Home is Where the Nipple Is
While we were flying around Sabie and area in South Africa Ken Sr. showed us the fastest way to find home: the mountain shaped like a giant nipple. Somehow the phrase "Home is where the nipple is" just stuck, probably because we are a bunch of perverts and degenerates. Most likely, in fact. I decided rather than get into some long winded story of our trip that you've already read about on Ken's blog, I would point form some of the things I found most interesting. Here goes:
Germany
1. The Frankfurt Sheraton at $304 CAD per night had the nicest hotel bathroom I've ever seen. It also had the scratchiest toilet paper ever! Beside the toilet was a tiny hook as if to hang a washcloth off of it. Maybe this is to encourage you to bring your own bumcloth?? The shower/bath had 4 faucets, including temperature control. Naturally there was a phone above the toilet.
2. The Frankfurt Premium Hotel at approx $120 per night looked like a scene from National Lampoon's European Vacation. There were 2 single beds pushed together that kept flying apart, and a water meter in the john that spun around every time the toilet flushed. There was a door to the fire escape that fell off the hinges if you tried to open it. The phone beeped inexplicably every time I was alone in the room.
3. Although the menu varies, fries at McDonalds in Germany are the same as here.
4. The streets in Frankfurt smell of sewage.
5. Germany's expensive. The tax is included in the prices but is 23 or 24%
6. Smoking and dogs are welcome everywhere. Drinking and sex are too.
7. There are no farms or acreages anywhere and no one seems to own any land. Every few miles is a new town. Tiny, compact, houses bunched together and a steeple in the middle. No strays. Just green, rolling countryside until the next little town.
8. You could totally see evidence of the war everywhere. The new buildings follow the same design as the old and were erected where the old ones were blasted out. On a typical street you might see old house, old house, new house, old house, new house, new house, old house. The new houses obviously built on the ruins of a bomb victim. We saw a tower in between a bunch of houses in Wiesbaden that was dated 1351.
9. It's next to impossible to find a German restaurant. Every place sells Thai, Chinese, Indian or Italian food. Every place is also a bar, but babies are welcome. There is no such thing as a non-smoking section.
South Africa
1. You have NOT experienced a thunderstorm until you've been through one in S.A. It's like God gets pissed off and kicks your house. And LOUD.
2. Everyone on the road has a death wish. FYI they drive on the other side, like Brits.
3. Most of the toilets have attendants so the bathrooms are pretty clean. You have to tip the cleaners but it's usually only like 40 cents. If the bathroom has soap, it is in bar form and you dry your hands on a towel, something I think is illegal here. All the toilets have insane water pressure and the water goes down in the opposite direction.
4. Many of the black people have several clear plastic pop bottles full of water strewn about their yards. This is to keep dogs off the grass.
5. Houses are brick or plaster, wood houses are scoffed at. There is no indoor heating anywhere.
6. Black men hold hands in public as a sign of brotherhood.
7. We stopped at the daycare in the black village of Simile and there were over 65 kids in one room with only 3 adults. It smelled like a barn and there were no lights. The kids sang us some songs and I wanted to cry.
And I'm tired of talking about it.
Ken was very happy to be home. I was just happy I didn't end up on a slab that read Cause of Death: Diarrhea.
Ken wants two things. More babies and more time for himself. I figure if he gets one, the other is highly unlikely to follow. Either that or I'm royally screwed.
So many people read his blog, including some of my family and friends, that I'm considering starting a new secret blog that no one knows about under an anonymous name so that I can vent, bitch, gossip, without consequence.
