Chapitre onze: Et le dixième jour, il s'est reposé

I didn't do a heckuva lot in Paris. I rested more than anything. I did go see Versalles. I did do some shopping, although Joe was not a happy camper to find out the one place in Paris where I will walk and and I will walk out with something, closed for remodelling. Just before Christmas? (Samaritaine, if you must know.) No, I was not happy. :-( Unfortunately it was cold. Really cold. If you look at my pictures of Versalles (amazing really), there's frost on the gardens. Needless to say, I didn't venture far into them. It was cool though. I mean in the other sense of that word. :-)

And so on the 10th day, he rested.

You know, I had been to Paris before, so this trip was an entirely different experience. I enjoyed it profoundly, don't get me wrong. I remembered all the things I loved about Paris. My French slowly started to come back so at least I knew how to do simple things. (I never claim to be fluent, but it comes quick to me.) "Order in French," Reme would say. "Uh okay... Je voudray un..." and so on. "Tres bien!" He's so sweet.

One of the worst things about it was that it was so short, and it was right in the middle of the trip. I was so tired from Germany. It was just go go go. I saw so many friends, I had such a great time (it nearly brought me to tears to have to pack). I really didn't have time to prepare and really plan the stuff I wanted to do (unlike where it was the first part of my trip last year), and have the energy to do it. (My cold, while much better now, still slows me down a bit... just enought to remind me I'm human.) But you know, there's something of a theme going on for this trip. Last year was about seeing things and new places. This year has been different. I met so many wonderful people, everywhere. It's just been amazing. And the whole language thing, I've been amazed. It just all starts to make sense after awhile. I guess I put myself in a place I never thought I would be, or even really intended to be. Just one day you find yourself somewhere, and you're like, wow.

And there's still Madrid. :-)

Aufgabe zehn: Aber noch nicht

Okay, my goodbyes were a bit too soon.

My flight out on Monday was not until late, about 7:00 PM. I had to check out of my room at noon, so I had most of the afternoon to kill. There's no easier way (although some might say better ways) to kill an afternoon than Quo Vadis. I did do a lot of sightseeing, shopping, picture taking (finally... I also got my card reader to work again so I can upload them). But after I did that (I had been to Cologne before, so there wasn't a burning to desire to see much I hadn't see before), I had a few hours to kill. Quo Vadis isn't known for it's service. After waiting an hour, one table gave the waiter an ovation for finally bringing their food out. I myself have never had an order come exactly as I ordered it. (Mine was the wrong breakfast, but it was bigger, so they gave me it to me for the lower price.) But the food is okay, and it's a gay café, so it's full of people who, much like me, were recovering from the weekend. There was an assortment of people from Germany, Italy, England, Ireland (I was the only "Ami", or American, as we're nicknamed). I grabbed a copy of Die Zeit (The Time) and read up on all the news of Germany and the World, much of which is so rarely covered in the American press.

"May you live in interesting times"

Angela Merkel was sworn in this week as Germany's first "Chancelorin", the first female Chancelor, their head of state. They've already nicknamed her "Angie the First." More fascinating yet is that her "win" was only through a coalition of opposing parties, so while she has the chancelorship, other parties have other cabinets. She also spent the week meeting with various heads of state, including England's Tony Blair and France's Chirac. Her new "Ausserminister" (we call it a Secretary of State) met with Condi on Monday as well. (Oh Joscka, how we'll miss you.) But her ability to govern will be impacted by the fact that she had no clear mandate from the people (only a third of the vote). But as she's known as the "Ingeneurin" (her education is actually in engineering), I'm sure she'll find a way. Exactly what way, we can only watch and see.

So I read the news, chatted with various others. I often forget (but am then presented with) that there's not only a language, but a culture barrier. I was chatting with some Brits, and (as gay men go), the subject came on the matter of sex. And then they asked around "Have you ever had sex with a woman?" Apparently if you ever had, there was some status that applied to you. "I made it once to first base," I answered back. They kind of looked at me. "Is that like some sports reference?" "Oh, right, baseball," I replied back. I had to explain both the game of baseball and what their different base references were as applied in this subject, or at least as well as I could remember. Not being "my game," I explained it as best as I could. :-)

Et bienvenue a Paris!

So I went off to the airport. My plane was about 45 minutes late, although I had arrived in plenty of time. There were a slew of gay men who had also been in Cologne for the weekend and heading back to Paris. I had started chatting with a very nice couple from Paris. We were kind of looking at each other, not exactly sure what to say. (They thought I was German, and they didn't know German.) I finally just said "Hello." They said "Hello" back. And then the English won out. We sat together on the plane and chatted the whole way. Their apartment was in the same neighborhood as my hotel, so we got off the subway at the same station and they showed me the way to the hotel.

I had searched online for hours for this hotel. Not that hotels weren't available, but I was rather specific with my search. I wasn't looking for anything extravagant, but not a rathole either. I wanted something fairly close in the city (mostly easy to get home from the bars and clubs at night, when Metro service is minimal, and getting to sights is easy by Metro during the day). I found a place in the 5th district with a double bed, my own full bathroom. I ended up a place with exactly that, and a balcony. (Check out the pics.) It's on "Rue des Ècoles", or street of the schools. There's many schools and universities along it, including many American students, and I'm told it's very safe. It certainly seems that way. Oh yeah, and the smallest elevator I've seen in my entire life. It fits either two people, or one person and luggage.... if you hold the luggage vertically. I've seen pantry closets bigger than this. But it suits the purpose. The hotel is only about 50 rooms on 6 floors, with a typically French narrow floor plan, and I'm on the fifth floor, which is actually the sixth floor by American standards. I'm quite happy my "cherche" was fruitful.

After I got my stuff in, they invited me out to dinner with a friend. It was a very heartful welcome to Paris. I remember why I like this city. And the French people aren't so bad either. I had heard them once summed up perfectly, by a French man themselves. Some people are peaches. Their soft on the outside and easy to get to, but they are very hard on the inside. Others are cocoanuts, with a hard shell on the outside and soft and sweet on the inside. The French are cocoanuts. If you get past the hard shell, they're very nice people. I couldn't agree more. :-)

Afterwards, I was surprisingly awake. It was probably just the excited with the fact I was back in Paris. I went out to have a beer to settle down. I had left all my maps in the room, and yet I didn't need them. I was staying in a completely different neighborhood (in the Latin Quarter, last year I stayed in the Marais) and yet, my feet just knew the way. I found one of my favorite bars directly and without a map. I chatted with a couple guys visiting from Toronto. We had a couple beers, checked out another bar not far away, then I headed back to the hotel to get some sleep. Moi premier nuit en Paris wasn't starting out so bad after all. :-)

Aufgabe neun: Und Guten Tag Köln!

This is weird.

First off, apologies for not updating this until now. I have access to the Internet here, but it's rather expensive, so I figured I'd do it en masse, rather than pay the fee every day. Plus, I had so many freakin' friends here, it was very very busy. More on that later!

So I arrived on Thursday to the scene of the crime. It was a very very odd feeling. I flew into Cologne airport, the same airport where I first came into Europe. So many memories flooded back to me. And yet, so much had happened in a year. Especially after a few days in Munich, the language barrier faded away. Customs that were foreign to me were now common. What was once painful to accomplish became routine. I could read all signs with ease. The Fahrkarteautomat (train ticket machine, of course, being in German it's all one word) that gave me such a problem the first time was handled within seconds. "So viel hat in ein Jahr passiert..." I told one German I had met the previous year. So much had happened in a year.

When I was in Munich, I had a very similiar feeling as I had when I was in Paris last year. It was my first stop in Europe, and although I was staying with friends, they all had to work during the day, and I fended for myself during the day. That was just fine, but at the same time, I was in a strange city, people speaking a different language. It was different that I was staying with friends, so I did have some familiarity, and this time I did know the language, but obviously it's not my first language, so unless I forcibly listen and consciously translate (which I did quite a bit of), even then, the sounds around me were of a completely different sort to that of which I was used to.

It did give me a great experience though. I brought with me "Der Tod in Venedig" (A Death in Venice). It was written originally by Thomas Mann of Munich, so it's written in low German. It's a dual language book, and it's much more approachable for me now. But the best thing was the story starts out in Munich, and now the story of him walking down the streets of 1911 Munich, I had actually been on the streets he was talking about, and knew the relativity of the paths he was going. It was very much like when I read The Da Vinci code after going to Paris, and I could see in my mind where they were going.

But going back to Cologne, it was quite different. It wasn't new. And so much had happened in a year. So many good memories had started to flood back to me. I ran into a lot of people that I had met the previous year. One was with interesting consequences.

I ran into one guys, and he was speaking German with someone I had met previous. "Wie geht's dir?" he asks. "Es geht mir ganz gut," I replied. (It's going for me completely well.) Continuing in German, he asked "We've met, haven't we?" "We did," I replied in German. He paused, trying to think of how he met me. "Where are you from?" "San Francisco." He paused again. "You're not German?" "No, I'm American." "But you speak German." Both me and his friend laughed. "Ja, naturlich." He paused again, and then said in English, "You didn't speak German last year, did you?" It was starting to come back to him. "I did, but not very well, and I've taken a couple classes since then." "Wow," he said, and then repeating something I heard quite often on the weekend, "Du sprechst Deutsch ganz gut!" "Vielen Dank! Wirklich..." I thanked him.

Another guy I ran into, we chatted for probably over an hour in German. We went and did some bar hopping. He was quite impressed. Honestly, I'm nothing short of amazed at how well I did. A week in Germany was better practice than months of classes, and I did far better than I had imagined. And I should be. I studied and practiced and learned, and watch so many freakin' hours of German television. I think the trip to Germany was the glue that put it all together. Obviously I can learn all the vocabulary I want back home, but without having live people to put it together in conversation, that would be much more difficult. And that's what I got. I'll be sad to leave it.

But the vacation is only half over. I had to change my razor yesterday. It was brand new when I started the trip. It's kind of odd. This is the longest vacation I've ever taken, well, paid one. :-) Stuff like having to change the razor, I'll probably have to do some laundry in Paris (that sounds weird saying that), stuff you normally don't have to worry about on shorter trips. I read on a travel blog once that a woman woke up on the first day of her third week on vacation. She felt like she was playing hooky from school or something, that as Americans we're obliged never to be gone for more than two weeks, and that her first day over that was like she was bad or something. I was in a bar in Munich and one of the guys was talking about his upcoming vacation, "But it's short, only two weeks." It's so different.

But back to Cologne, it's been very fun. Mostly I've seen so many friends this weekend. We'd go out during the day, some shopping, eating, take a disco nap, go out and at night. I'm actually a little looking forward to a few calmer days in Paris, before the fun starts in Madrid again, but I don't have so many friends going there either. And to get away from the Americans! There was a couple bars I stayed away from because there was so many Americans there. (Being Thanksgiving, it's and easy long weekend for people to get away.) I didn't fly 5000 miles to spend in Europe only with Americans. :-)

Speaking of which, I had to explain the story of Thanksgiving to several Europeans. Since they don't celebrate it here, they just think it's "Turkey Day". I was watching the German news, and they had a news item about it, and all they showed was a turkey eating contest, with Americans stuffing their faces full to see who could eat the most. And of course, who one? Some tiny Asian woman, eating 2.5 kilos of turkey. I felt compelled to correct their view. They understand now why it's such a big American holiday. It is very interesting. We often get a very filtered view of each other, filtered by what we see on TV, either in news or TV shows. I've seen more American shows dubbed in German this weekend: The Simpsons, Star Trek: Enterprise, Will & Grace [I swear they use a man to dub Rosie], Spongebob Squarepants, Friends (if you can imagine "Ach mein Gott!"), freakin Columbo, and a few movies (I watched a bit of Logan's Run). That's how they view our world.

Of course, the opposite is true. I bought my friend Uwe a drink. I took the cold drink and put it on his skin. "Ah, that's cold!" "But you're German. Don't you like pain?" I joked. "Where did you get that idea?" He looked shocked at the idea. I laughed. "From any German movie I'd seen." :-) I also learned there's certain things you don't joke about here. I arrived late at a party after taking a disco nap. "There you are!" a mixed set of German and American friends said. "Well, I had to show up." And then I said with a thick German accent, "You know, this is Germany, and either you come to the party, or the party comes to you." After they realized the joke, the Americans laughed, and the Germans were extremely shocked at the un-PC-ness of the joke. But they still laughed. :-) There's also a couple jokes I can't repeat in general public. :-)

Oh and by the way, European men are just absolutely beautiful. There's been more than a few men that I've met this weekend that just made me go "Wow." I said "Wow" an awful lot. There was a gaggle of Italians here, and it's so weird to see especially young Italian men, and then they open their mouth and they actually start speaking Italian. (You'd expect it from their grandmothers. :-) ) One I just had to go up to and say hi. He was absolutely adorable, a bit younger, very distinct features. He didn't speak English (or German), but I couldn't leave Europe without at least doing that. :-) I met one German guy who just had all the perfect German features, tall, very muscular, and in the German army. I told my friend, "So, he can go up to his CO, say 'Not only am I gay, but I have a boyfriend, and we live together,' and his CO's response would be 'Okay. Do you want to sign him up for benefits?'" We just seem so completely barbaric in comparison. And then there was my dream man. He was from Dresden, in the former East Germany, and he was tall, he had these piercing eyes, and yet, he had this soft incredibly sexy German accent that made me croon. Every word he spoke was music to my ears. If ever in the world there was husband material, he was 100% pure. And of course, he's taken. Man, I gotta move. :-)

So my Munich friends all left today. So I guess I'm a bit sad about that. And I leave for Paris tomorrow. How sad. Wait a minute. I'm going to Paris. And then Madrid. Oh great, two more languages. Well, just the fact that I'm leaving Germany is sad. But Joe, you can do this. :-)

Aufgabe acht: Auf Wiedersehen München

Well, I sit here in Marienplatz train station awaiting my train back out to Unterhub. Kay & I leave tomorrow morning to head to the airport. He has to head out for a business trip for the day, and I head to Cologne. Tom will be joining us in Cologne as well.

Munich? Well, it's cold. I'm ganz sicher that in summer this is an absolutely beautiful city. I also explored it at something of an odd time, only during the week, and only in the off season. I enjoyed it. I did some shopping, did some sightseeing, did some eating (more on that later), and went out some bit. But mostly, I slept. Last night I was wide awake for most of the night, but it gave me a chance to check out some surprisingly exciting nightlife... not bad for a Tuesday night!

My friend Andreas had to get up early for a day trip to Berlin, So we went out to dinner, talked again for awhile, then he went home. He handed me the keys, and I went out on the evening. It was really quite tame, but without a translator, I was on for own for conversation... and surprisingly I did very very well. Three days in the city surrounded by Germans finally kicked in for me. I had several compliments on my German, and people wondered how being from the US that I would know German. "Das ist eine interessante Geschichte..." I would start. And they found it interesting as well.

So I checked a few places out. I went to Edelheiss, ("Du machst mein Edel-heiss" is their slogan. It's a silly slogan really and really doesn't mean anything, other than a cute play on words. Edelweiss is a flower (native to Bavaria) and Edel simply means "noble". "Heiss" means hot, but as you can see, yeah, it means nothing. There was only only a few people in there, but it soon filled up. Apparently a group of guys came in from seeing a play. We sat around, I had a couple Weissbiers, and got to practice my German. It's really interesting. I find some people respond differently when they find out you speak English. Some can't wait to practice English, and no matter how much German you try and use, they'll go back to English. Others go as long as until you make a mistake, then will only use English. Others might correct you or explain something in English, then go right back to German. That's my favorite, and that's what most people were like. And everyone was very nice.

So I checked out a couple different places. After that I went to the Ochsengarten. (Interesting root of the English word. In German, it's "ein Ochs, viele Ochsen", and English it's "one Ox, many Oxen"... that's why the plural is "oxen".) Talked the to a really nice guy for a bit. He actually used to live in Silicon Valley for several months in the late 90s. "Es gefällt ihn sehr"... he liked it a lot. I told him about where I lived and what I did. Then I chatted with another guy. He took me to a couple more places. It was fun, but it got late. I figure I'd go back, wake up Andreas for his flight, and then get some sleep.

Today, I didn't do that much. I did get up about 11:00 AM, but took a nap later in the afternoon, just real brief. I went to the Hauptbahnhof to go to the FC Bayern store and pick up a soccer jersey. I caught up with stuff online, and I went out to dinner. Man, being alone, I didn't know where to go, so I walked around in the very cold evening looking for a place. I had walked by a pasta place, and it looked fine, but looked at the menu, it was billig, downright cheap, with dishes between 3.50-5 Euros. I wanted something quick but nice, and didn't really want anything too cheap, so I walked by it. I walked around and didn't really find anything to suit me, so I walked back to check it out. I ended up having the gnocchi (one good thing about going to an international restaurant: international food names, well, for the most part). Oh my god. The best gnoochis I'd ever had in my entire life. They were the size of marshmellows, and just as fluffy, in a creamy tomato sauce with chunks of tomatoes. Man that was good.

So I went back to Andreas', picked up my stuff, and now here I am. Munich was fun, but I'll definitely be back next time when it's a bit warmer. Auf Wiedersehen!

Aufgabe sieben: Sie machen mich lös

They finally let me loose.

So yesterday, I headed "in die Stadt" down to Munich with Kay. We braved German roads for 1.5 hours. It snowed a bit, just enough to make the roads full of Germans. Remind me again why I decided to come to Munich in November?

Unfortunately, yesterday, I only got about 4 hours of sleep. I woke up about 5:15 AM after only getting to sleep at 1:00 AM. I made sure Alan got up for his flight to Cologne (which he missed, unfortunately because of the weather, but he was able to catch another one a couple hours later, but that one was the one to be late as well!). I laid down for a bit after, but didn't go back to sleep.

So we headed into the city. I just kind of got the lay of the land, more than anything. I did some shopping, got the new Wir Sind Helden CD, that kind of thing.

Oh, so I got my German cell phone ("Handy", they call them here). I was so proud of myself. The woman at T-Mobile got a chance to practice her English. "You can pay over here at the.... Kasse?" "Cashier?" I said with a smile. "Oh, 'cashier'!" She goes over and says to the andere Kasserin, "Weisst du, das du ein 'cashier' auf Englisch bist?" "Nein, ich wüsste das nicht!" They were just so excited to learn a new word in English. It was very cute. :)

Of course, then I get the fun part: setting up the voicemail. I was so proud of myself. I just carefully listened to the instructions (auf Deutsch, naturlich), and I managed it through just fine. I realized it was much harder than reading something, which you can spend any amount of time reading, and rereading. But I did it. And now, I have a German phone number. :)

I met up with my friend Andreas about 8. We got me settled in. We went out to dinner, had a couple beers, and just got caught up on things. His English is very good, and he was kind enough to give me a little respite from German for a little bit. My German has improved immensely, but I stammer a bit. I'm just fine for most things, but conversation isn't yet one of my strong points. Actually, "small talk" I can do just fine. Yet. I'm here another week, so after that, we'll see. :)

And last night I got to sleep about midnight. Andreas went off to work, and I went off to bed. I woke up, and the light outside was not so light. The sun was going down. It was 4:30 PM. Well, it was my first decent time to sleep the entire trip! Verdammt jetlag. :)

Aufgabe fünf: Ich denke, ich werde weinen!

I think I'm gonna cry! (No, it's not a bad thing.) :-)

So I woke up at an ungodly hour of 5:15 this morning, unable to fall asleep. I make sure Alan's up to catch his flight to Cologne (he is), and check my messages. I tell the boys (auf Deutsch) that Alan's leaving, and I'll be in the city Monday and Tuesday and come back on Wednesday. "Oh good, then I'll be able to spend some time alone with you too." Continuing in German, I lifted a finger to point this out, and I said "Das würde nett..." and then put my finger down. They looked surprised, as a proudly dangled my sentence: I had spoken my first sentence of Süddeutsch!

What I said was "That would be nice!" You see, in proper German, I literally would say "That would nice be." But in southern German, the "be" is assumed. They always leave it off in that context. (Just like "Wir können alles" means "we can do anything" but the "do" is implied, not said, in southern German.)

And they don't teach you that in class. They're so proud. :-)

Aufgabe vier: Wiedererlangen

Ah yes. Recovery time.

So I had one thing on my list to do, and that was it. And I didn't even get to that. Well, two, but I did call my parents. :-) But I ready the Sunday paper. Auf Deutsch. That counts for something, right? And yeah, Angela Merkel's still a bitch.* :-)

A friend of mine (thank you!) was incredibly generous to lend me his GSM cell phone so I could use it on my trip. I had planned to get a SIM card for it, but on Sundays, all the stores are closed. So it was really just an easy day. Called the parents, gave the dish to my friends back home, uploaded some pictures, wrote in my blog, got my card reader to work, etc.

(Warning: Grammar discussion ahead. You've been warned!)

Actually, it was really for the best. I've been studying massive amounts of German, but as this is only my second time in Germany, it's like no matter how much you practice, there's always those first opening-curtain butterflies. Tom & Kay are so incredibly generous, they allowed me to practice my German with them, without letting me ever feel like I did something wrong. I did actually say "Wenn ich jemals etwas falsch sage, kann du bitte mich korregieren!" (If I ever say something wrong, please, you can correct me!) "No no, you're doing just great!" Man are they sweet. :-) Even if I'm stammering to hammer out a complicated phrase like "If I went" (Wenn ich habe gegangen... nein, wenn ich bin gegangen... nein, wenn ich gegangen bin... "Sehr gut... das ist sehr schwer!"/Very good, that's very hard, they say) Actually, I found out a little secret: They don't say it right either. :-) We got in a conversation about how Americans don't use grammar correctly either. How many times today have you ended a sentence with a sentence? I'm going to the store. Wanna come with? He told about the come-hither phrase "Willst du mit mir im Bett gehen?" (Do you want to go to bed with me?) Well, it's actually "ins Bett", because you're going towards the bed, so it takes the accusative case. (We're supposed to do that in English too, but we don't. It's "To where are we going," not just "Where are we going?") But they say "im Bett." (Morgen gehe ich die Stadt. Dann bin ich in der Stadt.... Tomorrowing I'm going into the city. Then, I'm in the city.)

English and German have a common history like that, and only diverted from it a couple hundred years ago. Serious. In German, verbs with motion are "sein" (to be) verbs. English used to be like that. In the Bible, the King James version is "He is risen." Today it's "He has risen." (I always wondered as a kid in church why they said that.) Thus why I stammered on the "If I went." But they just bob their head patiently until I get it out and then say "Sehr gut!" "Habe ich das richtig gesagt?" "Ja, perfekt!" :-)

(Oh, FYI, I had a personal request to put less German in my blogs. Jeff, just for you, I'll put in more! :-) For god's sake, either they're cognates or I translate it right after! :-) )

So they'll wonderful to help me practice. I even made a joke auf Deutsch. Tom & Kay had several friends over earlier. Since we were outnumbered, German was the language of choice. Alan speaks only a little, so Kay would translate for him. One of them brought a cake, and we told him he was a good cook. "Aber nicht heute morgen!" (But not today!) and then told this story. I'm listening to this story, and I'm thinking, I can't be translating this right. Kay translate it, that apparently the guy was making breakfast, and he had a bunch of stuff on the table, and instead of grabbing the salt, he grabs the sugar and dumps a whole bunch on the eggs. Then I say "Ahhh! Das ist was ich dachte, du hast gesagt! Ich habe es gehört, und ich dachte, das kann nicht richtig sein! Ich müsste es falsch übersetzen!" They all laughed. Ahh. Funny, huh Jeff?

Okay, for Jeff: "Oh, that's what I thought you said! I heard it, and I thought, that can't be right. I must have translated it wrong!" :-)

So we just relaxed. No drinking, Tom had way too much in Regensburg. Well, one shot schnapps when the Germans were here. "Ich könnte nicht lassen, Alan allein zu trinken!" They all laughed. Oh right, Jeff: "I couldn't let Alan drink alone!" But we just watched some TV (Will & Grace is funny in German. I think they use a guy to dub over Rosie. And Jack isn't nearly queeny enough. Well, Germans aren't really known for being queeny, Danke Gott!), then fired up the sauna and the hot tub, followed by a jump in the snow. Yeah, it feels like Minnesota, but people talk funny, and there's the Alps in the distance. When I called the folks, I said we were supposed to get 10 cm of snow overnight. "10?" dad says. "Centimeters, dad. That's like 4 inches." "Oh." :-)

So tomorrow I go "in die Stadt". I go in with Kay when he goes into work, I spend the day sightseeing, then I meet my other friend after work and stay with him Monday and Tuesday. Alan heads up to Cologne (the first of many). I come back on Wednesday, stay with Kay and Tom, they Kay and I head out on Thursday. (Kay for a work reason, but he joins us on Friday in Köln.)

Und jetzt müss ich ins Bett gehen. Bis morgen!

--------------------

* Germany's first woman and newly-elected Chancelor-"in". If you didn't know that, read a newspaper, if you're not too busy watching Fox News. :-)

Aufgabe drei: Befolge die Regeln!

Guten Morgen. I finally got eight hours last night. Gott im Himmel!

Alright, there's two things I've always know: 1) Germans like to drink. 2) Germans like rules. I just didn't really put them together until now.

Well, last night I did. Tom & Kay had bought a bought of Alan's favorite kind of schnapps. We had a few shots just to get us tired enough (like 36 hours awake wasn't enough) to sleep at a decent hour. Germans are really serious about their toasting. When you toast, you have to look have to look them in the eyes as you say "Prost!", otherwise it's considered bad luck, and you'll have seven years bad sex. (I'm serious.) Well, last night I discovered another rule. After about the fourth shot, he poured it. I grabbed it and swung it back. Alan looks at me. I quickly say "Uh... Prost?" Another rule: If you do a shot without toasting... yup, you have to do another shot. :-)

If you'll excuse me now, I'm going to make a little espresso. :-)

Also, the first pictures are now online:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/joe_carlin/album?.dir=/d8b5

Aufgabe zwei: Ich bin angekommen

Yup, I'm here.

*sips an Erdinger Weissbier*

Can you see the smile?

Live from downtown Unterhub... well, that's the running joke. I met up with my friend Alan at den Flughafen. We stopped in for a bite to eat before grabbing a taxi. We sat and chat for a bit, exchanging stories. I'm staying with my friend in Unterhub for the first couples days. It's this entirely gorgeous house in rural Bavaria outside of Munich. I've taken a couple pictures and I'll post them to the pics.

So the taxi ride. Kay had given us directions, but the Turkish driver couldn't read German. But he had a navigation (love German engineering), so he typed it in. "Welche Strasse?" he asks. "Es gibt nur eine Strasse," I respond. (Which street? There's only one street.) Seriously. Their family own a farm outside of Munich.

*shoots a shot of schnapps* Verdammt iss das gut.

Where was I? Oh yeah, taxi. So he inputs the directions. He says "Wollen Sie die Autobahn nehmen?" Without thinking, I'm like "Oh yeah, die Autobahn!" Well it was like 30 Euros more... but worth it. "Ja, das ist schneller." It wasn't that much "schneller", but a definite E-ticket. My first time on the Autobahn, and going 200 kilometers an hour (120 mph), yeah we got there sehr schenll. :-) And we got to see the new Allianz Stadium. It's built brand new for the World Cup next year, and it'll be the main stadium. It changes colors depending on who's playing. It's really cool. Especially at 200 km/h :-)

Bavaria's beautiful. Well, it was dark, and there was snow on the ground, but we rolled through the Bavarian countryside. Going 100+ km/h through countryside, reminded me of Minnesota, really. :-)

So we get to Tom and Kay's. They had an "Anstellung" in Regensburg, so they left us the keys, along with the Schnapps, Weißbier und die Schnittplatte (meat, lots and lots of meat). They had a note on the door: "(heart)-lich Willkommen Alan u. Joe" They're so sweet.

So yeah. Alan and I are just decompressing waiting for the boys. They'll be back in the morning. Und dann, wir tanzen. Warte, falsche Aufgabe. :-)

Aufgabe eins: Unterwegs

My flight worked out much better than I hoped. I ended up going to the airport early, in fact 15 minutes before checkin opened. That worked well, as I did managed to get an aisle seat. Because of my weird itinerary (SFO to Munich on Luthansa, then return Madrid to Frankfurt on Spainair, then to SFO on United), I ended up with a paper ticket and unassigned seats. But I ended with a nice aisle seat. Alles gut.

So, in what seems to be "tradition" (since this is now the second time I did it), I spend my last few meals eating foods either I'll miss or won't easily get on my destination. For example, I went and had a burrito for dinner Wednesday night. Lunch was dim sum. Dinner last night was gumbo. (Not very good, after it was Californianized.) So dinner before the flight was sushi. Actually, a couple friends of mine did sushi in Cologne last year, and they said it was good. Cologne is probably the most international city in Germany. I'll stick with it in SF though.

Aside from the occasional stare, I had completely forgotten I was wearing a "Bearcelona" shirt, complete with an bear flag-colored arched rainbow, until some bull-dyke TSA with a booming voice deeper than mine said, "Bearcelona, I never heard of that!" After grabbing my bag, I said, "it's a bear event in Barcelona." "Huh," was her only response as she went back to work.

Getting on board, I had my choice of newspapers. I grabbed a Frankfurter Allegemeine. I read that the finalists for the "Weltmeistershaft" (World Cup) had been picked, to be held in Germany next year. The US and Mexico made it, Ireland didn't.

Anyways, as I was boarding, the flight attendant just comes out and asks, "Welche Setzung haben Sie?" I paused. "Uh, Vierunddreisig-Day," I sputtered auf Deutsch. "Gerade auf," she replies. Straight ahead. I knew that. What I didn't know is why she just went ahead and asked me in German. Then I realize she saw I was carrying a German paper. Ah. Das macht Sinn. :)

So I read the paper, and drink a beer... Warsteiner, "Eine Königin unter den Bieren": a queen among beers. Yeah, it kicks Budweiser's ass.

Aufgabe null: Ich bin bereit

That's "Episode Zero: I'm ready"

Today at work, one of coworkers said to me, "Wow, you got short-timer's disease! Was it that obvious? I've been preparing for this trip for a year, pratically since I got home last year. As soon as I finalized the itinerary, I found the perfect flight, found it for the right price, I booked it. Since then it was a mad flurry, googling info, searching hotels, planning intracity methods of transport, and printing maps, where the sights were, post offices, phone cards, public transit, all of it. In fact, last week when I came down with bronchitis, I really didn't have that much to do. Just laundry, store the bike, pack and head to the airport. I even took both a German and Spanish class. Ja wohl bin ich bereit!

So even before I got on the plane, I got a taste of what's to come. My friend Uwe from Frankfurt is here this week. I was to visit him in Frankfurt, but business took him here instead. (He joins us in Cologne on Thursday.) So I met up with him last night. I wasn't able to practice my German much, as I was with my friend Mark (Er sprecht kein Deutsch),, but nonetheless, it was a sample.

Then tonight standing in line at the airport, I'm taking Lufthansa to Munich. In line, I was surrounded by a large group of German tourists. (The Americans were towards the back. Those Germans are so prompt!) Surrounded by the German word, I had a chance to test my German out. Ich hatte sehr gut gemacht. :)

This is going to be fun.

Well that makes sense

So I was chatting with a German friend of mine, planning my time for my impending trip to Munich. I was mentioning my friend was arriving on the Monday after.

"Your boyfriend?" he asked me (in German).

"I'm single," I responded back. (I'm translating.) "You know that."

He went on to explain something about German that was never quite clear to me until that moment.

German, like many other languages, has gender. In heterosexual relationships, if you say you have a "Freundin", it's automatically assumed by female friend that means girlfriend. Quite the opposite, since English has no gender, you can say a friend referring to a girl and no closer relationship is assumed. Also in German, if you have a wife, you would refer to her a "meine Frau", or literally "my woman". While that would be appauling to say in English, there's no such connotation of ownership in German, just that she's not someone else's woman.

So I wondered, what about if you're in a same sex relationship?

Well, combining the two ideas, you would refer to your boyfriend as "mein Freund". He's not someone else's boyfriend, he's just yours. So how would you refer to a casual acquaintance? I asked.

"Ein Freund von mir", or literally "a friend of mine". As in, he's a friend of yours, but he's not only your friend. It's the same idea that the Spanish say "Dios mio". It's "my God", but the "my" goes after, because he doesn't just belong to you, like a book or something else would.

As I pondered this, I realized why everyone though my travelling companion last year in Germany was my boyfriend, despite several attempts at clarification. People kept asking me, "Is he your friend?" to which of course I responded back "Why yes he is."

Now I know the correct answer to their query. :-)