Spring Time in Germany

Hey all, been a while.  Mostly because it takes minimum 1 month to get internet set up at your house here.  finally got my fishing license, the test is the easy part, had that after 3 weeks here.  the hard part is navigating the bureaucracy to actually get your licence.  being the local town hall is only open during weekdays on oh-so-helpful hours, I had to wait until a 4 day weekend to go.  armed with my german translated fishing license forms in duplicate, passport photo, and proof of passing the license test I bravely drove to the town hall.  entering the foyer I asked the lady at the reception, "where do I get a fishing license?" "Oh" she said, "upstairs, last door on the left".  as I walked into the required office, thinking to myself this was far easier than I expected, the lady at the desk said "Bitte shun?" (that's german for what do you want)  I stated my purpose, she replied, "did you bring a translator?"   I said, "huh?"  she said, "this is Germany.  we speak German.  either get a translator, or come back on Monday when the girl who speaks English is here."  I left, defeated, noticing she did look a bit like an evil german witch out of grimms fairy tail, all skinny and devil horned and such.  so Monday rolls around and I return.  once again the demon blocking my path is there, same stupid question, like I didn't spend 15 minutes in her office 3 days ago begging here to give me a friggin fishing license.  she points me to the girl who speaks English, the sweet georgous angel of fishing.  she took my paperwork, writes a few things down, and sais one sentence to me, "that'll be 5 euros please."  oh sweet angel of fishing, please, please cunt punt that evil demon you work with.  and that is all on that.  so fishing here is tacked up to being like golf, if you want to play, its gonna cost you a lot of money.  with this in mind, I simply do not care.  I have an addiction, and the only cure is more kayak fishing.  there is one medium sized local lake only 15 minutes from my current residence,  its maybe half the size of American lake, but heavily stocked and lightly fished.  there are rainbow trout, brown trout, artic char, Pike, Zander(walleye) like 3 types of carp, those massive European yellow perch and wels catfish, the big ones, the triple digit variety.  so I have decided this is going to be my home base.  I now needed to get my year permit and boat pass to fish it.  its a major tourist attraction and their website sais they take all major credit cards and everyone on staff speaks English. so I left the house nice and early one Saturday morning to do this, before I left I say "jen, gimme all your euro" shes like, no there mine, so that goes back and forth a while, I leave the house she still has the euro and im her bitch.  get to the campground, that also sells fishing licenses and the guy working there speaks not one word of English.  he thinks Im asking for a day pass, I use my phone to translate "ein Jahr" still doesn't get it, so I just show him the written translation, "oh, Jaahhrrr"  everythings going good, he goes to swipe my card, the card reader is down (yay Germany internet)  long story short I make the 15 minute drive home in ten minutes, bust in the door screaming like some crazy drug addict "GIMME ALL YOUR EURO DAMMMMMITTT" "NO THEYRE MY EURO" "OH, YOU WENT TO WORK ALL WEEK FOR IT??" jump back in the car with a fat stack of euro and hauled ass back the other way.  gave the man my 125 euro for the year pass and then I asked him (through painful translation) about the boat pass.  he pointed me to the marina.  THAT DOESNT OPEN UNTIL APRIL...   so I cried a bit.  drank a lot.  tried to go fishing at the little MWR pond on post, it was frozen.  finally found a small lake that I can fish about 45 minutes away, went out last week, caught pneumonia.  BTW I hate you all with your stupid fish you've been catching all winter and it certainly does not keep me up at night looking at your facebook posts of your stupid smelt and trout and walleye and kokanee and lake trout and stupid steelhead you've all been catching....  I cant get back to WA soon enough....

Haha, don't stab anyone, Fil.

Ouch that's painful.

All the WA fish are really glad you're in Germany though!

LMAO, Fil that's hilarious... Seems nothings changed since I got mine there just to fly rod streams for browns. Same old beauracratic shuffle.... sounds like the same old gatekeeper too...

I feel your pain I didn't get my license till yesterday.... Had to wait in line at Freddy's where they speak English for like three whole minutes and it cost me over $50

Boy Fil, that sounds like one racket!  Almost as difficult as understanding WA State Regs.

Epic fishing "winter" here in the Pacific Northwest.  I'm glad you left a few hold overs in American Lake.  We've had a fun couple of trips down to your old stomping grounds.  Nice to see you in the latest print edition of Kayak Angler Mag.  Keep us in the loop of your adventures. Don't get YakBum'd 

Reminds me of when I got a bicycle racing license in Belgium in the '80's.  Pure frustration!

And THAT is why we seem to get a billion Germans fishing here. I hear talk about how exclusive fishing is in some parts of Europe. LOVE the USA!!!!