Haircuts and Churches

Haircuts in other countries are scary, but there comes a time when you really need one and just go for it. With shame, I browsed toytown.com, a site for english speakers in germany. I found a few good places yesterday, but the one I wanted to go to was closed. Barbers in Germany also take Mondays off...I never understood that back in the states.

Luckily we spent almost a whole day of class yesterday just on the topic of haircuts and what you talk about while you get one (to make small talk in German: Small talk machen). I felt a bit more confident today when after lunch at the Palace of Justice with Megan, I went and got a haircut. I was walking towards the place in the Sendlinger Tor area, but another place caught my eye. 9 Euro for a haircut and "ohne Termine" (without appointment) were on the window. I decided not to walk to the place I so carefully researched and went here. I only waited for a few minutes, in which I read many German political cartoons and didn't understand a single one. The barber beckoned me over to to the seat. We had a good conversation, in German of course, about Kalifornia and Arnold the former Governator. He was from Iraq and I naturally said I'm sorry about what we've done. He is the second out of two Iraqi people I've met in Germany who basically said he was and still is on the US military's side. Still a minority, I'm sure.

After the haircut I finally made my way to St. Paul's Church. Every day, I walked down Sonnenstraße to the Goethe Institut and could see some church a mile down this street contrasting with the very modern architecture of downtown Munich.

My walk to class every day includes this scene. St. Paul's is at the end.

I walked through the Turkish quarter of Munich to get to St. Paul's. It was my first time going through and the smell from the restaurants was glorious. I think it was because of this that I had a craving for (and eventually got) a Döner sandwich tonight. St. Paul's was much more than I expected. It is not a tourist site, just a normal church. They had banners outside advertising their Taize prayer tonight - pretty modern.

As I walked around St. Paul's taking pictures, I realized that some of it had been redone. It sucks knowing that my country bombed some of these beautiful structures. War sucks. A homeless man was sleeping in a sleeping bag in one of the many entrances. I walked to the only entrance open and was awestruck. Is this really a normal church? Only one other person was there, a woman that seemed to be a volunteer parishioner that kept things tidy for visitors. Enough talking - here are the pictures of St. Pauls:

One tower with many smaller towers making it look like a castle.

An awful picture, but the outside was full of grotesque-style statues

The confesional.

They had a video playing at all times on a TV about St. Paul's mission

Speechless

The knave was so tall that the click of my camera would echo all the way around

The spiral staircase up to the pulpit. The lady in the background.

Another spiral staircase up to one of the towers I'm assuming.

Bad picture - too dark. The organ was in one of the transept's choir lofts, not in the main one at the back.

It's nice being able to see something from far away, want to see it, and go to it. I am stealing this quote from my brother who knows the actual author, but "Legs are the best zoom lens." It's true and this impromptu walk alone makes me want to go to more places that are off the beaten path - that aren't touristy attractions, but attract me nonetheless.

After that I took a nap and then went out to the Goethe Treff, a Stammtisch (or meeting over drinks), with Cristiana and Berna. Dylan and Matt and many other met up with us. We then proceeded to a hookah bar to celebrate Vincente's (Brazil) birthday. Good times.

Bis bald,

Peter

PS: This weekend I went to a German Fleamarket at the Olympiapark and I have pictures. I will definitely be posting those soon, but I'm too lazy to write all the details of that long adventure. It'll happen soon...before I forget.

Wohning at the Wohnheim

wohnen - to live (in an apartment, haus, etc)

It's been 7 days since I've posted. From Friday to Monday, I flew back to California to surprise my mom for her 60th birthday! There are no words for her face when she saw me....I only wish I had a camera!

Life has become stable here; I am definitely settled after being here for three weeks. I just received an email a few days ago about my accommodations from April to August. I'll be on a hill overlooking my quaint little Bavarian village of Eichstätt. But that is in the future, now I'm still in the bustling center of Bavaria and there are many festivals coming up.

Ping pong outside in winter...

Life at the Wohnheim/Gasthaus (it goes by both names) is a lot of fun. Around dinner time you hang out in the kitchen and get to chat with all the other people. Outside, there are two concrete ping pong tables. I tried them out for the first time this week playing in a very exciting and well matched game with Megan. I made a great dinner with Paula (from Columbia), Cristiana (Brazil), and Rob (Canada) last night. More people joined and dinner turned into a social gathering...and that social gathering turned into a party. Unfortunately, the Zivis are starting to become like RAs back in the US. On eventually broke up our party in the kitchen so we moved to the Partyraum....then that one got broken up. At least I don't get written up!The best part of the night was definitely when Dylan and Matt came in with two beer bongs - a grand American tradition that we are now sharing with the world. They bought them at the German equivalent of the Home Depot.

With the same group - Paula, Cristiana, and Rob - I went to a Tapas bar, which when I told people the next day...they heard "Topless bar." I then got the idea for a Topless Tapas bar. Investors anyone? Back to the story...being a Tapas bar, the waiters spoke Spanish and as a game, Paula made me order everything for them IN SPANISH. My nine years of grade school Spanish left me with nothing, so I probably butchered every syllable.

Today after class, I adventured with Megan and Erik (US). We went out for lunch at a pretty cool Italian restaurant. My pizza was only 6.30 and it could easily have been $13 at a US restaurant with the ingredients they put on it. We then saw The King's Speech with German untertitel (I just like that word better than "subtitle"). Throughout the week, I've been noticing a change in my English. I have become awful at speaking English and the slow movement towards Germish has begun. At lunch I said something that would make those friends of mine who are part of the Grammar-Gestapo cringe. Unfortunately, I do not remember it...my mind wishes to erase that. The best thing was that what I said, if translated to German, would have had perfect word order. Damn. Megan the other day said, "Well that seems comisch." Comisch is humorous in German. GERMISH!

 So life in the Wohnheim and elsewhere is sweet, partly because of the....


THE SIX BEERS OF MUNICH!

The flow of this post is lacking but I should have talked about this a long time ago. Let's see if you can name the six beers. I was surprised when I could the first time someone asked me. They are Paulaner, Hofbräu, Franziskaner, Löwenbräu, Augustiner, and Hacker-Pschorr. Just so you don't sound like a tourist the next time you are in Munich, the "äu" in any "bräu" word is pronounced "oi." So when you say Hofbräuhaus, you pronounce it Hof-broi-hahoos. As of TODAY, I have now tasted all 6, including Löwenbräu, even though our tour guide six months ago said it tastes "like urinations." Günther, it wasn't that bad! I have started using the shelf above my bed to store the different kinds of beers. They are all just too good.

Shrine to München, Capital of Beerdom

I have been studying, too! I was the only one in class today for the first 10 minutes. A total of 5 out of 14 people showed up - last night was a little rough. I showed up late on Wednesday because the trip over the weekend finally caught up to me. The guilt followed me throughout the day, so I went up to the Mediothek and checked out a German movie, Das Leben der Anderes (The Lives of Others). I watched 20 minutes of it and started losing hold of the plot, so I stopped. I brought it back to the librarian and we conversed in German, but I'll translate it here. Keep in mind the word schwer means both hard and heavy (as in depressing).

Librarian: "Are you finished"
Me: "No, only 20 minutes into it. It is too hard (schwer)."
Librarian: "Yeah...the plot is very heavy."
Me: "No I mean, I am only in B11 and there are no subtitles. It is too hard for me, as in the opposite of simple.
Librarian: "I understand now. I'll use the word complex (schwierig) instead."

German words have too many different meanings and that conversation was the first one I had that was a mix up. So I end this post saying that the classes are going well. Megan, Federico, and I are going to see a concert on the 26th featuring Carmina Burana and Beethoven's 9th played by the Prague Orchestra. Speaking of Prague, I'm meeting my brother there in May. Also in my plans - Ireland the first weekend of March to tag along with my singing group as they make their yearly migration for tanzen und trinken. Jawohl! And one more thing:

Funny Observations/Facts about German culture:

• The yellow light at a stop sign blinks right before going green - so from red to yellow to green. Germans are always racing! I hear you even get a boost if you get the right timing, like Mario Kart.
• Many Germans stay in movie theaters to watch the credits....the best part of the movie
• In order to get your driver's license, you are tested on basic car maintenance and emergency situations - tire changes, jumping a car, etc.
• The phrase "Das ist nicht mein Bier," which translates literally to "That is not my beer" is actually an idiom which mean's that's none of my business. Beer everywhere!
  

BMW World and the Munich Residenz

I've taken two tours this week, one on Tuesday to the BMW headquarters and factory and one on Wednesday to the Munich Residenz.

The tours are a great way to meet other people at the Goethe Institut and in addition to the people in my class, I have met people from Greece, UAE, Columbia, Finland, and Turkey. The tours are also in german...let me repeat IN GERMAN. The Institut is rightly forcing us to learn the language this way.

So on Tuesday, after class I did my homework and met up with two people from my class to go to the BMW Welt tour. It cost only 5 Euro. We got there and our Zivi (basically German RA) didn't know where to go, so we kept going around the facility trying to find out where we meet our tour guide. When we finished our wandering circle around the headquarters I stated to the group, "And that was the tour today! Hope you enjoyed it." Even though only one other person in the group was American, they all understood the joke and laughed. As much as I don't like it, it's pretty cool that everyone knows English. We finally arrived at our location. Now during spring break, we went to the same BMW Welt, but this time I was going on a 2.5 hour tour of the factory. I brought my camera hoping to take beautiful pictures of the graceful and efficient process of BMW making, but no cameras were allowed. Despite the illegality, I snapped a few iphone photos because I felt like I needed some for myself. So 2.5 hours of a BMW factory tour in German was a little much for me. I understood maybe 40% of the tourguide. I think that was mainly because I don't know the German words for all the specific factory pieces.

We started the tour where the metal is punched into forms for the shape of the car. This is the first part of the car process. It was 6:30 pm and the whole factory was still in full processing mode. There are two shifts of workers throughout the day. I forget the first but the one we were on was from 3pm to 12pm. The workers switch jobs on the assembly line every half hour just to get out of the monotony. Here in the form-making plant, they switch less often. The workers were all pretty nice to us, waving when we were looking down on their handiwork from the tour path.

One half of the form-processing plant

The tour then went to place where forms are put together to make the skeleton and eventually body of the car. In this whole warehouse, there were only a few workers. Robots did 97% of the work and it was AWESOME to see their precision. At the helm of each band of robots, there was a human (no Skynet takeovers in Germany). It was neat to see each robot lifting, welding, punching, and passing it to the next robot. At the end of the line, the robots lifted the skeleton (one side of a car) into the air and a crane robot took it. The last part of the industrial part of the factory we saw was the joining of the chassis with engine block to the body. This was cool because every car in the line was a different kind, so they had the chassis assembly line perfectly synced with the body form line.

One of the many robot stations. Each one had 4-6 arm robots

 

 

 

 

Right after a 3 series, an X series gets put together.

 We then took a tour of the six part painting process with robots. Under each painting station, there is a flowing waterfall that takes away the paint that does not stick to the car and falls. A WATERFALL IN A FACTORY. It's like Willie Wonka! The last stop was the seat makers, who stitched the seats with all that luxurious fabric. It was nice seeing mainly people working on something after the robots. After the tour, we stayed only for a few minutes in the main lobby which is straight out of the future.

Most went back to the Gasthaus, but I was off to the Augustiner Bräustuben. 3 of my brothers former co-workers were here at a trade show and he wanted us to meet up. The logistics were crazy because I thought they could only use email. I forgot they are people here on business and have phones that work here and it would have been much easier to just give them my number. We found each other though and sat in the beerhall and had our fill. The Bräustuben is neither the touristy Augustiner Keller nor even touristier Augustiner Restaurant. There were actual Bavarians around, even some at our table. One thing about Bavarians is they are nice enough to tell you what is touristy and what is Bavarian. True Bavarians only drink half-liters at a time, so the beer doesn't get cold. This is contrary to the very popular Bavarian Maß, the giant 1-liter beersteins you see everyone drinking at Oktoberfest, etc. I still ordered a Maß just because. I've also learned people who live in Munich don't call my stop Karlsplatz as it says on all the maps, but the medieval name for it: Stachus. So I ate and drank with the co-workers on their companies dime, which was an awesome treat. Thanks Deann, Tally, and Catrin!

I woke up the next day and thought I would just go home after class. I was peer pressure into going on another cheap tour of the Munich Residenz, which easily translates to Residence in English. Our tour guide again spoke only in German, but it was Herr Doktor Christoph this time, they guy from my first tour of Munich. He works for the Goethe Institut and knows how to say things just right for you to understand. I was probably able to understand everything he said, when I wasn't off gawking at the awesomeness of the palace.

An overview of the palace just in case you don't want to read anymore and just look at pictures. The Residenz is the largest palace in German and was, naturally, the palace of the Bavarian royal family (note Bavarian and not German). It contains about 130 rooms and I rivals many other European palaces on its collection. The Residenz is an exhibit of artistic ages itself - we our started in the Renaissance wing, and we passed through the Rococo, the Baroque, and the 19th century parts. In fact, I don't really want to write anymore about it. I'll just put pictures up. Since I was peer pressured into the tour, I didn't have my Nikon on me. These are, again and apologetically, iPhone photos. I am here for two months and I NEED to photograph this place again. I'll just update this post when that happens. Here are the pics for now:

Maybe 1/10th of the Renaissance-era grotto. This is ALL made out of sea shells.

The antiquarium - a banquet hall with busts of classical heroes and giants.

Latin phrases were on either side of the arches. It was nice to be able to translate some of them for people.

Hundreds of busts and sculptures. Can I just take one? They won't notice...

Do you have a room where all your family have portraits back to the 1300s?

The great House of Wittelsbach family tree.

The Perseus and Medusa fountain, taken inside for Winter. Water spurts out of Medusa's severed neck

King Ludwig, "Do you have a church in your house?" He really didn't say this

Floor inlaid marble.

Another chapel, this time the King's private chapel.

A 1.5 octave private organ in the private chapel of his Majesty

Cuvielles, the architect made everything fit, including couches into mirrors.

Not a Californian King size bed, a Bavarian king size bed. Ha!

Those Rococo people loved their mirrors

China room

 That's enough of that. After the tour, Megan and some new friends, Cristiana form Brazil, Erik from the US, and Paula from Columbia wen to Augustiner Restaurant and got some drinks. Life is good. Sad thing is that I'm thousands of miles away and it's my mom's 60th birthday today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! ALLES GUTE ZUM GEBURSTAG!

Das ist alle. Tchüß!

First Weekend in Munich (and Living Arrangements)

I'll leave the "living arrangements" subject until the end because I'm sure most of you reading (save my mother) don't care about that.

The first weekend was a whirlwind of the nightlife and culture of Munich. On Friday, Matt, Dylan and I went down to the Freiheitsraum (Free-time room). Only two other people were in there, but that quickly changed. People from all over the Gasthaus showed up, most around our age. Megan also joined, coming from her home-stay.We were all meeting over drinks and music and I met people from Spain, Mexico, Turkey, Venezuela, Brazil, and the US. We stayed in there for something like 3 hours (until 1am). Supposedly that's a usual pregame? Then we went out to Neuraum (pronounced noi-rowm), a club that I went to with my college singing group. The place has over 4 rooms, each playing a different type of music - electronic, R&B, club/dance, and bar hits. We left at 4:30ish and were all scared that the S-Bahn would not be running at that time, but of course it was...because we are in Germany.

At the train stop we met a group of Germans. We said where we were from and one guy couldn't stop talking about Hollister, the clothing company. He was going on and on and I didn't quite understand his obsession over clothes. Supposedly they are expensive here. The conversation, for the most part, was in German. I was tired and still had a few drinks in me so I wasn't so hesitant to just speak their language. I don't think I've ever spoken German so well with a group of people. We all went back and slept for a longgggg time.

Saturday was not even a full day. I woke up (at 1), walked around the neighborhood, did my homework then went to bed. Recovery from the night before was rough.

Sunday was not a waste of a day and was more cultural. I woke up and tried to go to the grocery store, but I guess places are closed on Sundays. Instead I used my time out to check out the Hirschgarden. The Hirschgarten is all of 500 feet from where I am. It was 55 degrees out and the biergarten was open for the first time since winter came; people were also out sunbathing. Megan came over and we molled over what museum to visit that day.  We decided to go to the Pinakothek der Moderne (Modern Art Museum). It is situated in the Kunstareal, one of the many art districts in Munich. Federico, a Venezuelan who we met from Friday night, came with us. Here are a few pictures from our walk around the museum:

Men playing GIANT CHESS!

Public ping pong tables. BYOP: Bring Your Own Paddle

The Pinakothek der Moderne

The museum itself was really cool and it was only 1 euro to enter. Immediately when you entered, a huge sky-lit rotunda filled the space with the gorgeous weather (picture on right). I only wish we got there earlier because we had another floor and a half left when it closed. We did see an eye-opening exhibit that displayed personal computers from the dawn of the device to around 2000. In addition, there was an awesome exhibit on German car design. If you didn't know Bavaria is the headquarters of BMW (naturally) and Audi. Mercedes-Benz has a main factory in Munich as well. I left my camera in my bag at the coatcheck, so I didn't take pictures. It is sometimes nice to allow something not to be photographed.

The coolest piece I saw was a huge room filled with green fluorescent lights. You would walk into this room and after 10 seconds, the normal white-washed rooms outside it would seem pink. You would walk to the normal rooms and they would fade from pink back to white in a few seconds - more of an artistic experiment than an optical illusion. In the next room there was a piece of art on the ground and we really couldn't get out of the room without stepping on it. We were wondering if we could when we saw the guard on duty walking on it...so we did too.

After the museum, we walked to a cafe and hung out there for a few hours talking about music. Megan had her iPod and we were talking about our favorite bands, songs, and albums. It was cool seeing how globalized the world is because Federico was knew so much about American and western European music. He actually knew about just every type of music. Megan went back to her place and Federico and I headed back to the Gasthaus, where he gave me his hard drive to ninja some of his music.

I tried watching some of the superbowl, but only got through one quarter before I felt the need to pass out. The superbowl started at 12:30am in Germany. Well done Packers!

Living Arrangements:

The Gasthaus rooms are too big. I guess that's bigger than too small, but I don't have anything to fill the space. It is right next to the train tracks and I thought the noise would be a problem. Not only are German trains quiet on the inside (as stated in the last blog post), but they are all around quiet. I have never woken up to a train. The neighborhood is a bunch of apartment buildings. Each with a courtyard. Every other courtyard has a playground or some wort of play structure. Here is the view from my window:

I think I'll try to get some cheap posters to try and spiff up the place. It's a bit drab at the moment and I am here for 2 months. Here are pictures of the room itself:

Being Monday, it is the start of the first full week of classes. Today's class ended with us getting in fake fights to use the words obwohl (although) and weil (because) in sentences. As I get to know my classmates better, the class gets better and today's excercise ended up being a lot of fun. Tomorrow, I take a 2 hour tour of BMW Welt. I'm also thinking of going on one about the Weiße Rose, a student-organized movement in Munich against Hitler and the Nazis. I was in the courthouse today where they were tried by the Nazis.

Tschüß!

First Few Days of Class and Stadtspaziergang

My first few days in Munich have been awesome. On Wednesday was our first class. I realize the last sentence was awkwardly phrase...I blame German word order and its takeover of my brain. Back to th story....When I arrived there in the morning, I saw that I was moved from A22 to B11 (up one level). I was a little scared going into the class, but it's very fair. In these few days, I've learned that my reading and writing skills are very good mostly because I have time to think. I can understand the teacher well because she is good at explaining things in more ways than one. I feel bad if I fall back on English, but everyone does, even though they are from Osaka, Seoul, Mecca, Romania, Sao Paolo, Rio, St. Petersburg, Seattle, and many other worldly destinations. I thought I was going to get opened to the German world when I went abroad, but I'm getting much more than that.

My first day after class, Megan, another BC student, and I roamed around Munich. We went to the Kaufhof (department store) and bought alarm clocks. Then went off to DM, the German version of Walgreens, to pick up some prepaid telephones. We stopped by the Frauenkirche, the main church of the extremely Catholic city of Munich. I snapped a few pictures of it.

The towers reach to the heavens at 358 feet tall.

The massiveness of the church makes you take a few steps back.

Vaulted ceilings this high make you think when it was built. Answer: 1494

After my first day, I went back and tried to get some sleep, but it has been something of a greased pig lately. I finally got my first sleep last night for more than 3 hours and it felt great. It's hard when your usual zone is 9 hours behind.

 Yesterday after class, I went with Dylan, Matt, and most of their class to a cheap cafeteria. It was in a building that Matt calls the "courthouse" and it does look like that. When we got to the cafeteria, it seemed like it was one for politicians or lawyers or something. It was cheap though....4 euro for pork in a weißbier sauce and two knödel (potato dumplings). After that I met up with Megan for our next adventure.

In addition to classes, the Goethe Institut offers tours in Munich and to the surrounding areas (Neuschwanstein Schoss, Salzburg, etc.). Yesterday I took my first one because it was both an orientation to inner Munich and it was free! It was called a Stadtspaziergang, or city walk. Our tourguide, Cristoph, a Doctor of German Art, showed us around the city. Since half of the people were in A11, the lowest course level, he would speak in English, then in German (or vice versa). This was the coolest thing I've ever seen a tourguide do. It also helped me a lot because sometimes I would be off taking pictures and not hear the story the first time, but then he would repeat it in the other language. We started with the picture on the right. This is the Sendlinger Gate (Sendlinger Tor) built in 1318. None of the original Munich city wall exists today because the city needed expansion room, but the four gates still stand.



Next we journeyed to the Asamkirche, or Asam Church. This was a private family church and the family happened to me a very artistic one, so the church is beautiful. In the picture, the church is on the right and the house on the left. Christoph led us inside and we were stunned by its Rococo style. The artists to made it used theater architecture, specifically ovals, to make a very small space seem so grand. Here are some quick picture I snapped of it. I hope to go back and get some better ones.

The outside of the Asamkirche, with the family home on the left.

The inner part of the Asamkirche vomiting Rococo art everywhere.

As we left, the organist started to play. You can see him right behind the gilded balcony.

Ohel Jakob, the new Jewish synagogue.

 We then went on to Jakobsplatz, where the new Jewish Synagogue and Munich City Museum stand. Munich decided gave Jakobsplatz to the Jewish people on November 9, 2006. November 9 is a huge date in German history. It marks the end of the German monarchy in 1918, the rise of the Nazi Party in 1923, the Kristallnacht in 1938, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Jewish Museum stands just next to the synagogue. Next to that is a Karate Center and across, a Thai restaurant. Munich is extremely multicultural. This was one of the many places I didn't see while I was here last March, so I was glad I went on this tour.

The tour then went to Old St. Peter's Church. Now when you look up Munich on Google's image search, you find many pictures of Marienplatz (the city center) with what looks like photoshopped Alps in the background. I've been looking to find out how to get those pictures because there are no skyscrapers near Marienplatz. On the tour, Christoph pointed out that you can go to the top of Old St. Peter's steeple and get breathtaking views of Marienplatz and the Alps. Again, I am very glad I took this tour.

Old St. Peter's tower. Only 1.50 Euro to get up there!

Then to end the tour, we went to Odeonsplatz, where "inner Munich opens up to the modern world." That was the end of the Stadtspaziergang. I went back home, did my homework, and finally got that nice rest I was looking for.

Today after class, I returned the phone I bought because I opened the packaging and it was broken. I started out by talking in German. "Ich habe vor zwei Tage dieses Handy gekauft. Aber die Handy is kaputt." After that I started hesitating a lot and did a very upsetting thing. "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" I asked. Luckily the store manager did and even helped me say what I wanted to in German. She gave me a new phone...that works.

So I sit here now, at the beginning of the weekend, about to take Munich nightlife by storm.

Note: Not all photo's were in the blog. To see the rest of the pictures, click the picture below.

Munich Stadtspaziergang

Some Funny Observations about Munich:

1. NO ONE walks across the street when the do not walk sign is up, even if there are no cars on the road. Everyone in my class has talked about this...I'm not the only one.
2. Dogs are out and about even in cold weather. People bring their dogs on walks and even bring them on the S-Bahn (the transit system).
3. Speaking of the S-Bahn, it is eerily quiet. I've only seen two people talk on their phone while on the subway, and when they pick up, they say, "I'm on the Bahn, can you wait." Thank you phone etiquette!
4. No houses. Many people live in apartments. I don't think I've seen a house yet.
5. When you see a person over 50 in the S-Bahn, you give them your seat. I saw this once and thought it was just a very nice gesture. But the second time, a man and a woman both got up for the same old lady. The old lady took the woman's seat and then the man gave the young woman his seat. Chivalry does exist.

The Journey to Munich

The following was written yesterday, but I just attained 

internet access today, so here is my Journey:

Traveling alone makes journeys much more internal and thoughtful. Prepare for a very long account of a very long day.

I left San Francisco at 11:00 am on Monday and arrived at Chicago at 5:20pm. As we taxied to the gate, I saw an army of 20 snowplows getting ready for the big storm that hit a few hours after. You don't see that at a California airport.

The gate for my connecting flight to Munich was only a few gates away. I headed over there and sat down for all of 10 seconds when they called my section to board. Good timing. Being an international flight, we were on a 777, a plane that I adore and know far too many facts about. Did you know the fuselage of the 737 fits inside one of the 777's GE90 engine's?....but I digress. My plane needed to be de-iced, so that took up a half hour and I dozed off to the drone of the engine.

Even though I had a window seat for both flights, the view was less than spectacular. Maybe 90% of the flight or more it was cloudy. It did make the times that I could see things very special. I woke up as the plane was taking off. The engines revved up and we got over the clouds. It was dark by then and for some reason I was still expecting to see the sun above that cloud cover.

You can do a lot on a 10 hour flight. I watched the Social Network, read a book, then tried for a few hours to get in some sleep time. It never came, but resting my eyes was enough. The last 3 hours of the plane ride I just watched the window; it was dark until the last 2 hours. Every now and again I could see bright lights from ships in the Atlantic. As we neared land, the sun started coming up. A gorgeous sunrise, but it still allowed no view of the earth - just clouds. When clouds are all you have to see, they get interesting themselves. Patterns arose and in some spots you'd see divots in the blanket, leading to sheer cloud waterfalls. In other spots, abnormalities made inverted icicles or cloud hills that you just might want to build a castle on.

Sunrise over Europe. There is a cloud waterfall on the left, too!

Then they came. The Sierras do the same thing in a plane. You see a shadowy outline and as you get closer the blur becomes jagged. Out of the plain of clouds came the Alps - much more jagged and sheer than the Sierras. The plane got closer and closer. Then we descended. There was a plane descending maybe a half mile parallel and below of us, going the same speed. It was cool seeing them drop into the clouds, it's tail fin like a shark or something. We landed and the captain announced: "Welcome to tropical Munich. The current temperature is 20º ." Funny.

Customs was easy; the inspector said nothing. I got my bags (bag carts were free!) and headed out of the airport. Immediately out of the airport there was a spectacle. Audi had rented out a space, allowing people to drive Audis up a ramp at a good 60º angle, see-saw at the apex of the "ride," and then ride down another steep hill. I stayed to watch a bit, but decided that I should stop gawking at German engineering and get on. I had a choice then: either take an $80 cab ride or a $13 train ride. As I hobbled with my luggage to the train station and took over a whole seat with it, all I thought was 'That's $67 for more German beer.' I'm a frugal beer freak. At one of the train stations, I helped a pair of American middle-aged vacationers to find their stop on the map. Thank you University Chorale of BC for allowing me to remember the system layout.

The 50 minute ride from airport to downtown was eventful. I saw upwards of 30 construction cranes, most of which were in motion. There's definitely no recession in Germany. I also saw two funny ads that helped me realize that my German reading skills were still on par. An Ad that said "Barbie, ich will dich zurück." with a bubble going from Ken's mouth. That mean's Barbie, I want you back. The ad was just for a Barbie doll too. Another add for McDonald's that had a couple just about to kiss. It said in German that every good moment starts with a good cup of coffee.

The supposed 5 minute walk from the Karlsplatz station to the Goethe Institut, my first destination, turned out being 20 minutes because of the awkwardness of rolling two large suitcases, especially in cold weather and on ice. I didn't get very many weird looks, which made me happy that the Germans weren't judging me…or at least doing it in their peripheral.

At the Institut, I took the second part of a placement test (Einprufungstest), the oral exam. Problem: I haven't slept for more than 30 minutes in the last 20 hours, I'm hungry, and I really don't want to speak a language (that I'm insecure with) to people who speak it fluently.

Solution: The people at the Goethe Institut were extremely nice. They had food out for my hunger and all of them were more than willing to switch to English. I'm sure just by my look and smell they could tell I had been through a lot.

As I walked up the Institut's stairs, I saw Dylan and Matt, two guys in my program with me from BC. Dylan also lived on my floor freshman year. They had finished the exam and said they didn't do so well. Under the "write a story in German" part, Matt had written one about a woman named Thema, as he thought the directions said. Thema means "Theme" in German, and luckily they pointed that out to me so I didn't make the same mistake. I took the test and my tester was pretty nice. She understood my grammar-less German. My "Thema" for the written part was a "Reise nach Deutschland" - a trip to Germany. I wrote about what I want to do during this trip in the most complicated words I could muster, but it was still childishly simple. She gave me level A-22, which is the second starter level.

I finished that up and was led to an Information room, where there were teachers speaking German, Italian, French, and English to all of the soon to be German speakers about general Munich information. I swooped in on an English information session that had just started and the lady was so nice. I have a bunch of brochures and maps now, but they are all extremely necessary - you know Germans and efficiency. She also talked about the Goethe Institute trips and tours which tour Munich and the surrounding area. Some are even free!

After the test, I had a half hour before the Gasthaus (Apartment) opened so I wandered over to the only place in Munich I know, Marienplatz. I needed some Euros and I knew a Deutsche Bank was there. I walked with conviction trying to look like I knew where I was going. I probably looked like a fool. It was nice seeing the city again, the old and new, the thousands of people still walking the pedestrian zone when it is 20º out. I picked out the phrase "Winter Anchlussverkauf" (winter end sale) on a lot of store windows. I also heard a pack of kids walking home from school singing Disco Pogo and one was even beat boxing the bass line. That was definitely one of the highlights of the day.

Then it was off to the Gasthaus. Not wanting to deal with the luggage and train, I got a taxi with 2 other language students, both form Brazil. We each paid around 6 euro each for the cab, which for the ride seemed a little steep, but I did arrive.

Three Zivis welcomed us. "Zivis" are in the civil service branch of the 1 year volunteer service (the other branch is military). I was shown to my room. It's huge and I have my own bathroom and minifridge….micro rather. Each floor has a shared kitchen with all the pots and pans and utensils given. After the tour by the Zivi, I started unpacking. I realized how bad I smelled and decided to take a shower. After the shower, I looked at the view out my window. I was scanning and saw a person from the other apartment building across the courtyard waving to me. with just a towel on, I found this alarming at first and shook my fist at them. They jokingly shook their fist back. I closed the curtains, put some clothes on and looked out again. The person just looked at me and shrugged as if to say, "I'm sorry if that was weird, but I hope you laugh at it later." I'm laughing at it now.

Dylan and Matt came up to say they were off to the Supermarkt. If there is any place that's both the worst and best place to shop while hungry, it's a German supermarket. Everything is SO small. Only quarter gallons of milk and cereal boxes that will maybe serve me 4 times. That was good because I was buying a lot, but it ended up being a little. The worst part was the chocolate AISLES (as in plural), which I didn't give into (except for Nutella). Another bad part is the beer. All half liter bottles were less than a dollar, some 59 Euro cents. A good amount of a great beer for that price? I bought three bottles. The total came out to 40 Euro, but many of the things I bought are for the two months I'm spending here. I thought I did pretty well. I forgot that you had to buy your own bags…so I held up the line going back, getting bags, and buying them. I'm moving up the German learning curve.

Just unpacked and now it's off to the Gasthaus orientation. First class tomorrow