectly. It was in the start of August when I went to my new school in Denmark and was confronted with my first problem. “German private school in Denmark” they said. Just that I couldn’t make out the language. Lateron I learned that the “Deunitsch” a mix of German (Deutsch) and Danish (Dänisch) was a common lingual form in the area. Oh well, I thought, sooner or later you’ll understand what they are saying.
Than it happened though. The lesson started, I was sitting there in good and nice German manner, which will say the bag right beside the desk, sitting straight up in your chair, no whipping around, the books on the table and your notebook at the ready. But instead of a greeting to the teacher like “Good Morning Mrs. Straus,” Everyone continued chewing their chewing gum and throwing in a “Mojn Susanne how †˜yer doing?”. I was shocked. The teacher image I had until than lay in ruins. No disciplinary words, no angry views, no throwing out of the students? There had to be something wrong.
After everyone had finally said their greeting, stopped writing SMS on their phones and turned around to the teacher, she threw herself into the chair, looked around the room and said: “Mojn (a friendly form of hello, common greeting in all Denmark) newcomers! You can either call me Susanne or Susi as you like. As for the rest of the mentality you’ll get used to it quickly.” That was a teacher? One of those mean old grumpy bastards that used to order us around at my old school, give us tons of homework and never smiled? Never.
*** To be continued***
Next Part: The education of an imigrant, aka problems, accidents and lots 'o misunderstandings :)
A little piece of comedy, or the story of an immigrant.
Welcome Ladies and Gentleman to this play. Here you see a 13 year old schoolboy, his way too old manic depressive father and his loving friendly mother. All in all they are your crazy average family that suddenly had an idea. They wanted to go to Denmark. Well not so suddenly. After all, there is a bit of preparation to be made. Such as selling the house and other minor things… oh sweet naivety of youth!
It all started out well. We sold our house in Germany, had everything prepared … wait everything prepared? Oh no not everything. There was that matter with the piano for example, which the moving company didn’t want to move as it wasn’t in their inventory. But I digress.
Back to the point, we managed to reach Denmark with slight headaches, a shitload of problems and last but not least our dear animals that were drooling on our naked legs due to it being over 50°C in the car. This story is meant to dishearten you from any attempt to be as stupid… excuse me, to be as “trusting” as we were.
The first hurdle everyone has to take is to manage to get his “opholdskort”. What is hidden within that cute sounding word is a nightmare of unknown proportions to anyone not familiar with the Danish mentality, aka “ta’ det roligt”, take it easy. What would usually take about 1 – 2 weeks in every normal state to acquire takes at least a month to two in Denmark. Why? Well because the people in every government building, bank etc work from 10 – 16 o’clock. Every attempt to call a nanosecond late will be rewarded with the mailbox of your local community center. After about 4 months of bantering, headaches, coffee addiction, a nervous breakdown, terror calls, nightmares, insomnia and other insignificant side effects, we finally managed to get our license to stay in Denmark. Oh boy… what we went through.
However to pass said first hurdle, you need the epitome of modern technology. A telephone. But don’t think that you can get a normal wire telephone that easily… If you thought you could, you don’t know the Danes. On that dreadfully nice summer day, about five days after we moved into the new house we decided that it was about time that we needed a telephone. Cell phone calls into foreign countries eat your money away faster than Elfen-Lieds post count goes up, so we decided that it would be the time to face our terror. We went to the office of the Danish official telephone company that is supported by the state (I guess), known as TDC. There we saw it. The nice and friendly clerk that had this nice face and “Ta’ det roligt” written all over it. Here is a memo of the following conversation uncensored:
“We would like to get a telephone line”.
“ISDN or normal?”
“ISDN please if possible.”
“No problem. Whats your name?”
“XXXX-XXXX.”
“Thank you. Where do you live?”
“XXXXXXX”
“Thanks got it. Now all I need is your health insurance card.”
“EXCUSE ME?!!!!”
Thinking that everything would be fine my father gave him his health insurance card. Sweet naivety.
“Whats that?”
“My health insurance card.”
“But it isn’t yellow. I need your yellow health insurance card.”
“I don’t have a yellow health insurance card.”
“Are you from a foreign country?”
“Yes, I am from Germany. “
“Than you need to get your opholdskort, which gives you access to your yellow health insurance card.”
“But for that I need a telephone.”
“Sorry. No opholdskort, no yellow health insurance card, no telephone.”
With a disheartend look on our face and grunting noises we walked outside the shop, trying to find a way out of our misery. My school headmaster brought the solution. “Why don’t you just get a replacement temporary one, until you have your temporary one.” But yes of course!. In about 4 more weeks we had our telephone and everything went fine for 3 days. Than the cables were flooded.
Another nice habit of the Danish folk is that they call everyone on their first name basis and without any title when talking directly. Also if talking indirectly. It was in the start of August when I went to my new school in Denmark and was confronted with my first problem. “German private school in Denmark” they said. Just that I couldn’t make out the language. Lateron I learned that the “Deunitsch” a mix of German (Deutsch) and Danish (Dänisch) was a common lingual form in the area. Oh well, I thought, sooner or later you’ll understand what they are saying.
Than it happened though. The lesson started, I was sitting there in good and nice German manner, which will say the bag right beside the desk, sitting straight up in your chair, no whipping around, the books on the table and your notebook at the ready. But instead of a greeting to the teacher like “Good Morning Mrs. Straus,” Everyone continued chewing their chewing gum and throwing in a “Mojn Susanne how †˜yer doing?”. I was shocked. The teacher image I had until than lay in ruins. No disciplinary words, no angry views, no throwing out of the students? There had to be something wrong.
After everyone had finally said their greeting, stopped writing SMS on their phones and turned around to the teacher, she threw herself into the chair, looked around the room and said: “Mojn (a friendly form of hello, common greeting in all Denmark) newcomers! You can either call me Susanne or Susi as you like. As for the rest of the mentality you’ll get used to it quickly.” That was a teacher? One of those mean old grumpy bastards that used to order us around at my old school, give us tons of homework and never smiled? Never.
*** To be continued***
Next Part: The education of an imigrant, aka problems, accidents and lots 'o misunderstandings :)