Aimee Mann in Munich



Above: In the very last song of the encore, one girl finally got up to dance.

The rest of my pictures are here.

Liebe G3B Mitlerner und Mitlernerin,

Wilkommen bei Himbeere Welt! Wenn du willst, schau doch mal meine Postkarten von Europa an. Ich habe viele Fotos gemacht und upgeloaded!

Es freut mich, dich kennenzulernen!

Liebe Gruesse,

Susie

Auf Deutsch:

Mein zweite Deutschkurs ist heute zum Ende. Ich habe viel gelernt, obwohl ich nichts hier auf Deutsch geschriebt habe. Es tut mir leid!

Ich habe viele nette Leute in meinem Kurs kennengelernt. Es gab 14 Studenten, die aus Russland, Korea, Kroatien, Moldavien, Kanada, Italien, Griechenland, Elfenbein Kuste, die USA und Tunisien kamen. Wir haben uns gut amusiert, and viel gelernt!

Heute war wirklich ein besonders beschaeftigter Tag. Wir sind um 10 Uhr ins IMAX-Kino gegangen, ein 3-D Film zu sehen. Das Thema des Films war "New York," und wir haben 3-D Brillen getraegt, um besser dem Film zu sehen. Nach dem Film sind wir alle zusammen in einen Cafe gegangen, Kaffee zu trinken. Wir sassen uns draussen in Odeonsplatz, in der Sonne. Es war ganz toll!

Um 13 Uhr fing unser Unterricht an. Wir haben heute viel gemacht! Wir wiederholten viele Grammatik, und sprachten ueber Umweltschutz und Wetterkatastrophen. Am Ende spielten wir Tabu (auf Deutsch, natuerlich). Es ist sehr lustig, ein Wort zu beschreiben, wenn alle schreien verschiedene Antworten zusammen!

Dann war der Kurs zum ende. Und jetzt bin Ich ein bisschen traurig, weil es viel spass war.

In English:

My second German course finished today. I learned a lot, although I haven't been writing here in German. I'm sorry!

I met many nice people in my course. There were 14 students, from Russia, Korea, Croatia, Moldavia, Canada, Italy, Greece, Ivory Coast, the USA, and Tunisia. We had a lot of fun, and learned a lot.

Today was an especially busy day. We went to the IMAX theater at 10 AM to see a 3-D movie. The movie was about New York, and we wore 3-D glasses, the better to see the movie. Afterwards we all went for coffee together. We sat outside in the sun in Odeonsplatz. It was great!

At 1 PM the class began. We did a lot today! We reviewed a lot of grammar and talked about environment issues and weather catastrophes. At the end we played Taboo (in German, of course). It's so funny to try to define a word, when everyone is yelling out different answers at the same time!

Then the course was finished. And now I'm a little sad, because it was a lot of fun.

PSA for those in America... don't forget to watch the Grammy Awards Show! It's on tonight. (Someone very kind is sending me a copy tomorrow morning.)

NSYNC is performing, singing together live for the first time since April 28, 2002 (and I know the date because I was at that show in Orlando). Anyway, tonight they are singing an a capella tribute to the Bee Gees. I can't wait to hear them!

Plus, look! Pretty!



In other news, Recovering the Satellites by the Counting Crows is such a great CD. How could I have forgotten?

It's been a nice weekend. Yesterday we went to a huge convention here in Munich on tourism. There were booths set up promoting vacation destinations from Bavaria to Africa. Every single region of Italy had its own huge booth. It was just really interesting. Vacations are serious business in Germany. It was an international kind of day, because we went with three of my friends from my German class -- women from Greece, Italy, and Croatia. Now we just need to plan our trips...

Marty and I are expecting visitors starting next month. And in April we're planning a trip to Florence, Italy with some friends. I am excited about it and looking forward to making the plans.

By Request



For Rana!

Above, my bulletin board.

Friday, yay! Today I have lots to do around the house. I'm also headed out to meet some people from my German class for a little practice. Last night we went to dinner with our teacher at a Bavarian restaurant in Frauenhoferstrasse.

I'm feeling very boring today so I'll just end by telling you what CD's are in heavy rotation at the moment:

The Best of the Doo-Wop Ballads (a compilation)
Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head
Justin Timberlake, Justified
The Wallflowers, Red Letter Days
The Wallflowers, Breach
The Wallflowers, Bringing Down the Horse

The Postcards from Europe* page is updated with my pictures from the Wallflowers concert, and an account of the show. We had a grand time.

And Germans love David Hasselhof! (Visual proof is inside.)

* Not to be confused with "Letters from the Wasteland."

Jakob Dylan ist der Sohn des Sängers Bob Dylan.


Taken by me, tonight, at the Wallflowers concert in Munich.

It was wonderful. Absolutely great. A concert update should possibly follow tomorrow. At the least, I will post my other pictures.

And this is what a girl who just saw the Wallflowers looks like.

Cafe Münchener Freiheit, aka the place that makes the marzipan cakes (click to enlarge)

Yum, Garlic.

My hands smell all garlicky. I have Imperial Chicken in the oven. It's an old favorite at our house. Yum.

Well, it has been a nice weekend. We went out Friday for Italian food at Il Dottore. It was tasty, as always. Yesterday we went to see The Two Towers, for the second time, at a cinema we'd never been to before. Like our usual movie theater, it shows a lot of foreign (read: English/American) movies in the original language, without subtitles. So we were glad to discover it.

The movie theaters we've been to here are very different from the American theaters we're used to. Usually the screens are very small and there aren't many rows of seats. Many of the ones we've been to are located simply in the first floor of apartment buildings rather than buildings that were built specifically to be movie theaters. So sometimes it's kind of like they made their living room into a cinema. I'm sure there must be multiplexes and such, somewhere, but we haven't been to one yet.

Also, at many theaters you can call or go online ahead of time and reserve a ticket. And often your seat is assigned, or at least the row you are supposed to sit in. The theater was nearly full for The Two Towers last night, and we got there last so our seats were in the very front row. However, the screen was not all that large and the rows were only about eight seats long (very small theater), so it wasn't bad.

There were so many pretty horses in that movie. I love them!

I'm afraid Marty will have to settle for the G-rated Valentine's baked goods...

Nothing says "I Love You" like a marzipan nipple cake.

Happy Valentine's day from Munich. Hope you'll have a happy day and spend it doing something you enjoy. I made some cupcakes and am going out to run some errands, since I have the car today.

I thought I'd share pictures of the latest marzipan creations over at the cafe across the street. I love that place, man. Like the title says, nothing says "I love you" quite like a marzipan nipple cake. Unless, of course, it's a marzipan ass cake wearing thong underwear. Happy valentine's day, y'all.

Big week here. I received my brother's band's CD in the mail a few days ago and those guys rock. They're called Serial Karpenz and TP (above) plays guitar for them. Generally not acoustic guitar, though. It's great music, hard-hitting rock/metal that they write themselves. Very cool. I only wish I lived closer so I could see them play live. The picture above is from Christmas.

German class is going pretty well. I'm not making progress at the same rate I did in the super-intensive course a few months ago, but I'm enjoying it and I'm learning a lot. There are a lot of interesting people in there. I'm the only American. We don't have class tomorrow but some of us are meeting tomorrow afternoon to speak a little German together.

For Valentine's day Marty made reservations at an Italian restaurant we both like on Pettenkofer Straße, called Il Dottore. There's a lot of good Italian food in Munich, but I think this is my favorite of all the Italian restaurants we've tried so far. Of course, it's no Mario & Luigi's.

I don't think it's the law that one must clear the sidewalk of snow in Munich. I walked this morning to do some errands and found that there were two inches of solid ice on most of the sidewalks. Slippery! Our building's sidewalk is cleared, but it's the only one on the street that is. Our Hausmeister is extremely thorough. It was snowing all day last Saturday, and I swear he spent the entire day outside shoveling so not even a quarter of an inch accumulated. Every time we looked out the window, he was shoveling, shoveling, shoveling.

I had something of an adventure the other morning. I spoke to JC Chasez of NSYNC on the telephone. He was on a radio show talking about his solo album (which is coming out this summer) and I called to ask whether he was going to tour to support it. He is! Some of my friends were in the studio audience for the broadcast, but I couldn't be there, so this was definitely the next best thing. I couldn't stop grinning all day. Here's a picture of him from the radio webcam from right around the time I was talking to him. It was exciting!

In other music news, next week is the Wallflowers concert. I can't wait. And the week after that is Aimee Mann. Whoo! This is a great month!

Oh, Rana has had a great idea. Check out her weblog from Tuesday, February 11 to find out about the photolog she's thinking of doing. I'd love it if some of my friends with digital cameras would come play too. I know I'm not the only one who's going to like this idea.

What else, what else... oh, yeah. Ziggy has a new favorite toy. Behold the excitement of the Staples manila envelope box. Any day that doesn't include at least six hours of sitting in this box is a day that you might as well not be alive...

It's cold here today. I could probably say that most every day.

German class is going pretty well. Today we discussed "International Words" that have made their way into German in the last ten years or so. Actually, all the "international" words we talked about today were English. And it's true, I can tell a big difference in everyday German from when I came here before. English is everywhere now. It's really quite surprising.

So some of the words we talked about were verbs like checken -- ich habe meine E-mail gecheckt -- and relaxen. Or one that Marty hears all the time at work -- downgeloaded.

But then there were nouns like das Headquarter, der Job, die City, das Meeting, der Workshop, das Team, and das Sandwich. Some of the words are pronounced as we pronounce them auf Englisch, while others are not. And I really don't know where the different articles come from (der, die, das). Who decides what article an English word will take in German?

Strangest to me are the words that are clearly taken from English but are not English words. Like die Livesendung, which means "live broadcast." It's not German, but it's not English, either. Or the verb form of der Job. As in, ich brauche Geld; morgen jobbe ich. Or -- best of all -- the German word for cell phone. Handy. Call me on my handy.

I guess if they were like the French, Germans would have a special office to protect the language and keep foreign (read: English) words out. But no, apparently they don't.

We've had a snowy week here. That's not why I haven't been writing, I think I just have the winter blahs.

German class started last week. I went on Monday for a placement interview and test, and was placed in the highest level of the Grundstufe (the beginner's level). That's a couple of levels higher than the class I took last fall, and it's probably about right.

I'm taking the "Intensive" class this time rather than the "Super-Intensive" class. It's going pretty well so far. We meet from 1 to 6 pm, Monday through Thursday. There are about 13 people in my class, and one teacher. I don't feel like I'm making the kinds of strides I did in the Super-Intensive class in September, but I think the course is useful. I have three more weeks of it left.

There was a NATO meeting here in Munich this weekend. Rumsfeld was here along with a bunch of other important people, and thousands of extra police. Friday morning I watched out the window as fifty police vans passed my apartment building on their way downtown, lights flashing, sirens blaring. There've been a lot of protests. Germans are mostly very opposed to the war.

We had a good weekend. I cooked Katynka's pot roast and we went out last night to see "Bowling for Columbine," the new movie by Michael Moore. We both liked his show, "TV Nation," which used to come on in the mid-90s. I remember watching it when we lived in Pleasant Gap. We both enjoyed the movie last night. It was at a cinema about the size of someone's garage, with a screen just a little bigger than big-screen TVs I have seen. I am always surprised at how things are tucked away where I least expect them around here. A movie theater in an apartment building -- who would've thought?

Last Sunday we went to the BMW museum here in Munich. BMW is based here, and they have an interesting permanent display of old cars and engines, among other things. Did you know that BMW stands for Bayerische Motoren Werke? The Bavarian motorworks. I didn't know that until I came here.

The picture above is a kite hanging in the Deutsches Museum. Have I mentioned how much I love my new camera?

Monday!

First things first: the Postcards are updated.

We had a nice weekend here. On Saturday I took Marty to see the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which opened recently here, and we both had a good time. I saw it last summer before I moved over here, but Marty didn't get a chance back then. Yesterday was cold but we spent awhile out walking around, then had dinner at an Italian restaurant on Maximilianstrasse (Via Veneto). It was tasty. And on the way home I found an abandoned license plate! Marty thought I was crazy, but I brought it home Why not? He'll be happy when he has it for his license plate collection when we get back to the states.

I woke up this morning and could not connect to the Internet. I thought it was going to be a Very Bad Day, but an hour or two later everything was working again. Whew.

My German class starts this afternoon. I hope I enjoy it as much as I liked the first one I took, back in September. Stay tuned for some entries auf Deutsch, coming soon. In the meantime, check out my pictures from the Deutsches Museum.

Five Years Today!

Little did I know, on February 1, 1998, what an important part of my life Raspberry World would become! I've met some great friends through this site, and I'm looking forward to meeting more in the future!

Thanks so much to those of you who have written me. And thank you, Amanda, for the "flash"-y greetings! Y'all check it out today!

In celebration of the date, I have updated every public weblog I keep. In addition, I plan to do the Deutsches Museum picture update this weekend (hopefully today).

In the meantime, enjoy the picture above, "Self-portrait with sister." This is from Christmas. I'm sportin' my purple suede Vans (thank you, Maria!) and Elisabeth is in the black boots. We rock, I know.

It's Saturday, so now is the time in Munich when we shop! We are headed to IKEA and Wal-Mart this morning. Maybe this afternoon we can go to a movie.

Catch you later!