Tag Archives: blogparade

#LoveWritingChallenge – Fun Facts

I’m participating in the #LoveWritingChallenge by Katie Kling. For more information see the introduction post.

This weeks theme are Characters and today is all about Fun Facts.
To make things easier for myself I will focus on the ladies (and characters) in three of my longer stories:

Though I might add more from other stories.
For stuff about our characters from Warlords feel free to check out our Facebook Page.

Jokes on you…

All right, fun facts about my projects…let’s see…

I already told you that I had characters that wanted their names changed and that Nina’s and Rasha’s names are based on real people…hmm…

Is it a fun fact that I prefer writing my stories by hand, but haven’t written a single line on paper for TQW?
Well, unless you count corrections made on a print out…

Is it a fun fact that a story tells me which language it wants to be written in? That’s why NBWolf is originally English and TQW was German to begin with.

Is it a fun fact that I’m a visual writer? That I imagine the conversations, the way characters interact/move/etc. and then try to write down what I saw?

Probably not, as neither of those have to do with my characters…Let’s think again…

Hmm…how about this:

I only noticed that Emry was left handed, because he kept doing stuff with that hand.

Just as it only occurred to me that Amir was a biologist when I envisioned a scene of him and Thomas walking around a lake and talking about it.

This is a pretty common occurrence when I write, as I put the characters in scenes and then see what happens. Sometimes the direction it goes sounds interesting, but then I rethink it and realize that it doesn’t fit and I either cut out/not write the scene completely or rearrange it to fit better.

As we’re already talking about funny things:
Another thing that is pretty common amongst my characters is that they share my humour. It’s hard for me to tell jokes I wouldn’t laugh about or wouldn’t make myself – regardless of how bad they are, so I add those to lighten the mood at times. Well, because of that I wouldn’t be surprised if some characters from different stories would get along well and just have a pun-tastic time. 😀

See you tomorrow, when I talk about my favourite characters…

PoiSonPaiNter

#LoveWritingChallenge – POVs

I’m participating in the #LoveWritingChallenge by Katie Kling. For more information see the introduction post.

This weeks theme are Characters and today is all about Point of Views.
To make things easier for myself I will focus on the characters in three of my longer stories:

Though I might add more from other stories.
For stuff about our characters from Warlords feel free to check out our Facebook Page.

Look at it from a different perspective…

From all my stories I believe, I have only two in the first person narration (both German): The secret Life of an Enter-Button and The adventurous Life of Stan the Desert Cactus. Is it telling that both are inanimate „objects“ I lend my voice to? 😀
Usually I write third person narrations with a hint of character thoughts and knowledge. It’s kind of easier that way and I prefer reading books/stories written like that as well. Not sure why I don’t like first person narrations…I just don’t.
POVs are a good way to explore things from different sides as not all characters are there at all times.
As TQW is the story with the most progress I can only talk about that one. Here I chose a couple of characters to tell the story.
With Kurth I can take a look at what’s happening with the lower ranks. With Lihsa I have a look into what the maids are up to. Emry gives me a chance to explore magic and preparation for different events. And so on…
I’m still not entirely sure how I will actually portray the change in POV in the final version, but it sure feels like copying if I do it similar to GRR Martin…
As I’m not entirely sure what else I could write here, I’ll simply ask:
What’s your favourite POV?
See you tomorrow, when I tell you a couple of Fun Facts. 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter

#LoveWritingChallenge – Male Characters

I’m participating in the #LoveWritingChallenge by Katie Kling. For more information see the introduction post.

This weeks theme are Characters and today is all about Male Characters.
To make things easier for myself I will focus on the characters in three of my longer stories:

Though I might add more from other stories.
For stuff about our characters from Warlords feel free to check out our Facebook Page.

So let’s take a look at the guys in my stories…

Just like I don’t care much about gender roles with my ladies, are my guys not typical males. Their compassionate and supportive of their ladies/lady friends, some would even be considered as feminine. Though that doesn’t mean they wont mistreat my girls. With male characters it’s easier to explore certain aspects of personalities and the asshole is kind of one of my favourites to write. It’s just so much fun…
Somehow are males still kind of the default gender I use for stories, especially short stories. On occasion I find myself wondering: Would it change the story if I wrote about a woman instead (especially the first chapter of the NBWolf)? Most of the time the character stays male…

Anyway, let’s talk jobs.

As I did with the ladies let’s take a look at what my guys do for a living. Which if I really think about it, isn’t that much…
Though I do have: cook, teacher, programmer, zoo keeper/veterinarian, biologist, accountant, advisor, soldier and painter/graphic designer. Well, and at least one king. 😀
I’m not entirely sure, why I have most of the jobs for the ladies figured out, but the guys either struggle to find a proper job or just don’t really have a description for what they do…

And what about their relationships?

As they mostly are counterparts to the females this answer isn’t much different to the previous one. Though it feels like they are a bit more open about things than the ladies. A lot of them don’t mind one night stands where the ladies would contemplate them a lot more. They flirt, they talk back and they’re usually stronger and taller than the women. But I still wouldn’t change it, because, well, it’s part of who they are…
On the other hand are they not as progressed when it comes to sexual preferences as I only have (two) side characters that are gay. The only lead character with a different orientation is pansexual, which I only realized after learning about it.

Special cases

Well, let’s take a look at some of them that are not the typical male characters. This time two of them are even lead characters.

Andrew (TUO)

Andrew is a vampire-like creature and Michaels older half-brother. He is a gentle person that doesn’t like conflict and deals badly with change and loss and sometimes reacts the way a little child would. This is mostly due to his birth conditions, as his mother was turned while she was pregnant with him. When he loves, he loves with his whole heart and would do anything to make whoever that might be happy.
What I like about him: He was one of the first characters I created for TUO and therefore has a special place in my heart. He’s just this cute little guy that you just want to hug and keep save, even if he can kick your ass if you threaten his family…

Kurth (TQW)

He’s a young boy that aims to become a strong knight to protect the queen. Kurth can be quite naive, but his heart is in the right place, even if his tongue sometimes gets the better of him. He faces a lot of backlash from his peers and superiors, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t give it his best.
What I like about him: He provides a different look on some of the story aspects and he’s this dorky little guy, that’s just fun to write.

Amir (NBWolf)

Amir is a kind person burdened with a cruel fate. He is the lone survivor of his village, where he used to be a respected biologist (plant research), now he is nothing more than a refugee trying to find his footing again. It’s hard for him to adapt, especially with his condition as a newly turned Werwolf without any control.
What I like about him: Like Rasha am I still exploring what makes him, him and the more I do, the worse I feel about what will happen to him…

Boys, boys, boys

Just like my ladies, do I let the boys tell me what they like and who they are. Somehow it’s easier for me to write them. I’m somehow less worried about writing clichés in their cases, but I also prefer exploring things with them. It’s a bit strange and I’m not sure why that is…
Anyway, see you tomorrow when I’ll talk about Point of Views (POVs)
PoiSonPaiNter
P.S. This is my 400th post. o.O

#LoveWritingChallenge – Quotes

I’m participating in the #LoveWritingChallenge by Katie Kling. For more information see the introduction post.

This weeks theme are Characters and today is all about Character Quotes.
To make things easier for myself I will focus on the characters in three of my longer stories:

Though I might add more from other stories.
For stuff about our characters from Warlords feel free to check out our Facebook Page.

Say something nice!

Well, this is tricky…mostly because I haven’t written most of the stuff in those three stories and partly because I don’t remember quotes…and some of my favourite quotes are already covered on Facebook with Warlords…but let’s see what I can come up with…and you’ll get a sneak peek through it. 🙂

From TQW:

This one is a spoiler, but not really. Read at your own risk. 😉

As a disbelieving realisation: „The wizard shagged the queen“

I’m not entirely sure why I like this one, but I guess it’s mostly the picture in my head of the boy sitting down when this dawns on him. As I said: Not really a spoiler as this doesn’t tell you when it happened and who it is really about. 😉
And a tiny bit longer (though shortened) scene:

„And what are you learning today?“ [He] asked.
„I drew a bird!“ She told him proudly.
„Well, then let’s take a look at your bird“, [he] declared with a wide smile.
She pulled a parchment with a mazy scribble closer so [he] could see it. „There look“, she proudly presented it to him and [he] raised his eyebrow. With a exaggeratedly confused frown he looked first at the drawing then at his daughter. „A bird you say?“
„YEAH!“ She protested and explained the different parts of the line clutter: „That’s the beak, those are the wings and these are the feet!“
„Daughter, if this is a bird, then I will have to take you collecting herbs again, so you can see a real one“, he taunted her jokingly.
[later]
„Papa look! My horse is finished!“ [She] called out to him and held out another parchment.
„Your horse looks like a bird“, [he] commented with a wide grin and earned the expected indignant „PAPA!“

Of course I’m not telling you who is who here either. 😉

From the NBWolf:

An (unedited) excerpt from the upcoming chapter Water Moon:

„I don’t like this, [XY]“, her girlfriend told her over the phone while she was getting ready.
„Don’t worry Sweetie, I’ll be fine“, she assured her for the umpteenth time.
„But…you don’t know if someone will see you-“
„Honey, we’ve been through this: It’s the middle of the week and I’ve got work tomorrow, I can’t come home to change with the pack“
„I’m just worried“
„I know. I don’t like it either, but I’ll be fine“
„Have you eaten?“
„Yes“
„Enough?“
„More than enough, I’d be surprised if I don’t sink into the lake like the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood“
„[XY]!“
„I’m just kidding! Relax!“

I just like their interaction and if you paid attention so far, you can guess whom it’s about. 😉
I always try to make dialogues and interactions realistic and I think this is a nice example of it.
Well, let’s round this up with a quote that made a couple of people laugh when they read my short story for the Bücherstadtkurier Advent Calendar

The Crib:

“And The Doctor, Superman and DARTH VADER are the Three Wise Men?”
“Yup. They always say one of them is black.”
For a moment Harry quarrelled with himself, then he corrected: “Black: yes; Mass Murderer: No.“

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little look at different stories of mine. There are many more stories – especially my short stories – that I could look through for quotes, but as I don’t even know where to look it would take quite some time…
So, if you remember any quote from one of my other works: Feel free to add them in the comments!
See you tomorrow, when I’ll talk about my Male Characters.
PoiSonPaiNter

#LoveWritingChallenge – Female Characters

As I told you yesterday am I participating in the #LoveWritingChallenge by Katie Kling. For more information see the previous post.

This weeks theme are Characters and today is all about Female Characters.

To make things easier for myself I will focus on the ladies (and characters) in three of my longer stories:

Though I might add more from other stories.

For stuff about our characters from Warlords feel free to check out our Facebook Page.

So let’s take a look at the ladies in my stories…

In general am I not a fan of the Damsel in Distress so most of my ladies are strong and independent, but usually also compassionate about something and sometimes girly.

I’m fairly certain that I only have one girl that is obsessed with her male counterpart, but I still portray this as very unhealthy, at least I would if I had written any of it …

And when I think about it, do I have quite a lot of ladies in my stories, especially in leading roles … Michael’s family alone has about ten important female characters … interesting …

Though I still don’t always manage to pass the Bechdel test, as sometimes those ladies‘ main focus of discussion in a scene is a guy in trouble or at least one of their male family members …

Anyway, let’s talk jobs.

I’m fairy certain that housewife is a non existent job in any of my stories. I have pretty much everything from (kinder garden) teacher, maids, barkeepers/-owners and housekeeper over journalists, psychiatrist, doctors, corporate consultant, lawyers (to-be) up to matriarch and queen.

Usually I try to fit the job to the character and not the other way round, but sometimes it has to be the latter way (if you write about a queen, then you have to make someone queen 😉 ).

And what about their relationships?

I’m not entirely sure any of my ladies have what is generally considered a normal relationship…

Sure some of them got married and stuff, but the circumstances are a bit different.

In TUO I created the concept of the True Mate, which is basically the only partner a (wer)wolf can mate with and expect to conceive a (healthy) child, so some of the couples there are created through that concept, others defy it.

Thinking about it also made me realize that the love-arc in both TQW and TUO follow a similar pattern: Two people fall in love, but stuff and logical reasoning keeps them apart. It’s not innovative, but it fits the characters. They want to be together, but they also know that it’s not a good idea. And I think that’s also a pretty important point: Don’t force a relationship if it might end badly and you already have a bad feeling about it.

Talking about relationships means talking about sexual preferences and I have to admit that those have changed quite a bit over the years. When I first started working on TUO every character was straight, simply because I was forteen and I didn’t really know it any better.

Now I do and my characters come to a headcount of at least two bi, four lesbian (+ three side characters), one ace (and a transgender side character).  It’s not much, but through this they no longer feel like something is missing and they’re not themselves. It just makes so much sense for them…

Special cases

Okay, let’s take a closer look at some of my ladies, all of which are minor lead characters, without giving too much away. I’d talk more about all of them, but then I wont be able to finish the post any time soon…

Rita Desmond (TUO)

Rita is a pure blooded Werwolf and therefore quite peculiar. She would do anything to preserve her species and is therefore not just a well trained doctor and genetics/racial history specialist, but also an executioner. She is also the head of a multi-species (different Therianthropes) asylum for strays.
One of her biggest flaws is that she loves what she is and gets pretty violent towards anyone calling her „human“ and she also looks down on them as the lesser species.

What I like about her: She is one of my few female asshole characters and it’s fun to write her badass side, but also her vulnerability.

Lihsa (TQW)

Lihsa is one of the queens maids and deeply loyal to her. Originating from a small village she came to the castle to become a member of the staff and over the years even became the right hand to the head cook (also female). She can be spunky, but also melancholy, challenging and thought provoking, but most of all: She knows what she wants. It’s not always easy for her to manage her (love) life in the castle, but she gains a certain wisdom from it that even makes the queen admire her for it.

What I like about her: That even though she always receives the bad end of something, she doesn’t lose hope and is strong enough to give something up that is important to her.

Rasha (NBWolf)

Like much of the story in general was Rasha not planned, but writing more about her makes me quite like her. She is one of the few human characters in the story and cares deeply for her wolf friends and lover. Yet at the same time is she a fierce protector of the law and striving to become a lawyer. She has a certain light headedness about her and manages to lighten the mood in almost every situation. Her big heart lets new people in easily and she accepts them as they are and wants to be accepted like that as well. Which isn’t really easy as human fiancée of a wolf, who doesn’t want to turn her(, yet).

What I like about her: Her optimistic personality that I’m still exploring. 😀

Girls, girls, girls

When creating my girls I don’t think about breaking gender roles, I pretty much let them tell me who they are. Sometimes they surprise (e.g. when I discovered that one of them liked girls, when I had already planned for her to get a boyfriend), sometimes it’s a transition of exploring different topics and seeing what fits for the character or how they would react to it.

It’s important to have a variety of characters in a story, just as we have in life.

Life is colourful and fiction should follow its example.

See you tomorrow, when I talk about finding names for my characters…

PoiSonPaiNter

#LoveWritingChallenge

Soo…instead of more Filler posts, I’ve decided to participate in this writing challenge by Katie Kling and her friend Kristin that will last during the month of May. Leave your thanks for this over at DarkFairy’s, who wrote about it first. 😉

What’s the challenge about?

#LoveWritingChallenge is a Social-Media-Parade for Authors.
Katie and Katrin want to share their love for writing and want to know about other peoples projects. That’s why they came up with this cross-media challenge to help people discover new books and get to know new authors.
For this they thought up theme weeks. Each week will be a new theme with seven sub-theme, starting on 1st May.

How can you participate?

Pick one or more themes of the challenge and simply write a post about it, create a picture, make a video or do whatever you like for your Blog or Social Media account. What exactly you’ll be talking about is up to you. You don’t have to write something for each daily theme, you might even make a collection post or something just for the weeks theme. They don’t want to have a strict set of rules.
If you write a blog post, link it to the main post and/or leave a comment there.
If you post something on Instagram, tag @thewritingcat or @katie_kling_autorin.
If you post on Facebook you can tag @autorinkatiekling.
Additionally use the Hashtag #LoveWritingChallenge.
This way they know about the participations and Katie can sum them up in post at the end of the week.

Week One

Die ersten Themen

The first themes

Conclusion

Well, this is what you can expect the following weeks.
Let’s see if I’ll make it through it. 😉
PoiSonPaiNter

Blog-Parade ferngeweht – City, Country, River: P for Peene

Some time ago ferngeweht made a Blog-Parade about the old children’s game „City, Country, River“ or „Stadt, Land, Fluss“ as it’s called in German and asked for 26 Bloggers to write articles about a city, country or river for a respective letter. This time around Sabine wants 78 Bloggers (3 for each letter) to do the same.

I already participated in a previous Blog-Parade of hers (Fernweh) where my post got added to the e-book version containing nearly all entries and also two others about travelling (Strangest Travelling experiences and Travelling Glitches). When I saw the first Parade I wanted to participate, but my chosen letter was already taken and my time/motivation back then wasn’t that good to begin with.

Not that this is any better this time around (*click*), but I decided to apply for the river version of the letter P.

And as you’ve already figured out: I managed to get it. 🙂

Additionally, this post also qualifies as first „Travelling T-Day„, a category I introduced when I talked about the schedule (I just don’t have a picture for it yet >_<).

So without further ado, let me tell you a bit about

The Peene

The Peene is a river in North-East Germany; in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Mecklenburg-Western-Pomerania) to be more precise and if there weren’t those huge corn silos I’d be able to see it from our bath-/bedroom windows. So it’s obvious why I chose it, right? 😉

Anyway, as the Peene is a German river the pronunciation has nothing to do with the English „pee“ – even if the Slavic origin of the word (Pěna) – meaning „foam“ or „foaming river“ – could be associated with the word. If you go for a similar sounding word I’d recommend a look at „penny“. Here you simply stretch the sound of the e for the „ee“ and add the short one at the end. Easy, right? 😉

River basics

Geografische Karte des Peeneverlaufs
(c) Ulamm

The Peene is a river system consisting of the Peene and other rivers that have Peene in their names (see picture) and several side-arms running towards or away from it. The Peene – that is actually only called Peene – I’m going to talk about origins near Gnoien and runs past Demmin, Jarmen (my home town that I’ll be using as an example throughout the post), Anklam and reaches the Baltic Sea as Peenestrom (strom = stream/river) in Peenemünde (münde being an abbreviation of Mündung, meaning „water mouth“) – at least that’s what I get from local knowledge and the quite confusing Wikipedia article.

This part of the Peene is about 126 km long, it’s longest distance is 185 km in total. The river is sometimes referred to as the Amazon of the North (Amazonas des Nordens) due to the curvy course of the river and its natural habitats of many different (sometimes endangered) species.

Wildlife sanctuaries and shipping

The mill & the filling construction
The mill & the filling construction

These natural habitats are often even sanctuaries, where beavers, (sea) eagles, otters and all kinds of little critters can live and re-populate. Some towns – like Demmin and Jarmen – even use the beavers for touristic advertisement (Jarmen recently got a wooden beaver statue at the town entrance). The habitats range from normal river valley (Peenetal 😉 ) to moors, with the moor even being the largest low-level moor (fen) (Niedermoor) in Middle Europe and other parts run through an Urstromtal.

Some parts of the Peene can be passed through on special river tours, where you can see these habitats. As the river(s) runs through a couple of lakes – like the Kummerower See – these tours are sometimes combined with tours there. Other parts are still used for shipping freight or (hobby) sailing, but pretty much every part can be accessed via canoe, with several stations along the way.
There are a few harbours along the Peene; in Jarmen there is the mill directly beside it and sometimes you can see the transport ships being filled from the mill and/or the tall silos that are blocking my/our view. ;)Obviously there are also a couple of bridges that are either high enough for boats to pass below or able to be drawn up.
Jarmen has two bridges: One for the (former Federal Road/Bundestraße B96) Country Road (Landstraße) L35 and one for the motorway (A20) directly alongside it. With an motorway entrance just outside of town it’s quite easy to cross the river here. The next proper bridges are, I believe, in Loitz and Anklam.

Foto der Landstraßen-Brücke über der Peene
The feet below the bridge (by the yellow sign) belong to the motorway-bridge 😉

But that’s not all there is to it

The Peene also has a history of being a natural border within the state that is nowadays called Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, but used to be at least two different parts.
During the Swedish occupation of the North, for example, the Peene was basically the border in most parts between Swedish-Pomerania and New-Western-Pomerania. During that time a lot of towns alongside the Peene – like Jarmen – were under Swedish occupation. Later it cut off the Prussian region of Stralsund. Today the Peene is usually part of a county on both sides, but before we had the „Kreisgebietsreform“ (county area reform) where Jarmen became part of the new county called „Vorpommern-Greifswald“ the Peene used to be the border between the counties „Ostvorpommern“ and „Demmin„, if I remember correctly.

An especially interesting tale concerns the part of the Peene along the town of Anklam. Where the Brandenburger (or -ian?) and Swedish armies fought over the town and its access to the river.
In a bit more fictional way this plundering and destruction is composed as a theatre play called „Die Peene brennt“ (The Peene burns) and is performed every year around September and shows how the Anklamer drove off the occupiers. Unfortunately I never managed to attend one of the shows, but some day I certainly will. 😉

My Peene

As I mentioned a couple of times now, do I live relatively close to the Peene. Growing up we met down there to just sit around and chat, to explore or to relax in the sun – if it wasn’t that time of the year where all the dead fish lay in the river after repopulating (Nearby we also used to have a large playground with a wooden ship where you could climb and play, but only the giant sand box it stood in now remains of it).

I made a few tours on the river – and I really like being on a river boat or ferry. One was in elementary school, that I mentioned briefly before, where a classmate described the animals we could possibly see as „Bibers“, „Adlers“ and „Otters“ (horrible plurals of Beaver, Eagle and Otter) and the other a trip as part of a birthday party from a friend of the family. Both were great and I don’t mind going on another trip.
If you live here it’s easy to come across different parts of the river, so it’s not surprising that I’ve seen it in at least Demmin and Anklam as well.

Flussverlauf weiter an der Mühle entlang

As I now mostly stay in Neubrandenburg I don’t have time that I could spent down at the river – and it would be weird because off all the anglers standing down there. Still I enjoyed going down there again to take the pictures for this post.

I hope you enjoyed this little introduction to the Amazon of the North and maybe you find yourself thinking about visiting it one day. 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

On a Side Note #4.1: Re-Scheduled

As I told you last time do I want to try writing with a proper schedule.
Right now that doesn’t really work and I just wanted to tell you about it.
For today I wanted to write a post for ferngeweht’s new Blog-Parade, but I just didn’t get around to finish it.

Why?

Well, because my flat is currently being renovated.
Which means:

  • I had to prepare my flat for the renovation.
  • As a Smartphone-not-user do I not really have access to the Internet outside of my flat.
  • I wont even be staying in my flat while they’re busy renewing the pipes in my kitchen and bathroom.

Additionally, will I also be at an In Extremo warm-up concert tomorrow and next week I’ll be at the Rockharz again.
Oh, and there is the whole thing with the water damage that I now have to deal with, thanks to the pipe that could not wait for tomorrow – there will be a rant later on.
So the plan is, that I’ll finish the Blog-Parade for the 5th July (a bit past the dead line, but Sabine gave me her okay) and the next What’cha Watching Wednesday and Webcomic-chapter will be postponed by a week.
As the 1st July also marks the end of the Story Sunday call for prompts you still have a little time to add yours to EveEstelles, otherwise I’m not sure if I’ll pick up the segment or simply use it for my writings outside of Your Picture – A Story and stuff. (My next YP-AS story will possibly be published on the 17th July with a picture by Selenophile Art)
So yeah, that’s the status right now.
Proper work with the Blog will hopefully be possible starting 18th July at least.
Watch out for my Twitter feed to get short tid bits of thoughts and suggestions.
Until we meet again!
PoiSonPaiNter

On the Road: Giving a Lift

I’ve been meaning to write this post since 2012, but as I think it would fit the Blogparade „Travelling Glitches around the World“ (Reisepannen rund um den Globus) by Gecko Footsteps I decided to finally finish it – even though it happened in good ol‘ Germany. 😉
For quite some time now I’ve been taking passengers along for the longer distances between the parts of my Journeys and one encounter does definitely count as a Travelling Glitch in my book.
But before I get to that, let’s have a look at

How I get my passengers:

There are different platforms (everyone who ever looked for stuff like that knows which ones I mean, so I’m not going to advertise them) out there that give drivers the possibility to put up their route ad and offer a ride/lift for everyone that wants to travel the same direction in exchange for a little money.
Those interested can then contact the driver and arrange everything, like where to pick them up/drop them off; how to find each other, etc..
Usually this is easily done and most of the time the people I end up with are nice and interesting, but there are a few exceptions to that and one of which is what I want to talk about today.

A ridiculous idea

For some reason did I decide it would be a good idea to travel from Berlin to Hamburg and back to Greifswald/Neubrandenburg on the same day. Little did I know that this would turn out to be one of my worst decisions.
But why did I do that?
Well, as far as I remember was the whole ordeal on a Sunday.
The Saturday before that I was at a Powerwolf concert in Berlin and on Sunday we had a meeting from the Eventteam – the student group I was the head of at the time – in Hamburg that could not be postponed due to scheduling issues.
So basically: I didn’t have much choice, as I already had the tickets and the other thing couldn’t be changed either.
To at least get something out of this I then decided to pick up passengers from Berlin to Hamburg and from Hamburg to Greifswald on my way back.
So far so good, but then stuff happened.

Where are you now?

When I arrived in Hamburg I soon noticed that the original meeting point (Dammtor) was under construction, so I had no chance to park, let alone pick someone up there and decided to look for a different place.
After quite some time I found a parking deck a bit further away and told my would-be passengers that I parked in THAT parking deck (giving them the exact name that I can’t recall any more) and that they should try to get there instead (as new meeting point). I got a message from one of them saying that they found the train station nearby and I believe I forwarded that as well.
With the thought that everything was settled I then went to the meeting.
Unfortunately it dragged on a bit longer than I expected so even though I hurried I got to the meeting point later than I had said, but when I arrived no one was there. So I went to pick up the first person at the train station she had mentioned earlier.
At the same time I got a call from one of the others that wanted to know where I was and I told her that I was picking up the other passenger and that they should wait at the park-house.
As it turned out they thought I was in the parking deck near Dammtor (a parking deck near the original meeting point by a totally different name).
I told her that I didn’t park there and that I was on my way to pick them up, anyway.
If I remember correctly I got at least five more calls until I finally made it there and somehow found my way to them through the construction stuff.
This whole driving around (me missing a few turns along the way due to rising anxiety of what might happen when I arrive included) made us actually start an hour after the original plan.
The mood in the car was accordingly sour and down.

Are we there yet?

Time and again I tried to initiate a conversation, but I felt too… bad (for a lack of a better word) for making them wait so long(, even though it was only partly my fault) that I stopped trying at some point and just silently drove.
As it had been a long day and I usually made a stop there I took a break at a Fast Food restaurant along the way. Too anxious to say more I simply stopped and asked if anyone wanted to get something, because I was hungry and needed something to eat.
No one wanted anything, everyone stayed in the car and I had to fast eat my burger sitting behind the wheel and continue driving as soon as I was finished, abiding to the dark mood in the car.
A little while earlier – before the stop – one of the waiters asked me when we would arrive and I told her a certain time, which I later realized was a complete miscalculation on my part as the sat nav was set on my home and I didn’t include the dinner-stop.
Needless to say we arrived way later than I told them.
When we finally made it to Greifswald they all got out and I told them that they still owed me the 10(?) Euro for the ride, to which one of the waiters subsequently replied that due to the delayed start and the misinformation I gave them, she’d only give me five Euro and the others followed suit, intimidated by her.
At that point I was far too tired and exhausted to complain or tell them that most of it was their own fault, so I simply accepted it and just drove home – I didn’t feel like driving to Neubrandenburg, so I made a stop there and ranted at my Mum in the middle of the night about it.
With some distance to the whole thing I later pondered if it would be a good idea to create a dictionary Me-German/German-Me as I really did not understand how they could have misread my initial notification SMS…

The Morale of the Story

It’s been nearly four years and I still remember the dread and anxiety I felt during that ride and afterwards. It simply was the worst ride I had so far.
There was another one that turned ugly afterwards, when I got a bad rating by the girlfriend of a passenger for changing the destination after a discussion with BOTH passengers about what would suit them best and driving carefully (~100km/h on the motorway at times) after a Festival-weekend, but it wasn’t as bad as this one. At least the ride itself was great thanks to the other passenger that I’m still in contact with.
Long story short: You can have a lot of luck with the passengers you’re taking with you and it also can turn out badly (last minute drop out, language barriers, tense atmosphere,… ).
I certainly will keep posting my route ads if I drive alone, but after this and some other incidences I decided for myself that each of my route ads will include the following information:

  • The time is only an approximate value and can change due to different circumstances. In case of serious changes you’ll be notified.
  • If your English is better than your German: Please use it!

Better save than sorry, I guess?
PoiSonPaiNter