Notes aus Deutschland

the most beautiful bike path in the world

2007-03-15T20:11:00.000+01:00

Well, the sun is finally out, Floyd is finally free, and I am out on my bike exploring. My poor floyd, my pink bike, hes been stolen twice, both times to be rescued by the police. I am convinced he has a girlfriend, although what female wants a man who always wears bright pink. Maybe he has a boyfriend...

So I have been out and about, riding through Munich, rediscovering the city in many new ways. My plan has been all along to ride to work when it gets warm, so I set out yesterday on a trial run. Even equipped with a bicycle map, i got completely lost and rode aimlessly around the north of munich for more than an hour and a half until i found the kindergarten, at which point i was too tired to ride back, so i left my bike sitting at the subway station. At least it would save me my bus ride the next day, and I could attempt the route home.

So I found myself this morning on my bike, running 20 minutes late, freezing without gloves or a hat in the morning fog, and trying to resolve a small fight with artur about waking him up every morning (torture..) on the cell phone, ,while attempting not to get run over. The day had started out well.

But as I managed to find the perfect route home on another sunny day, I discovered that my route would take me past munich's most beautiful sites: The English Garden, the Isar river, the bavarian government building, the state art museum, the freedom angel monument, the deutsches museum, rows and rows of turn of the century houses, forest, water, sunbathers, cafes...i was so happy. Every day I will see these things on my ride to and from work... not bad.

now I am baking a cake for my half birthday, which is tomorrow. Germans celebrate half birthdays even less than americans, but i am trying to right an embarassing moment at work, where i brought only cookies but everybody after me brought a feast. So tomorrow i am bringing a feast!! to make up for it.

Now, back to Anna and the King dubbed in german...

bardzo dobrze

2007-03-12T20:49:00.000+01:00

well, it was good to be back to work. Postage stamp lotto worked well, the kids were happy to see me, and i felt productive again. The sun was shining and sitting on the park bench watching the kids screaming and running around and feeling the color returning to my face was a joy.

After work i went to MY apartment (apartment #2) and got my mail, and jumped for joy because i had finally received my work recommendation that ive been waiting for to send off my application for the masters program at the munich university of applied sciences in international communication and cooperation.

And so i took the ubahn to apartment #1, got my papers together, and rushed to my polish class. Today we learned "how are you" (jak sie masz), various greetings, and other grammar. I love it. I cant wait to test out my new knowledge on my next visit to arturs family.

Now i am sitting at home, drinking a weißbier and waiting for artur to come home even though its 9pm. Have i already become so spinstressly?

Oh well. Tomorrow I meet Mauro for italian refresher # 3..it might be possible to do the lesson in a beer garden, which would be great. Really great. Barzdo Dobrze!!

15 euros for 2 beers and a country song

2007-03-11T23:12:00.000+01:00

well, i survived my boredom well enough, and resolved my guilt about artur, and calmed my stomach, all on friday afternoon, mostly with a heavy dose of aerobics and bike riding, sweet floyd is back! The evening included a nice peaceful dinner at my french friends house and an attempt to attend a party on friday evening, which was somewhat successful but which proved that i wasnt quite ready to consume a large amount of alcohol.

saturday was lazy at first and then artur and i went to breakfast, delicious breakfast, at a cafe that serves all kinds of interesting food combinations. Mine included spicy salami, vanilla yogurt, special cheese, a blueberry muffin, banana marmelade, and tomato scrambled eggs. Mmmm.

Then artur and I ventured into the city center, a virtual zoo on saturday, to stroll through shopping malls and stores. Purchases included: an outerspace calendar (on sale cause 2007 is well underway...), a half a kilo of used stamps for collectors that i want to use in my post office theme in the kindergarten, which we sorted over diet cokes in mcdonalds, the worlds most crowded mcdonalds, two glasses of juice cocktails from a promotion action at a department store, we got the juice and got to keep the glasses, they even packed the sticky empty ones up for you in a pretty bag, and we shopped for an alarm clock and finally decided on one, but everywhere was sold out.

And then the evening took us to a country music bar called oklahoma, where we sat peacefully and enjoyed one song and marveled at the fact that such a bar in munich exists until we realized that the owners hat sneakily written the cover charge on our coasters (cover charge?? we didnt know) and 8 euros was a bit too much for such a kitchy experience, and we fought with them over paying the charge for having seen one song, ended up paying for the beers we didnt even finish and for one cover charge, 15 euros for 2 beers and a country song, almost new york prices!

but we didnt let that stop our evening, and met a group of friends for some cheaper beers and then watched the kitch horror movie slither until 4am. Which turned our sunday into a lazy day, complete with adam sandlers click and postage stamp sorting. I made a memory game with postage stamps.

Now I have to go back to work tomorrow...hopefully i will get back into the swing of things after my hiatus.. at any rate, only three weeks to go till vienna and then sardinia vacation...mmmmm

it started out well...

2007-03-08T19:47:00.000+01:00

I woke up with Artur at my side to the horrible beeping of the alarm that I normally fight with every morning, hitting it every three minutes to silence the beeping that resumes again in three minutes, making it the most horrible alarm clock ever made, with the shortest snooze ever. Sometimes I even take the time to reset the alarm for seven minutes later, just to get a reasonable snooze, before flopping back into unconsciousness.

But this morning Artur got to fight with the alarm, and although I am not particularly reknowned for bounding out of bed and greeting the day with cheer, it's an art i have slowly mastered after dozens of grumpy winter mornings waking up at 5:45, knowing if i don't, 3-6 year olds will be standing along in the cold waiting for me to unlock the kindergarten door. Artur is a master of not getting up, and since the only smiling faces waiting for him at work are computer monitors and adult coworkers, he isnt quite as motivated as me, so i actually have to wake him up after 45 minutes of snoozing, because im wide awake and i have to go to my ultrasound in an hour.

Thats right folks, an ultrasound. I thought they were only for pregnant women, but appartently they are also used for people with strange stomach pains. Which are sometimes one and the same, but in my case im hoping to hear something like "ah, your left quadral intestinal apartment is a little swollen" instead of "it's a girl!" So I shower and leave the house after a ruffled Artur runs out the door, and catch the subway to my doctors office.

I really liked the waiting room from the first moment I found this doctors office, in the way I find all my favorite places in Munich: desperation. I really needed to see a doctor, and this was the first sign I saw that said "general practice" so I walked in and tada, I am now the proud patient of drS teubner... a mother and daughter pair of doctors who are apparently fond of elephants or at least their family, friends, and the entire country of germany thinks they are, as the waiting room is littered with china elephants, wooden elephants, stuffed elephants, elephant paintings, elephant postcards, and all manner of quotes about elephants.

I am called into what appears to be the nurses room and the bubbly nurse (i didnt know there were bubbly GERMAN nurses!) noticed immediatly that getting a blood sample taken made me very nervous. So she asked me exactly eleven questions in a row whereareyoufromyoudonthaveagermanaccentahtheUSAwhereahpittsburghiveheardofititsonthewestcoastisntitahokeastcoastwellokbutnowimdone I have to say, it wasnt so bad, i was pretty distracted by her round of questions. After a short round of elephant counting i was recalled and sent into the doctors office, told to lie on a table, and grinned as i was smeared with ultrasound gel, the real stuff you see in the movies!

I was disappointed that the grey blobs on the screen didnt resemble my stomach like i had expected, but then again i dont think they really resemble babies either, when babies are inside. The doctor told me i have air in my intestines (and asked me if i had ever had my appendix removed. and i swore i would NEVER have to know that word when we had to learn it for a german quiz) and a virus, gave me various prescriptions and instructions to eat only noodles, and told me not to go to work for the rest of the week and to come in the following morning for my blood test results.

It was a nice day so i took a tram to the main train station and picked up my arcade fire concert tickets, and bought my books for my polish course. On the way I rented two movies, bought noodles, and planned a nice relaxing afternoon for myself.

After watching the movie and eating noodles though, i was bored and felt guilty. I didnt feel sick, my stomach didnt hurt anymore and I wasnt tired enough to sleep all day on the couch. Two days off and nothing to do. Not sick enough to while the day away sick in bed, not well enough to go to work, just well enough to feel guilty about not going to work. All those tiny faces waiting for emily to appear, my poor assistant teacher running the group all by herself. And what fun is a day in bed without junk food? I couldnt even pig out on haribo gummi bears or drink a bottle of wine and watch a romantic comedy.

The boredom set in once I read my book in silence for two hours. It was sunny outside, maybe I should go for a bikeride? But then again, i was staying home from work because im sick. I should rest. And the rest of the day went like this. I tried to convince myself of my sickness, of my rightness to stay home from work, while at the same time trying to enjoy my free time, although not too much, because after all, sick people at home from work shouldnt enjoy themselves. And then I got the brilliant idea to paint my fingernails. Finally, something i never have time for but that sick people can do too, without using up too much energy. I am sick, after all. So I painted my fingernails a beautiful maroon color, which ate up almost fifteen beautiful minutes, and as I finished them and admired their shiny, stick, beauty, i realized... that I now couldnt do anything, not even check my email or turn on the tv. I tried to blow my nose, which took an additional five minutes struggling not to smudge.

And then, Artur called. I had actually been waiting for him to call for almost an hour, because he is almost always done with work by 6:15, and it was already 7:30. My boredom was already driving me to contrive tiny plots to kill time until his arrival, and when he informed me he would be working for at least another half an hour, I wailed nooooooo into the phone, some sort of instinctual boredom reaction. Why do the people we love always see our worst sides? He promised to only be a half an hour, and I vowed, out of guilt, to finally do something with my time, and started to write this blog post. Suddenly, the time flew, and my newly laquered fingers tapped over the keys with grace... writing about my boring day is entertaining! And then he called again... I had almost forgotten about him! He was finally on his way! I asked, somewhat distracted as I formulated the next paragraph...if he had already left work. Because if he needed to work longer it was ok, I was entertained for the mean time... and found out he had left all his work colleagues slaving away on a project with a deadline, he, the newby, because i had made him feel guilty. arghhhhhhhhh could it get more tragic?

The evening will hopefully include another movie and more noodles. Tomorrow im crossing my fingers that the doctors will give me the green light to eat at least cheese, my french friend is having a dinner party.... the way things are going, I doubt it. Now, off to boil water....

the terrible horrible no good..

2007-02-09T22:24:00.000+01:00

you know the rest. friday was horrible. after being sick all week the kids were out of control and I was in a bad mood. Plus I had kitchen duty, and the dishwasher is crap and the dishes never get clean so i had to soak about 20 plates with hardened on mashed potatoes and then scrub then with a brush. Not exactly what i had imagined as my dream job, but most of the time the kids make up for it.

Then I spent 5 hours looking for a dress for the polish ball tomorrow. And learning polish with my new computer program. I can now say "5 dogs jump". I got upset because i was in a bad mood and sleepy and shopping is rather tiring especially if you have to make decisions like "buy the dress or look more?" especially when you have no money. sigh. these are the great times in our 20s well be happy for later, right? artur is at chess club and im grumpy because chess club is on friday night when i want to have fun instead of waiting for my boyfriend with itunes, paint by number and cocktails. hmph.

im baaaaaaaaaaaaack

2007-02-07T19:21:00.000+01:00

its been a while, but since Artur finally repaired my computer (ah the advantages of a computer geek boyfriend) I can hopefully manage to write regularly now.

Things havent changed much... still working in the kindergarten, thats going well although this week i have been sick with a sinus infection and this morning woke up with such a killer pressure headache that I had to take the day off, again. I felt quite guilty leaving my co teacher for the second time this week alone with the kids, but i wouldnt have been much up a help with my eyes closed in pain all day.

I managed to sleep the day away, which gave me time to think about the various changes in planning stage: moving in with artur, applying for a masters program, and attempting to make it regularly to the gym.

Otherwise, this weekend is the polish ball with artur and the following weekend were heading back to buchenberg to visit arturs family for his moms birthday. I also signed up for a polish course which will begin in march, to begin to prepare for our trip to poland in the summer.

and now for a dinner of chicken and rice, very nice.

everything but roast beast

2006-12-02T14:02:00.000+01:00

yesterday was december first, and the city looked like it had been decorated by the whos from the grinch. Lights, wreaths, garlands, baubles, everything imaginable. And the infamous christmas markets opened, marienplatz dotted with a maze of tiny wooden huts selling ornaments, nativity scenes, mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, sausages, sauerkraut, mini trees, wooden toys, candles, cookie cutters, and other toasted, spiced and carved treats. A fairy tale land which can't help but enchant.

we met up with juliette and jean baptiste from france, laura from montreal, maltir from spain, malanie from ingolstadt (and artur was there) and saw little miss sunshine (and laughed and cried) and then went to a bar to see sven and friends, a bar with foosball (kicker, here), beer, couches and cross dressers. After a few drinks we waited in the cold to buy turkish food at 2am..a 15 minute line, and then hopped the last subway home. Fell alsleep once again with the lights and the radio on. But today is saturday and were going to see happy feet, with penguins. Its a movie kind of day, although its sunny, because the city is overrun by christmas shoppers. Ah, the weekend.

i made it to the top

2006-09-30T11:06:00.000+02:00

A beautiful but exhausting hike south of munich, almost 4 hour hike but worth the view and the cold beer at the top! I still have muscle cramps a week later...

the mountain was "heimgarten" at 1790 meters, we climbed 1100 of them ourselves.

my class!

2006-09-30T11:00:00.000+02:00

all's fair in love and binders

2006-08-22T06:09:00.000+02:00

I never thought I would be the kind of person who has a file of recipes, but some combination of a recent domestic instinct and an obsession with the magazine "real simple" has driven me to clip, fold and file. Tonight, by candlelight and guitar music from my dad on the porch swing, I devoured magazines for snippets including recipes as well as household mainainence and beauty advice and filed it neatly in a binder. I also organized my letter writing supplies and placed them in a plastic-storage clipboard for heart-outpouring emergencies.

Why? Because Artur left today, and I suddenly emerged from the fog of love and was catapulted into the world of..organizing. I don't believe they've ever been cited as antipodes, but in love and organized seem to be my two most happy and.. new states. 2006 is actually the first year I can cite being either. So my days until Thursday will be happily filled with clipping instead of kissing, folding instead of fondling, copying instead of copul.... right. Not martha stewart material, but it's my own brand of distraction. Plus, I never seem to find the time to paint my nails or fold my socks when cuddling is an option, and I hope I never do.

flight spy

2006-07-28T12:48:00.000+02:00

here i am, at 644 am, squinting at my computer screen in the light of the dawn. After a 2am scramble out of bed to make sure that the first flight from Munich to Milan took off smoothly, I retreated back to the confines of my bed, only to be awoken by my newly acquired 6am mental alarm. Once again I trudged to the glow of the laptop, left on all night in case anything really important should happen (laptops can only tap you on the shoulder when they're left running) and clicked the requisite buttons. Flightview search failed, but Alitalia registers a 15 minute late departure, perfect for his cutting it close hour layover. I could picture the passengers waiting as my recently long haired boyfriend jogged breathlessly through the halls of the Milan airport, finally stumbling onto the Jumbo Jet in time to be tiraded by a bunch of angry italian american new yorkers headed for queens. But at least he probably made it, or he would have called by now. Now all thats left is to fall asleep and hope to sleep till 1230, when the flight lands.

and fighting the grumpies

2006-07-27T05:57:00.000+02:00

wow, my stress levels hit the roof this evening, and I am not quite sure why. The day had relaxed me more than I expected, spending the time with my mom and reading kindergarten books, but as soon as I got home I realized how edgy I was. I called Artur, who I had expected to call hours earlier, to discover that he was sitting in his new apartment having a beer with his new roommate. This should have made me happy, but instead I felt a mixture of hurt and jealously, that he hadnt called earlier if he was home and relaxing and that he was having fun. I wasnt having that much fun, was I? I guaged my irrational female reaction, and hung up with a promise of a return phone call at six and a giant lump in my throat. I was supposed to be heading to happy hour to drink frozen cosmopolitans with my mother and I knew it would go one way or the other: relax me and cheer me up or drown my sorrow and make me all the more irritable.

But I got downstairs to ensuing chaos as my brother and dad struggled to make Quiche Lorraine with recently purchased farm fresh eggs in our boiling hot kitchen, and my mother got herself embroiled in the debate about how much bacon they should use. I could feel my grumpiness boiling over like a cloud, and fussed that we should be going soon, then felt guilty and offered my help, and when refused due to the small size of the kitched, slumped on the couch in a sweaty grumpy teary lump mood. What was wrong with me? Theres nothing to complain about, I am sitting at home on vacation and whining because my boyfriend is so busy moving out of his apartment that he only calls twice a day. Not really much to complain about. But I knew my grumpiness wasnt bound to pass until I talked to him, cause I knew what was really wrong was that I missed him, rational or not, and didnt feel like whiling away the 2 more days till his arrival.

At any rate, my mother and I finally made it out of the house, probably to short circuit an oncoming grumpiness blowout on my part, and ordered our drinks: lovely vodka cranberry slushies. And then hummus, with lime. And then another slushie. Things were looking better, and then the phone rang. Oh hooray, that must be Artur. But no, it was dad. Andrew had spilled the eggs. Could he talk to mom, he needed to know how to get the stain out of the carpet. Blech. Oh, and Artur had called, and they had given him the cell number but he couldnt seem to get it right. Damn. Now I wasnt going to get to talk to him, the one thing I knew might shake me out of my funk. I glowered through the evening, through an espresso, a gelato, and what should have been some wonderful mother daughter bonding time. My mother tried her best to comfort me, but to no avvail. The only slight comfort was the apology email from Artur when I got home, saying he tried the number but it wasnt working. Well, better than nothing.

The best comfort of the evening was taking my scratched cds to the grindstone literally, using a bizarre but functional device of my brothers to buff away the blemishes and burn off some of my nervous energy. Then there were push ups and crunches, part of my new "responsible" fitness routine. Laundry folding, face washing, body lotioning..who was I? Some weird German version of myself, I guess, who didnt seem so weird back in Germany. I have to say, I always thought that dealing with difficult strangers was hard...try it when the foreigner is yourself!

hot and sticky laptop musings

2006-07-27T05:50:00.000+02:00

As I sat, staring at the geese waddling across the lawn and continually recrossing my legs to prevent them from welding themselves together because of the heat, I heaved a sigh of relief. I was happy, excited. I was sitting at a very crooked picnic table on the grounds of my moms new pre kindergarten program. It was a beautiful albeit sticky hot July day, and I had tagged along because I couldn't stand to sit one more day in the house and check my email every five seconds. Her new classroom is a small white farmhouse building, clapboard sided, and inside is her usual enchanting kindergarten world. Even I am continually enchanted by the materials in jars, baskets and on trays displayed in the art center: bits of tissue paper, metallic shells, sequins, clear plastic, twigs, stones, paints in every color of the rainbow, yarn, packaging recycled and cut into workable bits for gluing, stringing together: a virtual limitless playground for the imagination. And now that I know I'm heading back to Munich to try my own hand at Kindergartening, I was soaking it all up like a sponge.

I brought my things down to the wooden picnic table by the pond and spread the glossy books out on the table: science for preschoolers, designing a learning environment, mudpies to magnets and every array of children's education books. Armed with post-its, I paged through the idea-filled pages, marking ideas I planned to photocopy for my own personal teachers portfolio. Next year would be an experiment, but I knew I would enjoy it. Getting up at 6am will take some getting used to, but having the experience of both working with children and indulging my passion for languages while living in the city of my dreams with my boyfriend who I love, within hours of the places that lie closest to my heart after my Pittsburgh home: Padova, Italy, home to my 4 month study abroad adventure, Vienna, Austria, home to Hundertwasser, my favorite artist, Spain, the start of my adventures abroad, and hemmed in by countries and lands yet unknown to me: Prague in the Czech Republic, the entire north of Germany, Scandinavia, Belgium, Greece in the south: the possibilities were endless. Plus, within a small radius of Munich, the opportunities for adventure seemed endless: mountain hikes, lake-dotted bike tours, local festivals, ancient churches, and that infectious European spirit that seemed to have stuck to me.

But now I was home. In humble Pittsburgh. My friends are: all over the place. Chicago, Washington, California, Boston.. almost none here. My days have been spent cleaning out the terrifying chaos that was my closet, reorganizing my room, cuddling with our pet pug, and catching up on law and order reruns. And waiting for Artur. My almost 7-month boyfriend is coming to visit me in less than 4 days now, his first trip to the US and my first experience introducing a boyfriend to my parents. And the waiting is killing me. Not only am I used to not being apart from him for more than a day at a time, but so much has happened to both of us since I left: I have been reintegrating myself into my old home, and he has moved to a new apartment, made travel arrangements and attended to a lot of little life details. The process of our reunion in MY country and his visit with MY family made me excited but also slightly nervous. Would he like it? Would it be fun? Would the revealing of my "mystery" life at home take away some of my mystique (did I have mystique in the first place?) Well, we would see pretty soon. Until then, I was working on whiling away the days.

The unending nostalgia the accompanied my return from Italy was certainly relatively absent from my visit here, which I attested to the knowledge that I would be heading back at the end of August. I also hoped it was a good sign: a sign that I thought of Germany not as some interesting specimen of a foreign culture, but as my new home. Paging through a picture book the other night, I did feel the reassuring pangs of longing for my new found dwelling place. Of course, my experience this next year would be completely different. Germany would no longer be experienced as a part of a "cultural immersion experience, but rather as a component of my much more "daily" life. Work would be every day, 7:30 to 2, I would have to live from that money:pay my rent, buy food, furnish my apartment. I was looking forward to it more than anything. Plus, I had my own space, a room in a two bedroom apartment in the center of Munich, right near the river and a beautiful church, shared with an apartment mate from..where else...Italy! I had taken it as a sign when I noticed that the walls on the way from the subway stop were decorated with an imitation Hundertwasser mural, made by a local kindergarten.

And the waiting for Artur was getting more tolerable. He had been relatively stressed out by his move (prompted by the relatively intolerable behavior of his 50 year old alcoholic, unemployed roommate), and now that that was taken care of, he seemed (at least through email and phone calls) to be relatively relaxed and getting excited about the trip, even going to the bank and changing his money into dollars. A few hurdles remained, however: the flight, with a nail biting 1 hour layover time in Milan before boarding the plane to New York, a short stay on the floor of the tiny Manhattan apartment of a fellow program student in Munich this year, Christy, and then the short hop of a flight from JFK to Pittsburgh which had taken me last week because of JFKs horrible organizational problems more than 7 hours, including 4 hours sitting on the runway in the loaded airplane. But it would all work out somehow, at anyways, we had been through similarly complicated things before.

But because my computer is becoming as sun baked as my scalp, I am off to seek refuge in the air conditioned confines of my mother's wonderland, and then to happy hour and frozen cosmopolitans with my mom, to muse and dream of our new and exciting years ahead. Until then...

and in the end...

2006-07-12T11:35:00.000+02:00

the time is a flying/and I will be flying/ on monday back to america/ im scared but excited/ but mostly excited/ because im coming back here/ but until I leave/ I have much too much to do/ packing and baking and parties on the river/ pushing trees through the city/ big giant festivals/ fun fun fun.

The way it looks now

2006-06-01T18:37:00.000+02:00

I found out yesterday that I am being offered a job at a biligual kindergarten in Munich! (http://www.lerchennest.de/indexe.html) This is fantastic news because 1) it's a full time job, with full benefits and a guaranteed salary, plus insurance and basically all the rights a normal german citizen would get and 2) this place is really cool, and i am excited to try my hand at something this new and exciting! A pro and con is that my hours are 7:30-2 daily, which is a realllllyyyy early time to have to be there, but being done at 2 is also pretty great. I am currently in the process of working through the paperwork with the kindergarten to get my work visa and residence permit, but it's looking good. I also have an apartment which according to all my munich friends is amazing, in a fantastic place and really cheap—which I didnt quite know when I found it, but now i am pretty excited about.

And I will also be teaching business english classes to adult professionals a few evenings a week, to try to haul myself out of the debt hole from northwestern and/or give me some extra cash to travel around with. Plus, the school is fantastic and they are offering to pay to certify all the trainers under the „Common European Foreign Language Exam" which is exciting. Plus I am currently discussing a possible very part time position on a project with the group where I am doing my internship now, Green City. They are planning some environmental projects with Italy and I obviously am a good resource in this case, with both knowledge and language, plus anything to do with italy makes me really happy =)

Soo...things are looking really good. I am actually planning on booking my ONE WAY ticket back to munich tonight, then things will pretty much be set. I have a fantastic boyfriend named Artur (picture on his birthday, homemade crown!) who is coming to the US in August and will be traveling around with me to my various reunions and peanut butter buying missions.

My exact schedule is the following:

US: July 17th-August 24th

The weather in Munich is...cold. It was warm, for a little but, but now it is cold again, which makes me want to whine but then I look out the window at the mountains and I think ok, if this is the punishment for living with an alpine view then I guess I can stand it, as long as it EVENTUALLY gets warm. I am going with artur to his parents house this weekend in the mountains and we just hear that it snowed six inches today. Ayayay, and we were planning to go hiking...maybe sledding would be a better idea.

I was however in Florence for the weekend at a Unterwasser Hockey tournament and the weather was FABULOUS (35 degrees Celsius) we drove down from munich, a beautiful drive in itself through the mountains and then down through tuscany, and we camped and had and amazing view of the city and played in an outdoor pool. So my memorial day weekend was actually quite similar to yours, only mine involved pasta and not hamburgers, and wayyy more snorkels.

Florence Team!!!

2006-05-14T11:49:00.000+02:00

because i can =)

2006-05-14T10:08:00.000+02:00

here

is where I will live

here and here and here and here and here

is where I will work

wahoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

my life in a suitcase

2006-04-25T16:08:00.000+02:00

Wheels, heels, flippers. Bathing suit, yoga pants, sports bra. Grey suit, resume, two budweiser beers. Pijamas. Running shoes, tshirt. Underwater hockey stick, towel, sweatshirt. Just packing my normal bag for a normal trip to work.

Monday morning. I have so much stuff I can barely ride my bike to the train station, the bike basket is brimming with sporting equipment and corporate attire. The plan: to work. Then, to Artur at work to leave my mounds of stuff with him. Then, to yoga class. Then, to blade night. Then, to Arturs, then job interview at 10am, then press action at 1pm in Marienplatz: soccer game between the renewable energies and the radioactive elements. It's just another day in the life...

Yoga class! A challenge for my german anatomy knowledge. Blade night! A marvel.

15,000 Münchners, rollerblading 15 km through the city, streets blocked off to car traffic, and I work at the group that runs the thing! We float by cafes, roll down Leopolstraße, can smell roasting Hops from the various breweries, and have to watch out for the tram tracks. I love this city.

A perfect prelude to my job interview in the morning—a gateway to stay! Job interview! Fantastic. I am basically hired, and can start right away teaching a sort of test course after I get trained. I can earn a bit of money right away and see if I like it enough to do it full time when I come back in September. Plus, I have two more interviews on Friday.

Marienplatz! Where the glockenspiel is...if you know anything about munich this is probably what you picture, if it's not beer and lederhosen. I helped the work colleagues carry the various protest items, and then took the train there—a sunny, spectacular day. Artur was already there, in the line of regally yellow rikshahs...that's right, I am dating a rikshah driver =) Could my life get any better?He took me on a short ride around the center, and then feeling already pretty cool, I headed to the protest. To commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, we did a „soccer game" between the „renewable energy" and „nuclear power". Needless to say, the renewables won and it was fun to sit in marienplatz for two hours and watch soccer players from my office goof around

Flipperybladeyenvirorikschahridinhappygoluckyineuropelivingjoyjoyjoy

Bud...weis...errrrrr....

2006-04-24T11:35:00.000+02:00

There was a river, and there was budweiser, but there were no frogs. Although there were strange creatures with webbed feet, glossy eyes, odd plastic breathing appendages, and bizarre wooden sticks clasped by silicone encased hands. The sounds to be heard were the oddly extraterrestrial and deeply marine noises of churning water, grunts of struggle, and an occasional odd metal clanging.

The Unterwasserhockey tournament had come to Budweis, Czech Republic. Teams from Croatia, Slovena, Belgium, Poland and Germany met up to compete in the world's most absurd sport. And as I would soon learn, also one of the most dangerous. The Munich team toughed its way through 5 twenty-minute long brutal losses to highly skills teams from eastern and northern europe. I got battered by flippers, brutalized by pucks, pinned to the wall, the ground, strained my wrist, can't really use my mouse any more, and have more bruises than I can count...it was wonderful.

The sun shined the whole day, and in between each brutal beating, we would take a break on the balcony overlooking the river flowing through this ancient colorful town, eating a banana or two, refueling ourselves with short naps in the sun to prepare for the next slaughterfest. And after it was all over, we opened our warm-welcome-present budweiser beers (the real, czech variety) and celebrated our survival.

What we weren't quite prepared for was the party. Yearning for our sleeping bags-on top of-czech-probably-sweatcovered-gym mats in a soviet area gymnastic hall, we trudged on to the after party and award ceremony, hungry and beaten yet glisteningly exhuberant. A veritable united nations of the unterwasserhockey world-- french being translated to german being explained in english to a czech player, polish being spoken to the attractive czech waitress in hopes of a date, broken italian trying to cross the french-english border, flemish, slovenian, croation, and beer. We received our 6^th place award graciously, tossed beer coasters, danced to the hungarian heavy metal band, and ordered extravagant icecream sundaes, wowed at the non-euro prices. As we trudged home in the rain, across the bridge that shuddered as we crossed it, past the romancing couples in the park, the factory near our gym-hotel that seemed to produce mostly steam, through the old-tire-paradise-gokart-park, and then collapsed on our mats under the swinging rings and ropes, I thought...this is what Mark Twain meant when he said „Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.“

ribbit ribbit...

A crowded noisy party with my best and biggest dreams

2006-04-20T16:27:00.000+02:00

Two! Two! I have two job interviews! They're with two different language schools, which in itself is exciting, but additionally they both have world-wide focuses and would give me the chance to take translating classes, other languages, keep up my italian...wow, the opportunities are endless. Hopefully these interviews go well, the one thing we be seeing if they are willing to promise me a job so much in advance, but it could be the case that I could work at both schools. And then if i could get some of this type of experience under my belt, I could really work anywhere! Experience teaching English, maybe master another language, maybe get training to be a translator..then go to grad school and get a masters in development work or somethinf of the sort, and then..go! I really feel like this is one big qualification that's missing for me, some hard core teaching experience. And I could really build up a cool life here! Teaching, being a counselor for a kids english camp on the side, doing environmental work and volunteering, maybe spending my free time trying to put together a project between the veneto and bayern... wow. Cool, the future is looking bright again.. I feel like all I ever need is a jump start and then I'm off...ideas ideas ideas.

What else..I'll let my mind run. I could do this for a while and see how I like it and what direction it takes me in, of course taking advantage of any educational opportunities that come my way (wouldn't it be great to take free language courses!? Spanish! French! Portuguese! Then I'll have the qualification as a teacher plus the ability to speak new languages, and some really important working with people skills, as well as particularly organizational ones. And then..well who knows. A masters program in Germany, in the US...maybe I could look into Rotary again, or maybe all of this will lead me to a logical subject for a big research project for a Fulbright or just for fun.

I'm so...I don't know, I guess because I'm reaching the end of the program here I was starting to feel like I was... done? But more like not wanted, or not qualified, or something. Maybe because I haven't had a new job every three months like in the U.S. And I finally made it here, to Europe, and I love it, and dammit, I want to stay but of course it's not that easy... so it's exciting to feel like maybe there is some hope, more because then I feel like it is really true what I believe, that if you really want to do something you can really do it. My optimism can live!

It's so sunny here, it's finally spring, I'm going to Budweis in the Czech Republic this weekend to play unterwasser hockey and my co worker gave me a bike so now I have a bike in the city too and monday is my first yoga class and first blade night and the next week is full of job interviews and meetings and I love it when my life is so crowded with wonderful exciting diverse things, it's like being at a party filled with all your friends who are all so different from eachother but you love them all, and it's a bit crowded but every time you turn around you see a different smile, hear a different voice, are challenged in a new way, reminded of your different passions.

WAHOO!!

tadddaaaa

2006-04-05T12:18:00.000+02:00

And the following note from Artur:

and today....

2006-04-04T15:16:00.000+02:00

a treck to olympia swim hall from work. 6.76 Kilometers (if i don't get lost) a true test for my sense of direction (it's just north, emily!!! follow the giant television antennae!!)

and then, an evening of unterwasserhockey

but i'm not walking back to feldafing...

solar musings

2006-04-04T11:04:00.000+02:00

The sun makes me so happy. Anyone who knows me, understands that on a sunny day, I can't stay inside. A pull of obligation floats me out the door, to pursue whatever activity I had planned somewhere in the sun. Essay writing on the lawn with my laptop, textbook reading, knitting, listening to music, singing, yoga, sleeping—and then the more absurd—organizing my desk (yes, I have actually brought my belongings outside to do this), job applications, heck, I've even considered showering (bucket, deserted patch of grass...) When the weather is nice, the things around me that usually fill me with a muted joy when it's cold out (hey pretty building brr snowy wind hey nice tree ahh my hands are freezing off have to get inside cute bundled up baby ahh i want to be wrapped in a down sleeping bag in a cozy stroller too...) absolutely emanate joy, especially because I actually have time to appreciate them. It's a fantastic feeling, to practically explode with joy because a tree is beautiful. Yeah yeah yeah, it's kind of ridiculous, right? I mean no one is so cheery all the time, and if they are then they are just annoying. Right? I guess the flipside is the ephemerality of it all. My prophets, the Beatles, have quite a bit to say on this front: here comes the sun, it's alright, all things must pass all things must pass away live and let die but tomorrow may rain so i'll follow the sun.

And now it's warm here. And although it hailed yesterday, it looks like it's pretty much here to stay, and that we're about to experience and explosion of green and lawns and sunbathing and waterbathing and a few of my absolute favorite things. And here it is. It's one long stretch of sunlight and I don't even have anymore bitter cold weather to numb my passions for this city before I leave, it'll happen in the heat and height of it all. But as they say, better to leave loving it and not wanting to leave than to leave gladly.

I am currently completing a puzzle of the Matterhorn. I already put together the hut and the two hiking people and the border and now I have the sky and the mountain and the grass—those indistinguishable hard parts. Yesterday I worked on it for an hour and got two pieces. I guess just as you think the picture is becoming clearer, it's the final details that turn out to be much more complicated than you thought. I joked with my host family over dinner yesterday that if I don't finish the puzzle before I leave, I'll have to come back. The metaphorical connotations of such a statement abound. In fact, enough metaphors for today, I'm supposed to be reading the bicycle stand plan for Munich. Vorradklemmen, Anlehnbuegel...I never knew I would learn the technical terms for bicycle stands in German (I don't even know them in English!!)

And now I'm off to enjoy my sunny day as it should be enjoyed...moment for moment.

And now, a smile:

Q: Did you hear about the guy who stayed up all night just to see where the sun went?

A: Then it dawned on him.

ahahahahaha

spiderwoman

2006-04-03T14:31:00.000+02:00

The days are longer, the flowers are out. My scenery is constantly changing, and the city feels suddenly like a new place. And yet, my co worker still whistles jingle bells are work. Have you all seen the movie „fallen“? It's about a devil, that lives inside people, who always sings „time is on your side“ by the rolling stones. And when someone carrying the devils bumps into another person on the street, that persons starts to whistle or sing the song. Yesterday, on our way home from a fantastically relaxing evening in a heated outdoor pool, artur and I were whistling a tune, and as we approached his new apartment door, a man walking towards us picked it up and whistled along. I cant remember anymore if it was Sousa's „Stars and Stripes Forever“ or Darth Vader's imperial march (frequent performances of ours) but caught on quickly, and before we knew it, our friend was following us into Artur's apartment building—apparently he lived there too. The whistling didnt outlast our smiling, of course, because just like sneezing with your eyes opened, whistling and smiling just dont work simulteneously. Whistling and smiling while sneezing might be worth a try, however... Our third instrument left us as he trecked to his fourth floor apartment and we entered Artur's on the third, but there was that residual feeling of a funny, unspoken connection. Like those little strings of spider web that invisibly crisscross paths in the woods in the morning and catch in your face before you can see them, little delicate connections form constantly between people and people, people and animals, people and billboards in the train. And in my more-self-reverted form, that inner reflection euphoria that a bit of language confusion and cultural amazment brings, I feel virtually webbed in, new strings being formed each time we walk away and break the old ones. A successfully coaxed smile out of a fellow grumpy ubahn rider, a door held, a baby smile, a tail wag... or the surprising visit from two obviously romantic ducks to the heated pool last night at 11pm, drawn not only by the warm water but also probably sensing the otherworldy human romantic pull of lighted steaming water and a crescent moon... Slowly but surely, I am webbing myself in here, zapping connections like spider man here and there, to that beautiful fountain, that baby with the banana, the alps and my book and my nap and the funny upsidown swan, and they zap back, with a smile, a quack, a splash, a magnetic kiss.

and iraq, after three years...

2006-03-14T13:12:00.000+01:00

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Police found at least 72 bodies killed by gunfire in Baghdad in the past 24 hours -- a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian reprisal attacks in some of the capital's most dangerous neighborhoods, officials said Tuesday.

The bloodshed -- the second wave of mass killings in Iraq since bombers destroyed an important Shiite shrine last month -- followed weekend attacks in a teeming Shiite slum in which 58 people died and more than 200 were wounded.

The American deaths brought the number of U.S. military members killed to at least 2,308 since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.

a deadly irony...

2006-03-14T12:58:00.000+01:00

A top toxicologist in the Netherlands said Monday that he believed that Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader, had been manipulating medication to fake a medical condition, a ploy that contributed to his ill heath and may have played a role in the heart attack that caused his death.

2006-03-07T23:31:00.000+01:00

ok. at some point here i crossed an un-recrossable-bridge into the land of really living in this city, really speaking german 95% of the time, really working, really practically being a daughter. It's slightly disorienting, more than I thought it would be. In Italy, I loved being there, and it grew on me every day, but i felt myself constantly saying "wow, i'm in italy, i'm a foreigner in italy, i'm constantly talking about how i'm a foreigner and people ask me why im here and i am conspicious with my blonde hair and unsure attitude and lack of wine knowledge." But here...I forget. I forget that I don't belong, and i guess that may be because I do. I mean, I think I belong here more than practically anywhere else I've ever lived!

In Pittsburgh, I have my family. I have my dogs. I have my friends. I can drive from my house to my friend's houses, and get only occasionally lost. I've been to most of the museums. But I have this constant feeling that I want out. That it's only temporary, and that feeling didn't just start when i started living there only a few months out of the year because i was at college the rest of the time. I've almost always had a vague sense that Pittsburgh would not be my final home, or at least not my 20-30something home. I think since the first time my dad explained to me what college was, and that I could go anywhere I want for college. The doors were flung open, and even my 6-year-old-mind was long gone.

In Chicago, I have my College days. My University. My lake. The animal shelter, the concrete university library, the keg, the parties, the lecture halls and the walk down sheridan avenue. My evening yoga classes, my happy trecks senior year up those wooden steps to cook dinner and chat the night away with my 4 fantastic senior year roommates. My memories of days with friends and studying and riding the el into the city to work and be a tourist. But I never really lived in Chicago, and even last year when I finally got a real taste of the city, as a 21-year old who could FINALLY check out some bars and during my work on the nitty gritty west side at CCGT, it still was just a place I visited. And I always felt alienated from Evanston, from that strange mix of spectacular to the point of disgusting lakeside homes and the depressing high density of homeless men and women that populated the yuppie streets. The most at home I ever felt was when I was sitting by the shore of the lake, but even that was alienating, because I felt strangely alone in my heart filling admiration of the crashing waves, the sand, the seagull with the twizzler, the Ba'hai Temple and my secret bay of baots, my rollerblading destination, my escape to the tunes of badly drawn boy and the beatles. It was exactly that, that feeling of empty elation, that the things I loved so much about the place, no one really understood.

And then there's Washington, another one of the places that I feel I can rightly call home. Born right outside of the city limits, I returned summer after summer to soak up the tropical jungle heat and the airconditioned intern culture. I loved the paul simon walk to work, mathematical in its execution, down 21st, up M, to 25th and M on the border of Foggy Bottom and Georgetown, whistling along to "me and julio down by the schoolyard" loud enough so that everyone in business suits would stare at me, even though I was in a business suit too. I adored cooking in that tiny kitchen, where you actually had to stand outside of the kitchen because it was so small, and that tiny room with the three beds, and my roommates, the incomprehensible one from Wyoming and the darling Sejal Shah from Texas. And the balmy nichts on the national mall, and the delivering letters to congressmen and loving every minute of checking out the decorations in each and every office, and my shock the first time I saw Senator Stevens of Alaska's horrendous bearskin wallcovering. And my runs...my runs from 21st and H to the Jefferson memorial, and then sitting in that concrete coolness dripping sweat and staring at the tourists and thinking I LIVE here that's why im sitting here, so hot and tired because i jogged here because i live here! I jog past the white house and the world bank and the eisenhower administrative building and the redcross headquarters and that guy who camps outside of the whitehouse to protest nuclear proliferation and the kickball teams that play on the national mall and the lincoln memorial is my neighbor and so is the vietnam memorial. I know the smithsonian inside out, as well as the metro system, because im a commuter and a resident and i live here. Or my jobs when I lived in maryland, with abby. Running around and around the beautiful southern quad, touching the brass turtle on the nose every time around, enjoying the downhills, hating the uphills, and lying in the grass and the end, sweating, breathing hard, listening to my dixie chicks and thinking "i was born to be a fish, not a runner" And the cat that clawed me awake in the morning, that dragged me out of my bed in the brutal heat to shower and breakfast and walk the 20 minuetes to the subway only to find my fancy work clothes soaked with sweat by the time i got there, but so happy to read the metro section of the washington post, race the crossword with abby, and get out at Chinatown and take the elevator up to the fancy greenpeace usa office with the pioneerlike display at the entrance. The lunchtime meetings with senators, the intern events that i repeatedly attended, for the free food, for the company. The thousands of fountains that satisfied my every fountain fantasy, and the feeling of the lincoln memorial at night. This was almost it, I could almost call DC home.

But here, I feel the pull even stronger. I ride the commuter rail like a pro, because i live an hour away from the city. And I await the moment every morning when we'll pull into Starnberg where I can see the lake and finally find out if today is a day where we can see the Alps. And I know which end of the trains will put me closer to the escalator which will take me through the main track area of the main train station in munich, and I can muse over the various possible destinations: rome, paris, berlin, copenhagen. Just like that, I could be off, but the funny part is, I don't want to go. Because just outside those doors there is the doughnut man whose doughnuts are much too small and expensive, there are the discount clothing stores that line the streets, followed by the turkish grocery stores, where I comparison shop for grapefruit, mango, eggplant, olives, feta. There's my airy, renovated industrial office, with goofy environmentalists, 5 of which have red hair. It's on the 4th floor, but it's really on the 5th, because while germans aren't optimists at heart, they are when it comes to numbering the floors, gracing the first floor with the simple "earth story". The trash bins in the kitchen are an essential part of my love for germany, because throwing something away here is a mental excercise. Plastic, paper, metal, biodegradable. The paper can be removed from the plastic yogurt container with the pull of a special tab. The soda bottles go back to the grocery store, so you can get your deposit back. My deposit money rules me life here. Shopping carts require a deposit of one euro. You can buy and carry a specially designed shopping cart deposit token. Lockers are everywhere, as libraries, museums, and any other public place allow no extranous baggage. They require a one or 2 euro deposit, as does the gym. The swimming pool is fantastic, it's in the old olympic stadium and indulges my absurd water fantasies such as underwater hockey, 24 hour swim event and big splash contest. There are entire facilities devoted to sitting, swimming, floating and lounging in pools of water set at various temperatures. There are clubs for everything. There are guides for guides to guides of cultural events. There is old and new and cobblestones and asphalted and shiny tall and short and faded and carved, fountainy, dressing up and christmas market joy eating outside and when its cold for beer gardens then blankets for you and radio news every hour. And a tolerance for run on sentences that the english language cannot (normally) accomodate.

But I really think what keeps someone somewhere is a combination of a feeling that the place suits them, and a feeling of place with the people who comprise their experience there. And here, I feel like I have it all.

Thank you for indulging my trip down memory lane...

3 feet of snow in march

2006-03-05T23:03:00.000+01:00

okidoki artichoki

2006-02-09T19:56:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I haven't written for a while, and even when I have written it's been a bit half-assed. Sorry. But as I mentioned before, usually when I don't write it doesn't mean that nothing is happening, instead it means that LOTS is happening. And this is once again the case.

1) I've started my praktikum! It's fantastic...laid back but fun work, good practice, nice people, challenging but not too challenging. I'm planning a sustainable mobility festival, working on the bike campaign and working on another event for kids and public transit. I'm still getting adjusted to waking up early every day, but it's really nice to have a schedule.

2) The Steelers won the Superbowl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm still a bit in shock that they FINALLY win and I'm in Germany. But it was a pretty fantastic/unique experience nonetheless. I had a party and then watched the game and a packed bar in the company of some real live pittsburghers and the world's best freshly minted polish-german steelers fan there is. More on this character later... Needless to say, going to work the next day on two hours of sleep was no cake walk, and I found it rather laughable that the pittsburgh school children got two hour delays but got nothing for watching a superbowl that BEGAN at midnight. I really think the consulate should have granted us some sort of amnesty.

3) Right. So I don't really know the etiquitte for introducing someone to my blog-reading public who I know is also reading this. Hmmmm. Damn it, why does he have to speak such good english? Maybe the best way is with a large dose of sarcasm. So there's this guy. His name is Artur and we hang out every now and then (HA) get along alright (HA HA) and sometimes have fun together (HA HA HA) and he was a terrible steelers fan (HA HA HA HA). Ok, those are pretty much all lies. We hang out a ridiculous amount, get along fantastically, have fun doing the most inane of things and he is the best non-pittburgher-steelers fan i've ever seen. And he made a terrible towel written in polish. These are the things that charm me, folks, taking notes? ;-)

So the last week has been pretty much comprised of working and hanging out with Artur, with a shockingly small amount of time logged at my host family's house, much to my and my host mother's regret, so that's why i'm sitting at the kitchen table right now writing in my blog... hmmm....

Oh, and yesterday my watch battery ran out, causing me to think it was an hour earlier than it was, miss my train, and marvel at the fact that i've had a watch for so long without losing it that it needs a new battery. I'm growing up! ;-)

among the appalling

2006-02-09T14:23:00.000+01:00

Censoring Truth

New York Times February 9, 2006

The Bush administration long ago secured a special place in history for the audacity with which it manipulates science to suit its political ends. But it set a new standard of cynicism when it allowed NASA's leading authority on global warming to be mugged by a 24-year-old presidential appointee who, quite apart from having no training on that issue, had inflated his résumé.

In early December, James Hansen, the space agency's top climate specialist, called for accelerated efforts to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming. After his speech, he told Andrew C. Revkin of The Times, he was threatened with "dire consequences" if he continued to call for aggressive action.

This was not the first time Dr. Hansen had been rebuked by the Bush team, which has spent the better part of five years avoiding the issue of global warming. It was merely one piece of a larger pattern of deception and denial.

The administration has sought to influence the policy debate by muzzling the people who disagree with it or — as was the case with two major reports from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2002 and 2003 — editing out inconvenient truths or censoring them entirely.

In this case, the censor was George Deutsch, a functionary in NASA's public affairs office whose chief credential appears to have been his service with President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee. On his résumé, Mr. Deutsch claimed a 2003 bachelor's degree in journalism from Texas A&M, but the university, alerted by a blogger, said that was not true. Mr. Deutsch has now resigned.

The shocker was not NASA's failure to vet Mr. Deutsch's credentials, but that this young politico with no qualifications was able to impose his ideology on other agency employees. At one point, he told a Web designer to add the word "theory" after every mention of the Big Bang.

As Dr. Hansen observed, Mr. Deutsch was only a "bit player" in the administration's dishonest game of politicizing science on issues like warming, birth control, forest policy and clean air. This from a president who promised in his State of the Union address to improve American competitiveness by spending more on science.

CREDIT AND ALL THAT JAZZ: NEW YORK TIMES INC.

and tomorrow...

2006-02-04T23:36:00.000+01:00

Smiling Alone

2006-02-03T14:24:00.000+01:00

If there's one book that was referenced more than any other during my career as a polical science student at Northwestern, it was most certainly Robert Putnam's „Bowling Alone“, a theory-based case study of American society and the recent decline of „social capital“ which exists in the form of social organizations, PTAs, quilting societies and...bowling nights. The idea is that the more people hung out, the more social ties they had, and these social ties functioned as a sort of currency...they could find jobs more easily, had help in times of need, were happier, healthier, and generally „richer.“

Really the only reason I've been thinking about this book is because the phrase „Smiling Alone“ has been running through my head because, well, that's what I've been doing (more explanation soon) and, well, it sounds like the book title. But as I think about it more and more, I realize that Putnam's description of the lone bowler in a nearly empty neighborhood bowling alley as a well-adapted metaphor for much of my lonesome smiling activities. Engaging in an activity that's usually done in the presence of others, where continual smiling/bowling is supported by the group, where laughing and cheering is encouraged, group bowling/smiling is even a good first date activity!...the big difference is that bowling is a lot louder and requires a lot more skill. But wait, smiling alone is more infectious, more a cause of general cheer than that lonesome bowler. At least in my experience...

The number one cause of solitary simpering, at least in my case, is the presence of cute, goofy, funny-looking, sleeping, or even completely normal looking dogs or babies on the train. The subway is just such an apersonal atmosphere, but the dogs and babies don't know the rules yet! They stare you down, lick your feet, giggle, eat things off the subway floor, and generally break all the (oh so german) rules of subway personal-space etiquitte. Another related cause is people making faces, jingling keys, talking to, babywaving, petting, playing with or otherwise communicating with these furry/juvenile creaturtes, especially when the respective parents/owners don't seem very happy about it. Also related to the baby theme, especially grin-provoking are small children using what to me seem like absurdly complicated grammatical structures: seperable prefix verbs, subjunctive clauses, genitive possession, all in German! The mother toungue is a marvelous thing.

And then there are those instances that are just too notable to not react to. Those times where you think, I wish there was someone else here who could understand the irony/absurdity/hilarity/tragedy of this situation. There was the time that I found myself with my entire unterwasserhockey equipment, most notably with my flippers and snorkel poking out of my bag, sitting next to a man carrying his surfboard on the subway, in January. There was the man in complete bavarian dress talking on a payphone in Marienplatz. And then there are the people who make you smile because you're making up stories about them in your head to try to understand their behavior, like maybe the crazy businessman who threw the entire contents of his briefcase into the fish fountain and slowly watched them sink just gave up all his worldly possessions and is moving to the Canary Islands. And then there are the little things: funny advertisements, silly hats, people speaking english next to me who think i can't understand, cool houses, views of the alps, congregations of birds floating on lake starnberg, sunrises, sunsets, perfect songs, and of course, there's the smiling alone that comes from thinking of a particularly sappy romantic moment that gets you smiling inspite of yourself.

All I can say is, smiling alone turns out to be an excellent solitary activity, but you won't find me in a bowling alley without at least a couple of other people, namely so no one notices that i only use the 8 pound balls... Mini golf however, I might be able to tolerate solo. Now, i'm off to listen to some Lyle Lovett...

This calls for some blatantly teenagerey internet behavior:
:-) ;-) =) :-P

there, now i'm not alone :-D

2006-01-28T18:58:00.000+01:00

krynn1010 (6:49:23 PM): in germany
krynn1010 (6:49:36 PM): where you play hockey under water and save the world

i love you kate =)

City Mouse, Country Mouse

2006-01-27T18:22:00.000+01:00

Childhood books often provide striking analogies to real life. In this case, I'm feeling a schizophrenic congruence with the book "city mouse and country mouse," the tragic rather romeo-and-juliet- for-children tale of two mice friends who just can't seem to get past their anthropological differences. In my case, however, i'm half city and half country (A little bit country and a little bit rock and roll...?)
and instead of bringing fights and disagreements over cow milking and fast car driving, this odd duality brings me a butter-churn-full of satisfaction.

Munich is, like most European cities, bustlingly urban but also quaintly nostalgic. It has all the suited-cell-phoned-workers, late-night-discos, and ecclectic metropolitan flair you could want, complete with the occasional tragic infringement of the all so american-urban-accoutrements: mcdonalds, starbucks, and loud, bright colored advertising, written almost entirely in (if rather misused) english. But of course, there are also the narrow cobblestones roads and fading frescoed facades, the regal and intricate churches, patinaed fountains, commemorative statues, and bustling marketplaces that reminds us of Munich's humble pastoral beginnings as an outpost for monks. And there are huge swaths of green, rolling hilled parks with trickling rivers (even the occasional nude sunbather), tumbling waterfalls, daring surfers, natural and articifial lakes, the river Isar which meanders through the city like a sneaky but peaceful blue and green caterpillar.

Really, in Munich, I don't miss open spaces, because there seem to be plenty. It's no Chicago (or Pittsburgh, even), no skyscraper jungle where you only see the sky if you happen to stand in the middle of the road long enough without getting hit by a speeding car to look down the long line of buildings to a small and distant swatch of blue. It is, in fact, quite beautiful in Chicago to witness the genius of the directionally oriented city, when the sun as it sets aligns itself perfectly with the East-West streets and shines blindingly but beautifully directly down that clausterphobic alley of glass. But that is an exception, for in America, the city is usually suffocating. But here, I feel rather at peace with my surroundings, with the pleasant mix between old and new, busy and boring, shiny and crumbling. Which is why I am always so shocked when I step out the back door of my house in Feldafing.

Feldafing has a population of 4,000, but is essentially a suburb of Munich, although the word suburb lacks the necessary romance and brings to mind cul-de-sacs, SUVs and street names which have all decided disgustingly to have a theme, like "shooting star way," "neil armstrong alley" and "moon rock road." No, it's not like that, it's a beautiful little town on a spectacular lake with villas, winding roads, old churches, and a general cozy charm. And it's really in the country. I live on the "outskirts" which means about as far from the lake as you can get. It means that when I sit at the dining room table I'm looking at a giant field, a forest, and quite often a family of deer. When I walk into this (what is now a) vast whiteness with the family labrador retriever, I feel like I'm Peter in Ezra Jack Keat's "Snowy Day," like Polly and Digory stepping through the Wardrobe in C.S. Lewis's "Narnia", the little boy in the wordless "The Snowman" by Raymond Briggs". In other words, it's like a childhood fairytale.

Benni and I have taken many a long walk through magical forests, over white fields, and through frozen creek beds. We've tracked geese over hills, rabbits under fences, and deer across frozen ponds. I've been overwhelmed by the sensation of being surrounded by thousands of footprints in the snow, none of which belonged to a human being but my own, and totally awed by the breathtaking view of the alps silloutted by the setting sun. I fetch cheese, milk, and eggs from the neighboring farm, and watch neighbors transport themselves on horses, cross country skis and wooden tabbogans. I'm Davy Crockett! Tarzan's Jane! Aldo Leopold!

But wait. How can this be? I love the city, I love the rough edge, the action, dancing till 5am, watching my purse, riding the crowded subway, being a part of the throbbing mass of the working, the unemployed, the rich, the poor, the foreigners, the bavarians, the kind, the rude, the children, the grandparents, the whole messy soup of humanity. But I also love the peace of nature, the totally silent moments with just me, the dog, the geese and the trees (hey, they don't call me a treehugger for nothing).

Why did I bring this up, after all? In the last week I've been back and forth between "home" in Feldafing and "the city", Munich, and I've realized how much I love both worlds. It could just be my love for ambiguity and contrast (what hippie-liberal-eurofetishfull-treehugger loves the NFL and the Steelers with such fervor?) but I've come to the conclusion that I'm more than happy to house both city and country mouse in mousey-housey-harmony.

getacklt, gesackt, gefumblt, geblitzt...

2006-01-23T18:05:00.000+01:00

so i haven´t been writing much. That usually means that what i´ve been experiencing is somehow too large/ complicated/ innappropriate/ amazing or secret for these very limiting and very public black and white letters. And I would say that the last few weeks have been exactly that. I´d be happy to relay you the juicy details (well, some version of them, depending on who you are) in a more personal correspondance. You know the new email address...

But of course, I can write something here. I won´t pretend that the lack of posts didn´t have some small amount to do with laziness. At any rate, i´m sitting at the computer lab at the University during my last week of university classes in Germany and very well for the forseeable future (goodbye studentstatus, sniff sniff) and making the mental (and bureaucratic) journey to the Arbeitswelt: I start my internship on Wednesday, Febraury 1st.

But wait, back up. THE STEELERS ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have to say, as I watched the game yesterday in an Austrailian Pub in Munich, Germany, on SKY satellite with one American and one BRITISH announcer (who said "he just LACED HIM UP" a lot which i found quite disturbing with a british accent) sitting with two French and one Polish friend, and surrounded by an oddball assortment of expat americans, NONE of whom were from pittsburgh, I was struck by that most wonderful of sensations: wow my life is weird.

At any rate, I had the luxury of enthusiastic (and patient) company, who listened faithfully to my broken germ-isch explanation of the rules (und dann wenn er "getackelt" wird, dass heisst dass er "gesackt" war, und wenn er den Ball verliert, er hat den Ball "gefumblt", warscheinlich weil die verteiligung "geblitzt" hat) (ironically enough, blitz is a german word.... so really, when i explained "blitzburgh" i think they understood! mostly...) And the additional luxury of German beer (Iron City, I love you, but i´ll take an Augustiner Helles over IC any day...). And I am ready for the midnight marathon superbowl viewing in two weeks, and am already planning my pre-superbowl party (it starts at midnight here....) All I can say is... "EINE FUR DIE DAUME!!!"

padova summary

2006-01-15T17:25:00.000+01:00

and, last but not least. my weekend in padova. faaaaaannnntastic.

walk with benny

2006-01-15T17:18:00.000+01:00

and here's my walk with benni. these photo collage things are great!

this is where i live. in the middle of nowhere. isn't it spectacular? and my dog is alio fantastic.

sledding

2006-01-15T16:51:00.000+01:00

Yes. I love my life. Last Saturday I was hiking in the Colli Eugani in Italy, this Saturday I was sledding in the Alps. The landscape was spectacular... mountains, huts, cute little children, and these unbelievable crystalized snow formations. We passed a huge frozen lake where people were skating, and everywhere people were sledding, riding black horses, cross country skiiing..you name it. "Rodeln" as this type of sledding is called is not at all tame.. we took a lift to the top of the mountain and then careened down steep hills and rounded death-defying curves. Steering and braking with our feet. Thrilling and Spectacular.

unbelievable

2006-01-15T13:15:00.000+01:00

....on friday the 13th I accidentally deleted my email address. Unbelievable, i know. It is now:
emilylflechtner@gmail.com

ah, the dangers of gmail. Luckily i backed up my contacts. I still felt strangely empty inside when I lost it all. I can't really believe how attached one can become to electronic data...

if you've written me any love letters in the past year, i can't read them over and long for you anymore. Other than that i've escaped relatively unharmed....

love,

emilylflechtner

unbelievable

2006-01-15T13:10:00.000+01:00

on friday the 13th, I accidentally deleted my email account. Yes, my entire email account. Don't ask me how, it's a sad sad story. So my new email is the following: emilylflechtner@gmail.com

It's really rather disturbing how suddenly identity-less and out of contact I felt when I deleted my email address. Perhaps it's for the better that I did a little house cleaning...

For all of you who've written me love letters, however, I can't read them over anymore =(

love,

emilylflechtner

ain't that the truth

2006-01-13T18:30:00.000+01:00

"To move freely you must be deeply rooted"--Bella Lewitsky

a poem

2006-01-11T01:46:00.000+01:00

mi manca l'italia
i can't believe
sometimes
the things that happen
i want to grab them and put them away
because i'm sure they won't happen again
and here too
i feel that way
like living a dream, which you know will never continue
but rather from which you awake
dissappointed and confused
and now the talk about sleep
reminds me all over again
and so i'm going to sleep
because what else can i do

and then, on the 3rd of january...

2006-01-03T02:55:00.000+01:00

jason spoke to me

christmas summary

2006-01-03T02:04:00.000+01:00

and this is a drawing of my house

2006-01-03T01:56:00.000+01:00

my house!

2006-01-03T01:54:00.000+01:00

Fröhes neue Jahr

2006-01-03T01:13:00.000+01:00

Right, so new year's eve. Since my normal friends are all home for the holidays, i wasn't quite sure what I was going to do for the evening. The americans are still around of course, and then the other day I got a surprise phone call from Sven...let's see. Sven and I met...well not really...at karaoke at an irish bar. He was sitting at the table next to ours with a girl and they wrote out a slip to request to sing but they refused to turn it in so we turned it in for them. And then we realized that they had requested "stairway to heaven" which in my opinion is a horrible song to sing karaoke to. No wonder she was so mortified. And lame Sven refused to sing with her, so my friend Nicole who was visiting consented to sing along. At any rate I never actually spoke with this Sven but at the end of the night the girl came up to me and asked me for his phone number for him and said something about my eyes. I gave it to her... and then he didn't call me. But coincidentally my friend had gotten his email address because she had taken pictures of the girl singing karaoke and at this point my curiosity was piqued, so i emailed him. He told me i'd given him the wrong number, which I had already thought i might have done, and we met up. But we only hung out a couple of times and then didn't see eachother for a while, so I was quite surprised when he called.

Phew, back in the present. So he mentioned that he had some friends in town and asked if i'd like to come out with them. So I went along, and brought another american friend Christy. It was a low-key evening, and after his rather unfriendly friends from Cologne left, things got going and I got talking to Artur, another friend of the girl. By the end of the evening we'd hit it off (and I learned that he'd just broken up with his girlfriend of six years. six years! jeez!!) and he invited christy and i to his new year's party. Perfect! So on new year's we found ourselves at the apartment of a very nice guy who had just been dumped by his six year girlfriend, and whose apartment actually still belonged to the girlfriend but she was away for the time being and he was staying there until he found a new place. And there were only about 10 people there...but everyone was nice, and there was Raclette to eat, and interactive food is always delicious. So we stayed but had promised to meet the americans for fireworks and midnight. So we left with promises to come back, and took the train to olympiazentrum (the site of the 1972 olympics, the fated ones, and where i play unterwasserhockey). And wow. It was like a war zone. Fireworks are totally legal and apparently that means that everyone should have some, because i think everyone did. And not tiny things. Not bottle rockets. Giant rockets, huge exploding things. Everywhere. By 11:55 our view over munich was an unbelievably spectacular panorama of nothing but fireworks. At midnight it was so loud we couldn't speak. At 12:05 we couldn't see anything because of the smoke. Nothing. It was incredible, and more incredible still was that we remained alive and fully limbed. People were shooting fireworks out of their mouths. There's something about alcohol and crowds that makes people think they're invisible.
And then in a champagne-drunk-muddy (it was raining, thank god for the fire risk, and we sat on my twister mat which got muddy anyways thus our muddy state) state we walked back to the subway and proceeded to fight insane crowds (and i proceeded to suffer an incredible need to pee, which I survived but barely) back to the party, where christy, robert and robert's friend stopped by shortly but then departed to make the last train and I, as always, stayed because they offered me a sofa and fun and sofa is better than no fun and train ride home. It was fun, and in the morning we all went out to breakfast. Me and Niels, Martin, Artur and Andreas, an upright group of german guys. Wahoo for more friends! At any rate I left my digital camera at Artur's which means that i can't post any pictures but also means that i've been invited over to cook dinner with him on wednesday, so i can get my camera. Not too shabby...

And on thursday I have an interview with the paper, because apparently it's newsworthy to be an american exchange student living in a tiny dorf called feldafing and playing unterwasserhockey. They want to publish that embarassing photo of me. Should I let them? ayayay. This is going to haunt my political career forever, I know it ;-)

book to movie to book

2006-01-03T00:53:00.000+01:00

i just finished the book "everything is illuminated" by jonathan safran foer, which I thoroughly enjoyed. And then yesterday I was reading through the movie listings for Munich, and I saw that a fim entitled "Alles ist erleuchtet" was playing. Funny, I thought, that's almost an exact translation of the title of the book I just read. And then I clicked on it. Lo and behold, it's the movie version of the book! I had no idea. So today after meeting with my language partner who also studied in padova but is german so we do 20 mins of german 20 mins of english and 20 mins of italian, I went to a small artsy theater in a neat neighborhood i'd never been to and saw the movie. I have to say, on its own it was good but compared to the book it didn't stand a chance, and it left out a huge part of the book and changed a bunch of stuff. But it was fun and I ate peppermint chocolate.

Then I came home and cuddled with the dog and then my host mom read aloud "charlie brown's christmas" to me, because my parents sent me the book as a gift and she wanted to practice her english pronunciation. Then I cleaned my room and finally bagged up all the bottles i've been hoarding because they are each worth 15 cents in bottle deposit, and I feel fresh and clean for the new year. Oh yeah, and Robert Nathenson (friend from highschool) was just in town visiting, which was very nice. We went to the Neue Pinakothek (art museum) on New Year's day which made me feel very cultured. A good start to 2006, I say.

a new year's wish

2005-12-31T14:09:00.000+01:00

"Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think."

christmas time was here

2005-12-30T11:09:00.000+01:00

alright.

where do I start? Christmas. Ah, Christmas. Christmas here was spectacularly beautiful. Like a movie. On the 24th when the sun went down, we all gathered around the tree (my host mom and dad, Benni the labrador retriever and I) and lit the candles (real candles!). Then we listened to music and appreciated the tree, and sat down to the "Bescherung" (gift-giving) and exchanged small gifts. Then we drank champagne and as my host mom finished preparing dinner I went for a walk with my host dad and Benni through the neighborhood. Boy was that magical. The neighborhood was absolutely still and silent, blanketed in snow, and in all the windows of the tiny houses you could see christmas trees and warm lights and families gathered around eating or exchanging gifts. It was like a scene from the thousands of christmas movies I love--whoville or charlie brown's town, or even the north pole. Magical. Then we returned home to a cozy traditional dinner of wiener wurtschen and kartoeffel salat (viennese sausages and potato salad) and after eating set off for church. Like nearly everyone else in Feldafing, we walked to church, through those silent snowy streets, and my host mom pointed out that we could identify who was going to the catholic church and who was going to the protestant church by which direction they were walking. Not that it was important, it was just one of those quirky little small town facts that made me smile. The church service itself was nice, in a small cozy wooden church, although I was baffled by the fact that people seemed unduly serious and also no one removed their coats--like they wanted to be ready to jump up and leave at any moment. But we sang "Stille Nacht" (silent night) and lit candles, which everyone then walked with back to their houses. I felt somewhere like I was in the middle ages, walking through the snowy streets with candles. And to top off a tradition filled evening, I insisted on reading "twas the night before christmas" aloud, even though christmas eve here really is christmas itself, and there is no santa claus, and i think my host dad, mom and her brother didn't really understand the antiquated english of the poem, despite my wild gesturing and broken translations. It was a calm and beautiful moment, though, and a tribute to my grandfather, who always read it to us. Since he died i've been carrying on the tradition, and when I talked to my family on the 25th, they reported that they'd forgotten to read it. Well grampy, i didn't :)

praktikum time

2005-12-29T12:02:00.000+01:00

i have lots to say--about christmas, about snow, about family here, and about my praktikum! I don't have time to write about all that first stuff now cause i have to catch a train in 45 minutes and riding my bike to the station is an insane activity in this snow, but I wanted to mention that I have a praktikum, and for a group called Green City..here's the website! www.greencity.de

oh tannenbaum

2005-12-29T11:59:00.000+01:00

and yes, those are real candles :-)

christmas eve friends

2005-12-29T11:57:00.000+01:00

Me and Benny on the couch after church...not too much excitement cause the presents are already all opened on Christmas eve, but certainly a cozy evening.

crashing together of my senses

2005-12-22T01:06:00.000+01:00

zzzzzz

i'm so tired. today i did a ridiculous amount of christmas shopping, had another interview (success!) and spent the evening with a friend Jacques, from france of course. And then when I got home I encountred not anger from my host mom but rather felt on the defensive nonetheless. I had ordered a christmas present from amazon and she subtley pointed out that they are their competitors (they run a book distributor) and then I explained what a great interview I had today and how I will probably take the Praktikum at this firm and she told me how much she disagrees with that the firm does. In a very nice and subtle way, but still. And then told me that her stepdaughter just had a miscarriage and her stepson got hurt on the job as a policeman. And i'm so sleepy. So I feel a bit defeated. Too tired to make any sort of decisions anyways, so i'll just let it sit. I was gonna go early to munich tomorrow to do more shopping but i think i'm just going to sleep till i wake up. have UWH at 9pm anyways and don't want to stay in the city for too long. zzzzzzzzzzzzz

a full day

2005-12-19T16:59:00.000+01:00

1) ride into Münich to stay with Gregor
2) Wake up and go to interview #1 (job offer!)
3) head back to Gregor´s cause i´ve forgotten my laptop cord
4) head off to interview #2
5) get there, turn right around cause it´s the wrong address
6) head to correct address, have interview, get second job offer
7) head here, to the university computer lap. phew.

now i´m sleepy and considering not even staying in munich for language class...hmmmmmm

Männer sind Schweine

2005-12-18T18:46:00.000+01:00

Ja. That´s a song, Männer sind Schweine (men are pigs) and today I find it especially apt... I´ll leave it at that for now, suffice it to say my host mother is adorable and comforting.

And as further therapie I went with my host dad and Benni (dog) to the biggest sledding hill in Feldafing and met the coolest kids. Two hours of sledding, snowball fights with the 6-12 year olds...and then we built an igloo (my idea) and I fielded a number of questions including "do people live in skyscrapers in america?"

There´s no better therapie than kids when you realize that life is really not as complicated as you think. Not nearly. And then I came back and drank Glühwein with my host family and helped them stuff envelopes for christmas cards and downloaded vince guaraldi´s charlie brown christmas music for them to hear and recited the whole of "twas the night before christmas". It was wonderful.

Tomorrow I have two interviews for my praktikum and tonight I´m going to Munich to watch a movie with a friend and spend the night there. After tuesday I think i´ll become a semi-permanent feldafing resident for a while. It´s very cozy, white and christmasy here.

lalalalala, que viva la noche

2005-12-18T03:28:00.000+01:00

my dream, to run down an airport runway with my arms stretched out like an airplane, just like Xavier in the final scene of L'Auberge Espagnole. Tonight I watched that movie for the 1000th time with James, my neighbor here in Feldafing (fellow american PPPler). It's still a fantastic movie.

My host mom had a bizarre social gathering this evening consisting of Feldafing socialites and one ridiculous looking dog that my host mom (when the owner was gone) later called an "Ofenrohrputzburste" (basically, a chimney sweep). See photo.

The gathering itself was a bit long and the guests were nice but had some very interesting and adament attitudes about America that I expended a lot of energy fighting back. In general it was a nice evening, and then when they all left I sat around with James, my host mom and my host dad joking laughing and drinking wine. Compared with the guests of the evening, my host family is so laid-back and hilarious, it's wonderful.

Tomorrow we'll probably have a late Sunday breakfast and then I may be meeting a friend in town in the evening, but other than that my day is relatively unplanned. Things are slowly winding down, people are driving off to home--I still have some floppy loose ends, including the questions "where am I going (if anywhere) during my little winter break here?" and "what's my praktikum gonna be?" I have two more interviews on monday and one on wednesday, all of which sound promising and exciting, so I should have the answer to at least that second question fairly soon. As for traveling, i'm considering three options: 1) Visit my friend Juliette in Bordeaux, France 2) Go back to Padova and maybe explore some of Sudtirol 3) Do north Germany. We'll see what I have the time and money for in the end.

It's 3:45am and i'm sitting on the steps to the basement (where my room is) because I don't get a wireless signal down there. I've decided that it is so very often that I go to sleep at 4, 5, 6 or 7 that I'm basically on American time anyways. Some parts of home never leave...

i've got nothing

2005-12-17T16:45:00.000+01:00

home for the holidays

2005-12-17T13:42:00.000+01:00

actually, not really. But home as in host family home...but the weirdest part is that all my friends in Munich are heading home themselves. It feels weird to be left like this...

The past week has been filled with not very much productivity and a lot of parties. Last night was the final goodbye-before-xmas party. It was good but I think we could all use a bit of a break from these party-filled evenings. Or maybe it was just that the exact same group of people had been partying together until 5am the night before. I guess there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

I think a lot of the new friendships I´m forming have reached a crossroads--either we remain casual acquaintences who wave to eachother on the street and dance at parties, or we start actually hanging out in normal settings. That´s the harder part, I guess...

Last night it snowed. It did not snow in Munich, just in Feldafing. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I live within the reach of the public transit system, cause it often feels like I live in another country. The weather is different, and we regularly run into the mayor at the grocery store. But today is a really beautiful day, the sun is shining on the fresh snow, and I think it's time for me to start a nice, cozy, winter hibernation, build up my christmas spirit, and settle my brains for a long winter's nap...

bubble beauties...juliette und jean baptiste

2005-12-16T15:17:00.000+01:00

i love to dress up

2005-12-16T15:08:00.000+01:00

I think I was the only person in costume, but when they say "woodstock party" i come dressed appropriately, aight? I brought bubble stuff with, however, and that was a big hit. Everyone's get a child within...

This picture is me with a group of people I really don't know. But they were fun.

THERE ARE 50 STATES!!!!

2005-12-15T11:36:00.000+01:00

bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now...

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C. /

Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

DO YOU KNOW THAT GERMANS DON'T KNOW HOW MANY STATES THERE ARE? AND WE GET CALLED IGNORANT...

america, shame on you

2005-12-13T12:13:00.000+01:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/opinion/13tue1.html?hp

literally the first question I am asked when I say I want to work in the field of environmental protection is "why didn't america sign kyoto" And yeah, kyoto isn't perfect, but it's a matter of principle. I'm actually quite amazed how angry it makes people here. Well it makes me angry too. Read the above.

taking a cue from aaron

2005-12-13T11:42:00.000+01:00

just wanted to pass along a few words of wisdom from aaron, a friend who is currently doing the peace corps in Mauritania:

What am I doing here? I’m living and working.
Is this a good use of my time? Of course not. Nothing happens efficiently in life.
Is this where I want to be? Who cares? I’m here, might as well enjoy it.
Where will it all lead? To its natural end.

It sounds perhaps a bit pessimistic, but I find it perfect. To read more about his adventures, look here: http://mauritania.sporadicism.net/

testing the limits of sleeplessness

2005-12-13T09:45:00.000+01:00

wow. I think I have perhaps never done so much and slept so little. Here's a wrap-up:

Friday--to bed at 2ish, up at 6 for interview. Interview went well, found out i'm going skiiing on saturday, into town to buy ski pants and and up going out with group of americans. home at 2

Saturday--up at 5 to meet Tobi and other friends to go skiiing in Austria. Drive to Austria (sleeping the whole way), rent skis, try to keep up with the pros and do alright, especially enjoy my two hour break playing with Elias, Tobi's 5 year old son. Here's the two of them:

Sunday--Well wait, we have to continue with saturday. At this point i'm completely exhausted. And then I realize I have to get up at 4 if I want to make the 6:30am train from Munich to Strassbourg for the Unterwasserhockey tournament. I'm sick of taking the early trains so I message Gregor to ask if I can sleep at his house in Munich. I go but there's a party for MESA staff so we go and end up staying till 5:00a,m. Head back to Gregor's, gather my stuff, head to the train. Meet Brummi, we both sleep the entire way (he was at skiiing the day before, too)

Sunday cont...--Play Unterwasserhockey, lose the first 4 games but win the last 11-0 (including a goal from me!!), get driven to Karlsruhe and hop the train back to Munich, home at 1. Sleeeeeeeeeeeep

Monday--BUT have to be at class at 10 which means getting up at 7:30 ughh the suburbs. Go to class, find out I didn't get my internship, break down from exhaustion and disappointment and cry (for the first time in three months though...that's better than at home!). Decide to give up on the day, get comforted by my host mom and sleep for three hours. Eat dinner, back to bed...12 more hours of sleep and here I am at the breakfast table, I THINK back in the real world. Today I've got nothing to do but go to Tollwood Christmas festival with the Unterwasserhockeyteam. Here's a (fuzzy) photo of those at the Strassbourg tournament:

skiing is so beautiful

2005-12-10T21:38:00.000+01:00

that's me! skiiing. a spontaneous action but a good choice. Tomorrow i'm going to Strasbourg, France to play unterwasserhockey...there are back in one day. Aye...I will sleep a lot on the train. I'm so tired that i've decided that the best way to make my 6:30am train is to go into Munich to a party so I can sleep at a friend's. Then it's off we go...

wolpertinger

2005-12-09T07:22:00.000+01:00

so i have an interview for my praktikum this morning. we'll see how that goes!

My host mom is amazing. She sent me an email last night with this picture, and the following text:

...das ist zum Beispiel ein Unterwasserhockeywolpertinger (mit Schwimmflossen)

(translation: this, for example, is an underwaterhockey wolpertinger with flippers)

HAHAHAHAHAHA

me, vincent, jacques, caro

2005-12-07T02:04:00.000+01:00

i have never been this cold in my life. well actually this picture was taken after drinking three gluhweins. so i'm a bit warmer. but it's still cold. you can see the nutcracker guy behind us, this is at the christmas market in dresden. now i'm going to bed....enough posting for today =)

dresden party

2005-12-07T02:01:00.000+01:00

Me and two friends Gregor and Ingo the first night in Dresden.

hot, long, delicious

2005-12-07T02:00:00.000+01:00

that's what that sign says. dresden xmas market...

my beautiful advent calendar!!!!!!

2005-12-07T01:58:00.000+01:00

a gift for each day, made exclusively by my host mom =)

east german bliss

2005-12-05T18:07:00.000+01:00

this weekend was the much awaited trip to Dresden. There was much excitement surrounding this trip because after the amazing fun of the hut weekend in the Alps, I of course wanted to go on the very next trip with this group of people. But they got over 80 applications for 35 spots and, alas, I was not one of the chosen ones. But through a series of shenanigans, a friend Vincent who was also on the hut weekend convinced the president to let us on. Don´t ask me how, but i was certainly grateful. At any rate we took off Friday morning very early (7am).

I nearly missed the trip perhaps three times... the first being my impression that the trip left at 7pm instead of am. Thankfully I spent the evening with one of the trip organizers on Wednesday and he clarified my misconception. The second near miss was the (perhaps unadvisable) decision to go to the infamously life corrupting international student party on thursday night. This party is like a sandtrap. I literally seem to find it impossible to leave without either missing the last train, becoming incredibly intoxicated, engaging in otherwise unadvisable behavior, or all of the above. So you could say that it was clearly unadvisable to go there when I needed to do none of the above, most namely miss the last train, because to be back at the university at 7 with all my luggage, i would most certainly not make it starting home at 5:30am (its at least a 2 hour roundtrip). But I had spent the afternoon baking christmas cookies with Christy (another american participant who lives in my town) and the aupair from Poland who also lives with her. And it just so happened that it was her exact one year anniversary in germany! And one just doesnt not celebrate that. So I picked up a bottle of Sekt (german champagne) and we drank it on the train to Munich. The plan was to go very early to the party and leave no later than midnight to catch the last train, but more probably around 11. When we got to the party at 9:30, it was practically, and we drank our (complimentary for early birds) Glühwein in peace and conversation, punctuated by a funny interview by the Süddeutschezeitung (big newspaper of southern germany). But somewhere around 11, and this is what always seems to happen to me, a threshhold was reached and people started pouring into the party. This coincided with us reaching a particular point of intoxication. We were just starting to have fun! I managed to tear myself away at 12 but Christy and Magiana decided to stay the night...and off I ran. But it took forever for my subway to come so by the time I got to my tranfer station I had exactly two minutes to make the transfer. So I ran, as fast as possible, and made the train by exactly one minute. Phew.

And then there was the morning. I woke up at the absurd hour of 445 to finish packing and make my 548 train. Late as always i rushed out of the house at 543ish with all my luggage, tried to shove it in my bike basket, couldnt, so rode clumsily and dangerously down the hill in the dark icy morning. And just as I was pulling into the parking lot....hisssss....my train. At this point I knew I had no chance...I still had to lock my bike, unload my luggage and cross the tunnel under the tracks. The train stays for about 30 seconds. Scheisse. I knew this wasnt the end of the world, there was another train in 20 minutes and that would get me there most probably 3 or 4 minutes late, and knowing that about 1/4 of the people on this trip were italian...i probably wasnt going to be the only one =) But it still meant i had to freeze for 20 minutes, mad at myself.

In the end, I made it. The busride was full of cheer, and we reached the city well rested after a 6 hour ride. And the thermometer in the bus said it was 8 degrees celsius out! Heat wave! But as we soon discovered during our city tour....it was unreasonably cold. Noone could explain why, but we all attested to the fact that we were colder than wed ever been in our whole life. The long and painful tour ended at the christmas market, which still didnt provide any indoor cover but offered plenty of Glühwein. A new friend Jaques and I drank three. It was wonderful, never have I felt more relieved to be warmer. And then we all went back and napped at the hostel. At ten we were loudly awoken and we all boarded a tram for the dresden international student party. The evening was full of dancing and general cheer. And the busride home was full of singing. A general good time.

The next day the weather had not improved. It was raining, but nonetheless we all trepped 5 kilometers (should have been three but 2 were 1 kilometer in the wrong direction, 1 back) to the city center to see...the world´s biggest christmas stollen!! Apparently it is a Dresden tradition to back a gigantic christmas stollen, parade it through the city to the christmas market, and have a bizarre fake medievel ceremony presenting it. it was thrilling. Then we wanted to split into two groups to go to either the main museum or to so-called "deutsches hygenie museum" I know, it sounds ridiculous, but i had read about it and i really wanted to go and so did one other person. that was all. so michl and I schlepped through the rain for 20 minutes, finally entering a rather sober looking grey building. But it was warm inside, and in the end, despite my quite brutal assumedly post too much glühwein headache, we spent a joyous 4 hours persusing an intriguing and endlessly entertaining collection of old DDR medical instruments, interactive activities to test your own abilities at various tasks, insect collections, morbidly fascinating clay models of different skin diseases, and a particularlz tasteful and artfully risque room about sex and sexuality. A fantastic decision.

And then the evening...a failed attempt at a pub crawl (an impossibility with 40 people, no?) ending at a club called flower power, which played a fantastic selection of oldies who no one liked but me and one of the staff members from dresden. So we danced the night away and although the evening wasn´t spent with really anyone from munich, it was fantastic nonetheless.

In the morning we all boarded the bus and headed to "Sächische Schweiz National Park" to see some really cool rockformations that looked somewhat like bryce canyon, hiked up to a castle ruin with an impressive view of the Elba, and froze our feet off. I am never wearing converses again in the cold, despite the admiration it earned me from my hipsterish friend from the previous night. And then we went home...and on the bus I endured much teasing about my lack of presence the previous night and we watched Speed. Which is a terrible movie but funny to watch on a bus. And then we were so tired, but it was such a good trip. It´s nice to have friends, it really is. Oh, and Dresden is a fantastic city! beautiful, just the right size...i think i want to live there next. we´ll see what i can do.

and now, i have language class. bye!

ill put some pictures from the trip up when i get a chance

minty eyes and other homeopathic remedies

2005-12-05T17:57:00.000+01:00

so
last night my host mom gave me some herbal remedies for my cough that i can´t seem to kick. First of all I should add that I am continually amazed at the incredible concern most europeans show at the sign of a nasty sounding cough. In Italy I was stopped on the street and told to go directly to the doctors if I coughed in public. At any rate, I appreciated the remedies provided by Sigrid, which included tea tree oil salve and some other minty oil thing that you drink. So I smothered myself with the salve, drank a drop of the oil, and fell into bed in a minty herby tingly tired from my trip to Dresden (more on that later) daze. Just before I drifted off, I did something incredibly stupid. I rubbed my eye. ahhhhhhh. Tingly minty breath is nice, as is tingly minty hair or even hands or feet I guess but tingly minty eye is not. If I kept it closed it tingled, if i opened it i got that drastic cold sensation you get on your tounge from eating five altoids at once. I was too tired to get up and rinse my eye out, so i eventually drifted off to sleep, considering the whole time the possible side effects of my eyefreshening mistake. aye aye aye (haha!)

flip flop

2005-11-30T00:29:00.000+01:00

I tried to relive the sledding joy again today with a friend. It worked to some extent...we sledded, laughed, raced, raced a two year old, my butt got completely wet, we drank two glasses of Gluhwein, and then I went off to Unterwasserhockey practice. It was actually quite hilarious, today I was carrying around my flippers and my two sleds. I get interesting looks with the flippers cause they stick out of my bag. And when I whip out the knitting on the train....I can't even imagine what they think.

So practice was good, if quite challenging today, and then we scampered off the the Bierstube in the Olympiadorf. I've mentioned the Olympiadorf before...it's a large collection of student housing, consisting of the old Olympic Village. It's quite charming, and as I discovered tonight, it has its own cafe and bier hall, as well as disco, pottery studio, comedy club...the list goes on. The student life in Germany is pretty great. At any rate I had a wonderful Pizza and beer with the UWH team, and headed home. I stopped in Hauptbahnhof to change trains and got a phone call from my friend Vincent, letting me know that he'd convinved one of the heads of MESA, the international student group who I went on the hut weekend with, to get us off the waiting list for the Dresden trip this weekend! Wahoo! I'm going to Dresden, hoorah. It's pretty crazy though, my other options for this weekend were a birthday party and a trip to salzburg, or skiing with a friend from the unterwasserhockey team. Hopefully salzburg and skiiing can happen another weekend.

Now off to sleep off the flipperfeet.

spontaneous greek love temple mulled wine sledding

2005-11-30T00:03:00.000+01:00

I have had one constantly repeating revelation in my time here thus far: life is never what you expect, and even when you think you wish something would happen, usually what you never could have imagined or planned on is better than what you originally wished for. In short, life in unexpected and that's wonderful.

I've had a series of consecutive experiences that really have allowed me to throw my trust towards my own fate. Nothing drastic, I guess I'm just supremely happy right now and things keep happening that are adding to that.

Yesterday after class I set off to the Christkindlmarkt am Chinesischen Turm (Christmas Market at the Chinese Tower in the English Garten in Munich). There was the requisite music and I bought a glass of Glühwein to warm up (mulled wine.) I wandered around the various picturesque stands selling things ranging from cutting boards to nativity scenes to knitted socks to...and then suddenly I saw them. Small sleds, the kind you sit on and they are barely big enough for your butt and there's a little handle thing that you hold onto between your legs. I loooked at the price--1.99!! Two euros! So I bought one. And then I finished my Glühwein and walked around and realized...I can't buy just one! So I bought a second. Red and Yellow. They fit EXACTLY in my backpack, which means I can always carry them around. I had tried earlier in the week to go sledding with a friend and we brought cardboard...let's just say it did not work very well.

So I set off with a nice glow from the Glühwein and the victorious purchase, and realized...i can't carry a sled through a park without trying it! So I hiked up to the very top of the Monopteros (see photo here), removed my coat...and off I went. I should mention that the view of the towers of Munich which you can see here (just imagine it with snow) from this section of the Englischer Garten is spectacular. And the sun was just starting to set, and I was all alone, whizzing down a hill and laughing like crazy, because really, sledding makes you laugh like crazy. I got to the bottom and knew I couldn't stop there. After two or three exhilarating runs, I was walking back up the hill and I heard my phone ringing. I ran to my bag, and by the time I got there I was quite exhausted. I didn't recognize the number but I figured it was just a friend so I answered, quite out of breath....

"Guten Tag, Frau Flechtner? Ich bin die Frau Bohle"

Scheisse. These were the people for my internship! Why are they calling me? Here I am, all alone on the top of a hill with a sled in one hand, totally out of breath, jacketless, trying to speak professional german.

"Sind Sie beschäftigt?" (are you busy?)--Frau Bohle
"Naja...ich bin gerade unterwegs (heavy breathing)" (yeaahh...i'm on my way somewhere)

But then, after it all...they invited me to an interview. And INTERVIEW! wahoo!! Here's some info about my potential internship: http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/article1575.html

Needless to say, I took a victory sled or two. Yelling "wahoo" all the way. It's great to be a foreigner...

and some more explanation

2005-11-28T11:40:00.000+01:00

Ok. I'm beating a dead horse, i think, but here's an article about underwaterhockey in Cincinnati, In english: http://www.wral.com/apstrangenews/5411464/detail.html

It's quite funny. Here are my favorite quotes:

"What's next, underwater basket weaving?'"

"You get the gagging feeling. But when you're close to the goal, you're like, 'Do I want to score a goal or breathe?' Most of the time I say, 'Score.'"

"From the surface, it looks like a feeding frenzy."

I think that I am a fish.

scuba steve

2005-11-28T01:11:00.000+01:00

And this is it, the long awaited photo that proves the whole thing is true. I'm exhausted from the weekend, but it was great and i'll write more later. As an appetizer, here's me fully equipped.

2005-11-25T16:51:00.000+01:00

and this is the international underwaterhockey alpine league logo. hmm...

and so it goes...

2005-11-25T16:46:00.000+01:00

hi! that's me and my host dog.

right. so i'm quite busy, and i think i am also quite adapted. These are all good things, except that i've almost stopped writing here. Basically I've made a bunch of new friends, been playing lots of unterwasserhockey and just enjoying life. my parents were here last week and that went really well. I love my life here right now, including the lack of sleep it involves... This weekend i'm going to an unterwasserhockey tournament in Slovenia. That's right. Should be pretty fun, as well absurd. Come to think of it, that pretty much defines my life right now. Fun and absurd.

a special day

2005-11-11T10:11:00.000+01:00

today is 11.11...the one day I won't mess up writing the dates the european way

various amounts of progress on various things

2005-11-11T10:06:00.000+01:00

Dear Diary,

It's the hardest to write in you when there's a lot going on--precisely when I should write in you the most! At any rate, the last few days have been full of nothing particularly new but progress on a lot of fronts. What fronts? Well, there's the Unterwasserhockey front, for starters. I have been promoted to the advanced practice group, wahoo! And I actually played, and did good things that helped the team instead of hurt them. I actually think I've never liked a sport more! There's something particularly satisfying about out breath holding people while wearing perhaps the most ridiculous outfit in the world. I find it exceedinly satisfying that in my life I have played not just one but two sports which make use of the most ridiculous looking head gear in the athletic world: the water polo cap. And I'm still young...

Additionally on the UWH front, I am finally starting to be able to recognize people behind their waterpolo caps, diving masks, and snorkels, and making some friends! And due to the unusually communal nature of the locker rooms, I find myself oft involved in what I would normally term girly locker room chat with the whole team! Also on the "friends" front, I've been meeting some other people. I have been a very active fake participant in most Erasmus student activities, which is the governing body of the European exchange program and has offices and actual staff in every city whose sole job seems to be to plan parties and events for exchange students. Yesterday we went on a brewery tour of the Paulaner Brauerei, which was interesting but hard to follow because our tour guide kept flirting with the spanish language translator that another group had brought along. The best parts were: tasting the barley malt, going in the giant refridgerator room where the beer is aged, and seeing the giant assembly line where the bottles are filled and labled. Ah, the beauty of mass production. And of course, there was free beer for all, which was rewarding as always. And this weekend I am going with a group of Erasmus students to the Alps to stay in a hut for two nights. It's going to be...interesting. I have a feeling there won't be all that much sleeping. Hey, you only live once...

Yes, so my life has been off-and-on sleepless, and of course there's been fun with my host family and I'm starting to think about internship options. And last but not least my family is coming to visit next sunday! I can't really believe it's already the middle of November...when I left it seemed like such a long time away that they were coming to visit me, but here we are and I will be thrilled to see them.

So that's all for now, although I'm sure I'll add more later as, well, there's more to say...friends, boys, school, the usual aspects of life (at least mine). Until then...tschuss!

Emily

when it rains, it pours

2005-11-09T11:10:00.000+01:00

catch-up

2005-11-04T12:26:00.000+01:00

Referat? Man, that was so long ago. It went well. So well that I decided to celebrate Halloween in true halloween style, dressed up like a Ninja Turtle (raphael), but not until after wearing my purple wig to language class. Old women on the train actually avoided sitting next to me--halloween here is just not the same. First time i've been truly homesick. Went back to the ridiculous mall-of-clubs and fought my way through crowds of uncostumed 17 year olds for a chance to dance. Danced a bit but then fell asleep at the club around 3. I'm too old for this. When I finally got home I walked into my bedroom and my alarm went off, signifying that I had been awake exactly 24 hours (6:45-6:45) and decided that was my cue: to bed. Slept till 5pm the next day.

Lately? ...not too much. Eric is here, though! We're checking out Munich...I always learn something new about Munich when I have visitors. Yesterday we climbed the "Olympiaberg" in the olympic park. We saw a beautiful sunset and the mountains...it was unrealistically warm yesterday. Sometimes the weather here baffles me..it's been beautiful! I went to Unterwasserhockey yesterday. It was great...I'm getting much better. I think I might pick up snorkeling for real after this...if I can get over my fear of fish. The plan for today is multi-faceted: eric is coming to see my house, then we're going to a "Tram party" with the international student group. The plan? Party in a street car while it drives around munich. Kind of like prom on a river boat, only there will be alcohol. We'll see how three hours on a tram with people goes...

That's all, sorry for the rough language and the sloppy writing style. Bis dann...

If Autumn were adopting an advertising campagin, this would be it!

2005-10-30T16:33:00.000+01:00

Literally, this is the most beautifully I've ever experienced the fall. Today I went on perhaps the most spectacular hike I've ever been on to "Kloster Andechs" a Closter known for its beautiful location and fantastic food and beer! We had views of painted trees, horse drawn carriages, and (in the upper right) the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak! (very faint in the background.) Tomorrow is Halloween which I will be celebrating with much gusto after I make it through my Referat (oral presenation). Until then, i'm going to soak up the sun.

Leafily yours,
Emily

not a bad way to get rid of a cold

2005-10-29T18:19:00.000+02:00

So i have this sudden cold. It's really not bad, although my host family insists on giving me all kinds of remedies, including a particularly horrendous version of echinacea liquid. Today, at any rate, I slept in and with the exception of waking up to bike to the grocery store before 12:30, i didn't do much of anything. It was particularly quaint, though, that bike ride, followed by careful riding so as not to drop the groceries in the back of my bike. Afterwards, I ate a delicious lunch and sat out in back of the house reading "Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Maurakmi, which I must admit I bought simply because I love the song, but is turning out to be quite a great read. The only problem is I read it almost all today and afterwards i'm not going to have another book to read. I hear there's an English library somewhere in Munich though, i'll have to check it out. I've never read anything by a Japanese author, it really makes me want to travel there. I forgot how great it is to enjoy a good book witha real atmosphere.

At any rate, today was the most spectacular day ever. It was almost 75 degrees out and sunny, pretty impressive for October 29th in Germany. You know me, it made me feel quite guilty to not go sit by the lake or take a hike but I decided that lying on the deck in the sun was good enough. I was wearing only a tank top and shorts, that's how warm it was! I was out there literally all day, the sun is just going down now, and it was idyllic. At one point a little boy walked out into the field and started picking flowers and I thought I was going to cry or something with the picturesqueness of it all. A flock of birds flew overhead and I could actually hear their wings--it's so quiet out here in the country! Quite a wonderful contrast to hectic Munich.

Tonight i'm cooking a recipe that I learned in Italy for my host family...it's a really nice feeling to mix all my life experiences together...it makes me feel less like a fragmented person with different friends in different places and different memories in different languages but rather just a mix of experiences. I guess that's what everyone's like, really, even if they've never left their hometown.

Off to shower and cook, goobye.

students in shacks in heaven

2005-10-29T02:15:00.000+02:00

Something like a mix between the slums of rio and some kind of venice-like paradise, the student town I discovered today makes me want to live in this city as a student forever. Converted bungalows from the 72 olympics, complete with concrete block 70s style architecture, balconies, narrow allies and a
complete right to graffiti and paint them as pleased! Both visually appealing and socially sensible. It's Germany like I always dreamed of. Until I take more pictures, this will have to suffice...I think I might be spending a lot of time in Olympiapark area. Who knows, maybe I'll be an Olympicunterwasserhockeyspielerin one day.

and i'm gonna have föhn, föhn, föhn...

2005-10-29T00:03:00.000+02:00

Riddle: What clears the way for specacular weather and views of the alps, but gives everyone headaches and bad moods? Answer: föhn.

Funny word. But i've heard it so much lately, and in so many contexts. Examples:

I wake up from a long night sleeping to find my host mom lying on the couch looking not well. I ask her what's wrong and she replies "I have a föne headache." (and here i'm thinking, oh, than perhaps i'm not hungover from the previous night, it's just the föhn...)

I am chatting with a cranky museum security guard who is noting that people are especially difficult today. I blame the rain, he blaims the föhn.

I am riding home on the train from the aforementioned long night out, and the sun is coming up. The sky is especially clear and beautiful, and an austrian friend sitting next to me remarks: föhn is so wonderful, don't you agree?

I ride with my host dad through perhaps the most spectacular autumn scenery i've ever seen to pick out a pumpkin so i can carve them a jackolantern. Why is the sky so clear, the sun so golden, and the peaks of the alps so suddenly visible? föhn.

Alright, alright. So what is this so called föhn? It's, as it was explained to me, a warm, dry and sudden wind that comes from the mountains. And as you can see, it has quite incredible effects. Namely, as explained, it brings wonderful, warm, sunny, clear weather that allows you to see for miles and miles (or i guess i should say kilometers and kilometers) towards the mountains, but it puts people in bad moods and gives them headaches. At any rate, I had no bad mood or föhn related headache, but I did have a fantastic time walking down the block and staring for hours and hours at the alps rising majestically above Lake Starnberg, which so happens to by ringed with autumn-colored trees. Sigh.

Needless to say, i'm wowed by the beauty of it all here.

visitors...

2005-10-29T00:00:00.000+02:00

I had some recent visitors! Nicole, Natalie and Corey (their friend) came to see me! We had a fantastic time together, fabulous weather and it gave me the opportunity to get to know the city even better and the excuse to go to Hofbrauhaus as a tourist. Best of all, we sang endless karaoke on tuesday night. Not only did we sing several times (total eclipse of the heart and eye of the tiger are highlights) but we also got sung to by a 65 year old man named Bernie with a wonderful voice. It was like being serenaded by Sinatra...sort of. Needless to say, i'll be going back, maybe every tuesday! I can see it now...Unterwasserhockey, student film club, Karaoke! Good plan, i'd say.

Otherwise, things here are really getting rolling. I've had to cross a series of rather difficult hurdles, well i should stay i'm rather still crossing them. They seem like small things but i'm pretty proud of myself for making it through, just considering that everything becomes so much harder in another culture in another language. The toughest thing had been preparing for the oral presenation that i'm giving in my class on monday! eeeeeeek. Not only is it 15 minutes of speaking German but the material is quite complicated. Luckily my group is fantastic, smart and patient, and we've worked dedicatedly on our presenation all week. Frankly, i've never seen such efficient or smart group work being done...i've learned a lot, including a lot of German, I'm still quite nervous, but Monday's halloween so if i make it through i've earned myself a night out (in costume!), bragging rights, and possibly two new German friends!

Otherwise, little things have occupied me, namely figuring out the city, buying some guys' spot in a yoga course, playing more unterwasserhockey (it's going very well!) and generally enjoying living in what i'm discovering is a fantastic and varied city. My German makes leaps all the time..if sporatically. The next step: internship search. Wow...

trying really hard to be a fish...

2005-10-19T23:46:00.000+02:00

For those of you who know me well, you know how much I love the water. It seems like my newest undertaking is quite broadening the limits of that love. I am officially a member of the Munich Unterwasserhockey team. I mentioned it briefly yesterday but here's a more accurate description of what the sport involves:

First of all, let me explain the equipment. In addition to a bathing suit, we wear flippers, a diving mask, a snorkel, a waterpolo hat (i KNEW i would have another occasion in my life to wear one of those), a latex glove (on the right hand only, mine was white, hehehe), and a little wooden stick.

The game is played entirely on the bottom of the pool. And the pool is not shallow...it's about 9 feet deep. The goal of the game is essentially just like hockey: push the puck around, score goals. But of course the dynamics are entirely different because it's played on the bottom of the pool. First of all, it's weirdly silent. There's no "hey pass to me" or "idiot, how could you miss that shot" or "nice one." There's mostly a lot of swimming down to the bottom, pushing this heavy puck around till you have no more air left, and then shooting back up to the top for some air. Theoretically you keep your head in the water and breathe through the snorkel, but I found that everytime i surfaced I couldn't resist the temptation to rip my mask and snorkel off and breathe normally. I'll have to work on that...

The hardest part, for me, was equalizing the pressure in my ears. Apparently one is supposed to be able to swim at 9 feet without pain, so i'll have to work on that one. With the exception, then, of aching ears, I only had one other problem. Our team captain designated me to swim for the puck, and I must say the one thing I did succeed in doing was swimming pretty fast. Of course, I push off the wall and instantly get a shooting leg cramp...I had forgotten what it was like to have one of those in the water. At any rate, all I could do was haul myself to the wall and swear my head off until someone helped haul me out. In the process I scraped my knee. Needless to say, not the most graceful ending to a relatively good first practice, but what can you do? My leg hurts today...

Another cool part of this whole adventure, aside from learning a ridiculous new sport and meeting a bunch of Germans is that our practices are all held at the 1972 Olympic Arena...which is actually quite a creepy spiderwebby structure at night, but fancy and fun nonetheless.

That's all for now...glub glub glub

international name placards...

2005-10-19T23:44:00.000+02:00

I find myself again in the fantastically mystical atmosphere of a language class in germany. This time it's in one of the typically run-down university buildings, on the 4th (or as germans euphamistically name it, the 3rd) floor. It's twice a week, from 7-8:30, which at this time of year is truly evening, which causes me to feel somewhat adventurous...i don't know, school at night!

The students are once again from all over the world: two from japan, 3 from france, one from finland, one from russia and one from the czech republic. Our teacher is a lively young (35, maybe?) woman from just outside of munich who seems nice, intelligent, patient and dynamic. I'm excited!

As for real school..it's also going well. I went to an italian course yesterday which was fantastic, i'm looking forward to continuing my italian, although i find it utterly confusing when the teacher clarifies words in german. My head is swimming with languages, ayayay. So it seems I have my schedule pretty much set, and that leaves me with most of my courses on Monday, two on tuesday, just language course on wednesday and i'm done for the week! Don't worry though, i'm trying to fill my time with the usual slew of activities, the latest interest being underwaterhockey...tomorrow i'm going to go check it out.

As for Munich...it's beautiful! But huge. I'm remembering the way i feel in a big city...excited and overwhelmed but also sort of coddled and hidden comfortably among the folds and fluff of a giant throbbing mass of people, tourists, students, babies, parents, buildings, museums, drinking, eating, dancing and chatting. It's sort of comforting in a weird way...i feel much less exposed as an expat here than in radolfzell or padova, which is exciting but also puts more burden on me to make an extra effort to integrate myself. At any rate, i'm getting to know the city bit by bit and i can already tell that it has a charm that i will miss dearly in the end.

And now, off to bed, cause theoretically i have to have enough energy to play some underwater hockey tomorrow!

oktoberfest, surrounded by dirndl-ed people

2005-10-01T01:57:00.000+02:00

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