For almost three weeks now I’ve been impatiently waiting for my Lonely Planet guide of Egypt and Arabic Phrasebook to arrive (in the meantime I already bought a second hand Lonely Planet for Cairo). I finally got a notice that they would be in a post office in Schöneberg. This seemed very odd as we have a post office just down the road. I waited for the sunny weather until today to do this bike trip.
At arrival I gave my notice to the officer woman at the desk. I was obliged to ask if she spoke any English since I couldn’t understand her questions. “Ich spreche Deutsch”, she replied. Well, my German knowledge might be limited but I’m not so stupid that I couldn’t have figured out that she spoke German. I’ve already been pretty sceptical about the language competence of the Berliners but I was irritated by this more Eastern European way of compensating for lack of English with impoliteness.
Fortunately I avoided an impasse as her not much friendlier colleague asked me about the content of the parcel in poor English. “Hard to say as I don’t know the sender, but I believe it contains some books.” “Bücher”, the man translated. Then an idea came to my mind: “I also just had my birthday, maybe somebody sent me something.” Well, this was wishful thinking but I survived the test and got a number to wait for my turn.
Staring slightly humiliated (but proud since at least I didn’t cry) the posters on the wall about terrorists and murder series in Germany, I finally understood that this was a post office for suspicious cases, that is, it was some kind of a customs office. Nobody looked very dubious but I was wondering what kind of a treatment would a person with a long black beard get.
I was distressed about the content of my package but eventually I was called in. Three weeks my innocent travel guidebooks had been waiting for me in this place that seemed like a shelter employment for socially challenged people. I opened the package – which was already open so why all the big fuss? – and almost burst to laugh. Was the war against terrorism going so far that even people planning a trip to an Islamic country (not to mention wanting to learn a few words of Arabic with a help of a Lonely Planet phrasebook) were now suspects?
At arrival I gave my notice to the officer woman at the desk. I was obliged to ask if she spoke any English since I couldn’t understand her questions. “Ich spreche Deutsch”, she replied. Well, my German knowledge might be limited but I’m not so stupid that I couldn’t have figured out that she spoke German. I’ve already been pretty sceptical about the language competence of the Berliners but I was irritated by this more Eastern European way of compensating for lack of English with impoliteness.
Fortunately I avoided an impasse as her not much friendlier colleague asked me about the content of the parcel in poor English. “Hard to say as I don’t know the sender, but I believe it contains some books.” “Bücher”, the man translated. Then an idea came to my mind: “I also just had my birthday, maybe somebody sent me something.” Well, this was wishful thinking but I survived the test and got a number to wait for my turn.
Staring slightly humiliated (but proud since at least I didn’t cry) the posters on the wall about terrorists and murder series in Germany, I finally understood that this was a post office for suspicious cases, that is, it was some kind of a customs office. Nobody looked very dubious but I was wondering what kind of a treatment would a person with a long black beard get.
I was distressed about the content of my package but eventually I was called in. Three weeks my innocent travel guidebooks had been waiting for me in this place that seemed like a shelter employment for socially challenged people. I opened the package – which was already open so why all the big fuss? – and almost burst to laugh. Was the war against terrorism going so far that even people planning a trip to an Islamic country (not to mention wanting to learn a few words of Arabic with a help of a Lonely Planet phrasebook) were now suspects?
No comments:
Post a Comment