Communing with the Wittelsbachs

Hello, all. (And a happy two-week-anniversary to me!)

This morning, in a spirit of cultural-must-do, I set out to hit two churches: Michaelskirche (where the tomb of King Ludwig II, the 'Mad King' and builder of castles Neuschwanstein, Linderhoff, and Herrnchiemsee rests) and Buergersaalkirche. It's so easy to get stuck in the same routine, but I was flipping through my Munich guidebook last night (Sundays get boring in Europe due to everything being closed), and resolved to put this in my planner for the very next day.

Photo: Archangel Michael (his biceps were huge!) offers holy water.

Michaelskirche is stunning. Walking in, I could see why Ludwig II is buried here, since I've been to Linderhoff and Neuschwanstein and know something of his general taste. It reminded me of Theaterinskirche in style, but not all in white, but still an openess and sense of space Asamkirche doesn't have.

I followed the signs down to the crypt, paid the 2 euro admission fee, and was utterly by myself, in the crypt, with a bunch of dead Bavarian rulers, members of the Wittlesbach family. Above, the organ was playing mightly. With all the flowers spewing from Ludwig's tomb, the underground setting, and the organ playing, I half-expected a masked, caped crusader to come out and start sernading me with "Point of No Return." I was a little freaked out, at first, to be the minority in the room who were among the living, but it was really nice and quiet and there was no one to bother me. Then that revelation--that I liked this quiet--began to concern me even more. Photo: Koenig Ludwig II von Bayern's tomb is showered in flowers, plaques, and roses--just the way he'd like it.

I spent the most time with King Ludwig, since I really do like his castles and empathize with his difficulty in adjusting to the concept of a modern ruler (not that I've ever been in that position), but wandered around the other tombs, too. I did notice an astonishing number of princesses and duchesses from Spain (with tombs that read 'born "a Spanish name" in Madrid,' and then given a more German name when they married), which surprised me. It seems that a fair number of male Wittelsbach rulers married Spanish princesses. I also saw some countesses around my age, which made me sad. Napoleon's stepson was also among the number there. One Wittelsbach had the most elaborate tomb: Death with a capital "D" personifed, skulls, the works. It made me think of Dr. Eve Duffy's emphasis on the concept of 'memento mori" in her Early Modern Europe class: the habit of society to constantly emphasize the ever present white elephant on the room, Death himself. I would imagine that a tomb would be remembrance enough for Death, but I suppose someone wanted to drive the point home.

I left the Wittlesbachs in their eternal peace and wandered around the church itself--apparently it is a Jesuit church, and is pretty much staffed by Jesuit priests. The front facade is undergoing some reconstruction right now, so I hadn't the opportunity to really see the full effect of the church from the street. I saw some lovely stained glass toward the front with the Bavarian shield, and wished I could see it from the other side, or illuminated by sunlight.

I headed over to Buergersaalkirche down the street, on Neuhauserstasse, and noticed an astonishing number of people about. There's a chapel on the ground entrance, so I took the flight of stairs to the left and saw signs out indicating there was no photography during Mass. Checking my watch, I realized I had arrived at exactly 12 noon, and did get the chance to see the church and witness the beginning of the Mass. I couldn't follow anyone for the life of me, but I did catch "Vater unser," but I have to say, as a group, they were quite out of harmony, and I wouldn't have been able to follow them in English, let alone German. So I ducked out and resolved to come back another day. The church looked nice--not on a Michaelskirche scale, but pretty indeed.
Photo: Photo from center back of Michaelskirche, Kaufingerstraße.

Empathizing with Bridget Jones

Bridget Jones is a character of Helen Fielding's, made most famous by Renee Zellweger's portrait of her in Bridget Jones' Diary, and the sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. She's a classic heroine because she's so relatable. She "smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and dresses like her mother" and is told by her would-be lover, Mark Darcy, in kind legalese, that she is an "appalingly bad public speaker". There's a scene in Bridget Jones' Diary when Bridget stands up before an audience at a book launching party--an audience which includes Lord Archer, Salman Rushdie, her boss, her boss' boss, etc., as well as the author himself. She doesn't realize the mike needs to be turned on, so she says, "OY! OY! Sorry, the uh, the mike's not working. Welcome, welcome, to the launch of Kafka's Motorbike, the 'greatest book of our time.'" "Well, one of the Top 30 books of our time. At least. And here to introduce it properly is the man we all call Mr. . . . . Fitzherbert, because that. is. his name." I have had so many moments in Germany, miniscule as they may be, where I am this person who is just babbling in Ger-english. Today I was sitting in a cafe, just writing in my journal and minding my own English-speaking business, and this (somewhat attractive, if slightly older) man asked me for the time, since today (almost to my utter ignorance) marked the transition to Summer Time, and it took me a good 30 seconds of babble to understand what he was going on about. And then I babbled about how I didn't realize it until later today, and then I didn't know if the conversation was over or what?, and I just felt awkward and very Bridget Jones-esque, so I just left. Poor guy. If there had been sand outside, I would have buried my head in it.

I realize that my biggest fear is speaking to German natives who are apart from the program, real-world German natives. It's awful. I feel like a mentally and developmentally challenged second-grader when I communicate in German, and I'm someone who prides myself on a degree of intelligence. I was wondering on the U-Bahn: is there a point in someone's life, when one is so used to multi-times-daily sheepish embarrassment, where one can't be embarrassed anymore? Perhaps. If so, I should be immune from embarrassment for several years after I'm done here in Munich. I'm a huge believer in working through fears instead of building nice safety zones around them, so, I need to make a point of going out of my way to talk to native German speakers.

Like the Zen saying: the only way out is through. "Appalingly bad public speaker" Bridget Jones later became a television star for Sit Up, Britain!, right? :-)

Die Weiße Rose

The White Rose was an anti-Nazi student resistance group centered at Ludwig-Maximilian Universitaet, the university which I'll be attending in a few weeks. Today we watched the German-language 2004 film Sophie Scholl: die letzen Tage (the last days), which documents the experience of Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst as they faced arrest and execution by the Nazi regime. (Yes: I live on one of several streets in the StuSta named for the members of White Rose--Christoph Probst crosses Willi Graf in the center of the StuSta, another member.)

The White Rose wrote 6 leaflets in the time frame from June 1942 to February 1943, quoting from Schiller, the Bible, what have you, to make an argument against the Nazis, and the organization was centered around the distribution of these leaflets. The photo to the left shows the engraved leaflets that lie on the ground before the main university building in now Geschwister-Scholl-Platz (the Siblings Scholl). The Sixth Leaflet was the deadly one. Sophie and her brother Hans were distributing leaflets on the hallways to be found as students were leaving their lectures. Sophie still had leaflets left just seconds before classes got out, so, in a famous and deadly move, she went up to the third level to throw the remaining leaflets out of the suitcase into the atrium, pictured to the right (oh, what a spine-chilling moment!)--with the Hausmeister watching. They were arrested, interrogated, and put to death by guillotine.

Below: a bust of Sophie Scholl to the right of the atrium, and a memorial to the White Rose group on the left of the atrium.

"Es lebe die Freiheit" (long live freedom) were the last words of Hans Scholl.

Zum Andenken an:
Sophie Scholl

Hans Scholl
Christoph Probst
Alexander Schmorell
Willi Graf
Kurt Huber

SCHNEE! Top Five

So, it is SNOWING today. For those who don't know, I have not really seen snow properly since I was about 5 years old. There was of course that snow / ice storm when I was 8, but nothing like this. I woke up this morning in a "must I get up now?" mood, opened the balcony door to check the temperature, and was utterly taken aback by the winter wonderland that lay before me.

It must have snowed for most of the night! As we headed over to JYM this morning it was still snowing, and then as we walked out around noon it was still snowing. As I wandered around Koenigsplatz for a bit, the sun was coming out and I was kinda bummbed. But now I'm writing this and watching the snow fall still, though blue skies are on the horizon.
Photo: "Callabike" bikes in StuSta.

I also wanted to write some Top 5s, in honor of my being here one week and one day and also in honor of High Fidelity.

Top 5 Things I Love about Munich / Germany / Europe:

1. The U-Bahn. Getting around is so easy. I like the public transporation / bike / walking culture here. Of course, it means you can't really wear cute but impractical shoes unless you are very interested in being a cripple for the rest of your life.
2. The general culture here is so private--you're very much free to do what you want. No one would bat an eye if you strolled past them with blue hair and orange polka dots on your skin (only if it was contagious would they worry). On the other hand, this means that there is an attitude of "I have no vested interest in your well-being."
3. All the history, statues, churches, crazy beautiful buildings around every corner.
4. Having my own room / kitchenette / bathroom, however small it is. It's wonderful to have a space that is so utterly one's own. I can take two showers a day if I want (I still have my concerns, however, that the Hausverwaltung is going to find out and be like, "no, crazy American, you can't take two showers a day just because you're cold!" But this is merely paranoia.)
5. I like the fact that men here dress nicely. Well, it's not so much dress, as their general attitude. I'm not speaking of university students so much in particular, as men in their late 20s and early 30s. They tend to project, by dress and manner, a sense that they know what they're doing for the next 5 minutes of their lives, which is not always the case in America. I don't get the sense that there is a perpetual "Guyland" for men in their 20s and 30s here. Not sure what cultural differences to chalk this up to.

Top 5 Things I Miss about the U.S. :
1.
U.S. price scale: free, almost free, very cheap, cheap, moderately cheap, moderate, moderately expensive, very expensive
Europe price scale: moderately expensive, expensive, very expensive, very very expensive
2. People smiling and having a general open attitude toward others. Of course, the other side of this is that they can be nosy, which is true. I've yet to see a European actually grin, as in, bear all teeth, in a smile. This may explain gratituous alcohol use.
3. American customer service. Our government is very much "hey, good luck, Chuck!" as the government here isn't that way at all, but our private enterprise is hyper, hyper, hyper efficient. I lost my wallet on Friday, an experience I didn't want to relive again in writing it here, but calling Visa was crazy. "Ma'am, we are so, so sorry to hear that you lost your wallet." Then, when I got my Visa card in the mail practically the next day, I had a customer satisfaction survey in the mail. Did we send it quick enough? Was everyone very, very kind and very, very helpful? Europeans don't tend to this side of scale at all. Here, you get rushed while bagging your groceries and paying at the same time, while in America it's more like, "well, we are so HONORED you chose us for your services. HONORED." Europe: Well, duh. You need food. We sell it. End of story. Hallo und auf wiedersehen.
Photo: Antike Sammelungen (antique collections, i.e., Roman) building, Koenigsplatz, covered in snow.

4. Mexican food.

5. "The American Dream," or the idea you can be whoever you want to be when you grow up.
I'm not sure how to word this, but in America, it's very sink or swim. No one will drown you, save you from drowning, or teach you how to swim. You're all on your own. It's true, income inequalities are much wider in the U.S. than here. Some of my readers may say that this is due to racial / social discrimination, pure luck, or choice, and I won't go into that. We can all agree, however, that the American government doesn't bend over backward to save people from drowning, nor does it make much attempt to stop those going forward (in comparsion with Europe). In Europe, they really want to make sure everyone stays afloat. So what I see as an "unfair" school system (since I speak as a classical liberal, I see "unfair" in terms of opportunity) with the Grundschule --> blue collar job, Realschule --> low level white collar job and Gymnasium --> University / professional job route, I think the Germans see as integrating everyone into society, and they see that as more fair than the American system, where people are just generally tossed into system and may the best man win. They are judging fairness in another term entirely: how close are people faring to the "average" (i.e., they want everyone within only a few standard deviations of the mean--the fewer deviations, the more "fair" society is).
Photo: heartbreakingly beautiful votives lit before St. Judas Thaddeus and a couple other saints (sorry, nameless ones) in stunning St. Ludwigskirche, on Ludwigsstraße near the Universitaet.

I'm off to do some work on picking classes at Ludwig-Maximilian.

Do I have "Deutsche Bahn Expert" stamped on my forehead?

I was asked for directions on the U-Bahn three times today: once by an old German Hausfrau, the second time at Hauptbahnhof by a British family (I nearly shrugged the guy off until I recognized my Muttersprache), and the third time by a German woman.

I just think it's hysterical. I've been in the country for 6 days, and my knowledge of its native language is passable at best. I must still be emmenating some sort of approachable afterglow from America.

Schoene Tagen

On Wednesday, I completed our homework assignment for JYM--a scavenger hunt of sorts. It was a crazy wonderful day. I started off in Sendlinger Tor, went inside the Asamkirche, walked up Sendlinger Strasse, over to Rosental, over to Rindermarkt, walked by the Deutsches Stadtmuseum and Juedisches Museum in St. Jakobsplatz, went over to Sebastiansplatz, walked up another street, had a delicious Schmalznudel (like a bengeit) at Cafe Frischhut, walked through Victualenmarkt, rounded the corner exactly at 12:00 by happenchance in the Marienplatz and got to watch the Glockenspiel play. I paid 1,00 Euro for the climb up the St. Peterskirche Turm---and the sky was so clear, I saw the high, high, snow-capped Alps on the horizon. I nearly wept: it was that beautiful. After that, I walked up a side street parallel to Theaterinstrasse, saw the Bayerishes Stadtmuseum in the striking Maximilian-Joseph-Platz, walked over to Odeonsplatz, went inside beautiful Theaterinkirche, walked through the whole Hofgarten grounds as a virtuoso played a deep melody on the cello in the halls and old men played games of pins, honored students gone at the memorial to the members of the White Rose, and then, around 4PM, fetched lunch in Muenchner Freiheit.

It was an amazing day. Can days be this amazing? Not really sure.

I'm doing very well so far, and enjoying this experience and what it means for my growth as an individual. For certain, the hardest part is getting accustomed to the 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, nonstop German-speaking environment. I was in a friend's room and she had her radio on--German again, even when we were (hush! tell no one!) speaking English amongst ourselves. I never dreamed it would be tempting to speak in English here, but it is. A lot of clarity in speech is lost when one converses in a language not one's own, and many conversations cannot be had, or at least not as easily.

Thursday our orientation began, and it was wonderful. The JYM staff are as helpful and nice as they come. I'm so glad I chose this small, cozy program over a large one. I was able to keep up with Sommer's nonstop, schnell gunug Deutsch as she went over our health insurance in Germany, our Anmeldung (reporting) of our address at the Kreisverwaltungsreferat, the German test we had today, etc. So I was quite proud of myself.

I've also bought a "Handy," or very small, very cheap cell phone here for use among the JYM'ers and for calling other local numbers here. I didn't have any minutes on it, so I had to figure that out, too. Sommer said there was a kiosk right on the corner from JYM where one could buy minutes for Vodafone. It's the strangest kiosk. It's one integrated kiosk, but half is for cigarettes ( you have to swipe your driver's license to buy) and the other half is for cell phones "cards." You put the dollar bill in, select how many euros worth of minutes you want, and it prints a receipt (that's your "card") which has a phone number on it that you call, punch in this super long number, and then you get to load your minutes.

After all those weeks in German 1 talking about "in der Mensa," I actually got to eat one. On Thursday we ate at the mensa, or cafeteria across the street from the TU, Technische Universtaet Muenchen. It was cafeteria. This thing made Mabee look like the Ritz. No cute little signs or choices, really. You just walk in, get a tray, slide it across in an U-formation, pick the foods you want (different foods are ranked at different levels of price: Gericht 1 is cheapest, 4 is most expensive), put them on the tray, and pay at the end with your Mensakarte. (Mensakarte must be bought beforehand, and then you can reload money on your card with kiosks in the Mensa. They only take Mensakarten.) The Mensakarte costs 10 euro: 6 is a deposit (when you return your Mensakarte you get it back), and it's called "Kaution." The other 4 is for "Guthaben" or actually your balance.
However, despite the incredibly instutional feel of the cafeteria, it was SPOTLESS. There was not a smudge on the fork or tray. Utterly spotless. Everthing was sparkling. I had currywurst (which at first I thought I was going to spit out, but made myself keep on and it wasn't that awful), DELICIOUS mashed potatoes (jeeez, those things were amazing), for which I had to pass up some scrumptious-looking broccoli, and chocolate milk. Which was really good chocolate milk. Not lame carton chocolate milk like back in the U.S. We sat down in a nice, spacious, big wide dining area.

Also on Thursday, we had a tour of the Studentenstadt with "Tutoren" here. "Tutoren" I think are actually tutors, but they have some other duties here as well. While back home there's kinda the RA and that's it for the hall, here the RA functions seem to be broken down into a lot of different roles. In every dorm there's one person in charge of the washing machines, 2 Haussprecheren (I think), who represent the dorm to the Heimat, or the sort of "student / residential life governering council" (comprised of students), 2 Tutoren, and I think that's it. Every floor has a "Stockwerksprecher," or the most-RA like position: s/he's in charge of maintaining the "Gemeinschaftappartment" (GAP), a members-only common room which costs about 50,- euro to join, but you get to use the common room, watch the TV, play games, and have access to the cheap drinks and snacks. The GAP is where student life on the hall flourishes.(They also have really funny signs on the doors. On the ground floor of Oranges Haus there's a sign that says: "MIND THE GAP," straight out of England, and there's another sign that says, "KINDER SPIELEN": kids are playing.)

I was in Alex's group. Alex is a pre-med student from Austria, and he looked textbook European: thin, rimless glasses, even-tempered. He showed us around the Studentenstadt and gave us a lot of really good information. He was harder to follow than Sommer earlier that day, but I still understood most of what he said, and I asked him plenty of questions, if only to practice with a native. Parts of the tour were super-awkward, though, for all of us, as we were trying to explain why we were studying German, etc.., to this native German-speaker in our, like, fourth-grade language to this guy our age. Language barriers are hard to overcome--which is why, I must remind myself, I am studying German, to become fluent!

My favorite part of the tour was when he showed us the washing machine in Blaues Haus, my dorm. This thing is out of the CAVEMAN days. It's a tiny door just my height that opens up to this one itty bitty washing machine sitting in a boiler room space, with exposed pipes, etc., and also the intimidating Celcius scale. Why not just "hot," "cold," "warm,"? Why bring Celcius into the equation? Why does the U.S. not use this system? It's just not that handy knowledge in the rest of the world. Did anyone guess one washing machine could proffer so many "why's"?

After the tour we ate with the rest of the JYM group and their tour guide / Tutoren, Katarina, in a student restaurant just at the foot of Blaues Haus, called Tribuehne. It was really cheap food, and I had a Seelachsfillet, and it was way better than the one I had at the Hofbraeuhaus, which is really, really sad. We talked to Alex some more and picked his brain.

There was this moment, though, when one guy in my group got some sort of German dish, brought it back to the table, and just looked at his food, then at the American side of the table and said in English: "I think I'm going to get tired of this German food pretty soon." It was a moment where we realized we had pretty much only two things in common: (a) we were American and (b) we missed a great deal about home. It's weird; one wouldn't imagine it, but one gets a totally different perspective on one's home culture when one is so far away from it. Even now, I only have 2 movies to my name on my laptop: Body of Lies, and Enchanted, so I felt more like the former than the latter (such polar opposites do they represent!), and I'm watching Body of Lies and thinking how freaking American this movie is. I've seen it a couple of times before, but never had such a reaction to it. But now I'm just like, "oh, my people! there they are!" I have never felt such an affinity for Leonardo DiCaprio (? di Caprio? ) before, but now I'm like ooooo, he's american, just like meeeeeeeee!

The most difficult thing to understand about Europeans is how staid they all seem. Most of them are quite nice underneath all that staidness, but the utter lack of facial expression is just surprising sometimes. I have seen Germans taking photos of each other in front of statues/memorials/etc and the person whose photo is being taken doesn't even twitch and maintain this resolute expression. Maybe there's a smile variation which I'm unable to detect, but it's like, if you took a picture like that in the U.S., people would think you needed help. Here: totally normal. You have to admire that, though.

Just going to clean up the room this weekend and get ready for more orientation next week! Pictures to be added very soon to this blog post, so watch this space.

Back in Bavaria

As the taxi driver speeds by the rolling landscape, I feel truly “back in Bavaria.” It’s slightly colder than the Bavaria I knew in the summer (but not extreme at all, like in the 50 degrees. I just needed a coat and a long-sleeve shirt), but still the same Bavaria, ausfahrts and all. He deposited me at the JYM office on Richard-Wagner Strasse and the corner of Gabelbergerstrasse, and I ring the doorbell at the office to be greeted by a youthful, kind face speaking English to me (however briefly that lasted, “Deutsch ist die offiziale Sprache der JYM” is the motto), Sommer Sherritt. I meet a couple of students from the program who are hanging around, and then Sommer and I delve into the all-Deutsch explanation of How My Life Will Work Here as I attempt to stuff as many chocolate cookies in my mouth as possible.
Photo: Bikes in the tunnel across from Blaues Haus, my dorm. Across the street is the U-Bahn Studentenstadt.

I receive several packets of information, my dorm keys, directions and maps, my Studentenausweis (student I.D.) with Ausbildung II karten that let me ride the U-Bahn system until the end of the month, and a bunch of other stuff, including my first homework assignment, a scavenger hunt in the Altstadt. Sommer calls a taxi for me and also calls E.J., who has been here since September with the program, to greet me at Christoph-Probst-Strasse and help me get to Blaues Haus, my dorm.
Photo: Studentenstadt.

I arrive in the Studentenstadt (“student village”) and E.J. very kindly helps me with getting to Blaues Haus (so named for the window frames, painted in blue). Without his help, I would have been Bambi’s mom when the hunters came. We take the lift up to the second floor (but really the third, given that, in Europe, the first floor doesn’t start until after the ground level) and go down to my room at the end of the hall. E.J. invites me to meet him and the group who are here at 17.30 (“halb sechs”) to go einkaufen and then go out to dinner for a gemeinsames Essen. He then leaves me to ponder how klein this space is. The bed at first reminded me of The Next Generation episode “Unification,” where a Klingon captain invites Picard to sleep “Klingon-style” on a hard shelf. The bathroom is something out of the Jetsons. If airplanes had bathrooms with showers, they would look like my bathroom. You step up into the bathroom itself, and then step up into the shower. Immediately adjacent is the little kitchenette, with 2 stove plates, a small refrigerator, and cupboards, and a sink. The closet is right behind my bed and about the same size as the bathroom, to be honest. I have a small balcony and window view. I’ve never had the luxury of being able to position my laptop in front of a window, but, with the desk, I do now. As I type I am looking at smoke emerging from a smokestack and dead trees in the parking lot. The bed is really low but there is shelving space above it. The curtains are blue (duh) and the walls white. I received a bag with fresh bedding and put it on. The cushion on the bed is thin, but comfortable, and I put the fitted sheet over it, and then there was this gigantic pillow-case thing in a nice rainbow pattern which I thought was the flat sheet, but then it turned out to be pillow-case style, with sewed-up seams. I also received a top sheet that is Big Bird yellow, a pillow, and another pillowcase entirely too large for the pillow. I turned the bed around and slept in the giant pillow case thing like a sleeping bag last night, then realized this morning that it had buttons, so it’s meant to go over the Big Bird yellow cover. I still want the second sheet, though. Photo: door to my dorm, Blaues Haus, Christoph-Probst-Strasse.

After settling in, I used the toilet, only to realize too late that this wasn’t Trinity, and there was no toilet paper in the little dispenser. No maids will be coming by to restock my toilet paper and leave peppermints as gifts. I took a shower, which was so much like the scene in Lost in Translation when Bill Murray takes a shower that it wasn’t funny. I changed clothes and let my hair air-dry as I unpacked (read: “threw everything out of her suitcase and onto a shelf so she could ascertain what else she needed”). I sat on my canary yellow bed and wondered if it was too late to go back to Trinity. I was alone, in a strange country, had no Internet connection, no power cord, no food, no drinks, a barely functional alarm, and, as I tried to make shopping notes to myself, I realized I had almost no paper to write on to my name. More importantly, I had no toilet paper. I didn’t even own a trash can, and contented myself with a broken SpaceBag for rubbish. Photo: Karstadt Department Store, Muenchner Freiheit.

My first priority was food, and then the adaptor. I couldn’t mess around with the Ethernet until I had a stable power source. I didn’t even really know where the Studentstadt U-Bahn was, I realized with a sinking feeling. I located the stores I needed to visit, and made tiny notes on how to get to them, and set off with a great deal of trepidation. I saw some girls walking in the little tunnel/archway right outside my dorm that seemed to lead to a major street, so I followed them and happily saw the blue “U” right on the other side of the street. I got to the U-bahn and wanted to buy a Monatskarte (which would have been a foolish purchase, because they run on a calendar month, not when you buy the card itself), and tried to fiddle with the machine as someone waited behind me. Ah, I felt stupid! So I just stepped aside and was content to use my Ausbildung karte to get on the U-bahn. I knew I had to go south, and get off at Alte Heide for my first stop (food). I wanted to take the U-6 down, but there weren’t any coming, so I sorta hopped on at the last minute on the U-3 that was going in Richtung Münchner Freiheit. Unless I was grossly misunderstanding, I knew I would be able to get off at Alte Heide. On the U-Bahn, I contemplated briefly what would happen if I wasn’t going where I wanted to go? Freedom is a terrible thing sometimes. But my instincts were right, and I was able to get out at Alte Heide, where I was supposed to be able to find the Supermarkt Rewa (‘Ray-vah’) by taking a right out of the U-bahn across the side street. I did, and didn’t’ see it, but found instead another little grocery store owned by a well-heeled Middle Eastern man in his 30s.

I found PEANUT BUTTER in the grocery store and I was estatic! I didn’t have any knives at the room but I didn’t care at this point. As I walked around, I heard English. . . English??!? Where? In the background. . . what were the voices saying? “Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no river low enough.” Ah, “I Will Survive” by The Supremes. I was so happy to hear the song. I’ll associate it with that moment for the rest of my life.

I also bought some other things, including toilet paper, and went to check out, trying to imitate the older Turkish woman in front of me. I paid (it was a really cheap, but still nice, grocery store), and then desperately tried to find the plastic bags and had to ask, “Wo sind die Plastiktaschen?” All the little routine things of life become so much bigger issues in a foreign country—not because they are, but because the entire apparatus upon which you are accustomed to operating (you operate so well that the apparatus is second-nature) has shifted, sometimes dramatically: the currency is strange, the language is different, the way people go about doing things…. It’s not so much culture (although that does come into play), but the way a society has elected to operate.

After being stocked up on food and drink, I turned to solve my electronic issues next. I needed the cord that runs from the black box of the laptop’s power cord to the wall, the adaptor. Sommer had told me that I could get this at Karstadt, a department store. The map she gave me said that Karstadt started in the basement of Münchner Freiheit, so I went back down to the Alte Heide U-Bahn and got off at Münchner Freiheit. The last time I was in Munich, two years ago, my family spent a lot of time here, so I felt better being somewhere familiar. I walked around the U-bahn level briefly but didn’t see anything resembling a major department store, so walked up to the ground level. They’re doing construction on the Freiheit U-Bahn so there was a lot of mess up there. I walked around hopelessly, thinking I must have gotten something wrong, and right there, on the corner, was a large, glossy building, that, sure, enough, had KARSTADT emblazoned across the doors. I looked down the street at the McDonald’s at the end and realized I’d been on this street before. There should be a Starbucks across the street, right? I couldn’t see it. . . .then I saw it! I had been here before—I even saw the bus sign where I had taken a picture of a dog. I had taken no notice of Karstadt then. . . . I hadn’t needed to. I rode the escalator up to the fifth floor, which held the Promised Land of Electronics. After walking around a really, really, really long time, I finally found what I was looking for at 12,50 Euro. I went to check out and saw two guys carrying a large trash can, and I thought, oh, wait. So I got a small wastebin, too. Fully loaded now, I opted to go to the Starbucks down the street.

I went down the Starbucks, where I ordered a hot chocolate after several blunders, and I sat down on the table with its English writing and just longed to be back in America. Not because I didn’t like Germany or Munich, but because it was just a lot harder here—for me, being a stranger. I looked over my StudentenStadt Ethernet instructions in German while staring out the window and thinking, if I close my eyes and click my heels, this Starbucks will morph into the Starbucks on 5th Street across from Whole Foods in Austin. . . The Global Standard Deity didn’t morph time and space, so I walked out into Munich and hopped the U-6 to Fröhling back (knowing only that I needed to go north), got out at the StuSta, but I still haven’t worked out which staircase gets you up to the right place to cross over street

to my dorm.

I unpacked my things, stocked up my toilet paper, and got ready to meet E.J. and the group-so-far (arrivals are staggered across several days) for Einkaufen and Abendessen. E.J. guided us over to the bus, where we took Bus #50 to Albert-Adrent-Str. and walked to the corner, took a left, and we were at a nice little mall called Parkstadt, where the real Rewa was, as well as a Pennymarkt and a sort of Wallgreens-without-medicine place. We browsed around, talked in German, asked E.J. all sorts of questions, and got some items, then we hopped the bus back, dropped off our things, and set off to take the U-Bahn down to Marienplatz to go to Hofbrauhaus. We got off at Marienplatz, walked through some lovely pedestrian centers, and entered the gigantic, almost full, Hofbräuhaus. Most of the group sat at one table with a German couple at the end, and two others sat with a German guy and 2 brothers on “if it’s Friday it must be France” 2-week tour of Europe. I switched out with one of the others and ended up with the German guy, and Steve and I talked to him about all things German for a long time. He’s a member of the Free Democrats Party and sounded pretty active, and he told us a lot about German politics. It was great to be able to talk to him. I remember, last Spring at Gartenfest when Jordan, Mary-Beth (both alums of JYM), and I spent a long time talking to an advertising guy from Austin. Jordan and MB both told me to prepare for long talks with utter strangers in the beer halls, due to the huge tables and free flow of beer. Everyone had a Maß, but I abstained. I was probably the only non-Muslim drinking wasser mit gas in the place, but I barely had my wits about me as it was, and wanted the rest for solving my Ethernet issues.

At Hofbrauhaus, I had a Gebackenes Seelachsfillet, essentially the “fish” of the “fish & chips” entrée, but it really wasn’t that good, and was accompanied by a pathetic excuse for tartar sauce. I know I should try entrees more native to the Germans, they’ll be tons better. I did have several moments of longing for Australia and hot, crispy fish and chips. Ah, well, until England in less than a month! The Hofbrauhaus atmosphere was great, though, and it wasn’t terribly pricey, either.

We hopped back to StuSta. The U-Bahn is one of my FAVORITE things about Munich. It is so, so easy to get around. It’s almost a joke. I mean, I was a complete and utter stranger and I was able to figure out north, south, where I needed to go, and the lines that could take me there.

Well, I am off for more group exploration. That should be a thorough update for all my loyal followers :) I have since established stable internet connection so I can stay in touch with all of you!!

Ausreise (Leaving the Country)

Well, the bags are packed and stuffed full. (Who knew packing could be an aerobic activity?)

In under 20 hours, I hop on the flight to Houston, then off to Munich via Charles de Gaulle airport, which I understand is newly renovated. I'm quite excited, and just ready to go at this juncture. Soon my wish shall be granted.

Hopefully, I'll have Internet set up relatively quickly in the dorm room.

To Amerika: auf Wiedersehen! To alle meine Freunden, die in Europa sind: hallo!