stories written in all capital letters

a place at the royal kiddie table

2006-05-30T17:36:00.000+02:00

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!

2006-05-14T17:35:00.000+02:00

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

2006-04-27T23:06:00.000+02:00

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

2006-04-03T21:42:00.000+02:00

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

2006-03-04T17:20:00.000+01:00

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

2006-02-04T17:10:00.000+01:00

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

2006-01-30T10:46:00.000+01:00

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.

down time

2006-01-14T12:57:00.000+01:00

As promised, I played and beat Warcraft III. It was entertaining, but a complete waste of time. Although, if I hadn't squandered the time on a video game, I'm not sure what I would have done. It's been pretty low key lately. In the past week there has been lots of free time to use up.
On one of the days I went with the family to a mountain to go skiing. That is to say, they went skiing and I went extreme Alpine sledding. This was no Kensington Metropark sledding…. No, no, no! These are the Alps my friend. In Michigan this would be illegal. Its just that dangerous. Anyway, after riding a chairlift up the mountain for what seemed to be an eternity you get to the clouds. And then you ride even further and steeper up the hill. When you get to the top it’s so cold that your pants freeze on to your legs because of the moisture in your skin. Then you take your sled and fly down the mountainside at speeds just slightly below those of a freefall. Of course, you could never achieve free fall speeds because every now and then your sled crashes back down on the mountainside. The thing is so steep and that day it was covered with ice. On my first run I passed the mountain rescue team hauling off a woman on a stretcher-sled. I must of slid out a dozen times. All the pot holes and bumps and jumps left me with a black and blue tush. It was extreme. I walked funny for a couple days after. The only thing that could be more fun, and this is something that Christoph and I have talked about, would be to be lifted by helicopter to a peak and dropped off there with a sled.

On Thursday night James had a birthday party at the metal bar and the irish pub. Lots of fun for everyone there. It was yet another bonding experience for all of us Munich PPPers. I don’t think I want to say any more than that.

On the next day, whatever day that was, Friday probably, James and Christy hung out at Christy’s place and had some coffee for a few hours. Chill time. I got picked up by Marc Wimmer at my house around 5:30. We drove down to Mittenwald with four teenage boys and did a torch light hike through the dark woods. At around midnight we made a fire by a river. It was freaking-freezing, but we had hot Stockbrot, pizza dough wrapped around a stick cooked over the fire. That was really terrific. A new experience for me. When everyone was sufficiently frozen we headed back into the town and slept on the floor of a pet store belonging to Daniel’s brother. Stinky! My clothes definitely could have used some febreeze the following morning. Still, it was a great time. http://www.bdljugend.de/galerie/bubennacht

Nothing terribly exciting happened between then and Tuesday night, but on Tuesday we led a bar-tour for the other Americans who were in munich for their mid-year seminar. We started at the Augustiner Bräuhaus. Very Bayrisch. Very fun. Some of the participants had been doing a little pre-gaming, so it got a little rowdy on the way to the next bar, the irish pub. There was Karaoke there, which entertained them in their drunken enthusiasm. I left in time to catch the second to last train home. Unfortunately the silly U3 took a five minute pause at Universität and I missed my connection to the S6, by 30 seconds. So I waited 40 minutes and took the absolute last train to Feldafing. Unfortunately I nodded off in Starnberg and woke up as the train pulled into Tutzing. I walked it home to feldafing through the -15 C night. It took me another 40 minutes to get home, but somehow it was very peaceful walking through the cold dark woods. You can listen to yourself think.

In the next few days I collected the Scheins that say I was present in class. That means I don’t have to ever go back to class here. I’m done. I’m going to try to do some worthwhile stuff while I’m not in class. On Thursday night I went to play pool with Marc and Daniel at a pool hall. Lots of fun. Then Friday was the Brot des Lebens prayer meeting. It was a great meeting and the talk was very challenging. Later Daniel took me to a bar for some nachos and a weissbier. We talked theology and about life in general. I really enjoyed it. He dropped me off at Pasing, which was nice of him.

Today the family is out skiing and I’m enjoying a quiet house. I don’t know what anyone else is doing today, so I’ll probably just chill and enjoy some peace. Tomorrow we’re going to a mass and banquet with the bishop. That could be cool. Looking forward to it.

a pink dirndl

2006-01-04T20:17:00.000+01:00

A New Year, A New Pair of Pants

2006-01-03T11:04:00.000+01:00

Christmas and New Years came and went really quickly. I’ve been busy busy busy. On Friday the 23^rd Christy and I went shopping in Starnberg Nord again for our Munich area PPPer Christmas party. The groceries were expensive, but split up between everyone who came to the party it wasn’t so bad. When we got back to Feldafing I helped her to the house with the bags then headed to Penny Markt to pick up some lebkuchen. Success. I went home briefly, grabbed lunch and my stuff and went back to Christy’s.

No one was there yet, so I set up the music and changed into my suit. Eventually the guests started arriving. There were the seven of us from Munich, plus some guys named Bud, Ted and Brian. There was gluhwein and cookie baking while I set up for dinner. It was a really good atmosphere in all. I had also built a Christmas tree out of wrapping paper the day before, an outstanding specimen. Before dinner we had a gift exchange with various alcoholic beverages. Out of the exchange I got two bottles of wine, which I happily donated to our dinner. We had forgotten to buy wine for the dinner. Another guy got a bottle of champagne out of the exchange, which he also donated. It was good. I gave the toast, since I was pretty much the host. Dinner was great. Tortellini, salad and garlic bread. We ended up with way too much food and I stuffed myself. I’m not quite sure what all went on after dinner. The dishes were cleaned. We played twister and opened up the bottles and had a few drinks and ate more cookies. Then quite suddenly everybody playing twister just dropped to the floor and went to sleep. The combination of the big dinner and the alcohol was too much for any of us. Around 5:30 I woke up on the floor under a big blanket. Brian and Emily were asleep on the couch/bed. I had to go home to turn off my alarm before anyone was woken by it so I woke up Christy, who was snuggled up by James on her bed. It was precious. The PPPers in the Munich area are pretty tight. It’s nice to have fun friends to spend time with when Germany/Germans and royal brats get to be too much to handle.

The next morning, Christmas Eve, I walked to Tutzing with two of the boys to buy baguettes for dinner. It’s a little more than and hour both ways, so one of the boys whining and crying. Not great, since I myself was relatively tired after the party. After getting back to the house I went back and drank a coffee with Christy and talked about the party. After gathering my stuff I went home and put on my suit to get ready for the evening. The family, minus Christoph, sat and listened to Corbinian read a Christmas story in Stanislaus’ room. At the sound of a little bell from below we knew that the Christkind had come. (Note: The Christkind is not Jesus, just a genderless, nameless kid who comes to your house and drops off presents in the spirit of Christmas) We turned off the lights and slowly walked into an amazing room full of gifts and candlelight. In the corner on the right was a Christmas tree with real candles burning on it. To the left was a table set with the finest china. Everywhere else were gifts. We stood at the tree and sang some Christmas songs before the kids dug into the presents. They gave me some interesting books about Feldafing history. Afterwards we had a nice dinner and went to Mass. I don’t remember too much about it, other than that there was an opera singer singing stuff from the choir loft.

On Christmas we played with toys, ate lots of cookies and went for a walk. It was really low key. I can’t really remember what we did that day. On the 26^th the family walked to Tutzing again for the Stephaniritt, where they bless all of the horses for the year. Interesting, but not something I would have chosen to walk over an hour to get to in the cold. More relaxation was in order for the rest of the afternoon. That evening, Christy and I concluded that there were far too many cookies left and most people had left their bottles in the fridge too, so we invited everyone to a low key movie night. Daniel was the only one who came but we had fun with a couple of movies.

On the morning of the 27^th, Christoph and two of the boys took me to the airport to pick up Ben and Katie. Thus began their first stay in Europe. Five crazy days. We started off by going home and getting them settled. They gave me gifts and cards from lots of people. It was nice to have real, wrapped presents to open. I took Ben and Kate on a train to a Brewery in the city to get the oldest traditional meal in Bavaria, Weissbier, Brezen and Weisswurst. Ben decided that he doesn’t like beer and won’t even drink it to humor his brother who wants to show him Bavarian culture, which set me in a sour mood. I had to drink his entire beer for him. Then I walked them around the city. It was cold and they didn’t seem very enthusiastic about anything. I made them go to Mass with me in the Cathedral. We went up the steps to get a view of everything from above and discovered that Katie probably wouldn’t make a great mountain climber. At eight we went to Handel’s Messiah in the Residence of the old Bavarian rulers. I liked it but I had to call off the rest of the evening after the first act because Kate was drifting in and out of consciousness and picking scabs behind her ears with her huge fingernails the whole time (along with other acts of teenage hygiene not suitable for blogging). They went to bed and I stayed up with the adults.

On Wednesday we went to Neuschwanstein [Read: Neuschwanschwein], it was my third time. It was cold and Katie didn’t like the big hill, but they got to buy souvenirs and trinkets. They liked the castle, even though our tour guide was HORRIBLE. I started to understand that culture and history should have no place on our itinerary, but rather, we needed to see pretty things that would impress their American friends. That was an important realization for me as a tour guide. It’s different when you live here, I guess. I took them back to Munich and made them eat Bavarian food, even though Ben wanted a cheeseburger and Katie spaghetti.

The next day I replaced my planned trip to an old, historic city with a trip to another castle, Linderhof. The tour guide was impressive, the scenery around the castle was gorgeous and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves more. Ben and Katie bought up even more trinkets. It astonishes me how much they like their mini beer steins and pewter shot glasses. We went home and Ben and Katie had to face the next challenge… Dinner manners in good company. I wasn’t sure how it would go, since their breakfast with them had been awkward (eating plain bread, putting meat or jam on bread without spreading butter on first, spreading jam on the bread with the serving spoon rather than their knife, calling water with carbonation “gay”, eating musli that is typically only eaten by the children, practically inhaling food for ten minutes and then sitting silent for an hour as everyone else takes their time) They did alright at dinner. I had explained that all they had to do was hold the fork in the left and knife in the right and aside from that just do what everyone else was doing. It went pretty well with only a few party fouls, none really worth mentioning.

On Friday we had a lovely day. We went to Garmisch-Partenkirchen and hiked out to the Partnachklamm, a gorge with all sorts of waterfalls all over the place. This time of year its all just a bunch of icicles, which makes the place look somewhat like the planet krypton. Pretty cool, though my camera ran out of batteries and my hands froze off. (I glued them back on later.) We climbed back up a hill over the gorge and found some sort of lodge where we ate lunch. It was the high point of their visit for me. The scenery was tops, and the food was the tastiest stuff I’ve eaten in a long time, if not the best stuff ever. Aside from that, Ben and Katie were both happy. That’s what matters. We hiked back to the train station and took the next train to Mittenwald. They got to see the mountains, the pretty little church and some of the paintings on the buildings. Most importantly, they got to buy more trinkets. My favorite was a thimble with a sticker that says mittenwald on it. Yeah. Ben bought it for four euro, but as far as I’m concerned, it was priceless.

On Saturday, New Years Eve, I planned a day of rest. We walked around town. I showed them the big old houses, the golf course, my track, the lake and downtown Feldafing. Thereafter we took the S-Bahn two stops to Starnberg and I had them eat their first döners. They liked them a lot. I was shocked. That night we played games with the kids, packed up their bags and burned some CDs with pictures of my time here. Then came the surprise. Fondue for dinner! I almost had a heart attack. I knew Ben would resist, since its definitely not something he’s ever done. Again I told them to just do what everyone else was doing. Then I had Katie sit at the other end of the table (next to a grandson of the last king) so that Ben couldn’t give Katie the evil eye when she was offered a glass of wine. Success. They were aces. The dinner conversation was really interesting. Christoph’s mother told stories about living in Austria as a little girl during the war. So very interesting. I wish Ben and Kate could have caught some of it. Dinner went to 11:30… two and a half hours of dinner. It must have been really trying for the siblings who couldn’t understand the conversation. At midnight there was a champagne toast.

At one Christoph took us to the train station. At 3:17 we got to the airport and at 4:45 they could check in. I said farewell and hopped on a 5:30 train to feldafing and was back in my room at 7:30. I showered and before I knew it, it was time for breakfast and Mass. Afterwards I crashed. A fitting conclusion to a busy week.

Now I have a week of down time. All the other students will be studying this week, but I don’t have to take the exams, so maybe I’ll work on building a wind tunnel for the kids, or maybe learn to use some software useful for my internship. Don’t know yet. For the past few years though it has been my custom to spend a massive amount of time in the beginning of January playing a video game. Max Payne, Legend of Zelda, Diablo II, and now I think its time for me to play Warcraft III. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

more Advent[ure] in Germany

2005-12-17T19:29:00.000+01:00

SO, where did I leave off? Sonja come over. Ok. I should write these more often; I think I’m forgetting all of the funniest stuff and just remembering the big events. No good. I know the following Saturday had something funny about it, but I can’t exactly remember what it was. On Sunday the Americans went to Salzburg. I got up early and went to Alter Peter near the Marienplatz for Mass. Mass is always good, but the church was nearly empty, as usual. It seems so illogical that these magnificent churches, gilded and beautiful are hardly used. I get to wondering what they must have been like when they were first built. Were they full of worshippers? Or were they always this way?

Afterwards I had plenty of time to wait for my buddies to get to the train station, so I went to Burger King for a coffee. It was pleasant, although I spent a good deal of the time listening to some young guys (probably still drunk from Saturday night) arguing with the staff about the cost of a breakfast meal. The police were called. Their strange German fashion and the 80’s music videos playing in the background made the whole situation seem surreal. Like the world is falling apart. There are a lot of people who’ll tell you that it is, but those same people would also like you to think that it should be surprising. To the Christian who lives every day as if it’s the last one that God will give him, its not so much surprising. We already know that this world wasn’t built to last.

I met everyone on time and we got on the train. The trip lasted a good two hours. When you only know 6 other Americans your age in Germany its pretty easy to be friends with all of them. So there was pleasant conversation and general all around cheeriness. We got to Salzburg and the first thing we did was eat a Döner. You have to eat a Döner in every new city you visit. It’s the rule. The Salzburger Döner is about the best Döner you’ll ever find. At that point our group of 15 split in half between those who eat Döner and those who don’t. The non-eaters went on into the city and all of a sudden I became the leader of the Döner eaters.

Though everyone in the group had been to Salzburg before, I was the only one who had any ideas on where to go. I remember vividly every moment that I spent being lost there with Barb last winter. I led people around the gardens, to the sound of music steps, across the bridge, then up to a monastery where some monks make good beer. Unfortunately it wasn’t open yet. I took people up on the Salzberg. We had a good view and good fresh air. We climbed back down by the Volkstheater and found the Christmas market in the heart of the old town. We split up for 45 minutes so that each could go Christmas shopping. We all really liked the market itself. The scenery is wonderful and the market is laid out well. Its not as crowded and dirty as some of the others I’ve been to. The only problem I found is that the goods are all the same as in Munich, just a little bit more expensive. I didn’t end up buying anything.

Thereafter, we went to the birth house of Mozart. It looked like a house, except with a sign out front. Not that impressive. By this time the monastery brewery was open, so we knew where to go. That was fun. We drank a Maß and then went on with our day. I took everyone to the Red-light district and showed them where the GI ran into a building trying to get to a whore-house with his tank. They were amused. I felt like I remembered everything I had read in the tour book 10 months ago. I was tour-guide extraordinaire. Then we just walked around and got to the train station and had a bite to eat. That was the end of that.

The following week was pretty much the same as every other week. On Thursday night Christoph took me to a military orchestra advent concert. That was fun. They played Christmas favorites, but also traditional Bavarian songs. They even had Alpenhorn… the big horns in the Ricola commercials. Afterward we stood around outside while he talked to this General and that Commander and a couple of Oberstleutnants. On Friday the Count and Countess of Plettenberg (Gudila’s parents) came over. They’re funny. Friday night I went to a couple of bars with four of the Americans. One of the bars was a deat-metal goth bar where the beer is really cheap. It was a good time, but we really didn’t fit in. I do really like my American friends. I don’t remember exactly how used my time on Saturday, but most of it was good quality family time. It was a good, comfortable weekend.

On Sunday afternoon I traveled via ICE to Stuttgart and then via S-Bahn down to Böblingen for a training in Hypermesh preprocessing. I know you just got goosebumps just reading that. I would too. When I got into Böblingen I walked to my hotel. I had a little bit more luggage than I knew I’d be needing, which made the walk a little bit miserable, and I was happy to finally arrive, check in and collapse in my room. This is a four star hotel, and from the lobby it looks like it deserves every one of them. My room was a little less than extraordinary. It looked like every other nice hotel room I’ve ever been in in Germany. I think the only one that was ever better was the Crowne Plaza in Berlin, where I stayed two years ago. In any case, it was nice and clean and had a big bed and a TV. I don’t watch TV at all in Feldafing so I was excited to flip on CNN. That was exciting. I knew it was a four star hotel and that it had a sauna and a fitness room, so I brought my running shoes and work out clothes with me. The room was right down the hall from my room, so I went to check it out. It turned out that the “fitness-room” was no more than a rowing machine and some sort of thigh master thing from the 70’s. Not impressive. That was a let down, but I was still happy to have some time off from Feldafing.

I went for a walk around the town on Sunday night. Naturally I looked for the old city, and the easiest way to find the old city in any European town is to look for the church steeple. I found the church at the top of the hill and as I approached I heard something like a women’s chorus. It was lovely, so I went to a door and opened it. I peered in and saw a sink and the back of a person wearing a choir robe. Oops. I must have found the door to the dressing room. Good going. I went to the other side of the building and tried another door. I found myself at the back of a full church. At the front was an orchestra, a big people choir, a little girl’s choir and four opera singers. Right next to them on the stage was a sink with a door behind it. Good going, Matthew. I always knew how to overdo an entrance. On the way home I found a Chinese place. I really got a lot of food for my money… or maybe its just that you don’t get your money’s worth anywhere in the Munich area, but I was happy. I sure do wish it were possible to get cheap food (or cheap anything, for that matter) in Munich.

The seminars started daily at nine and ran til 5:30. There were four other people at this seminar and we shared a little conference room with computers. The instructor crammed so much information into those days. It was all in German, and even though I understood what he was saying, I was burnt out at the end of the day. It was really intense and I found myself rather frustrated at times with the computer. That made it all the more sweet when I went back to my hotel every night and took a bubble bath while drinking Andechs beer and watching Top Gun on my laptop. I don’t think I can possibly get much more decadent than that. There isn’t much more to say about the seminars.

I came back to the Munich area on Thursday night and went with all of my luggage to Paul’s place for our Thursday night talk series. Bible study from 6 to 7, then cooking and eating until 8, then a talk with more of the community members, then finally a small men’s group. Very good. It was very fruitful. I got home at about half past one, thanks in large part to the trains. On Friday I went to my lecture at the TUM and then on to a community prayer meeting at the parish hall. It was nice, there was gluhwein and afterwards Teri, Andrea, Daniel and I went to a bar where I enjoyed my first glass of scotch in far too long.

On Saturday morning, a whole bunch of little kids came over to stick candy all over a house that was to be delivered to a children’s home. James wanted to see what life was like at the Prinz von Bayern household so I invited him to come. It was pretty crazy. I felt sick to my stomach just looking at the house with all of the candy and powdered sugar. It was really something. When the action was mostly over the house got quieter and I think it was uncomfortable for James, who always has something going on. I’m used to the slower pace by now, but he left to go shovel his host-mom’s sidewalk. I don’t think the family-centric atmosphere and the humble (albeit large) house was quite what he expected from royalty.

Stuff has calmed down by now and I’m going to try to spend the next week preparing for Christmas and Ben and Katie’s visit. It’s going to be quite a Christmas break. The house is going to be full of guests and absolute madness. I can’t wait.

Oh, and my bathroom’s floor is heated. A very nice feature.

everything's peachy

2005-11-29T16:08:00.000+01:00

I think at this point its safe to say that this has become a weekly account of the previous weekend. You might be wondering why this is. Are his weeks so boring that they don’t merit description? Are they so wild that they might cause scandal? Well, the truth of the matter is that every weekday is much more exciting than any given weekend. My days generally consist of me waking at 5:45, attending classes that don’t require me to take tests or do homework, and spending the rest of the day at home. No words can describe the adrenaline rush.

But seriously, I have plenty to do. I fill my free time by going to Olching or studying up on stuff that I’ll need in February or exercising. I also do lots of reading. In fact, I am happy to say that I’ve finished another book. This is a big thing for me, because more often than not I’ll buy a book and get 50 pages in before I lose interest. It took me years to finish Der Steppenwolf (~250 pg). I’m still pretending to read The World is Flat (~400 pg). Today, however, I can take pride in having finished my first one thousand page book, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I could go on writing a thorough review, but the fact that I finished a thousand page book (in less than three weeks, no less) should speak highly enough.

This past Friday I spent the late afternoon walking about the Christmas market in the Marienplatz. Its really a fun atmosphere. Lots of little booths stand there all lit up and decorated with garlands and ribbons. The ground is covered in snow and the air smells like hot spiced wine coming from all over. Its really something I wanted to share with somebody else. I thought of calling Barbara and describing everything I was seeing but she was presumably in class, and spending a euro a minute on a cell phone call probably wouldn’t have been as satisfying as having her by my side anyway. I waited for the mayor and an oompah band to come out on the balcony of the Rathaus and turn on the giant Christmas tree and then went home.

Saturday Morning Christy, who lives in Feldafing also, and I went grocery shopping in Starnberg for breakfast foods. We spent a pretty penny but finally got everything we needed. We chilled at her place until it came time to leave for our meeting with alumni from the program. We took the S-Bahn to a huge brewery and drank a beer with some Folks that we were supposedly supposed to be networking with. Not much networking happened on my end, but I don’t really need any more contacts than I already have. Afterwards we took a walk around one of the biggest Christmas markets in Munich and had some expensive carnival food before parting ways. I rode further north to see if I could catch some of the Bread of Life people at a Scottish dance thingy with Paul Jordan. When I got there I didn’t recognize anyone, and I had left my kilt at home, so I just headed back to Feldafing.

Sunday morning was Mass. Then I went to Christy’s place to cook some breakfast with Christy, Telia and James. Omlettes and French toast. It was sooooo nice to have something other than bread and jam for breakfast. We played some mad games of Jenga, ate cupcakes, drank Gluhwein and had an altogether wonderful afternoon. James left first, then Telia a couple hours later. I live a ten minute walk from Christy so I stayed and we watched Bruce Almighty and finished off the Gluhwein. The movie reminded me of New Mexico. I’m starting to have all sorts of these “memory moments,” which is not very much like the me that I know. The day was good, and I’d like to do it again sometime.

Then yesterday, Monday, the intern from the program, a sweetie-pie of a girl named Sonja, came to the house to ask if there were any problems or conflicts that the parents wanted to address. I had heard that another person in Munich had big issues with his family and had gotten kicked out. Mine, on the other hand, was a very short meeting. No issues. Just compliments. That was nice.
(Above: My view on the way home from school)

So they do work in pairs!

2005-11-23T14:27:00.000+01:00

I was in a deep slumber when along came a princess to my bedside. She lay down on top of me and kissed me sweetly on the lips. And then I woke up and sent her back downstairs again to play with her dolls.

So it goes. This past Saturday I went with the family to an indoor bazaar. It was fun. It felt like winter because of a fresh layer of snow, maybe five or six inches deep. They bought some jewelry and then we had some lunch. During the evening was a Lords day at the Kanert’s. They served up lasagna. I was happy. Lots of good conversation and definitely good people as well. Following was the 25^th anniversary party for the community. It was pretty much an intense prayer meeting followed by open bar until about midnight. I got home around two.

I woke up the next morning at five so that I could make a 7 AM Mass in Munich before going to Neuschwanstein. InWEnt paid again. It was really really great to jabber with English speaking people again. InWEnt treated us to a freezing cold castle tour (not interesting, but hey, the castle has my host family’s seal above the gate!) followed by an absolutely fantastic visit in a warm café. I had a big piece of wild berry cake with tons of whipped cream and an amaretto cappuccino on the side. You should have seen me. I was floating somewhere between here and heaven. I think that was the highlight of the day.

Then two other Americans and I decided to go for nachos and a beer back in Munich. On the way this strange lady on the train grabbed my friend’s hand and started asking him all this weird stuff. The door was closing on her but she pushed it open again and held on tight. Eventually he pretty much pushed her out the door and at the same time I felt a strange tugging on my back. I turned around and behind me there was this fat slob hiding in the corner pretending to look innocent. The guy was freaking picking my pocket. Lucky for me I have instincts like a wild boar and saw through his game. I checked my pockets and stared him down until he finally split at the next stop. I had always heard that pickpockets work in pairs, one to distract, and one to steal from the wild boar, but now I can say that it’s true. We went to the bar. Had nachos. I got to tell them about God and why they should believe. It was really chill.

Monday night I built a seven foot high snowman, who is now lying on his back with a dagger in his stomach.

You scored as Indiana Jones.

2005-11-21T09:51:00.000+01:00

Indiana Jones is an archaeologist/adventurer with an unquenchable love for danger and excitement. He travels the globe in search of historical relics. He loves travel, excitement, and a good archaeological discovery. He hates Nazis and snakes, perhaps to the same degree. He always brings along his trusty whip and fedora. He's tough, cool, and dedicated. He relies on both brains and brawn to get him out of trouble and into it.

a fairytale wedding

2005-11-13T22:04:00.000+01:00

Whoops, didn’t take any pictures again. That’s ok though, I’ll just try to explain vividly enough so that you can picture the scene in your own imagination. When I left off I had just reported on a retreat that I went on in Reimlingen. The next week went about the same as usual. It’s getting cold here and I’m starting to miss the treadmill in the comfort of my own basement. One morning after a seven mile run I felt like I was getting a sore throat. I took double vitamins and it cleared up, but I need to be more careful about running in shorts and a t-shirt in this weather. Gotsta get me some sweatpants or something.

On Wednesday night I went bowling at the community’s parish hall. They’ve got a lane in the basement and it was a good time. I know what you’re thinking… “They gave you more champagne, didn’t they?” I must admit, you’re starting to catch on. Everything is a party here. They find all imaginable reasons to celebrate. Its terrific. Bowling here is a little different. They only have nine pins and they’re set up differently in the lane. The ball is much smaller and lighter and the object of the game is not necessarily to hit all of the pins down, but rather to knock down a specific number, depending on the game. Forget what I said, I do have some pictures.

Thursday night was kostenlos auftanken again. Good times, good people, good food. It was great. We had fun prayer/worship time.

Friday afternoon I went shopping for a wool overcoat, so that I don’t look like I just came from the ski hill when I go to church and all of these fancy events. People really just don’t wear what I would consider a winter coat, unless they’re playing in the snow. Then I went to my unofficial class at the technical university.

On Friday night was the community meeting at the church. The topic of stuff that night sort of spontaneously turned into vocations and it hit a lot of people right between the eyes. I don’t know the community as a group very well yet, but it seems to me like its going through a maturation phase. It’s a beautiful thing to see it in the act of developing as a part of the body of Christ. Afterwards Klemens took Marc and me on a ride in a $200,000 seven series. [Manly grunt] 500 hp, 12 cylinder, 6 liter, over five meters long. What struck me most was the niceness of the massaging seats. Warm fuzzies!!!!

Then Marc and I went to Klemens’ house and chilled with his daughters, who are very good hostesses, and with Berni and Resa Fissel. Lots of fun but I was tired and ready to go on my 1.5 hour ride home after a while.

Saturday was the wedding. It was gorgeous. The bride was surprisingly beautiful. It was very much like the 50^th anniversary celebration that I went to before, and was in a similar church. Wonderful weather too. I helped haul equipment and playing with microphones and helped with the bridal procession. Afterwards, Marc drove Paul Jordan and me to the reception in a brewery, but first we stopped off in Olching so Paul could change into his kilt. Yep.

The reception immediately followed the wedding. No down time. There was, you guessed it, champagne upon entry. Then cake. Oh my goodness, the cake! There were like 30 of them, and not just white or chocolate. These were the kind you would buy at zingerman’s or amer’s. Fantastic cakes. Then a fun program of music and sketches and honoring the couple. 3 hours later, after everyone was sufficiently tipsy with cheap wine, we had dinner. Absifrickenmazing. I don’t believe dinner. There’s no way it could have been as good as I remember it. I must have been dreaming. Then the music started. I’m sorry to say I didn’t enjoy the music. Germans. They’re kookie. And their wedding singers are the cheesiest thing you’ve ever heard. The bride and groom didn’t disappear as they might have in the states. They stayed for the whole thing. I admire their endurance, but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to, well, you know, be “dancing” someplace else. Daniel drove me home. I know you at home don’t have any idea how far feldafing is from maisach, but take it from me, Daniel is very kind.

Everyone has been kind here. I know this probably doesn’t seem possible to you from just reading my blog about a month of my life here, but in some ways I feel like I have a closer circle of friends here than I ever did during college. Granted, my best are friends at home, but everyone was always busy with getting their own lives on track. Here I’ve gotten to know people who really depend on and care for each other. Its terrific and I hope that I can take some of this home with me. In any case, I feel like a part of the community, a part of the family. I already have friends that I will probably keep in contact with for the rest of my life. Its that good. I had no idea it was possible.

Then today was the German national day of mourning. It’s a day when they remember the fallen soldiers and victims of WWI &WWII. After Mass dozens of men in military uniforms or lederhosen paraded to the town’s memorial for a prayer service. I was really moved. There was a salute with probably ten extremely loud muskets. Somber horn music. I saw German women, older than my grandparents, weeping. Oh the things they’ve seen. What was I to think, standing as a lone American in their midst? I have to say, I got a lump in my throat thinking about the guilt and the sense of tragic national identity that this people has. For a long time now I’ve had little sense of humor for Americans referring to the whole German people as Nazi. From today on, not only do I not find it funny, but it has become downright offensive.

Later Wolfgang, Christoph’s brother, came over. He had a bite to eat with us and drank a bit of tea. He seems much more princely than Christoph. You can just tell. The way he looks, talks… everything. He’s got a website about the royal family, http://www.bayern-prinz.com/ . It makes me respect Christoph more to see how humble he is about his position of nobility. From my first impressions, it seems to me that Wolfgang makes Christoph seem like Mr. Rogers when in fact he’s every bit a prince. The only thing I remember about the conversation is that Wolfgang is arranging a private audience and Mass with the Pope for the Bavarian family sometime in the spring. If that works out I’m definitely going to be weaseling my way into being schlepped along.

I can see the mountains burning down and sinking into the lake every morning as I walk to the train station.

just plain weird.

2005-11-08T13:40:00.000+01:00

I was talking with Gudila and said a word that I don't actually know. It seemed right at the time, but then walking away from the conversation I realized that I had no idea what I had just said. Fearing that I had embarrased myself, or worse, insulted them I looked up the word in my German dictionary and it turned out to be exactly the word I needed. What just happened? I guess that must be the way kids learn... they just repeat the sounds coming from other peoples mouths and hope that they're not corrected. Its more natural than book learning, at any rate.

settling in with the community

2005-11-07T20:58:00.000+01:00

Hmm, what is there to report? I guess there’s not a big fancy party to report on this time, but there have been several noteworthy isolated incidents of craziness. Lets start with the retreat in Reimlingen that I went on with the Brot des Lebens community.

On Friday evening Marc Wimmers picked me up from the Olching S-Bahn station and we set out on a two hour long drive over what I would consider characteristically German roads. Where I come from, the main roads and highways tend to go as much as possible in straight lines. They build them that way so that people can drive relatively hastily without having to think. Here they don’t bother making them straight. In fact, the “highways” pass through towns and turn every which way. At first you’d think this would be slower, but its not. You see, people here still drive hastily, but don’t have to worry about the thinking part, because they all seem to have computerized voices in their dashboards telling them where to go. “Wenn möglich, bitte umkehren!” The ride was fun for me.

When we got there I started meeting all of the community members who don’t attend Kostenlos Auftanken. Everybody was smiling. I met a great many people and repeated to each one what exactly I’m doing here. I feel like I’ve told my story a million times, but its fun to suddenly be the center of attention. The evening started off with some praise and worship. I was really excited about the music. I felt like I already knew it all. Most of it seems to have been stolen from Ann Arbor and translated into German. Voll cool. Another thing they stole from Ann Arbor and translated into German was Don Schwager, a brother with the Servants of the Word who was to give the talks throughout the retreat. I had met Don once before in Detroit and was happy to hear what he had to say about spiritual growth. It’s always a real treat to listen to really wise people say smart sounding stuff. I dig it. I can’t really speak to the actual content of each of the talks… there was just so much to absorb. But it was good.

Afterwards, since this is Germany, we had a party. Honestly, what on earth compels Germans to have beer, champagne, cake and horses doovers in abundance at every single event!? I’m really getting to like this country. I should also mention that Marc and Daniel are true skateboard profi’s. No broken bones or scabby knees, just pure adrenaline and mad-crazy skating.

On Saturday there was another series of talks and small group discussions. I don’t remember the details exactly, but I distinctly remember that there was some confusion with the words unabhängigkeit and selbstständigkeit. That was important and led to some interesting philosophical debate.

I should note also that the food was tremendous. I’m not used to being spoiled so much. What I am used to is Bethany House or Pine Hills buffet style chicken wings and curly fries, but we had gourmet meals instead

This leads all leads up to the Lord’s Day and the prayer meeting. Both were good. I was asked to introduce myself during the Lord’s Day, though I didn’t exactly know what I was supposed to say. I talked for maybe five minutes with a translator standing next to me (I don’t know what he was thinking… Silly German, translators are for people who don’t speak German.). I told a funny story about Barb, and everyone liked me all the more.

The Lord’s Day is one of those things, steeped in tradition, that makes me feel right at home here. I love sharing a meal with a community of believers. Its an indescribably beautiful foreshadowing of the banquet of the Lamb in Heaven. [Der Matthew kriegt Gänsehaut.] The prayer meeting was excellent. The Holy Spirit made its presence felt in our midst. God was there. Not much else to say. Its effect was different for each individual, but for everyone it was a very good time. Afterwards, like the good German community that we are, we had another party. Yeeeee Haaawwww!!!

On Sunday morning came Mass, discussion, lunch and goodbyes. I also understand that many of us got “blitzed” on the way home, which means that they got ticketed with a radar gun. It has an entirely different meaning in English and it makes me chuckle.

I guess I should say that the retreat was not much different than any other retreat I’ve been on. I’ve never really been a retreat type of person. They’re a good recharge and a lot of people get a little boost of HS happiness when they go, but I think its better to have a prayer life that repeats the retreat process daily… examination of conscience, repentance, acclaiming the greatness of God, thanksgiving, and supplication for the strength to live out the day. It all can be done every day, and without traveling or spending money or that much time. I prefer an adoration chapel to a retreat center.

The big thing that I got out of the retreat was a sense of belonging. I think that if I were to get a job in the area at some point in time, I would live in their town and join up. Before this retreat I was sort of suspicious of the community lifestyle, but here it just seems to make sense. It seems right in some sort of way that was never quite right for me in Ann Arbor. I don’t know exactly what it is or how to explain it.

On Thursday I went to Kostenlos Auftanken again. For dinner they had Chili this time. It was DELICIOUS! (By delicious I mean that it tasted similar to what you might eat in the US) On Friday I went to the full community meeting. Praise and worship, a talk and chatty time. Again, something just felt right. Afterwards, Marc drove me to Mark’s bachelor party. So much fun! I had a blast talking to the community men and having one Weissbier after another handed to me. They are an excellent bunch. I was driven back to Paul Jordan’s pad in Olching around two and was going to bunk up there for the night, but it turned out that there was a late train. I got home around 3:30. I was somewhat worse for wear at breakfast the next morning, but I told the Bayerns about the bachelor party and they just laughed.

Sunday was a slow day. We went for a walk to Grandpa and Grandma’s house where they served us tea and cake. They have a super sweet pad. It’s hidden away on the lake on a piece of land that has been in the family for hundreds of years. The house is full of things that you would expect respectable royalty to have. Crazy ornate clocks. Portraits of other royalty. Furniture that you can tell was originally in some castle somewhere. The most impressive thing I think I saw were pictures of them sitting next to Cardinal Ratzinger at a banquet where they are the guests of honor. I don’t actually think I’ve ever known anyone who was friends with a pope, but I do now.

And that’s it. I realize this entry is boring without pictures, so I’ll try to take my camera to some places next time. You might find some pics of me doing community stuff if you visit www.brotdeslebens.de and then ->jugend ->fotos. there aren't too many of me though as of this post.

more fancy stuff to report

2005-10-25T21:09:00.000+02:00

This past weekend was the Golden Anniversary for Prince Rasso and Princess Theresa of Bavaria. That’s 50 years for those of you who aren’t as good at keeping tabs on that stuff as I am. On Thursday I schlepped furniture to the basement before going to Brot des Lebens. On Saturday the day started at a beautiful monastery in Andechs. Carl Orff is buried there. I thought that was cool. The church is crazy ornate and the the altar is pre-Vatican II style, against the wall. It really is impressive. I was on photographer duty the whole time, but out of respect for the Mass I didn’t use flash. Because of that many of the pictures didn’t come out very well. Yet the Mass was great. There were lots of friends and relatives there.

Afterwards we drove to a hotel in Feldafing that Queen Elizabeth (of Austria) used to frequent. There was a proper reception there with plenty of horses doovers and champagne. I think I had one glass for the sake of showing my manners in this company, but at the same time reaffirmed my dislike for the stuff. Throughout the afternoon I met lots of uninteresting people who live in castles that I’ve only been to with a map, a Hawaiian shirt, and a camera around my neck. I was introduced to the mayor of feldafing as well. Its really interesting to hobnob with these kinds of people. I was talking in a group with a prince, a monk, and a mayor and hardly noticed that they were any different than real people. I think the best part of the afternoon was the view over the lake towards the mountains. That’s my standard answer, anyway.
Dinner that evening was at our place. Guests started getting there around seven and we started with Sherry and Port on the front patio. The meal then started with a lovely salad with some sort of raw fish lying on top of it. Then it was a soup that I really wouldn’t know how to start to describe. The main course was a meaty thing with side dishes. A good meaty thing. Desert was a creamy fruity puffy thing. Then of course truffles and champagne. Every course was served with a different kind of wine. Again, I didn’t really care for the champagne, but the others were good. The caterers did a terrific job, and earned every penny of the $40 per plate. I was on photo service after dinner again.

The next morning was brunch and soccer at our place again. Brunch was good.

I’d just like to say once again that Feldafing is gorgeous. Big old villas, the lake, the mountains, the leaves changing color. It’s a dream. I see a serene panorama of the Alps every time I walk home from the train station. And every time I see it I have to wonder if I’m really here, doing what I’m doing. The track where I run is a ten minute walk from my house. Its completely secluded by gorgeous orange and yellow trees right now, except for a break in the trees on the south side. Through the break you see the golf course below, the lake ahead and the glacier tipped mountains rising above.

That brings me to a tangent point. I like running here. In Cologne the air was gross, even in the city park by my house. You ran there and then felt like you had inhaled a lump of garbage pie. But here you can run for miles and miles and miles and the air treats your throat like royalty. The air is simply cleaner. Aside from that, Feldafing is at an elevation that is three times that of Ann Arbor. It’s a perfect place to train. My track, aside from being secluded and never visited by anyone but me, is also in terrific condition. Its just a splendid experience.
That’s all for now, I think.

getting right down to work

2005-10-24T21:00:00.000+02:00

i pretty much live an enchanted life in fairy-tale land. my friends are in school still, getting jobs, moving, getting married, having babies, paying bills, earning money, or just becoming adults in general. i, on the other hand, see no reason why i should get working on any of that grown-up stuff as long i can keep reaping the benefits of neverland. in a nutshell , i have every intention of skipping all of the hard in-between steps and getting started with the happily ever after.

a new suit and a new direction

2005-10-21T10:42:00.000+02:00

It seems like a while since I’ve written anything. That’s probably got something to do with me not actually doing anything in a while. No hiking, no adventures, just regular old life. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been going to all sorts of different classes and coming home to do nothing in particular. I’m starting to feel much more relaxed here. I can tell by the babbling way I speak German. It’s great. For a while it seemed right to choose my words carefully and say less, but now I’m just rambling.

I’ve been going to meetings with the youth group of the Bread of Life community on Thursday nights. It’s fun to hang out with people my age and talk about churchy stuff. Its so very nice to be here with access to a charismatic community. Since some of the young people (between 16 and 32) in the group are beginners in the charismatic expression of the faith I sort of feel like an old pro, like a veteran, like I belong. In any case, its been fairly easy for me to integrate myself into the group. It might have been harder to do if my German weren’t very good, but as it is I’m doing okay. Paul Jordan speaks really good German for someone who’s only been learning for a year, and he gave pieces of a talk in German last night. It was great. German with a Scottish accent. I’m loving it. (brot des lebens check out the fotos of kostenlos auftanken)

Tomorrow there’s going to be a big party at the house for Christoph’s parent’s 50^th anniversary. We moved the furniture out yesterday. We’re expecting ~45 guests, most if not all of whom are Princes, Barons, Dukes or Counts. I looked at the guest list and many their addresses indicate that they live in various castles. Its going to be great. And all of them are going to be wearing their formal attire. I may see some of the fancy medals and shoulder boards if I’m lucky, but to be sure, most will be wearing the traditional Bavarian attire. Since I forgot to bring my traditional Bavarian suit, and the program said I shouldn’t bother bringing formal attire, I was not quite prepared. Quite generously, Christoph took me to town and bought me the best looking suit I’ve ever owned and shoes to match. I still don’t believe he would spend so much on me. I don’t know how all the other Americans in the program are faring, but I think I won the host family lottery.

And I guess the other interesting thing I could say about this week is that I emailed the graduate student advisor who deals with financial aid for GSIs and research assistants and told him that (1) I want to change my specialization from gas dynamics to structures, (2) I intend to pursue the PhD, and (3) that I want to be considered for financial aid. He said everything was in order and that I would be thrown into the box to compete with everyone else during the Winter term. It's the first time that I've really been willing to look at the PhD. It took me a while to come to this decision, but I’m not sure that I considered everything involved. The implications of this change of direction could mean that I will spend a number of years earning very little and putting up with more academic malarkey, when I could be starting a very lucrative career. At the same time, this gives me more options, I think.

But do I really see me getting a PhD? Can I see me passing Quals and successfully defending a thesis? I don’t know. I’ve never really been unable to accomplish something that I set myself to, but at the same time I know the types who do get their PhDs and they seem so much more apt than I. If at some point I find a passion for the research that they give me, the whole matter will be a breeze, but that remains to be seen. In any case, it doesn’t make much sense to worry about all this right now. My life is not in my hands anyway.

dancing on mountain tops

2005-10-10T09:13:00.000+02:00

Mountain climbing is a lot like dancing, except in dancing you won’t fall to your death if you get the footwork wrong. That thought crossed my mind a lot this past weekend. Another one that kept popping up was “Gee, I can’t wait to get back below the tree line, where at least a tree will eventually stop me if I start tumbling.” Yeah, I went climbing again. But that’s not where this week starts.

This week started with sign up for school at the fachhochschule in Munich. It was a long, dreary process driven by horrible German bureaucracy. There are so many unnecessary papers and procedures that one needs to go through to simply be registered with the school. Anyway, it was all done and I still had no idea how to register for individual classes. To make a very long story short, and ignoring more stories of paperwork and emails to various peoples, I will tell you that there is no registration for classes. I just go to the ones I want to go to and register for the final exams sometime in November. No homework, no mid-terms, just a final. I settled on Numerical Methods, Solids Based Modeling for Finite Element Analysis and the History of Jazz. These classes are held Monday through Wednesday giving me a super long weekend.

I don’t really like the community college atmosphere of the fachhochschule, so I visited the Technical University of Munich on Wednesday afternoon. What a place! Walking through TUM’s facilities gave me the willies. It was an engineering school as I like them… fancy-schmancy and brimming with research that I can hardly understand. I walked through the Aerospace department and left with the intent to pursue my PhD. It was that great. I looked up the class schedule online and I’m planning on using my free Fridays to visit seminars about the aerospace industry and the business end of things. Visiting TUM will make me feel more connected to the academic world.

Without classes on Thursdays I decided that I should see if the leaves were changing in Mittenwald. I took the hour and a half long train ride down on Thursday morning and headed straight into the woods. I ended up climbing something that was more like a great big hill. It was strenuous and took a few hours and was not without an element of danger. When I got to the top I was kind of disappointed with the view. I was still slightly below tree line, so the best view I got was of the towering Obere Wettersteinspitze behind the hill. I was curious. If I had more time I would have climbed it that day, but the light was already fading. I got on the train and had to make a decision: go back to Feldafing, having missed dinner, or still smelly from the hike meet the community of the Sword of the Spirit and get dinner. Dinner it was.
I knew what town they were in and the name of the street, but still had no clue otherwise. After wandering about for a while I found the street and then the house. I rang the bell, cautiously entered and recognized Paul Jordan in the back of the apartment. It was great. I, an American, show up looking as if I had walked there from America with my wanderstöcke, and say I want to hang out and eat their food. They took me right in. I was fed and enjoyed the first part of a life in the spirit seminar in german. I was even driven back to Feldafing. Which saved me a ton of time. I’ll go back next Thursday and then eventually to more community functions as I have time. Its funny how quickly you can become famous in a group like this.

Friday I just chilled. Registered with the city. Got a haircut from an extraordinarily friendly and loquacious woman who somehow already knew where I live. That was fun. It took a long time and they treated me very well. I would go back there, even if it is more expensive that just buying clippers and going for the buzz all year.
Then on Saturday morning I was out of the house early and on my way to the mountain. It was your typical switchback route until maybe 500m below tree line. Then the switchbacks started getting steeper and steeper and more and more narrow. The drops to my left or right were getting scarier. I questioned what I was doing, and whether or not I should have heeded the sign that said “professionals only.” But you can’t just punk out without seeing anything cool. After about 3 hours I reached a refreshingly grassy outcropping with a great view. It was only getting more difficult after this but I needed to see that for myself, so I continued. It wasn’t long before I put away the stocke and started climbing with all fours. An hour and a half of concentration, looking for handholds, discriminating between loose and solid stone and not looking at the abyss behind me brought me to the peak. It was glorious. The way down was just as stressful as the way up, but I made it. Ben and Katie- If you ever do this kind of stuff I’ll kill you myself.

Then Sunday I went back. I enjoyed Mass in the pretty little pink church and climbed a more touristy hill from which I could see my mountain. It was alright. I think I’m done climbing until after the winter.

Urbayrische Party Time!

2005-10-02T23:00:00.000+02:00

I have a feeling that I’m not going to run out of interesting stories here. It seems like every time I think something is going to get boring, something comes along to spice up my life. Consider, if you will, this weekend. I moved in with the Prinz von Bayern family on Friday. Christoph* picked me up late again, though he promised to be on time. I was preparing for another weekend of feeling like the third wheel (or seventh, as it were). I put on my smiley face and waited for the kids to attack me. Yet somehow I started to feel more at ease, probably since I had a month to digest it all before jumping into the deep end. That night shortly after tea and cake time we hit the road in the van bound for the milk store.

It so happened that the milk store was in the middle of the most gorgeous rolling farmland in the world. In fact, I think Gudila* bought the milk from the farmer himself. It was beautiful. I climbed a big hill to look around and in the distance I could see a spectacular Bavarian landscape with a monastery sitting on a hill in the distance. For the first time in two months I took a deep breath. A Deep breath. I thought to myself “I wouldn’t mind living here… oh wait, I DO!” It was a terrific moment.

*(I can speak informally with the prince and princess at home, but with company I need to call him Herr von Bayern, and at public engagements Highness. If you ever visit or speak with them on the phone, ask me how you should address them)

That night during our evening meal the parents and I watched a cheesy soap opera. I say ‘evening meal’ and not ‘dinner’ because dinner would mean eating an American style hot meal that fills you up. In the evening here we only have a light soup, similar to ramen without the noodles, and a little bit of bread. I didn’t quite understand it at first but I’m thrilled with it now. It’s healthier to not binge before going to bed. Plus, there’s no snacking here. At all. With all of this healthy eating, using my feet to go places, and extra-running and conditioning I should be returning to America healthier than ever.

The next day I went into Munich to have a little city tour followed by a visit to Oktoberfest. In the tour I saw lots of things that I’ve already seen. Oktoberfest is crazy. There are so many drunken people around. Its just like a huge state fair with huge beer tents. The rides are really intense vomit comet types. It was not all that pleasant, but you have to see it once I guess. We didn’t stay to drink the expensive beer, but rather went to a good Bavarian restaurant and had a couple drinks and Bavarian foods. I really liked it. I had my first knödel in a couple years.

Afterwards we didn’t want to go home quite yet so we headed to a huge complex full of bars and discos. We settled for one where we could get the big ‘steins’ or Maß. I ordered my Maß with the intention of nursing it for as long as the group wanted to stay, but there’s a frat boy in our group who had to go and challenge everyone to a race. If you know anything about me, then you know that I pride myself on my powers of consumption and it’s not easy for me to turn down a challenge. Hot dogs, cherry pie, lemon pie, frozen French silk pie, Citrus fruits, ice cream… Still, I’d never raced with liquids, let alone Oktoberfest beer. Could I do it? Again, if you know anything about me, then you know the answer. When I finished mine off in less than two minutes the frat boy still had a third of his stein left. He looked like he was about to keel over and die. I felt bad, because I knew I had hurt his ego, but hey, I’ve got a reputation to keep up.

The beer didn’t really hit me like I thought it would, other than having to pee really bad. The alcohol had little effect to speak of. Still, I didn’t drink anything else while I was there. There was simply no more room in my belly, and I don’t believe in throwing away that kind of cash to chase a buzz. That’s dumb. While the others ordered their second round I just hung out. Then when we left the bar and one of the women in our group peed on a statue of Lenin in front of a communist disco I knew it was time for me to split off. The went searching for another club by the university and I took the train home. I was in bed by eleven.

The next morning the Americans got up early in order to get a seat in a tent at Oktoberfest. I opted out, being the only person with other Sunday morning obligations. I thought it was going to mean spending the rest of the day in my room rearranging my pens, but no. Christoph took me to a Weißwurstessen. This is a party where rich people and nobility with names like Maximilian, Luitpold, and Rupprecht join together at somebody’s house to eat Weißwurst, big pretzels, and Weißbier. When I walked in the [beautiful hand-carved] door I was handed a glass of champagne and introduced to everyone. They were absolutely charming. I met some people that I will probably run into frequently. The only other 20-something’s were either cooking, cleaning, or looking after the kids. I would have liked to speak with them more, but no. I was at the big-people table talking about Wagner’s opera and international education with some Bavarian guy who went to Harvard. It was really cool to enjoy very very traditional Bavarian food with very very rich Bavarians. While my American friends were in some tent drinking very expensive beer and sitting surrounded by drunken Italians, I was enjoying the fruits of German aristocracy for free. I really step in it sometimes. We didn’t leave until late afternoon, because the kids didn’t want to leave the indoor pool next to the dining room. They were having far too much fun with the feature that creates a current across the pool.

And now I’m sitting here on my couch with King Maximilian the First keeping company with me from his frame on the wall. Life is good.

don't cry, i'm going to a better place

2005-09-30T00:49:00.000+02:00

I guess it should be said that I have very much enjoyed my stay in Cologne. That’s not to say that I like Cologne… I really don’t. I find it to be dirty, smelly and overwhelmingly unattractive. More than that, there seems to be a spiritual emptiness here. There are so many hopeless people. So much of the advertising is overtly sexual. There are so many people sleeping on benches cuddling with beer bottles. At the train station there is a porn theater and a room set aside for people who want to use hard drugs. The Cathedral is blanketed in soot because of the heavy industry. It’s dismal.

Yet there’s value in being consciously otherworldly in a place like this. While this town hasn’t quite been Bethany House, God talks to me just as much here, if not more. The contrast that this place sets to where I come from only strengthens my perception of the effectiveness of prayer. God wants to do great things for these people and when He does, be it through my prayer or that of the church, it shows very tangibly. Still, it’s not a place that I’m very fond of.

But I did enjoy my stay. I liked hanging out with different groups of people and just observing the ways that people interact with one another. This could have been a reality TV show. We had lots of American 20-somethings living together in an unfamiliar place and doing things that they wouldn’t do under Mommy and Daddy’s roof. There were drugs, fights, sex, parties, coupling up, breaking up… everything you need to get good ratings. It was fun for me to be the straight shooter here. You never realize how much fun it can be to behave yourself when you’re doing it at home, but when you move away and your conduct is suddenly above and beyond the standard people react to you differently. If you refuse to behave poorly or adapt in order to be popular people start to respect you. I know that probably doesn’t make sense, but take my word for it.

Tomorrow I’m moving. Feldafing has two Catholic churches, clean air, a lake, a view of the mountains and a beautiful house for me to stay in. I think Christoph wants to take me to see the Archbishop of Bavaria this weekend. I’ll let you know if that works out.

yeah, sounds about right

2005-09-24T22:40:00.000+02:00

You are a
Social Conservative
(21% permissive)

and an...
Economic Moderate
(55% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Republican

Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating

All Partied Out

2005-09-23T13:57:00.000+02:00

When did I last write? Let’s see. I’ll just start with the last notable thing that I remember. I think I’ll start with last Tuesday, a wholly unremarkable day. I went to class and after dinner at home I headed to Flanagan’s, an Irish pub where Americans go to drink on Tuesday nights. I had a couple of overpriced drinks but called it quits when I remembered that I still had school the next day. There was dancing, which was fun. I would have liked to stay and dance more, but instead I left early enough to catch the train home.

So Wednesday I got up for breakfast at 7:00 but went back to bed and missed a couple hours of class. I wasn’t questioned about my tardiness, though others often are. I don’t think the teacher cares about me, and it probably has something to do with me not caring very much for his class, yet still achieving the highest test scores of anyone at the school right now. You’re allowed to be a slacker if you’ve already had 8 years of German and have no more interest in basic grammar. After finishing class and getting something to eat I went across town to a house party. There was some good conversation, cheap whiskey, “real” Budweiser from the Czech republic and sangria. I left the party early enough to catch a train home but had some difficulties on the way. I won’t mention what those were, but suffice it to say that I didn’t make it into school the next day.

On Friday I went to class on time and the instructor still didn’t seem to care that I had skipped an entire day. That was good. That night there was a party sponsored by my language school. 50 cent glasses of beer or wine. I had a friend who put back almost 5 liters of beer that night. I didn’t drink anything, but still had a good time talking to everyone. I left around midnight, which turned out to be a good idea, since shortly after that a fight broke out between the Africans and, well, everyone else. I didn’t hear too much about it.

I woke up early on Saturday morning and met my friend in the shopping district. We went to some book stores and browsed some other stores. I bought some German books, since by then I had finished my second book in German since arriving last month. I also bought Peter Pan for a bit of escapist literature. That night I tried to go to the vigil Mass, but napped though it. Consequently I traveled to the Cathedral to see when their morning Masses are.

On Sunday morning I went to one of those Masses and afterwards met the Americans by the Hauptbahnhof, where we caught a bus to Strasbourg, France. Pretty crazy. They put us up in a classy hotel, gave us 5 meals, and tours of the European parliament, the European council, and the city as a whole. I’m sorry to say that I still don’t quite understand the purpose of those political bodies are, but they both had pretty buildings. The city was interesting. It has belonged to the French and been taken away by the Germans and subsequently given back to the French after huge altercations with third parties so many times that the architecture is Prussian, French and Black Forest all at the same time. The language was screwed up too. I felt like I had returned home, since most of my family either comes from Alsace, or Prussian Germany.

The big thing for our group of Americans was to buy lots of inexpensive wine and drink it really fast at all hours of the day. I had no interest in that, but it was fun to watch everybody else do it.

The best part of the trip was seeing the cathedral. You may recall that I’m not very fond of the French. Well, I’m happy to say that I have another reason to make fun of them. You may recall the Cathedral in Cologne: a massive construction with two gargantuan towers. The cathedral in Strasbourg looks the same, if a bit smaller, with one great difference. During its construction, the French ran out of sticktuitiveness and completely left out the second tower. They didn’t run out of money, they just gave up. It’s ridiculous. Silly French.

We returned to Cologne on Tuesday night. I finished Peter Pan but didn’t do my homework again. Then on Wednesday night, the government sponsored a mandatory fancy-schmancy party for all of us again. There were also scholarship recipients from all over the world. They gave us a five course meal, and a neverending supply of beer, which my American comrades enjoyed very much. Think GR superauction… with a live salsa band. I had not been drinking very much and thus managed to be the only American in the room who could do any sort of latin dance whatsoever. I got mad props, even from the latinos. It was fun. The bus ride back to Cologne after the party was interesting, since many of the people were trashed. Some dork was even sneaking up and down the aisle giving wet willies. I think somebody got back at him by putting chewing gum down his crack, so everything worked out fair and square.

Its Friday now, and I didn’t have a party last night, but we had a wine and cheese party in class today and in a little while I’m going to my teachers house for a coffee and cake party. After that, who knows? I think I’m ready for a break from partying.

Did I mention that your tax dollars are paying for all of this? Thanks.

How to Micromanage a Sentence

2005-09-09T08:58:00.000+02:00

You might think that writing a sentence should be a simple, mundane task, requiring employment of only the slightest of faculties from any literate person. You might already have even written a sentence today. Who knows? Maybe you’ve written a few. Nevertheless, I doubt that any of you have yet written a properly micro-managed hypertaktisch sentence today, or ever, for that matter.

It starts with an over-educated and well under-paid, almost middle aged, unmarried man who walks quite ungracefully the thin line between American metrosexual and Euroslob. This man, though transparently self-conscious of his underdeveloped career and series of failed long distance relationships, wields the façade of confidence in his Doktor title and Dutch heritage. Being of sound grammatical mind and firm resolve to stretch a sentence to the limits of sensibility, he recruits a team of above average recent college graduates to join him in the adventure.

Together they sit at table in a room that had been carefully selected for its grammatically conducive conditions. The chairs are soft. The temperature reaches 32 degrees during midday. The fan makes a faint, rhythmic knocking sound, as if it were the metronome of enduring syllabic goodness. Fluorescent bulbs illuminate the baby blue bolding in the student dictionaries all over the room. Entering the room is like treading in a temple of linguistic bliss. It would almost be appropriate to tie a tether to each team member’s ankle and a bell to their neck. Should the beauty of grammar overwhelm and smite any team member, the death knell would sound and they could be promptly pulled from that most phantasmagoric of spaces.

The man thinks of his childhood with longing for an easier time. He is reminded of the horse that his parents never bought for him. Suddenly inspiration and a rubber eraser hit him in the head and from his pen flows in black ink a subject, the Horse. In his glee the man sheds a tear and looks at his team, waiting for their approval. Realizing that nobody else at the table understands what brilliance has found him, he nods incessantly and stares at each team member individually until the joy welling up inside of him wins over. Being scarcely able to contain it any longer, the man shouts “The horse!”

Everyone at once bows their head and replicates what the man has said. For the next fifteen minutes they discuss how it could go on. Could the horse be eating? Trotting perhaps? What about discussing politics? Can the horse do that? No! Horses don’t talk! But maybe they talked! Yes! Or maybe the horse jumps. That must be it! Yes! The Horse jumps! But it can’t be that simple. The horse jumps already, in the past, but how does one say that? Is it already jumped? Jamped the horse? Maybe it jamps still. They must know the verb!! When will he say?! As they argue a growing sense of dissatisfaction arises, giving way to anger and emotional outbursts. How cruel it is that the verb always comes at the end!

The man sees the curiosity of his team and cannot help but let them know what’s coming next. It excites him and throws him into a spinning euphoria to let them know that something out of the ordinary is coming… something uncanny. He and his team have never been to the limits of the usefulness of a verb, but they soon will. As the man finally informs them that they would be using indikativ plusquamperfekt in a passive construction, he loses control of himself and pees his pants, but only a little.

What does that mean? The team surely wasn’t ready for this. The arguing is reaching a crescendo and the true character of each team member starts to come out. Most of them try to reason with the sentence, throwing their arms about like hairy Italians at a “Bring Your Own Box of Wine” grill party where the gnocchi runs out before the sauerkraut. Some wail uncontrollably, others sit quietly in disbelief that grammar should ever affect people so. They never saw it coming, but in the end there was nothing they could have done. The horse had been beaten to death.

First Impressions

2005-09-09T08:47:00.000+02:00

Raise your hand if you’ve ever lived with a prince. Five princes and two princesses, to be exact. … Well, since I’m the only one in the room with his hand up, I’d better tell you about my experience this weekend.

I arrived at the train station with the three other Americans who will live in Feldafing. Their families were there waiting and very excited to see them. Unfortunately nobody from the Prinz von Bayern family was there to join them. Hmmm. That’s fine. Christy’s host family let me accompany them home and they called Herr Prinz von Bayern on his cell. Meanwhile, I got to see Christy’s pad. Freaking amazing. The house has like five stories of Bavarian beauty. Her place was on the top floor, where she has a bedroom, a bath, a kitchen and a gorgeous living room all to herself. I was massively impressed. Then Herr Prinz von Bayern showed up with his three boys (his wife and daughter were out of town for a funeral). Apparently, sailing training ran late for them. We drove home in the biggest, pimpest minivan I’ve ever seen. On the way we made small talk, or at least tried to. The first thing that I noticed about Herr Prinz von Bayern was that he’s not a big talker. And that he’s Euroskinny.

The town is nice. It’s rich people land. Tons of huge houses. A view of the Alps over the lake. Flower boxes everywhere. This is where the rich people go to retire. I’m excited about my proximity to the mountains.

The home is large. It was built just a couple of years ago and is much more modern than your typical Bavarian house. -I know what you’re thinking- By modern, I don’t mean artsy fartsy Wirtschaftswunder Neubau modern. By modern I mean that everything was well thought out and built carefully. There is lots of space, but none of it is superfluous. There are no rooms that you have to stop and wonder about because of their absolute uselessness, as has been my practice here. I know exactly what the intended function of every room is and space has been appropriately distributed to each. The floors are all wood or tile and the floors don’t creak (yay!)

There are three floors and a basement. The first floor is under dirt-level in the front of the house and opens up to a garden and large patio in the back with lots of tasteful glass windows and doors. On this floor are the mud room (uncommon in Germany), kitchen and breakfast room, dining room, foyer, coat room, living room, office and a few bathrooms. The second floor is has five or six large bedrooms, a wash room, and three bathrooms. The third floor has a large guest room, a small guest room, a common space and a bathroom. I live in the small guest room.

I like my pad on the third floor. I have internet hook-up, a separate phone line and a small roof top balcony. I’ll have to share when there are guests, but otherwise the third floor is mine. The only things that I find unsatisfactory are the low slanted ceilings in my room. When I move back I’ll rearrange the furniture so that I’ll have more head room in the walkable areas. I think it will work out.

The house has one television and it only comes on for 30 minutes once per day so that the kids can watch the news. This is a very good thing.

The house seems to be very kid-friendly, and if it weren’t filled with genealogies of nobility and family portraits with men in funny suits and lots of medals then you might not think it very princely. It doesn’t seem strange to the kids that the pictures on the wall are paintings of kings and queens. Still, it’s new to me. I think I’ll enjoy learning about Bavarian history and culture from Herr Prinz von Bayern.

I didn’t do very much over the course of the weekend. I was sort of expecting them to show me around a bit or at least talk to me about the coming year. I guess that’s not their style. Instead I just hung out with the kids. I pretended to play sail boat, broke up a fight after the six year old got a bloody nose, played in the sandbox and woke up with kids on my bed both mornings. I have to wonder if they’re expecting me to be an au pair, because that’s the impression I got from the beginning. I tried to make myself available to the parents as much as possible, should they want to engage me in some grown-up conversation, but it was not to be.

The kids are as follows: Corbinian is nine. He has an interest in rockets and even has a Lego space shuttle. He likes legos very much. He took me for a walk along the lake and told me lots about the area and his family. Seems to be good for a discussion and he’s very friendly. Stanislaus is eight. At first he seemed like the quiet one and I would have figured him for a nerd until he went psycho with a mouse trap and started beating on his brothers. And then there was the time he knocked over all the chairs in the kitchen and danced on the breakfast table during dinner. I like his quieter alter ego very much. The ornery side needs some special attention. Marcello is six. He’s peaceful and charming when he plays by himself, but when his big brothers or the parents are there he lets loose a bit. Odilia is three. She’s just a sweetie pie, but knows how to cry when she wants something. The kids have lots of energy and its going to drive me nuts, but it’ll be good for me.

I admit that it’s not what I expected. I had hoped the parents would be a little more engaging, since I’m feeling kind of new and out of place. I had also naively figured the kids would be mild mannered like I was when I was young. As it stands, I know that I’ve got a challenge ahead of me… but then, if it were easy the whole thing wouldn’t be worth my time anyway.

There are dandelions floating in my tea.

2005-08-30T14:23:00.000+02:00

The plan for this weekend was to go camping. I had two offers, one to go camping near Frankfurt and the other to go hiking along the Rhine. In Frankfurt it would have been more like a party/picnic at a drive in campground. Lots of Kölsch. For the Rhine trip, some of my friends were going to hike along the river, look for castles and pitch a tent when they got tired. I wonder how the trips worked out.

I stayed at home in Köln, nursing the craziest sore throat I’ve ever had. I didn’t have the typical symptoms of a cold, but my glands were swollen like mad and I couldn’t talk or swallow. My voice worked for about every fourth syllable. On Thursday and Friday all I could get out was a whisper. I just couldn’t go camping.

The weekend turned out to be fairly relaxing. On Friday night I went back and looked at the Superbombe films and did some editing that I’d been meaning to do for a long time. I even became inspired at one point to start writing the screenplay for the third episode. Wouldn’t it be fun if Axel von Bonn and General Großkopf survived the explodinated warehouse and Uti and Quarkundquatsch lived through the plane crash? Of course it would, but they didn’t. There’s no practical way that we could get together to make a third film and no reason to do it anyway. Nostalgia. --- In any case, I moved some of the story boards around in the second movie so that it makes more sense. I wish I could email it to y’all.

On Saturday I went down to breakfast looking like a thug. A sick thug. And then I spent the rest of the day looking like a sick thug who likes to edit home videos and write poetry. I finally put some shoes on and left the house for a bit of exercise followed by a coffee and some reading. I’ve finished my first book since I’ve been here. Der Gelbe Bleistift. It’s a worthwhile read, but at times it was like reading a ten page long joke and missing the punch-line at the end, because you had to know that the author was referring to some 1970’s German political figure. Great. What’s next? I’m thinking about reading a mystery novel called ‘Gletscher Grab’ by an Icelandic author. Or ‘Faserland’, another Christian Kracht book. Or ‘Das Jesus Video’ by Andreas Eschbach. The latter looks the most interesting, but its pretty long and I don’t know if I’m ready for that sort of commitment. Most books that you’ll find in the book store here are just translations of books by American authors. John Grisham is big here. It’s hard to find a good escapist book by a German author. Don’t give me Goethe or Schiller or Heine. I’ve read far too much of that ‘worthwhile’ literature and now I just want to read something that keeps my attention. I was thinking that I would very much like to read that one about the competing wizards… ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell’ or whatever it’s called. Only, it would take me a year to get through it in German and it’s kind of expensive to boot. I’m not going to read harry potter. I refuse. I’ll just have to spend some more time browsing the book store, which is pleasant in itself.

On Sunday morning I had my breakfast, then walked to the nearby church for the 10:00 Mass. They had an African priest who was celebrating his 25th year of priesthood, the completion of his second doctorate and his departure from the parish for another assignment. His family and friends came from Nigeria to celebrate and every now and then they would play and sing traditional African stuff. They had a lot of percussion instruments and lots of enthusiasm. We even sang Koombaya during the consecration. You see something new everyday. After Mass there was a party for everyone. You know how they normally give you coffee and donuts after Mass in the States? Not here! For us, it was cashews and Kölsch [that’s THE bier here]. After my second Kölsch I got to talking with this funny old German dude and his friends about post-Mass activities in America. After a brief drumming performance by a bunch of Germans in FC Brasilia apparel I moved into the parish hall with my new German friends for some traditional African food. I couldn’t quite make some of the foods out at first, but the Germans were quick to identify things as a form of either potato or wurst.

So speaking of stereotypes, I was walking through the street festival near my house just looking at the people. Let’s see if I can lay a few generalizations down and maybe create some of my own… Wurst and good beer and good bread are actually the food here. They don’t have anything else anywhere in the country. Sometimes there’s cheese here, but all of it smells like horses doovers.

Young German women are generally pretty, it’s true. And all of them generally look very much the same. Blonde hair [real or fake], round faces and bright eyes. You don’t see many women between 30 and 50, but somewhere in there, all of those pretty young girls turn into shriveled old women with spiky purple hair and yellowed smokers teeth. Icky. I think the only explanation is that, by law, they can’t use preservatives in their food and that they don’t have fluoride in the water. Americans may consume lots of junk chemicals in their food, but at least our women stay fresh!

The same could be said about the men, though I don’t think I’ve seen too many of the well groomed young men with blonde hair and blue eyes. Rather, the otherwise handsome young men get these ridiculous looking haircuts with Mohawks and spikes and highlights and shaved pictures and the ‘flock of seagulls’ bangs. I want to make fun of them, but we’ve got our share of jokers in the states. Anyway, when these guys grow up, they forget what a good haircut looks like or never learned in the first place and they all get this style that looks like a toned down mullet. It’s better than flock of seagulls, but I still can’t take these guys seriously.

Also, the entertainers here have a thing for doing bad covers of old American hits. Today, I saw an obscenely fat woman singing ‘I will always love you’. I saw a guy in a cowboy outfit setting politically satirical lyrics to an old Willy Nelson tune and a guy with a mullet doing Blues Brothers covers. It was priceless.

One thing I have to cede is that German people, contrary to everything you’ve ever heard, are fun loving and inviting people. They really do know how to have a good time.

WORLD YOUTH upDAYte

2005-08-23T08:32:00.000+02:00

It’s been a while since I’ve written, and I blame this for the most part on the events of World Youth Day. I volunteered about two weeks ago to work every day during the week after I was done with class. They gave me lots of stuff: Rain jacket, t-shirts, backpack, free food, insurance, and much more. I then received an email telling me to go to Düsseldorf for training on Saturday morning. I did, and learned subsequently that I would be working in catering, that is, I would be giving out meals. However, there was a bit of a mix up. The people didn’t read my application very well, because they assigned me to a group that was to work exactly at the time that I go to class. I told my group leader, a German girl of 18, that I wouldn’t be able to make it. She said that she would at least call me and let me know where they were working during the weekend.

The training wasn’t all that interesting, but as there were many nations represented and the only commonly understood language was English, they needed somebody to translate the seminar from German. I was volunteered, since I was the only native English speaker. It was nerve racking since I was also learning the information for the first time, but it worked out and I successfully translated spoken German into English for about an hour. The icebreakers were fun too. All fifty of us had to pretend that the room was a map of the world and then move to our country of origin. It was great. I was alone on the opposite side of the room from pretty much everyone. It was pretty easy for me to turn into the popular guy in the room.

We all (the volunteers) went to a club called E-Werk that evening. I had fun dancing and chilling with some German folks, but I wasn’t really into the atmosphere. The club was really big and very open, although very packed. I prefer a smaller space, and I think I also like my clubs a bit on the dirtier side. But it was directly on my train line, so I didn’t have to wait around for a transfer. That was nice.

On Sunday I went to the volunteers Mass in Leverkusen. It was held in a soccer arena and right about communion time it started raining. I was sheltered, but the priests and EMHC’s were soaked on their way to us. I thought that was noteworthy.

Monday I didn’t really do anything worthwhile. But the pilgrims arrived and the streets began to fill.

Tuesday was more exciting. I made a trip to the Cathedral to see how things were going. It was utter chaos. You’ve never seen this many people. I tried to get my free volunteer food, but the lines were horrendous. On the way home I ran into the biggest traffic jam of people and trains that you’ve ever seen. Everybody wanted to go to the stadium by my apartment, so every man, woman and child swarmed my train. Even when everybody was on the train, it wasn’t going anywhere, because thousands of people and a long line of similar trains stood in the way. I resolved to walk a kilometer and take a bus to my house. That worked much better, but because of the traffic havoc it still took me 2.5 hours to get home. My host made me dinner and I went by foot to the stadium where everyone was gathering. I arrived late, so I couldn’t get in. That was better anyway. The real party was outside. In front of the stadium is a large meadow where thousands more were crowded to enjoy the party. I’m sure I had much more fun outside, taking pictures of happy people, than I would have if I had to sit in a seat in a jam-packed arena. It was my first real encounter with the youth of the world, and their overall attitude left me with warm fuzzies and a glow.

On Wednesday after class I went with Brandis, a friend from the language school who had also volunteered, to get our free lunch. It went much better this time; we found a group of Americans from Wisconsin to eat with. I told them that I was from Ann Arbor and one of them said that her good friend from college, Kathleen Cousino, lives there. I thought that was a funny coincidence. I told them how I play poker with her husband and updated them on, their son, Benedict Joseph.

Then my friend and I went to a park where they were giving out free cake and chocolate milk. I filled my backpack with as many Schokotrunks, as would fit. After taking the picture of us, the American asked me if I knew Ralph Martin.

I parted ways with Brandis and went to a Steubenville prayer meeting, then took some pictures at a concert. I liked a lot of my pictures. Pictures of random people are more fun for me than pictures of acquaintances, because I can create a little story about them in my head. Some people just seem like they have the most intriguing look to them.

Thursday was the arrival of the Pope. My friend Andrew and I went down to the Rhine where he was first going to stop and say some words. We went several hours early, so we got a good spot right on the fence. That worked out until some French people moved their handicapped people in front of the fence. They thought that since they had some people in wheel chairs, the rules didn’t apply to them. They put a big banner up right in my face and yelled at me when I lifted it out of my face. Eventually the police came and made them move behind the fence. In doing so they completely displaced the people beside me who had waited hours upon hours to get their spot on the fence. I found them very offensive and inconsiderate. And they were all wearing pink. I just don’t like the French in general. Maybe this goes back to the whiny French exchange student we had when I was in fourth grade, or maybe it has to do with the materials science GSI I had in college who had a tantrum because I wasn’t interested in his class. The simple fact remains, I’m not impressed with the French. (wow, that was a tangent) Anyway, The pope came by on his little boat, I took some pictures and went on my way home. I missed dinner, because the police blocked a bridge I wanted to cross. Terrific.

On Friday Brandis and I went for our free lunch again. It was good lunch, but we had to eat with French people. Then it rained a bit and I ran into Sarah Rzeppa for the second time this week. And an Italian man gave me 30 cans of vegetable salad… Yum! Brandis went home and I went to hear Chris Padgett play a long set. He’s pretty good in my opinion, and I hope he’s doing alright and making a decent living through what he does.

Then that night I went to a party with the language school people. Fifty cent drinks makes for great dancing. And when I woke up on Saturday afternoon I was pretty much still dancing. Yeah. Enough said.

Then I made my way to the Marienfeld to meet the CTK people. It was thirty minutes by train and two hours on foot. There were so many people. It was a sea of bodies and flags. Craziness. When I got to the LifeTeen group people gave me a t-shirt, lots of birthday cards and lots of hugs. It was fun. I could tell that the group had had a heck of a trip. People were sleeping all over the place and it was barely five o’clock. Joe Grin-yeh-vich [phonetic spelling] was in a wheel chair and I heard that Christian Fenton had also been to the hospital. It was fun. I had my birthday absolved and then went to Mass with the brothers. They had a little time of adoration, which was honestly the high point of the week for me, even though it was really short, and right in the midst of the crowd.

That night I played Frisbee with Nicole and Jess and pretty much ignored everything that was going on. I completely ignored the whole papal vigil thing. About the time when the Pope exposed the Blessed Sacrament, I was translating crepe orders for Charlotte, Annie, Felipe and some other people. It was not terribly easy for me to be interested in whatever was going on a mile away, even if it was important.

Ben Kopinski and I shared a tarp that night. I had a blanket, but it was darn cold. And with the ambulance sirens going all night I couldn’t expect to get much sleep. Around midnight I heard a drum beat and a tambourine going pretty loudly. I looked over and there was a group of Spanish people dancing a fun little rumba around in a circle. I liked their style so I joined up. I danced for an hour or two with the Spaniards before making another sleeping attempt. I think I may have gotten 4 total hours of frequently interrupted sleep, but it was enough. In the morning it was so very cold. Everybody was shivering and wrapping up in emergency blankets. Jimmy seriously looking deathly.

The clouds were moving in and we all had rain on the brain. The fog was so thick, that if you looked around you would see a see an ocean of people and a wall of white emptiness behind them. It seemed that we were standing on the edge of the world.

I paid attention to the papal Mass this time and the group made a break for the gate right after communion. I went with them as far as the subway before going my own way. Now Köln is quiet again, and its good people have their trains back.

In other news, I’m scheduled to visit my host family during the first weekend in September. You can send me mail there as of the beginning of October. The address is as follows.

Matthew Panning
c/o Familie Prinz von Bayern
Trendelstr. 17
82340 Feldafing, Germany

If you want to send me mail sooner than October, then please send it to my language school.

Matthew Panning
c/o Carl Duisberg Centren
Hansaring 49-51
50670 Köln, Germany

2005-08-12T08:35:00.000+02:00

What’s up everyone!

I’ve looked at the previous posts, and I realize I haven’t really given any interesting information yet. Hopefully this will be somewhat more enlightening.

I’m just chillin in Cologne, waiting for all sorts of people to show up and meet the pope. It’s pretty crazy around here. Everyone is excited and nervous to see if these crazy Catholics are going to raze the place. Köln is pretty cool. They’ve got a really big Church here. I hope y’all get to see it sometime.

I’m volunteering for the events so they gave me two T-Shirts, a rain jacket, three meals a day for all of August, a backpack, a baseball cap, a rosary, lots of maps and a big inflatable hand. Hahahahahaha! People from CTK have to pay almost 2k to do all of this and I’m doing it for free. And I get perks… I get to cut in line when I want food. During the vigil I won’t have to sleep in the rain or go without a shower, since my apartment is within walking distance. Much thanks to the German government and the Catholic Church. It’s like a huge, free vacation. Well, it would be like a vacation if it didn’t rain all the time. It’s rainy and cold here. Most of the time.

The people are very nice here. As an average, I have about three conversations with German strangers every day. They want to know where I’m from, if I’m here for WJT, where I learned German and what I’m doing next. I like to talk to strangers. They’re fun. I’m looking forward to a great year of this. There are also a lot of funny Germans. If you walk around or sit in the subway, you’ll notice that German people really like to look at people. In America you might catch a glance from somebody and then turn your head, but here, they look you in the eye… and keep looking you in the eye. Its strange. Maybe it’s just me.

Meanwhile, I’m taking a language class in the morning. It’s really easy and the homework isn’t that bad, but I feel like I’m in high school again. They give me work books full of grammar that I’ve already learned. I’m in the highest class they offer for people who aren’t fluent, so I guess I’m on my way up at any rate. At night I just chill and plan vacations. I’m living with a kind, older woman who boards language school students. She makes breakfast for me in the morning and dinner also if I want. She lets me practice my language skillz all the time. If you get to Köln give me a ring. 0176 265 10028. I’d be happy to show you around or buy you a döner.

So in a month and a half I’ll be moving in with the prince of Bavaria, who lives on a golf course and on a lake in a big house. I can’t tell you any more right now. Oh, and I’ll be studying at the mechanical engineering department and FH Munich.

So, what are y’all up to nowadays?

So here's a funny "joke"

2005-08-07T13:08:00.000+02:00

Two Catholics, two Mormons and a Jew walk into a gay bar.

I think you can figure out the punch line. At least it sounded like it should be a joke. I'd elaborate more, but my internet time is running short.

if my life had a soundtrack...

2005-07-28T15:45:00.000+02:00

I will sail my vessel
’til the river runs dry
Like a bird upon the wind
These waters are my sky
I’ll never reach my destination
If I never try
So I will sail my vessel
’til the river runs dry.

Too many times we stand aside
And let the waters slip away
’til what we put off ’til tomorrow
Has now become today
So don’t you sit upon the shoreline
And say you’re satisfied
Choose to chance the rapids
And dare to dance the tide.

- Garth Brooks

Of the American Standard Champion

2005-07-14T17:51:00.000+02:00

When subjected to rigorous industry and private tests, America’s Best Flushing System generated impressive results. In independent flush-quantity tests conducted by SGS U.S. Testing, for example, 41 rubber tubes were sent rushing down the drain in one fast and furious flush. Another flush eliminated 31 synthetic sponges, and a third made 16 cloth napkins disappear. American Standard’s own tests removed up to 29 golf balls during one flush. The toilet was also a top performer when subjected to National Association of Homebuilders’ testing protocol.

One word says it all: “Whoosh.”American Standard knew that America’s Best Flushing System had passed the ultimate test when consumers started using the Champion Toilet and began sharing their reactions, like this one from Scoggin: “WOW! I cannot adequately express my consumer glee over this terrific innovation of yours; it’s made our lives SO much better…it just flushes. Always. Every time. It just flushes. Whoosh. A sound to bring joy to a mother’s heart.”

moving on up

2005-07-06T06:29:00.000+02:00

tonight my family and barbara went to the whitney. it was rather intense, but most of us kept our composure. no incidents, no embarrassments. still, i would have been well pleased to eat leftovers instead of a $75 meal. the food was outstanding (i very highly recommend the blue cheese souffle salad) and the atmosphere as delightful as they come in the world of the upper crust, but its still $75 that i might have spent differently. maybe some camera accessories. God bless my aunt for paying for the $400 meal. i love her, but i'm not well suited for aristocratic gastronomy.

has anyone seen my keys? they're on the Jesus 2000 lanyard.

the beginning of something new

2005-07-06T06:24:00.000+02:00

i'm starting a new blog to chronicle the events that will come to pass in germany and where ever else i end up in the next year. i like xanga, but with blogger i am able to post pictures. so there it is.