More Fun in Berlin

Last night, after a full day of seeing stuff, I went to 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' in English, which was a nice dose of home (it's shot in Alberta). My ticket had a row and seat number on it, and when I got there, the theatre was pretty empty. I thought it might be busy because it was cheapy night. By the time of the movie actually started, just under half an hour of commercials in German later (brutal!), my entire row was filled. The theatre wasn't all the way full, maybe only a third, but the ticket people seemed to put everyone together in pockets. Weird. I would have moved to more open real estate, but at that point it would have inconvienced about 15 people, so instead I just shared armrests. The movie itself was quite good. It's one of those slow-paced movies that would bore you to tears if you where in the wrong mood, but I really enjoyed it. One commercial was pretty sweet too. It was this little old German couple sitting around a table, which a cockoo clock above and between them. The clock ticks a bit and eventually the cockoo goes off. Instead of a cockoo, it's a little black rapper fellow who pops out and says 'YO MOTHERFUCKER YO MOTHERFUCKER YO'. What the hell. It was a VW commercial, but that's all I know because the rest was in German. Maybe Jayanti or Toby or Bridget can shed some light for me. Either way, it was a crowd-pleaser.

This morning, I went to the Pergamon Museum on Museum Island. Highlights were the big exhibits, the Ishtar Tor and the Pergamon Alter. Both were stunning and interesting and huge. Another personal favorite of mine was in a tiny backroom that I pretty much had to myself. It was a tiny, ancient squirrel made out of bronze, from Turkey, I think, and of course very old. I can't say more about it than that, because the description was all in German. I'm pretty sure it would have been titled, 'tiny ancient turkish squirrel doing yoga'. Watch for it in the art scene, it's going to be a classic.

I'm off to Dresden! Happy Halloween everyone :)

Berlin

Today is Day2 in Berlin. What a cool city! There is loads of things to see and do here, and tonnes of history. I would recommend a visit to anyone, unless I didn't like them.

I'm staying in the Heart of Gold hostel. Can you think of the theme? If not, Don't Panic. Naturally, they don't provide towels, but luckily, I brought my own.

My first day here, I did a bike tour (a great way to get around here too - seems to be a Germany thing). It was sunny and warm out, so that helped too. It lasted pretty much all day. Afterwords, I headed directly (I mention 'directly' to show pride in my navigation skills) to the Reichstag. I waited about an hour to get it, which I would argue beats getting up really early. I don't love waiting, but I really don't like getting up early.

I went for Vietnamese for dinner (convenient timing), which was delicous, if nothing like the Vietnamese food in either Canada or Vietnam. I also has a Berliner Pilser the size of my head. I thought, 'why not have a beer with dinner, it looks good and super cheap', but I should have asked myself, 'why not get tanked, by myself, here in this restaurant?'. Either question, the answer is clearly, 'hells yes'.

Today I spend the morning at the East Side Gallery, aka the longest standing stretch of the Berlin Wall with all it's grafitti. In the afternoon, I mingled with about 100 of my new best friends in Haus Am Checkpoint Charlie. Then I had a quick 'lamb' (read: not lamb...beef?) donair (Berlin has a huge Turkish population), and here I am having a bit of a sit down and hiding out from a bit of a downpour.

Looks like it has let up, so I'm off again.

Erfurt and Weimar

I spent my last couple of days in Munich wandering around Olympia Park and the BMW museum (Thursday) and the downtown area (Friday). Both were very good days.

Aside: Germany keyboards reverse z and y. What a pain in the ass.

Friday night I met up with Jayanti, and we took the train to Erfurt, where we met Toby and Bridget. Erfurt was really interesting. It was part of the former East Germany, so there was some noticable differences. There were a couple of run down old apartements that looked quite different that anything I had seen in Munich. We stayed in a really cute bed and breakfast.

Today we are in Weimar, only 15 minutes by train from Erfurt, best known for stuff I don't know much about. I would bust out the lonely planet.....nah :)

Tonight, we part ways again, and I'm off to Berlin for three days. I'll see Toby and Bridget for one more weekend, in Leipzig and Dresden if everything goes according to plan.

Dachau

Today I went to the Dachau concentration camp memorial just outside Munich. It kind of put the Munich Jewish Museum to shame. It was very extensive, informative and well layed out. I spent hours and I could have spent more. They don't have anywhere to buy food there, and I didn't bring much, plus eventually my feet got sore. It felt a bit weird to leave a place like that, where so many horrible things happened to people, because lunch was overdue by three hours and my feet were tired after walking. I think it's good to be reminded every so often just how good I have it.

Jayanti took me to a beer hall tonight where real Munichers go to drink. The old folks across my us where priceless. They were both little old men, and one basically didn't speak German (or at least he didn't understand Jayanti, who's German is FAB-U-LOUSO, in my opinion), just Bavarian. Weird. I ate something called Pigs Knuckles. It was actually quite yummy, although it sure doesn't sound it. The beer was kick ass. It reminded me of that scene in the first Lord of the Rings, were the hobbits get to that first little town. I can't remember the name just now. Jen? Anyway, Merry orders a beer and Pippin sees it. You remember:

"What's that"?
"They called it a pint."
"I'm getting one!"

You know, which British accents and all. The beer seemed that big (Jayanti told me it was a little one), only I'm GSwannaB sized, and not hobbit sized. All the better to wash down my Pigs Knuckles. :)

Munich II

My first activity today was a Third Reich walking tour of Munich. The weather was pretty cold, not Calgary cold, but more like Toronto, it's not that cold, yet wet in a bone-chilling kind of way. The good side of that was that my tour was one guide to four folks, and one ducked out part way. The tour way really interesting, and covered a bunch of places and buildings that were significant to Hitler and the Nazi party. I'd recommend checking it out if you happen to be heading to Munich shortly, for example, if your name rhymes with Beth Crill.

After the tour, I finished off the day at the Munich Jewish Museum. It was definitely interesting if not quite what I expected. I guess I thought it would be a little bit more historic and less artifacts. I did learn a lot, which is good, and lots of it was in English. The set-up of one exhibit was pretty funny. They had stories to read on these lighted round pillars, and you could rotate them as you went. There was German on one side and English on the other. Sounds like a genius idea until you get a few people reading and someone rotates. I guess no one thought of that.

How to Get Home From France Really Fast

Just drive on the Autobahn! Good times!! We rented a car to drive to France, and everyone was good enough sports to let me drive. (Thanks guys). If you can't tell, I'm still fired up about it. Awesome. France was cool, and driving, especially home on the Autobahn was really cool. I maxed at 170, but mostly was going more like 160. I might have gone a little faster, but it was dark. Oh, yes, and it was a Mercedes. Woo hoo.

Sunday night we checked out the Karlsruhe soccer team. It was quite the experience. In the end, the game ended in a 0-0 tie, which kind of sucked. Karlsruhe did have many close chances, so people still went pretty apeshit. The opposing team's fans were separated by a fence and they stormed it once or twice. Craziness.

Today I headed to Munich (Munchen) and now I am at Jayanti's house. I checked out the downtown area and met up with Jayanti when she got off work. I left my luggage in a 24 hr locker at the trainstation. Not just while I saw stuff today. I really left it there: I am an idiot. I hoped on a train all the way out to Jayanti's and completely forgot about it. I will get it tomorrow. Duh.

Riding in Offenburg

Today I went riding in the Blackforest (Schwarzwald) just outside Offenburg.  Offenburg has it right when it comes to bikes.  I biked to the trailhead from the city centre in a clearly marked bike lane.  I think you could pretty much go anywhere on your bike.  For the most part, bikes had the right of way.  In the odd case, there would be little traffic lights with red and green bikes.  Clearly, it meant "bikes can go" or "bikes must stop".  I enjoyed this so much I said it outloud at every light.  The ride itself went up (and I really mean up) into the forest.  I was trying to get to Schloss Somethingsomething (the name is upstairs, and I can't remember), which in the end, I didn't quite get too.  I got lost for a bit (the trail was really well signed, except for a couple of major forks with nothing), and eventually I just hit a point where I didn't want to ride uphill any more.  I got to a sign that said the castle was another 2.5 km, which arguably is not far.  However, the sign was pointing to a hike-a-bike straight down (the trail had been fun singletrack for a while).  This would have been either walk or death singletrack, and I just wasn't willing to come back up.  Also, I made it to a fabulous vista 0.2 km past that fork, with a view of pretty much everything in the area.  There was a big tower to climb that must have been 5-6 stories up.  In the end, I think I biked up for 2.5 or 3 hours and down for 20 minutes or half an hour.  Weeeeee.

ps.  I have pictures, but I can't post them yet due to technical difficulties.  Maybe from Jayanti's place.  

pps.  Big plans for the weekend!  Jayanti's here, Bridget and Fran are back from Paris, and Toby's rented us a car.  First we're going drinking tonight (a sort of bus pub crawl) and then we're off to France.  Toby scored us tickets for Sunday to the soccer (I mean FoBball - the "B" being that weird German double s B thing) game.  Karlsruhe is supposed to be really good.

Baden-Baden

Today I went to Baden-Baden.  I went hiking during the day, and then to the naked spa at night.  Both were pretty awesome.  The first thing I did when I got to Baden-Baden was get lost.  I took the bus to a stop that I didn't really want too.  The trains were on strike here in the morning, so there was about 60 people on the bus.  I thought I maybe should get off at one point, but there were 15 or so Germans between me and the door, so I stayed.  I got off where everyone else did, about 15 minutes on foot from where I wanted to be.  I found some really great stuff (sheep, a license plate that says BAD-AS and an awesome fountain) figuring out where I wanted to be.

People are really nice here in general, and for the most part, willing to help out if I am lost.  If I'm not sure where I am, all I do is stand on a street corner and open my map, and someone will come rushing to my aid.  It's happened 4 times already.  Soon I'm not going to bother trying to read the map, I'll just unfold it and wait.  Of course the people coming to help don't speak English and I don't speak German, but hey, it's the thought that counts.

I hiked up to Yburg castle ruin for the bulk of the day today.  It started off through wine country but went mostly through dense forest.  I was the only one on the hike, although there was one dude at the top.  He drove.  Cheater.  As I was heading down, a couple asked me in a pleasant voice (pointing at the castle), "jdlajjodjoanontoeoeojtneljljkel"?, so I said, "ja!".  No idea what they said, of course, but I'm 90% sure it was either, "Is the castle this way?" or "Is the castle nice?".

After the hike, I went to the Friedrichsbad (aka nudie-spa) that Baden-Baden is known for.  It was unlike anything you would find in North America, and probably would have been a little weird if I didn't know what to expect.  There were numbers posted on wall to follow, and how many minutes you were supposed to stay in each room or pool.  The whole thing lasted almost 3 hrs and ended in a sleeping room where you are cocooned in a warm sheet and blankets.  I feel asleep for around 30 minutes and didn't make it back to Karlsruhe until 10 pm.  If you are ever near here, you have to go. 

Hallo os Deutschland

I'm in Karlsruhe hanging out with Toby and Bridget and having a blast.  I am having a nice relaxing morning at T&B's house.  Toby is at work (I wonder if he will get bored at work and read this before I see him tonight?) and Bridget and Fran (also visiting from Calgary) are on their way to Paris right now.  I'm going to head to Heidelberg today and see a castle, but right now I'm kind of loving sitting and sipping coffee.

I think I am over my jetlag now....knock on wood.  I probably slept about 45 minutes on the plane "overnight" (Europe overnight, that is - early evening Calgary time).  Yes, my obsession with Calgary time continues.  These guys here did a good job of keeping me awake until that night.  I felt pretty good all day, if a little spacy.  At one point I was doing dished using two washing things, a scrubber on a stick and a sponge.  I looked down and one point and realized I was washing the scrubber with the sponge rather than any dishes.  Oh, and I also put salt in my coffee, but I think that was just me being daft.  I'll blame jetlag anyway.  It made perfect sense to me that there would be sugar in a plastic container and overflow sugar in a smaller one.  Smrt.  

I have loads of story's and more about Day 1 and 2, but they are going to have to wait until after Day 3, Heidelberg.  I'm heading out on foot (okay, I'm taking a train too) - but nicht bike (yes, I know that's not right - but this is how much German I know).  Yesterday I rode for 5 hours or so and today I am giving my butt a break.  I should have spend a bit more time with my Assmaster3000 before I left!

I'm Off to Germany/Long Flight That Might Hurt Because of an Asshole

I'm off tomorrow morning. How exciting. In case I haven't told you, I'm bringing my bike. Here it is, all packaged up . My couch is hiding behind it.

Tonight was my high school reunion. It was great to see some folks that I hadn't seen in years and years. I would have liked to have stayed a lot longer, but I wasn't quite finished packing yet.

When I wasn't running around and packing today, I was running around and playing goalti. This has to be one of the funniest things to do! Such a great working and a total blast. My only (tiny-really, SO fun) complaint is that my one pair of compression shorts are really old, and they have an *ahem*...asshole. I did a baseball slide and tore a patch of skin of my ass. It hurts considerably (for such a little thing) when I sit on it - which is going to be 12 hrs tomorrow. Maybe I should do a poll about whether anyone thought I would post a picture of my ass on my blog....or maybe not.

Hurray for trips :)

I Have a Big Box

I have a big box from Bow Cycle in my living room. It's to fly my bike to Germany. I'm flying Air Canada, so I hope the fine people of Winnipeg enjoy my bike. Going to Winnipeg (think Fountain Tire commercial).

Nelly had another hockey game tonight, and we won. I scored again too! Very exciting. I didn't have to do much. Ann Olsen basically bounced the puck into the goal off my stick after doing a triple sow cow. The only reason my stick was on the ice was because it was something to lean on.

I case you think I'm an idiot for making a box joke and trashing on my skating again, it's almost 1 am right now. So shut up :)

Ich spreche nicht Deutsch

I have been trying to learn a little Germany before I leave on my trip. I really enjoying it, from the comfort of my living room. I'll see if I change my mind once I'm in Germany with a two word vocabulary. I think I might take a course over the winter when I get home. That's kind of silly timing, I realize, but I'm too busy over the summer to do much else, plus I had to get inspired first.

I've been listening to some "learn German" tapes on my iPod while I walk to work. Basically I walk down the street and either grunt out loud (my attempts to say the german words) or announce things in English (my translation) like, "some women are attractive!".

I have 5 days to learn the rest of the german language. No problem.

Euros, Hockey and Riverdance Hack

Friday night was hockey night in Canada. I went to the Hitman game with some friends. Wow, those boys can skate. That didn't surprise me until they took there helmets off to fight. They are all 12!

I want to start a fight at Nellie-hockey. How fun would that be? I'm thinking the helmets with the full face cage might put a bit of a damper on my plan though. Seriously though - Friday night's game was great. I scored! (Unlike the rest of my weekend). And we won the game 3-2 with 30 seconds left in overtime.

Ultimate on Thanksgiving was great again. I love Pi(e). The game was lots of fun, but I think the Riverdance Hack was the highlight. I'm sure you can picture it. Classic!

I went into the bank the other day to get some Euros for my trip. The banklady looked like she's never been more bored in her life. As she was handing me my Euros, she asked me where I as heading. She asked in the same tone of voice one says the 5th "uh huh" of a phone conversation where the person on the other end is talking at you, not with you. So I said, "Switzerland!", to no reaction at all.

Check out the poll and the comment section for why I thought it was funny.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Prairie View in the Snow

On Sunday, I thought it might be fun to try being a bi-athlete. What swift change of heart for just one day, don't you think? But it's true! Mountain bike riding AND ultimate in the same day.

Fall league was first, Pi vs. other people. BP, Topper, Robin Bauer, MAC and friends. It was a really fun game and gorgeous fall weather. Poor G'OB got injured on my nasty IO. It was a little longer than I might normally throw that, but he pointed, so I tossed. He made a fabulous rolling grab, but tweaked himself in the process. Sorry Greg! I was really impressed with Heath's (aka five seventh's) D on Robin Bauer. It was an exciting battle of the fasties and Heath played some serious defense. I was reasonably happy with my game despite missing a d by inches (curses) and throwing to Jeff's d and not Jeff (more curses!). I nearly forgot, a final highlight was hack, both post game and ghetto halftime hack with a bottle cap.

Prairie View and it's view of Barrier Lake is beautiful that is time of year. We rode up the switchbacks for an hour and a half or so. They are both gradual and gruelling. It's actually pretty flat for how much elevation you gain, except for the little kicks we needed for the corners. The pics are from the lookout, just before the hike-a-bike. The hike-a-bike was muddy and I found it quite difficult. Leanne must be using a lot of Joanne's goatcream, because she just seemed to fly up there. I felt like I was trying to climb a mountain with a dead body on my back.

The singletrack on the backside was seriously fun. It was technical, rooty and SNOWY! And you thought wet roots were slick. Try snowy roots. Wear a helmet when you try. It was blast, although all three of us had woah/eek/shreek moments. I had one Moab-ian "Cool, I just rode something I might not normally because I couldn't get off".

I had a riding first. Never before on a bike have I ridden into a deep puddle and had to peddle like crazy to push away the ice layer that I had dislodged from the top of the puddle.

And then..."the Bridge Incident". It was this little bridge over a creek, wider than some stuff in Fernie two weeks ago, but too narrow to put your feet down once you've started. Did I mention there was snow on it? I basically fucked it from the start, went in on wobbly and somehow made it to the other side, having hugged the outside inch of the thing. Seriously, so close, and it would have been a dodgy landing. It's okay though, I was wearing my bubble. I wrecked it for Treena too, who watched me nearly kill myself. She said something like "Well, I'm not going to ride it NOW." I sat in a snowbank on the far side in a little mini I'm-still-in-one-piece dance of joy...you probably had to be there.