Think About the Way

"Life's tough," I read in a text message about a week ago. Yes indeedy.

The comment stuck with me all last weekend, and lingered through this past week. Unlike last week where I commuted daily to and from Düsseldorf, this week I had booked a hotel to stay in.

I spent Monday with the office to myself. Not a soul in sight. The receptionist sat out front, and had already mentioned that things were pretty quiet until Tuesday. I got a fair amount of work done during the day, though at this stage in the job, I am still getting into the swing of things. Thus, there is not so much to do. I find that a bit uncomfortable, because I am used to having loads on my plate.

Colleagues tell me that I should be patient; there will be plenty to do in good time and likely sooner rather than later. I reckon that they are right, and I should really enjoy the time while I can, sort of gradually working my way into things.

However, I feel a little self-conscious as of late, so having a few idle moments in the office is the last thing I want right now.

Ah well, I took advantage of the slow day and left the office a few minutes past 5, and walked to the U-bahn stop. En route, I got a front row seat of a motor accident, where a woman drove a car into a man riding a motorcycle. Though neither seemed to be going that fast, the man still got flipped several feet into the air, and the whole incident was bloody awful to have to see.

Though I had a direct view of the accident, I was about half a block away, and therefore couldn't really consider myself a witness. Other workers finishing for the day were right there on the scene, and scurried over to try and help. Meanwhile, I went ahead and got on my train and headed back downtown. "Life is tough," I thought to myself.

I was pretty well freaked out by the whole thing, and while I mean no disrepect to those involved in the accident (particularly the injured victim), my own personal mood was rapidly going downhill. And it was only Monday.

My hotel was situated a few minutes walk from the train station, and I realized as I checked in that it was going to be a shit hole. The neighborhood was pretty lousy (as most neighborhoods next to German train stations tend to be), and I hadn't seen any interesting restaurants close by.

Of course, the room rate was pretty reasonable, only about 40 Euro per night, but I had hoped for a bit more atmosphere. Deciding to suck it up (life is tough!) and remembering that the entire week had already been billed to my credit card, there wasn't much I could do about it.

After unpacking, I set off in search of a quiet restaurant where I could do a bit of reading, preferably for a few hours, as my room was so small that I wanted to stay out of there as much as possible. 10 minutes walk further down the street brought me to fuck all. The neighborhood was marginally better than the immediate hotel surroundings, but only just. I decided to walk a bit further in hopes of finding a small gem, otherwise I would be forced to head back to the kebap shop across the street from the hotel.

The extra bit of walking paid off: I came upon a little tapas bar which looked interesting. I walked in, indicated I had no reservation, and was allowed to sit at a little table in the bar. The staff were friendly, the sangria was pretty good, and, as it turned out, the tapas were quite impressive, and reasonably priced.

I tucked in, and spent the next few hours enjoying the quiet atmosphere, my book, and the sangria. The restaurant was not very busy, but I assumed that had more to do with the fact that it was a Monday night, not the busiest of eating out nights.

My bill came to just over 50 Euro, but that is because I had eaten so much. Tapas tend to be better suited for parties of more than one, but, hey, life is tough. I was more than satisfied, despite the splurge. Besides, I had not eaten all day.

Indeed, there were a lot more people in the office on Tuesday morning. I would say that the other folks are at the very least, relatively polite. However, they were not overly friendly, nor were they particularly interested in why I was there, or what I was doing. Since they are all in sales and marketing, I would say that is fairly typical. I am in ops, so they will usually only get involved with me when they need something. Kind of a strange environment to be in, but I hope that over the next few weeks and months (when I am not travelling and actually in the office) things will be a bit more comfortable. In fairness, I have only been with the company two months, and it was only my fourth day in the office. They probably need a bit of time to adjust to me, too.

As the work day finished, it started to rain, and I lost any sense of adventure for trying to find another restaurant, so made it easy on myself and returned to the tapas bar. The same staff from the previous evening greeted me with a bit of surprise, but I pointed out that the food was fucking great, and the menu was quite extensive. I ordered a few new items for round one, then repeated a couple of dishes from the previous evening.

I was engrossed in my book, but took a quick break during the evening to chat with a stateside colleague about my early days on the job. He reassured me that things would certainly get better on some fronts, but the chaos and bizarreness would also be prevalent...

The chat helped, and I returned to my cramped hotel room feeling a bit less isolated, knowing that I was not really as alone as I currently felt.

I chatted with the office receptionist on Wednesday, and she pointed out that my hotel was a shithole in a pretty lousy area of the city. I mentioned that I kind of wished she had told me that the previous week, but thanked her all the same.

As a creature of habit, it was no surprise that I returned to the tapas bar again on Wednesday evening. I had already prepared an explanation as to why I had to keep going back to the same establishment, but was fortunate that the waitstaff from the first two nights of the week were not there, likely having a night off. Unfortunately, the place was packed, and the waitress on duty did not know me from adam, but begrudgingly found me the one remaining table, even though it was marked as reserved.

I quickly realized that they were actually understaffed. In a tapas restaurant, this is a bit challenging, as dishes are whisked out to the tables as soon as they are ready. I felt a bit unsettled, as my table was in the middle of the bar, kind of in the traffic lane between the kitchen and the other tables. By the second glass of sangria, though, I felt somewhat better. The chef brought out one of the things that I had ordered, and we suddenly started chatting in Spanish. This upped my status in the place considerably, especially with the busy waitress, who became at least civil towards me, if not almost friendly.

By the end of the night, I had decided that I would return to Frankfurt on Thursday evening after work. It was not that I was tired of tapas, my dining experience had been the best thing about the whole week. However, I was feeling a bit too far from home.

On Thursday morning, I gave the hotel clerk my key, saying that I would not be staying that evening. He was a man of few words, and more or less dismissed me, acknowleding that he already had my money. As I walked to the U-bahn with my bag, I noted that I would tell my parents to find a better hotel before they arrived in Düsseldorf; this one was shit.

Though my current situation is all about feeling a bit unsettled and isolated, I do enjoy riding the train between Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. The commute home on Thursday was easy, and I was very glad to pick up a couple of pizzas at my local shop and get home to my flat.

The pizza was a nice change from the tapas, but as I finished dinner and prepared to do a laundry load, I discovered that I had a new issue to deal with. No hot water.

A couple of years ago, I had experienced a problem with my hot water heater, and ultimately had to have a man come out and do repairs. On that visit, he mentioned that he had had to fill up the water level, but never bothered to show me that I could take care of that myself, should the need arise in the future.

Sometime last summer, according to a little gauge on my hot water heater, the water level needed to be topped up. The term is Nachfüllen, and I checked about on the internet looking for instructions, preferably with photos. I did find a few forums which described the process, and upon further discussion with a few people, I had some idea as to how to take care of this task. The forums all mentioned that it was pretty easy to do. Hmmm.

After trying once or twice unsuccessfully to fill up the water level, I assumed I was doing it wrong. However, I still had hot water, so was not too worried. True, because the tank level was too low, I would frequently hear noises that were a bit unsettling, especially to house guests.

This went on for several more months, but as long as the hot water flowed, I found it easy to forget about.

All that changed, of course, on Thursday evening when my luck ran out.

Friday morning I checked the internet forums again, hoping that a newer post might have been written (with pics). Nope.

I decided to give it another shot myself, remembering that one time someone had shown me where they attached the hoses to get water into the tank. At the time, it wasn't very clear to me, but hey, life is tough.

By the middle of the afternoon, I felt beaten. My efforts to resolve this on my own were fruitless. This was certainly not helping my self esteem (I am DIY!) and was likely going to require a telephone call or two to the Hausmeister. My German has also been a bit shaky over the past couple of weeks, partly because most of the work day is conducted in English.

Fortunately, the Hausmeister was patient with me, but he, too, was unable to instruct me over the telephone as to precisely how one goes about Nachfüllen. But, he gave me another telephone number for someone he thought could help. Minutes later, I was speaking with Frau Rot, who told me that her fixit men were all out on calls, but one would call me back as soon as they got back to the office.

About 30 minutes later, she phoned me back to tell me that a guy was on his way to my flat. It was easier for him to show me in person.

So, at 5pm on Friday afternoon, the man arrived at my flat, we walked upstairs, he connected the hose to the same two places that I had already tried, then turned a little key on the radiator, turned on the faucet, and within two minutes, the Nachfüllen was complete. I felt a bit idiotic, since I had done everything that he did, save for turning the key. In fairness, no one had mentioned anything about this key before, neither the friends I had consulted nor the internet forums.

With great relief, I had hot water again. Order restored.

I opened a bottle of wine to celebrate. The whole day had been most stressful, but was ending on a decent note. At the very least, I can put up with the "I told you so's" and move on to the next bit. How funny that something so seemingly easy gets so complicated.

Last night, I took a quick trip to Köln to have dinner with my parents, and related the tale as we sat in a restaurant eating, erm, tapas.

Life is tough, no?

keep the faith
bryan

soundtrack:
Over and Out - Alkaline Trio
Enjoy the Silence - DM
Age of Consent - New Order
Think About the Way - Ice MC