Germans...

...never cease to amaze me.

I've got used to;
- their argumentative nature (just)
- the need to count out small (and I mean 1 cent and 2 cent pieces) change to pay their supermarket bill
- the godawful tv (I just don't watch any of it apart from the Klumster - but that's another story)
- the staring as they walk past my house/see my dog/hear an English accent
- the cherry red hair colouring favoured by ladies of a certain age
- the so clean they must be sterile cars (as opposed to my own dirt wagon)

But today? Today they took my breath away.

Thursday is Pilates day, Frau Qual, though I complain about her every week, is a nice lady, and always asks at the end of every class how we found it...this week she started off asking if we'd had any problems after last week's class, which threw me slightly (a lot of my German comprehension is based on them saying something in context that I'm expecting...)
Then at the end of the class we had the same again, any problems during the class and the one who always whines about something said nothing (unless I wasn't listening...) the other one who always whines about having a headache after a class muttered about kopfschmerzen (headache) and the other 5 of us smiled nicely and said we were just fine and dandy thankyou very much, so far so good, happy easter and tschuss (ciao).

Rebecca and I stood outside in the sun (shock, horror, gasp) gossiping (as you do) when Carolyn who runs the place came running over to ask whether we would be continuing after the hols because some of the others had complained about Frau Qual and so there would be a change of teacher...no problem we said, although we were surprised.

A little later and we were still gossiping and Frau Qual drove past, pausing next to us to tell us what we already knew, that 2 ladies had complained about her and so she'd been booted off the course, we expressed our dismay to her as we'd had no problem, apparently one of the complaints was that 90 minutes was too long for such a class...

I knew they (Germans) took complaining seriously but this?

Wow. Kind of puts you off ever being a service provider to any German!