Fröhliche Weihnachten

Merry Christmas all.

Finally, a white Christmas, but just barely.

The weather here has been cold the past couple of weeks, often with fog rolling in during the night that in turn freezes and turns everything a beautiful white. There hasn't been much snow, only the occasional dusting.

I spent my Christmas here in the Studentenstadt with a half dozen other people from my program, along with an assortment of friends, parents, and neighbors. My tradition of watching "A Christmas Story" several times in the days surrounding Christmas, and at least twice on, remains unbroken thanks to the power of the internet. I am used to having a celebration on Christmas Eve, so I put on a little party and made my great-grandmother's famed beef stew. A few of my neighbors from eastern Europe joined us, as well as one guy in the program's brother who was visiting. We filled ourselves with hearty stew and drank and carried on, making sure our Christmas morning breakfast would be extra quiet and followed by a nap. The next night was pretty much a repeat but with a pot luck dinner with green-bean casserole, corn meal stuffing, chicken (turkey's are hard to come by here), my stew, bread and brie, and some dark Tobellerone chocolate mousse. It was great. One girl in our program's mom came to visit her and they joined us for dinner. I wish I could say that we were on better behavior that night for her mother, but that would make me a liar. We made Feuerzangenbowle after our meal. It is a hot punch with Glühwein, amaretto, orange, spices, and Stroh, which is a 160 proof Austrian rum. You have a little mountain of sugar cubes suspended over the pot (we piled them on a cheese grater) that you then soak with the rum as you pour it into the punch, and then light. The molten sugar in turn drips into the pot. It is amazing, and often if you get it on the street it comes in a clay cup with a little thing sticking out on the side for your sugar cube which they then light for you, a good way of keeping one's drink warm.

The breweries here also put out "Festbier" for the holiday season, not to be confused with "Winterbier" which was invented for the holy season of Lent when people cannot eat, so they make a heavy, filling, and potent beer. Makes sense to me!

The break has been lazy and sleepy so far, as it should be. I am still working out some travel plans with friends for our break which goes until the 6th of January. I have a doctor's appointment on the 2nd, which is inconvenient but that's just tough. My hearing is continuing to improve, but last week when I went in to see the doctor I was informed that there was a small hole in the new tissue over my ear drum, but that it should heal on it's own. Nonetheless, it is very upsetting news to someone who has been plagued by ear problems and pain since August. Having to constantly be mindful and careful of something I cannot and never will see is making me neurotic and generally pissed off, and I don't know what I'll do if I have to get another ear surgery. The thought of having to do it all over again makes me sick. I went just about insane with that bloody gauze in my ear for weeks on end, not to mention being deaf.

I will be spending my New Year's here in Munich, which is supposed to have a great "Silvester" celebration. We talked about going to Berlin, whose Brandenburg Gate celebration is one of the best in the world, but decided against it for a less crowded celebration with a warm bed a 20 minute subway ride away.

Every Christmas season reminds me of singing in the choir at St. Andrew's and practicing all those songs in time for the big Christmas Eve services; I still love Christmas carols. I always enjoy listening to this Sinatra/Crosby holiday radio broadcast that we've listened to at this time of year for as long as I can remember. It must be from the Christmas of 43 or 44, because there is a point at which Bing Crosby plugs for War Bonds, "You know the best Christmas present money can buy are still those ever-loving War Bonds. When you give a War Bond your giving yourself a stake in the future of free men everywhere. When you buy a War Bond you're giving the men on every fighting front the gift that they want most; the assurance that the folks back home know that the toughest battles are yet to be won. Your War Bond is actually just a loan and the sacrifices that our boys make are offered as a gift because they are fighting for a day when Christmas will once again dawn on a world of peace. Let's let them know we're behind them with everything we've got." Hearing that I thought on it rather hard before I went to bed on Christmas Eve. What right do I have to miss home, to feel homesick on Christmas? Others my age, mostly poorer, less educated, and without opportunities for cushy study abroad programs are spending their holidays in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Their year abroad is slightly different from mine. They don't get beef stew and Feuerzangenbowle, they get dehydrated Meals Ready to Eat, water bitter with the taste iodine capsules, and are without so much as the assurance that they will see the sun set on their Christmas Day. It doesn't matter whether they are heroes combating terrorism or imperialist pawns pursuing the goals of our corporations; they are picking up the slack, shouldering the weight of all our fat American asses, and they are there so I don't have to be. That is wrong. Americans are cowards for sending their poor to die off like we do, cowards. Meanwhile those of us with the biggest stake in the future of the country, even if only its economic prosperity, hide behind our moral luxury of debating the worthiness of the cause; fooling ourselves into thinking it will somehow clean our bloody hands and atone us of our sins. Some poor kid shouldn't get killed for me just because he needs money for college. Furthermore, his tour of duty shouldn't be extended because there aren't enough other poor kids joining up to meet the demand. By all rights, I should be in Iraq, and so should the sons of every family that lets others less fortunate send their kids off to die in our stead.

My Ear Medicine: Glühwein

It is Christmas time in Deutschland and all I want for Christmas is for my ear debacle to be done and over with, dead, crushed up into dust, buried in concrete. The good news is that my ear is healing well and I finally got the last of the gauze taken from my ear Thursday, which has been a great relief to a constant irritant. Showering will be difficult for the next month, as I have to tape up my ear and stuff it with cotton to keep water out of it, which becomes quite time consuming. It is just another one of those little daily battles which annoy rather than actually disrupt.

Everywhere in Germany are these "Christkindlemarkts" which are like out door Christmas markets with a lot of kitsch. While at these Christkindlesmarkts you are never more than 30 feet away from a Glühwein stand. Glühwein is a hot-spiced wine which often has a shot of spiced rum or amaretto which allows for people to endure the December cold and spend lots of time shopping. My program had a voluntary excursion to Augsburg last weekend for the 1st of the month, when the Christkindlesmarkts begin. Augsburg is the second oldest city in Germany, behind Trier, and was home to the powerful Fugger banking family. The Fuggers were close with the Hapsburgs, rulers of Austria for 600 years. The Fuggers established the world's first socialized welfare system there, which they funded entirely. In 1516 they built a small city within a city, capable of housing a couple hundred people. It has it's own walls and gates, which are still closed for it's inhabitants (it is still actively used) at the ringing of ten every night. There are no keys or locks for the apartments, just a lever to open the door and the gates guarding from the outside. Any family could qualify as long as they were very poor, catholic, residents of the City of Augsburg, and without a criminal record.

The Fuggers also contributed a great amount of money when the new Rathaus (city hall) was built in 1620; its Golden Hall which is pictured above, is a beautiful mix of gold and dark hardwoods. While in the Golden Hall we saw musicians practicing, and later there was a some performance that was put on from the windows and balcony of the Rathaus. At 6 all the lights in the Christkindlesmarkt were turned off and the Rathaus was illuminated. The windows were filled with children dressed as angels with curly golden wigs and wings. Then in the main windows were women in more elaborate angel costumes with triumphant wings and golden clothing. On the balcony were the 5 main angels pretending to play large mock instruments as the music was being played inside (organ, horn, harp, etc.). It greatly resembled a coo-coo clock and was a little puzzling. In about ten minutes it was all over and the kitsch shopping resumed.


I saw a statistic here that said the average German will eat something like 18 kilograms of chocolate over the holiday season, which is nearly 40 pounds of chocolate. I believe it, they've got chocolate everywhere here, good chocolate, and pretty cheap too. I think my favorite is Ritter Sport, but mainly because of their slogan: Quadratic. Practical. Good. That's Germany personified as a candy bar. Advent calenders here are also huge, some literally are and have a couple pounds of candy in them. Munich is looking very festive now, and I look forward to visiting the medieval Christkindlesmarkt this week. Last week was St. Niklaustag or Santa Clause Day as I like to call it. My house had a little party and gift exchange, but we played this weird game with dice. All the presents are in the middle and if you roll a certain number you take a present, open a present you already have, or exchange presents with someone. It becomes pretty funny and interesting but starts to drag on. We had nearly 10 liters of Glühwein with a couple of bottles of amaretto for the party, so by the end of the little gift exchange everyone had a lot of the holiday spirit in them and it turned into a pretty debacherous night of international holiday mayhem. The dynamic of so many nationalities interacting with each other at a Christmas party was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. The German guys in the house are funny enough, and of course they break out the accordion and start singing this really boisterous song they always sing about a guy hiking in the mountains. Then the group of girls from the Ukraine, Moldovia, and Georgia (the country) start getting really silly and talking up a storm in their various crazy Slavic languages. The Vietnamese guy who doesn't hang out with the other Asians because they're Chinese starts getting a little nutty and the saucy Spanish girl gets even saucier. Now to make it a good party all you have to do is throw in some Americans, who everyone knows are loud, drunk, obnoxious, wasteful, and "overly friendly" as the Germans describe us.

School continues on as it will. Every time I got to a class at the University I understand a little more, which is encouraging for once. I'm hoping for a white Christmas, just like the kind I've never known; anything is better than the gray muddy weather we've been having. I now have less than two weeks of class left before my break and I'm still trying to figure out what I am going to do with my time.

Between Salzburg and Ear Surgery

Some other people from the program and I were able to dance around the railroad strike and make a day trip to historic Salzburg, Austria. By buying group tickets, our day's travel ended up coming out to about eight Euros a piece; we did have to take a 40 minute bus ride to change trains, but we're going for cost and not comfort.

It was a clear, cold day and snow still clung to the streets and roof tops of the city. Dürer is to Nürnberg what Mozart is to Salzburg; and they don't let you forget where their artistic heroes hail from. We took a nice stroll through the city, making our way to the old part of the city. We saw a few Sound of Music sights, including the well manicured Barok garden they ran through with its neat rows of trees. After crossing the winter we got some traditional Salzburg sausage. Every town has its own little take on the basic sausage and roll. Different rolls, sausages, mustards, and whatever they'll put on there. The Germans have some pretty unbelievably goos mustard here, which they call Zempf. It was pretty cold, but thankfully this time of year the Glühwein is out; a hot spiced wine served around the holidays. It was a real life saver. After the meal I headed up to the great fortress that sits atop a ridge which dominates the city. The fortress was first constructed nearly 1,000 years ago at the direction of the local bishop, to help secure the city from attack. It has never been taken by force, and after making the hike up to it I can understand why. There were fat mid-westerners faling to the wayside as I charged the keep. It was a fascinating place, housing a museum not only of the fortress, but also of some local Austrian military units and their achievements. As the sun came down I headed back to the city to visit the many churches of the city. Seeing styles develop from Romanesque, to Gothic, Barok, and Classical was really wonderful. It was nice to get a trip in before my ear operation.

First of all, there is a myth that needs clarifying. Everyone does not speak English. Most Everyone has learned English, however for most that was years ago and they don't really use it much. This is especially true of people in the medical profession. My first experience staying in the hospital and all the forms, and most of the spoken word, was in German. I kept worrying that A) the anesthesiologist would accidentally kill me, or B) that I would wake up with breast implants or one less kidney or something. I had to get up very early in the morning to get there, and upon arrival the nurse held out a large white pill for me and said something I didn't understand, to which responded "you take the tranquilizer, yes?" You bet. I was very cooperative when they came for me. They made small talk with me, gave me some gas and stuck me; that was all she wrote. Woke up some hours later with my head all wrapped up. I spent most of the day sleeping in a pleasant pain-killer induced state. The day after, as days after always seem to be, was not so pleasant. It was Thanksgiving. No football, no TV special airings or James Bond marathons. It wasn't Thanksgiving in München, it was just Thursday. My dinner consisted of a cold chicken leg and some potato salad with my Turkish roommate, with whom I could only communicate in German. The third person in the room was on old man recovery from surgery, and he was pretty pleasantly medicated himself. The final slap on the face was when the families of both the other patients in the room came to visit them. Just kick me while I'm down. It was so ridiculous I started to laugh; it was like an episode of Boy Meets World where Corey learns the value of family after spending Thanksgiving in a truck stop somewhere. I was worried I wouldn't be able to go until Saturday, but thank God they let me go around 10 Friday morning. Now my left ear is stuffed with gauze and some kind of gel until Thursday, when I get it taken out and see if the surgery was a success, meaning that the new patch of tissue is healing onto the drum and has not been torn or punctured. Sometimes it can be painful from the pressure build up but it is mostly just irritating to have something in your ear all the time and you can't do anything about it. I can't lift anything or exercise for three weeks, for fear of the muscle in the ear puncturing the new tissue. I also can't handle going anywhere loud for a few weeks, I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey yesterday and my ear was ringing nearly all day. So I guess I'll be having a pretty quiet, literally, few weeks coming up here as I try and hope and pray that my ear recovers and I don't have to get another surgery.

I'm going to try going back to class tomorrow, but I fear that may combination of deafness and noise sensitivity will make it a tough week. Hopefully the weather will allow me to go on some walks in the English Gardens these coming weeks, otherwise I'll be trapped indoors without means of exercise for a while.

First Snow and Nowhere to Go

This week is the first time the snow has stuck here in Munich. Last Winter was very mild, and it seems as though we're in for a good one this year. The image on the left is of my building, and the image on the right is a view from my window. It's very pretty, but I am certainly not used to having to trudge around in the snow. At least it doesn't leave you damp and muddy like the rain does. Nonetheless, the pleasant weather is gone; the long winter cold is here. The kids in the nursery in front of my building don't seem to mind. They're playing outside of my window as I write. There are two little boys, about 3 and 4 years old, in red snow jackets and wool hats. They are trying to crack the ice of a frozen over puddle, first with their shoes, but have evolved and are now hitting it with sticks.

I had my pre-surgery physical exam this week. A little blood, urine, and an EKG later and I'm good to go. The Fletcher low blood pressure seems to be holding true, which continues to astonish me considering how chronically stressed I am. I've gotten everything sorted with my professors, so there shouldn't be any problems, but there will be because God will invariably get bored and want to mess with me, auf Deutsch. My surgery is on the 21st, which means I'll be spending my Thanksgiving in a hospital bed, with a big bandage around my head that will make me look like Frosty the Snowman. Is it too much to hope that they will have the Turkey Day football games on?

I was going to do a little overnight trip this weekend before my surgery, maybe go to Garmisch or Innsbruck. However, the German railroad workers have gone on strike, which they rarely do unlike in other European countries, so I'm stranded. Maybe I'll go on a brewery tour instead. There is a fantastic brewing school not too far from Munich, and it's a five-year degree here. Seems a little excessive considering that German purity laws only allow 3 ingredients in beer, those being water, malt, and hops (unless it's wheat beer).

Otherwise das München Leben is pretty unexciting. These days I rush from one building to another to keep out of the cold (it's about 25 outside right now). I come home, do some work, cook dinner, and watch a movie or something with friends. I'm so exhausted from speaking German all the time that I always take a nap, should the opportunity present itself.

The Blind Leading the Blind

Saturday was our big excursion to Nürnberg, and was a bit of a debacle from the beginning. We took a 9am train on a Saturday that was completely full. Thankfully I was able to stake out a nice bit of floor which I occupied for about 30 minutes, when at on of our stops I had to cede the space to someone in a wheel chair. Evicted, I traveled to the next car, able to find a patch of floor next to the bathroom that was free. Our limited room became all the more limited when two blind girls, one following the other, came in and decided to settle down. I was not the happiest camper this side of the Danube as I continued to suffer from the tyranny of the disabled, about which I could do nothing. I was able to enjoy the last 20 minutes of our 90 minute trip to Nürnberg in a seat; I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Upon arrival we were following our guides across the street and found ourselves on the street car tracks with trains coming in both directions and were nearly killed. We visited the Third Reich Museum, where the great Nazi arena's and other buildings were constructed. It was a thoroughly interesting museum, but as is typical with these excursions, we were limited to little more than an hour due to time constraints. We were late getting to lunch so we had to it on the go, in the rain, on our city tour. Nürnberg is a very old, historical city which takes great pride in it's most famous citizen, Albrecht Dürer. We went to visit a Gothic Cathedral there, and were surprised by the amount of police vehicles we were seeing. We knew there was a soccer match that day, but this seemed a little excessive. Soon we saw what all the fuss was about. Around 1,000 Turks holding an pro-war rally in front of our destination. It was an odd mix of flags, speeches, and techno-music. Seriously, one minute they're talking about 40 years of Kurdish terrorism, and the next they're dancing away. It's so good to know that something will finally be done about the one stable place in Iraq. We've already left the Kurds hanging once, to be gassed and strafed by Saddam's helicopters, to do it again would prove just how inept the US and western democracies in general are at pursuing any sort of long term foreign policy goals.

The city tour was followed by a quick visit to the Germanistik Museum, an art museum in Nürnberg. One very interesting thing we saw were these enormous doll houses. They were not designed to be play things for the children, but rather models of their home, down to the silverware. Apparently it is easier to show a model of your palatial home rather than to give your guests an exhausting tour of the cavernous place.

Overall it was a rainy, rushed day, and while I can say that I've seen Nürnberg, I can't say that I remember much of it. We were happy to get on the train and back to München, since everything bad seems to happen to us when were outside of the city. Alas, the train was delayed by 30 minutes when we were only 15 minutes outside of the city because of some work being done on the rails. At least we had seats but boy were we ready to get back to the Studentenstadt and have a beer.

This week has been more unseasonable rainy-coldness. I've had a busy week and had to scramble to put together a presentation that I though wasn't until next week. I was able to tackle it with some quick thinking and a California smile, though, whew!

Now some administrative stuff; I need to create a group email list so that every time I post a blog, I don't have to send out individual emails to the thousands of readers I have. If you could just email me, indicating that you would like to be on that list, I would appreciate it. This way you will always know when I new blog is posted, as I imagine the anticipation for each riveting installment is rather nerve-wracking.

The email address I will use to manage the blog is kkalanz@hotmail.com and all announcements will come from that email address.

Finally 21

Here is a picture from after my Rugby Game on Saturday, I am in the first row, second from the left.

The other Picture is of my friend Joe from Pittsburgh and I. Joe is a hell of an athlete, very fast with good ball handling skills.

On Monday I finally turned 21, a bit anti-climatic considering I'm in Germany, but a relief nonetheless. In Germany you can buy a beer at 16. In America you can go to Iraq at 18, 17 with permission from your parents, but you can't buy a beer until your 21, even if W were to write you a note himself. I'll give a kidney to anyone who can explain the logic behind that. My building has a party basement with a pretty good speaker system, a bar, refrigerators, and even a disco ball, so I threw a party. I was surprised at the turnout, not only from other Americans in the program but also from the few German friends I have made. Everything was just peachy until I had to throw out a guy who no one seemed to know. He was rather angry at his forced exile from the party, so he decided to kick in the glass outer door of my building when I refused to come out and fight him. This drunk German had taken his shirt off like an idiot indicating his serious intent. When he tried to flea the scene of his vandalism (which I find funny because the Vandals were a Germanic tribe that sacked Rome and "vandalized" it) I ran out and tackled him, restraining him with a knee in the ribs and a hand around the esophagus while we waited for the Polizei to come. It was an unpleasant near-end to the night, but these things happen and it seems to be taken care of now. The days leading up to my birthday were tough without my family and friends. I am still mourning the loss of my friend and fraternity brother Justin Bowlby, who we tragically lost this summer.

On my birthday we just happened to have a tour of the BMW factory, headquartered here in Munich. It was an unbelievable tour, with security as tight as the pentagon with strict prohibition of cameras and phones. We saw the cars go from pieces of sheet metal being stamped out to the cars being tested upon completion. The sight of all that German mechanical perfection was enough to turn on the guys in our group. I felt like I i needed either a cigarette or a cold shower afterward. Apparently they lost the order for my new 650i, so I'll have to wait 8-11 weeks, haha.

This past Saturday was my second Rugby game which we played against the other club in Munich. They are a better, more cohesive team, but most of them were young guys and could not compete with us physically, allowing us a dominating victory. I have two games left in the season and I am trying to put off my ear surgery until afterward. I am glad I have joined the Rugby team; it has allowed me to meet a lot people and it's been a while since I've tried a new sport.

All the leaves are turning and it is quite pretty outside. So far the fall has been unusually cold, and from what I here last winter was very mild, so I fear we are headed for a cold winter. I guess the winter brews from the local breweries will come in handy!

My classes so far have been very interesting. I have an art history class which is held entirely in Munich's museums and historical buildings. It's unbelievable. On Tuesday we examined portraiture on the late Renaissance, including a great one of Emperor Charles V by Vecellio. My two courses at the university have been more than just an education in religion and history, but also of the incredibly difficult Bavarian dialect. Whew!

This Saturday my program is making a trip to Nuernberg and the Third Reich Museum. I am sure it will be incredibly interesting, and I'll let you all know all about it.

A Cold Day at Dachau

Yesterday we went on an excursion to Dachau, the first and longest running of the Third Reich's Concentration Camps, or "Konzentrationlager". It was trying to snow the whole day but couldn't stick. It was a feezing cold morning and kept trying to snow, jusrt to stop again. It was nice to have food in my stomach and warm clothes, unlike the camp's inhabitants. You just get off a bus then walk down a gravel road through some beautiful trees wrapped in Fall colors. Then suddenly on the right there is a bridge going over a stream, beyond it is a gate with offices and a watch tower up top. On the gate are three words "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" meaning "work makes one free" and beyond is the huge assembly area. More than 30,000 people died there between 1933 and 1945. Dachau has a gas chamber and a crematorioum, although it was not an Extermination Camp and was primarily used for housing political opponents and the like, with only approx 20% of it's inmates being Jewish. Standing in the gas chamber was one of the eeriest things that I have ever experienced, I felt physically ill standing there in the presence of 30,000 souls screaming out in agony. It was horrible. Absolutely horrible. First you stand in the waiting room, then there is the "shower room," then the room where the bodies are stacked and picked through for gold teeth and such, then the room with the ovens where they used to hang individuals (usually trouble makers) from a beam in front of the oven where they were going to be incinerated. The only thing I can compare it to would be the torture chamber I saw in Regensberg. Even though it too was just a room, I could feel the suffering as though the empty rack before me had a herectic being stretched on it.

The buildings where the SS was housed and had it's offices at Dachau is now used by the Police and is a cause of some controversy, as are all things related to National Socialism. There is a continuous question of what to do with old buildings that were used by the Nazi's and are now associated with them, even if they weren't built by the Nazis. What are they to do, tear down the buildings, build new ones, and pretend nothing happened? Liberals in Germany are overly sensitive about the issue and would say yes, but most don't want to let the Nazis stigmatize everything in Germany. At the other end are Neo-Nazi groups and ultra-right nationalist parties, which are really just the old National Socialist Party (now illegal) in a different form. A week ago I a had drunken neo-Nazi tell me to fuck off and go back to America in the Subway station and flash me the Nazi salute, which is illegal along with displaying the Swatztika. There are always police stationed outside of synagouges and Jewish schools. I asked why, assuming they wanted to deter vandalism, but was told it was in case of "people throwing molotov cocktails or driving cars into the building." Wow.

The dream of National Socialism and the Third Reich is so much more real to me now that I am in Germany. They truly wanted to reshape the European world like only the Romans and Christians had done before. Places like Dachau were at the heart of it. Before the Germans started exterminating Jews and slavs at places like Auschwitz-Birkenau, they were cleansing their own population. The mentally and physically retarded, homosexuals, and deviants of all kinds were killed to purify the German race. There was no room for those people to slow down or hold back the "glory" of the new Reich. You never get bothered by Gypsies in Germany begging for money, because there are none, not any more.


Well moving on to other, less depressing things...

I finished my first week of classes. I am surprised to say that I will be taking both of the classes at the University that I checked out. So this semester I have my religion class "The Devil and Demons" and my History class "Ludwig of Bavaria" at the University, then my German grammar course at the Lewis & Clark Institute, and then an art history course that is held entirely in Munich's Museums. I saw Albrecht Duerer's portrait of Jesus on Friday, it was captivating. Im really excited about taking classes actually at the University; my religion class probably has 50 people in it, while my history class has only 15 or so. So for now my challenge is to understand the thick accents of my Bavarian professors, one of whom is one of the widest men I have ever seen, "the Fridge" comes to mind. Soon I am going to have to begin working on my big semester papers because I will need lots of time to write and especially edit them. If I have enough time I will try to find a job because it is so expensive here that I will have a hard time scraping together money to travel. It just so happens that I have a marketable skill, complete English fluency, which will hopefully make up for my German speaking limitations.

Das Semester Beginnt

Here is a picture of the main building at Luidwig-Maximillian University as well as is church.

Sorry for not updating last week, but I really didn't do anything worth writing about on my week off before the Wintersemester got going yesterday.

Well right now I'm signed up for six classes but I'm going to drop two once I decide what I want to take. I'm signed up for four classes at the Institute, my grammar class, a course on German culture, an Art History class which is held entirely at Munich's various fabulous museums, and a German Poetry class. Tommorrow I'm going to test out my first real course at LMU, a religion course on the Devil and Demons. Thursday I will have a class at LMU on Ludwig der Bayer, a Holy Roman Emperor in the 14th century; all the texts are in the original Latin and it's been about 4 years since I've taken a Latin course, so that one's still a definate maybe. I'd really like to take classes at the University this semester but I don't know if I'm up to the task. I'm far from confident in my German skills, or lack thereof.

Today was absolutely beautiful, so my buddy Leif and I sat out in the plaza in the heart the University on Ludwigstrasse for about 45 minutes while we waited for our poetry class to begin. Great people-watching; the reality of going to a 60,000 student university really sank in today--beautiful girls everywhere. The University is beautiful and built in the classical style as is all of Ludwigstrasse. Right next to the University is the Segestor, a triumphal arch, and at the other end of the street is the Feldherrnhalle, a Bavarian war memorial that was the sight of a bloody clash between the police and members of the Nazi party during the 1923 Putsch by Hitler.

Saturday was my first time playing Rugby. Normally it is played by teams of 15 for two 40 minute halves. Im playing the equivalent of Junior vasrity, and we played in a 10-man tournament in which we played 4 fast-paced 30 minute games . Unfortunately there were only 12 of us, two of whom eventually got injured or exhausted so we had to play entirely without substitutions. Nonetheless it was a great time. Every team we played was bigger with a deeper roster than our but we still played hard. I got a couple of nice hits on some big dudes, which made me feel better about having almost no idea what I'm doing out on the field. The day after a rugby game you feel like you've been in a brawl, which makes sense because rugby is essentially a big game of team smear-the-queer. My friend Joe and I are probably the youngest guys on the team, the average player is closer to 30 with plenty above it. It's kind of an odd dynamic being on a sports team with guys who come into the locker room in shirts and ties but I like it.

Well I've got my first class of the day in about 9 hours so I'd better make my way to bed, which in my tiny room is about 2 feet from where I'm sitting right now.

Update on the First Month

Servus Alle!

Hello Everyone!

I have created this blog to keep all my family and friends up to date on what is up with me in Munich. I'll try to update a couple times a week. This is not meant to be any great piece of art and my blogs will become progressively worse in terms of grammar and vocabulary as my German gets better and my English gets worse, which is already happening. NO editorial comments, please.

So I've been in Munich for a little over a month know and I'm not exactly sure where to start.

Well, I live in the Studentenstadt which litterally means "student city" auf Deutsch. It's a little old and run down, but doens't deserve the title of student ghetto that a professor of mine gave it. I live in a two story building with a common kitchen, bathroom, etc. I'm about a five miute walk from the U-Bahn (Subway) which will get me to class in about 10 minutes. Public transportation here is clean and very efficient. You can drink a beer on the U-Ubahn at 8am and no one will bat and eye, but god help you if you put your feet up on the seat.

Munich is a beautiful city that suffered significantly less damage in WWII than other cities in Germany. It is actual known as the free-city of Munich and you are hard pressed to see a Germna flag here, only the Munich and Bavarian flags. This is the last part of Germany to join the German Empire in the late 19th century. It was founded in the 12th century as a center of trade and beer production. It's name comes from the German word for Monk, refering to the Benedictine monastery that was first in this area. The symbol of the city is a monk with his arms stretched out with Bible in his left hand and making either a monastic symbol with his right, or holding a beer in it. No kidding, a Bible in one hand and a beer in another. There are monastic breweries in Bavaria that are nearly a 1,000 years old, including my personal favorite Augustiner founded in 1328 and they seem to have it down by now. It is still fiercely protective of it's individual culture and political independence which is considerable in comparison to states in the US and even the other states in Germany. Bavaria is predomintantly Roman Catholic and considerably more conservative than most other parts of Germany. They refer to north Germans as Prussians here. The Bavarian dialect is very strong, they don't even use a lot of the same words as other parts of Germany which makes transitioning here tough but it's not like it could have been easy.

I am studying at a program with Lewis & Clark college at the Luedwig-Maximillian University in Munich. I just finished my intensive Vorsemester at the institute and will begin my Wintersemester in about a week. I will be taking a class or two at the University (hopefully) and the rest at the program, and in 100% German. There are 26 people on the program here from all over the country, 3 of whom also go to the University of Puget Sound with me, whoot!

Unfortunately, an ear infection I had when I got here turned out to be very bad and destroyed much of the tissue protecting my outer ear, resulting in some hearing loss in my left ear. "Kaputt" is the term the doctor so sensitively used. This is typical of Germans, the German language is very concrete and literal, and the Croats don't pull any punches. I will have to get surgery sometime soon to graft some tissue back on there. The good news is that the middle ear is unaffected, which is most important, apparently. While the doctors here speak English well often times their assistants speak none at all, which can make examinations interesting with lots of pointing and mimicking.

So far I've seen some parts of Bavaria, including the famous Neuchwanstein castle, Sternberger See (which is a beautiful lake), a monastery in Austria (which makes great schnapps), a palace that was originally Louis XIV "The Sun King's" Austrian vacation home then a palace used by King Ludwig I of Bavaria, and Regensberg, which was originally a Roman outpost and fortress and is a wonderful ancient city.

I spent this last week in Berlin, which was incredibly interesting although I am very glad to be back in Munich. Berlin is dirty and in the still-poor east part of Germany and there are pan-handlers everywhere. And the beer is nowhere near as good as in Munich.

By far the greatest thing I have experienced in Germany is the Oktoberfest, known as die Wiesn in Bavaria. There are beautiful girls in dirndls eveywhere, guys in lederhosen (including myself), pretzels as big as steering wheels, bratwursts as long as your forearm, and of course liter glasses, known as Masses, full of delicious beer brewed just for die Wiesn, and its between 6-7% alcohol. It is the hugest, funnest, happiest, friendliest, singingest, three-week-long-drunken-mess I have ever seen. By 10 in the morning people are standing on their seats singing and Prosting (cheersing) eachother. Over 6 million people come to die Wiesn from around the world during the course of the Wiesn, plus the locals. There are adorable little kids everywhere in traditional bavarian clothing who seem immune to the near carnage around them. 500,000 liters of beer were drunk in the first weekend. It is surprisingly orderly considering the enourmous size of the crowds and the level of intoxication. And yes it is true that a little sweet old German lady can drink most Americans under that table, they start drinking at 6 here with what is basically beer and a little sprite. I'm proud to say that I never got sick, robbed, or arrested at, or as a result of the Wiesn.

Well that's it for now. That should give you a good idea of what's going on over here and I'll be sure to post in a ocuple of days.