Caitlin

My Praktikum in Germany
2002-06-26 12:12:45 (UTC)

Spiderman and Company Car

Last night, I went out to the movies. There is one theater
in Cologne which shows the original versions of movies, as
opposed to the others who show only movies dubbed into
German. When I walked into the theater, it distinctly
looked like a bar, as many buildings here tend to, and that
atmosphere was furthered by the fact that they sold beer at
the snack counter. Like the American theaters, they sold
popcorn, but here you have a choice between sweet or salty
popcorn. I didn't buy anything to eat, but maybe someday
I'll try the sweet stuff.

We saw Spiderman, which was well-made and had great action
scenes. In that respect, I wasn't disappointed. However,
the underlying message of the film made me uneasy, and
ruined the ending for me. The theme of the movie was "with
great power comes great responsibility," which in itself
isn't such an offensive idea, but the way it was applied
was unsettling. Apparently, just because the Spiderman
character had super powers, he had no right to live his own
life, and had a moral obligation to put everyone else's
wishes before his own. Come on! Maybe I took it a bit too
seriously, but the societal and political ramifications of
this idea are appalling....

And today, I'm back at work.

My task was to drive to Lear (again) to conduct some tests
with new software. I had the right paperwork to get a
company vehicle to drive there, but at the office, the
grumpy man who works there told me that they didn't have
any more cars to give out. At first I thought he was
joking, but then I remembered that he didn't have a sense
of humor. I was already running late, and this wasn't
going to help me at all. I went back up to my office to
ask my boss what I should do, and luckily, there was
another option: to take one of the test vehicles. I hadn't
realized that there was actually a difference between the
fleets, but I should have expected that the Germans would
be organized (burocratic, actually) about the vehicle
fleets. So with a slight change in my vehicle request,
changing the word "Dienstfahrt" (business trip)
to "Beurteilung" (assessment), I was able to get a nice Ford
Mondeo with a 6-cylinder engine.

Because the last time I drove to Lear, I got lost, this
time I was prepared with maps and directions. However,
when I got to the car, I found these unnecessary, because
it had a navigation system built into it. Even though I
still managed to make a couple of wrong turns, the patient
female voice told me (in German) to turn around as soon as
I got a chance. It was actually quite comforting, although
I would have started to worry if she told me to "turn off
that noise on the radio." I even got to drive on the
Autobahn on the way back.

Well, that's all for today....

Bye bye!




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