This is why I was at work late tonight

I'll laugh at a lot of things. I smiled when my boss turned her laptop around and showed this clip to everyone at a meeting late this afternoon. But everyone else pretty much lost their sh*t. Rather than finishing the meeting so we could go home everyone loaded up YouTube so they could watch this again. And again. And then they watched the various derivatives. For 20 minutes. Even people who were participating in the meeting via phone got into the action. It was brutal. By the time we got down to bidness it was 5:30. Not that I had anything to do.

(Sadly, I didn't. I just hate missing the last express bus to my neighborhood.)

(Oh, and this is clearly a better video than the original.)

The rest of Munich

Here's the (not so brief) summary of the rest of my Saturday:

First, some remainders from the morning. I was pretty pleased with myself in terms of looking young when the tour guide offered to give me the student rate. I was talking with the college girls on the tour, and was kind of hoping to tag along with them for the day... they seemed fun, interested in drinking beer, and they spoke English. At some point during the tour I mentioned that the last time I had been in Munich they were still using Deutsch marks. The girls asked what marks were. When I had to explain it was the currency in use in 1999 they told me they were 12 years old in 1999.

We didn't hang out much after that.

Anyways, the rest of the day was beer: a quiet beer in the English Gardens, and then a beer tour (same guide as the morning). The tour was pretty good... the guide took us to 4 places, offered up advice on the better beers at each place, talking about the history of beer in Germany (did you know wheat beers exist because barley prices got to high?), etc. The tour group was a bunch of Brazilians who didn't actually seem to enjoy beer, an Australian who spent the winter as a ski instructor in Austria, two Scottish kids and their mom, a couple of old American dudes from Albany (they didn't know Pat), and the worst American in Europe (more on him in another post).

Sadly, there aren't a lot of great stories from the evening that don't involve the awful American. By the time we got to Hofbrauhaus (the most famous beer hall in Europe) it was 11:00 and I was staring a 6am wakeup call in the fact, so after 1 liter of the lager I called it quits. Turns out that Hofbrau closes at midnight, which I didn't know before.

Wow. This blog post kind of turned into nothing. I realized that I put most of the stories on Flickr.

Jet lag

So this is roughly the timeline of yesterday:

• Midnight, Germany: get home from beer gardens, confuse girl at front desk by requesting two wake up calls, go to sleep
• 6am Germany, receive wake up call #1
• 6:15am: receive wake up call #2. This means that I get up at 9:15pm Seattle time on Saturday night, after having gone to sleep at midnight Germany time. I got up before I went to sleep.

Obviously, this blew my mind when I could finally do that math (somewhere over Greenland). As my picture below indicates, I'm toast right now, so you'll have to wait another day for my final thoughts on Germany.

Here are the photos... explanations and stories to come:

Sober blogging

It's a little past 1:00 here in Munich... no beers as of yet, and given the paucity of internet cafes near beer gardens, I can't promise a post-beer blog post. You never know, but that's the way it looks now.

I went on a walking tour this morning, and have signed up for a beer tour this evening (they claim it's not a tour to get drunk, although it may happen... we'll see). Anyways, I'm not convinced that I've never been in Munich before. Some of the buildings are familiar, but most of them aren't. I spent 3 days here in 1999, and none of the city looks familiar. It's entirely possible that the city has changed in 8 years, but the other, more plausible, explanation is that I was way drunker than I thought in 1999. The tour I took then was on bikes, and it stopped at two beer gardens, and it was just a mess. If I learned anything it was to not be surprised by naked dudes in the English Gardens. But Munich history? Nothing.

Hopefully what I learned today will stick, as the city actually has a pretty interesting past.

Other thoughts:

1. The Mike's Bike Tour for this morning was cancelled because the tour guide didn't show up. I've got to believe this happens all the time... those guys are drunks.
2. There were four American college students studying in Vienna on my tour. It just kills me that I didn't study abroad... they pretty much spend every weekend in another cool city in Europe. Occasionally they study, but not really. Mainly they go to cool cities, party, and try to meet a scruffy multilingual tourguide to bring home to the midwest (that's what the four girls were doing today).
3. Coolest thing I've seen today: Porsche Carerra GT. Me and another guy on the tour nearly lost the group because we saw it and spent 10 minutes staring and taking pictures. Didn't recognize the guy driving it, but he was almost certainly famous.
4. I'm going to get a sunburn today. I'm kind of upset by that, but then again, I'm going to the palest city on the west coast, so it'll be nice to have the color.

Lack of paranoia

Day 5: cold shower. My wake up call actually ocurred today, but that doesn't make up for cold water. Brutal. Germany, fix this.

Last night my coworker and I went downtown to have dinner and walk around Marienplatz and see the city at night. I have some great photos (I actually figured out that not using the flash and holding very still allows good night shots to be taken) that will be uploaded some time after I get back to Seattle. My coworker hasn't traveled in many European cities and was awestruck at the Rathaus and other buildings, which, while definitely neat looking, pale in comparison to some of the cathedrals and castles I've seen elsewhere.

Anyways, we meandered along for about an hour and I realized how much more relaxed I was relative to my trip to Europe post-college. When I was traveling back then I remember consciously avoiding groups of people or street performers, as I was confident they would steal my passport and potentially my kidneys. I was maniacal about keeping my passport on me at all times, even maybe when showering. Getting cash out of an ATM was a three man operation, one getting cash, one bodyguard, and one remote lookout. But last night when I needed cash I just walked up to an ATM, put in my card, go the cash... easy as pie. No peering over the shoulder.

Obviously Munich isn't as crowded now as the cities I saw in the summer, but I'm wondering why I'm so much more comfortable. I'm somewhat shameless about my inability to speak or read German (I just spent 7 hours hosting a business meeting between two sets of Germans who spoke only in English, so I guess it isn't a big deal). Maybe its because I'm not traveling siege style.

I'll probably have one more German post, and I'll try and make it tomorrow after I've spent some time at the beer gardens (the forecast for Munich is just unbelievable).

The beauty of an open window

One of the commonalities between the two office buildings I've worked in Germany this week is that both had windows that opened. Neither building is especially different from office buildings in the US, but it's amazing how much more pleasant the atmosphere is when there is background noise and fresh air circulating. I know that part of the reason for this is the lack of air conditioning, but it's a great feature that should be used more often.

Other German things that I like: cheap beer, small cars, motion sensor lights in hotels, self-adjusting flush duration on toilets, pretzels as a bread
Other German things I don't like: showers that discourage being in the shower, no alarm clock in hotel rooms, carbonated water

Germany update

My body is completely wigged out by the time change. I was in great shape on Tuesday, but then had a restless night's sleep on Wednesday and spent most of yesterday in a haze. Luckily it was my turn to drive, so I got to drive through this haze to Munich from Regensburg. The trip went fine, but it's scary how fast closing speeds are on the Autobahn. I was averaging 140-150 kph (84-90 mph), which seemed pretty quick. Still, every now and then I'd be passing someone and I'd look up and there would be a Mercedes sedan just filling my rear view mirror, obviously annoyed that he had to slow down from 200 kph.

I have some stories that will be good to share, but probably off the blog, as they involve my traveling companion/co-worker and how annoying he is.

That said, the "pork/beer/dumpling/sauerkraut" diet is working out fantastically. I couldn't be happier about what I'm eating.

100mph on the Autobahn on 2 hours sleep? You guys play hoops for money?

So the trip is over. I'm in my hotel room in Regensburg, which looks like an amazingly pleasant place in the Bavarian countryside. Some old churches (this is home to Benedict XVI, or something like that). A nice university. Lots of people on bikes. I'm sure it would be even better if I knew where I was. My travelling companion forgot the map, so we cruised around for 30 minutes before finding the hotel. I had to translate a bus map into directions. In German. I'm a genius.

Anyways, if you rent a car in Munich, don't choose Dollar, as the cars aren't onsite. As far as I can tell, they may not actually be in Germany either. After figuring that out we got the car and roared off to Regensburg. Paul kept saying how he wasn't a fast driver, and then would say something like "Wow, I'm going 100". He wasn't (he's not good with the mph/kph deal), but we were still going fast, and he's only had slightly more sleep than me. He also drove a decent way down a one way road (the wrong way), but we're all good now. I was supposedly navigating and missed the first two turns, which were actually highways. My readership should know that I don't get lost on the road. Unless it is in Venice after 8 bottles of wine.

There really aren't going to be any more stories, at least now. I'm going to sleep (it's 8pm), will work tomorrow, hopefully see Regensburg tomorrow evening. That said, German radio is fascinating. As is the "GPS" system in our car. It won't let you program destination, but it will tell you what street you are on and your lat/long coordinates. Which, when you are lost in a German city is incredibly useless information.

In Munich, not sure what's going on

First, the kezboards in Germanz are reallz screwed up, so apologies in advance.

I've now been hanging out in the Munich airport for 3 hours, pushing me past the 24 hours without sleep mark. I'm kind of starting to hallucinate, or at least I was an hour ago. I attempted to fix that situation by walking outside (the Munich airport has a reallz nice glass roof covered courtyard inbetween terminals) and getting some fresh air. However, I may have countered any benefit from the fresh air by sitting and having a late lunch, with a half liter of weissbrau, at Airbrau, the Munich airports own brewpub. And brewery. Iäm not kidding. They play a lot of Phil Collins.

)Seriouslz, this keyboard is a joke. It onlz makes my current state of mind all the harder to deal with).

Anywho, not too much else to report. I thought there was a really trippy Burger King statue, but it turns out to be some sort of Bavarian mascot. I have a picture of myself crossing the 24 hour mark (it happens to be in the bathroom), which isnät as bad as it could be.

The last time I was in Germany was 1999, and obviously much has changed since then. However, I distinctly remember being told not to bring or wear any denim for fear of looking like and American tourist (since the backpack never gave it away). Well, we (i.e. America) seem to have won that war. Everyone is wearing jeans. Old, young, it doesn't matter... they are all happily walking around in Levi Strauss. I feel out of place with khakis (don't worry... I brought two pairs of jeans).

Also, I think every American who has an issue with multilingual education needs to come to Europe alone and see how many people can and are willing to speak English. It's quite impressive... I bought a little German phrasebook, but no one has given me a problem when speaking English (except the girls trying to hawk me an Amex gold card). My lack of sleep has somehow activated the part of mz brain that remembers Spanish, and it's all I can do to not throw "La cuenta, por favor" out when asking for the check.

Lastly, the Munich airport is really quite nice, but it lacks the chaos of Heathrow (or, for that matter, any American airport), which makes it kind of creepy. Like the baggage claim area. At National Airport the baggage claim area is kind of like a rugby scrum. But here, people come in, get their bags, and leave. No big deal. Weird.

Well, hopefullz this is my last blog before sleep. My co-worker should arrive within the hour, then we get our car and head to Regensburg. Maybe more from there tomorrow.

Adios.