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Post by kerouac2 on May 6, 2021 18:59:06 GMT
The British went home, too. So I guess they are total wimps with no staying power. Frankly, we know how this will end.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 7, 2021 5:56:55 GMT
I too have noticed how much people put their shoes on furniture, in real life too.
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Post by tod2 on May 7, 2021 7:45:09 GMT
It's all in the say-so of the grandparents. Parents are either too tired or don't care to advise their sprogs that it is not only bad manners but when you think about where the soles of your shoes have been - yes, in filth, it becomes disgusting behavior. Grandparents on the other hand, know if they dared do something like that in their youth they would get a good box around the ears if not worse. We're not allowed to inflict pain on our kids to help them remember, but I think my stern voice and daggers flying from my eyes were enough to get my two grandchildren into a ritual of going to scrub their dirty feet, or put a towel down on my duvet before making themselves comfortable to watch TV in my bedroom.
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Post by questa on May 7, 2021 10:39:14 GMT
When did people start wearing outside shoes into the house anyway? Most cultures remove their footwear and leave them at the door then either don slippers/scuffs or stay barefoot. This is better for feet, floors and furniture although they usually would not put their feet in a position where they are pointing at someone.
When outside shoes get worn inside the life of carpets is shortened and they need frequent cleaning. Timber floors soon get scratched and damaged, as do tiles. I have lived in places where shoes NEVER come inside and it seems to be only Western cultures that drag the dirt, spit and other unpleasant things into the house.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 7, 2021 10:54:17 GMT
Not even considering the dirt, it's probably just because most people have comfortable shoes now, which did not use to be the case. Going back to the movies and series, in the old days there was always the obligatory scene of somebody coming home, taking off their shoes and heaving a sigh of relief.
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Post by Kimby on May 7, 2021 13:37:48 GMT
In my world, outside shoes are NEVER worn in the house, and most guests know to at least ASK if the host would like their shoes left by the door. Many hosts will graciously demur, but will be secretly relieved if the guest does so anyway.
Mr. Kimby’s brother is oblivious to this custom and never removes his shoes. The carpeting in his own house is so blackened by street dirt that it looks like asphalt!
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Post by kerouac2 on May 7, 2021 14:22:18 GMT
I think that in just about every country, when you enter someone's home and see a big collection of shoes next to the door, you understand what to do.
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Post by tod2 on May 7, 2021 14:36:33 GMT
My worst thing to encounter when travelling is young men - haven't seen ladies do this - but you board a metro train and there are those filthy shoes on the seat you are about to sit on. Not only the metro but park benches and any spot where they can lounge with feet up. I don't know of any household in South Africa that takes their shoes off at the front door before entering. Probably because it would be the last time you saw your expensive Nikes... Pre Covid when I had two maids fulltime, my tiled floors were mopped almost everyday. Now, once a week - if I'm lucky. I don't know why we don't start the no shoes indoors regime. It's so sensible.
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Post by Kimby on May 7, 2021 14:50:02 GMT
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Post by Kimby on May 7, 2021 14:52:27 GMT
BTW, even workers coming to ones home ask about taking off their boots or slip disposable booties over them before entering.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 7, 2021 15:29:13 GMT
I think every place with melting snow on the shoes expects you to change your footwear. Muddy places too.
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Post by lagatta on May 7, 2021 16:05:51 GMT
Reading this thread, I was thinking exactly what Questa wrote. Not wearing outside shoes in Montréal is because of mucky slush, but is by no means restricted to the winter. Indeed even many workers either ask whether they can keep their boots or put covers on them.
Certainly most Asian cultures, and Muslim cultures (and most of my friends and colleagues of Muslim origins are atheist or indifferent to religion, but maintain this custom). I have house slippers at the homes of some good friends.
Slippers or orthopaedic shoes reserved for inside use are exempt from this rule in most places.
I remember when ladies of a certain age wore spike heels in many formal settings such as art museums. Curators hated this because it destroyed the precious hardwood floors.
Indeed, it is also quite simply dirty. Tod, there are dressers for shoes. That wouldn't utterly eliminate shoe theft but would certainly reduce it.
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Post by whatagain on May 7, 2021 16:25:17 GMT
I am sitting upstairs, wearing my boots. Ooops. I don't often do so, but we wear our shoes inside. That may be because our dogs ate so many slippers that we stopped using them...
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Post by Kimby on May 7, 2021 18:40:29 GMT
No dogs at the Kimby household, but our nylon carpets are very aggressive chewers of holes in socks and slippers.
Cheaper to replace socks and slippers than flooring, however.
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Post by Kimby on May 7, 2021 22:16:17 GMT
I think every place with melting snow on the shoes expects you to change your footwear. Muddy places too. We find the trays contain all the stuff that’s likely to drop off outdoor shoes: dried mud, dust, sand, grass clippings, leaves, etc.
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Post by questa on May 8, 2021 0:00:48 GMT
A friend of mine was a Theravadin Buddhist nun who ran meditation groups.
( We had an interesting group consisting of 3 Catholic nuns, 3 Catholic women from the ordination of women group, 2 consecrated witches from Canada, 2 agnostic feminists, a Tibetan Buddhist student and me.)
Twice a year (equinoxes) we would hold a meditation in an adjoining Chapel and invite the friends and families.
All the congregation are sitting, waiting for us to enter. We walk into the chapel (having removed our shoes) and down the aisle. Behind us we hear the scuffle, scraping and plopping as the congregation divests itself of its footwear, while looking around to see what others are doing or heads at knee level as they wrestled with undoing laces. It had not occurred to any of our group that people wore shoes in a Chapel.
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Post by onlyMark on May 11, 2021 15:33:32 GMT
My daughter has just left as I'm off back to Bosnia tomorrow. She's been here with me whilst I've been in Germany. I can now walk around naked. But it's too cold. Might have a bath instead. That involves being naked but warmer.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 11, 2021 15:51:14 GMT
Wait until the bath cools and you will quickly adopt a new strategy.
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Post by tod2 on May 11, 2021 16:21:38 GMT
My daughter has just left as I'm off back to Bosnia tomorrow. She's been here with me whilst I've been in Germany. I was actually thinking of where your daughters had got to.? No mention of them during your tour showing us those glorious waterfalls etc etc. Are they both living in Germany then?
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Post by onlyMark on May 11, 2021 16:56:39 GMT
Tod, one who was with us for a while in Bosnia whilst she was doing an online course came back to Germany to do the practical side and to look after her grandmother, my MIL, who came out of hospital and was recovering - nothing critical, just leg problems. She will join us again in a few weeks and we need to find something for her to do. The other one is living mostly happily(?) with her partner in Germany, gets a job for a few weeks then gives it up. The son is in long term psychiatric care also in Germany.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 11, 2021 19:28:05 GMT
The way you dryly toss out that last piece of information as though, "yes, of course" is one of the things that I admire about you the most. And of course we are all waiting for more information about your brother, although I suppose that it will only come when you have gone back to Spain.
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Post by onlyMark on May 11, 2021 20:54:41 GMT
When we adopted him and his sisters when he was five and the twins were three, we knew he would have problems throughout his life. We could see that from an initial photo we were sent and from his actions on the first day we met them. But that didn't stop us at all and if anything we feel we've improved his life from what he would have had, given him the best help he could have to cope and receive far better care and attention than in his birth country. In simple terms, we managed to have him registered as disabled in Germany, which opens a lot of doors and allows for the State to provide more care (and obligations when it comes to that) than if he wasn't. If he'd stayed in his birth country he'd either be dead or in prison for criminal offences.
The circumstances of my brother have not changed one bit, still in a home specialising in dementia, no mental improvement but as is obvious, I've not been able to personally visit him apart from video calls, since I've not been able to get into Spain. I cross fingers that will change in the summer now Spain is opening up somewhat. With my experiences with the police and with those of my son, that is how I was well equipped to deal with the Spanish authorities regarding my brother. Plus pragmatism, realism, pinning down the Social Services to act and the knowledge that it was imperative to get him "recognised" by the establishment as needing help and care, not for him to slip through the cracks but get him an official position, for want of a better phrase, within the Spanish social care system. And trying to do that in Spanish, which I don't speak.
Job done for both of them otherwise it'd all be on us with no help from the system and without the resources we as normal private individuals do not have to care for the vulnerable.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 11, 2021 21:08:28 GMT
Gosh, Mark -- that is a great deal for one family to deal with!
Are your children all German citizens now? Asking since you've said they're all German speakers & they seem to have spent the most time there.
I don't know how much you have been following about "defund the police" in the US. If you have, I imagine you've figured out that the (unfortunate) phrase actually meants giving over to various social services some tasks that US police have been expected to handle up till now. It has become obvious that people trained in one discipline cannot realistically be expected to miraculously be good at all the situations that are thrown into the lap of the police.
All that long preamble is by way of asking you if your former profession of policeman in the UK helped fit you out to deal with the agencies, etc. with which you've had to deal in getting help for your son and for your brother?
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Post by onlyMark on May 12, 2021 5:39:10 GMT
They were adopted from Colombia and we got them Colombian passports to leave the country but we managed to get them German passports and citizenship from the German Embassy in Bogota before we left. We had changed them to German as soon as possible and obtained for them German citizenship - or rather Mrs M did as I had no bearing on their eligibility at all as being a UK citizen. She'd changed from her birth country to German herself anyway. I could have obtained, or at least tried to obtain, UK citizenship for them, but we weren't living there at the time and with lots of other bureaucratic factors never mind it would have been a bit pointless as our life was Germany orientated, so didn't bother.
The three retained very little Spanish and in parallel, learnt English and German at the same time. That was then enough for them without comments from people who said, oh dear, it's such a shame they are forgetting their Spanish - well, try getting them to manage and integrate at kindergarten and school when they don't know the language. It was a choice that we knew they'd have to use German as their primary language and a toss up between English and Spanish as second. We felt, no matter the amount of Spanish speakers there are in the world, English is more useful and we had no emotional attachment to the Spanish language as we knew it would be hanging around in their brain doing nothing for many years - whereas English is/was being used most days, especially to communicate effectively with me but also in their education over the years.
The daughters, with having a year at school in Spain during 2016/17 are now trilingual, my lad didn't go to school there and remains bilingual. We didn't mind them dropping the Spanish but if/when the opportunity arose when they had established their German/English to reintroduce Spanish, then we would. And we did. With the police I was privy to many, many private conversations between social workers and attended a lot of case meetings where I had become the first involvement of the person/child due to some incident. I understood how underappreciated, underpaid and overworked the majority were, but saw quite a few slackers, many reluctant to stick their neck out and make a decision for a number of factors - but mainly how they (or at least someone in authority) often hoarded resources for no sound reason I could justify other than the work involved and the costs associated with it that would eat in to their often less than needed budgets.
In general, their inertia, lack of making decisions/putting off decisions/allocating resources were a bone of contention with me when you were dealing with vulnerable people who needed assistance then and there and not some sticking plaster solution to bide them over until someone else had the file on their desk to sort out. I had no reason to believe the Spanish system would be any different and it wasn't/isn't. I had knowledge of how their system worked from, if not the inside, at least as a close interested party for a number of years and with that knowledge and experience is was only natural I had a clue what buttons to push. Plus being naturally handsome, polite and persuasive. I think that helped. I was macho(ish) with the Spanish male social workers - being firm and authoritative - and all kind and caring with the women appealing for their help as I was powerless to do anything about his condition and needed them to become involved as he is my closest family relative, plus male, so he won't ask for help himself nor acknowledge he even needs it. I am not averse to trying generic cultural and sexual manipulation if it is important enough. Maybe it works, maybe not but I felt I could get away with trying especially as having a limited time to achieve anything.
But then he went to prison and it was solved. With my son it was a different matter. Mrs M forged the way with that and I offered opinions but god help me if I tried to stand in her way - she understood far better than me how to achieve things in Germany and used all the tools available to her including often playing on the respect naturally shown to being Doctor, Mrs M, even though it is Psychology rather than psychiatry.
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Post by tod2 on May 12, 2021 10:19:30 GMT
Thank you Mark for answering my question. I am in awe of the job you took on. There must have been times when it was very stressful. We have had no such complicated issues with our adopted son and I'm thankful for that.
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Post by mich64 on May 12, 2021 14:11:39 GMT
Mark, from what I have read through the years, your wife has a great combination of qualities which include, intelligence, compassion and the fierceness to utilize them in protecting and guiding your children which you recognize and support with your own qualities.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 12, 2021 15:14:04 GMT
Yes, thank you for the answers, Mark.
Nothing I can add after Mich's insightful and eloquent comment.
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Post by onlyMark on May 13, 2021 7:55:01 GMT
I agree with all of you.
Back now in Bosnia. Arrived after an argument with and Immigration official in Vienna, at 11:30pm. Weather forecast here is crap with lots of rain so Mrs M has a plan. She always has plans. This meant getting up early, not unpacking my bag and going for yet another PCR test this morning. Just waiting for the results.
Note - because of paperwork I have I don't need a PCR test to enter back to Bosnia, but I get one anyway which is timed for my entry but only for a few hours later before it expires on this occasion. That's why I've had to have another one now.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 13, 2021 8:32:47 GMT
Are they free in Bosnia?
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Post by onlyMark on May 13, 2021 15:48:37 GMT
Not normally for the general public unless due to health concerns from a doctor. Nor are rapid tests so far. It costs fifty euro where I go and results are back in 90 minutes. It involved getting the PCR test at 8am, having breakfast and then driving five hours (not including border crossings and breaks) to arrive in Dubrovnik. I'm quite tired but holding up - especially after on the drive here we stopped at a Partisans Monument from WWII - which is built on a hill and had 267 steps going up to it.
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