microwave on wheels

Day 3

9am we went to the Tapete office with Gunther
so that he could later take us to get our rental car
we were able to have lunch with Dirk D.
another Tapete exec and friend of ours
Lars, his drummer, and the man responsible for turning Tapete on to my music
came along too
Lars ended up telling me the whole story of how he purchased
the Nourallah Brothers cd while on vacation in Italy
then he brought it over to Dirk's for a year
raving about it
when Dirk finally listened to it
he loved it
and that's when Tapete contacted me for the first time
after lunch at a Pakistani restaurant and coffee in a café we went to get our rental car
in the now pouring rain
we thought we were getting the same car we had last time
some kind of small Mercedes
but instead we were given a Japanese electric car
this was fine except for the fact that we couldn’t figure out how
to turn it on
you don’t turn the key
you just push a big button
it feels like you are about to drive a large microwave
instead of a car
there is no engine noise at all
so the only thing that lets you know the car is running
is if it moves when you put it in gear
so we sat in the parking lot for 20 minutes
laughing our butts off
as we pushed the button over and over again
trying to get the damn thing to start
we managed to turn on all the interior lights several times
and turn them all off again
finally, we sucked it up and asked the rental car guy to help us
the only problem was that he was not sure how to turn it on either
he finally got it started and we really never understood how
he seemed to be doing the same thing we were
pushing the button over and over
and randomly turning the lights on and off
it still takes us 5-10 minutes of pushing the stupid button
and trying to shift into gear to get the thing to move
the car is not as powerful as the Mercedes
was but it is a tiny bit larger
and is definitely more amusing
it has a GPS system in it that we can't get to work
the instructions are in German
of course
we can get it to turn on and show us pretty pictures
but show us where to go?
not a chance
(thank god we have the GPS system that Tapete loaned us last year)
we completely relied on it to keep us from driving into the wrong country
we only did that once!
the car’s miniature TV screen also has some very fascinating charts
that show some kind of fuel to electricity usage ratio
that we don’t understand
but at least they are nice to look at
i did manage to control the temperature and the windshield wipers
with it after only 10 minutes
we think it gets satellite radio
but we can’t figure out how to use that either
the radio does come on all by itself occasionally
out of nowhere
which can be a bit startling when you're going 170 kilometers an hour
on the autobahn
after getting the car we returned to the offices
for final instructions and then headed into downtown Hamburg
where we took a boat tour
Hamburg has an inner-city lake that has canals shooting off of it in all directions
we were told that there were English guided tours
but we accidentally took the wrong tour
we were supposed to take the two hour tour
which would take us through the canals
but got instead on the one hour “drive 4 miles an hour around this big lake” tour
it was relaxing though and Gavin got a huge kick out of seeing
a “real live swan” in action
we really need to get him out more
after the lake we ran across the street to H&M
and jayme bought a coat to replace the one she neglected to bring
we had dinner at an Italian restaurant near the store
that had the ugliest piece of art in it that i have ever seen
the painting was of a nude woman trying desperately to look sexy
as half of her body turned into a big stiletto shoe
yes, a shoe...