Today I am nursing a hang over. Hangovers that aren't in your native tongue are worse than ones that are. We had a small dinner party last night with our neighbours from the 3rd floor. It went well. I had decided to cook a meal from a French cook book that Annika had given me for a Christmas present some years ago. The book was by Julia Childs. Julia is famous for introducing French cooking to the American public back in the 50s. Having followed the recipes dutifully to the completion of the meal I am now convinced that one of the greatest and more subtle conspiracies ever visited by one country on another was when the French taught Julia Childs how to cook French food. I can't help but imagine some Pythonesque French chefs with outrageous French accents surrounding Julia, only one speaks English and the others keep suggesting things and giggling. "Tell er she as to discard ze vegetables and keep ze water." "Tell her ze jambon must be boiled. Mon dieu she is doing it." " Stop with ze giggling or you will give it away." The recipes are quite complex and involves steps like; cook the vegetables, throw out the vegetables, place the contents of the casserole dish into another casserole dish, wash the first one then place the contents of the second back into the first. Despite this, in only 6 hours and by using only 2 frying pans, 3 sauce pans and two casserole dishes I managed to make what was essentially beef and red wine stew with an entrée of mushroom soup. Despite my lack of grace towards Julia the meals were delicious.
This morning however was a different story. As I mentioned earlier we were expecting my bike to arrive yesterday and sure enough it did. So my task this morning was to go out to the airport to collect it. Armed with a thumping head and a slight feeling of nausea I caught the train out to the airport. About half way there I started to get a nagging doubt that perhaps I was not as prepared as I should be. My only form of id was my WA drivers licence and that might not cut it at a Deutsche freight forwarding company. It turns out I was worrying unnecessarily as there was no way in the world that I would have been able to guess at the level of documentation I would have to provide to get my bike released from customs. A good form of id was only a minor piece of the bureaucratic paper trail.
So I find the freight forwarder B in the industrial park at the airport and he asks for 18.75 Euro for the onerous task of filling in a form. I pay and he directs me to customs D. Customs would like to help but before they can release the bike they need to see - my passport, Annikas passport, my registration in Munich, Annikas registration in Munich, Annika's contract with Bertrandt and our rental contract. They give me a form to fill in. (All of this didn't happen as quickly as I make out. It did in fact involve me and three customs officials gathered around my iPhone translating things for each other) I go back to the freight forwarder B and he suggests I see a customs clearance agent G. I find the clearance agent and he says that I need all the aforementioned paperwork but he will help me fill in the form for a paltry 30 euro. I look at the two page form and it doesn't look like 30euro worth of help. I graciously decline and head home, my hangover gently throbbing in the back of my head.
On the way home I came up with a plan. I will take a photo of the form and email it to Annika, she could fill it in then send it back to me and I would transcribe the contents back on to the original. So all this happens and I head back out to airport. The customs guys are helpful and once again I have a small following of groupies eager to help the suave Australian. The required paper work is produced. The right form stamped and hey presto I have my bike cleared. Back to the freight forwarder B and after parting with yet more geld, whare housing fee, I have the box containing my bike and Annikas snowboarding gear. To get it home I had to use my head, literally. I balanced the bike box on my head and walked the 1km back to the train station.
Hooray, the bike and everything else has arrived intact and I waste no time putting the fixie back together. Once rolling I push it across the road to 1 of 3 bike shops with in spitting distance and convince them to pump up the tyres and tighten anything that is loose. They produce a number of torque wrenches and set upon the fixie. I watch as they tighten the pedals with the pedal spanner from hell and know deep in my heart that I will never get the pedals off my bike again. I didn't go straight home choosing instead to go ride throw the snow in the park. It is great to have a set of wheels again.
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