And Now For Something Complete Different (2)

In October 1994, I was lucky to get a chance to work in Erlangen, Germany. This was not a vacation but living in a new city and country for over 3 months. I had my own apartment and would have to shop, do laundry etc. All my adventures are in my German journals.
The chuckle of the day has to do with showers. Let me give a brief layout of my place, just as a set up.

I was sharing a ground level flat with a couple of other people. We each had our bedrooms and a common area. The bathroom was shared. The first part of the bathroom was the main tub with the shower and the toilet was a small room past the tub, with a door.

The tub was a large, cast-iron tub with feet. Gorgeous tub. The shower head was put up as an after thought. Immediately, I noticed three things were different.

One, there was no shower curtains. Well, the tub is large so I suppose there isn’t too much splashing when showering. Thing is, the second thing I noticed was there was no ‘hook’ for the shower head. When you took a shower, you had to hold the shower head. Okay. Then came the third thing: the boiler.

We in North America are used to wasting energy so things like hot water heaters are normal. Not in Europe. You have boilers for the shower, in the kitchen, wherever you need hot water. You have to set it and turn it on.

Now the boiler in the bathroom had a stick shift. You use it to set how hot you want the water and then turn on the burner. You wait for the flames to start and the water starts to boil. Seemed simple enough.

Until the next morning. I woke up quite jet-lagged. I did what my friend Elmar had shown me. Waited a couple of minutes and hopped into the shower. To let out a scream because of the freezing cold water smashing against my skin. I tried jiggling the shift stick but nothing seemed to happen so I gave up.

At work, I talked to Elmar and found out I had to prime the boiler. Set the shift stick far to the right, get the flames going and then it would be ready.

So I was set the next morning. Primed the boiler and the flames burst into action. Put the stick in the middle and waited a few minutes before hopping into the shower. To let out a scream as scalding water hit my skin.

It took me a couple of more tries before I got it right. Then came the intricate ballet for showering. One, I had to hold the shower head while I was showering. Two, there were no shower curtains so I didn’t want to soak the floor.

So showering became a ballet of washing and holding, using different hands to do different things. All too often, it was simpler just to sit in the tub, hold the shower head between my knees.

After that, it was hard to look at showering the same way.