the most beautiful bike path in the world

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

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

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...

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..

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

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

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.