UK/US 1st Edition
2nd Edition
German-speaking countries
"Funny
and true-to-life, thoughtful, precise and entirely entertaining,"Vito von Eichborn, veteran German publisher, on selecting it as Book of the Month, September 2008
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On Friday
the 13th a cold January morning in 1995, South African born
journalist Anli Serfontein arrived with her dirty laundry, too much luggage
and a sprinkling of prejudice to make Germany her new home.
She had moved countries and continents but was ill-prepared for the culture shock awaiting her.
She humorously narrates the story of this journey from urban Johannesburg to small-town Trier in Germany.
She
describes her battles with the authorities for work and residence permits and
even registering a birth has its hitches. She struggles with the inability of a
whole nation to queue or simply say sorry.
She pokes fun at her own inability
to spotlessly clean her house, make anything with her hands or go on compulsory
but torturous hikes - all prerequisites to living in the country.
In more serious chapters she deals with the German guilt complex after World War Two, describing personal encounters in Trier, Weimar, Regensburg and Berlin. She grapples with German history of the last century and ends with the magic atmosphere of the World Cup in 2006 which finally changed the way Germany was perceived by the world.