NORMAL LIFE: Taxes, Taxis & Taxi-ing!

November kicks off with a declaration from the tax office that they have no intention of honouring the deductions I made against last years earning. Since I underestimated – and therefore underpaid - my tax liability for 2005, I have been lumbered with a bill for €2,100 (read more about my love of taxes here).

The very first day of the month brings the season’s first blanket of snow, which remains for the whole day. At 16:00, I packed up my things and ordered a taxi to take me yet again to Helsinki Airport, this time bound for Berlin.

I was running late; it was 16:10 when I got into the taxi, and my flight was at 17:30. It’s so unlike me to leave something like that so late, but I got caught up in a meeting and the minutes just flew by. You know how it is! Anyway, the traffic was so bad that I told the driver that I was running quite late for my flight. In his own frustration, he belted out a stream of Finnish very similar to the yudder-yudder-yudder of automatic machine gun fire, which I didn’t even bother to decipher! The guy was angry, that’s for sure, but it wasn’t normal frustration that many a driver exhibits the moment they hit bumper-to-bumper traffic.

As we neared the airport, I noticed that other taxis were overtaking the very taxi I was traveling in. I said nothing, fearful of being met with another barrage of anger; the driver really was that nuts! We pulled up outside the airport terminal, I paid the fare and, as I collected my luggage from the boot of the car, looked briefly down at the wheels of the car; I understood why the driver was so cranky as he hadn’t complied with the law which required that we change his car tyres to the winter variety. His very actions were downright irresponsible, and I guess his anger could be attributed to the fact that his customer had requested that he drive to a heavily police-patrolled area such as an airport, risking detection and a heft fine. After all, a taxi driver should know better!

In a huff, I quickly checked in, cleared security and headed to the gate where my plane was supposedly waiting. The departure time came and went, but boarding commenced at 18:00 only so that passengers could wait onboard for another hour while the plane was repeatedly de-iced! A petit, young Czech woman sitting next to me told of how she would miss her Berlin-Prague connection, but as we waited for news of our departure, I repeatedly reassured her that perhaps the plane was running late at the other end too. She wouldn’t be assured because Czech Airlines never depart late apparently!

Finally, we reversed from the gate, and were once against stranded as we approached the runway; this time, airport services were clearing the runway of snow. Bearing in mind that the temperatures of the last 24 hours had not dipped below -3°C, I thought this delay was downright ridiculous. Looking out of the window, where I could see countless snow ploughs clearing snow from the runway, was a bit like watching a scene from Die Hard 2: Die Harder, where a younger, gorgeous Bruce Willis tries to regain control of an airport overtaken by terrorists.

Two hours late, the aircraft finally took off into the bumpy, night sky. When I arrived at Berlin’s Tegel Airport, I collected my luggage and took a ride with another frustrated taxi driver. This one was from the Lebanon, had been living in Germany 19 years, and apparently many of his family had died in the recent conflict with Israel. Since we were on the subject, he quite freely went on to bash the United States, asking "why can’t they just leave the Middle East alone?" I totally agreed with him, partly because I certainly don’t know all the facts and partly because I wasn’t about to engage in a discussion that had the potential to erupt into a bloodbath in this guy’s taxi. I said that it was very sad what had happened in Lebanon, especially as it was starting to see the financial rewards after some twenty years of economic investment. “True, true!” he said, in broken English.

When I arrived at my hotel, it was after 20:00. What shall I do?, I thought to myself. Should I rest, or should I go out? I decided I would go for a walk, find a nice bar to have a couple of drinks and have a reasonably early night. As I walked through the surprisingly cold city, I made some calls, first to Bree, then to my friends Fred and Sweetpea in Liverpool. Without realising it, I had found myself in a deserted bar with huge windows overlooking the now-quiet streets.

Only one table in a corner at the back of the room had people, who occasionally glanced at me. Must be a family business, I thought. The waiter came over, and I ordered a Bacardi and Coke. When he returned, I gestured towards the people at the back of the room and ask if the bar was indeed a family business. “Yes,” he said “were are Iranian”. Interesting, I thought. This reminded me of a lively Iranian I had met in the United States just last week. He was working in a clothes store and was trying to sell me a lime green shirt, my favourite colour. In truth, someone rarely needs to try and sell something that is lime green as the colour pretty much sells itself to me! The salesperson was very chatty. First, he asked where I was from and, after telling him, he immediately started talking about football! To cut a long story short, he had moved from Iran to the United States so I asked him what he thought was the best thing about living in the United States. “Freedom,” he said “definitely freedom!” I understood where he was coming from, especially now the President of Iran seems keen to develop nuclear power for whatever intents and purposes, despite international pressure to refrain from doing so.

I headed to bed around midnight, my supposed early night! The next day was spent observing market research interviews through one-way glass. The interviews were conducted in German and, in an adjoining observation room, I sat next to a bilingual translator who was translating the discussion simultaneously; I was blown away by this young girl’s ability to translate so readily and fluently non-stop for 12 hours! On the whole, the research session was very educational, an opportunity to learn about the market in which I now work. The day’s end came as a relief at 21:30, and I gladly rested in my hotel room, channel-surfing through the many TV stations until I dozed off.

It was already 09:00 when I woke up on this very morning – as I reach the end of this entry, I am on the plane, on my way back to Finland. The morning was pretty uneventful – I showered, sent some emails, went to the café across the road for a sandwich and a slice of carrot cake! I hailed a taxi outside my hotel and, once again, engaged in conversation with the taxi driver. This taxi driver was a native Berliner in his mid-50’s and I was impressed by his command of English. He threw in a free city tour, telling of the sites we passed on our way to the airport. I told him of my experiences, daring to ask “Does everybody in Germany smoke?” He laughed. In hindsight, it occurred to me that everywhere I had been (e.g. the bar, the office where we conducted the research, the café), people were smoking. Therefore, all of my clothes stank of stale cigarette smoke. But I had an ally in the taxi this time, for he said he has never smoked and declared that this was a no-smoking cab in a proud matter-of-fact tone.

One thing that this oh-so-brief trip to Germany proved is how international-minded I have become in the last five years. Prior to moving to Finland, I would have avoided places like Germany as if it were a carrier of bubonic plague. Now, I happily engage in conversation with Czechs, Iranians and Lebanonese, let alone Germans. On the slippery slope towards my thirties, I notice a maturity in me where I see my down-to-earth working class childhood, the restoration of my hearing, my five years of living abroad, my education and my varied employment background complimenting each other perfectly, enabling me to really integrate with people from all walks of life. And when you can do this, you start to ask yourself “Is the world really that bad?”

With all the unrest conveyed to us via a controversy-hunting media, trips like these just go to prove that those who live in Europe actually enjoy doing so. I have long believed that Europe is the best place in the world; Asia is too undeveloped, rife with poverty and very little equality whereas the United States is just downright narrow-minded. While Europe has its fair share of social problems, it’s a relatively stable block in the world where various nationalities come and go quite freely, exchanging ideas and experiences along the way which result in mutual understanding; this is where the American’s go wrong for they simply expect the world to be like them.