a place at the royal kiddie table

After that last lovely weekend came a lovely week with lots of sunshine and flowers. Every outdoor surface was covered with a thin yellow pollen dusting. Everything smelled great and temperatures hovered a bit above room temperature. I used the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the track and read on a lawn chair. Good times.

On the weekend of Mother’s day I didn’t do much of anything aside from Friday night ballroom. On Sunday afternoon I took a train to see a movie about the Stasi in the DDR. It was an interesting movie but the theater aggravated me to no end. I wanted to get home in time to call Mom and Barbara, but the theater saw fit to precede the movie with a half an hour of car and soda commercials, followed by another fifteen minutes of movie previews. Also, they assigned me a seat in a place I had no desire to sit in and since this is Europe they don’t air condition the theaters. You know what that means… stinking European men and women. They don’t shower, because it saves them water and energy and they don’t use deodorant, because they either (A) haven’t invented it yet, (B) like to smell themselves, or (C) are too arrogant to care about their reek. After the movie was over, my train was late because somebody jumped in the tracks five stations down or something.

After the movie theater experience I needed some up time, and how better to get up than to climb? So that’s what I did. It’s still May at this point, which means that there’s still snow on everything you could reasonably call a mountain. No matter. It had been too long since the last time I had been in or on the mountains, so I took Monday off and headed for Garmisch. I got there around nine and simply looked up. North of Garmisch was a mountain with some snow on top, but not enough to make me believe it could be hazardous. I headed in that direction and after about three and a half hours of the best kind of cardiovascular workout, the kind that makes your heart race in more ways than one, I was on the mountain ridge looking down at little houses in valleys on either side of me. I wanted to walk along the ridge a bit further to get a picture with the cross, but soon I came to a big slope with snow on it. I figured I could just trudge through the snow and make my own footholds. Unfortunately the ridgeline was above freezing, so I found about twenty or thirty meters up the face that the snow wasn’t going to hold me anymore. That was great. I slid down that thing in about a fifth of the time it took me to get up. I didn’t make it to the cross, but the good news is that I didn’t tumble to my death down either side of the ridge. But what a way to go,eh?
The next day I took a seven hour train to Berlin for the program’s final seminar. They talked at us a lot about culture shock and being good ambassadors. Then they took us to the capitol building to have some politicians do the same. It’s a small price to pay for the way they spoil us throughout the year. The highlights of the trip for me were a visit to the cabaret, seeing the chancellor (the head honcho of germany) at the capital, playing hacky sack right in front of her under the rotunda, and passing some big fat legislation of my own in one of the political parties’ bathroom. We also had a barbeque on the lawn of the American ambassador’s residence. They had to check our passports and frisk us all since we were technically entering America. That could have been fun, but things got weird when they invited a bunch of Turkish kids that we were supposed to make friends with, and again when one of our guys physically assaulted the ambassador’s wife. She was kind of pissed and it just made things weird. No one was surprised when they asked us to leave early.

Again, I was very happy to come back to Bayern. The following work week was long, though only three days. It was so very nice to have Thursday and Friday off for Ascension (What? They don’t give you those in America?) On Thursday we went to mass in the Morning and I played with the kids a lot. At about five I put on my suit and Christoph took me and Gudila’s sister to Händel’s opera Orlando at the national theater. The music was outstanding, but the staging was a catastrophe. Among other things, they used a bright orange polka-dotted floor and an obnoxious tank/armored vehicle thing that looked like an ant. Regardless of the show it was cool to sit in the royal box. There’s an attendant who lets you in, and you enter through an ante-room with couches and a big painting of King Max II. Its right on the proscenium and you can’t get any closer to the performers. (Pic: upper box between the two columns.)
On Friday I went to the old residence of the kings and looked at an exposition of royal history. More specifically, it’s the 200^th anniversary of Bayern becoming a kingdom under Max I Joseph. Afterwards I went to dance class as usual.
All day Saturday we celebrated the 80^th birthday of Christoph’s Father, Rasso. The day started with a luxury cruise on the Starnberger See, with a champagne reception, a big meal, and like five troops of royal horn blowers. It was a ridiculous time. A birthday party like this would probably cost five times as much as the upper limit of our wedding budget if we really had one. After that we had a special mass in Feldafing’s old church, where I accidentally ended up sitting in the pew of honor right next to Rasso. Thereafter was a big family dinner again. The hosts probably didn’t intend for me to come, but Christoph and Gudila just assumed I was invited, and I ended up sitting across from Odilia’s doll, Sophie, at the kids table. The kids all left to play, so the moral of the story is that my place at the table ended up being about six feet from the next person (who I didn’t know). Even Baby Sophie went away later. It was kind of funny, but kind of agonizingly embarrassing at the same time.

quit your wining and polka with me!

I’m a beast! I’ve got fangs - Razor sharp ones!
Massive paws, killer claws for the feast.
Hear me roar! See me foam!
But I’m not coming home 'til I’m dead--
Good and d…

Wait a second, that may be a bit too much. But I am the beast. I found out that, despite being out of the country until July 17^th and not in A-Town until the 19^th , I’m going to be the lead in Richard’s production of Beauty and the Beast on the weekend of August 3^rd. I am kind of sad that none of the Dramalum class of 2001 could do it with me, although the rest of them have important things to do… like being employed and moving on from college, let alone high school. Whatever. Its probably the last time I’ll get to be on stage, maybe forever, so I’m going to soak it in and enjoy the spotlight one last time.

I think I wrote an entry not to long ago, but the last weekend was too good to skip writing about it. On Friday night I went to ballroom dance lessons at the Deutsche Theater as usual. That was fun, as usual. On Saturday nobody was here all afternoon, so I chillaxed until Mass. After mass I hopped on a train to Olching for yet another ballroom dancing party. That was good. Not many people came, so I felt comfortable dancing like a goofball. Eventually after dancing disco-fox for three songs I got tired of doing the basic step, so I invented what I like to call the vulture spin. It’s an amazing dance move and everyone else started doing it with me. It’s now in trend. There was also some assassin tango in there. By the end of the night I was exhausted, but not at all done.

I met Christy and her Polish maid, Marzena (my dance partner), at Hauptbahnhof and Marzena took us and some of her polish comrades to a polish disco. It was pretty fun. Christy is clearly too tall to be a Polish woman, so she didn’t get much of a chance to dance with anyone but me. I, on the other hand, had Marzena to keep me dancing. She was trying to attract attention or jealousy or some other such thing from this pudgy polish guy who looked like the pope (don’t they all?). She was very much unsuccessful in attracting him, because he was busy with a girl in a skirt. Marzena should have known better than to go in pants if she wanted to attract that kind of guy. Eventually the music got tiresome, and the second hand smoke was unbearable, so we headed. Christy and I got home around 3:30 AM or so.

The next morning around 7:45 or so I was already out the door. I walked to the InWEnt center in Feldafing and caught a bust with Christy and 15 Indonesians to go on a wine-tasting trip to the Bodensee (Lake Constance). Christy and I slept pretty much the entire way, understandably. After about two hours we reached Lindau, a little island in the lake. Its definitely the kind of place where you go if you’re an old person on vacation. Lots of cute buildings, cheap gelato, street cafes amazing gardens and a good view of water and mountains from anywhere you are. Christy and I headed pretty much directly for the nearest Döner stand. It happened to be in the train station. Although the döner in Lindau hit the spot, it was still a pretty junky thing… the bread was stale before it was toasted, which I’m sure the guy knew. But most people wouldn’t notice it since it is toasted. The meat was a bit dry and the seasoning was off. These are definitely all very minor things in the long run, but when you become a connosieur of Turkish fast food it really does matter to you. I’m still a Salzburg Döner fan, and in Starnberg there is a decent one. The cheapest you can get are in Köln, and they’re of pretty good quality as well.

Anyway, after we used up all our free time, we headed back to the bus and they drove us up into the hills and parked at this little winery. Our guide was the vintner himself, whose great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather started the business way back when. He took us through the vineyard and explained all of the specifics about growing good grapes and caring for your plants. He showed us the bottling machine then took us to a tiny room in a 400 year old barn for a wine tasting. The Indonesians sat at one table, Christy and I with the program directors at another. Over the next couple of hours the vintner gave us six half-glasses of wine to try. He showed us how to properly taste a wine and what we should be looking for. It was really informative and I’m happy to have this kind of high-brow experience under my belt. The vintner also brought out about 4 tons of cheese, grapes and bread from a wood-burning oven… which also rapidly ended up under my belt.

The best part was that after the second wine, the Indonesians were all drunk. They’re all muslim and most of them had never had wine before. One of them turned the color of a Rosé. After a while, they all heeded their muslim consciences and left. I felt bad for the vintner, but I think he understood. The Germans and Christy and I hung around through the whole thing and very much enjoyed our time.
I went home and felt bad about eating so much cheese, so I ran eight miles before going to bed. On Monday morning I was incredibly tired from the combination of Polish disko and running. I sat at my desk for about 10 minutes before realizing that I couldn’t do any work yet. Since nobody else had arrived, I sneakily went to the bathroom and took an hour long nap on a throne in one of the stalls. That’s a first for me.

the biggest thing i did in april

I guess in my last post I forgot to mention that I was coming back to Michigan over Easter. Ooops! It must have slipped my mind.

I got back on Tuesday evening after a couple of good flights and a really long layover in Heathrow. My folks were happy to see me. We went home and I dumped every piece of Winter clothing on the floor in my room, then hot-tubbed it for a while until Katie came home. Mom told her there was an animal in the hot tub and so she was pretty surprised and frightened and excited to see me, all at once. It was classy. I think it was this night that I sent Barb an email and said I needed to talk to her about boats, ball gowns, and baths… things that have to do with her stay in Bavaria during July. I didn’t say any more than that.

On Wednesday I did lots of shopping for stuff I would need on Thursday. Additionally I went to Diamond Dan at the Jewelry Depot (on the recommendation of my mom) to look at a selection of rings that he was supposed to order for me. I got there and looked at what he had, but it turned out that he only had one solitaire style ring and it cost eight dollars less than what I told him my price range was. I didn’t like the ring because the diamond sat far too high and it looked simply puny. The dude was trying to pull a fast one on me and I knew it right away. I then went to F.A.O. Jewelers, where I had my gold band cast years ago, and found their store and selection much more impressive. Aside from that, their staff didn’t seem quite as dumb. I looked at the simple solitaires that I was originally interested in (for hundreds less than Diamond Dan’s, by the way), but a ring with some tapered baguettes on the side caught my eye. It was just so much more sparkly with the extra diamonds. I was captivated. The ring was much more expensive than I could have afforded, but just a couple hours earlier had I picked up a letter from Germany that was left at the post office. Apparently my German tax return from two years ago had finally gone through and the government was giving me lots of money back! Yay! I gave them the size and said I’d be back before they closed to pick it up.

I picked it up in something of a hurry since I had to go with my dad to the car rental place with me as well before they closed. Then I took the rental down to Ann Arbor and asked Barb’s dad for permission. It was sort of surreal, like I was just going down for any typical visit, but I knew it was one of those big, important conversations that I should be terrified of. In any case, he thought it was a good idea. In his mind, if Barb thought I was ok then I couldn’t be all that bad, could I? Bwaahahaha!

On Thursday I picked up a few last minute items and decorated my sister’s Lincoln Towncar. Lots of balloons, happy face garland, the finest of sparkling grape juices in a pink pail with high quality plastic stemware, and of course, the ceramic parrot hanging over the passenger seat. It was as close as I could make it to our junior year prom, without hiring Everett to sit in the back and pour drinks. I picked up some flowers and I was on my way.

Around 5:30 I called Barbara from Abbot Elementary parking lot and began to talk about all the stuff happening at my host family’s house this week. Stanislaus having his first communion, all the relatives coming over, lots of cakes being baked… it was all true, I just never said anything about me being there at the time. Then I asked about the email. Does she have a ball gown for the formal dinners we’d be going to? What kind of spa bath would she prefer? Does she like party boats? She said might, but wasn’t sure if she’d ever been on one. Remembering our time in the first one at prom, I assured her that she had, and if she could be ready in three minutes I’d take her for a cruise in the party boat. Then I guess I pretty much hung up on her. I drove to her house and she came out babbling over and over “You’re not here. You’re in Germany. You called me from Germany!” I think I had something great planned to say and I knew exactly how that conversation was supposed to go. I’m really good at remembering lines and knowing my blocking under most circumstances. Unfortunately I hadn’t counted on her being so loquacious at the moment, and I started babbling too. Eventually I was on my knee and she had a ring on her finger, but exactly how we got to that point is really a blur. I took her to Weber’s for dinner before Holy Thursday Mass and we talked about lots of stuff and had a hard time paying attention to our food. It was wonderful.

There was lots going on the whole week… triduum, prayer meeting, parties, terd cakes, a trip to ohio, and lots of quality time with my bride to be. I just loved not coding and doing math for a change. The whole two weeks was wonderful and very surreal. Everywhere I went people seemed to know who I was and treat me like the royalty that I’ve been living with. The haircutters, the dentist, the teller at the bank, the jewelers… not to mention family and friends. Everybody wants to hear my story it seems. People probably think I simply exaggerate when I talk about my crazy wonderful life, but it really is extraordinary. It’s probably not the healthiest mindset, and I know I’m a horrible example of humility, but hear me out: I live with royalty in the richest part of Bavaria, when I come home I’m going to grad school for rocket science, and I’m marrying the girl that stole my heart at sixteen. My family is not dysfunctional, which says a lot in our times, and my grandfather is still ornery and hot-wired at 83. I’ve done back flips and front flips, and not died after landing on my head far too many times. I’ve climbed mountains to places where every breath you take is a whisper in God’s ear. I’ve sung on stage and taken the final bow at curtain call. I can ballroom dance (and been to one of the most glamorous balls in Europe to show it off). Most extraordinary of all, I feel, is that I recognize my Lord’s voice. Not a bad life for an ornery and hot-wired 22 year old.

-----

Now, making that decision about school really was a big deal. I almost didn’t want to click that little button in wolverine access, just because I knew that this one little mouse-click would lead my life and Barbara’s into a very solid, but uncertain direction. Given the choice between a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering in structures and a Master of Engineering in space systems from another department, I clicked on space systems. With the M.S.E. I knew I’d always have a surefire job somewhere doing finite element and computer stuff for a decent salary, but the classes in rockets, astrodynamics, and space policy looked a lot more exciting and appealed to the little boy in me that’s still looking for something to explore. It’s like I’ve explored every inch of the woods around my house and discovered that the only uncharted place I’ve left to go is straight up, into the starry night sky above the branches. Forgive me for being all symbolic, but it’s the only way I know to justify future job prospects that are just as ethereal. Someday all of this boyish wonder that I have for life may subside, and I may be left to face the hard truth of the “real world,” where rocket scientists can’t actually get jobs in rocket science. Yet, right now, following the familiar and comfortable path won’t satisfy me. Call me crazy, but I chose job-extraordinary over job-security. And right now only God knows where He intends to take Barbara and me with that path.

hey, at least it's been less than a month since the last post

Its funny how when nothing changes, or life gets more stable, you run out of stuff to write about. You’ll notice the last time I wrote was the fourth of March. Since then nothing really notable has happened that didn’t happen in the past month. There have been a few sort of notable events though…

Sometime this month (I’m not even going to try to remember exact dates at this point) I met another politician, Sabine Leuthausen-Schnarrenberger. Never heard of her? Me neither. I guess she’s kind of important though. She was the first female cabinet member in government as minister of justice. Today she is the speaker in congress for her political party, the Liberals. She bought the four of us Feldafing Americans drinks and said a lot of stuff. Mostly just opinions about the US. I didn’t care for her opinions of our politicians on either side of the aisle, and noting that I was the only conservative at the table I just kept my yapper shut. I wasn’t about to start any arguments with a professional talker.

Then at some point I got the flu and skipped a day of work I’m still recovering from that.

I think it might have also been in this past month that I found out I can’t go to meet the Pope with the family next month. Their audience happens to fall on the same week when I have to attend the mandatory final seminar for the Congress-Bundestag Exchange. So basically instead of going to Rome in May, I’m going to go to Berlin and listen to some more politicians talk about stuff. I’d rather listen to the Pope talk about stuff, but what can you do?

I did more random stuff with the community. Here’s a picture of us at a Lord’s Day meal. They still treat me well. I’ve got really good friends.

It snowed three feet over a day and a half and I couldn’t get to the city for Mass one Sunday. But then it all melted away at the end of the month. Now I’m just waiting on those darn mountains to follow suit so I can get back up there.

This past Saturday the boots were allowed back out onto the water, so Corbinian and I took a canoe out from the boot house. It was fun. There was no one out yet. We were the only ones on the water. Its funny that they consider this one of their biggest lakes, since I could paddle across it in a half hour at a leisurely pace. I think the Great lakes combined surface area is probably bigger than Germany. Now those are some real lakes.

The main thing I’ve done this month is work. 1½ hours there, 1½ hours back. I program sometimes, get frustrated sometimes, don’t know what I’m doing all the time, and get to talk to people far less than I would prefer. I am getting better at working with the code, but the projects I work on all seem to get canceled before completion in favor of more urgent projects. End result: I’ve gotten virtually nothing done. There have been a couple nice surprises. Namely we’ve had two new additions to the workforce. One is a PhD named Fernass. He’s a real friendly dude and really outgoing and smart. He sits at the desk across from me. Even though we don’t really talk, I feel just that little bit less isolated. Today we also got another student. Yay! He’s an Indian doing his diplom thesis. He doesn’t speak very much German, and the project he’ll be working on is unfamiliar to him, butsomething I’ve gotten to know pretty well over the past few months. In some slight way, his arrival has pushed me up the ladder a rung. Our team now stands at three PhD’s, two experienced engineers, one entry level engineer (me!), and one college student (not me!).

What’s up in the next month?

Easter! This has been a pretty good Lent so far. I took on a third 15 minute prayer time during the day and gave up drinking. Both have been successful. I’ve even remembered not to eat meat on Friday, even though its not the custom here. Easter will be fun. Supposedly the house will be even more full than it was at Christmas, this time with all of Gudila’s relatives. I’ll be bunking two guys in my room. I know its possible, since Ben and Katie survived, but maybe kind of awkward since I don’t know them all that well. I get Good Friday and Easter Monday off. It’s not quite the week long spring break that some of you get, but at this point I’ll take whatever four day weekends they give me. It’s just a shame that the snow won’t be melted in the mountains yet. Still, I’ll make sure to find some sort of life threatening yet life bringing adventure to get myself into.

The biggest thing coming up this month is that I should make a final decision about whether I go into structures in the aero department, or into rocket science at AOSS. If the aero people are going to give me money then I think they must notify me by april 15, though the decisions have probably already been made. I could be on a waiting list and they won’t notify me until after somebody else declines the offer. If they do offer me a ride by April 15, I’ll go for the M.S.E. in Aerospace Engineering (structures) and see if I become interested in a PhD over the next year. Otherwise, it’s a M.Eng. in Space Engineering with a concentration in rockets/propulsion/gas dynamics. Its time to stop thinking about it, and just see what happens.

coding a grindstone

Wow, has it really been a month since my last post? Its sort of flown. I know I’m going unintentionally forget a good deal of what has happened and then intentionally forget quite a bit more. Here goes.

On February 6 I started my job. I don’t really know how much detail y’all need on this. It’s not very exciting. I have a desk by a window in a cubicle jungle, though no real cubicle of my own. Everybody in optimization and special analysis shares a cluster of desks without walls. The building was built in the seventies, and smoking is definitely allowed in the office. Thus, everything has a brownish look, smell and feel to it. I have a new computer. That’s nice, because I don’t have to worry about some other person’s oily finger germs on the keyboard. That always sort of bugged me in the CAEN labs at UM. Its relativity quiet throughout the day, except for when the two very Bavarian men start calling for each other. “Eugen! Kom’ mwa heya. Sofort hob i’ g’socgt!” Its kind of entertaining. You’d think they’re in love with each other, or at least with each other’s accents.

I work directly with Herbert, Markus, and Rainer. My boss, Gerd, doesn’t talk with me much. I have the most contact with Rainer, even though Gerd delegated Markus to look after me. Rainer is a PhD, and pretty much wrote the Lagrange optimization software himself. He’s really a soft spoken code wizard. I’m convinced that when he retires, Lagrange will retire with him. No one else could ever relearn the 150,000 lines of code, but he’s letting me try.

For the first couple of weeks I simply sat around at my desk learning UNIX, Fortran 77 and Lagrange. That meant a lot of programming manual reading. (I know you’re on the edge of your seat reading this.) About two weeks into that they gave me a 12 x 12 geometric stiffness matrix to differentiate. I put that away pretty quick, so then they had me write documentation on the differentiation. Whew. That was intense. Then Rainer had me back into coding. I’m spending my time poking around various subroutines and trying to make new types of input work with the software. Truth be told, Rainer can accomplish in a half hour what I do in a whole day, even a month into this. I have no idea what I’m doing. All of the code I’ve written thus far has been my own code for solving very specific problems that I completely understand. Lagrange, on the other hand, is a scary mix of variable names and addresses and convoluted data structures with names that no one could decipher without being Rainer. He takes it for granted that I should know what ANBFE2, GKGBFE, SMS, and RBUCK are and how they’re related just by looking at the name. Um… no. It doesn’t work like that.

I honestly do have a good job. I can make this experience look like whatever I want it to on paper. At the very least, I now know that this is not something that I want for a career. If engineering today is only something that can be done by programmers who don’t talk to each other for days, then it’s not for me. I need to see the big picture, not just the pixel that I coded. That this is five months, and not my first real job, is a great blessing. I’ll get a good feel for what goes on at this level without having to commit.

The only problem is that I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, if not a code monkey engineer. I’ve got some ideas, but I’d welcome a few more. Here’s what Princeton Review said about me:

People [like you] like hands-on / problem solving job responsibilities and professions that involve practical, technical, and objective activities. Red Interests include: building, implementing, organizing, producing, and delegating, which often lead to work in manufacturing, managing, directing, small business owning, and surgery.

People [like you] prefer to perform their job responsibilities in a manner that is action-oriented and practical. They prefer to work where things happen quickly and results are seen immediately. People with red styles tend to be straightforward, assertive, logical, personable, authoritative, friendly, direct, and resourceful, and usually thrive in a self-structured, high-pressured, hierarchical, production-oriented, competitive environment. You will want to choose a work environment or career path in which your style is welcomed and produces results.

Maybe you can think of some careers that would suit me. When I read that I thought it matched me quite well. Its interesting to me that it also sounds a lot like my dad, who also doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up.

As far as social activities go in the past month, I’ve had lots of time with Brot des Lebens including a young people’s retreat in Belgium last weekend. Theres not a whole lot to say about that. Think Life Teen retreat with a bunch of European type people loitering about, except when you leave the retreat center, you’re suddenly in a place where the houses are all brick and everyone speaks Flemish. I’m sorry to say that there wasn’t really any Belgian adventure associated with it like last time.
I forgot exactly when it was, but some time ago I met the Alan Greenspan of Bayern at a reception for the scholarship recipients. Then sometime I met the cousin of Christoph who would be the king if there were still a kingdom. He is also the Stuart heir to the throne of England, Scotland and Wales. Basically he has the right to walk over to Buckingham and give Lizzy the boot. Of course, he'll never do that. Why would he ever want to leave Bayern to reign a place as rainy as London? He still lives in the palace and came to lunch with his butler, who wore a plaid suit. Its hard to say if he's the most historically significant person I've ever met, but he's certainly the most significant that I've had lunch with. Last night I went to a ballet at the opera house with friends, which was also lovely. Aside from that not much has been going on. I just ‘work’ a lot and sleep when I don’t. This part of my stay here isn’t going to be nearly as glamorous as before, but it will pass quicker and bring me sooner to the 18^th of June. And that’s all I’m working toward right now.

pumpkin, i'm the prince tonight

I think it’s safe to say that I’ve finished the official first half of the program with due style. I’ve been relaxing this whole week. I got my tux in the mail last week but still needed shoes. I must have visited at least two dozen different shoe stores, but they all have the same selection. Eventually on Thursday I found some nice shiny shoes at a discount shoe store. That made me happy. I just wanted to say that right up front because that’s really all I did during the day time this week.

On Monday night Marc came over and gave us a lesson in waltz. It was really fun. We cooked dinner for him and it turned out really good. It was pork and pepper skewers with a Caprese salad. Yummy! Then we went down to the first floor of their house for the lesson. Isabelle, my date to the ball, joined us for that. She’s Christy’s fifteen year old host sister. A real cutie and she can dance pretty well too. She and I needed a refresher in the waltz and James and Christy are beginners. The lesson was a lot of fun. Marc is a good teacher and told us enough to get us going.

On tuesday afternoon I went to the concentration camp at Dachau. It was cold and the atmosphere made it feel like I was walking through a history book. Its really something you have to experience for yourself. All of the torture and inhumane medical experimentation that went on there screams at you from the walls and from the stones under your feet. There was a lot to read and I could have spent two days just looking at all of the information boards.
On Wednesday night I went to the Schmelzer’s house for dinner. Martin, Marc and Paul were there too. Michaela cooked Indian food. Chicken curry and nan!!! It was so tasty. Afterwards I went on to kegeln (german bowling with nine pins) at the parish hall. I was pretty bad until I discovered the ball with no holes. With its help I rolled the only 9er. I was proud of that.

On Thursday night we had the Life in Christ seminar at Paul’s. I got there at six for a small bible study time. Then more people started to get there. We had a good dinner and listened to a teaching about growing in faith. We heard a testimony and had small groups. It was a good night.

The Kaiserball finally came on Friday. I went for a bit of a run in the cold before putting on the whole tuxedo getup. Around six I went to Christy’s where she and James were getting ready. Once they were all set James and I went to the S-Bahn station. We went with the train since there wasn’t a whole lot of room in the car. James and I had a fun time of our trip. We were the kings of public transportation in our tuxes. When we got to the conference center we walked in on the red carpet and gave our tickets (90 Euro) to the funny looking guys who were dressed like Mozart. We realized shortly upon entering that we were out of our league. There were so many good looking old people in white tie attire. Lots of arm candy. Fancy long ball gowns. The whole shebang. We turned in our coats and went up to find our table. The ballroom was beautiful. Over the dance floor was a huge chandelier and everywhere else had red and white decorations (red and white being Austria’s colors). Behind the dance floor was a big orchestra. It was definitely a high society event. The Vossius family and Christy were already at the table when we got there. There was an introduction by some sort of master of ceremonies. I imagine he was a mayor of Vienna or some other sort of dignitary. He spent probably fifteen minutes just thanking the sponsors. Then the debutantes were led in by their young companions and they performed a dance. It was cool. All of the girls were in white gowns with diamond crowns from Vienna. Then everyone else was invited to dance. They played everything that fits into a ballroom repertoire: waltz, rumba, foxtrot, jive, tango and all of the others that I’m forgetting right now. I had a good time cutting a rug with Isabelle. The only one that I had trouble with was waltz, because her dress was far too long and in the process of spinning and twirling It got caught under my shiny shoes. Other than that, it was a walk in the park. For James and Christy not so much. He was amazed that after spinning Isabelle we both ended back on the correct foot and could therefore go on dancing without considering what we were doing. Lots of fun. Dinner (20 Euro a plate) and Champagne (three bottles at 65 Euro) was ordered and enjoyed. I had Venison medallions in a red wine sauce. The food was simply delicious. Thereafter we continued to dance. At some point there were opera singers and ballet dancers performing. I enjoyed it as a rest from the dancing.
After a little more dancing, midnight came around and they had a raffle based on our ticket numbers. The grand prize was two months driving a ten cylinder VW Phaeton. The other ten or fifteen prizes were things like a tuxedo or traditional Bavarian costume. Additionally they gave away some trips to Vienna. I was pretty much uninterested in the prizes until they showed a picture of a resort in the mountains of Austria. A trip to another European city doesn’t appeal to me, but when they show mountains I simply melt. It’s a five star hotel with a spa and a panorama view of the Tirol alps. Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. After imagining what it would be like to stay there and then returning in resignation to my champagne glass I heard the guy say something magical: Orange, fünf, eins, sieben. Holy freaking cow! I won two nights for two people at a five star mountain resort with a spa bath included for each person! Fifteen-hundred people in the ballroom and I win one of a dozen prizes. A dozen prizes and I win the only one that appealed to me. I ran up to the prize people looking as excited as if I had won the super bowl. They must have thought I was going to tackle them too. The ball will be on TV here and if they don’t show me dancing then at least they’ll show me looking like a crazy person claiming my prize. Take a look at it here www.interalpen.com The type of room I get can be found here: http://www.interalpen.com/en/zimmer_appartementI.html This prize is worth over a thousand bucks, by the way.

I start work on Monday morning. I’m kind of nervous and already kind of bored with the job. We’ll see how it goes. At the very least I’ve got a trip to look forward to once the job is over with.

finishing January

Since the last post I’ve had two completely different weeks. In the first week I spent a lot of time watercolor painting. That’s really it. A couple of times I went to Starnberg or Munich with my American pals and a couple of times I went out running in the cold, but that’s just about all there is to say about the whole matter. It was a really, really slow week.

Then starting off on Monday the 23^rd I spent the week in Dresden at a mid-year seminar. The train ride was pretty long, but quiet and comfortable. That night we had a welcome session. We said hi to the program directors than went to a traditional Saxon restaurant and had pretty darn good food.

The next day we had an evaluation seminar of the program thus far. It was nice to hear how everyone else’s year has been going. I think I’m one of the happy few who are having a ball and have no complaints. I got some sort of selfish satisfaction from that. I think by the end of the week people were tired of hearing from me about how wonderful life is in Feldafing. They treated us to lunch and then I bought some flowers and found my way to Christoph’s sister’s house. She’s married to a [Graf/Herzog/Prinz] von Sachsen. They weren’t home, but their house is absolutely huge. Like a castle on the outside, and a museum on the inside, from what I could tell. I left them a cute little note and went back to the Hostel.

That evening we went to a ballet in the famous Dresdner Semperoper (shown). It’s a fantastic building that was destroyed in the war but rebuilt exactly as it was. The ballet, Taming of the Shrew, was playful and enjoyable, even though I can’t agree with the men-in-tights thing.
On Wednesday we had a city tour and went to the Green Vault, a museum of all of the Sachsen family’s treasure they had a lot of cool pieces. The most impressive was a brooch thingy with 110 carats of diamonds surrounding the only green diamond in existence, which is also about the size of my big toe. That evening we also went to the VW Glass Factory where they assemble the Phaeton behind a big glass wall for you to watch. It was much more exciting than the jewelry museum from my perspective, but I’m not sure the women would agree.

On Thursday the American Consul General came and talked to us. He sounded very diplomatic. It was interesting to listen to him talk about his career through all of the political storms of the past two decades. It’s remarkable that he can talk about so many awful things in such a politically neutral way. His job is to defend the policy of the current administration and he’s absolutely not allowed to give an opition. It’s interesting to hear. Later that day we went to the Sachsen parliament to listen to a sitting. It was boring for an engineer like me, though the fact that the nazi’s weaseled their way into a few seats in parliament there spices it up a bit. They don’t contribute at all to the democratic process. They just use their turn to speak to say racist junk. Interesting and sad at the same time.

On Friday we had a final goodbye seminar and I got out of there as quick as I could. I really missed Bayern. When I got back it was like I could breathe again. I should probably also mention for my own later recollection that some frustrating stuff happened in Dresden. A lot of people made a lot of bad decisions with their free time. It was a trying week and I was glad to have it over with.

On Saturday the family went to the longest sledding hill in Germany. You take a Gondola to the top of a mountain with a gorgeous view and then go barreling down at break-neck pace through forests and switchbacks. I had a really good time. About fifteen minutes after we got home Corbinian, Christoph and I left to go to the opera. Corbinian went with relatives who have a box, but Christoph and I couldn’t get seats. Instead, we walked around town and had a bite to eat at Spatenhaus.

That’s about it for these two weeks and the end of January.