Recovering

I think that a cocktail of learning a new language, staying with a new family, and jetlag hit me pretty hard. I am recovering from being ill and horribly tired and must sleep. I usually post late at night, or at least I have before now. I must change my ways, but I do not yet have a hole in my schedule. I guess I'll just have make one.

Real Deutsche Shule

I didn't post yesterday because maybe I am getting sick and had to get to bed. It is quite understandable with all of the things that I am doing. Jetlag is the worst thing since sliced bre... I mean, horrible. I have not fallen asleep before midnight once my entire stay here. I think that this lack of sleep combined with all of the energy that I have been expending learning so many new things has finally started to catch up with me. I woke up with no voice this morning, and I was feeling really groggy, so I decided that it would be better if I stayed home and slept rather than go to German school. I hated doing that because I am so eager to learn, but I really need to nip this illness in the bud so that it does not do any further harm to my trip. It was a good decision because I woke up at 12:40 in the afternoon. Then I went downstairs to have breakfast and have been having a quiet day since. I do not want to get sick. I have so little time to do everything that I want as it is. The four cups of herbal tea that Belen made for me has really helped and I will go to bed early, whether I can sleep or not.

So. Yesterday. Another long day. I woke up early to talk to my college counselor in the U.S. then shoveled down some muesli and hopped on my bike to class. I am learning important new things everyday there. I ask a lot of questions, even though the other students hardly ever have any. The funny thing is, they don't know the answer to my questions either. I guess that they are just to shy to ask. Yesterday we learned names of parts of a house, and I asked questioins that led to us learning pronounciation and gender rules as well. We also practice reading out loud, and I have to work to keep myself from laughing. One of the Italian boys, Marco, has such a strong Italian accent that he is difficult o understand. He adds an "eh" to the end of every word and speaks with the up and down accent of the Italian people. He sounds very funny to me, and I am sure that I sound ridiculous to him. Of course, I am biased when I say that my pronounciation is generally not so bad.

After school, I went over to a cantina next door where I was supposed to meet Ramon for lunch, then go to school with him. However, when I talked to the chef, there was not one thing on the menu that did not have milk, and they don't cook things fresh in a cafeteria. Because I am allergic to milk, I had to find some other place to eat. I figured that I would be able to make it back in time to meet Ramon by the end of lunch and walk my bike back to school with him.

And so I went on an adventure. I love going on adventures. I hopped on my bike and rode around through town, on a quest for a good german lunch. Strangely enough, there were no German restaurants to be found. I even found a Tahitian restaurant, but nothing German. And I was desperate for some good vurst. Here in the south of Germany, in Bavaria, there is a lot of Italian influence. So there is a lot of Italian food. I guess that there aren't very many American restaurants lying around town back home either. Mostly foreign.

I locked my bike up and walked downtown. To my surprise, there were Tom and Mate as I rounded the corner. We all said hello and I asked them about food. They would take me to a good place, then back to school with them so I didn't have to go all the way to the other side of town again. Took me to this wonderful place called Walk. We walked up to the window on the street, and started salivating at the sight of all of the lunchmeats for sandwiches being kept warm behind the glass. Mate ordered ham, and the lady chopped off a two thick slices, almost an inch thick and put it steaming onto a sourdough bun, which she gave to Mate. Upon seeing this, and that she only charged him 1,40 Euro for it, I quickly followed suit. It was german ambrosia. Who would have known that a piece of meat put between two slices of bread by itself could possibly taste so good. And for only $1.75? I took a mental picture of the location so that I could come by myself in the future.

We met Ramon by chance on the way to school, and I walked with him through the gates to the school. It is a very pretty complex, and once again is full of nett loite. Nice people. We checked in at the office and walked as slowly as possible to his next class: physics. Physics was very boring, except for Danny behind me making funny noises at the teacher. I was relieved whe the bell rang.

I left the school for Ramon's Biology class, which Ramon described with some four-letter words, to take my bike to the local bike-shop because one of the links of the chain was half-broken. After dropping the bike off to pick up after school I walked back to Walk and got another sadwhich, this time roasted pig. I was very thirsty so I stopped at a water fountain to get a drink. They have things like this all around town, and the water is good to drink.

I'll finish this post later. I am sick.

It's Me!

Hallo von Deutschland!

Deutsche Schule

Did I mention that we were blasting "Flight of the Valkries" out of the windows of the car as we paraded around town after the game on Saturday? The song with the fat viking opera lady. You might also know it from a Looney Tunes episode with Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny playing out the parts in a comic opera. La-la-la-la-luh, la-la-la-la-luh, la-la-la-LAH-luh, la-la-la-la...
Only in Germany.

Anyway. German school. With Italians. I was woken up at eight this morning after another horrible night's sleep. I could not fall asleep until one. Today I am feeling pretty on time though. Well, at least better than I have been. I got up and had another german breakfast of meat and bread. Their bread here is very thick, and almost hard to swallow. The Germans eat meat almost all the time. It is good food, but heavy in your stomach. After eating, one feels like sleeping, rather than continuing with the day.

I rode my bike to German school with Belen for a 9:45 class. It is a class that they thought would be too advanced to me, I caught on right away. There are four Italian teenagers and one older pregnant Russian woman. All of the Italians have been studying German for at least 7 years, and the Russian has lived here for a year. They are all nice people and the teacher is good at her job. I think that I will enjoy these classes. At 12:15, I said goodbye to my new friends, who had invited me out for lunch, and rode home. I had already told Belen that I would be home for lunch and did not have her phone humber with me. When I got home, I was locked out of the house for a half-hour until Stephan came home from school.

Later, while Belen cooked, Stephan and I picked cherries from the baum in their backyard. I picked first while he collected the berries in a bucket, and used the cherry-picker from the ladder.


Then, to my surprise, Stephan jumped off of the ladder into the tree, climbed it and threw berries down to me that he hand-picked. We were very hungry by that time, so hurried to the table when Belen called us. Today we had the best food that Belen has made yet. It was fried German noodles with sliced bratvurst, bacon, and sauer kraut. I like sauer kraut very much and ended up having thirds and finishing the last of the food. Here are Ramon and Belen sitting outside with our meal. Belen laughs a lot.

At lunch, Belen gave me a German kids soccer magazine to read. That reminded me about soccer, and because Ramon couldn't come, I called Thomas and invited him to go to the Australia-Italy game. He said that he would meet me there.

I was a bit late in arriving at the square because my chain came off of my bike several times on the way there. I found my Italian friends from school almost immediately and sat with them while scanning for Tom in the crowd. No sign. It ended up that he couldn't come because his trainer unexpectedly gave him a long lecture on diet (probably about the five beers on Saturday if you ask me), and by the time he was finished, Tom couldn't make it down in time for half-time even. It was fine because it wasn't a good game anyway, except for how it was won. I had fun with my new Italian friends for that part of the game.

It was 0-0 the whole game, even with Italy down one player due to a red card. They went into overtime and had several close calls, but no spectacular plays. Then BOOM, foul in the goal box. Penalty kick. TOOOOOOOOOOOOR!!! The Italians went crazy. There were less of them there, but they rivaled the Germans on Saturday for minute there.


I came back home and sat down for dinner with my German family. We had another great meal of fajitas. They had some really weird condiments though. Tuna fish and nectarines, and before tonight had never had carmelized onions, which is the prime ingredient at my house.

I forgot, but I thought that Stephan might like that mentioned it. He showed me his piggy-bank, in which he has 172 euros in coins. It is glued shut and he said he would would rather have a pig worth that much than spend the money. Here is picture of him with his precious.

"My precious, my precious"

I am going to talk with my mother on skype any minute now. Until tommorrow.

The Longest Day

Today has been a lazy day. I woke up at one this afternoon, and with good reason. I'll tell you why in a minute. Today we went to a public pool to wake up which was actually a public waterpark with slides and everything made by the Nazi government. It was very nice, although I only spent five minutes in the pool. We came back home to lie around more, then walked to dinner at a local Italian restaurant. It is raining now, and the rest of the family is downstairs watching the soccer game. I bet Ramon two euros that the Netherlands would beat Portugal, but I think that I might lose my money. I am learning many things here. The one that I learned today is never bet on a soccer match with a european teenage boy that watches games all the time. The other I learned yesterday. German beer only comes in one size: Big.

Ramon's friend came to pick us up for the game 3 hours early as I had anticipated. We got there 20 minutes after the square had opened and there were already more than 2,000 people there. As the game would wear on, more and more people would show. The three of us grabbed half of a table. We were surrounded by a sea of orange, black, and red flags, and white jerseys. The people were already excited and yelling and the game was still over two hours away. This picture was taked fromt eh only place with open space left in the square, the food tent.


When Ramon went to get lunch he found Thomas, who likes to be called Tom, at a table closer to the screen. Some of the girls at his table wanted to meet the American, so of course I obliged.

The table was jam-packed with people, all of whom were Tom's friends, come for the party. And it was quite a party. People were singing and dancing on the tables to the booming music, all while waving German flag. hey have special chants that go like "ole, ole, ole, ole, ole, ole, ole, - ole, ole, ole, ole, ole, - super Deutschland, superdeutschland, super deutschlandle Ole!" and countless others. That was just one of the few that I picked up. I had a Rattler with a lunch of bratvurst, which is half lemonade and half beer. Both were quite good. The whole time I was yelling to talk with Thomas, my new friends, and of course, the girls. When I was finished, Tom went with me to go get us some real beer. It turns out that they only had one size there for beer, and rattlers too: One liter each. That is a lot of beer.This is Tom and I back at the table with our prizes.


The thing on my cheek is the German flag that one of the girls asked to draw.

Then the game started. All of the Germans stood up on the table to sing the national anthem along with the players on the screen, then waved their flags in the air and cheered. Less than ten minutes into the game Deutschland scored. The crowd went wild. A deafaning roar rang through the square with hands fling in the air, people jumped up on the table again and started more German chants. The explosion lasted for a minute before people settled back down. By this time I was seriously feeling the effects of so much beer, so I gave the rest, which was not much, of my second beer to Tom, who gladly accepted. Then I went to go get some pretzels to help make my feet more steady because I knew that I had a long day ahead of me and I didn't want to make a fool of myself in front of girls that I had just met. Tom on the other hand, was fine with this, and had five beers at the game.

Germany won the game 2-0, which was quite exciting. Tom and I left with Ramon and his friend, thinking that we would meet the girls again later that night. I ended up making it, but with all of that beer, Tom had a last minute appointment with his bed that night.

Because Germany won, there of course had to be celebration, so we all hopped in the car, and with flags flying out of the windows. We drove around town five times with every German in town either in the streets or in their car honking their horn and yelling. We were all yelling "OOOOIIIIII!!! FUR DEUTSCHLAND!" The best Tom could manage was the "oi" part.



After the fifth round, Ramon and I got out of the car and walked to the park for the fire. It turns out that it was a German boy and girl scout event, which is why Franz's daughter is in that outfit in the earlier post. Here is a picture of Franz and his wife Barbara.

The Scouts here are Catholic and this is some sort of Catholic holiday. It is an enourmous fire that they light every year and call it the Johannes Fire. I think that I understood their German that it is celebrating a saint, but I am not sure. I had a german dinner of more bratvurst and my fifth pretzel of the day. They generally do not have normal water to have with food here, only bubbly water, apparently out of tradition because all of the normal water in Germany was bad after World War II. Also, I saw Monica, who was busy doing stuff for the fire.The pile of wood that they were going to burn was as big as a small house.

Before the fire was lit, I was invited into a tent for Catholic mass and skits and games. Before that started, I started talking with a counselor that Franz introduced me to and soon had everyone on our side of the tent laughing. They are very good people. It was very special. Everyone sang together to Franz son playing the guitar, and there was a skit of a German girl trying to give a Spanish tourist directions to square where we saw the game. I could sympathize with the guy. Then we went outside to start the fire.


People stood right outside of the caution tape as the fire was lit, but as the fire grew and the fireman stationed there began to work, people had to step back with the heat. It was all very enjoyable, but Ramon got a phone call and it was off to meet friends at a bar after saying our goodbyes.

Ramon and I met Mate from the day before, and Danny from the soccer game hours before, as well as some of the girls. After watching Argentina beat Mexico in overtime, we went to Amadeus, the local nightclub. Danny is a very funny guy, and can speak English very well. He friends call him Proleit which means of teh proletariot. In other words, his is the stereotypical German guy of the 21st century. He drinks a lot, can hold his beer, is short and stocky, talks too loud, loves his country, and always wears muscle shirts. He likes the name. This is him when the party really got started.


Although I thought otherwise, one cannot get into nightclubs until one in 18 here, because they serve hard drinks, and you must be 18 for those. Fortunately for me, a combination of American Driver's License and good numbers for my birthday let me in. In Europe, they switch month and day around in numbers. So my birthday, 11/2/88, became February 11, 1988 rather than November 2, 1988, which it is. So now I'm 18.

We got there at 11, which is early for a club that stays open till 5 Am, and things were slow. However, after midnight things exploded. There were some of the girls from the soccer game and more. I didn't have a drink because of earlier in the day. I met lots of new people, most of whom could not believe that I had only been speaking German here for three days. Some of teh guys were celebrating abirthday and had opened a bottle of champagne to better celebrate and reminisce how ell Germany had played.

Strangely enough, they played Rock music in the bar. All that we dance to in California is rap. The music was good, so we went to dance floor and danced with the girls. Apparently American dancing is very racy. Although I did not see it there, I thought it was all the same. It was not a bad thing. My new friends were impressed at how much the girls liked it. ManI had fun. Ramon and I left shortly after the girls did, at 2 in the morning, and walked home.

Man I love Germany. Or maybe independence. Probably both. I miss my family and friends, but I am not homesick. I like it here and am happy. German school starts tommorrow and it is Late once again. I owe Ramon two euros.

Did I mention that I am having fun?

Ich Liebe Deutschland

I love Germany! What an amazing day. It's three in the morning, so I'll post tommorrow.

O ya, this is Belen, the one on the left. The one on the right is Franz's older daughter.

Deutsches Essen

Check out my two previous Blogs- they have been updated

German food. Sucking a sausage out of its skin isn't as easy as it sounds. I woke up early this morning with Wilhelm after a horrible night's sleep to go to the farmer's market. First thing we went to the sausage stand and ordered breakfast. I had two white sausages, a pretzel and bubbly water because they were out of breakfast beer. It was all very good. Sucking sausages out of their skin is a weird way to eat them. I am not very good at it either. I broke the skin on both sausages. There is a technique that is between sucking and scraping with the teeth. I am sure that this gives everyone reading the giggles. Wilhelm took pictures of me eating, which I will upload later. This is one of Wilhelm and Stephan, who came for breakfast before going to his tutor.


Afterwards, we went shopping and bought groceries. Wilhelm asked especially and got an apfeltute (German apple cake- a specialty here) without butter, so that I could eat it also. We also went to a bakery and the butcher for more food, then came back home to Ramon and Belen to eat some of it. I was so tired I had four cups of black Earl Grey tea. The brot und fleisch that we bought were very good. I just remembered that you have not seen a picture of my family yet, so here is a picture of Wilhelm and Ramon at second breakfast.



I don't have a good picture of Belen yet, but I will post one soon. I will have fun at the game today, and then at the German bonfire party in the park after. If I can get back early enough, I will post tonight. If not, which is most likely then I will tommorrow.

German Soccer

The original post for this date ended up being pretty long, so I won't re-write the whole thing, instead just fill in details. The boys that I met were Ramon's friends. There names were as follows: Atilla (the hun), Mate, and Thomas. They are all god guys and very fun to play soccer and spend time with. Also, they were more than patient with my broken Deustch.

Atilla is a short, stocky, middle-eastern-looking guy and the soccer whiz of the group. He was really amazing to watch. One time he was 20 feet out in front of the goal and jumped up into the air facing away from the goal to redirect a pass with his legs and turn it into a corner shot on the goal. Amazing. He also had a good sense of humor and after a few hours of playing, as it was quite hot out and he was wearing a white shirt, he said he could win a wet T-Shirt contest.

Mate was the quiet one of the group. He kind of looks like the actor from The Pianist. He was also good at soccer, and played on Thomas's team most of the time. He is a kind person, and quietly helped me with my German the whole afternoon.

Thomas is a cool guy. I mostly talked with him after we played soccer and sat down to talk politicets and get a drink of water. He told all about how they treat German girls differently here, and a couple of new German words, like spastika, which means idiot. He also taught me how to avoid being a spastika. He rode us home on his bike and we worked on pronouncing words the whole way. Recht is hard to pronounce in German. We got some funny looks. English is spoken with the mouth, but German is spoken with the throat. Sounds like they are going to spit most of the time. Earlier Thomas explained to me that Germans are not very outgoing. He told me in German, but I think that the said that if you say hello, they just look at you and don't respond. He called this the "German hello". However if you need help, then they will almost always help you. Germans.

Original Post:
Like the preivous post, this cannot be too long because I have to go to bed. Wilhelm is waking me at 8 to go out for a breakfast of white sausage and beer, and it is almost 1 in the morning. I think that I might have time to fill them after. I have more energy now than earlier because of the jetlag, but i can still sleep. Today, I woke up at midday, ate breakfast and lunch one after the other, both german, first muesli then fried noodles. Then the boys and I walked the dog and came back to the house to get ready for basketball. We hopped on our bikes and rode down to the local public sports arena and started to play with some of Ramon's friends, whom I will introduce later. Almost immediately after we started, a man came by and took all of the hoops down. It is kind of hard to play basketball without hoops. This is good because I could not play with my shoulder injury. So, Ramon went home to get a soccer ball and came back.

There was a field directly adjacent to the court so we played soccer, with me as goalie for most of the time. I did pretty well, and scored a goal when I played in the field. We played for 3 hours, which is a long time when it is so hot and muggy, then sat down and talked politics in German. When one of us didn't understand a word we asked Ramin for help, or pantimimed it out, or feebly explained what we were trying to say. I spoe in broken German the whole time and they spoke in German unless I didn't understand something, which was more often than I would like, but not very often.

We ended up staying there for five hours until Wilhelm came to get us for dinner. We rode home to a delicious barbecue of sausage and pork steaks with a special German drink, I'm spacing the name, that is half lemonade and half beer. Quite good, even though Ramon accidentally used room-temperature beer.

As I said earlier, I must go to bed. Tommorrow is a big day. We will watch the Germany game in the same place as yesterday, and have to go three hours early just to get a spot. It will be insane. I am very excited. After that, we will go to a German bonfire party in the park with the girls that we met yesterday.

My First Night Out

So, now that I have time to write an actual post, I will. Stupidly, I forgot to bring my camera with me that night, so I cannot post any pictures.

Belen and I met Wilhelm, Ramon, Stephan, and some new friends at the winefest. All of us took our bikes. Ingolstadt is a smaller town, so you can get everywhere on a bike. And with easy parking, people do go everywhere with them. There must have been one-hundred outside of the wine tents. There was wine, beer, fresh pizza, and corny Italian accordion music. The german eat pizza with a fork and a knife. It's strange, ecpecially when the pizza is so thin and crispy and difficult to cut.

Our new friends were the Shopmullers, including Franz, his wife, his older daughter, and his youngest Monica. I will have an internship at Franz's factory, learning how to work metal for cars by hand. It is not going to be a paying coat-and-tie internship as my parents had anticipated for me. I will be tired at the end of the day. I am excited to start as soon as possible, after a week or two at an intensive German course.

I met Florian and his parents at the winefest with the Shopmullers. Florian will be doing the same internship that I am. I will get rides to work from him early each morning, beacuse work starts at 7:00 AM.

After eating, Florian, Ramon, Monica and I went to the town center to watch the World cup on a huge bigscreen TV. There were no big games that night, so it was not as crowded as it is usually. However, there were still groups of people dressed up for Brazil or Croatia, taking every excuse to make noise.

Soon one of Monica's friends showed up and we all split a beer. The drinking age here in germany is 16 for drinks with less alcohol like beer and wine and 18 for drinks with more alcohol, like vodka. It is quite common for teenagers to have a beer like we have soda in the US. Beer is very good here, there are local brands for every town and Ingolstadt has lots of them.

Soon enough it started to rain, so we walked back to the plaza with the winefest in it to get our bikes. This is where Florian left us to go home. He is not a party-pooper, just tired and he had school the next day. We all probably should have gone home to get some sleep. Instead we decided to ride our bikes around. I had no idea where we were going, I was just following the girls.

A minute later it was pouring rain as we flew through the emtpy streets on our bicycles. It was very fun, so I introduced to girls to the American phrase, "Yeehah!" It is very freeing to ride without a helmet. They don't have them here in Germany.

We put our bikes under an awning and went into an empty bar. There we finished watching the game and played a drinking dice game, but without drinks as it was a schoolnight, and talked in Engman (doesn't sound as good as Spanglish) until 11 o'clock. We said goonight and biked home. They invited me to a party next weekend. It'll be fun.

Original Post:
I will fill this blog in in detail tommorrow because I have to go to sleep, but basically, we went to a wine fest, met some friends, including the girl that will come back with me to the US to stay as an exchange student, and went out onj our bicycles through the town. People bike everywhere here, and not a helmet to be found. We went to go watch the world cup in the town center on a humongous television with people dressed up representing brazil or croatia. Then it started to rain, so we went back for our bikes, then it started to pour, so we went to an empty bar and hung out for about an hour, talking and watching the cup.

Meeting The Family

I did not intend on meeting one of my hosts half-naked. I came out of my room after mposting my blog wearing only the boxers I had slept in and called a "Guten Tag" downstairs to who I thought was Belen, but turned out to be Ramon. Ramon is Wilhelm and Belen's oldest sohn and 18. He came right up the stairs, stuck his hand out, and introduced himself. He then promoptly asked me how I was doing and gave me his sympathies for the long traveling before inviting me downstairs for breakfast. I told him "Ich brauche eine Dusche", which means, I need a shower, then went into the bathroom to take one. I then enjoyed a breakfast of german muesli as I talked with Belen and Ramon in Duestch. He is a nice guy, and speaks very good english. He had to go to school , then, after cleaning up, Belen and I went on a walk with their dog, Bella. I am practicing german quite a lot with her and am now starting to put words together in longer sentences than I previously could. My problem that my German is limited compared to my Spanish remains, so I still sometimes lapse into my lovely romance language. I am getting better though.

We got home just as it started to rain. It is humid here, the kind of humidity that sticks to one like oil and doesn't wash off in a shower.

Belen and I were putting up a cover on the window to prevent the sunlight from making upstairs completely unbearable when Stephan got home. He is their only other child and 15 years old.

He said hello and proceded to sit down at my laptop and explore its contents. He also looked my credit card and new phone. I just laughed. Stephan is a funny kid, he's cool. He is very intelligent, playful, and has a LOT of energy. I think that I might get him to go running with me one of these days, or get Belen to make him. He just threatened to wake me up in the morning with a quick shake followed by the flash of my own camera.

Tonight I am going to a wine festival put on by Italians in town. Ingolstadt, where I am staying, Has a sister town in Italy. Every year, the Italians come here with their wine and every year the germans go to Italy with beer. There Belen and I will meet with Wilhelm and Franz, the man whom I will be working for in the Audi supply plant. Maybe there will be girls there.

Wilkommen

Adventure never gradually builds. It pounces when one least expects it.

At 3:30 in the afternoon, my family and I drove to the airport in our wonderfully Californian lipstick-red Prius, whose trunk was crammed full with our enourmous luggage bags. Everything went smoothly as my parents stood back and watched us check ourselves in and walked us to security. They said quick goodbyes to us there. All of a sudden, my fourteen-year-old brother and I were alone.

We walked to our gate and had a short wait for the plane. As we prepared for takeoff on the runway, someone realized that the Cargo in the plane had been incorrectly loaded. This would mean turning around to the terminal to fix it. I had a layover only an hour long in Heathrow, and it is supposed to take an hour to get from the arrival gate to the departure gate, even in the same terminal. William had a two-hour layover, so was slightly better off than I was.

Fourty minutes later in the air, my brother and I settled in for the long flight. I studied German as he read his book, and then when it got late, he fell asleep with his head in my lap. I shortly followed suit.

Morning. By the time that we begin to disembark from the plane, the gate for my plane was already closing. I had missed my flight. However, there was still a chance that William might make his. We ran through the terminal, waited in atrocious security queues, as they call them in the UK, and made it to his gate. Not on time, but his next flight had also been delayed. I hugged William goodbye and made my way through a second security check to re-book myself for the next flight to Munich.

After more pitiable queues, i got the next flight out of Heathrow, four and a half hours later than the first. I ate the last sandwiich that my mother had packed us for dinner the nigh before as my breakfast. By, this time as you can see, my weariness from four hours of sleep on a plane was beginning to set in.
After what seemed like a long dream, the gate number for my flight was announced. We were almost to Munich when the Captain came on the loudspeaker: "The Munich airport has been closed due to three powerful thunderstorms in the area." I let out an audible moan. Knowing my luck, I was expecting what came afterwards. We were to fly a half-hour away to Stuttgart and stay there until the airport in Munich reopened. I had already called the family I am staying with to let them know that I would be delayed in Heathrow, but they were waiting for me at the Munich airport when we landed in Stuttgart. At first we had no idea how long we would be there. The captain soon came on and told us that the lighting had stopped, but we were in another queue; we would have to wait three hours in Stuttgart on the plane before we could take off south due to the congestion of air-traffic. Flight attendants started serving beer to the passengers to help pass thte long wait. Less than an hour later, the captain came back on the speaker and told us that we had been given a much sooner takeoff time. I phoned Wilhelm and Belen, my new family here, to let them know. We landed in Munich at 11:30 PM Munich time. By now I had been traveling for 22 hours, and as they say here in duestchland, was rather kaput.

It was such a relief to see Wilhelm and Belen's smiling faces through the glass at customs. They were jokingly pantimiming that I was going to be put in handcuffs, but it wouldn't have been a great surprise when looking at the rest of my travels.

They picked me up in their new Audi and drove me to their house on the Autobon. They drive fast on the Audobon, but I found out that there are local speed limits depending on where you go. We were going 120 mph most of the time, and only going slightly faster than the rest of the traffic. The car is a convertible and made the 120 mph speeds seem smooth as silk. It accelerates faster than anything that I have ever been in.

We got to their home in Ingolstadt and they would not go to bed until they were sure that I was fed. Wilhelm insisted on frying eggs for me at half-past midnight. I ate those, a banana, and wurst (coldcuts) on german brot (bread). They are a charming couple and I am very excited to be here. Last might we spoke a little German, but mostly English, because I was so tired. I still am. They speak perfect English, Spanish, and German. I keep trying to speak to them in Spanish, I think that subconsciously my mind equates foreign country with spanish. It makes sense, considering where I have been.

I went to sleep in the room that they have given me to stay in, and slept there until I woke up at seven this morning with the sun. Here is my room.

I couldn't get the whole room in one shot, but this gives you a general idea of what it is like. I like it, and the bed is very comfortable.

There are large ink-black starlings right outside of my window that sing the most beautiful songs in the early morning. They really would give the starlings back at home a run for their money.

Today I will meet Wilhelm and Belen's two sons and hopefully start to work off my jet lag. I'll post again tonight.

Anticipation; Takeoff

We are leaving for the airport in a few hours. I'm excited, but I was a bit nervous when I woke up this morning. Tommorrow, I'll be in Germany.
This is the photo that I am sending Wilhelm and Belene to recognize me:

I am getting a bit trigger-happy with my camera? I think so.

The Camera; T-minus 1 day and counting

Today I drove into the Castro to get just the right camera for my trip. Here it is with Justin as the Guinea Pig as we ate lunch and goofed off outside of my house.



Then I had a sad attempt at a self portrait, but I guess those never turn out very well. My dad came to the rescue, however, and took this slightly better, thought still not very good, shot. I think that I got some color at the beach yesterday.




Well, I have to go. There is so much to do in the next 24 hours, from partying to haircuts to seeing old friends. My plane leaves tommorrow at 6:55 PM.

Surfing; T-minus 2 days and counting

I just had a great day surfing at the beach for Father's day with Max's family, and, of course, my own. It's too bad I didn't get to spend more time with my dad out on the water, but I had fun anyway. We caught some awesome waves and had a blast. I was out there for hours, just paddling out and riding them in. My new longboard is working out quite well, I really like it.
Here's a picture I took with my new camera the next day at home:




I'm tired from all of that time out in the sun and the waves so I am going to bed. Goodnight.

Testing

Testing to see if this thing works before I'm off to Germany.