Zest for Life and Lot's of Hand-gesturing

San Bernadino pass, not to be confused
with the street in Newport Heights

Two weeks ago the Family von Heynitz and I headed south across the Alps to enjoy some vacation time, taking the same route as great medieval German kings seeking to bring the rich and proud Italian city-states into line with the rest of the Holy Roman Empire. So I, like a middle-aged woman attempting to reclaim her mojo (yes I have seen the movie) headed to Tuscany. Our adventure began early on a Friday morning, pulling sandy-eyed babies out of bed in an act of revenge for all the inopportune times they'd woken us up; heading to a lovely Schwäbisch town to stay with a college friend of Wolfram's on the first leg of our Italian expedition. Swabia is a region of southwestern Germany, existing across the border of Baden-Württemberg and Bayern (Bavaria), with a dialect that, according to Germans, is arguably less comprehensible than the Bayersich that is spoken in the countryside surrounding Munich (where I did my third year of college). Thankfully, our hosts spoke Hochdeutsch (High-German) and were as delightful as they were well educated. This is also one of the most prosperous regions of Germany, for example, the town had an unemployment rate of less than 3%, which statically speaking means the population is fully employed. 

Sunset on our first night in Borgo Casalvento,
with Dutch neighbors in foreground.

The next day we saw five countries in one day: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, and Italy. For those who are curious, Lichtenstein is a country that is a few miles across, and has served as a tax-haven for Germans as well as other Europeans for a long time; a Cayman Islands of the Alps. I always wondered how such a tiny country could have endured for so long, until I saw it; Lichtenstein has a few Alpine villages surrounding a small city with an impressive old fortress above it that serves as it's capital, all sitting on some of the most defensible ground I have ever seen. 

And then came Italy, strikingly similar to California in several ways. First, the landscape, second, the aggressive driving, third, the fashion consciousness, and finally, no one seems to work. You walk around a town at ten in the morning and people seem to be just then filing into work begrudgingly before taking a two hour lunch break. Despite the lax work schedule, it sounds like someone is getting chewed-out whenever you walk into any business there. Italy is the kind of place where you can great a great espresso in a gas station and you can't really get a bad meal anywhere. 

Soon to be known as Palazzo d' Kalanzo

Italy is full of beautiful, svelte young women with olive skin and pouty expressions on their faces, along with four-and-half-foot-tall grandma's in coke-bottle glasses who spend their days swooning over the "bambinos"--the change seems to happen overnight. Young Italian men often come in a skinny-jeans wearing type that is more concerned with what the other guys are wearing rather than the girls, juxtaposed with the self-assured jolly older Italian man. The aging process is more apparent, with the creepy Berlusconi style man in between. Italy is a country where the Prime Minister can be brought up on several counts of having sex with underage prostitutes, but not be impeached because he is probably the most productive and successful leader they've had in decades (Italy has had something like 18 constitutions since WWII). Nonetheless, Italians are overall friendly, wonderful people who know how to live life well and I had a chance to enjoy some of this good life. Surprisingly few Italians speak English however, which I admit was a proud assumption on my part. The towns are also full of fat little dogs that are very pushy and seem to have no problem blocking traffic. While there I had my own little friend/enemy, a skinny cat who I caught once digging through our garbage (which I had to then clean up), and who tried to sneak into our apartment so many times that I named him Mr. Kitty. 

The elusive Mr. Kitty

We stayed in a rental apartment in a renovated farmhouse on what appeared to be an old olive farm, judging by all the old olive tress. It was on a mountain in an area known as Baco, above the town of Cantagrillo, near the walled medieval city of Pistoia, less than an hour west of Firenze (Florence) by car. Our first week we found ourselves to be the only non-Dutch family staying there. As part of our package we rented mountain bikes but soon found that our location was so charmingly remote as to make anything more than a short journey more strenuous than enjoyable. I discovered this for us on one of the first days, when, after a hair-raising flight down the mountain to Cantagrillo lasting a little more than five minutes, I then endured a 40-minute Bataan Death March-esque trip back up the mountain, riding less than a quarter of the way up, in which I discovered that I am woefully out of shape and in need of a gym membership. A lot of people do bicycle tours of Tuscany, which seems idiotic to me considering that it is a very hilly region where most of the towns and cities worth seeing are placed on defensible ground. Perhaps these tourists want to be able to brag to their friends back home that they were the only people to lose weight while visiting Italy. 

A gate of San Gimignano

The first week of our visit included trips to the walled cities of Lucca, known for it's elegant palazzo and cathedral, San Gimignano (don't ask me how to pronounce it), known for it's many medieval towers and fresco-covered church, Volterra, known for it's breath-taking, windswept view, and Pistoia, which I found to be a much overlooked destination. This is partially due to the fact that I had a chance to enjoy some of the nightlife there. After a walk around the beautifully-lit city-center, I tried a couple of bars, eventually landing at one which not only had an English-speaking bar tender, but one who was headed to California for a two-month research project. After trying a couple of local wines I asked him to call me a cab to head home around 12:30, he refused, saying that the scene was just really getting good, and that I should stay and let him give me a lift home. A cute Basque bartender then made me a stiff Mojito. A couple hours later I found myself making stops with him at the apartments of two of his friends, allowing me the opportunity to mix with some of the locals in a more natural, non-touristy setting. Good luck in San Francisco Alessio!

A tree miraculously growing from
the stone of a tower in Lucca

Even reading a menu in Italian makes you wish that you could speak the language, and thankfully you can kind of fake your way through Italian, at least enough to order a meal or get some prosciutto at the butcher, if you already know a little Spanish, or took three years of Latin in high school. People there tend to express themselves with intense hand-gesturing and miming, making them potentially great players of charades if they were able to hold their tongues.  

Italian bird hunters Davido McHoné and
Bobito Milikenangelo overlooking Cantagrillo

Next week I will publish part two of the Italian adventure, with visits to Sienna, Florence, and Bologna. See you then, and sorry for the long wait since my last blog!

A Carefree Day in Potsdam

The terraced vineyard below Sanssouci Palace

Potsdam, sight of the famous conference between Truman, Churchill, and Stalin at the end of WWII, is a city lying about an hour southwest of Berlin by light rail, and was home to the Summer residence of the Hohenzollern dynasty that ruled Prussia and eventually the German Empire until 1918. The current Prince of Prussia (in title only), George Friederich, who would be Kaiser if the First World War hadn't led to the dethronement of the German monarchy, was recently married to Princess Sophie von Isenburg at the Palace of Sanssouci in Potsdam this past weekend. The name of the palace comes from the French sans souci, meaning "without worry" or "carefree." It was created in the mid-18th century by King Frederick II, known as "The Great," as a place of relaxation away from the formality and ceremony of court life in Berlin. Surrounded by nearby lakes, Potsdam also provided a more tolerable Summer location than Berlin. Frederick the Great is known as one of the greatest military minds in all of history; in fact, Napoleon, after defeating the forces of Prussia in 1807 and forcing a peace with them, visited the tomb of Frederick, saying "If this man were still alive, I would not be here today." 

The Orangerie, a large greenhouse

Grotto below the Orangerie

However, Frederick was in his heart of hearts a sensitive man, a lover of philosophy and music, who did not want to be king. As a young man, he unsuccessfully attempted to flee to England with his best friend, whose decapitation after their capture, he was forced to witness. He himself was spared the punishment for desertion (he was an officer in the Prussian army at the time). Instead he was demoted and relegated to a post away from Berlin for several years, allowed only to return for the wedding of his beloved sister. He was sternly reminded that the throne was his obligation, that his responsibility was to his people, and that selfishly shirking that responsibility to pursue his trifling interests would lead to a crisis of succession jeopardizing the stability of the Prussian state and the safety of his people. During his exile from Berlin his studies were focused on soldiery and statecraft. This experience attributed greatly to his belief in Enlightened Absolutism, that just as it was his subjects' duty to follow his absolute rule as king, so was it his responsibility as god's sovereign representative on earth to see to the safety, welfare, and improvement of his people. It was this feeling of responsibility to the people that differed his brand of Absolutism from the French form propagated by Louis XIV "The Sun King." Furthermore, it was in this spirit that in the 1720's, he made Prussia the first country in the world to have mandatory public education, as well as providing a haven of religious and political tolerance, arguing that such a virtuous system should not fear to tolerate debate and discussion. He enjoyed the friendship and correspondence of Voltaire, although they were known to quarrel. All this took place in the most militarized country in Europe, where social and political advancement was only possible through displays of merit by serving the state, rather than by birthright. It was said that "Prussia was not a country with an army, but an army with a country."

The Windmill (reconstructed in the 19th c.)

 Heavy lay the crown upon the head of this great man, whose palace of Sanssouci was was a small rococo villa in comparison to the lavish baroque Versailles. The sprawling gardens of Sanssouci Park boasted the neatly ordered features of a baroque garden: geometric footpaths, perfectly manicured lawns and box hedges, some shaped into pyramids, fountains (long hampered by poor water-pumping technology), as well as statues, grottoes, colonnades, and temples in the style of classical Greece and Rome. He even had a faux ruin constructed to conceal the water reservoir on a neighboring hill.  It was a place of escape and relaxation that also exhibited how the tastes of the comparatively spartan Frederick who typically wore a simple blue army uniform, differing from his counterparts in the french aristocracy, who were already stagnating in the opulence and disconnectedness from their people that would lead to their bloody demise only decades later. A terraced vineyard lead up to the palace, and the park possessed some 3,000 fruit trees, as well as numerous green houses where oranges, dates, and even bananas could be cultivated, most of which still exists, along with an old windmill Frederick chose to keep for its rustic aesthetic. 

The author's head poking out of the water on the left

Sanssouci is only one of the palaces in Potsdam, and it took a couple of hours to make a cursory tour of the grounds. Since it was the height of tourist season, the wait to tour in the inside was was too long for us, because we had some swimming to do. As mentioned in previous blogs, there is a good-sized minority of Southeast Asians in East Germany, and we lunched at a Thai restaurant in Potsdam. I had a very tasty fried duck breast, which I joked to my companions had come from one of the fat ducks living in the waters of the palace, saying that they probably sent someone running down there, clever in hand, to fill my order. After lunch, we took the train back a few stops in the direction of Berlin, getting off at Schlachtensee. It is one of the smaller lakes in the area, and doesn't require an entrance fee. The Summer having been so rainy and uncooperative, we understood that the more popular lakes would be covered with a certain type of pumped-up, fake-tanned, working class German, somewhat akin to American white trash and more specifically, the 'wife beater' wearing residents of Riverside county who so annoy the residents of beach cities back home. The water of the lake was fairly clear and refreshingly cold, but not freezing as it did not seem to be all that deep of a lake. I nonetheless teased the girls about the man-sized catfish that would come up from the depths of the lake to nip at their legs, and proceeded to play the role of the catfish, laughing like a mischievous little boy. After our dip we enjoyed a bit of sunshine and Rotkäppchen on the banks of the lake. Rotkäppchen is a German brand of sparkling wine or Sekt that was the principle brand available in the old East German state and is still much loved in this part of the country and usually sells for about 4 Euros in a grocery store. Rotkäppchen is also "Little Red Riding Hood" in German, and the brand probably refers to the story, wherein the German version, she brings cakes and wine to her sick grandmother, who for some reason lives alone in the middle of a forest crawling with wolves, a minor plot hole. After our long day we returned to the city for a little cheap pizza and then went to hang out on the Admiralsbrücke, a small bridge in Berlin that people, for some reason, like to loiter and obstruct traffic on until the police come at 10 pm to send everyone packing because of a noise ordinance. All in all it was a very relaxing and enjoyable day, and although caring for two small children isn't quite as stressful as being King of Prussia, it's always nice to get out of town for a day. 

What a Month...Not

Dear forlorn blog readers,


I apologize for the month-long drought without my wit and insight, the last two weeks I have been on vacation and frankly there hasn't been much to talk about. The news this past month has also been so depressing that it has been hard not to be affected by it. It is pretty incredible that we are simultaneously witnessing our political system lose whatever pathetic shreds of credibility it once held on to while manufacturing a second economic crisis. This ugly episode just confirms that most Republicans seem to have no soul while most Democrats seem to have no balls. Who would have thought a day would come when the Baby-boomers pined for the reincarnation of LBJ to get Congress to work again. All the while we have created with China the economic equivalent of Mutually Assured Destruction, and are waging four wars. Please, Ron Paul, save us from ourselves. European leadership is proving to be similarly ineffective in solving it's own debt crisis, but should we be surprised that a continent which has been in a near-constant state of war for most of its existence isn't able to work as a single functioning political/economic entity?


While you all have been enduring one of the hottest and most grueling Summers on record, Germany has been having one of it's wettest and crappiest Summers ever. It has rained most of the days since I last wrote, even an escape to Munich for the past week offered no respite, even though normally if the weather is bad in the North of the country it's good in the South and vice-versa. This Summer, however, is so bad that it has trumped this adage. 


The day I left for Munich was actually one of the only sunny days we've had so far, but it was terribly humid. My old housemates in Munich are most hospitable, one guy who is dating a girl in the house was so kind as to let me stay in his room for the week and even provided clean bedding and a towel, a luxury for college students. It is also tough to get them to let me pay for anything as they still treat me as a guest. In exchange for their kindness I agreed to pick up a used espresso machine from someone living not far from me in Berlin, originally a 500 Euro piece of equipment they got for 80. The machine ended up weighing 25 pounds and by the time I got to the subway station lugging the machine and my backpack. I was moving quickly and running late, sweating profusely in the Sun and humidity. As I looked down the long flight of stairs at the subway I caught a glimpse of a taxi parked nearby and decided to not take the chance of running late. The Turkish cab driver gave me a funny look then popped the trunk, it turned out to be a very well spent 10 Euros. I arrived in time to catch my train, but didn't have time to eat before the 6 hour train ride as I planned. No problem I thought, I'll grab something to eat in the dining car. 


I thought wrong, the food service crew's train into Berlin was late and the normal train workers are not licensed to serve food. After some negotiating I was able to procure a Snicker's bar and a bottle of beer for an extortionate price. I successfully napped for most of the train ride to unconsciously avoid my hunger and ate the first thing I saw when I arrived in the Munich train station, which was the German equivalent of a meatloaf sandwich in a dinner roll. I thought I had arrived in the sunny wonderland of alpine foothills but the next morning woke to rain, and it continued to rain for at least half the day, everyday but one, for the rest of my visit. Our one rain-less day (I hesitate to use the word "sunny") we grilled outside of our building and indulged our colons in a variety of flame-kissed meat. We were even so lucky as to be joined by one of the Chinese students in the building, who normally do not mix readily with the round-eyed devils. After about a beer and a half he was drunk and pretty entertaining, reveling in the ability to be openly intoxicated which is very looked down upon in their society. That is not to say there aren't drunks on the streets of China. I have friends who studied abroad in China and said people would get wasted on Baijiu, which is essentially the liquor of the proletariat, a Chinese firewater costing a dollar or two for a bottle. 


Our mobility being impeded by the weather, we focused on feasting, trying to prepare dishes that took as much time as possible while joking around in the kitchen and common room, and playing foosball (table soccer, which they call "kicker") in the basement. One night I made a big pot of my great-grandmother's beef stew which my old housemates remembered fondly, and was appropriate for a chilly and rainy August evening. I also helped with the painting of an old tandem bike that was being reconstructed for a trip to the Czech Republic. It was to be painted with tiger stripes in an allusion to a German children's book. I took it to be a more uplifting story than a Brothers Grimm fairy-tale, which usually involve children who don't listen to their mothers being brutally maimed or killed. The American versions are considerably watered down. 


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It is not possible for me at the moment to deliver the wedding pictures I promised from last time, so instead I will include a short piece about the Christopher Street Day Parade (Gay Pride Parade) in Berlin a few weeks ago.

It doesn't need to be a festival day in Berlin to see Peter Rabbit and whatever the hell the other guy is supposed to be playing for change on the street. In fact, you can be exposed to a wide variety of music just by riding the subway here, from Spanish guitar to Ukulele to some young kid who thinks he's a hippie. I've heard some pretty good blues guitar being played in the subway station and jazz saxophone being played on a street corner. At the subway stop I get off at every day to pick up the kids there is a young guy who plays everything on the accordion from Beethoven to Rock n' Roll, and a woman in the square I cross who is obviously an accomplished violinist. Unfortunately for them musicians, like graphic artists and English teachers, are a dime a dozen in the this town, but from what I hear people playing music on the subway can do as well as 20 or 30 Euro's an hour, while occasionally having to run away from the subway police for performing without a license.  

Look! A real American Indian! Standing as still as a cigar store statue...

There are tons of party buses during the parade blasting music. On the back of this one are posters saying "Save the Sausages" in an advertisement for condom use. It is interesting to watch a gay pride parade on the same boulevard where my grandfather witnessed the armies of Nazi Germany marching out of the city to invade Poland seventy years earlier.  

Here we see the homosexuals of ancient Rome brought back to life for a day. I wonder where this guy keeps his chariot stashed all year, perhaps he owns a bike rental service and uses it for advertising.

 In an unprecedented reversal of opinion, even the Holy See has sent representatives to partake in this day of good will and friendliness. Benedict XVI looks much better in person, I guess Popes aren't elected for how photogenic they are. 


Well, that's all folks! 

The Marriage Figaro, I mean Maeve and Wolfram

Hello patient followers of my strange musings. I just recently got the main theme to the Marriage of Figaro out of my head after hearing the rehearsal for an outdoor concert at Gendarmenmarkt over the weekend. It has been an unbelievably busy couple of weeks for all of us in the von Heynitz household. Although Maeve and Wolfram were already married last Fall in a small private ceremony in Berlin with their two children present, they publicly confirmed their nuptials the first weekend of July in a ceremony at the Schloss von Heynitz. Located in the village of, you guessed it, Heynitz (about 45 minutes outside of Dresden), the castle was originally a fortified tower, which was eventually added onto and transformed into a more comfortable residence. This is true of most castles; and the image of a fortification with high stone walls, a portcullis, and a moat, is representative of only the most formidable of fortifications from that time and would have been prohibitively expensive for anyone save kings and the wealthiest of nobles. Most were essentially stone houses with a heavy door, windows that could be secured, and a fortified tower which could be used as a refuge in case of sudden attack by another noble, or disgruntled villagers. When we were going over the order of events for the wedding, I couldn't help but joke, asking at what point the villagers would come on bent knee to pledge their everlasting loyalty to Wolfram and his progeny, which he thankfully found to be amusing--at least I was not thrown in the dungeon. 

Schloss von Heynitz, you can still make out what was once
a tower on the right hand side of the building.

Monday of the big week, I had the pleasure of meeting much of Maeve's family, as we had her mother as well as ten aunts and uncles over for dinner. Her family is originally from Limerick, in SW Ireland, but are now spread across the Emerald Isle. They are a wonderful group of people who reminded me of my own family--joking and teasing one another in a loving and playful manner. They toasted my mother for raising me well, and when I revealed that my father's mother was from Ireland, they let out a resounding cheer saying things like, "we knew you were alright." I also think I heard the word "grand" more times that night than I have collectively before in my life, it seems to be a favorite word of the Irish. That first night I found them to be difficult to understand at times, and they would occasionally drop a Gaelic word into conversation that would throw me for a loop, but by the time the weekend came I could understand them all quite well, and found even I was dropping into an Irish accent at times. I now have many places to stay for free in Ireland "when and not if" I come. Wolfram also seemed to really enjoy their company; the big family experience is somewhat foreign to him because he does not have much extended family due to the devastating effects of The War.

After going to Heynitz to ensure that everything was prepared for the big day, we spent Friday night in a 5 star hotel in Dresden, Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski. It is a beautiful building in the heart of the city, located across from the Dresden castle and Zwinger, famous for their elegant architecture. Rainy weather prevented me from getting any good pictures of the buildings, but they can be easily Googled. Oddly enough, it had a bar tastefully decorated in the theme of the Old West, named after 19th-century German author Karl May, who wrote adventure stories mostly set in the American West that inspired the German's fascination with the subject. In fact, many Western films were made in both West and East Germany during the 60' and 70's, enjoying great popularity. Europeans seem to interpret these stories through a medieval lens, equating cowboys to knights, which is not entirely inaccurate as the Middle Ages were also a time of migration and settlement across Europe. 

Saturday we headed to Heynitz on an unfortunately dreary day, especially considering that the weekend was flanked by warm and sunny weather, but rain is supposed to be a good omen, is it not? Or at least that's what they've been telling disappointed brides for centuries. Everyone gathered in the chapel of Schloss von Heynitz while we were preparing in an upper room. It was my job to dress the children, keep them clean, and to try to ensure they were in the best of moods to avoid any meltdowns during the ceremony. Caiomhe was in a little white dress with flowers and Daire in a pair of lederhosen belonging to his father. When wearing them Daire is almost indistinguishable from pictures of his father as a child. I also found myself inadvertently responsible for tending to the nervous bride in the time before her big moment, ensuring her all would go well and that everyone would marvel at how beautiful she was. Maeve handled everything with grace and composure. "Wedding" in German is "die Hochzeit" which literally translates to "the high time" which to me has the ring of a western-style showdown at high noon. 

I even had a role to play in the ceremony, as my entrance before the hundred or so attendees was the signal for the music to change and the ceremony to begin..no pressure. Wolfram first entered carrying Caoimhe, and then handed her off to me. Then Maeve entered being escorted by Daire in his little lederhosen. He seemed to grasp the situation, and conducted himself in a serious manner with as resolute an expression on his face as a two year old is capable of. He then sat down next to me in the front and maintained his composure throughout the ceremony, holding his little bouquet and sitting still. Caiomhe was slightly more animated, tearing into her bouquet like a hungry little rabbit who I was not able to prevent from eating some of the rose pedals. A few minutes later, she vomited just a little bit on my leg. It happened so quickly that at first I did not realize what had occurred, and then was in such disbelief that I pretended it did not happen. Many of the guests did notice, and told me at the reception how impressed they were by my handling of the children, and the "incident." The ceremony included reading in both English and German, and the telling of a story centered around a song. As a teenager, Maeve spent a few years in Vienna. One night after being out at a bar with some friends, she took a cab home and a song that played on the radio struck a chord with her. The next day, the only line she could clearly remember was "At the age of 37, she realized she would never ride through the streets of Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair." For years, she asked friends if they had heard of the song but no one could help her. More years went by, and while working at the Irish embassy in Tel Aviv, she met Wolfram. On their third date, she commented on how she had never been to Paris, to which Wolfram responded, "didn't you ever want to ride in a sports car with the warm wind in your hair?"

Doors are a good way to determine how old
a building is. Daire is only 2 and he is nearly
half as tall as this door in an upper room of
Schloss von Heynitz.

After a short champagne reception, most of the guests went back to Dresden to change into their clothing for the main reception, while we headed to Reichstädt, to a Schloss that belongs to the cousins of Wolfram where the party would be and where we and those with children would be staying. The attire for the ceremony had been more casual, sport coats and ties for the men, dresses for the ladies. Wolfram and many of the men had on tuxedos for the reception, and more formal gowns for the ladies, Maeve's being a flowing white dress that evoked Marilyn Monroe. I myself wore a black suit, a white shirt with a button down collar, and a pink paisley tie to match Caoimhe's little pink dress. Daire had a little black suit with a white shirt, but was stylishly dressed down with no tie and a new pair of little black Chuck Taylor low-tops. Although I got a big-boy meal, I was responsible for controlling the kids table in the "hunting room" that adjoined the main ballroom. It was similar to what I imagine the barbarians' feast following the sack of Rome must have been like. I thankfully had the help of Wolfram's 13 year old niece in keeping the little bastards, I mean darlings, from killing each other or tearing the centuries old hunting trophies off the walls. Thankfully, my two little angels were the best behaved children in attendance, and did their Kurt proud. Of course, just minutes before my main course of good Irish lamb arrived, Daire pooped himself and Caiomhe was just plain pooped, so I had to bring them to bed, and tell the servers to put my plate in the oven. Equipped with a walky-talky in my coat pocket, I returned 30 minutes later to eat my dinner and watch the first dance, a Waltz. This was followed by a Ceilidh, a traditional Irish dance that appears to be the predecessor of an American hoe-down or do-si-do, which I did get a chance to take part in. The reception was great fun, they had a multinational band from Berlin that does covers of songs in a sort of bluegrass interpretation, and they did a wonderful job. The party went late into the night with people dancing and clapping. At a couple of points during the night, some of Maeve's aunts told me, "if I were forty years younger I'd just run away with yea." They sure know how to make a guy feel special. 

The next day Maeve and Wolfram hosted a brunch in Dresden where they had the chance to say goodbye to everyone, but by this time the children had had enough of parties and such, and were both very cranky, which negatively  affected the disposition of their slightly hungover and majorly exhausted Au Pair. We returned to Berlin that afternoon and Maeve and Wolfram prepared for a short honeymoon in Paris, where Maeve would finally get to ride through the streets in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair. I had the help of Maeve's wonderful mother and her partner for three of the four days, and was treated to some good home-cooking and the kind of embarrassing story telling that mothers are so adept at. The children got along much better in the absence of their parents than any of us expected, but we were all very glad when Mommy and Daddy came home, and life returned to normal. 


I am sorry that I do not have more pictures of the ceremony and reception, but I was simply too busy to take as many pictures as I would have liked, and more I will put up a few more in the next blog once we get the pictures back from the photographer. Thank you all for tuning in and again sorry for the long break since the last blog.

The Blogs Collide: Visit To Munich and Caiomhe's Birthday

It's been quite a week for me. This past weekend I caught the train down to Munich to visit with my old house mates. Most of them are doing at least a master if not a doctorate so I was pleased to hear that they would all be there for at least another year, and some for a few more. It was an especially surreal visit. I got in very late on Friday night when most had gone to bed, so I did likewise and on Saturday morning it was Déjà vu all over again. As I saw everyone again for the first time in three years it suddenly felt like I had just left a week ago. Yes things have changed a bit, the kitchen had been remodeled with new cabinets, stoves, and refrigerators; the house looked better as my friends had gained more clout over the years to enforce stricter rules on the upkeep of the building, and the common room was spruced up with some new paint, as well as a donated TV and couches. Nonetheless, it seemed like I was suddenly re-immersed into the past as though with a time machine, because most importantly of all, the people hadn't changed a bit. I had forgotten how much of a family Haus 5A in the Studentenstadt is, and they hadn't forgotten me. My requests to pay for anything or wash a dish were summarily and routinely denied. I was reminded continually about how every year another American came and went, but none had been as fun or involved as myself, although this year a worthy heir to my throne had finally come, a lad named Tom from a small town outside of Chicago who I got a chance to make friends with. Going into my old room, where I had lived for a year that was perhaps the best in my life, was surreal. In this room I had struggled over grammar till I wanted to pull my hair out, laughed over beers with friends so hard that I cried, grieved for my father in the most lonesome moments I ever knew, and found even greater strength and independence than I thought I possessed. In this room I learned that I could hack it living in a foreign land and a foreign tongue. 


Unfortunately it rained the whole time I was in Munich, which couldn't have been more than 36 hours. That just meant more quality time cooped up in the house with my friends, preparing for the celebration I coincidentally was in town for. "Neueinzügleressen" roughly translates to "newcomer's meal" and is something done every year in our house that is supposed to get new people in the house more socially involved; it is essentially a potluck dinner of dishes from all the countries represented in the house. When I was there I made my great-grandmother's beef stew, "Rindertopf" in German, which people still remembered when I went back this year. It is truly a feast, and the huge amounts of food people eat is only made possible by the equally large portions of alcohol consumed. The Germans even have certain varieties of schnapps called "Digestiv" that are specifically distilled to aid in digestion to help one not feel quite so full after a heavy meal, also allowing one to make more room for seconds and thirds. But in general, alcohol helps break down fat, and there was a whole lot of fat to be broken down. We even had some homemade schnapps, the equivalent of German moonshine, smooth to drink but you could light your breathe on fire after taking a shot of it. The women kept complaining about how all the dishes people chose to make ended up being either starch or meat, while the men celebrated this same fact. Perhaps that is why most of the people affected by the recent EHEC scare (E Coli in vegetables as mentioned in previous posts) were female. Once the drinks got flowing, I was able to get our resident Bavarians to break out the accordion and harmonica and play some of the tunes that were the background music to my year in München. The whole experience was so heartwarming that on the long train ride back, I began to seriously consider going back there for my master's. 

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This week we had the pleasure of celebrating Caiomhe's 1st birthday! We had a wonderful little party with about a half dozen kids and their parents in attendance. I will say that I was nearly blinded when a balloon exploded half way through inflation; in that split second, I pictured myself in a dive-bar sitting next to a one legged man with a patch over my eye. 
"How did you lose your leg?"
"Rocket propelled grenade, Fallujah." 
"How did you lose your eye?"
"Blowing up a balloon for a little girl's birthday party, Berlin."

If you're going to lose a major appendage, you better damn well have a good story, is the point I guess I'm trying to make, if there is a point to be made at all from that tangent. Anyway, we broke out the streamers, balloons and cake for the little one. She and her baby friends got to "play," which at that age often consists of crawling all over one another sticking their hands in each others' mouths, in a most adorable way, transmitting various childhood illnesses that I will invariably contract because the cold strains here are slightly different from the ones I've already built up an immunity to in the States. Nonetheless, I was pleasantly surprised by how civilly everyone played, from the babies to the toddlers that were her brother's friends. One of them in attendance was Tilly/ie, a very cute little girl from around the corner who occasionally steals kisses from Daire at the park, and I was lucky enough to get them to pose for a picture. 

Nobody Intends To Put Up A Wall!

Two months before the Berlin Wall was constructed, Walter Ulbricht, leader of East Germany, said, "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten!" Now, on the 50th anniversary of the wall's construction, it is a phrase Germans, especially Berliners, use when they intend to do something. It has been a big month for Germany so far. The EHEC outbreak has left Germany with a bit of a black eye after they blamed the outbreak on Spanish cucumbers, leading to losses of hundreds of millions of Euros for Spanish farmers. The wall's construction fifty years ago is not the only painful anniversary this month, it is also the 70th anniversary of nearly three and a half million men being launched in an offensive against the Soviet Union known as Operation Barbarossa. This began some of the most barbaric and ruthless warfare ever waged on a nearly incomprehensible industrial scale. Needless to say, the two events are linked. To put it in perspective: in seven years of war in Iraq, 3,500 American soldiers have died in combat, during the most intense fighting at Stalingrad, the Red Army had that many combat deaths per day, for weeks on end, with the Wehrmacht losing 1,000 per day. 


Aside from some unpleasant anniversaries and e coli, it is a lovely time in Germany; their economy is booming, and the summer festival season has begun. I have been able to get out and about to a few of these events. 


The first happens every Sunday afternoon in a large park next to an old communist sports arena a few subway stops north of where I live. There are vendors selling food, drink, plants, and trinkets, but the main attraction is in the amphitheater dug into the hill on the outside of the stadium. There, in front of a crowd I'd estimate at 2,000, karaoke is being sung. Most of the people brave enough to go out are actually quite good, a few are just quite drunk. When David Langley is ready for his big break, he needs to come to Mauerpark in Prenzlauerberg and meet his public. I attended the event with a group of Au Pair girls, which is actually the term in German. I was the only male in the group, of course, continuing my noble fight against the sexist, heteronormative attitudes of society. 

Another event was held on the southern edge of Berlin, called Kulturlustgarten. It was sort of a cross between a music festival and a carnival. There were several music stages, some rides for the kids, and lots of good food. I had a Hungarian dish that was essentially fry-bread topped with sour cream and cheese. They were serving "Erdbeerbowle," meaning "strawberry bowl," essentially a strawberry punch that deceptively doesn't taste like alcohol and is traditionally served at the beginning of the season when there is an abundance of the fruit. There was even a medieval themed section of the festival, with archery and ax-throwing booths, and a stage where folksy music was performed with strange and archaic instruments. The main stage performed the kind of pop-rock that makes Europeans go nuts. An unusual feature of this festival was that I witnessed three fights, the Germans are typically very orderly and don't tolerate that sort of thing. The first was between two women, I don't know how it started, I just heard a crack and turned around and saw one woman standing over another, the victor was probably 6'4" and 235 lbs. One of the people I was there with said they were fighting over who got to take me home...shudder. A few hours later, a Euro-trash muscle head in a tank top with some Mike "the Situation" sunglasses popped a very thick farmer-looking type while in line for one of the beer sellers, I assume the fight was over cutting in line. The farmer was with a group in matching shirts and a brawl nearly broke out but thankfully about a dozen police quickly infiltrated the crowd before anyone caused me to spill my beer. Shortly after another fight broke out just out of my line of sight so it would be dishonest of me as a writer to make comical observations about the appearance of the antagonists. I again stress how unusual such a thing is here, in all the time I spent at Oktoberfest I never saw a punch thrown, although the bouncers and security there look like retired offensive linemen from the NFL. That and the excessive cleavage produced by dirndls at Oktoberfest tends to calm and quiet the men-folk. 


This past weekend in Kreuzerg was the Carnival of Cultures which draws crowds of hundreds of thousands of people. Again there is food, drink, and trinkets to be bought, but also a parade of floats and people in ethnic dress, if you can get close enough to the street to see it. There is a surprising amount of South East Asians in Berlin and I have had some pretty good Thai food here. During the Cold War, there was an international exchange of workers within the communist world. Since Germany was recovering from depopulation during the war and low birth rates afterward (and still is), East Germany welcomed their comrades from Vietnam and Cambodia to come and take up some crappy jobs. Not to be outdone, West Germany welcomed refugees from the conflicts in SE Asia in the 1970's. Unfortunately, the streets were so clogged with people that all the food lines were extremely long, and becoming impatient, I left the area where the festival was in search of food, and found some pretty tasty Käsespätzle, one of my favorite dishes from Southern Germany. The best way to describe Käsespätzle is if dumplings and macaroni and cheese had a baby, with fried onions. As you can imagine, it has a similar effect to eating pancakes or biscuits, with the food reforming in your stomach as a brick that induces sleep. I'm getting hungry and tired just thinking about it.


I will leave you with a funny picture of a couch I saw on the street near my building. The people who put it out there were kind enough to post a warning, "Do not take, has been marked by the cat." I then wondered if the lost cat on the sign above was the same as the one that marked the couch.

Try To Not Crap Your Pants

First off, part of this blog is a recreation of a blog that failed to post a couple weeks ago, and whose contents I failed to save. I know the postings have been a little infrequent this month, and that is partly why.

An add for  "Stromberg" the German version of "The Office"
(it is actually very funny, but the humor is much darker)

A good place for an ambush, or a day at the park

Going in reverse order, I noticed for the first time a couple weeks ago that the playground around the corner of our building which we frequent is called Teutoburger Platz. In case your classical history is a little rusty, I will refresh your memory on the fate of the Roman general Varus and the XII, XIII, and XIX Legions in the Teutoburg forest. Having been sent from Rome to pacify the newly (and presumptuously) declared province of Germania in 9 CE, Varus was leading his force of approximately 30,000 men to their Winter camp through the Teutoburg Forest, guided by a German known to the Romans as Arminius and to the Germans as Hermann (the battle is known as Hermannsschlacht or "Hermann's Battle" in German). Hermann had been given up as a hostage to the Romans as a boy, an unforgivable act of submission to the hated Romans whose urban living and proud ways irreparably offended the Germans' Gods and way of life. Now he sought to reclaim his honor by leading the Romans into a trap. Although Varus' legions were veterans, they were used to fighting in the open country of the Mediterranean and were unfamiliar with the Germans' style of battle. Making their way through the forest in a long line instead of in order of battle, the Romans soon found themselves being attacked on all sides by an alliance of German tribes, and began to crap their pants. Fighting their way through the barrage of javelins and sustaining heavy losses through me lee, the remaining Romans made a final stand in a small clearing where they were summarily crushed. With defeat imminent, Varus and the other generals fell on their swords in the Roman equivalent of Seppuku. Years later, another Roman army on a punitive expedition found thousands upon thousands of skulls nailed to trees and neat piles of bones. It was perhaps the greatest military disaster in Roman history, resulting in the famous quote from Emperor Augustus, "Varus, give me back my legions!" The defeat was so devastating, that the Romans never reused the legion numbers, an almost singular event in their history. For the Germans, it is an eternal victory representing resistance to foreign invasion by the mongrel slaves of a corrupt and decadent empire. When this park was built in the late 19th century, the Germans felt it was an appropriate name for a playground for the descendants of Hermann, perhaps because the clearing in the middle of the park is surrounded by wooded, meandering paths, or perhaps because Wagnerian operas were all the rage.


In a more recent example of people crapping in their pants, there has been an outbreak of E. coli here affecting lettuce, cucumbers, and other vegetables. It is a similar outbreak to the one we had in the US a couple of years ago, that I remember affected mostly spinach. Thus is a particularly violent strain which has actually caused some deaths due to dehydration. It is a frustrating episode for Germany, which has some of the highest food quality standards in the world, as well as the oldest food purity laws, dating from the 16th century, for beer, of course. Understandably, there haven't been too many vegetables on the menu at the von Heynitz household this week. 


Now moving on to less fecal topics...


A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of being invited to a BBQ, Grillenparty, for a German girl who I know through a weekly language exchange night I go to at a bar in Kreuzberg. It was a beautiful Saturday in Volkspark, one of the largest in Berlin. I loaded up my back pack with beers and after a short tram ride I was meandering through the crowded park looking for the group. I found Grillenpartys to be pretty much like American BBQ's: lots of meat, beers, dogs, kids, and no one remembered to bring a lighter, although I had the foresight to grab a box of matches from the fireplace before heading out the door. The Americans save the day once again, haha. 


Aside from getting to practice my German for many hours, I got to enjoy some leisure activities. To the right is a common sight on American college campuses, slack-lining. A sport for people who want to practice for joining the circus, just in case they graduate and find their degree makes them about as useful as a one-legged man at an ass-kicking party. The slack line is really just a long ratchet-strap used for tying down loads in trucks and trailers, but at a ridiculously inflated price. 



We situated ourselves right next to the Kletterstein or climbing rock in Volkspark. There were also sand volleyball courts nearby that were thankfully packed, since everyone assumes, because I am from Southern California, that I am remotely competent at volleyball. Anyway, some of the Germans had special climbing shoes and fanny packs with chalk in them, while I just scrambled up the thing with my tennis shoes. As you can see, it is not a difficult task; there is a shirtless German with his shoes and chalk dangling off the side, while two children survey from up top, having already climbed up using the monkey like climbing-skill being very young affords a person. 


As the sun went down we packed up our things to reconvene at a cocktail bar. I went along with the birthday girl and we made a stop at her friend's apartment to drop some things off. We were in the Friedrichschain area of former East Berlin, and she lived in a predictably bland looking commie apartment building that actually was pretty well designed on the inside. There we found her boyfriend and his buddies drinking beer and playing video games on a guys-night-in, again, very much like in the US. After our short stop we headed to the bar, which was oddly owned by Turks, who are mostly Muslim and therefore don't drink. Turks are, however, among the most moderate practitioners of Islam and have even gone so far as to ban traditional Muslim head-coverings for their women as they try to become part of the EU. They did make a pretty good Mai Tai, though certainly it was no Billy's at the Beach.


The weather continues to wax and wane, which is unsual for Berlin where the weather is typically more consistent. In some ways it has reminded me what the Springis like in the Pacific Northwest, where it will change from Sunny and clear to wind and rain several times a day. In other ways it's a bit more like Texas, going from stifling humidity to roaring thunderstorms that leave you soaked to the bone if you get caught out in the rain. It makes deciding what to dress the children (and myself) in before going out a real challenge, and I've had to dash to the U-bahn station with the carriage to avoid a very unpleasant subway ride with two wet and pissed off children. 


Once again, sorry for the patchy blog posts this month and thank you to everyone for your support, I appreciate your feedback.


Tschüss!