originalmaja.de

zzzz ZZZ zzzz

A diary about my trip to Cologneh

by Marianne Jaffke
(copied from a hand-written diary).

June 24th 2002, the first day / 5:51 (a.m.)

Dear Myself,

Daddy has just knocked on my door. He was surprised to see me awake. He didn’t hear that truck that had tried to drive through our little street – at 4:32 (till 4:53…. 17 meters in over 20 minutes … *arg*)!

Bella, my dog, is watching me. I think, she’s surprised, too. Normally she’s the first to get up. Behind me there is my big bag, packed for three days, full of stupid things I will never need this week: Year 12 wants to make a trip to Cologne. Today it’s Monday. On Friday we’ll come back.

9:00 (a.m.)

You won’t believe it! It’s quiet! The first silent moment since we started. Even the Earlydrinkers are sleeping.

It’s a double-decker-bus we’re on now. Downstairs it’s too hot and up here it’s too cold. Most of the time our driver has some music on or he puts on videos for us. So it’s a relief to have a quiet moment. A good time for writing this diary for school and watching the people – my hobby.

Steffi is snoring, André ’s reading, Katja is listening to Music, Markus comes up the stairs, walks to the front, asks something and goes back down. Like every ten minutes it seems. I think, Schorsch will soon fall off his seat, and … oh, no. Kai is taking out his huge cd player. He wants to “ensure a good atmosphere”, he says. I tell him the atmosphere is just right as it is.

He doesn’t think so.

Where is my discman? I need my headphones!

4:00 (p.m.)

The bus driver has taken the wrong exit. For the second time. Some pupils are singing hymns for him. I think we are back to the alcohol-level of this morning. “Have some fun!”.

8:02 (p.m.)

I don’t know why they call it “Nobelherberge”! If you ignore the lifts and the carpets it looks similar to youth hostels in the former GDR.

We’ve been here for two and a half hours, I suppose. Apart from the time-displays on some of our mobiles there are no clocks in the room that I’m writing in now. No one has thought about bringing a watch or a clock. – “We” that’s Steffi, Katja, Martina and myself.

We’ve eaten, I’ve been out shopping (most of us didn’t bring important things like deodorants, toothpaste or chocolate), Katja is out visiting a friend and Martina went swimming in that chemical-lab called Rhine. Steffi is assisting her.

So I’m on my own, sitting in the window watching rabbits. 27 I have counted.

 

June 25th 2002, the second day / 8:17 (a.m.)

To My-irresponsible-lazy-selfish-self,

You forgot to post the cards for your Dad and your best friend! Just in case you don’t remember them: They are the two people you promised to send postcards to on the very first day in Cologne. An appropriate quotation from Ozzy Osbourne would be: “Fuck!”

However: Our nice teachers had a nice idea – to visit a nice museum. Nice! So we got up @ 7 o’clock, much too late to catch the bus @ 8 o’clock. Anyhow: We “managed the situation”, now we’re on our bus again.

11:43 (a.m.)

The museum was good. Partly. The exhibitions were about the Teutons and the ancient Romans. A lot of tiles, vases, stones, instruments and pictures from the very old days. The air-conditioning was first-class. I mean, outside it was 30 degrees! … No, “was” is wrong: It is 30 degrees.

So, people and animals: Guess where I am now?

Right.
Here.
Outside.

All the others are watching the game. They’re sitting in one of those hundreds of bars in town watching the world cup (all bars are overcrowded, I can’t get in – they would let me in if I ordered something that costs more than 8 Euro; too much). Fine!

Actually we had thought there would be a huge screen on the market place where we could see our national team winning. On our way to the museum we came by a screen at the railway station: However, it was only two meters high, four meters wide. In front of this mini-thing were some chairs, six rows… let me think…: six multiplied by seven (chairs per row) amounts to 42 sitting people. 20 watchers could see the screen while standing. The rest wouldn’t see anything.

Like always: I belong to the rest.

I walked through the streets to find a screen or a TV where I could see. After five minutes I had found one but I thought: ‘You’ll find some better place’. – Dear Myself, you know my life: Of course, I didn’t find ‘some better place’. Surely not. I just walked and walked: A kilometre west, half a kilometre south and then the same way back. Now it’s way after twelve, at one o’clock we have to meet again.

1:22 (p.m.)

I missed the meeting. I was in that Internet-café and forgot all about time. The next get-together is at 3 p.m.

3:09 (p.m.)

Okay, it wasn’t a meeting. In the first minutes I thought we were going to drive back to our hostel, but now only a few of us are on the bus. I think I am one of the volunteers who will visit another museum. The chocolate-museum.

9:03 (p.m.)

The outing was yummy and I learned some interesting stuff about chocolate. But more important is football. Naturally. So I should tell something about our bus-drive to the museum:

We asked the driver if he could find a radio-channel broadcasting the game. No answer. He was too concentrated on the traffic … and on his little TV-screen (that showed the game). In between he suddenly yelled over the loudspeakers “Tor!”. – Someone had scored a goal. We asked him, no, we screamed: “Who scored the goal?!?”

But again: He seemed to have no time or concentration to answer.

We hated him at that moment.
Really.

A few minutes later we parked beside the museum. And – god bless her – Ulli took her radio out of her bag (“Oh, wait! Look what I have found!”), so we could listen to the last moments of the game between the South Koreans and the Germans. The radio-speaker told us that our team had made the one and only goal. A little later: The game had ended and we were in the finals! Yes.

We were already standing in the museum when the last words of the reporter came through the mini-speakers of Ulli's radio. A man from the museum had to wait for us. Poor guy. But he was patient.

Now we’re back in the hostel. In a few minutes I will go to town with some friends. Good night.

 

June 26th 2002, the third day / 11:17 (p.m.)

The whole day was full of action. I had no time to write anything. We travelled to Bonn on a ferryboat. Two and a half hours on the Rhine: Till turned brown, I turned red. Typical! It was a lovely journey.

Our bus was already waiting for us in Cologne with a tour guide. I wasn’t interested in what she told us. After a few minutes the bus stopped and some of us (nine or ten pupils and teachers) got off to visit the ministry of defence, I followed them. Mr. Siegesmund was confused. He told me that I should have informed him the day before if I wanted to come with them today. He would have announced a certain number of visitors. – I told him that I hadn’t known that.

He shrugged his shoulders and said perhaps we could smuggle me in – but it wasn’t necessary. He counted us and smiled: We were less people than he had announced. So the “factor Maja” was no problem this time.

About the ministry of defence… hm.
We weren’t in it.

A guard took us to a kind of youth centre. And there was a youth-officer who told us in a youthful way what the German Armed Forces were about. The best was the ice-cold coke everyone got.

After it we had a last half hour to explore Bonn. 20 minutes we strolled through a shopping-boulevard, 10 minutes we ran back. Then it was 4 o’clock p.m., time to go home.

_________After the evening meal I wanted to go into the town like the night before.

But again Steffi, Martina and Katja wouldn’t like to. “Let’s go the last night – tomorrow!” I wanted to go this night though, so I followed the group of Till… Me and four guys, a crazy idea. Kai got high on Red Bull (I did not know that this is possible), Dietrich tried to discuss with us about the difference between men and women, Steven played the cool Nothingsayer and Till got drunk fast because he tasted every drink we ordered (and some more). Crazy, but not bad.

When I came back no one was there. Martina, Katja and Steffi were gone. “Great”, I thought. But then I heard voices. In the first moment I thought somebody was in the bathroom, but then I recognised it came from outside. The window was open and I heard a conversation between a man at the age of 20 (or older) and some teenage girls (no older than 14). He said: “How do you look?” And: “From where are you coming?” And: “Come down!” And: “I want to sleep with you.” And: “No, no. My English is very well. I’m from France, you know.”

That was enough. I was just about to tell him I would call the police when Steffi and her friend from Bonn came into the room. I informed them about what I had heard and so we told that guy outside together what we would do, if he didn’t leave right then. Steffi was the loudest (of course).

Well, he left.


June 27th 2002, the fourth day / 7:31 (p.m.)

Dear Myself,

Again today there was no time to write my dairy till now. We travelled to Trier. The bus-trip took more than three hours. When we reached the town, we followed another tour guide. She was much better than the woman who guided us through Bonn. She knew everything we asked for. She was a good storyteller, too. Surely, now I don’t remember anything she told us… but I know it was enjoyable.

After it we were allowed to walk through the shopping-area. I used the time to look for presents for my Dad and company. Then we went back to Cologne. This time it took more than three hours.

In a few minutes I’ll go to the cinema with Steven.

Neither Steffi nor Martina or Katja feel like going out on our last night. The others want to party ‘till tomorrow – with lots of alcohol. Not my world. So I will watch a movie.

11:02 (p. m.)

The film was good! I hadn’t expected that. The preview-trailer of “John Q” was a little bit too trashy for me. It’s about a man in the USA whose son gets very sick and whose health insurance doesn’t want to pay for the treatment – but without it the kid will die. So the desperate father (played by Dencel Washington) takes a doctor and the emergency room personnel as hostages and tries to force the hospital to help his son.

In the end the father is put into prison for some years but his son is saved. Happy Hollywood End.

I have to pack my bags.

June 28th 2002, the fifth and last day / 3:33 (p.m.)

Great! Wonderful! Instead of driving home the shortest way we can the teachers wanted to make a trip to some parks in Hannover. I’m sitting here on a bench and waiting for departure again.

This morning we left the hostel at 8:40 – ten minutes late. The hostel personnel by all means wanted to give us some presents. Every one got a small parcel. In there was a Bifi (a mini-salami), a brochure of the hostel, some soap, a deodorant… all the things we had needed the first day, not the last. Funny.

Oh, the bus-driver is calling. Let’s go home. Finally. I’m so tired.

- - - T h e _ E n d - - -

OUTRO: My opinion

Now I know why our tutors didn’t wanted to travel abroad with us. After the first night the hostel personnel have threatened to send us back home if we were as loud that night again. – A menace that worked. I think we could have spared us this embarrassment.

The other thing I didn’t liked was our trip to the so-called “Herrenhäuser Gärten” in Hannover. I don’t want to say it wasn’t nice there, but is was not the best time to visit those parks:

It was the last day.

We had already been on the bus for four or five hours.

It was raining.

The admission was not free.

The loo on the bus was broken (and there was no free public toilette).

Every one was in a bad mood, even our drolly bus-driver.

This is what the teachers should have spared us.

Of course, there were some good events: The trip to Bonn with that noble-ferry was magnificent. The sun was shining and we were all lying on deck. It was the most restful time in those five days.

Our night-tours to Cologne also were cool. Walking through the dark streets of Schwerin is quite different from getting high on the coloured lights of a really big city.

The highlight was a little insider-scene: One day Katja and Steffi got an order from Mr. Siegesmund not to leave the hostel – as a punishment! They had not come punctually to the daily roll call. We tried to persuade him to let them go, but he was strict. So Steffi and Katja had to inform Mr. Siegesmund every 15 minutes they were still there.

Once or twice they did what he wanted, then we had an idea. It was not about convincing him that they had learned their lesson, no, now we wanted to get some fun out of this stupid situation. Katja and Steffi got gags and bonds and with belts (like handcuffs) we (Martina and me) brought them to the door of Mr. Siegesmund’s room. We knocked, he opened, he laughed and forgave them. Steffi and Katja were free. Long live King Siggi!

All in all it was one of the best school trips I’ve ever made (though the over-weighted program). Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that before there haven't been many class trips I liked. I have to add: the teachers were really all right. More than that. How unusual!

;-)


P.S., March 7th, 2008,
late at night, Schwerin, Germany

Almost six years have past since I wrote that dairy. It was nice to read it again more than a half decade later. I am proud how much thought I had given into it, how detailed it is; but still, I have to add something.

I hope I remember it correctly: the several-time-mentioned Martina pointed out a mix-up in my outro (the outro is titled “My opinion”); I had given her my diary a few month after the trip. According to her (better: according to my memory according to her’s) it hasn’t been Steffi and Katja handcuffing themselves to impress King Siggi, no, it had been Steffi and herself, Martina. And it was Katja and me presenting both of them to Mr. Siegesmund.

Shame on me!

I figure that mistake can be explained by a gap of time between writing the dairy and writing the outro. It took me some weeks to translate the dairy from the german original to the english version – thanks to my friend Eva Gamerschlag –; my angelsächsisch was pretty nasty those days. And not before both, Eva and me, wore satisfied with the outcome did I give any thought to some final words, an outro, epilogue, post scriptum.

So this is probably evidence for my father’s saying: “You can’t count on memory concerning the past. Trust only in written words that were noted closely to the event.” Mainly, he is right with that advice (“Mainly”, because: I would formulate an even more stricter rule; but focusing the core of his saying… yes, he is right with it):

I was so sure it had been Katja, not Martina, bearing King Siggi’s punishment side by side with Steffi. But I’ve been mistaken, very mistaken. How embarrassing! I guess I just turned red and didn’t even apologised to Martina when she confronted me (it wasn’t a real confrontation, but still an uncomfortable conversation). Considering how highly I thought of her (and hopefully successfully communicating exactly that between the lines of all of our get-togethers), it must have caused some annoyance in Martina (considering: Maja being nice to her in contrast with Maja being unable to separate her from Katja; and now that I think of it… maybe it wasn’t even Martina pointing out the mix-up, maybe it was Katja… I’m unreliable for everything).

How could I mix up Martina and Katja? The following thoughts will go too much into detail, I fear!

I do have a solid answer, an uncomfortable one for the question why it happened… An answer making no comment about the nature of either Katja or Martina (because it has nothing to do with their doings what so ever), but giving an analysis about myself, my limited capability to separate the logical pieces of events I witness; I am, and more over, was (much more those days than today), hm, let’s say, highly challenged by the overflow of information I was confronted with in daily-business situations… faces, words, colors, settings, reasons, conflicts, out-comes… my brain tried to remember all of it instead of taking in the whole picture.

I learned in time that I would remember things better, if I tried to remember only a few bits, not all of it. But it took me some ages to realise this, and I hadn’t realised it in 2002. I simply wasn’t used to talk to more than two people, I more likely was used to have dialogues with one person; and then I changed schools (...again...), met those three ladies – it turned my whole world upside down. I learned tones of stuff considering human behaviour and the conditions of better-than-bearable friendships, (talking about the real deal here). I don’t allow myself to go that far to consider Katja, Martina and Steffi my friends, I’m sure I haven’t treated them well enough to do so… but I’m positive that my SCHLIEMANN years gave me a fine scoop into a friendly world.

I’m sorry to drift into dramatics, but I have to say: I had long time ago lost hope, lost believe in the possibility that friendships like my father seems to have and like novels go endlessly on about actually existed in the real world I experienced…

Bla, bla, bla… well, yes, so: my memory had mixed up Katja and Martina… an error still haunting me for it’s being exemplary for a few more uncomfortable happenings I caused. And over the years, I maybe constructed a kind of excuse for it… sometimes I do think I actually constructed it to feel better about myself… but most of the time I like to believe that it is an appropriate self analysis: I in fact was overwhelmed by the simplest situations and I did the best I could to handle them.

Still: Having that explanation for the whole thing doesn’t change that it was highly embarrassing, and I felt and feel bad for it. It felt as if I somehow had dismissed Martina (or something like that). Anyway. It’s been a long time. I have no contact to her or Katja.

I do know where Steffi lives and I poorly tried to stay in touch. I should try again and again and again. I mistreat her by not trying, by letting it slide. She's done so much for me.

Text: Marianne Jaffke, www.originalmaja.de

zzzz ZZZ zzzz