Packing Up My Suitcase...literally

     

     Well, faithful friends and readers, the hour has come. My family left about 6 minutes ago for their Italian vacation, and I am (deep breath) no longer an au pair. I managed to pull myself together enough not to cry when they left, at least! (Never thought I'd be saying that six months ago when I thought I wanted those little rascals out of my hair for good, but things change!)

    Okay, if we're on a full-disclosure dealio here, I wrote that first paragraph indeed, six minutes after my family departed. Then I got distracted by a bird or something, and now it's 26 hours later. Sorry. Moving on:

   At this moment in time, I have a terrifying 48 hours and 38 minutes left in Munich. I should probably be out soaking up the last of the city, but it's raining, I have to be somewhere at 4:30, so I'm timing my Ausflug (field trip) quite specifically to allow me good walk-through-rainy-Munich-maybe-buy-some-final-souvenirs time. Which leaves me at least a little time to try and whip some blogging out. (Can one whip out blogging? You tell me.) Speaking of souvenirs, any suggestions? I thought I'd be broke by the time I left, but I closed my bank account yesterday (which took an impressive waste amount of time. Long story short, I'd at some point loaded money onto the Geld Chip of my card (a chip on your bank card that allows you to use that money as sort of a gift card, handy for paying on buses and at vending machines (aren't multiple parentheses within each other exciting??)), and due to the fact that there was still 0.30 on that part of the card, they had to try and transfer that thirty cents to my regular account so they could give it to me. Which, apparently, would take four days. I eventually told them they could have the thirty cents as a present because I have places to be, people! (Yes, all that story told parenthetically! Don't you feel smart for having read it successfully? (Assuming you did...(more parentheses within parentheses!)))) and have rather more money left over than I'd anticipated! Sorry. I'm done, I swear. Anyway, I shall spend my remaining hours in Munich feeling richer than I have all year. It's nice.

    The last x days since my previous blog have passed in some kind of whirlwind or another, though while living them it was about the slowest two-ish weeks ever. I (clearly) survived eight days with just me and the kiddies, but it sure draaaagged while it was happening. I was saved mostly by the weather, which has been practically California hot and inspired my host parents to pick up a cheap wading pool for the back yard, which they planted the slide of the jungle gym in, leading to at least two/three daily hours of water fun (during which Au Pair Laura has nothing to do but apply sunscreen and make sure no one's drowning. Pretty easy to do whilst reading a book. SWEET.) Cliona and I were definitely sick of each other by the end of last week, but this week was a lot better with both kiddies home. They really do play well together (MOST of the time, but what siblings don't have their issues now and then?) Last Monday we took off to the other side of Munich (like seriously, an hour-and-ten-minute-long public transportation endeavor) to go to the water playground in Hirschgarten, Munich's (and Europe's! and maybe even the world's!) largest beer garden. There's a huge park surrounding it (the old recreational hunting grounds of the rulers of Bavaria, if I remember correctly; Hirshgarten means deer garden) and south of the beer garden itself, among the normal playground and meadows, is a water playground. And it's genius. It's basically just several slides set on a little brick hill, which some random ladders placed around, and there are several sprinklers continuously shooting the whole thing with water. It was the perfect thing for a hot day. There were tons of kids there, and Kilian and Cliona dived in with enthusiasm (though Cliona came running back sobbing every time she hurt herself, which was once about every ten minutes). We ended up spending almost five hours there, and when it was time to go, Kilian didn't even believe me that we'd been there that long. It was excellent, and I got to spend the whole time in the shade reading. Perfect. Poor Cliona did step on a bee at one point, and I mustered all the first aid I remembered (which isn't very much), and scraped the stinger out with my student ID and covered the whole thing with mud. However well it worked, she forgot about it long enough to play on the playground for another hour, though the pain magically resurfaced when we had to walk back to the bus, and she cried until she got a ride on my shoulders. Kilian was a wonderful little gentleman and carried my purse for me.

Conversation with Cliona the other morning:

Cliona (walks up to me eating my breakfast and climbs up on my lap):
Du kannst noch nicht richtig Skifahren! (You don't know how to ski yet!)

(She's very fixated on the sadness of me not being able to ski. We talk about it at least once a day and she tells it to everyone she meets.)

Me: Well, you're right, but I can do lots of other things!

Cliona: Was denn? (Like what?)

Me: Think about it.

Cliona thinks.

Cliona: Du kannst...Äpfel schneiden! Und...Banane abschälen! Und....laufen! (You can...cut apples! And... peel bananas! And...walk!)

My life's importance reduced to its bare minimum by a three-year-old.

   The rest of the week was pretty much just hanging out at home, with a few occasional trips to the park and to friends' houses. We played a lot of Monopoly Jr. (which I always win and therefore Kilian always cries) and Uno (which Cliona, surprisingly, almost always wins), read a lot of books (including all of the chidren's versions of Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver's Travels, which take about 45 minutes each to read out loud (in German, I might add)), and did some baking (on Thursday we made a chocolate zucchini cake and it was DELICIOUS, though the kiddies were very mistrustful until they got to lick the bowl out). Kilian was very sweet all week and gave me lots of hugs and told me how much he was going to miss me, and I did my best not to be sad! A part of me can't help but hate the new au pair a little, which totally isn't fair. Don't get me wrong, I hope she's good, just...not as good as me!

    Monday night we had a lovely dinner out in the back garden, with mini-quiches, salad, and baked peaches for dessert. And Anne and I made cocktails. Coolest host mom ever. Then Thursday we ordered in Indian and had a bottle of wine for my official last night as an au pair. And now, my family's gone! I can hardly believe it. It's weird still being in the house but knowing I'm not going to see them again before I leave. I never thought I would really get so attached to my family, but it's so sad thinking about not seeing them!

   Anyway, there was some other fun in the last couple of weeks. Last weekend, the weather finally arranged itself nicely enough to have a brilliantly warm and sunny weekend, so we took full advantage! On Saturday, Leigh came back up to Munich from her family's vacation house down in southern Bayern, and we went to meet the guy she's subletting from so she could officially take possession of her new apartment! I confess to major twinges of jealousy: it's such a cute little place and in such a wonderful location! Oh oh oh, how I wish I were staying! As the temperature continued to climb, we headed out to our main goal of the day: one last good English Gardens visit. We stopped to pick up some beers and snacks on the way, then camped out next to the river to enjoy the remaining sunshine.
 
    Unfortunately for us, our favorite spot on the river happens to be on the naked people side of the river. This usually isn't that much of a problem: you see your fair share of genitalia and breasts, but none of it gets too up close and personal, usually. But this time was different. I was lying on my stomach on my towel, attempting to find a crevice in the rocks to stick my beer into to cool it off (natural refrigeration ftw!), when suddenly I looked up, and lo and behold, was confronted with a penis a mere ten inches from my face or so. Its bearer was a pleasant-looking fairly young guy who we'd already noticed earlier (memorable due to his hilarious posture when in the river: behind stuck as far out behind as possible and chest as far forward as possible), and he quite kindly found me a place to put me beer. He continued to stand there right in front of us, conversing with me in German and flopping his junk through the river all the while (quite obviously). It doesn't help that the river is at a perfect just-below-crotch height. Leigh, the traitor, pretended not to speak German and rolled over the other way so she could laugh in peace, but I was stuck. Thankfully, he left to head back to his towel far on the other side of the meadow, and we were safe.

   Or so I thought. About an hour later, the same fellow, still birthday-suited up, came out of nowhere and sat down next to me and started talking. It was all pretty typical stuff that would have been a perfectly nice conversation (HAD HE BEEN CLOTHED): where are you from, how do you like Munich, your German's so good, have you ever been naked in the river...Okay, that one wasn't as normal. He tried to convince us casually for quite some time how nice it was to be naked in the river and we should really try it. After another brief dunk in front of us (this time with his attention focused on cleaning out his rear end properly), he left again. We watched him in terror, fearing that if he were watching us, as soon as we got in the river he'd come flopping running over to join us. I attempted to sneakily get in by sliding in feet first while looking super casual with my front half (pretty sure that didn't work), and we stood in the river for awhile while Leigh kept an eye on our naked friend, who kept turning to look at us. Having warned me she'd dive into the river if she thought it was necessary, after about ten minutes she shrieked and dove, floating off down the river, and I quickly followed. We swam just around a tree on the bank and got out to peek at him. He'd headed right to where our towels and bags were and put his towel down just across from them, and sat there expectantly waiting for our return. Not knowing what to do, we kept hiding in the river until we saw him disappointedly get up and head out to leave (walking right past us, of course; I jumped back in and floated right next to the bank, holding on to some plants to keep from getting swept down to where he was walking by the current). Then we headed back to our stuff, finally. I felt a little bad; he wasn't a bad guy and had the conversation been in any other circumstance, I would probably be writing about the lovely conversation I had with a German man the other week. But there's something about nudity that just made it all a little...odd. But let me tell you, I don't think I'll ever be awkward in a flirting situation again. Clothes are wonderful.

    Moving on, we spent a few more hours in the Gardens, then packed our stuff up and headed back to Leigh's apartment. Enthralled by the excitement of having a TV, we vegged out for a little while on a German Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-type show, then headed out to grab some pizza at about 10 PM, which we ate comfortably lounged on her balcony, enjoying the warm night air.

   The next morning, we arose, breakfasted on our leftover pizza, and headed to the train station to meet my friend Louise, where we boarded the S-Bahn to head down to Starnberger See, a lake just outside of Munich, where I'd planned with multiple people and at multiple times to go but was always foiled by the weather. But Sunday was perfect. It was about 90 degrees and we found a beautiful little private "beach" (no sand, but you get the idea) with a restaurant and bathrooms and docks to get in. The water was warm, the day was roasting (there wasn't even any pleasure in sunbathing; you'd just start sweating buckets as soon as the lake water dried off), and the food and drink were delicious. We spent the whole day fooling around in the water (best part was the huge logs anchored to the lake bottom) and eating ice cream, currywurst, and french fries. It was a wonderful day.

     A couple Wednesdays ago, Bavaria graciously deigned to grant its denizens a mid-week day of in honor of Mary's ascension to heaven (Maria Himmelfahrt). I'm personally of the opinion that every Wednesday should be a holiday. It breaks up the week quite wonderfully. If the US is as godly as a country as it claims, it needs to step up on its holidays. C'mon, who would say no to a regular two weeks off every June for Pentecost? I think it sounds like a grand idea. Anyway, to escape from my family for the day (after two full days with Cliona I was ready to hide), I hopped on the BOB and went down to see Leigh at her family's vacation home near Schliersee. Unfortunately for me, I chose the one time in probably all of Germany the entire year that the train chose not to function, and we had to disembark a stop before the one I'd get off at and take the bus instead. Grr. But we met up successfully and continued on the bus to the foot of Wendelstein, a large peak of the Bavarian Alps. We took a harrowing cable car journey to the top, where we could view the whole valley and the Alps surrounding us. It was gorgeous. We, of course, made time for a plate of french fries (with mayonnaise, like real Germans) and a beer. Because of the train situation, we couldn't stay for long (I had to be home to babysit and was worried the trains wouldn't be running to get me home on time, so I insisted we leave like two hours early), but it was lovely nonetheless. Greeted by trains that were working, we headed back to Schliersee for an hour to have an ice cream and sit by the lake, then I went the rest of the way back to Munich.

  Another 20 hours or so have passed, and it's now Sunday morning. I should be packing, but I've given myself seven hours to do it and I feel like that's way more than enough (famous last words, right?), so I'm going to put it off for a little longer and maybe even finish this blog. We'll see how that goes.

   Yesterday, after the bit of blogging I did, I headed into town for my last official day in the center of the city. The annoying thing about leaving on a Monday morning is that, as you may recall, shops are all closed on Sunday, so any shopping/souvenir buying/present getting I wanted to do had to be done yesterday. I somehow managed most of it, and then headed off to my adventure of the day: a Segway tour of Munich. This was my family's farewell present to me, which was really sweet, but I was a little nervous to ride a Segway. I'd chosen to do the tour auf Deutsch, as it made it seem slightly more legitimate (and I hate to perpetuate the fat American tourists on Segways stereotype), but after meeting the group I was going with and watching a safety video, I was a little worried (the video was super complicated and showed images of a little stick man falling about every five seconds. Eek!)

   But once I learned how to ride it it was pretty easy. The tour was a two-and-a-half hour ride through Munich, going down past the Isar, through some of the beautiful plazas, over the Oktoberfest meadow, and back through the southern gate of the city. It was actually really fun and I saw quite a few things I hadn't seen before, as well as learned some new information. I didn't fall the entire time (until the very end when I failed to get the Segway up over the curb to put it back in the shed! So close!) and enjoyed the lady who had ridden one before and was super cocky about it falling like four times, at every curb or hill. It is definitely an efficient way to get around, but to be quite honest, I would waaaaaay rather ride a bike. It's a little terrifying to be speeding around at 12 mph (which is super fast when you're standing vertically), and frankly, I felt like a mall cop the whole time. Segways are pretty conspicuous, and the reactions of people you pass don't really help (either clapping, cheers, catcalls, or just people pointing and laughing. Not really my style). But it was a blast, and we made it through the whole tour with practically no rain!

Bavaria statue

Soon-to-be Oktoberfest

   A couple days ago (yes, this blog is horrendously out of chronological order. That's what happens when you write it over a period of several days. Shh.), I met up with some buddies from my choir to have a barbecue on the Isar! I'd been told this was one of the things I most needed to experience before heading home, so I was excited. The weather didn't look too great, but we forged ahead anyway. Five of us met at the river, after picking up a plethora of food at the store, and proceeded, over a period of five hours or so, to successfully grill enough meat to feed a cavalry, on two teensy little throwaway grills we'd purchased from Tengelmann. It had a few false starts and someone had to bike back to the store to get some fire-lighting aids, but we managed impressively and had feast worthy of kings! We'd also, as choir kids do, brought a plethora of sheet music with us and even managed to get some singing done before the rain started at about 8 PM. Not willing to let the rain finish us off, we packed up our stuff and hopped on the U-Bahn to head back to my house, where we carried on singing and drinking wine until the wee hours of the morning, including a rousing rendition of Griechischer Wein that would have made my college German professor proud! (Listen here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3amXSFEFxV0&feature=related  ) It was really one of the most fun nights I'd had in Munich--so nice to be able to have people over and just hang out with friends! I used to think it would be hard to really be friends with someone who had a different mother tongue than you, but honestly it makes not a speck of difference. We all go back and forth between English and German, because even if not everyone speaks the other language perfectly, pretty much everyone understands it well enough, and it's a lot of fun. My personal theory is that it even enhances communication to have the vocabulary and expressions of two languages to call on! Certainly keeps it more interesting, at any rate.

Beers cooling in the river

Germans learn how to do everything one-handed so they can always have a beer present.

MEAT

How many Germans does it take to start a grill?

Success!

    There were a couple of other food-related adventures (okay, beer-related, if you MUST know. This is Germany, after all!), but nothing of great import to relate, other than some lovely evenings at beer gardens (Seehaus, right on the lake! and Chinesischer Turm), and some yummy dinners (sushi and froyo with Sarah! I don't need to go back to California now. I have found all the food I need here.)

Sarah showing off her German food

Chinesischer Turm by night

Favorite girls

    Okay, I should go pack now. I just took the first terrifying step and pulled my suitcases out of the storage room. Cross your fingers that the clothes and shoes I got rid of weighed at least as much as the goodies I'm bringing back! Someday soon (tonight, later today, tomorrow in the airport?) I'll write a farewell blog, but I won't do it now because I'll be too sad. I'll get there though. Fear not! And until then, well...have a good weekend! And start sending me good vibes for my plane flight of death tomorrow!

How I feel about leaving Germany

Life As I Know It

    Oy. Four weeks from THIS VERY MINUTE, I shall be on an airplane, US-bound. Well, Philadelphia-bound, at least. Not to pick favorites as far as airlines go (LUFTHANSAISTHEBEST), but oh boy do I wish there'd been a cheap flight with anyone other than US Airways...and to anywhere other than Philadelphia, aka my least favorite airport ever. But hey, that's life.

   Now since I have so little time left (AHHHH), I've, as I may have mentioned towards the end of my last blog, made it a personal mission to do as many cool things and have as much fun as possible before  the coolest year of my life comes to a close. Therefore, this entry will be dedicated to the coolness that is my life. (Yes, I'm trying to make you all jealous. I'll need something to cling to when I go back to the sad life that is an unemployed college grad in the US of A.) And since, you know, I haven't written a "normal" blog in about three months. Life kind of got in the way.

   And since life did that whole getting-in-the-way thing, and because tonight is not a night that is conducive to chronology and transitions and properly formatted entries, prepare yourselves for a bullet-point-blog.

MY FRIENDS
  Though I will readily confess it did indeed take me awhile to find them, I have basically the coolest friends ever. Leigh, who is basically the awesomest friend in the world, has been more than obliging in my quest to be awesome this summer, and we have been tearing up the town like crazy (as much as two people with remarkably restrictive work schedules can, anyway). We meet nearly every day to try new cafes, go to bookstores, check out sales, or go relax in the English Garden. Yesterday we played badminton. Freaking cool. And Sarah, who began as my choir buddy, comes with too and we have group adventures! Like swimming! And Tollwood! And eating Mexican food after choir when all the students have to go study!

  In all seriousness though, these girls have made the last couple months. So, so grateful to have them here.

MY CHOIR


    Though I haven't written about it in ages, my choir has been chugging along! A couple of months ago we had the amazing opportunity to record Palestrina's Canticum Canticorum (Song of Songs) for Naxos with the Bayerischer Rundfunk (main Bavarian classical radio organization). We spent a whole weekend shut up in a teensy but lovely chapel in a woman's hospital (random, yes) in the southern Altstadt, recording about 15 motets and an additional 22 Gregorian antiphons (the alto soloist being yours truly!) with nothing but each other, the terrible breath of the woman next to me, and a bottle of port. It was exhausting but fun and with a far better result than I could have anticipated. The music is gorgeous and the takes we got to hear (pre-mixing) actually didn't sound half bad! The CD should hopefully be ready sometime in September!

Okay, the two ladies on the right are awful. But the rest are great!

   A few weeks later we had an intensive concert weekend, though due to circumstances beyond my control, I could only attend two of the three, but it was good fun nonetheless. The first concert was about an hour or so north of Munich at a cloister. Seriously. With monks and everything! It was a part of their summer music festival series. (Check out the facebook event! https://www.facebook.com/events/186398758150335/) Coolest and simultaneously most disconcerting part: It was a Kreuzgang concert, meaning we sang, basically, in a weird back hallway. Picture a hall tracing a 90 degree angle, fill both sides with people, and put the choir where the two sides meet, and add a bunch of candles, and there you have it! It was pretty cool, and the free dinner at the Cloister's brewery afterwards was a lot of fun too. If I had to be a monk anywhere (not that that's too serious a choice to have to make), Germany would be the place to do it. All you really do is brew beer and drink beer. And pray every now and then, I guess. We had another concert that next Sunday at a church we've sung at before, and it was well-received and also followed by free food! I could get used to that! But alas, all good things must come to an end.

    Yesterday was officially my last day of choir. We sang for the service at a church in the city, then went out for breakfast at Augustiner just across the street. I even, in order to get the full effect of the experience (and take advantage of someone else paying for it!), ate the traditional Weißwürstfrühstück and all that implies: white sausages of mixed pork and beef dipped in sweet mustard, pretzel, and weiss beer. At 10:30 AM. Am I German or what? I also got a gift from my director: a philosophical history book entitled, "Die beiden Amerika: Kolumbus und die Folgen" (The Two Americans: Columbus and the Consequences), which my director was the editor of. Very kind, if probably rather complicated!

   One of the coolest things about my wonderful choir friends is how much they like singing. It's like being back in high school when everyone wet their pants in excitement every time someone said a certain E. Whitacre's name and we all tried to sing his music together. Except it's not Whitacre, it's Purcell or Dowland, we actually succeed in singing it, and no one wets their pants. That I've noticed. We actually sometimes stay after rehearsals or concerts to sing, and have even wandered through the streets of Munich searching for somewhere out of the way to go and look at the new music someone had brought along. It's been an incredibly long time since I've sang with people just for the fun of singing, without the stress of preparing for a concert, worrying about proper technique, in an attempt to get a role, but just because it's nice out, we have pretty music, and it's fun to sing with one another! After my last rehearsal, before we went out for drinks, we gathered to sing a bit and my personal surprise was them singing to me Dowland's "Now, O Now, I Needs Must Part" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezh1dxnwMWQ&feature=related). It was so sweet and beautiful and while I am so sad to leave this choir behind, it was probably the best decision I made as far as keeping me sane in Germany! Thank you, random Greek guy at bar, for introducing me to Sarah back in September!

MY KIDDIES


    As kindergarten-related activities are starting to wrap up, we've been treated to some fun kiddie stuff lately. Last Friday, Cliona's dance class gave a performance (in the very loosest sense of the word) for parents and siblings (and au pairs) to go watch, and it was hilarious. Cliona, of course, laughed like a drunken farmer the entire time, and it was the funniest thing. Though not dancing so much as playing movement-related games while wearing a pink tutu, she loves it and it is so much fun for the kids.

   Kilian has had all kinds of football tournaments lately, none of which I've been to (at 7:30 on a Sunday morning? No thank you!), so I made up for it by taking him to football last week. I haven't watched him play since last October or so, so it was fun to see how much he's improved! While, okay, even at six I can tell you he will never be any sort of talented footballer, he at least runs and sometimes even kicks the ball. It's adorable.

   We have also been doing a lot of baking lately. Okay, by "a lot," I mean twice. But that's plenty, trust me. The surge has come because I have American goodies I need to use up! We celebrated the 4th of July by making Funfetti cupcakes and decorating them American style. (C'mon, what can be more American than Funfetti?) They also helped me make real American chocolate chip cookies last week, with imported chocolate chips! (Imported by my mother, that is.) They were great until Cliona decided to lick pure raw egg off the counter. Oops.

  

Hard at work

Finished products

     I love the ways kids' minds work. Okay, to be honest I have no idea if that's kids, plural, or just mine. But Kilian is freaking awesome. His mom came home from work one day a couple months ago and said to him, "Hey Kilian, there's a circus set up in the park! Do you want to go see?" His answer? An instant, terrified, "But I haven't practiced!!!" I just love, so much, that his mind translated that as him being a circus star performer.

   Despite not being able to read yet, he really is such a smarty pants. He just got a new world map to hang on his wall, in preparation for school starting in September, and we've been having a lot of fun looking at it and studying it (most frequently when he's trying to put off going to bed). Naturally, Lake Titicaca has garnered probably a lot more interest than it necessarily deserves (brief pause while I go listen to Ernst Koch's Geographical Fugue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b59Tpi_tDYo&feature=related), but we've talked about a lot of other stuff too. We talk about different continents, and how scary is must have been for Columbus to sail out into nothing, and how the first people came from Africa and spread out through Europe and Asia and then much later went over the Bering Strait into the Americas (based on his question of though the Europeans didn't know America was there, did the Americans know Europe was there?). We've also talked a lot about the weirdness that in America, most people are lots and lots of different ethnicities, as opposed to Germany where most people are strictly German, or half German and half other-European. And he gets all this stuff! If he were a grown-up we would totally be best friends and have epic conversations all the time. Okay, we do anyway. And indeed, when I put him to bed that night, he gave me a hug and said, "I'm glad you came here instead of someone else." Me too, man.

And Cliona's Quote-of-the-Week, just for kicks: "Ich mag keine dicke, fette Kiwi, weil ich so traurig bin." (I like no fat kiwi, because I am so sad.) Umm, what?

PLACES

KulturStrand. Possibly my current favorite place in Munich. (For non Deutschophiles, the name means "Culture Beach.") There's an island in the middle of the Isar (the large river that flows through Munich) where the Deutsches Museum sits. Across from the museum, surrounding a fountain, they cart in 104.4 tons of sand and make a beach there! There are beach chairs, umbrellas, a huge sand-filled canvas worm type of thing to sit on or lean against, a DJ, and, of course, a bar, with delicious summery cocktails that Germany does so well (for some weird reason). I've been there twice so far, once with Sarah and Leigh during the day, then once last week with my host mom and a couple of her friends--we rode our bikes the 13 km into town after work and hung out drinking cocktails. All the fun of sitting on the beach with your toes in the sand--plus, you can DRINK! (I realize I sound like an alcoholic. I'm not. I promise.)

The Summer Tollwood Festival is the summer equivalent of Frühlingsfest and Winter Tollwood, which in turn are all baby versions of Oktoberfest. But dude, they are fun! Unlike the other three, Summer Tollwood takes place up at Olympiapark, the huge complex built for the 1972 Olympics in Munich, containing a swim hall, a stadium, a lake, and facilities that originally hosted the boxing, hockey, gymnastics, and volleyball events during the Olympics. The park as a whole is really cool, and we've been there several times, which will be later addressed. Or earlier. I told you, I'm not super into the chronological thing today. Anyway, I took on the festival a couple times during the three weeks it was here, once with Leigh and once with Leigh, Daniel, and Sarah. It's a much smaller festival than its compatriots, with a much more laid-back vibe. It's kind of like a US market night, except with random beer tents and no laws against walking around drinking. There's also a music festival as part of it, with people performing like Lou Reed and Lady Antebellum. We had a great time both times just walking around, looking at the souvenir things to buy and enjoying the atmosphere.

Olympiapark is super cool. I'd, embarrassingly, never been there until about a month ago, when Sarah, Leigh and I went there to swim. Though those Olympics were forty years ago, it's still pretty cool to swim in that enormous pool (and see for myself how freaking high those high dives really are). And I sort of feel like the spirit of the Olympics transcends geographic borders so maybe I sort of have swam with Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte...? Anyway, we had a great time swimming around and jumping off the (smallest) diving board, then spending some time out in the sun gossiping and being girly and it was just so much fun. Did I mention I have wonderful friends!
   Leigh, Paulo, and I also continue fairly regularly to go up there to play tennis, which has been fun to get back into, especially since we're all enough of a level that we can play together pretty well. Though I do drive people crazy with my slices. Muahaha!
   And finally, Leigh and I went one night to the Kino am Olympiasee. Munich has a wonderful tradition of open-air movie theaters (something I wonder why on earth California doesn't do more of; the weather is so iffy here it seems risky and they do it regardless!), and literally every night there are movies at several different locations to choose from. So we took our beach towels, blankets, and lots of snacks up to Olympiapark and bought 6 euro apiece picnic seats. It was way too much fun. There's an enormous inflatable movie screen that gets set up around 9:15 or 9:30 (once it gets dark enough) and you get to sit there and watch the movie. It's something entirely different than a movie theater experience to get to sit outside sprawled out on a blanket with birds and bugs and air flying around you. It's wonderful. And our excellent selection of refreshments did not hurt one bit.

    I've been lucky enough to go to a couple of great concerts lately with my friend Paulo, who has a very useful talent of being able to get tickets to pretty much anything. We saw a wonderful Rachmaninov/Walton program back at the beginning of July at the Gasteig, home of the Munich Philharmonic, then attended a Sunday morning performance of Bruckner's Mass No. 3 in the Herkulessaal at the Residence Palace, and finally one of the best concerts I've ever been to, the closing concert of the Munich Philharmonic with Shostokovich's Symphonies 11 and 15, with Valery Gergiev conducting. We lucked into orchestra seats, a mere nine rows back. It was incredible. Shostakovich symphonies are loud and fun and in-your-face, and it was such a cool experience. And followed by Indian food--even better!

Leigh and I at Herkulessaal

   I went a couple weeks ago to a ToyTown event (ok, not a place, but whatever). It'd been ages since I'd gone, but a new friend was trying out a new students/interns meet-up and asked if I'd come along. It ended up being really fun--a nice Canadian bar with the most delicious house-made hard lemonade ever  and about ten people actually having conversations instead of just the speed-dating type of chatter that tends to haunt ToyTown events, at least the ones I've been to. Most of the evening was spent listening to a New Yorker elaborate on the downside of American healthcare (but in an intelligent way, at least! I'll give you that, Dillon.) and the two of us attempting to explain the oddities of America as a country to some Brits and Danes. It was a lot of fun.

   Leigh had some friends in town a couple of weeks ago and we took them down to Starnberger See, a lake south of Munich. I'd actually never been there before, and though the day was less than ideal, weather-wise, it was beautiful and peaceful and I need to go back there to swim before I leave!

That's Leigh walking. She went swimming. She is brave.

   Okay, you obviously have heard me talk about the English Gardens, but I have to share this just so other people can feel the pain that's been heavy on my heart (and inner eye) this week. Leigh and I had an idyllic morning on a hot Thursday last week lounging and dunking in the river, eating sandwiches, and reading German gossip magazines, when we were treated to quite a sight. Remember how you're allowed to be naked in the English Gardens? Well, this is nothing new, and you see naked people pretty much every time you're there. But only rarely do they choose to set up their towel a mere THREE FEET FROM YOUR HEAD AND LIE THERE WITH THEIR GENITALS STARING YOU NOT-SO-SUBTLY IN THE FACE! The "they" there, if you were wondering, was one particularly determined middle-aged German fellow, who...erm, displayed his personal parts more blatantly than I would have thought possible. It was definitely not crowded. There was no excuse. And now, I am for the rest of my life entirely satisfied to see no more elderly German testicles. I'm sorry. I had to say it.

   I feel like that's an appropriate note to end on! You've done well, readers. Hang in there for 28 more days and we'll be home free! Then I can tell you about my life in person.

   And ten extra-credit points to the people who noticed there weren't actually any bullet points in this entry.

Kilian's surprise for me the other day. All by himself! Yes, I know the spelling is far from perfect, but still the sweetest thing ever <3

Czeching up on our Prague-ress

   Phew. The problem with putting off blog writing because there's a lot to talk about is that the stuff to talk about keeps piling up! Time to dash one off before I end up having to write a novel. (You're welcome.)


   Okay, action. Where was I? Oh yeah, three and a half weeks ago. I am getting lazy.


   So, where I last left you was the day before a whirlwind weekend adventure in Prague! Rewind your mental clocks to Friday, 15 June.


   The majority of the day itself was fairly uneventful (I hope, because I don't remember anything of it). Until, that is, at around 6 PM when I scurried home, hat mich umgezogen (changed my clothes), and headed off to an evening choir concert at a church in nearby Bogenhausen, a yuppie neighborhood on the eastern side of the Isar. We sang through a fairly quick rendition of Palestrina's Canticum Canticorum (Song of Songs), checking watches all the while, hoping we would get out soon enough to catch some of the Euro Cup Germany/Greece match. Our director helped us out by starting at 8:00 PM on the dot and limiting himself to a five-minute intermission. The concert ended promptly at 9:30 (exactly the time halftime starts) and we all ran out the door, smart phones in hand, to the nearest beer garden/restaurant broadcasting the game, and were able to perfectly catch the second half. If you happened to have been watching the Euro Cup games (not holding my breath, don't worry), you may recall five of the six goals took place in the second half, so we chose the right part to watch!


   Fueled by the resounding German victory, we took a bus into the Innenstadt (city center), entertaining the other passengers with some random choral music on the way, interspersed, of course, by various German victory songs. My game plan was to stay out as long as possible, since my bus to Prague left from the northern bus station at 1:05 AM, so it made sense just to stay out until then. So we set off for Leopoldstraße, the large boulevard stretching from Odeonsplatz up through the University and the Siegestor (victory gate).


   Okay. To fully grasp the madness of this scene, we're going to have to do some exercising of the brain. Picture all the people that fit in your high school football stadium during homecoming. Got it? Good. Now multiply that by ten. Now make every one of those people drink at least four beers (that's European style, so I'm talking two liters). Now put all of them in Deutschland Fußball shirts and stick them on the same street. You've about got it. The scene was basically madness, but in the best of ways. There were police everywhere, but their only function was basically to make sure no one got hurt. Cars would slowly brave the masses, driving up over the base of the Siegestor, and wild fans would gather on either side and rock the cars back and forth, screaming cheers all the while. Every now and then, the crowd would sink as a whole to its collective knees, honoring (I guess) the football genius of their home country.


  It was something, all right.

 

 

  Thoroughly impressed by the competitive spirit of my host country, I sadly abandoned the scene and took the U-Bahn a few stops north, where I problem-less-ly boarded a large bus bound for Prague, buckled in, put in some ear plugs, and slept the night away.


  Okay, that last sentence was a lie. There are few things as uncomfortable as trying to sleep on a bouncy bus speeding down an autobahn, sitting fully upright on a slippery leather seat, while a large Czech teenager snores beside you. Let's just say I dozed my way northeast, waking fully up at about 5:45 AM as the sun rose (lies, this far north the sunrise is at like 4, but I denied it as long as possible) over the outskirts of Prague. We arrived successfully at the bus station at about 6:15, and, having told my parents I'd aim for 7:00 at their hotel, I successfully (first Czech interaction!) bought some coffee at the train station kiosk to break my 100 bill (in Korunas, that is. So about 5$). Fortunately the word "cappuccino" is fairly ubiquitous. Thank you, Italians, for so dominating the coffee industry. After fiddling with the ticket machine for a bit, I finally broke down and bought a subway ticket from the counter, and took the U-Bahn about four stops to my parents' hotel, arriving at their door at exactly 6:59 AM. (Let's just say Germany has done wonders for my punctuality.)

My first step after arriving

   And after that, the day sped by in normal touristy fashion! My parents and I breakfasted at their hotel, before checking out and towing their luggage (rolling suitcases + cobblestones is not the best combination) to their new hotel, as city centre-ish as it could possibly be (literally next to the gorgeous Tyn Church), and meeting up with their fellow travelers Neal and Lettie. Neal was my dad's best friend from high school, and they traveled Europe together quite a bit when they were young hooligans, so it was very cool that it worked out for them to meet up here! We took off, armed with only a guide book and the approximately fifteen words of Czech we knew (most of them phrases I had scrawled down in a notebook the night before: "Do you speak English?" "Excuse me!" "I don't understand," etc. And my father helpfully learned the word for beer, so we were ready for anything).

Our hotel was next door to that. NBD.

Good little tourist

Neal and Lettie

   Luggage safely stowed, we stopped only briefly to pick up some more coffee for me (I don't let little things like three hours of sleep on a bus slow me down in a new city!), and set off to see Prague properly, as only Rick Steves-equipped American tourists can. The day promised to be warm and lovely, so we were determined to take advantage of it. Stopping briefly in the main square to admire the clocktower, we boarded a tram and headed up to Petřín Hill, the large hill west of the Vltava River. Eschewing (foolishly) the line at the funicular, we opted instead the walk up the hill, proving to be quite an accomplishment for the heat of the day. Fortunately a beer garden halfway up called to us, giving me my first taste of Czech beer (in this case, Pilsner Urquell). We then headed up the rest of the way to see a gorgeous view of the city stretched out below us. The hill is topped by a huge tower, a miniature of the Eiffel Tower. Though much smaller, it's designed so that when combined with the height of the hill, it's exactly the same height as the Eiffel Tower. We splurged and took the elevator to the top of it to get the full effect.

I can't take these clowns anywhere

Petrin Tower

Dad, Neal, Lettie, Mom

Memorial to the victims of Communist rule

Looking down at the Charles Bridge and the old town

   Morning mission achieved, we headed back down the hill to get some lunch at a Rick Steves-recommended restaurant in Malá Strana, the "lesser quarter" district of Prague. Fed and watered, we wandered back over the famous Charles Bridge (managing not the get pick-pocketed in the meantime; my dear father took extra precautions against this possibility by safety-pinning his pocket shut) and meandered through the winding streets of the Staré Město (old town) and into Nové Město (new town), stopping only to purchase some gelato. Though I feel like I'm leaving a good four or so hours unaccounted for in there, so there may have been a stop at another beer garden somewhere in there.

Mom and Charles Bridge

Vltava River (or Die Moldau, if you're leaning towards German)

Charles Bridge

St. John of Nepomuk

   We headed then to Wenceslas Square, the long boulevard leading up the the National Museum and most famous as the site of the demonstrations during Prague Spring (1968) and the Velvet Revolution (1989). This is a period of history I for some reason know far too little about (I think all of my late-1989-history energy is concentrated a little further north), so it was fascinating to read about all the events that happened there in our guidebook. I won't go into much detail, but you can read all about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution. There's something sort of magical about being on the site of something so incredible. I had the same kind of feeling about the Berlin Wall. In Wenceslas Square, Communism fell because 500,000 people, led by university students, came out em masse and protested something they thought was wrong. No violence, no war, just their presence. 

Sun setting down Wenceslas Square

Memorial to the two men who lit themselves on fire in protest of Communism

   Anyway, it was cool. We enjoyed the sunset from the steps of the giant statue of St. Wenceslas (also known as Good King Wenceslas, if you're a Christmas song fan. Or a Love Actually fan), even witnessing a real live protest in action (a rather crazed Czech fellow who'd been protesting for over 1,000 days straight about his land being seized by the government, or something like that). We then headed back to a restaurant around the corner from our hotel for some much-needed (at least for me) dinner. Not bad for a day's work. 


   The next day we awoke bright and not-so-early, breakfasted, and headed north from our hotel into the old Jewish quarter of the town. Prague has a long history of anti-Semitism; the first pogrom took place there in 1096 and the Jews were concentrated into a walled ghetto shortly thereafter. The old city was mostly demolished and remodeled in the mid 19th century, but the old synagogues and remnants of the old town still remain. The ghetto was astonishingly not destroyed during the Nazi occupation for a fairly terrifying reason: the Nazis planned on opening an "exotic museum of an extinct race" once their extermination of the Jews was complete; the Jewish museum in Prague is one of the largest and most complete because the Nazis collected artifacts from all of Bohemia and stored them for their future plans.


   Choosing not to pay the fee for entry to the museum (not one literal museum but seven different synagogues, all with various different exhibits), we wandered around from sight to sight, reading about the synagogues in our guidebook as we went, including the Staronova synagogue, Europe's oldest active synagogue, completed in 1270. We also stopped to admire a monument to Franz Kafka, as well as peek through to the old Jewish cemetery, a tiny little patch of ground allotted for the graves of supposedly over 100,000 people.

Klaus Synagogue and neighboring mortuary

So many graves piled into one space the ground is completely uneven

Dad attempting to look properly humble next to the greatness of Kafka

My father has trouble looking normal in pictures

  We then headed across the river and picked up a tram to take us up to the top of the castle. (Highly recommended, I may add, as then you get to do the entire walk downhill). Castle is really a misnomer; it's actually a series of palaces, mixed in with chapels, a cathedral, fancy-yet-quaint old neighborhoods, and the occasional ice cream shop, of course. We bought a ticket that covered entrance to most of the important places, including a walk through the secret parts of the cathedral, with peeks at St. Wenceslas's tomb, a walk through the interior of the old government palace (including a visit to the room where the defenestration took place!), and a stroll down the Golden Lane, quaintly tiny little houses where the goldsmiths used to work, including a house Franz Kafka stayed in for a while. 

St. Vitus Cathedral 

Dad pretending to be a cockroach in honor of Franz Kafka's house

Proper sunburnt tourist

David Cerny's "Czech" sculpture

   Sated on castles, we had a late lunch at a restaurant across from the Kafka museum (my dad and Neal dined on pork knuckles, but I rebelled against the fairly unimpressive Czech food at that location and got all the waiters laughing at my German-ness when I managed to put together a Semmelknödel mit Pfifferlingesoße (dumplings with mushroom sauce), a typical Bavarian dish. We finished the evening at a small creperie, finally having found some beer other than Pilsner Urquell (I confess I'm not a huge fan of Czech beer), and ended the night at a little courtyard restaurant with live music sung by an old Czech woman. It was a lovely night. We walked back to the hotel, content, at the perfect time so see the lights of the city stretch out over the river.

   My parents and I awoke early, caught a cab to the train station, and hopped on our respective buses: I, back to Munich, and my parents, off to Berlin, to meet again the next weekend when they came to Munich! 


  And that was our Prague adventure. Though I really enjoyed the city, I have to confess I didn't fall in love with it the way I did with Berlin or Vienna. It is incredibly beautiful and charming, and I feel like I got to know my way around pretty well, but I don't ever feel like I felt the heart of the city itself. Maybe it's just hard for a city that spent so long being beaten down under Communism then graduated so quickly to the third most popular tourist destination in Europe to retain its essence. 


   I also think the language was part of it. Though Prague's definitely not a city where you need to speak Czech (almost even less so than German in Germany, really; I suppose the difference is there's a fairly good probability that tourists know some German, whereas Czech isn't really one of those languages people just pick up due to exposure), it frustrates me incredibly to not be able to communicate in the local language. I disliked that about my experiences with Sofia as well, even having an excellent interpreter with me at all times. I pride myself on my ability to do well with languages, and having that skill taken away just makes me feel like another dumb American tourist. 


   But regardless, Prague and I got along just fine!


   I do apologize for leaving you still a couple of weeks behind, but it's past my bedtime and when a blog's too long no one reads it anyway! I promise, the next one will be coming very soon: parents in Munich!