Alice in Germany

However you feel about Christmas it is one of those certainties of life we cannot escape, much like table manners.

The week before Christmas, Bruno, due to a swollen eye which he self-diagnoses as cancer, ‘misses out on’ a number of pre-Christmas events including: getting a tad tipsy with Liana and Kirsty at the Irish pub on Monday night, going to the Christmas markets with his best friends on Tuesday night, cooking Thai food at Kamchana’s house on Wenesday night, but by Thursday night I have no such excuse to avoid the all German ‘law dinner’.

I was lead to believe, dear Reader, that the dinner would consist of: me, Bruno, three of his classmates, partners, and their coach.

On arrival it becomes apparent (we have been given the back room with a table set for twenty-five) that our cozy ‘little group’ will be somewhat larger. Also present are a number of employees from ‘the law institute’ and a spattering of legal professors. Oh and there are no partners, let alone non-German speaking ones.

The restaurant is typical old-German style. There seems to be one in every village, though Bruno disdainfully refers to them as ‘Bavarian’. Clutured, kitsch, overpriced. I have to admit I love it. It’s tourist Germany with personality.

We order drinks first. With such a variety of red meat on the menu I decide to go for a red wine. But a glance around the table and I quickly realise if I want the German experience I should have gone with the beer.

After some awkward conversation attempts in stilted German I am well and truly ready for a drink but nobody has touched their glasses. At the end of the table sits a glaringly vacant chair. ‘In Australia you’d probably just start drinking wouldn’t you’ says Bruno, while I jealously watch the guy across the table sneaking sips of his beer. How we all laughed! What a young rascal!

Bruno translates the menu for me, turning his nose up at every dish as being ‘to heavy, to fatty for this time of night’. Then goes ahead and orders the German equivalent of the mixed grill – four different types of meat cooked in the plentifull juice from their own fat.

Finally an elderly professor arrives, makes a long speech in German, everyone raises their glasses and the merriment begins.

‘So what did the professor say?’

‘All the drinks are on him’.

As a non-wine connoisseur I would describe the wine as ‘plum like’ in flavour, sticking in my throat much the way a real plum might should I try to swallow it whole. I believe this phenomena is refered to as a ‘lingering after taste’. Bruno explains I am not used to expensive wine.

After my first attempt to follow the conversations, the words flow through me in a mumble of unrecognisable sounds and syllables. I amuse myself by counting the dead animals on the walls of our snug little room:

- 77 skulls of what I would have assumed to be baby deer, did I not know that baby deer do not have horns.

- An eagle

- A chook

- The head of a big deer

I am undecided as to whether to count the huge chandelier made entirely of antlers and the rifle.

These ‘sporting’ trophys are an enigma in modern Germany, standing as a memorial to more barbaric times. They stand as proof that Germany once a) had animals bigger than a rabbit and b) was not entriely populted by meterosexuals.

The food arrives and Bruno whispers that here etiquette demands I use my fork and my knife, holding and using each in an apropriate fashion. Until arriving in Germany I never noticed that apart from the odd cutting requirements I have very little use for my knife, my fork is by and large sufficient for my needs.

I laughed and laughed when a friend in Australia moaned and moaned that her new ‘date’ held his fork in a funny fashion. How could she take him to the classy establishments frequented by her family? Everyone would feel uncomfortable. And the worst thing: he did not seem to care! I can not help but think why pay so much attention to the way people eat? Does it really matter? Does is really make people feel uncomfortable?

I am reminded of eating with Zara (an Australian friend I have made in Germany) in a Turkish restaurant in Kirchenstadt. Her parants are originaly from Croatia: ‘Mum explained that cooking and table etiquette are very important in Europe, she made sure I knew how to set the table perfectly before I left Australia. This is a bit bland’ she gestures to her food. ‘What’s your sauce like?’ She leans over and liberally spoons some of the sauce off my plate and onto hers. For me such ease is refreshingly familiar but I glance a tad aprehensively at our German and Swedish companions. They don’t seem to mind.