unlucky us

From Sweden I went straight back to Oslo.
It was hot - around 30 degress Celsius - not necessarily normal for
Norway.
On the weekend we took the ferry to one of the small islands just
outside of Oslo in the Oslo fjord. Obviously we weren´t the only ones
trying to cool down a bit.
Although Oslo seems quite empty in the summer the islands were packed
with familys, teenagers, young and old couples, dark and light
people, swimmers, divers and single sunbathers.
We didn´t stay very long. It is impossible to relax under a violently
burning sun among masses of people who don´t seemed to mind getting
lobster red.
The islands are absolutely beautiful. Small forests, a few houses and
a rocky coast with a lot of small bays and platforms to dive from
directly into the salty ocean water.
One thing I didn´t know was that norwegians love to BBQ. Almost
everyone had one of those one-time-only usable grills that has the
coal and the firestarter already inside. Most people cook hotdogs
which they buy at one of the 3 supermarket chains in Norway who just
kicked the german supercheap, super awful company Lidl out of the
country again. The hotdogs and drinks and mustard and ketchup and all
that stuff comes in a lot of plastic bags and when the sun is going
down over the Oslo fjord around 11.30pm and the last ferry has left
the island this is what stays behind.
I was shocked to witness that Norwegians litter their beautiful
country with the supermarket plastic bags and the used grills.
In the city a lot of people live of collecting cans and bottles and
thereby contribute to a relatively clean feeling. More trashcans also
seem to make it more easy to get rid of your garbage whereas on the
islands each and everyone needs to proof that they are responsible
and take their trash back home...
Back in Bremen crashing at my friends old trainstation for a few days
I became a witness of how incredibly customer unfriendly and
burocratic to a point that it hurts Germany can be. My friends
telephone and internet stopped working almost 2 weeks ago and there
is nothing they can do about it. They call the callcenters and
hotlines everyday complaining to someone who couldn´t care less. It
takes days to get a hold of a human who seems to be at least a real
employee of the telephone company. Still it seems impossible to solve
the problem because the telephone net is owned by the Telekom but the
provider is someone else who needs to cooperate with the Telekom who
seems to be pissed off that they are losing more and more
customers... but what the hell do my friends care?
This world is getting more and more automatised and there will be
less and less room for individual thoughts and ideas. I can see it
very clearly - we are heading straight into a virtual world where
your choices are controlled by a few people in charge.
The largest companies in Germany used to be under state control:
post, telecommunication, gas, electricity and public transportation.
The government financed train tracks, post offices, electricity
poles, pipelines and telephone lines. A few years ago the government
started selling parts of their companies to private companies to
"open the market" which was supposed to keep prices for the customers
low, the equipment always up to date, the market more transparent,
more lively and of course the government costs low - all for the
better. The problem is that they could only sell little parts because
the original companies of course claim all the hardware after all
those years of taking care of it. So basically what they sell is the
right to sell us the customer the same product in a different colour
and the company that sells it to us still totally depends on the old
big company...
We are getting melked.
Back in Berlin bills from all those companies were waiting for me.
Summertime is always a good time to raise prices. People are in a
better mood and willing to pay more for things only realising in late
fall that they overspend all summer long.
Who moves to the countryside with me?
Let´s run a small farm and become as independent as possible.