And a Happy New Beer!

New Year's Eve greetings to all! Tonight is the time of festivities celebrating the coming of a new year and new beginnings. I can't say I'll be partying a lot tonight due to the cold and wet weather here in Munich, but then, isn't having a beer for breakfast a party in and of itself?

Remember to think of a cool resolution for the new year. I'll have to think about mine for a while. Time's running out here at the internet cafe at the moment. But I'll probably be back here later. It's open until 2am tonight. Doesn't that sound like a blast of a New Year's party? I'm such a geek. To all of you who are going out tonight, be safe and have fun! Oh, and remember to toast your long lost friend who's freezing in Bavaria!

Did I say death camps? I meant happy camps.

All kidding and South Park references aside, today we took a train out to Dachau. An unbelievably moving experience. On approach to the concentration camp, it was surprising to see that there is a nice little town right next door. Most of the people in the town either didn't know the extent of the brutalities going on at the camp or they were too scared to acknowledge it. It certainly didn't help that most of the information came from a bunch of propaganda.

The SS made it very deceiving, only giving the German community the information they wanted them to know. I was disgusted to find out that they even gave people tours of the concentration camp, which were of course diligently orchestrated to show only the people who were the healthiest and had the most stereotypical physical attributes of the "inferior" races, such as the supposedly big nose of the Jewish "race."

They even went so far as to describe the wonderful recreational activities for the prisoners: swimming in the camp pool (actually a huge pond of filthy water and fluids that would have made anyone sick who entered it) or playing music (the SS did play, but any prisoners writing songs or poetry could be severely punished or killed). Imagine the prisoners' intense frustration at being unable to communicate the real horrors of life in the camp, while the SS made sure it seem like Dachau was just a work camp where prisoners, enemies of the state, would be educated in the work ethic while doing a service to the country with the prisoner's help (slave labor) in industry and repair work.

When the public did finally realize the truth of the attrocities taking place at the camp, they were horrified--I can't imagine living there and knowing that your town is associated with such a violent history.

The chilly evening air and snow lining the ground helped add to the bleak effect of the camp. There was A LOT of information to absorb there, but it helped that most of it had English translations. It was a good history lesson, tracing the beginnings of the Nazi party, Hitler's rise to power, and the concentration camp system. By far the hardest part was touring through the crematorium.

The gas chamber there at Dachau was never used, but it didn't prevent me from feeling really creeped out walking through the room with those vents in the floor and ceiling. I can't believe they had the dark humor to put the label "Bath house" above the vaulted door. And seeing the ovens...that was almost more than I could handle. As it was, I took a picture and got out of there, walking through the room where they used to store the bodies before they burned them. Yeah, it was a very sobering experience.

One of the most striking things about it was the how it looked from the outside. I expected a stoic, industrial looking structure, cold and impersonal. What I saw was a pleasant looking brick building, with terracota shingles, and a big cheery chimney. It made me feel sick just thinking about the sort of mentality it would take to build such a structure and then make it look homey. I am glad I went though--seeing all of it made the Holocaust that much more real to me. And the memorial site at Dachau is very well done, nothing touristy about it.

Tomorrow Jenny and I are probably going to check out the Science and Techonology Museum here--it's supposed to be Smithsonian-quality, and sounds like a good way to spend our Monday, when many sites are closed here for cleaning and maintenance. Tuesday we're likely heading to Füssen to see the fairy-tale castles of "Mad" King Ludwig II. I'm looking forward to that trip--it will take most of a day with the 2 hour train ride, but from what I've heard and seen, it will be worth it.

We still haven't had beer, sauerkraut or sausage since we arrived, but we have had our first pretzel. It was okay, but we've come across one that look tastier, so I'm sure we'll try some other ones. We also saw a man in liderhosen in the subway. I'm sure there will be all sorts of German experiences to share with you by the time we leave. I'll keep you posted :)

Gutentag, darling, gutentag

München, otherwise known as Munich, has become our new home for the next few days. After an exhausting 9 hour train ride from Paris (with fine catering including a shared croissant, a bottle of juice, cookies that were more air than sugar, two shared sandwiches--one of an eggy concoction--and water in glass bottles...all for price equivalent of a steak dinner and wine in Paris) we arrived at our hostel. Remind me to stock up on snacks from a grocery store before my next long train ride.

The hostel doesn't seem half bad, although the stupid European hostel idea of not accepting credit cards and asking for cash up front is a real pain in the assets. Unlike our last hostel, this one decided to forgo the ratty blankets and rental sheets and has clean and comfy bedding. However, we're sleeping in a dorm style room, which means that instead of sleeping in a four-person room, we'll be sharing a room with 20 other travelers. Oh yeah, we're talking 10 bunkbeds scrunched in one room that has a bit of a divider wall in the middle. It's going to be like one big slumber party...except there won't be any movies...or popcorn...and we're in Germany. Yeah, just like a slumber party.

Merry Christmas--I aim to tease

With Christmas having arrived and left its drink ring stain on the table, I thought it would be an appropriate oppurtunity to compile a countdown of 12 paricularly memorable gifts that "gay Paris" has bestowed upon my traveling companion and myself....HOWEVER, you will have to be patient for I have not yet compiled this magnificent list since we have not yet finished our trip.

Until then, you'll just have to amuse yourselves imagining what that fine future blog entry will entail while I tantalize you with these few highlights as a preview:

*Eiffel tower sparkling like a big brown diamond
*Baguettes for breakfast
*Crepes for breakfast, crepes for lunch, crepes for dinner...oh, and crepes for dessert
*The Tube could kick Le Metro's ass
*The Louvre, Arc de Triumph, Champs-Eleysey, Versailles...check
*Christmas Eve at Notre Dame with Jenny and 3 glasses of wine
AND
*Christmas Day with the gamers hard at it here at the Internet Cafe

Hope you all are having a great Christmas!! Take care :)

Held in our hearts

This week has seen the loss of someone very special. A good man, who though he had many blessings in his life including a wonderful family, should not have had to leave us so soon. There are no words adequate enough to give my sincere sympathies.

Christmas, Christmas time is near

Becky sent me a Chipmunks themed Christmas e-card (well, me and about 20 other people, but it was thoughtful all the same) and it was cute. Too bad I couldn't hear the sound on this crappy cafe computer (nice alliteration, eh?), but I could imagine a few Chipmunk tunes while I read the email. For instance, All I Want for Chirstmas, and Christmast Time--one of my favorites: "Want a plane that loops-the-loop, me, I want a hoola-hoop!" So cute.

I heard more songs at the meeting I attended for student teaching tonight. Nice classic Christmas tunes by Bing Crosby and a bunch of other oldies, all floating over the boredom that had me wanting to nod off. Thankfully, it was our last meeting, and it didn't last too terribly long. If they hadn't given us some food, I might have been more annoyed by the only partially interesting 1.5 hours of discussion. But the good news is, I found a smoothie shop on the way to the meeting--go fruit!

I need the fruit, all the fruit I can get, to battle this cold that's setting in. I think the Ben n Jerry's helped too--chocolate is the solution to many problems, all the important ones at least. The rest can be covered by a pint.

Wish I had thought of this myself

Skimming The Onion can be great fun. This is an old article I came upon while looking for the one Blogger had linked to (which doesn't work for some reason) and it's freegin hilarious. At least I think so, but then...read it, and you'll know why.

Let it sud, let it sud, let it sud!

Yes, sud, my friend. Tonight there was a Scandinavian Christmas party here at ISH, complete with a warm meal, paper crowns, a gingerbread house contest, and fake snow--actually soapy suds flying about. I really wish I had brought down my camera--the event was a sight to behold.

There were about ten of us squeezed around the table, all either student teachers or friends, and we were giddy with getting free food and the idea of creating our own gingerbread house. The hosts had given us all the supplies needed: the basic gingerbread house walls, roof, and chimney, all of which we had to use a tube of frosting to stick together. They also supplied us with some candy things to decorate the house with. Naturally, being the creative team we were, we were not satisfied to use those simple, meager supplies. We improvised.

We put the regular house together as directed, except we decided it would be cool if the house had some interior lighting, so...we put one of the small votive candles inside before we closed it up. We had no fear of our house burning down, but we did have some water near by just in case. To make the chimney look more realistic, we added a crumpled napkin stuck halfway in it to pose as smoke. Very clever.

The problem was trying to figure out how we could make our house extra special. How could we give our house that ingenious kick to win that bottle of wine? We Wisconsites just couldn't pass up on some free alcohol. The solution? Rice pudding.

A wonderful bowl of rice pudding happened to be leftover from our dinner, and we marvelled at how snow-like it appeared. Great! We had the perfect trimming to our roof and along the bottom for that natural, wintery look. Add to that some plastic snowflake confetti that was scattered on the table (far from edible) and some candy shaped to spell out "ISH" and we figured we had ourselves a winner. But we still weren't satisfied. What was missing?

I should note that at this point, we could see our house was melting a bit in the middle, where the flame was overheating our poor little house. In fear that the meltdown would lead to a collapse, we temporarily put out the flame. The only problem was figuring out a way to relight it. We'd worry abou that later.

Ah yes, we needed a path to the house. We used some face-down cards that were one of the many cheap little Christmas party favors to form a brick pathway. A few other votive candles lined the pathway, and nicely highlighted our handy work. What else? We used some of the silver cylindrical wrappers from our party favors to make a few small towers to line the path as well. (They looked sort of like small castle turrets)

Speaking of castles--one of our first ideas was to make the house into a castle using those same turret-shaped cylinders, but we had ditched that idea thinking we didn't have enough time. Since I wasn't directly involved in the building, I figured I'd play around with the turrets and make my own little castle. My tablemates were impressed, and thought the castle should be part of our display. And so, a quaint fairy-tale castle stood adjacent to the house, with its own little playing card/brick pathway.

To complete the deal, we found a way to relight our candle without damaging the frame. One person took a skinny long piece of cardboard that was on the table, lit the end in one of the pathway votives, and through the direction of others peering through the little windows, revitalized our interior lighting. A masterpiece.

Could there be any doubt as to the champion of this contest? Oh yes, it was us, and I have since tasted the fruits of our labor--grape in particular ;) hehehe, Once they awarded the winners, they said they would give one more bottle of wine to the first table to destroy their house--just as the house was finishing those words, one of the girls grabbed our bottle of wine and roughly smashed our house right down the center like she was christening a ship. It was priceless. I think they were hestitant to give us another prize, so they gave the wine to another table house house had collapsed earlier in the night. Oh well, not like we really needed it anyway. But it was funny as hell.

The only question is: who are the poor sods that have to clean up after our mess?

It was the best of times, it was the boringest of times

No, I'm not saying that A Tale of Two Cities is boring; actually I'm really enjoying the novel so far. It helps so much to be in London, and to have toured around some key areas of England, becoming more familiar with the geography around here. What's boring is the last bit of school I have left. Tomorrow I'm being observed by my cooperating teacher again--you'd think I should be nervous, considering I don't have my lesson plan all drawn up, but really, I'm just too tired of it all to care.

The kids are alright and the teachers are fine too. I just want to get out of the confines of an 8-4 day and be free to run around London and then on to Europe, with no more worries about my future employment. It's not even school that is bothering me--it's the job hunting. I know I need to do more of it before I go traveling with Jenny so that I'm not COMPLETELY screwed when I get back to GB. ::sigh:: All this responsibility for my own future weighing down on me. I'm looking forward to forgetting about that for a few weeks :P

On a totally different, almost completely pointless and more positive note, I have an excess of pizza in my fridge--anyone want some?

Swing low sweet chariot...am I in the 19th century South?

Rugby fans and onlookers crowded the square and such today, seeing the parade and big to do here in town. I can't say I joined them 1) because I haven't felt good today 2) I'm not a rugby fan 3) I'm not British and 4) I didn't feel like being in a crowd. It still makes me wonder how on earth they got it into their heads to use the song "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" as a victory song. It's a song from during the time of slavery in the U.S., something the then African-American slaves would sing about dying and going to heaven. Somehow, I'm not quite getting the connection with a British sport. Maybe it's just me.

"AaWeeeeee um weee um aaWeeyum bambaway!"

In the jungle, the London jungle, The Lion King tonight. A good show. A very good show. The costumes were just...wow, impressive doesn't begin to describe them, primarily African influenced but with the added dimension of taking on a bigger, three dimensional shape--after a while, I stopped noticing the human beings behind them. The use of lighting was spectacular--great contrasts of light and shadow, and a few tricks too. It was very powerfully done and adds some plot thickeners to the original animated film. All in all, well worth a night at the theatre.

I can't say it was my favorite musical...I'm not even sure what my favorite would be. Every musical I have seen has been completely unique from the others. But The Lion King tonight was a special treat, and I'm glad my brother suggested it. I do sort of wish the theater was a bit better though. It was small, which is okay since that meant we weren't that far from the stage.

However, the seating is not in "stadium" form, so the stupid bald dude in front of me took up half the stage in my line of sight with his huge shiny melon. I had to tip my head to the side and lean over a bit to get a good view for a lot of it, but he would shift, so I moved my head around. That meant the young boy behind me had to move his head to see the stage when MY head was blocking his view, which I overheard him saying to his little friend. I really didn't care--not when I was paying £40 to see this musical. If I could deal with it, so could the 10 year old. So :P

Spoiled Sweet--Rotten is such an icky word

This week has been like a mini pleasure cruise thus far, thanks to my family visiting me. My brother Scott and his wife Jennifer are here, and my mom and her friend Donna are here, both sets staying at different hotels in the area. Of course, I've been able to take advantage of their hotels, having a bath and a nice night of rest with my mom since the three of us were all going to Leeds, Cantebury and Dover the next morning. What a trip!

Leeds Castle was beautiful, inside and out...I just longed to have the place to myself, filled with warm fires and lights, sitting by one of many window seats over-looking the swans in the moat and the splendid gardens while writing some countryside inspired masterpiece. Unfortunately, Mom, Donna and I spent too much time in the gift shop thereby limiting our already limited time, making it a very rushed tour through the castle. But I think I saw enough.

We were on a bus tour that also included going to Cantebury and Dover. Cantebury was a pleasant surprise. I hadn't even realized everything that was there, until I was walking between the columns and looking up at centuries old stained glass windows and silenlty wondering at the site where Thomas Beckett was killed.

Dover was just a quick photo stop where there was a fantastic view of the white cliffs, Dover Castle, and the WWII bunkers hidden in the cliffs. Oh, and the English Channel spreading across the horizon where a bit of France is just visible. Naturally I was the first to wander down to the shore (after taking a few pictures), walk up to the edge of the water, and touch my hand down into the waters...and then have a nice little wave come and get one of my feet all wet. But I picked up a stone, so I have a little bit of Dover to take back with me.

And now it's Tuesday, back to the grindstone here at school. It's getting more and more difficult to concentrate on my student teaching when there's so much else to do. Last night I went out to a place called The Gaucho Grill for a fabulous Argentine steak dinner...mmmmm. We all went to that--Scott and Jennifer had been there the night before, but thought well enough of it to take Mom, Donna and I there with them another night. Scott paid for the Merlot, Mom paid for my dinner, and I just ate my fill, happy as a clam...or cow :) Yeah, it was nice.

After dinner, I took everyone to a pub--they asked if I knew any good ones around and I'm like, dudes, there's pub on every other corner here...But they wanted something I might suggest. Well, honestly I haven't been to that many here, since there is a bar right at ISH. But I did remember one that I had stopped in that seemed unique. It took a bit to retrace my steps, but I didn't take them one foot off track (though maybe a little out of the way from the station, but at least then I knew where I was going) and we found the pub: The Sherlock Holmes.

It's a neat, traditional little pub, with soft chairs and plenty of Sherlock Holmes memoirbelia. Seems that my choice was right on--it was nice and quiet, plenty of room, and everyone found something they liked to drink. All in all, a successful little trip, even if we did get a little sidetracked later when we crossed over the Golden Jubilee Bridge for a little late night sight-seeing. But we all made it back before the Tube closed for the night, with Scott and Jennifer escorting me back to the student house.

::sigh:: The bell has rung, signaling to me that my time is done here for blogging. I'll put some links in as soon as I have another free moment this afternoon. For now, it's off to ICT.