Just saw your post Maria so came back on, will try to make ye laugh.
After working in Germany I told a friend that German dogs say, woofen woofen when they bark and cats say, meowsen meowsen. I thought he would laugh but he said, "do they man? that's fuckin mental".
Another time in the 90,s I was at the Irish bar in Frankurt. The bogs always doon stairs. Stairs painted with green gloss paint. Me at top o stairs, two nice German girls coming oot Ladies toilet at the bottom o stairs, cool young Dundonian takes a step down, skidded up in the air and bounced on every stair with my arse bone and landed in a heap at the feet o the two German girls, both were shocked for a minute then just started to laugh and other girls were coming oot to see what was happening on one side of me and a load o guys came oot the men's on the other side. They were laughing like fuck. I never told any of my buddies. Everytime I made eye contact with the two girls it would set them aff laughing again. Couldna get oot o there quick enough.
Rich
Germany was bonkers, we were working for some Turkish dude who had a contract for furniture removals for the US military who had bases all over southern Germany. They wanted crews who could write and speak English. He had a guy from Dundee working for him already and sent him to Dundee to recruit five crews, aboot forty people. When I was cashing my giro at Kirkton post office the owner said he had a guy staying in his B n B looking for workers to go to Germany. A week later we were on a bus going fae Dundee to Frankfurt. I had a terrible hangover all the way to Dover, spewing all the way. The bus was rancid smelling o hash n vomit. Felt better efter Dover though. Then I got talked into cleaning the bus. Back on the bus waiting to get aff ferry bus driver says, you have been smoking hash all day on this bus and we are aboot to go through French customs. This bus stinks and we will get pulled, get rid of your hash now. I thought, fuck off, I will keep it handy and see what develops. Two guys in front of me n my mate turn round and say, here mate we canna eat that, want to eat that for me? He handed me about a quarter and me n my mate tanned it. We never saw anyone from customs or showed a passport as we went from France, Belgium and into Germany. When we got there I was still bombed. We found oot we had to live in containers until we earned enough to get a flat.
This was a shock to the system for some. Fortunately Me n my mate Lamy had been working in England and living oot a bag for a few years and were kinda used to living like dogs. There is a certain type o man in this world whose wife's and mothers do everything for them. Cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, ironing etc. I saw grown men fall to pieces (some allegedly "hard men") cos they couldna get a cup o tea in the morning, like they had had everyday of their lives. I was with 5 buddies but only one of us could drive. Another mate told me before I left, never get in a car with JJ never mind a removal lorry driving on other side o road. I knew a few other guys there too, one guy had been in the Army and served in Germany but best of all had a HGV from the Army. I asked to join his crew, they were a man short so it worked oot perfect.
We got to Frankfurt aboot three on Saturday afternoon, we left Dundee Friday morning aboot eight.
The guy who recruited us is there, he hands everyone Fifty DM each. Then says, last weekend o month everything shuts at 5 on Saturday not open again till Tuesday. Containers on a wee industrial estate, no washing, one shower and one toilet in warehouse, nae electricity. We find a supermarket to buy bread, butter, cold meat etc. The queues are massive. 5 o clock comes and announcement is made in German. Germans behind us and in front of us start to put their shopping back on the shelves. An American woman tells us, we have to go shops closing. We find a shop worker who speaks English and tell her, we are going fuckin nowhere without oor grub. We get served in the end. We head back to containers. The guy who runs the warehouse is there, a Jugoslav/Serb guy called Topliza. People surround him firing questions at him. All he can say is, Morgen Chef come. I knew Chef meant Boss and morgen means morning. People went for beer and came back thinking a Chef was gonna turn up n cook them breakfast in their metal shipping container. Oh dear, nae cup o tea and nae breakfast, cue mental breakdown for some. Not even joking aboot that. Tuesday comes after a long weekend o McDonald's chips n Becks beer.
The Chef turns up, sees one squad at a time and hands us a tacograph disc, German city street maps and autobahn maps plus an address, off ye go. Now the madness really begins. To be continued
