LuLu's

The 2nd Thursday of every month is expats night at a little bar called LuLu's just a stagger down the hill from where I live, so it would be rude not to go.

Last month there were 3 of us plus the bar owners (1 Texan, 1 Mancunian), Hugh, Rebecca & me. This month we 5 were joined by 3 more, Ian & Kamesh who both work for RWE (BIG power company) and Seline.

It was an entertaining evening, both Rebecca and I needed some light relief as we'd both been stressed at home, Rebecca with trying to organise her family of 5 to go on holiday today and me with a 12 year old who has taken it into his head to want a gun...because 'all my friends have got one'.

LuLu's is a cute little bar http://lulu.fm/welcome.html , very unlike other German bars, the decoration (having been done by 2 women) runs to deep purple, hot pink, a splash of orange and gold. To use my 12 year old's favourite word 'cool'.
The drinks also run appropriately 'girlie' if the desire should take you (and it does, whenever I'm there!) they have a great martini list - chocolate/fuzzy/saketini/captain's/rattlesnake/original/virgin and so on. My goal is to try them all but I don't fancy the saketini at all, and can't see the point of the virgin and the bar concensus has it that I wont like the original as I don't do olives (keep expecting to grow up enough to like them, after all I've managed to educate my palate to like blue cheese and red wine...surely olives is the next step?).
SO last night I had a rattlesnake followed by a russian and lastly to end on a sweet note a chocolate - delicious.

Onto the conversation last night:

Kamesh has been here 3 or 4 weeks, speaks barely any German (which shocks the Germans, but what they don't appreciate is that he speaks 6 languages already & will probably pick up German really quickly once he starts with his lessons) - he's missing real tea and is having to make do with drinking coffee, so we've suggested a really good tea shop in the middle of Essen, you just can't get what you're used to in the supermarkets!

German versus UK tv habits, how the British always seem to have the tv on whereas the Germans don't (probably because their tv is crap - but I think that could be a whole nother post)

Food shopping - the tiny trolleys, multiple shopping trips & how scarey the big UK supermarkets are when you've got used to the little ones here.

The Scoville scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale which is a way of measuring the 'hotness' of chilli, Hugh seems to think it's quite important...I reserve judgement!

Rebecca's fight with T-mobile over the delivery of her new iPhone - the delivery guy demanded to see her Ausweis (identity card) she told him she didn't have one & offered driver's licence & passport instead, but no, even when realising she wasn't German and so couldn't have a German Ausweis he wanted her British Ausweis, he couldn't get it that such a thing doesn't exist (yet).

Ian managed to get tickets for Glastonbury 2010, he's never camped (other than in a caravan) in his whole life (he's older than me) and will be praying for good weather, whereas I think the photos will be far more entertaining if it rains...although it's mean to wish bad weather on such an event!!

Kamesh is planning to have a house warming next week and wants to introduce his colleagues to proper curry (he's Indian & so knows how to make an authentic curry) but is starting to feel concerned that the food might prove too hot for the tender German palates - could be funny!!

The serious attitude of Germans when it comes to sport - I was quite surprised to hear my own observations coming out of someone else's mouth - the making a walk into proper exercise with the addition of nordic poles, the need to have your own equipment in order to practice a certain sport (borrowing clearly not on).

And I'm afraid that anything more is lost in a martini fog....