The Radschlager

A new word for you; radshlagen = to cartwheel.

In the Düsseldorf Altstadt the waiters apparently cartwheel to earn extra tips, whether they still do, I don't know, but they certainly did it enough in the past to have a statue marking this little foible.

I'm rarely in Düsseldorf (despite it only being 30 minutes or so away, but I'm pathologically allergic to public transport and everytime I drive to DD I seem to make a wrong turn on my way home, I blame the TomTom, she's a little slow on the uptake) but today there was a newcomers coffee for the American Women's Club Düsseldorf and as I joined up at the end of last year I thought I should go.

Yes, I know I'm not American (my children were keen to point this out to me) but membership is open to all (not just women either!) and I want to get back into doing something for charity (the Germans don't seem to be as altruistic* as we Brits) and I knew from a friend that the AWCD does that.

So, coffee. It was a pleasant morning, no traffic problems, no parking problems, didn't get lost on the way there (!), great spread of food to eat (a good thing as I was starving, having had no time for breakfast) and lots of people who I didn't know, for me to make smalltalk with. This is almost a phobia of mine, I will go out of my way to avoid being in a room full of strangers, and having to introduce myself, possibly the only thing worse is having to do this in German...

It was a pleasant morning as I've said, marred only by a young woman walking in and commenting to the young woman talking to me, "oh, thank god, someone else young, I thought everyone was going to be a house wife with kids" - thoroughly put me in my place did little Miss Pradabag Sevenjeans. Needless to say, I didn't talk to her at all, somehow I don't think we'd have any common ground - apart from a love of handbags!


* thanks dad!