Tuesday, 12/12

Oh, those Germans. Those wacky, wacky Germans.

Some of you may recall that Loraine and I are going to Germany next year to follow in the footsteps of 'ol King Ludwig II, whom I once described as “the Brian Wilson of Bavaria”. In her research to put the trip together, Loraine discovered that there's a musical (called “Ludwig 2”) that's based on his life. As it turns out, the musical is being performed in the town of Fussen the night that we're there, so it looks like we're going to see a musical (in German) while we're in Germany.

We have no idea what we'll be seeing, but we've been promised a spectacle.

We were able to download the tickets after we purchased them, and we had to laugh when we saw them. Germans, in case you don't know, are sticklers for following the rules. A few years ago, when walking around a German town with a local resident, I made the mistake of of trying to cross a street in the middle of the block, and not in the marked crosswalk. I was told that I really SHOULD cross in the crosswalk, which I them did. The lady who told me that wasn't being mean or snotty or anything; Germans just follow the rules and laws of society. That's what they do. And they feel it's their civic duty to point out if you cross the street in the wrong place or drive too fast down the street or make noise when (or where) you're not supposed to.

Many days, I wish more Americans were like that.

Anyway, we downloaded our tickets, and had to laugh a little when we saw what we needed to do with them. When you present your tickets to get into the musical, you can't just give them the piece of paper upon which they're printed. Nope; you need to give them the tickets folded. And to make sure you fold them properly, they included some rather detailed instructions (in English, of course) on exactly HOW to fold the piece of paper.

Not only are you told EXACTLY how to fold your tickets, but the printout actually has helpful lines printed on the ticket so that you fold it correctly. And fold it correctly, you must; after all, it does say that if the ticket isn't folded exactly as described, you can be denied entry to the production.

And we wouldn't want that, would we?

Knowing just how much of a stickler for rules most Germans are, we both had to laugh. I mean, we knew they were tough, but instructions on how to fold a piece of paper? That makes being told where to cross the street child's play. Thankfully, we printed out several copies of the tickets. After all, if we make a mistake we wanna make sure we can start over again, and do it right.

That, after all, is the German way, right?

(jim@wmqt.com)