Unstable

Germany has a lot of very beautiful areas. One of them is the Eiffel. It’s very mountainous and it’s hardly thinkable that the flat Netherlands are only 4 hours driving distance away. Prices of houses are almost half of what they are in the Netherlands, so it’s not a big surprise that there are quite a few Dutch people living over there.

In the beautiful little city of Neuerburg we met some in restaurants and bars. One evening my wife and I discovered that there was only one real German in a bar we were in. Even the barman was half Italian and half Belgian. On that evening we met Jan, very Dutch and very drunk. He appeared to have been aware of something, because the next evening he recognised us and invited us to his table. The rest of the bar was empty. The reason probably was that the night was still very young.

We discussed prices of houses and the possibilities of getting a job or making a living in another way in the Eiffel. He was dealing in software and hardware. In fact that evening he was on a search for a big bag filled with computer games. He told us he remembered that he had put the bag in a corner. Which bar he forgot. He blamed this on getting older and had a good laugh about it.

After some time a woman came in, she nodded vaguely and sat down on a stool at the bar. Jan called her to come over and join us. But she shook her head and build herself a cigarette instead.
Jan told us that this was his German girlfriend Barbara. She was probably still a bit angry with him because of yesterday. She was not very happy when he came home very drunk and refused to let him in. He giggled when he told us that he spend the night in his car.

According to Jan, Barbara was an unstable woman. You could almost call her a loony. He claimed to have saved her life. They had been together for more than two years now. Thanks to him she now even had a job.
“Come on”, he said, “If Moses doesn’t come to the mountain, the mountain will go to him. We will join her, instead of her joining us.” So we went up to the bar and sat a bit near her. Irritated she asked him to leave her alone. In fact, she even asked him to get his things from her apartment. 

He gave us a wink and told us in Dutch that she would let him in again for sure. Things like this had happened before. He needed breathing space and so she should give him this. He repeated the last part in German and she reacted that he could have all the space he needed. She would not be in his way at all, he should have to get out of her eyesight. He only laughed and she cursed. He started talking again, but she was really fed up with him. “Shut up, you fool”, she said and added some more curses. She got up and left the bar.

He got up too and went to the toilets. When he came back he cursed and said he had a foul taste. The food must have been bad, he had to vomit heavily. He ordered another round of beer to get rid of the taste. After this he would go to the next bar and ask about his bag. He asked us to keep our eyes open for it too. 

When we finished our beer we decided to go back to the hotel. Jan was ordering again, but we politely refused. When we stepped outside, we saw Barbara walking with a dog. She greeted us in a friendly way. Not really unstable...