Saturday was my first day of work. The office I work at has a large staff with multiple dentists, and is open later in the evening and on Saturdays. A bit different from a "traditional" office. Josh decided to ride down to Ramstein with me. He was going to get help from his friend who lives in Ramstein to do some maintenance work on my car - oil change, change out some belts, change the spark plugs. My first patient was at 8, which meant we had to leave our house at 6:15. I knew accepting a job with an hour commute was going to, at times, have some disadvantages. I was reminded right away what those disadvantages were. Our drive to Ramstein was uneventful, and my first day of work went well. I met only two of my co-workers (there is quite a large staff, but it's a small staff on Saturdays) and they both seemed to be nice. It was a relatively smooth first day. I had only been hoping to have a day that was not a disaster, so I was pleased with how it went.
The one advantage to working a Saturday is I was done by 2. Work went by fast, and I was done early in the afternoon. I met up with Josh and my newly repaired car. We had an early dinner with our friend, did some shopping on base, then started home around 5. Josh told me how badly Frank had needed the maintenance he did. Of the three belts he replaced, two of them were ready to break. Out of 6 spark plugs, only 2 of them were actually working. He had saved the belts and a spark plug to show me how bad things were... but the visual demonstration was a bit lost on me. However, I could appreciate the work he put into it. Josh warned me that Frank might drive a bit different/better than before considering how bad off the spark plugs had been. Frank already drove well.... a quick press on the accelerator always resulted in a roar and a leap of speed. With all of his new parts, this was heightened. Frank the Tank was even more of a tank now.
We were driving down the autobahn, singing Frank's praises about what a bitchin car he was, when the stereo stopped working. Josh fiddled around with it trying to make it work. He thought it might have a short in a wire somewhere which made it stop working. Suddenly I noticed my RPM gauge was no longer working. A few minutes later my speedometer quit working, followed by my gas gauge. We pulled over, and Josh popped the hood. Smoke came rolling out from under the hood. Not a good sign. Josh then looked the engine over and tinkered with some things here and there. We had blown a few fuses... so Josh moved some non-vital fuses over to the ones that were blown. I tried to start the car, but Frank had deteriorated to the point where he wouldn't start. We were only 30 kilometers from Ramstein, so we called our friend who came to help us out. We gave Frank a jump, and he started right up. After letting the batter charge for a few minutes, we took off down the road hoping that would be enough juice to get us home. We only made it about 15 more kilometers down the road before all of the gauges died one by one. As I was telling Josh the last gauge had gone, Frank died. I started to pull towards the side of the road, and the steering locked. Thankfully, we came to a stop on the side of the road safely.
When we got to Germany we were encouraged to get ADAC, which is similar to AAA in the states, only it offers more services. We called the number for ADAC, and said our usual greeting of "Hello, do you speak English?" (but this is said in German - "Sprechen Sie Englisch?"). We were told we wouldn't have any problems getting an English speaking person when calling ADAC. To our surprise, we were told no, they didn't speak English. So... we weren't sure what to do... so we called back... multiple times... until we got someone on the phone who spoke English. One difference between ADAC and AAA is when you break down, the first thing they do is send out a mechanic to try and get you up and running before you get towed. We sat in the car waiting for our mechanic to arrive. By this time the sun was setting and it was getting dark. We sat in the dark, not speaking (what could we say?), the only light coming from the headlights of the cars passing by us. It was a moment that reminds you that you are in a foreign country, you do not speak the language, and indeed you are shit out of luck.
45 minutes later, our mechanic arrived. I had a surge of hope. Our savior! Here to fix the car and get us home! The mechanic spoke some English, although it was broken, heavily accented English. He asked Josh a few questions about what happened, then popped the hood. He approached the car with a flashlight strapped to his head and a hammer in his hand. He then looked over the engine and would randomly bang on things with his hammer. Seriously? This is suppose to be our savior? The man with a hammer? I could do that. In fact, that is typically my way of fixing anything - just hit it until it works. When he had beat Frank to his satisfaction, the mechanic hooked something up to our battery... and determined the alternator had gone out. He told Josh we could either buy a new battery from him, which would give us enough power to make it home, or he could call us a tow truck. We just recently signed up with ADAC (thank GOD), and we haven't gotten our "membership" cards yet. Since we didn't have our cards, we were told we would have to pay for the tow truck out of pocket up front and, we could be reimbursed later once we got our cards. Josh and I had already been trying to get home for over three hours, and the idea of waiting for a tow truck was not appealing. Buying the battery was going to be cheaper than paying for a tow truck (at least upfront), and Josh assured me even after Frank got a new alternator we'd need a new battery. The going rate for a car battery when you are broke down on the side of the autobahn at night is 120 euro - which is $161. At the office I'm working at I am paid based on a percentage of what I produce. I knew what I had made for a paycheck on Saturday, and I couldn't help but think that after I take out taxes that I worked just to pay for that damn battery.
With the new battery in place we headed up the road. The mechanic cautioned us to use only our headlights and nothing else that would drain power from the battery. The headlights were dim as it was, and I worried the 60 kilometers we had left to drive that we wouldn't make it. But, we did. We pulled safely into our drive a full four hours after we left Ramstein, a drive that typically takes just over an hour. It was one hell of a first day of work.
I am lucky in that Josh knows a fair amount about cars and is mechanically competent. He assured me he would be able to change out my alternator himself with no problems. On Sunday morning Josh did some research online to see what an alternator for Frank would cost. To order a refurbished one from the states would be a minimum of $180. To buy a new one was about $400. We decided to try to find one at a junk yard. In the area where we live, there is an abundance of 90s BMWs, and a great majority of them are driven by military people. They are generally cheap to buy for a beater car to drive around for the time you are here. This makes finding parts for these old BMWs a bit easier. We found a junk yard off base which had an alternator. The only catch was Josh had to take it out of the junk car himself. However, the junk yard alternator was 80 euro and we could have it immediately instead of having to wait for a part to ship. We decided to go with the junk yard (Josh is over there getting the alternator out as I write this). We are lucky it is a relatively easy fix, and we were able to find a part cheaper than we originally thought. I realize my car is 20 years old, and beings that it is that old things are bound to break and need repairs. But I can't help but be annoyed at the situation. I believe this annoyance is stemming from fear. What if that had happened while I was alone? What if that happened while Josh was deployed? I wouldn't really know what to do, and would be at the mercy of a German mechanic.
On a different note... as Josh was working on Frank, he pointed out many original parts Frank has. On these parts you can see, in small print the statement "Product of West Berlin." Just another reminder of a different time, but one that, in reality, wasn't that long ago. And another reminder of where in the world we are.
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