Give Me a Beer!

A Radler, to be specific.

A Radler is a mixture of beer and lemonade.  Radler means cyclist in German.  I was told that cyclists love to drink Radler after their bike ride because it is very refreshing and quenches their thirst after a nice bike workout.  So I guess the beer people decided to name the beer mixture after them.

It is a sunny, 30 degrees Celsius weather today.  After sending Johann to pre-school this morning, I was getting ready for my weekly English class.  Usually, the class is conducted at my neighbour's house.  However, we decided a few weeks ago to have a change of venue, a nearby coffee house which serves breakfast buffet.

My phone rang after I sat down with a plate of food and a bowl of fruit yoghurt.  It was Christophe.  It was regarding the school application for Enzian.  This is Enzian and Ludwig's graduating year, come September, they will be promoted to a "secondary" school which they will spend their next 8 years working towards their Abitur (equivalent to GCE 'A' levels).  Ludwig's application was completed on Wednesday.

I shan't go into the details, the conclusion of the phone call:  I have to go to Bart's school (to which Enzian would be considered a place) to replace the old result slip with a new one in order for the application to be completed.  Christophe had done all the paperwork on Wednesday, the last document required is the new result slip.  Today is the closing day of the application.

Christophe was out for meeting when he called.  He couldn't leave his meeting which involves a few different parties.  Suppliers, designer, engineers, marketing and client.  While driving to his meeting venue, he received a call from Bart, who was told by his class teacher to inform him that the new result slip must be submitted today.  The teacher was the one who attended to Christophe on Wednesday.

It was obvious Christophe couldn't turn back to settle this important procedure.  So he called me.

I gobbled up my food and yoghurt like a troll, and took the bus home.  Changed into my biking attire and went straight to Enzian's school to pick up the result slip from his class teacher.  When I approached her and asked politely for the slip, she said she had already given to Enzian the day before!

Enzian is in trouble.

There was no time to waste, I left the reprimanding to his teacher, took the slip from his school bag and cycled as if I was a triathlete to Bart's school.  Once there, I handed over the slip to the secretary, exchanged it with the old one, and jumped on my bike again heading back to Enzian's school to return the old result slip.

Luckily the schools are not far, I calculated I roughly cycled 7.7km in total to complete my "mission".  When I got home, my body commanded me to fetch a Radler from the fridge.  The first gulp was utterly satisfying, I had never reached for a Radler on my own but today's "sport" did call for one.  I needed that mild alcoholic high to calm down the adrenaline in me.

Both Christophe and I had a talk to with Enzian that evening.  He did not realise the impact of his forgetfulness until we illustrated the whole sequence of actions to him.  If he had remembered to give us the new slip the day before, Bart could have submitted it to the secretary and save all of us the stress and disruptions to our schedules.

I guess life needs a little salt and pepper to spice things up once in a while.