Finally got internet again!!!

Tuesday – Thursday, Sept 21 – 23 - Weather has been great, sunny and cool with no rain.  We went back to Oktoberfest on Wednesday just to walk around, had a beer and something to eat.  We started getting things together for our possible move to the apartment on Friday.

Friday, Sept 24 - We went to the apartment in the afternoon to pick up the keys and hopefully move in.  The apartment wasn’t ready, it had not been cleaned form the previous tenants.  They were going to try to have it done for us to move in Sunday or Monday.

Saturday, Sept 25 - It was a cool rainy day.  We went to see a movie this morning, Eat, Pray, Love.  We did some shopping after the movie then went out for Mexican food.  We went to Tijuana Cafe Border‎ on Leopoldstr.  The chips and salsa were good, though you have to pay for them, not like the Mexican restaurants in Texas.  Jay had the fajitas and I had a dish that was like a turkey Quesada.  The fajitas were OK, but needed more spices.  The margaritas were good.

Sunday, Sept 26 - Another cool day, but no rain.  We went to see another movie, The American.  I wasn’t very good.  Jay said the chick flick from Saturday was better.  We went to Oktoberfest to get something to eat.  BIG mistake!  The place was jammed.  This is Italian weekend, when many Italians come up to attend the Oktoberfest.  We got an email late in the evening that the apartment was cleaned, so we packed up most of our things and moved them over via taxi and the apartment looked great.  We decided not to spend the night since it was late and we still had more to move.

Monday, Sept 27 – First day in our apartment.  That means that I can make toast in a toaster not a frying pan.  Yea!!!!!  I finished moving the rest of our things in the morning.  I needed to make two trips since I was doing it by train.  It took me about 2 ½ hours to go back and forth.  We are on the fourth floor with no elevator, so visitors get ready for 78 stairs. 

I met Jay at Oktoberfest again.  This journey took me over an hour.  Of course I got lost.  This was the first time taking the train to Oktoberfest from our new apartment.  Then I got lost at central station.  This should have only taken me about 15 minutes if I got on the right trains.  Needless to say I needed a beer when I finally got to Oktoberfest.  We had a table at the Ochsenbraterei tent with some of the engineers that Jay works with. The Ochsenbraterei tent serves an amazing variety of different oxen specialties. This tent holds about 5,800.  It takes 10 weeks for them to build the tent and everything inside and about 3 weeks to tear it down.  This crowd was definitely different from last week’s crowd.   They were a little more drunk, at least the ones around us.  They had two bands.  The first band was an older group of men that played mostly German songs.  The second band also played quite a bit of German songs, but they did play a few American songs. 

Tues., Sept. 28 - Friday, Oct. 1 – Not too much going on this week, just unpacking and doing laundry.  Doing laundry is different than the US.  I have one unit that washes and dries.  I didn’t think that it would dry very good, but it actually dried pretty good.  Doing one load of laundry takes about 2 hours to wash.  The washing machine is very small so you can only do about 8 dress shirts at a time.  We don’t have our internet set up yet.  I am told that this could take up to 10 days.  Things don’t happen very fast here so I am learning patience. 

I can now understand why the European women are so strong.  I got spoiled having a grocery store right outside our old hotel.  Now I have to walk about 4 blocks to go to the store and I need to remember that I have to carry everything back and up the 78 stairs.  I felt like a packed mule with groceries on my back, a back on my shoulder and a bag in each of my hands.  I really missed my car today!!!  Also you can’t get everything you need at one store, so you have to carry what you bought at the first store to the next store.  I miss Super Wal-Mart!!!  Everything in one store!

Weekend in Austria and Oktoberfest!!!!

Thursday, Sept. 16 – Today was an interesting day.  Jay gave me two challenges for today.  He wanted me to pick up some gummy bears from a certain store and to pick up some pastries from a bakery that we visited when we had our intercultural training.   These gummy bears are softer than what you can buy in the stores.  We only remembered the general area that we visited.  Amazingly enough I managed to find them both.  It only took me about 2 hours.  If I knew where I was going this would normally only take about 45 minutes to do.    It is amazing what you see when you are just out walking.  I managed to come across two gay male prostitutes.  People were gathering and snapping pictures as they approached a car.   I only wished I could have gotten my camera out quicker.  They were definitely a site.  They were wearing high heels and very short shorts, which one can only imagine how everything was covered.

Friday, Sept. 17 – Jay has been telling me for a week that we were going to go away for the weekend, but he wouldn’t tell me where we were going.  Jay took the day off and told me that we were going to the Salzburg, Austria area.  Salzburg is only a two hour drive on the Autobahn from Munich.  This is the place that the Sound of Music was filmed.  We arrived at the hotel around noon in the city of Fuschlsee.  The weather was cool and rainy, but that was OK – we were in the mountains (Brian calls the mountains “My Happy Place”).  The hotel that we are staying at is in the mountain and lake area of Austria called Salzkammergut.   The side of the hotel that we are on has a creek running right next to it.  Friday afternoon we went on a city tour of Salzburg.  We saw where Mozart was born and the house he lived in.

Our breakfast and dinner were included in the package.  Friday night when we went to dinner, they had a table reserved for us with our name on the table.  We were told that this was our table for our entire stay.  Dinner Friday was a buffet and they called it “The Farmers Buffet”.   They had pork, of course, ham, two types of sausage (white and red), spetzel (which are a type of noodle), dumplings, (too many starchy foods) a salad bar and a dessert bar.  The apple struddle was really good. 

Saturday, Sept. 18 – Breakfast was your typical Bavarian breakfast – several different meats and cheeses, and always sausage, bread, tomatoes.  They also had scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and cereal.  On our table they had the evening dinner menu which we had to choose our main entrée of the four course meal.  Jay ordered fish and I had turkey cordon blue.  They also had their version of the Morning Post which listed ideas what to do in the area and the weather report for the weekend.

This morning we went on a “Sound of Music” tour.  The weather was cool and sunny.  The tour stopped at several of the locations where the Sound of Music was filmed.   On the way to the different locations we listened to the soundtrack of the Sound of Music.  We stopped at a small lake where one of the scenes was filmed.  This was the Von Trappe home in the movie.  We also stopped at St. Michael’s church in Mondsee, where the wedding took place.  St. Michael’s was absolutely amazing.   St. Michael’s was built in 748.  There was a wedding going on, but we were still able to go inside and take pictures.  We walked around the town and stopped at the Cafe’ Braun for some apple strudel, sitting at a table outside in the sun.  We met three girls from California who were going to school in Rome.  They were on a week break from classes.

When we return to Salzburg, we went on a walking tour of the Hohensalzburg Fortress, which sits on a hill overlooking Salzburg.  The name means "High Salzburg Fortress".  The construction was started in 1077 and was added to over the centuries until the 17^th century by the various archbishops who ruled Salzburg.  The fortress is the largest best preserved example of a medieval castle in Europe.  One section of the castle is occupied by artists who are allowed to live in the castle.

Sunday, Sept. 19 – We went on a cable car ride to the top of a mountain in St. Gilgen.  You can see the leaves just starting to change.  It should be really pretty in about a week or so.  We took a little hike and had a coffee and hot chocolate at a restaurant on the mountain.  The weather was cool and sunny.  We decided to go to the town of Hallstatt and go on a tour of salt mine tour.  This salt mine is the world’s oldest.  During World War II works of art were stored in tunnels at another salt mine in Altaussee, which is the largest active salt mine in Austria.  These are all in the Salzburg area.  Salz is German for salt and Salzburg was the salt center of the world for 100’s of years.

Monday, Sept. 20 – We went to Oktoberfest.  Yes, we wore our Bavarian outfits.  Most of the people are wearing their lederhosen and dirndls.   This is the 200^th year for Oktoberfest.  Oktoberfest runs for 16 days and they expect over 6 million visitors.  Munich only has 1.5 million people that live here.  The tradition is that on the first Saturday of Oktoberfest they have a parade with all of the Munich breweries and at 12:00 sharp the mayor of Munich taps open the first keg.  The major calls out “O’zapft is” confirming that the tapping was successful.  After the first keg is open all the other breweries can then start serving their beer.  There are tents from each brewery that have their headquarters in Munich.  These tents can hold up to 10,000 people.  The tables inside are small and you sit with ten of your closest friends.  If they are not your friends before, they will be by the end.  The Oktoberfest grounds are set up with food and drink booths and they also have your typical carnival rides, very similar to Houston’s Rodeo.

The tent that we were in was the Schottenhamel.  In 1867 the Schottenhamel tent was a small beer booth that only seated 50, but now it is the largest with 10,000 seats.  The Schottenhamel is one of the most important tents, because that is where the Mayor taps the first keg for Oktoberfest.  You have to have tickets to be able to get into the tents for a reserved table.  Munich Re had 26 tables reserved for that night.   Later in the evening you can go into the other tents.  Each tent is decorated differently.  They only serve one size of beer.  They serve only liters.  That’s a lot of beer!!!!   With the reserved table you get two liters of beer and ½ a chicken.  The chicken has pretty good, or it seemed to be after the first liter of beer.  There are bands playing in each of the tents.  The band in ours was really good.  They play all kinds of music, German, but also quite a bit of American music, and yes they played YMCA.   Everyone one gets up and stands on the benches and sings along while the band is playing.  We had a great time and we are going back next Monday.

Finally able to be on the internet for more than 2 minutes.....

Sunday, Sept. 5 – Today was a relaxing day since it is Sunday.  The weather was sunny and cool.  There was a wine festival nearby, so off we went.  There were several food and drink booths and they had a 2 man band, which was actually pretty good.  The band played German music and even some American music.  They played “The Twist” and an Elvis song “Teddy Bear”.  A few of the German ladies were doing their version of the Twist, we think.  Jay was a little under the weather since he was getting a cold, so we didn’t stay there too long.

Week Sept. 6 – Sept. 10 – We didn’t do too much this week.  Jay had a cold and he was busy with meetings at work.  We had two dinner meetings this week, one with his boss from PLC and the other on Thursday with a big group, some from the US office and some from the German office.  On Wednesday, we went to a really nice Italian restaurant only a few blocks from the hotel.  The waiters spoke Italian, another language that we don’t speak.  Thursday’s dinner was at a restaurant called See Haus, which is on a lake (See) in the English Garten (The German spelling).  The English Garten is a huge park near the center of Munich.  The park is about a kilometer wide and 5 or 6 kilometers long.  It is a very popular place on nice weekend days.

I managed to get Jay’s cold on Thursday, so now I’m under the weather.  I did go out this week during the day for about an hour or two just walking and seeing what is around.  On Monday, my job was to find a pharmacist to get some medicine for Jay’s cold.  The pharmacy’s here are different from the US.  They don’t have one store like CVS where you can buy everything. They have two that you would need to go to – one for medicine and one for everything else.  You cannot buy any over the counter medicine like we can in the US.  I managed to find a pharmacy with no problems.  Communicating with the pharmacist was easy, as he spoke excellent English.  You explain to the pharmacist what is wrong and they tell you what you need. 

The train workers went on strike on Friday, so it took Jay a little longer to get to work.  He said that the trains were still running, but not as often as they usually do.  Instead of waiting about 5 to 10 minutes he waited over 20 minutes and the trains were very crowded.

Saturday, Sept. 11 – Since I was still not feeling well, we did a little walking around.  We tried to find a place to get Jay’s hair cut, but all the places we found they didn’t have any openings.  So we went to a place where you can watch people surfing.  On the river there is a natural formation that makes a good wave, so we watched some of the locals.  Of course they made it look so easy.  As we were walking, we walked through a courtyard and there were several people playing bocce ball.  We sat and watched them for a while.  The bocce balls were different than the wooden ones that you see in the US.  The bocce balls here were steel.  One of the men playing was very good.  He would always hit the ball of his opponent.  After that we walked to a main street and found out that later that afternoon they were having some kind of festival.  We came back to our apartment and I rested and Jay did some work.  Later that evening, we visited a local beer garden.  This beer gardens was about the size of a football field.  Some are smaller, but there are also bigger ones.  They have tables that you can sit at all day if you want.  All they ask is that you buy their beer.  You can also buy something to eat or bring in your own food.  There were groups of people that you can tell do this often.  They have their table cloth out and they are playing cards and board games.  There is even a playground for the kids to play.  We had to try a beer of course and we ordered a half of chicken, which was quite tasty.  Jay is enjoying trying the different types of beers.  We ventured off to the festival to see what was going on.  

 

  

Sunday, Sept. 12 – Since the weather was sunny and warm we decided to go back to the lake where we were last weekend and go for a boat ride.  We went on the 3 hour boat ride.  We stopped at several little towns to pick up and drop off passengers.  There were a lot of sailboats out, but very little wind.  Looking to the south you could see the Alps.  In the distance you could see some of the leaves on the trees starting to change.  I am looking forward to seeing the seasons change.

After our boat ride we went back to the festival that we found the night before.  It was very crowded.  I can only imagine what it will be like during Oktoberfest.  We ate dinner at the festival, drank some beer of course, and listened to a band. 

Monday, Sept 13 - We had some great news on Monday – we will be able to move into our apartment early.  We’ll be able to move in on the 24^th.  Can’t wait!!!!

At Jay’s office they provide a free lunch to all the employees.  Monday’s lunch was interesting.  One of the choices was ostrich, prepared Namibian style.  It definitely doesn’t taste like chicken.  It was a dark meat with a little bit of a game favor.

Wednesday, Sept. 15 – I’ve been craving some real meat, so tonight we had to go to the Hard Rock Café  to get a cheese burger.  It was GREAT!!!!  We will definitely be visiting the Hard Rock often.

Starting a blog was a suggestion from a good friend (thanks Lisa) which I wasn’t too sure about, but only after a few days here, Jay and I decided it would be a good thing to do. So much has happened in the past month, we knew that in a few weeks that we wouldn’t remember everything, so that is one of the reasons we decided to go ahead with the blog. So here goes our attempt at blogging, we are calling it The Deutschland Adventure.


Since this was started September 4, 2010, here is what has happened this past month. Jay arrived in Munich August 1 and was working at his new job on August 2. Jay’s first day at work started with him getting his new computer and promptly causing it to lock up. Then he spent the next hour with the help desk getting the computer unlocked. Then he spent another hour with the help desk changing all the software from German to English. By the way a German keyboard is different than the US keyboard, the “Y” and “Z” are switched.


After spending most of the day on computer and administrative issues, he went to catch his train back to the apartment. He made it to the train station near the hotel, which is our temporary apartment. It was raining, he had no umbrella and he exited the wrong stairway from the UBahn station. He spent 15 minutes walking in the rain trying to find the hotel, not even knowing the address of the hotel. Eventually he made it to the hotel and now he always carries an umbrella with him. The rest of the week was an improvement over the first day.

We are not going to have a car here in Munich, so the way we get around is walking and the train (which in Germany it is called the “UBahn“). Once our bikes get here in October, it will be a little easier to get places. Munich is a very bike friendly city with designated bike lanes throughout the city. You just have to be careful not to walk in them as they would run you over. When we get off at our UBahn stop we walk up about 82 stairs to get to the street level. They do have an escalator, that works some of the time, but that only gets you up half way. They do have an elevator that will get you to street level. Then it is about a 4 block walk to our current place.

Linda arrived in Munich last Friday, August 27. It was really good to see Jay after we were apart for a month. Friday night we went out for dinner and ate outside since the weather was so nice. A big difference from Houston, with temperatures in the upper 50’s.

Saturday, Aug. 28 - We got German cell phones to replace our US cells, which cost $1.00 per minute. All our messages and voice mail were in German, but the folks at the store were able to change some to English. We made dinner at home that night. Cooking in our apartment is very difficult. Our kitchen is very very very small. We have two burners on the stove and a small sink. It is probably about as big as a kitchen in a pop-up camper.

 Sunday, Aug. 29 - We didn’t do too much. Grocery stores and shopping malls are not open on Sunday. Sunday is reserved for family time. We went to the movie theater on Sunday morning. There is a theater that shows movies in English. Sunday night we went to a German restaurant with an outdoor eating area. We had German beer and a German meal. Jay had pork with a mushroom sauce, which was very good and I had roasted Turkey. Jay’s was better than mine. Pork is very big here.

Monday, Aug. 30 and Tuesday, Aug. 31 - The weather was very cool and rainy all day. Jay went to work and I did some laundry, ironing and cooked dinner. Jay appreciated a cooked meal when he got home since he has been making dinner in the microwave.

Wednesday, Sept. 1 - I ventured out by myself. I needed to meet Jay at his office since we had an appointment with the banker. I didn’t get lost. Most Germans speak English and they speak it very well. I asked for help, just to make sure I was taking the right train.

Thursday, Sept. 2, and Friday Sept. 3 – Jay and I had Intercultural Training. The training was to help us understand the German way. It was a very interesting class. We also figured out that we are not the “typical American” which is a good thing. We learned that Germans are very punctual, they like to have a plan, and they keep their private and business life separate. I noticed when I visited Jay’s office and when I was introduced to several people that they didn’t have any family pictures in their office. A German is always willing to help, but you are the one that needs to ask for help. They will not offer. If you want to invite a German friend to dinner, you have to ask them 2 to 3 weeks in advance. They don’t do spur of the moment things. They need to plan. We also learned to you don’t just drop in if you are in the neighborhood.


Friday night we went out for our typical Friday night meal (Margaritas and fajitas’). The presentation of the fajitas was very different from what you would see in Houston. It wasn’t quite like Rodeo, but it was very good. Also, on Friday we went shopping for Lederhosen for Jay since Oktoberfest is two weeks away. This year is the 200th Oktoberfest. Jay had an interesting time trying on Lederhosen. The Store was crowded and there weren’t enough dressing rooms, so the men would just stand in-between a wall rack and a center rack and take off their clothes and try on the shirt and pants. There were women walking up and down aisle very near to where the men are changing. We figure – when in Germany do as the Germans. Even when we are out walking you see people wearing their Lederhosen. Jay said that one day one of the men that he works with wore his Lederhosen to work. When they wear their Lederhosen they show that they are proud of their Bavarian heritage. You also see women wearing their Dirndl, which is a Bavarian style dress with an apron.

Saturday, Sept. 4 – Today we went to Lake Ammersee, which is about an hour train ride southwest of Munich. The weather forecast was sunny and cool, but so much for the forecast. It was cloudy and rainy. Our plan was to visit the Kloster Andechs Monastery and to take a boat ride. We visited the Monastery and while we were there a wedding was taking place in the church. The reception was also on the grounds and on each of the tables they had a tree of pretzels. The German word for pretzel is Brez’n.

 We went into the church after the wedding and we were in awe of the beauty inside. The architecture, paintings and gold was just beautiful. We also enjoyed a beer and a pretzel with cheese. The monks brew the beer at the Monastery. Since it was still raining, we passed on the boat ride and came back to Munich and went to the shopping mall.

The mall was a two-story mall, very similar to the malls in the US. It was very crowded and it reminded me of shopping at Christmas. People everywhere. We shopped for my Bavarian outfit for Oktoberfest. The sizing of clothes is completely different, but we managed to find the right size. I found a very nice Dirndl at one of the department stores.