Epilogue

This blog catalogues my experience in Ingolstadt in the summer of 2006. I learned about German culture, the German language, and exercised my independence. It was a great experience. Enjoy. Some of my best blogs are "Wilkommen", "The Longest Day", and "Deutsche Schule". They are located towards the bottom of the page.

Artifacts Found; a Trip Home

I was straightening up my room the other day when I uncovered an ancient artifact: from my summer in Munich. It was then that I realized that I never made a final post about my trip home.

I found the DVD of me being interviewed in the Munich Airport by German news, shortly after the attempted terrorist attack. I posted it on youtube.



So basically to make a long story shorter, as I said in the interview we were turned around mid-flight and sent back to Munich. We spent the next six hours standing in lines and running around the airport to stand in more lines, hoping that one of them might get us a ticket home. Eventually we did find something.

We spent the night at the Munich airport hotel. It was quite nice and free, because our plane had been turned around. Everyone else in the airport who had not gotten on their plane yet had nowhere to go. People were sleeping in terminals.

That next morning we got on a plane for London, had a long layover, and went throught the most painstaking security check yet. We were not allowed any liquids, and everything had to be in clear plastic bags. Not even books were allowed. By the time that our next plane took off for Boston, we knew that we would not make the connecting flight.

We spent the night at a Marriot in Boston, flew to D.C., waited in horrific lines, then finally caught a plane home. We were quite tired by then.

And our exchange students had been waiting at our house for three days.

When in Rome...

Many things have happened since my last post, so I'll stick to the highlights.

On Wednesday, after William, who is my middle brother, and my parents went with the Jungfleisches to see the BMW factory in Munich, both families went over to the Schabmueller's house for dinner. Although Monika is still in Czechoslovakia, Franz, Barbara, and Franz Junior were all there to greet us. We also met the Lohmars there.

The homecooked food that we were served was sehr bayerisch, very typical of the region. I had white beer, red and white leberkaese, and potato salad, with heavy brown bread in the basket in front of me. Leberkaese, if I have not mentioned it before, is a heavier and less watery version of bologne. And, rather than being a cold lunch meat, it is baked in the oven and served hot in thick slices. The white has a different taste than the red, but I could not place how exactly. Maybe it was lighter and more salty, but I am not sure.

We stayed there until late, kicking a soccer ball around in their back yard until settling down to join the adults around their table where they were talking and savoring delicious Spanish red wine.

Back With The Folks

It is good to see my family again. My second family too.

My parents arrived with my brothers late in the evening on saturday the 29th. William, the middle child, has grown significantly, and Stuart, the youngest, has also grown, if not as much. My parents were tired from the long drive up from Spain, but still stayed up late visiting. I am very glad to be back with them.

We all spent the night with the Lohmars, but packed up and left after breakfast. We are now staying in a house-exchange house. We are living in the house of a family that is living in ours at his very moment. Florian's house to be exact.

After settling in to our nice new place to stay, we went ot meet the Lohmars for lunch. The restaurant was very nice, and I had some weiner schnitzel to die for. Afterwards, we went for a walk in the park and headed down to the river to see the fischer stecken.

At least I think that is what it was called. Anyway, it is strange Bavarian sport that resembles jousting. Two boats are paddled at eachother full steam ahead, then all the rowers duck and a fisherman with a lance tries to knock the guy with a lance on the other boat off into the water. It was funny to watch once or twice, but it got old fast; I was happy to see Monika when she arrived.

After talking through the rest of the competition, Monika, her friend Lisa, and my borthers and I all crossed the bridge over the Danube river, or the Donau as they call it here in to town. Nothing was open because it was a Sunday, but we still had fun getting eachother wet with the waterfountain in town square and playing in the park. My little brothers do not speak German, so the girls talked mostly in English, which Monika speaks quite well. It is strange; I cannot remember whether I was talking with Lisa in German or English. Probably both.

After returning to our parents, we agreed to meet eachother the next evening for a night on the town.

The next day was a very quiet day. Mostly the rest of my family needed to recover from their travels. I am fine after Norway.

That night we went to go meet my second family, our German friends from Spain, the Jungfleischs. We met them at the train station where they were collecting their oldest son, Jan, who will be coming with us back to the states to live with us for a year as an exchange student. After a happy reunion, Detlef, Sebine, the parents, Conrad, the younger brother, and Sophie, the youngest sibling and only sister, all got in their car to drive back to their house with us for dinner. We laughed and ate in a mixture of German, Spanish and English, and planned out what we will do together for the next week. We headed home early, at 9:30, because people were still tired from all of their travel and needed to rest.

It was raining so hard when we got back home that Monika and I decided that it would be better to go out after she returns from Prague next Monday. O well. I think that Monika and Jan will get on well.

Deustchland, I'm Home!

In the past two days, I have learned that airport benches are surprisingly comfortable, and that beer is an interesting thing at 9 in the morning.

The way back from Norway was far better than the way there, even though it took more time. The way there I slept for a scattered three and one half hours, but on the way back, I slept for a disjointed eight. The bus was even more full this time, so I took a normal seat next to a man from Poland. I slept for four out of the eight hours on the bus, paritally because the single seats can lean back until they are almost horizontal. Since the person sitting in fornt of me did not also figure this out, I had lots of room. I arrived in the airport at 6:30 and slept one hour at a time until 9:45. Then I checked in for my flight, browsed through the duty-free stores, and read the paperback that I had found in the hotel's guest assembled library. I have come to the conclusion that the New York Times Bestseller list is too long. The book should not be on any list, as it is rather dry, but just interesting enough to keep you reading. Horrible stuff. A book should be so badd that you stop reading outright, or so good that it is hard ot stop. I'll have none of this purgatory limbo stuff. I really hope that my little brother brought the book that I asked for. If not, I can start reading the summer assignment that I found out that I have to do yesterday.

Anyway, I caught the plane, took the airporter and walked back to the house. To be honest, I was quite proud of myself. I made it all the way from a little town in Norway back to my house in Germany all by my lonesome.

I recieved a warm greeting from my hosts, but not before Stephan spotted me from his balcony and said hello as if I had never left. He is a funny one. We exchanged stories about our week, then met Wilhelm at a chinese restaurant to celebrate the boys getting their report cards. The food was great. We got four different plates and mixed each one separately with some rice in little bowls. When we got home, we stayed up late playing a fun board game for my last night staying with them alone.

This morning I got up and went to the market with Wilhelm. We got everything, including another stop at the breakfast stand. They had beer this time and Wilhelm ordered a pils for us to split. The first sip wakes you up, but then... it was nine in the morning! We did not finish the bottle between us. No more beer before noon, thank you. Also, I got the picture of me sucking on the white sausage that I promised way back in the beginning.


I guess the picture isn't too bad. I was expecting to look ridiculous.

My parents come this afternoon with my brothers. I am very excited to see them. We will stay here for one more night, then my family will move to Florian from work's house to stay as part of a house exchange. I hope that he is nice to my dog. I think that he will be.

I guess this is it. I'll keep postingabout the adventures I will have with my family. I get back to the states on the 12th of August. So ends the chapter of my living alone in Germany.

Norway

Harry Potter has it good.

I arrived early Friday morning on the nightbus from Oslo. There were no beds, no talking heads, and of course, no wizards. The bus was jam-packed. I took my friend's advice and took the back seat so I could stretch out, but was informed by the african man who wanted to share my seat that there were no other open spots on the bus. Reluctantly, I moved my feet. It was hard to rest so cramped up. I got about 3 1/2 hours of fragmented sleep during the whole 8 hour ride from 10 until 6. My friend Kingdon and his mom Unni Marie came down to the docks to pick me up.

Balestrand is a small, quiet little town on the coast of one of Norway's many fjords. Kingdon's parents own a bed and breakfast overlooking the water, and have generously provided me with a room. This is a picture of Kingdon in front of the hotel.



Every morning we all get up and go downstairs to have a breakfast of delicious Norwegian jams on toast with a soft-voiled egg or two, and maybe some oatmeal as well. Then we do chores, like weed-whacking the edge of the lawn or making beds. When we are finished, we are free to do as we like for the rest of the day.

We can go swimming, fishing, or... or... throw a ball around. The fishing here is okay, mostly shakers with a few good sized fish thrown in. No really good fighters. Apparently all of the fish in the fjord have worms in them this time of the year so we cannot eat what we catch either. Here I am fishing off of one of the docks with the fjord in the background.


Unfortunately, I finished reading the book that I brought on the way here. However, I am getting a lot of work done on my college essays.

The seagulls here are a strange form of entertainment. Until today when Unni Marie moved the chicks, they were swooping down off of the roof and attacking anyone who tried to cross the courtyard. Pretty funny really.

Well, I will take the night bus back to Oslo on Thursday night, then wait in the airport for 7 hours before my plane takes off. It will be nice to be back in Deutschland again.

Blue Overalls

So much time, such a little thing. For the past week and one half I was working in the autoparts manufacturing plant owned by Franz Schabmueller.

The first day I came in through the fingerprint identification locked doors into the manufacturing plant and was issued a locker key, a pair of calipers, and blueprints for my first project by my new boss. Her Stoehr is a very Bayerish man. He is about 50 years old, the same height as me, with silver hair, a young grin, and twinkling blue eyes. He laughs a lot, and has a thick Bayerish accent. It is hard enough to understand him when he speaks German with this accent, but he also wants me to learn the southern German dialect of Bayerish. He would say something to me in Bayerish, make me think that I know even less German than I know, then repeat it in Hoch Deutsch (High German) with his rumbling accent, so I was never quite sure when to listen. He was very hard to understand.

The vise that I was supposed to make did not look complicated to make, and while Franz had assured me that it would take me all week to complete, I was positive that I could finish by the end of the next day. After all, we had 8 hours of work time per day. As I already mentioned, the hours were long, from 7 till 3:30, but I did not mention the break time. We had fifteen minutes to eat breakfast from 9 till 9:15, and then fifteen minted to eat lunch, from 12 to 12:15. It is not a pleasure cruise at work.

Florian helped me the first day, teaching me how to read the blueprints and use machines to turn scrap metal into what was drawn on paper. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it. I did not feel excited by it, but it is nice to focus on a on one's work and let your mind go. He helped me use a milling machine to get the steel to within one millimeter of where I wanted it, and told me to file the rest of it off. My shoulder, which is injured from rowing, began to hurt five minutes into the filing, but I kept going, thinking that the pain must have just been from sleeping on it wrong the night before. After an hour of filing, I found out that I was wrong and had to stop. I checked on my progress and saw that I still had .4 millimeters to go. After an hour of filing! The shoulder injury was no problem, as I simply let Herr Stoehr know, and he taught me how to use the machines with greater precision.

That is, of course, if you are allowed to do it by yourself. I felt myself growing restless when I had to watch another worker doing part of my job for me, to show me how it was done. It was necessary, because I could not have learned how to use the machines just by looking at them. When I was confined to watching or was frustrated with having to re-do a piece that Herr Stoehr dubbed "nicht schoen" (not pretty), sometimes I would start to notice that my feet were hurting from standing so long. Florian kept us laughing, which helped to take my mind off of the frustrations of work.

Notice the hole in his shirt? That is from when the sparks from the buzz-saw he was using caught fire to it and burned the hole. Later in the same day one of the younger employees started using the same machine that I am using in the above picture, but did not attach the steel that he was going to cut properly. So when he started the machine, the ten pound hunk flew out of the machine. Florian was busy filing at the time, and barely missed getting hit by jumping over the low flying cylinder of death. He gave it a surprised look when it slammed into the wall, then went back to his filing without a word. Everyone in the shop burst out laughing, except for the boy who's fault it had been.

By the end of the week, I had used milling, spinning and drilling machines, not to mention files and saws, to finish my project. Franz and Herr Stoehr were spot on with their estimates - I made the final touches halfway through Friday. I don't know why the lighting is weird in this picture...
I stopped three days early of two weeks because of a change in plans to go see my friend from rowing, Kingdon, up in Norway. His parents have a hotel up there, and that is where he lives for the summer. I leave tomorrow to Oslo, then take the overnight bus and arrive in his harbor at six in the morning. If you want to see pictures of where I will be staying, go to http://www.balestrand.com/. My next post will be from Norway!

Guess I'll Blog Tommorrow

I just finished the rough draft of my college essay- it is late and I am going to bed. Now that I got that out of the way and might actually have time, I will write manana.

Gute Nacht

No, I Didn't Die

It has been two weeks since my last post - sorry about that. I have been speaking German every day until my tongue can no longer pronounce the umlauts and my grammar collapses into a jumble of words mixed every which way around. On top of that I have been working very hard at German School two weeks ago and then in an autoparts factory learning to work steel all this week. I will write what I remember, and start from the top.

So I left off with me going out to see the party after the game. Awesome party. We went to the local park and met some of her friends, who were very nice. We hung around there for a while and then I went to Sausalito with some of Monika's friends. She stayed at the park to catch up with some friends. The bar was teeming with crazy soccer fans. We had fun there until it was time to walk the girls home, then we returned to the bar for a few hours before retiring.

The next day, my family and I went on an outing to a huge lake some hours away. We stopped for lunch at a monastery and had some delishious traditional bavarian food before continuing to our final destination. If you are wondering what is on my thumb, that is the German flag that the girls insisted on painting on me at the Rathausplatz the day before. The lake was beautiful, with the Alps looming in the distance. We swam and paddled Bella around in the family kayak chasing ducks. After a couple of hours, we came back to shore and ate some fruit. I practiced my cherry seed spitting skills. We had a great time messing around, and took some video footage with the family camera that we had been using all day to catalougue our trip. Stephan has a great Shakira impression. After all of this, we stopped at a well-known lakeside restaurant, not far from the old German royal palace on an island in the middle of the lake. I had a delicious, fresh-caught, albeit strange fish, a pike perch, which looks very much like a cross between the two species. I wonder how that worked?

The next day was a prelude to a dull week of German school where I learned much, but was too tired after three hours of learning German and an hour and a half of private lessons to do much else. I met up with Monika and we went to the Baggersee, a local see, or lake, and played in the water and with frisbees and volleyballs. I had a good time.

After finishing with German School, I went out like usual on Friday night and met with Monika and friends. It was fun, but the party was nowhere near as happening now that Germany lost to the would-be Weltmeister Italy and was out of the running for the cup. I noticed that I could understand a lot more of what was being said and almost carr on a simple conversation.

Saturday morning I woke up to the telephone ringing. Franz was going to come and pick me up to show me around the factory. I was a bit intimidated at first, to say the truth, with all of the machines, and the people taking steel parts and moving them around. I saw a few kids my age and thought that I would be doing the same work. What if I messed up? These part were used in real cars!

Fortunately for me, Franz took me through a corridor echoing with the grating sounds of steel being cut to show me where I would be working. It was a small work area occuppied by my future teacher, two other interns, and some full time workers. I learned that I would be making a small steel vice from scrap metal in my first of two weeks with the company. I was also a bit surprised when I learned about my work hours. The buzzer to start work goes off at 7 every morning, and the buzzer to go home sounds at 3:30 that afternoon. Naturally, I was a bit disconcerted and planned to get to bed early on Sunday night.

Nothing at all happened on Sunday, except for going to Gino, the Italian place to watch the finals. I had some delicious house made black pasta served with perfectly grilled calamari, all hinting of lemon and european olive oil. I went to bed early for my big day at work, and did not know that Italy had won until the next day when I was on my way to work at 6:40 with my carpool, Florian.

I have to get to bed, but I will write more about work tommorrow and begin to post regularly again. Here is a photo of me at the work-table, filing my vise into shape.

Friday

The big game. Deutschland and Argentina. 5 o'clock.

I woke up in the morning and made it late to German class. I was so tired throught the whole class, that the teacher actually said that she was sorry that I was sick. Actually, I was feeling better, but still tired. I think that is was because we stayed up till midnight watching a comedy about post-war Berlin that I found very funny. After class, I met Ramon for some Turkish food, which they have plenty of here, then went to meet some of Ramon's friends at the Rathausplatz to watch the game. Ramon was too tired to come and instead went home to sleep.

The Rathausplatz was more full than last time.


It ended up that I was meeting no fewer than 9 girls there in the square. Not a single guy with them. I tried to have fun with them, but I was so tired that I could hardly even manage a laugh. In the end, I stayed until 3, then went home to take a nap.

I fell asleep almost right away, and woke when Stephan came in to tell me that the Game was on. I put on the German soccer jersey that I had gone out and bought the day before and sleepily settled in to watch the first half of the game upstairs with Stephan.


It was very uneventful, with lots of back and forth at midfield and 0-0 when I put on some shorts and went downstairs to watch the second half with the rest of the family. Germany won in penalty kicks after tying it up with a header with 10 minutes of normal time remaining. It was a big upset, because Argentina was favored to play against Brazil in the finals. Ramon and his friend went wild as we pranced around the room. I could not help but think of what was going on in the square. As if to answer my pondering, honking horns filled the air for hours to come.

It was then that Monika Schapmuller called me and told me to meet her just outside of the square. I hopped on my bike and was away.

Finishing Thursday's Account

It has been a while, but here I am with a new post. Where was I? O yes, I was with Ramon at his school on Thursday. Here is a picture of the water fountain that I drank from all those days ago. The water pours out of the mouth when one presses the button in-between the ears.


So I made it back from bringing my bike to the store, and met Ramon and my other new friends outside of the front of the school. They were supposed to walk down to the field where Tom, Atilla, Mate, and Ramon and I played soccer. However, the students were hesistant due to the dark clouds overhead and distant thunder. They decided to wait for the rain to come. Sure enough, in five minutes, it was pouring rain. Thunder and lighting brought the sky alive.

Because we could not go down to the field, we took advantage of the situation and went to the underground gym, I do not know why it was underground, to play indoor soccer. We had a blast. I was goalie again and our team won the game. After we joked around in the locker room before leaving to get ready for the France-Spain game that night.

I went to the game with the whole family and some of Ramon's friends. Spain got killed. 3 to 1. The only goal that Spain scored was a penalty kick. It put a bit of a damper on the mood, but it ended up being for the best. Yesterday France knocked Brazil out of the running in a 1-0 win. Incredible. Brazil was the favorite to win the tournament. Also, I was able to eat my bratwurst and sauer kraut without jumping up every other minute like the Germany game last Saturday.

As you might have been able to guess, that is Stephan's thumbs up. After the Spain game, we rode around on our bikes a bit, then went home as it was late.

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.