texans on the autobahn

European Adventure Update February

Gross Gott, (this is the Bavarian greeting literally meaning “Hello God, and which people greet each other here)

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve written but I’ve been gathering stories to tell you as our adventure continues. As I type this update, I am on a bus headed to Italy for a week long ski trip that was organized for the Bavarian International School, the school the boys attend. My computer crashed last week leaving me stranded as we did not pack any of my software to be able to reinstall! Fortunately, it only cost me a bottle of Jack Daniels to have it repaired as a tech at TI replaced it for us.

We are keeping busy and seem to be on a regular schedule which usually starts with me getting to keep our 1 car on Mondays so I can do major grocery shopping. It is true that most Europeans shop for groceries everyday, especially for fruits, vegetables, milk and of course incredible breads and pastries from the multitude of bakeries! We have our favorite bakery in Lohhof which we can walk to. It also has a café, and once we can figure out the entire menu, I suspect that we will like it even more than La Madeline’s back home!

A few weeks ago Robin and I took the train into Munich without the boys. Actually, Joe stayed home to play with the neighbors and Sam was on the same train with us but with a couple of his friends. It was an accident that we got there at the same time that he was there, but he was ok with it. He and his friends were going to see a movie but when they got there, the time was different than the theatre web site so they went to the Hardrock Café instead. It’s very safe here, and they had a fun time on their own. Robin and I enjoyed visiting the National Treasury and the Royal Residenz in
Munchen (Munich). Inside the National Treasury were stored many royal jewels including crowns and ornate jewelry worn by various royal families of Germany. Some of the more interesting items were relics that one of the Bavarian Kings collected. A relic is an artifact of Christ’s life. The relics included a part of Christ’s crown of thorns, splinters from the cross, bones of various apostles and even a mummified baby from when King Herod killed all the babies in Bethlehem. Seeing the artifacts made Christ’s life seem even more real. . .

We then went into the Royal Residence. With the Residence, Munich owns one of Europe's most significant interior decoration museums. For five hundred years the facility in the middle of the old city was the residence and center of power of the Bavarian dukes, electors and kings. The 130 rooms of the Residence Munich have been filled with furniture and oil paintings, tapestries and porcelain from the best artists of their time. During the war, much of downtown Munchen was bombed and many parts where destroyed, but have been rebuilt. It is a massive building. It’s difficult to describe the ornateness and immensity of the residence. However, I think the best part of our tour of the Treasury and Royal Residence was that we didn’t have to mess with Sam and Joe!!!! They would have been pestering each other and us the entire time, so it was nice to be able to get away and enjoy some time in the city, just the two of us.

On Sundays, stores are closed. Restaurants and a few bakeries are open. Many Germans spend time window shopping on Sundays. After eating at a wonderful German restaurant across from the museums and the German Opera House we did our Sunday window shopping. Many musicians set up through the city center of Munchen and play their music. One musician was an accordion player who was very good. It was quite nice and the musician really was into his. We continued our walk and found another musician who had his keyboard and was playing. He was also quite good. As we continued our walk we came across a store front with a small boy, probably around the age of 8 years old, who was playing his accordion. It appeared that his mother was working inside the closed store cleaning while he played and earned a few euros that passersby would toss into his hat.

Currently, we are driving through the snow covered Alps. I’m glad I’m inside the bus where it is warm. Gracie is staying with our friend Tom Glasgow’s assistant, Alicia, while we are sking this week. She cried for 20 minutes after I left her with Alicia, just like a toddler! We miss her, but she couldn’t come on the trip, although usually dogs are welcome everywhere.

For those of you who know Joe really well, you know that he is a very picky eater. He’s the one who doesn’t like butter, ketchup, mustard, or mayonnaise, and he really prefers fairly bland tasting food. He loves hotdogs, but they must be American Hotdogs. Everything that looks like a hotdog in Germany is some kind of sausage. And we’ve discovered that the Germans do some strange things with meat that just don’t look right. . . however, Joe has found something that he likes, that really sort of grosses me out. At a soccer tournament of Sam’s recently, Joe was hungry. At all the games, there is a concession stand that is run by the parents of the club. The majority of the food has been baked and cooked and we’re not talking about nachos and popcorn or hotdogs. The typical “hotdog” type meal that the Germans eat is called Laberkassen. Robin and the boys say that laberkassen tastes like the inside of the hotdog but without the casing and it is sliced and served on semmel (a Kaiser roll) . . . .to me it looks like spam and that is gross to me. Well, my Joe, he loves laberkassen. So much so, that Robin bought some at the grocery store and they had it for lunch recently. I can’t bring myself to eat it! So now, Joe either likes to have schnitzel, McDonald’s chicken nuggets or laberkassen!

Speaking of soccer tournaments, we’ve had at least one indoor tournament every weekend, sometimes 2 and both of the boys are playing. Players on teams here do not purchase their own individual uniforms. You receive your uniform before each game and you might have a different number each game. So, maybe you’re wondering, who washes the uniforms? Well, I was given the honor and privilege of washing the uniforms for Sam’s team recently. Sam’s coach speaks English and after the tournament, in the locker room, Klaus gave the uniform bag to Sam to give to me, then Klaus came upstairs with Sam and as Sam gave me the bag, Klaus just smiled at me! He seemed to say. Of course, he had already had me bring a cake for the tournament too, as parents are asked to bring sweets to sell. He tried to get me to work the concession stand but I told him I didn’t speak or understand enough German to do that, so that activity I was able to avoid!

We are currently now in Austria and should be arriving in Italy within 45 minutes. Seems that all European borders are open, unlike in America. So no stopping to check passports is involved. We have passed several small castles along the way.

We finally have satellite tv. The best part of the satellite tv for Robin and the boys is all the LIVE soccer. When we were home in the US, they would tivo the games they wanted to see, b/c they came on in the middle of the night. Here it’s like watching Monday night football. Last Tuesday night, they watched Manchester vs Arsenal. Sam supports Man U and Joe supports Arsenal so they had their rivalry going leading up to the game, until Arsenal lost 4-2. Our friend Tom had given Joe an Arsenal scarf, hat, catalog and other items when he found that Joe was an Arsenal fan.

We now have tickets to see Arsenal vs Bayern Munchen on Feb. 22nd. I’m sure it will be very cold but everyone is excited to see this match. Many Germans were unable to get tickets but we wanted to sit on the Arsenal side for Joe so it wasn’t as difficult to get tickets. We are also currently enrolled in the lottery system for World Cup tickets. We are exploring all opportunities to get tickets as we have heard that most of the tickets have been given to corporate sponsors. So if anyone knows someone who can get their hands on tickets in the US but can’t go, please let us know!!!!!! And World Cup isn’t until summer 2006!

We are already looking forward to our summer here in Germany. Of course we’ll be home in March for Dallas Cup. Sam’s team from home is considering coming to Germany to play in a tournament here in July and we are looking forward to that. At the end of July we are headed to Croatia for a tropical beach vacation!!!! We can’t wait.

We are nearing our destination and once I’ve recovered from a week of skiing I will send another European adventure update!

Ciao!
Deidre

posted by stuckinthemiddle @ 8:40 AM