By popular demand, I am re-posting these Updates in their original, untouched form, errors and all, on my new blog. Your comments, as always, are welcome. Here's Part One.
September, 2006
Howdy, all:
Sorry about the somewhat impersonal group mail, but I wanted to give you a quick update from Munich. Also sorry if a lot of this is a repeat for some of you.
The less said about the IFA trade show in Berlin the better. It was crowded, hot, and too long, but it was actually quite productive from a boring business perspective.
My dear Laura made the absurdly long trek from Seattle through Amsterdam to Munich to visit me for a long weekend following IFA, and it was wonderful. The weather forecast had been for rain all weekend right up until Laura left Seattle, but miraculously the storms blew through the night before her arrival and left us with three days of unseasonably sunny, breezy, warm weather. We saw some sights, ate some great food, and even celebrated our 27th (!) wedding anniversary Saturday night at my favorite Provencal restaurant here. Overall, a great weekend.
Since her departure, I have been living a monk-like existence in a tiny student apartment (more on it below), going to school all day and roaming Munich at night, really getting a feel for the different areas of the city.
My week of immersion German classes ended yesterday, and I promptly went out to celebrate. I was planning to splurge on one of the top-rated restaurants downtown, but as I walked about and perused the menus I realized I was in more of a swill-beer-and-party frame of mind than a fine-wine-and-dine mood. Wound up much later at the ultra-tony Bar Anna, a huge trendy hotel bar, so exclusive that there were reserved seats at the bar! There was also a small but chic restaurant area, and to my surprise and delight it turned out to be very good Japanese. Cha-ching! Beer and sushi!
The classes were beyond hard. I had six 45-minute classes per day, for billing purposes, but what it boiled down to was two hour-and-a-half sessions in the morning separated by a break, a long lunch, and then another hour-and-a-half session with a second teacher in the afternoon. The two teachers conspired to arrange the punishment thusly: Claudia, a fifty-something classic German battleaxe, would beat me senseless with German grammar and structure for nearly three hours, then after lunch Sabine would conduct a daily "conversation session" around a topic or two in the afternoon. You get the picture: It was the classic good teacher, bad teacher set up. Did I mention that Sabine was also a leggy thirty-something blond with an easy laugh and an infectious smile? No, I didn't think so.
I have a few good stories from the classes, for sure, but here I will share my favorite. I was in my standard tongue-tied condition during Wednesday's afternoon “conversation” session, trying to explain the horrible service I had experienced along with the great food at the world famous Rathskeller in Marienplatz downtown the previous evening. I had been walking for a while and was hot and thirsty, and no one in the restaurant would wait on me. I was explaining this as best I could to Sabine, saying (in German) "Of course, I was very hot." At this point, although in three days I had not heard her speak a single word of English other than to define words, she literally leapt from her seat and said, in perfect English, "Frank, listen carefully, because I'm going to save you a hell of a lot of embarrassment right now." I was speechless. Of course, it turns out that the literal "I was hot", or "Ich war Heiss" in local Deutsch slang, means "I was horny." So as it happened, I had looked straight at the old waitress at the Rathskeller and pronounced, "I am very horny tonight!"
Mama mia.
I also learned that "I am warm" in literal German, means "I am gay." I have successfully blocked out all recollection of whether I used this phrase before I learned all of this, but no one followed me home at least.
My apartment is very small, with a tiny combo stove, fridge, and sink, a small cupboard and wardrobe, and a single bed. I do have a small balcony, and most important a bathroom with a real shower. The drain doesn't work particularly well, however, limiting showers to seven minutes before it overflows. I was luxuriating in the shower for nine minutes this morning, Saturday, and flooded the whole damn place.
Aye carumba!
Oktoberfest started today as well, and I found out, totally unexpectedly, that my apartment, which is in a horrible lower class student and Turkish immigrant neighborhood, is less than 1.5 K from the Oktoberfest site. Last night, before it had even started, there were British and German guys in the park behind my place at 4:00 am belting out competing football songs at the top of their lungs. When the largely Muslim denizens of the floors below mine countered with group shouts of "Allah Akbar" (God is great) the police finally came and shut the whole mess down.
Today, it seems that the entire population of Bavaria has lost its collective mind and is parading around the town (starting at about 8:00am I might add) drinking beer and singing, virtually all dressed in Dirndl's and Lederhosen. I shit you not.
Humpin' himiny.
Another Munich Update will follow, including an actual first-hand Oktoberfest report. Ah, the things I do to make these updates interesting.
More soon.
Frank
(At the halfway point of my month-long odyssey.)
Technical note: for those concerned about my thumbs, not to mention my mental stability, no, I did not type this missive upon my Crackberry. I sent it from a deep-cover address in an Internet cafe to my Blackberry, from whence it has been forwarded. -F
Sorry about the somewhat impersonal group mail, but I wanted to give you a quick update from Munich. Also sorry if a lot of this is a repeat for some of you.
The less said about the IFA trade show in Berlin the better. It was crowded, hot, and too long, but it was actually quite productive from a boring business perspective.
My dear Laura made the absurdly long trek from Seattle through Amsterdam to Munich to visit me for a long weekend following IFA, and it was wonderful. The weather forecast had been for rain all weekend right up until Laura left Seattle, but miraculously the storms blew through the night before her arrival and left us with three days of unseasonably sunny, breezy, warm weather. We saw some sights, ate some great food, and even celebrated our 27th (!) wedding anniversary Saturday night at my favorite Provencal restaurant here. Overall, a great weekend.
Since her departure, I have been living a monk-like existence in a tiny student apartment (more on it below), going to school all day and roaming Munich at night, really getting a feel for the different areas of the city.
My week of immersion German classes ended yesterday, and I promptly went out to celebrate. I was planning to splurge on one of the top-rated restaurants downtown, but as I walked about and perused the menus I realized I was in more of a swill-beer-and-party frame of mind than a fine-wine-and-dine mood. Wound up much later at the ultra-tony Bar Anna, a huge trendy hotel bar, so exclusive that there were reserved seats at the bar! There was also a small but chic restaurant area, and to my surprise and delight it turned out to be very good Japanese. Cha-ching! Beer and sushi!
The classes were beyond hard. I had six 45-minute classes per day, for billing purposes, but what it boiled down to was two hour-and-a-half sessions in the morning separated by a break, a long lunch, and then another hour-and-a-half session with a second teacher in the afternoon. The two teachers conspired to arrange the punishment thusly: Claudia, a fifty-something classic German battleaxe, would beat me senseless with German grammar and structure for nearly three hours, then after lunch Sabine would conduct a daily "conversation session" around a topic or two in the afternoon. You get the picture: It was the classic good teacher, bad teacher set up. Did I mention that Sabine was also a leggy thirty-something blond with an easy laugh and an infectious smile? No, I didn't think so.
I have a few good stories from the classes, for sure, but here I will share my favorite. I was in my standard tongue-tied condition during Wednesday's afternoon “conversation” session, trying to explain the horrible service I had experienced along with the great food at the world famous Rathskeller in Marienplatz downtown the previous evening. I had been walking for a while and was hot and thirsty, and no one in the restaurant would wait on me. I was explaining this as best I could to Sabine, saying (in German) "Of course, I was very hot." At this point, although in three days I had not heard her speak a single word of English other than to define words, she literally leapt from her seat and said, in perfect English, "Frank, listen carefully, because I'm going to save you a hell of a lot of embarrassment right now." I was speechless. Of course, it turns out that the literal "I was hot", or "Ich war Heiss" in local Deutsch slang, means "I was horny." So as it happened, I had looked straight at the old waitress at the Rathskeller and pronounced, "I am very horny tonight!"
Mama mia.
I also learned that "I am warm" in literal German, means "I am gay." I have successfully blocked out all recollection of whether I used this phrase before I learned all of this, but no one followed me home at least.
My apartment is very small, with a tiny combo stove, fridge, and sink, a small cupboard and wardrobe, and a single bed. I do have a small balcony, and most important a bathroom with a real shower. The drain doesn't work particularly well, however, limiting showers to seven minutes before it overflows. I was luxuriating in the shower for nine minutes this morning, Saturday, and flooded the whole damn place.
Aye carumba!
Oktoberfest started today as well, and I found out, totally unexpectedly, that my apartment, which is in a horrible lower class student and Turkish immigrant neighborhood, is less than 1.5 K from the Oktoberfest site. Last night, before it had even started, there were British and German guys in the park behind my place at 4:00 am belting out competing football songs at the top of their lungs. When the largely Muslim denizens of the floors below mine countered with group shouts of "Allah Akbar" (God is great) the police finally came and shut the whole mess down.
Today, it seems that the entire population of Bavaria has lost its collective mind and is parading around the town (starting at about 8:00am I might add) drinking beer and singing, virtually all dressed in Dirndl's and Lederhosen. I shit you not.
Humpin' himiny.
Another Munich Update will follow, including an actual first-hand Oktoberfest report. Ah, the things I do to make these updates interesting.
More soon.
Frank
(At the halfway point of my month-long odyssey.)
Technical note: for those concerned about my thumbs, not to mention my mental stability, no, I did not type this missive upon my Crackberry. I sent it from a deep-cover address in an Internet cafe to my Blackberry, from whence it has been forwarded. -F
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