Marty's world II

Today we went to visit with HAMM a major player in the manufacture of compaction equipment (http://www.hamm.eu/), i.e. lots of very big toys. We went there to discuss the loads applied by compaction equipment on the granular materials used to construct roads. What we expected to be a two hour meeting turned into a five hour event. They were very keen to discuss what we’re trying to do and provide us with what information they could. However, when we asked for the data from one of the graphs I discovered that “Top Secret” means the same in both English and German. Unfortunately, we ran out to time to visit the factory but I did get a photo of the compaction equipment in their yard waiting to be finished and delivered to customers. Big ups to the guys at HAMM- they were awesome.

To all of those who read Commando comics when they were wee, I have a small story. The other day a German called out ‘Achtung’ to me! It turned out that her small son was learning to ride a bike and was needing to overtake us, still, I never expected to hear the word used in real life. Lucky I didn’t dive for cover!

As part of our continuing efforts to learn German, we have been hiring DVDs and watching them in German with English untertitels. The other day we got out an Asterix cartoon (kids’ movies use simpler language, that’s the only reason, honest) and at one stage, Obelix says his classic line “These XXX are crazy” (with the XXX designating whatever foreigners he’s observing). Since then I’ve realized that’s what I’ve been thinking many times since arriving here. As an example, we were talking to Sabine today and mentioned how strange it was that all the cheese comes pre-sliced; she responded that when she went to NZ she thought it strange that the cheese came in big blocks. They do things differently here, sometimes it makes sense, other times it just seems silly – guess that’s why you travel, to have your eyes opened to a different way of doing things.

Continuing on the theme of a younger-me, Rochelle said that I’d talk about the Armoury. Quite simply, it was awesome. There were swords in the hundreds, armour, maces, two full scale knights jousting, early guns, and crossbows, all of it in fantastic condition. It kept the 12 year old me happy for about two hours and I’m planning on a return visit.