Elise and Stephanie : German Criminals

It was another cloudy, rainy day in Dusseldorf. Steph and I were especially tired today. We rolled out of bed, watched House, and then crawled back into bed for a quick snooze. Today was not a day we were going to do something special. After much back and forth conversation consisting of: "We should probably go soon" "Yeah" and then continuing House. It must have been something in the weather because we were very tired. After eventually kicking ourselves out of the house, we decided to walk around and try and find a mall. Instead of a mall, we found a street full of very expensive stores. We wanted to look in the likes of Chanel, Hugo Boss, and Louis Vuitton but they seemed to be the type of stores you go in when you want to actually buy something. So we stood outside and eye-shopped, reassuring ourselves that one day we would be rich enough to buy something from there. I think that Europe is all about the fancy shopping stores that no one can afford. We continued to walk around until Steph realized that her eyebrows "were bushes" and needed them waxed. We wandered around until we found Senzera, bodylicious waxing. It seems to be a chain in Germany as we have found three of them in Dusseldorf and one in Berlin. Once we found it, we walked in and waited fifteen minutes for someone to come down the stairs to serve us. Lucky for us, we got the woman who spoke almost no English. Another joy of not knowing the language of the country you currently live in. After our half German half English conversation, Steph's appointment was booked and we went to Starbucks to celebrate...and kill an hour. Steph noticed that Starbucks is hiring and as working at Starbucks in Germany is my highest calling, I considered dropping off my resume. After Steph's appointment, we went to the grocery store to pick up some veggies and Joghurt mit der Ecke, which is my new favourite thing in the world. It is yogurt cup with a something with it. I like the chocolate crisp ones the best but they also have berries to go with it as well. Very delicious. Then we hopped on the bus and after two minutes, we had a man with a weird ticket printer in hand, asking us where our tickets were. I panicked and pretended I had forgotten it at home and so we would get off the bus. This was not allowed. The man then continued to speak in German to us, but we didn't understand. He then called his friend over to speak to us. He told us to pay 40 euros, which we both paid half of and then said that that was only for one person. We didn't have anymore money and so we told him we would go to the bank for him. This also was not allowed. He told us "40 euro or Polizei". We were panicking so much and then he told us to get off the train with him. We stood in the bus stop and he told Steph that I was going to jail and that she would come later with the money to get me out. Steph begged him to let her go in my place as she is so terrible with directions. This was not allowed. He kept saying "No, your friend go. You come later". His English was very bad and broken. Then he went to his other friends and they spoke German for a bit and he printed out a receipt for us. He said, we think, that he would wave the other 40 Euros but we must go get a pass right away. We thanked him profusely and got out of there as fast as we could. We couldn't believe our luck. Steph didn't really want to be put in the German Criminal Records and I didn't want to have to bail her out of jail with more non-English speaking men. We arrived home feeling very shaken and very relieved. We decided to make curry for dinner with some of the tofu we bought. Tofu is also one of the things that taste different here but not in a good way. The dinner was still pretty good anyway. Once we had gotten over the shock of our almost jail time, we laughed about almost being put in German prison. I wonder if I would have had a jail cell...or been stuck there overnight with all the other people who ride buses without paying...Still wondering as to why I had to go to jail instead of Steph when we both paid the same amount of money to Balding Turk...