exile. a while

 

nearly a year has passed since the earthquake that devastated central christchurch, but the city is still a mess and the frequent aftershocks continue (although i was there for about 36 hours at the weekend and didn't feel the earth move). everywhere there are deserted houses, ragged curtains flapping through broken windows, leaning letterboxes, fallen fences, overgrown gardens, braced walls and signs declaring "danger! keep out!". the house next to where we stayed is abandoned, its garage entrance taped with "danger" tape. there are empty sections, some recently cleared and other still with the bulldozed remains of buildings. at the arts centre - formerly the university, stone buildings about 150 years old - a salvaged turret sits oddly on the ground next to its damaged tower. a few blocks away a turret from what must have been a beautiful old wooden house sits beside the rubble.

we drove out to the hills above sumner, to check out the home of friends which was so badly damaged it will have to be demolished. ferry road, which leads to sumner, has been resurfaced, but not levelled - driving along it feels more like surfing on gentle but unpredictable swells. the road up the hill becomes worse, with large depressions and damage to the edges. when we arrive at the house, what hits me immediately is the silence. it's a warm sunday afternoon in january - normally people would be working in their gardens, doing a bit of home repairs, cleaning cars, children would be playing ... there's nothing but birds. nearly all of the houses in this street have been so badly damaged that no-one can live there. it's heartbreaking to walk around our friends' house - all the bricks have falled off, many windows broken, cracks all around the foundation, in places revealing broken joists under the floor. when we visited almost 2 years ago, they were finishing renovations and starting work on the garden. we water the garden, which is overgrown but thriving, with this year's brocolli & beans nearly finished, apricots & apples beginning to ripen. across the road, a curtain flaps sadly through a broken window.

today a strong wind has blown away the few leaves that were still clinging to the trees; everything is exposed again - the birds' nests, the railway line, lower floor apartments and rubbish caught in hedges. tomorrow's forecast is for snow here in münchen. but i won't have today's tomorrow at all - i'll be in the limbo-land of a long-haul flight, migrating to the southern summer. i'll miss the snow ...

this morning i got up early and went through 6 more tests - scoring 100% on every one! but i was still nervous on the way to the TÜV, as i knew there was a high chance i'd strike tricky questions or simply forget something. we arrived at the building 20 minutes early, having been told to be there 15 minutes early, and were sent up to the warteraum where already several other nervous candidates waited.

i don't know why they tell you to arrive 15 minutes early - probably just to make you more nervous by having to wait - as it was not until exactly 10.00 when a woman came and sharply called us into another room, set up with desks on which there were flat screen computers, like large iPads. the other candidates formed a queue to the woman who sat at a desk at the front, just like a teacher in a classroom, and everyone had a piece of paper to present. except me. after a frantic search through my many pieces of paper while i stood at the end of the queue, i handed her my passport and was relieved to find this was accepted. she asked for €20.83 which i obediently handed over, and instructed me to sit at platz 11, near the back of the class.

she then proceeded to race through lengthy instructions in deutsch, holding up large pictures of the computer screen which i couldn't really see from the back of the room. when she finished talking everyone put their head down and began the test. i clicked "start" and was relieved to find the instructions repeated in english - it would have been helpful if she had mentioned this at the beginning so that i could have read them while she explained, instead of worrying that i was missing out on a crucial piece of information, such as "if you put a tick instead of a cross you will be marked wrong". but this is probably another deliberate strategy to try to make us ausslanders as nervous as possible. (one of the other candidates a young american man who had arrived in the warteraum quite stressed because he'd been trying to enter the building at a door that was locked ...)

so i did the test; all of my visual memories from the paper practice tests was useless, as the layout of the screen was totally different. but the pictures were, helpfully, larger and clearer, and the questions were the same as the ones i'd been diligently studying. happily, i didn't strike any of the most difficult ones. after double-checking everything, i bravely clicked "submit" ... and almost immediately my results were there before my eyes: i got 2 questions partially wrong, but luckily this was not enough to fail. I PASSED!!!!

without further ado, andy took me directly to another branch of the extensive führerschein bureaucracy, where i took a number, waited patiently, then went into an office and surrendered my (expired) new zealand driver's licence in return for a shiny new deutsche führerschein. i walked out of the building legally entitled to drive anywhere in the european union.

WHEW!

it's the night before my führerschein test, and i'm up late desperately trying to cram in as much as possible; i am scoring 100% on some tests, but usually i'm getting one or two questions wrong (which would still be enough to pass, so i am hopeful ... ). to keep my spirits up, i'm allowing myself to enjoy some of the sillier questions, such as this one:

Driving at night to the next discotheque by car, a group of young men and women wants to keep spirits high during the journey. They thus sing exuberantly, laugh and turn up the volume on the car radio. How should the driver of the car react in such a situation?
[ ] Join in to avoid being a spoilsport
[ ] The driver responsible for safety must distance himself from the group in such a case and ask his passengers not to divert his attention
[ ] Further heat up the high spirits of the group by driving risky manoeuvres

yes, this is a real question in the test. & here's one more, which also demonstrates inherent sexism as well as being amusing:

What makes a good driver?
[ ] He treats others like partners, drives calmly and cooly and refrains from showing that he is superior
[ ] He uses every possibility to overtake, give the slip to others and show his superiority even if his manner of driving involves risks
[ ] He drives fast in order to show his abilities

i think my answer would be more like "She drives with consideration to all other road users and in an environmentally responsible manner."

ok, i must leave the studying now & get some sleep so that i can be fresh & clever in the morning ...

tomorrow morning at 10am i have an appointment for my deutsch führerschein test; i have been studying as hard as i can in between more important things such as the 11:11:11 UpStage festival and preparations for upcoming performances of make-shift, & now i am nearly always at least passing the test - occasionally with 100% - but also occasionally failing. so i am doing last minute swatting up & hoping like hell that i will get one of the tests without the trick questions in it tomorrow morning.

while searching for information about exactly what is a "sunken kerbstone" (this is somewhere where you may not park, so i'm assuming it's a driveway, but just wanted to be sure) i started to find accounts of others' traumatic experiences trying to get their führerschein. it's comforting to know that i'm not the only person having difficulty with a) the poor translation, b) the ridiculously difficult and unnecessary questions and c) the inconsistency of how you are expected to answer. it's also a relief that i only have to sit the theory test - many others have to also go through the humiliation of a practical driving test, despite having many years of good driving.

so here are a few links, in case you're interested in reading more auslanders' complaints about the process:

• How many litres of water are polluted by a drop of oil?


• Abenteuer in Deutschland

i'm sure there will be plenty more accounts like this out there on the web. well, ich drucke meine daumen und hoffe daß morgen ich habe mein führerschein!!!

the 11:11:11 UpStage Festival has happened ... once again an intense & wonderful marathon of fantastic innovative cyberformance, delightful real-time connections, and mad problem-solving behind the scenes. after last year's unexpected technical meltdown in the middle of the festival, we were a lot better prepared. we had a technician on-call (and another who was there for almost the whole festival as well) plus a mirror of the server so that, in the event of the emergencies which did transpire, we were able to seamlessly transfer shows to the mirror. hopefully the audience noticed nothing. the artists were marvellous and professional, as were the techies. and, despite the problems, everyone had a great time - which is the most important thing

now i am trying to rest and recover a bit, but there is so much else to get on with - all those things i'd been putting off until after 11:11:11 ... next week i'm off to italy for Magfest Torino, and a week after getting back from that, andy & i are off to new zealand for the southern summer, yippee!! really looking forward to getting the valiant out of the museum & cruising the south island.

meanwhile, we are house-and-cat-sitting in a house with heated floors. this is cat heaven, & i must admit i do like it myself. my family have always spent a lot of time sitting on the floor, but growing up in dunedin we were huddling round the gas fire with no underfloor heating to warm our tootsies! it's definitely a lovely luxury ...

Spread the word - the 11:11:11 UpStage Festival is just over a week away now! The artists are all busy putting the finishing touches onto their performances, the node hosts are sweeping out their venues, the techies are dusting the dark corners of the server, and the documenters are configuring their recording software.

you, as audience, can be calmly perusing the schedule of performances, finding your local times from the handy time converter & marking in your diary which of the 11 cyberformance gems selected for 11:11:11 you don't want to miss!

see you there on the day - remember it's just a browser click to enter the performances, no need for logging in or downloading software or any of that palaver. & it's all free!! (but only possible because of the immense efforts of many volunteers, and we gratefully accept your donations towards the upkeep of the server and other unavoidable costs).

today, having gone through all 32 testbogen for the deutsch führerschein theory test and only passed three times, i started at the beginning again ... and i'm relieved to say that out of the first 5 tests i've passed three, including one with 100% correct so it's starting to feel like there is hope after all that i just might be able to pass the damn thing ...

You have been driving for 30 years in various countries without having any accidents or incurring any traffic fines; now you are living in Germany and want to apply for your Führerschein (German driver's licence). What must you reckon with?

[ ] Because of your clean driving record, you will not have to sit any tests.

[ ] You will have to sit a theory test, but your experience will make this very easy.

[ ] You will have to sit a theory test, half of which will be simple common sense questions, a quarter will be trick questions or poorly translated so that you don't understand what the actual question is, and the remaining quarter will test your knowledge of the finer details of weights, measurements, calculations and obscure German regulations.

yes, i am studying for my deutsche führerschein and it's very difficult; i've now done 20 of the 34 sample tests, and in only one (the 18th one) did i score well enough to actually pass. even andy doesn't know all the answers. the questions range from idiotically simple to obscure or worded in such a way that it's difficult to know what answer is required. still, at least i can sit the test in english. if i had to sit it in german, i think i would give up now.

ok, better get back to it!