The outlanding was quite a cultural experience. I set off walking down the dirt road at the end of the paddock with my camelback and my German translation sheet saying I had outlanded and was in the women's world championships and to call xyz number and report my outlanding and road directions etc. A few minutes later I came across a nice old lady who spoke no English but really was genuinely nice. She looked at my sheet but only paid attention to the competition logo. Strange. I followed her to her nearby house where I met her husband who also spoke no English. He read the sheet and I soon worked out that the lady couldn't read. Although my crew had already left with my GPS coordinates, they telephone the competition organisers for me with detailed road directions to where I was.
Between my lack of German and their lack of English, I worked out I needed to walk down the to the other end of the dirt track to wait for the car. Although I was only 85km from Klix, my crew's eta was 1.5-2 hours due to the local village roads. Not long after reaching the main road, the couple appeared in a car with a phone and indicating that another glider had landed 2 paddocks away. Obviously the whole district was on the phone discussing who had a glider in their paddock today. In fact we could see 2 gliders and I hoped in the car to go up and see who it was. It was 2 young guys who were part of another nearby competition -- there are many comps going on in this region. At least they could speak a little English. They then took me back to the road and gave me a handful of eucalyptus lollies for the wait. Not long after that a young local German girl came along on her pushbike. Susie is 16 and speaks pretty good English. She was pretty excited to hear I was from Australia and then got on her mobile to talk to her best friend about me. Then I was handed the phone and chatted to her friend Marian for the next 10 minutes. Marian spoke very good English and tries to take the opportunity to talk to any visitors in English for the practice.
Soon after her older sister and father appeared on an old tractor, vintage 1925 and made the Kingaroy club tractor look like modern technology. The older sister was Franka who was 20 but didn't speak as much English. I could tell she was wishing that she had paid more attention to English class at school. They indicated that it was a good idea to tow the glider to the edge of the paddock with the tractor. Ok, not my favourite idea but it was a good surface and if I towed via the belly hook there was minimal chance of damage. Then they insisted on taking me back to where the boys were waiting but I couldn't figure out why, I wanted to wait at the road intersection where I was expecting my crew. They dropped me off and left me to talk to the boys, who were acting pretty cool. Again strange. However, Susie and her Mum soon arrived back on their bikes with a basket full of various drinks (including beer) and some sandwiches, sausages and gherkins. What hospitability! They really were nice people. I had plenty of time to talk to the girls and get to know a little about them. You could tell that this was a big highlight for them, they were pretty excited about it. I don't think they had met anyone from Australia before. We did the whole exchange of addresses and phone numbers and I have promised to wrote to them. I was amazed that they don't have email or Internet thought, not even at school.
When the crew arrived they rode down to the paddock with us where they saw my glider mascot and co-pilot, Blinky Bill in a flying suit. They then started talking about "Australia Zoo" and Steve Erwin. Amazing -- here we are in the equivalent of outer Kumbucta West (or whoop), where they don't have Internet, but they were mad about Steve and his Zoo. They were very jealous to hear that I lived about 100km from the Zoo and asked me if I could send them a koala and perhaps Steve's autograph. Pity I didn't have any of the clip on Koalas in the car or glider (bit of a stuff up there), but I did have the "Kangaroos next 10km" sign and they went crazy when I gave them that.
They insisted that Keith and Mitchell also have something to eat, which they were happy to oblige with. They also tried to feed them the beer, but they said we had some in the car (which the boys had brought for me in commiseration). Even the boys were nicely surprised at the hospitability we were shown. After we were on our way and I began to tell about all the nice things the girls had done for me they suggested I write to Steve Irwin with the story and ask him for an autograph to post to the girls -- so expect a letter soon Steve.
The outlanding was one of the nicest I have ever had, let alone in Germany. It really made me feel better about stuffing the contest on the first day. Since then I have had a SMS from each girl, still really excited to have met an Aussie! A nice East Germany experience.