How many Germans does it take to...

...organise a bbq?

Germans might be reknown for their engineering and punctuality but when it comes down to organising the simple stuff...jeez, nightmare!

In three weeks time we have the end of term celebration for Jasmine's class. It's a mixed year class (half year 3, half year 4) and consequently half the children leave the school forever at the end of term and move onto high school. Because of this the party is a big deal. This is the second meeting we've had to talk about it. The first one was spent discussing the invitations and the gifts that should be organised from the leaving children to the teacher and also the 'performance' that the children would present...

Last night we met again, to discuss the food and the rest of the 'entertainment'. There were six of us, which is clearly too many, about four or five too many in my opinion. Over the course of almost three hours we established the following:

- Frau N would purchase the meat for the bbq, but no mention was made as to what (apart from sausages) or how much should be bought.
- Frau H & S would sort out the table decorations, but no mention of how many tables.
- Frau H would source the red & white wine & beer, but again no mention of quantities.
- Frau N volunteered to do the flowers for the tables (!) how many she'll do I don't know as we have no idea of how many tables there will be.
- I've got the easiest job of providing the ice to keep the beer cold. How much ice I should get I've no idea as no decision was reached on what the beer and the ice should go into.
- Frau N is also going to order the bread and collect it, they collectively decided to go with the tastier but more expensive 'bonjour' instead of the normal baguette or bread rolls that the kids eat wholesale. So we'll have 40-50 'bonjours' (that figure was definitely agreed upon) to be sliced up and spread with herb butter but no bread rolls for the sausages to go into...huge oversight in my book, but hey, I'm just the foreigner, what do I know?
- the games for the children to play (this is Germany, so we're talking competitive games here, tug of war, football etc.) were briefly touched upon, as in 'that'd be a good idea' but no plan was made as to what would be done when.

I do know that I have to be there two hours before kick off in order to set up the unknown number of tables etc. and I'm also quite certain that there will be enough wine to drink so I can spend the afternoon in a fuzzy blur as I gradually convince myself that I'm actually incredibly fluent in German and so proficient that I no longer have any need for lessons!