Neko, you've finally jammed in some time for Ohio, and naturally, you chose to cash it in Sunday at Cleveland's Beachland Ballroom.
Naturally, I'll be there. As with all weekend Cleveland concerts, visits with Marjie and Andy (Drew, or whatever the hell he's calling himself today) are essential.
Why is that?
Number 1: They're among my last high school friends still on the radar.
Number 2: We trade concerts - bands occasionally choose Columbus over Cleveland, though not nearly as often as they opt for the opposite. Music is a good excuse to make a weekend out of it.
Number 3: Marje lives down the street from Rozzi's, the best beer store in Lakewood. It's always my first stop upon arrival.
Back back to Neko. She turned out her record a year ago, released a dated live record in the meantime, and still hasn't hit Columbus.
Apparently, she wants to make it tough for me to see her live.
Luckily, I'm that much tougher.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Springtime for bicycle bubble children
Just try to navigate the paths and streets of Columbus, and parents drag children around everywhere.
But the actual dragging is indifferent - they deposit Jacob or Emma in the stroller sporting mountain bike-treaded wheels or the enclosed bicycle trailer that without its wheels would bear a vague resemblance to tents that held children too young for gas masks during the First Gulf War.
That has to be a great experience for the kid, getting left in a tiny tent on wheels and pulled along the trails
During the Arnold Classic 5K - race time temperature stood at 25 degrees with gusty Alberta winds --- a half-dozen yuppie yahoos still lined up with loaded strollers. I counted just one plastic windshield.
The bike trailers clog the paths some days, as their widths exceed the bikes propelling them.
I can't condemn the child attachment onto the adult's bike, since it includes pedals and the kid actually take something away of the ride. Families of four sometimes ride a tandem, and that's mostly fine - the headsets for communication were excessive, though.
But the super-stroller and bubble dome trailer don't leave Jacob and Emma without any recourse, but to go along while their parents get their exercise.
Those isolation bubbles for the active parent aren't for the betterment of the oblivious children they ferry - they only exist because of selfish adults.
Maybe the riders, usually oblivious themselves, are just ensuring their children grow up as they did and have no problem bundling away their kids for safekeeping while they run or ride.
Well, it is a lot simpler than, say, leaving them home until they're old enough to join in.
But the actual dragging is indifferent - they deposit Jacob or Emma in the stroller sporting mountain bike-treaded wheels or the enclosed bicycle trailer that without its wheels would bear a vague resemblance to tents that held children too young for gas masks during the First Gulf War.
That has to be a great experience for the kid, getting left in a tiny tent on wheels and pulled along the trails
During the Arnold Classic 5K - race time temperature stood at 25 degrees with gusty Alberta winds --- a half-dozen yuppie yahoos still lined up with loaded strollers. I counted just one plastic windshield.
The bike trailers clog the paths some days, as their widths exceed the bikes propelling them.
I can't condemn the child attachment onto the adult's bike, since it includes pedals and the kid actually take something away of the ride. Families of four sometimes ride a tandem, and that's mostly fine - the headsets for communication were excessive, though.
But the super-stroller and bubble dome trailer don't leave Jacob and Emma without any recourse, but to go along while their parents get their exercise.
Those isolation bubbles for the active parent aren't for the betterment of the oblivious children they ferry - they only exist because of selfish adults.
Maybe the riders, usually oblivious themselves, are just ensuring their children grow up as they did and have no problem bundling away their kids for safekeeping while they run or ride.
Well, it is a lot simpler than, say, leaving them home until they're old enough to join in.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Random jabs from a day submerged in travel
After banging shins on hurdles from showing off your driver's license every 20 feet to swearing you've ever even heard of terrorism, airports offer no better welcome than a legion of Blue-toothed, headphone-clad, cellphone loud-talkers and surly business travellers?
Actually, on this trip, it took about 90 seconds to check in, get boarding passes and cross security.
So I had plenty of time to listen to strangers escape their surroundings with whatever technological addiction gave them comfort. Some woman who I'll never see again was complaining that security didn't want to let her husband through because his only ID was an expired driver's license.
Little hint, ma'am - if it won't pass the bartender's muster, the reactionaries at the airport won't be sympathetic either. Renew that mo-fo and stop griping about mistakes you're 40 years too old to defend.
People are always friendlier on evening return flights; they're headed home, settling in business trip or just ready to end their staggered time in indifferent airports.
In a 12-hour period, I flew three times, landed in two cities where important people to me live, and saw none of them. I've always been one of those people who when traveling will make the effort to visit friends along the way (or just off it). That's always a blow, when travel does not allow intersection with our essential people and time evaporates down to pure business and leave no drop unclaimed.
It's impossible to move anywhere near Chicago quickly; the city's streets are a grinding mess of 4-way stops, its highways never shake off congestion, the El putters above those streets and the two major airports thrive on delays.
For laughs, I yanked the airline magazine from the seat pocket and who do I find but Thomas Alan Waits on the cover. Congratulations, Southwest Airlines, you've produced an airline magazine actually worth taking off the plane.
Actually, on this trip, it took about 90 seconds to check in, get boarding passes and cross security.
So I had plenty of time to listen to strangers escape their surroundings with whatever technological addiction gave them comfort. Some woman who I'll never see again was complaining that security didn't want to let her husband through because his only ID was an expired driver's license.
Little hint, ma'am - if it won't pass the bartender's muster, the reactionaries at the airport won't be sympathetic either. Renew that mo-fo and stop griping about mistakes you're 40 years too old to defend.
People are always friendlier on evening return flights; they're headed home, settling in business trip or just ready to end their staggered time in indifferent airports.
In a 12-hour period, I flew three times, landed in two cities where important people to me live, and saw none of them. I've always been one of those people who when traveling will make the effort to visit friends along the way (or just off it). That's always a blow, when travel does not allow intersection with our essential people and time evaporates down to pure business and leave no drop unclaimed.
It's impossible to move anywhere near Chicago quickly; the city's streets are a grinding mess of 4-way stops, its highways never shake off congestion, the El putters above those streets and the two major airports thrive on delays.
For laughs, I yanked the airline magazine from the seat pocket and who do I find but Thomas Alan Waits on the cover. Congratulations, Southwest Airlines, you've produced an airline magazine actually worth taking off the plane.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Best fortune cookie advice ever
Courtesy of the Tropical Bistro at Mill Run in Hilliard:
"Your tongue isn your ambassador."
That's right in so many ways ...
"Your tongue isn your ambassador."
That's right in so many ways ...
the muscles you forget will bring you wincing to the ground
In rain, sleet or snow, I won't leave my race entry fee on the table.
Because by law, those elements will recede behind the sunshine once the run is done, as they did Saturday in Delaware County. With moisture ranging from clinging mist to a cold pounding drizzle, the runners received a bitter welcome from Mother Nature - but at least she said "Good-bye" well
Plotted on the flattest course I ever attempted (my second 5K, back in October), Lucky Run No. 13 doubled the distance, but good pacing and a lot of Gatorade at the water stations pulled me through without a side stitch to be found.
I passed the one-handed man at the turn-around point and never looked back. For most of the second half, I encountered no other runners. Both goals for the morning came through - 1.) Don't stop running without courting injury by continuing and 2.) finish in under an hour (I crossed the finish at 59:56, slightly worse than a nine-and-a-half minute mile).
Pacing got in the way; I think I could have ran closer to a nine-minute mile if I pushed it in the second half. Next time, with a little more seasoning and that knowledge, I should be able to find the nine-minute groove.
This first 10K did not leave me as a cripple; aside from the tender left calf that ached through the Dublin St. Pat's 5K (Run # 2 of 2), all the tweaks were minor affairs. Running 2 5Ks two hours apart was actually more stressful on the frame than running it all in one race.
On Sunday, after some initial soreness, those legs snapped back into shape - until I decided to join my friends on a bike ride along the Olentangy Trail.
Pumping my hardest, I outpaced my riding companions and completed some short intervals (less than a mile apiece). The rust came off quickly, and the pain waited for my return trip from their house.
Three-tenths of a mile uphill in Clintonville strained them far beyond expectations; as soon I reached the high ground cutting through the neighborhood, I stuck with it until the road dipped back into ravine territory.
Biking works the muscles differently - they all occurred in my legs, but the pains of Saturday and Sunday held little in common.
Why shove these two into the same post? I've been scouting the local event guides for a summertime duathalon (no swimming competitively for me, thanks). And both groups of muscles need to work through their respective pains if I attempt it.
Because by law, those elements will recede behind the sunshine once the run is done, as they did Saturday in Delaware County. With moisture ranging from clinging mist to a cold pounding drizzle, the runners received a bitter welcome from Mother Nature - but at least she said "Good-bye" well
Plotted on the flattest course I ever attempted (my second 5K, back in October), Lucky Run No. 13 doubled the distance, but good pacing and a lot of Gatorade at the water stations pulled me through without a side stitch to be found.
I passed the one-handed man at the turn-around point and never looked back. For most of the second half, I encountered no other runners. Both goals for the morning came through - 1.) Don't stop running without courting injury by continuing and 2.) finish in under an hour (I crossed the finish at 59:56, slightly worse than a nine-and-a-half minute mile).
Pacing got in the way; I think I could have ran closer to a nine-minute mile if I pushed it in the second half. Next time, with a little more seasoning and that knowledge, I should be able to find the nine-minute groove.
This first 10K did not leave me as a cripple; aside from the tender left calf that ached through the Dublin St. Pat's 5K (Run # 2 of 2), all the tweaks were minor affairs. Running 2 5Ks two hours apart was actually more stressful on the frame than running it all in one race.
On Sunday, after some initial soreness, those legs snapped back into shape - until I decided to join my friends on a bike ride along the Olentangy Trail.
Pumping my hardest, I outpaced my riding companions and completed some short intervals (less than a mile apiece). The rust came off quickly, and the pain waited for my return trip from their house.
Three-tenths of a mile uphill in Clintonville strained them far beyond expectations; as soon I reached the high ground cutting through the neighborhood, I stuck with it until the road dipped back into ravine territory.
Biking works the muscles differently - they all occurred in my legs, but the pains of Saturday and Sunday held little in common.
Why shove these two into the same post? I've been scouting the local event guides for a summertime duathalon (no swimming competitively for me, thanks). And both groups of muscles need to work through their respective pains if I attempt it.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Percy in peril?
The Beast is still feisty, enjoying his afternoons of Judge shows and Ellen no matter how much I tell him to leave the TV alone.
He's also good for one round of arm biting a night, with the columns of puncture wounds to decorate my forearms.
And I haven't taken a shower if he walks out of the bathroom with dry fur.
But now his billy goat diet (this cat will eat anything; no matter how focus I try to keep him on his own bowl, he licks any plate he can) could carry serious repercussions.
I knew about this pet food recall that's falling dogs and cats across America (gutting the FDA in Republican administrations looks like a better decision all the time, right Popeye?), but paid it little mind. The soft food I give him, Pet Pride, never came up in the newscasts.
But it's on the list, because it's a Kroger-exclusive product.
Apparently, Pet Pride is the Private Selection of the animal world .... and it's Percy's regular morning treat.
He's shown no signs, continuing his incessant meows and cord-chewing routines - no dehydration or unpleasantness in the litter box (no more than usual, anyway).
So I'll watch him for now. As long as the happenings in the tree just beyond the window screen entrance him, I'll hold off on calling the vet.
He's also good for one round of arm biting a night, with the columns of puncture wounds to decorate my forearms.
And I haven't taken a shower if he walks out of the bathroom with dry fur.
But now his billy goat diet (this cat will eat anything; no matter how focus I try to keep him on his own bowl, he licks any plate he can) could carry serious repercussions.
I knew about this pet food recall that's falling dogs and cats across America (gutting the FDA in Republican administrations looks like a better decision all the time, right Popeye?), but paid it little mind. The soft food I give him, Pet Pride, never came up in the newscasts.
But it's on the list, because it's a Kroger-exclusive product.
Apparently, Pet Pride is the Private Selection of the animal world .... and it's Percy's regular morning treat.
He's shown no signs, continuing his incessant meows and cord-chewing routines - no dehydration or unpleasantness in the litter box (no more than usual, anyway).
So I'll watch him for now. As long as the happenings in the tree just beyond the window screen entrance him, I'll hold off on calling the vet.
Nothing sticky with MP3s
With digital music, there's never any issue with those ridiculous labels atop the CD holding it closed.
Every time I open one, I ruin the case in the process. Tuesday, it was Modest Mouse, Thursday, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists were forever marked. On the shelf, they cling to each other due to that thin row of indomitable adhesive.
Short of an cleaning it with alcohol, a little picky for a jewel case, it's a burden to live with.
A burden that makes digital downloads look better all the tim, that is ....
Every time I open one, I ruin the case in the process. Tuesday, it was Modest Mouse, Thursday, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists were forever marked. On the shelf, they cling to each other due to that thin row of indomitable adhesive.
Short of an cleaning it with alcohol, a little picky for a jewel case, it's a burden to live with.
A burden that makes digital downloads look better all the tim, that is ....
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Musical dinosaurs
(Warning: This post is not about The Rolling Stones or any group reuniting to tour solely for the Almighty Dollar.)
Run down any chart of music sales, and it's easy to see the impact of downloads - top albums rarely crest above 100,000 copies in their release weeks, even industry standards good for a platinum record every time out.
As much as record junkies mourn the sidelining of their medium - I agree that the artwork of records actually meant something, while most CD covers could have been designed in a half hour with a computer and some lousy photos - it's not coming back.
Now, the CD is racing to catch up, with the prominence and iPods and downloading making an CD as valuable as those AOL starter discs that flooded mailboxes in the late 1990s and beyond.
But I still visit the stores on Tuesday, new release day.
This week, it was Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, which I could have easily picked online through Limewire or any other pirate sites. I could have borrowed and burned from a friend, but there are times when owning the actual CD feels proper (Why Modest Mouse? I haven't bought anything in a while, nothing more).
But I don't mess with Limewire, never had a Napster account back in the day, and aside from listening to some MP3s or running through an iTunes gift certificate,
There's really no need for me to download illegally; for the better part of this decade, I've abused the Columbus Metropolitan Library's awesome musical selection and taken hundred of CDS into digital form, let the laptop CD drive spin then spit out a new copy.
Tax dollars pay for it, so why not? That avenue is largely spent now, as I went on a binge after purchasing my laptop, burning everything I'd ever possessed a slight interest in; several scratched-up library discs froze the MacBook, so I've grown a skittish unless it's a new release from the library - people abuse those discs, and I don't understand why (a digression for another time).
Sometimes I even pick up a CD after wearing down a burned copy (There's residual guilt over landing a burn of The Shins' Wincing the Night Away three months before its release and not buying it, but Rolling Stone shoulders that blame, since their write-up of an advanced copy was the signal it lurked somewhere on the Internet).
Wilco's A Ghost is Born and Radiohead's Hail to the Thief both came to my stereo on the same illegal trail, but I eventually bought both.
For now, I'll lumber on, still buying a new record drawing my curiosity.
But downloads are soon to block out the sun, end the age of the compact disc, and usher us dinosaurs off to extinction.
Run down any chart of music sales, and it's easy to see the impact of downloads - top albums rarely crest above 100,000 copies in their release weeks, even industry standards good for a platinum record every time out.
As much as record junkies mourn the sidelining of their medium - I agree that the artwork of records actually meant something, while most CD covers could have been designed in a half hour with a computer and some lousy photos - it's not coming back.
Now, the CD is racing to catch up, with the prominence and iPods and downloading making an CD as valuable as those AOL starter discs that flooded mailboxes in the late 1990s and beyond.
But I still visit the stores on Tuesday, new release day.
This week, it was Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, which I could have easily picked online through Limewire or any other pirate sites. I could have borrowed and burned from a friend, but there are times when owning the actual CD feels proper (Why Modest Mouse? I haven't bought anything in a while, nothing more).
But I don't mess with Limewire, never had a Napster account back in the day, and aside from listening to some MP3s or running through an iTunes gift certificate,
There's really no need for me to download illegally; for the better part of this decade, I've abused the Columbus Metropolitan Library's awesome musical selection and taken hundred of CDS into digital form, let the laptop CD drive spin then spit out a new copy.
Tax dollars pay for it, so why not? That avenue is largely spent now, as I went on a binge after purchasing my laptop, burning everything I'd ever possessed a slight interest in; several scratched-up library discs froze the MacBook, so I've grown a skittish unless it's a new release from the library - people abuse those discs, and I don't understand why (a digression for another time).
Sometimes I even pick up a CD after wearing down a burned copy (There's residual guilt over landing a burn of The Shins' Wincing the Night Away three months before its release and not buying it, but Rolling Stone shoulders that blame, since their write-up of an advanced copy was the signal it lurked somewhere on the Internet).
Wilco's A Ghost is Born and Radiohead's Hail to the Thief both came to my stereo on the same illegal trail, but I eventually bought both.
For now, I'll lumber on, still buying a new record drawing my curiosity.
But downloads are soon to block out the sun, end the age of the compact disc, and usher us dinosaurs off to extinction.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
The legendary melville
See that subject line?
Word abuse, plain and simple; Few words receive the lashes that "legendary" does.
To my mind - and hosts of others - legends are stories dipped in both fact and fiction, or fact that time has glossed with a coat of mysticism.
Legends, fables and myths all roam freely between the true and the imaginary, but with legendary, people move too quickly to use it to label someone with peculiar talent.
King Arthur? Very legendary.
No one really knows if he existed, and if he did, it was without all the myths attached to him over the centuries.
Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr? You've got to be kidding, unless you write for Entertainment Weekly, which used that exact phrase (and spawned this rant).
Blues guitarist Robert Johnson comes with a legendary story; stories of The Devil trading unparalleled musical prowess for his soul, and his death at the hands of jealous husband.
Leadbelly is another who drifted into legend; born Huddie Ledbetter, he was the forerunner of today's rappers, a rough man who did hard time for murder and whose skills with a 12-string led to parole on a subsequent attempted homicide charge.
I think legacy and legend are twisted into confusion. We talk about presidential legacies, not legends. As with all our modern, trapping labels, there is a tendency to tag "legend" on talented people, usually in the arts or sports, still very much alive.
Let them rest for a few decades, then we can talk legend.
However, there is a legendary Melville -- as in the version of me who's always open with people and never caves in to moodiness.
Word abuse, plain and simple; Few words receive the lashes that "legendary" does.
To my mind - and hosts of others - legends are stories dipped in both fact and fiction, or fact that time has glossed with a coat of mysticism.
Legends, fables and myths all roam freely between the true and the imaginary, but with legendary, people move too quickly to use it to label someone with peculiar talent.
King Arthur? Very legendary.
No one really knows if he existed, and if he did, it was without all the myths attached to him over the centuries.
Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr? You've got to be kidding, unless you write for Entertainment Weekly, which used that exact phrase (and spawned this rant).
Blues guitarist Robert Johnson comes with a legendary story; stories of The Devil trading unparalleled musical prowess for his soul, and his death at the hands of jealous husband.
Leadbelly is another who drifted into legend; born Huddie Ledbetter, he was the forerunner of today's rappers, a rough man who did hard time for murder and whose skills with a 12-string led to parole on a subsequent attempted homicide charge.
I think legacy and legend are twisted into confusion. We talk about presidential legacies, not legends. As with all our modern, trapping labels, there is a tendency to tag "legend" on talented people, usually in the arts or sports, still very much alive.
Let them rest for a few decades, then we can talk legend.
However, there is a legendary Melville -- as in the version of me who's always open with people and never caves in to moodiness.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Muppet missive
After catching Muppets History 101 at the Wexner Center Saturday, I quickly realized that cloth puppets from my childhood entertained just as well decades later (even if The Muppet Show's guest stars were so awfully 70's).
Fozzie Bear and Kermit really are that funny. And how had I forgotten Jim Henson's voice is only a tone away from Kermit? In interviews, he asserted he and Kermit were not the same person, but I'm not hearing it.
And what better gift of song for St. Patrick's Day than "Danny Boy" sung by the Swedish Chef, Animal and Beaker?
At least they took a more decipherable route through its lyrics than Pogues frontman/legendary drunk Shane McGowan...
Fozzie Bear and Kermit really are that funny. And how had I forgotten Jim Henson's voice is only a tone away from Kermit? In interviews, he asserted he and Kermit were not the same person, but I'm not hearing it.
And what better gift of song for St. Patrick's Day than "Danny Boy" sung by the Swedish Chef, Animal and Beaker?
At least they took a more decipherable route through its lyrics than Pogues frontman/legendary drunk Shane McGowan...
Don't Call Me Ishmael's first annual call for reader feedback
The one year mark is a scant two months away, so the superhuman writing crew is about to take a break from its agitated view of the world and ask, "What would the six regular readers of this blog like to see from it?"
I've shunted the beer stuff off the Hoist the Main Ales wherever crossover is unnecessary, but I feel I'm not living up to my blogging potential.
So what will it be? More zombie ninjas and celebrity cameos?
Less focus on 5Ks and the art of grinding away my knee cartilage?
More musical interludes (I've got a few that are drafts and close to post status)?
More run-downs of Mabel's zany antics ... oh wait, that's someone else's blog.
How about an inside look at the crazy world of dating in Columb ... yeah, I should stick to what I know, and stay away from topics better juggled by other hands.
Faithful readers, lend me your thoughts. This isn't the Bush White House; no reasonable feedback will be dismissed. Help me out here.
I've shunted the beer stuff off the Hoist the Main Ales wherever crossover is unnecessary, but I feel I'm not living up to my blogging potential.
So what will it be? More zombie ninjas and celebrity cameos?
Less focus on 5Ks and the art of grinding away my knee cartilage?
More musical interludes (I've got a few that are drafts and close to post status)?
More run-downs of Mabel's zany antics ... oh wait, that's someone else's blog.
How about an inside look at the crazy world of dating in Columb ... yeah, I should stick to what I know, and stay away from topics better juggled by other hands.
Faithful readers, lend me your thoughts. This isn't the Bush White House; no reasonable feedback will be dismissed. Help me out here.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
St. Patrick's Day, as crazy as any other day
Despite another round of shaking heads and "You're crazy "frequently aimed at me, I accomplished my St. Patrick's day goal around 11:15, finishing the second 5K of the morning.
The first took off from Flannagan's, the meat market bar on the edge of Dublin that opens at 5:30 a.m. Checking in at 7, I had no choice but to carb up and finish my first of the day before the WNCI Morning Zoo guys roused the crowd. Then it was off to snowy Snouffer Road and another race below freezing (the second won't probably didn't beat 30 degrees either
Done by 8:30, I turned south to Dublin proper for the round two, escaping my car before those first 3.1 miles stiffened my legs into relaxation. Amazingly, the stomach cramps that plagued every 5K of 2007 were a non-factor.
But there was no relaxing. Not today, not in a nation populated by green beer lovin knuckleheads (Try a Guinness, Harp, Muphy's or Smithwicks, you won't be disappointed).
What made it easier was Ed, one of the two 5K guys I meet reguarly, was trying for the same kingdom. He finishes six minutes ahead of me at each run, but it was nice to know someone else trying something considered out of whack by non-runners.
Talking with Ed easily spanned the time between the races, and before we knew it, the horn blew on the second round, and my feet ably carried me through Old Dublin and the suburban homogeneity festering just beyond it.
It was tougher the second time, but not unbearably so. No sharp pains, no touchy muscles and I swear chewing gum staved off the cramps until the final stretch back into Metro Place. It was the first time I finished with a time beyond 30 minutes, but I carried the extra German weight and the bitter cold that limited my workouts, so time mattered little. I had too much gut to run against anyone but myself.
Two 5Ks in three hours, before most of the revelers got their drinking started .... Not a bad haul, and those runs will make my first foray into 5Ks next Saturday all the better.
The first took off from Flannagan's, the meat market bar on the edge of Dublin that opens at 5:30 a.m. Checking in at 7, I had no choice but to carb up and finish my first of the day before the WNCI Morning Zoo guys roused the crowd. Then it was off to snowy Snouffer Road and another race below freezing (the second won't probably didn't beat 30 degrees either
Done by 8:30, I turned south to Dublin proper for the round two, escaping my car before those first 3.1 miles stiffened my legs into relaxation. Amazingly, the stomach cramps that plagued every 5K of 2007 were a non-factor.
But there was no relaxing. Not today, not in a nation populated by green beer lovin knuckleheads (Try a Guinness, Harp, Muphy's or Smithwicks, you won't be disappointed).
What made it easier was Ed, one of the two 5K guys I meet reguarly, was trying for the same kingdom. He finishes six minutes ahead of me at each run, but it was nice to know someone else trying something considered out of whack by non-runners.
Talking with Ed easily spanned the time between the races, and before we knew it, the horn blew on the second round, and my feet ably carried me through Old Dublin and the suburban homogeneity festering just beyond it.
It was tougher the second time, but not unbearably so. No sharp pains, no touchy muscles and I swear chewing gum staved off the cramps until the final stretch back into Metro Place. It was the first time I finished with a time beyond 30 minutes, but I carried the extra German weight and the bitter cold that limited my workouts, so time mattered little. I had too much gut to run against anyone but myself.
Two 5Ks in three hours, before most of the revelers got their drinking started .... Not a bad haul, and those runs will make my first foray into 5Ks next Saturday all the better.
Friday, March 16, 2007
What's been saved so far?
This new early start to Daylight Savings time has really thrown off my internal rhythm (the external ones are perfectly intact, so you won't be spared my "Echantment Under the Sea" moves the next time I find a dance floor).
Every day since the switch I've woken up later than usual or crawled out of bed stiff and zombified, trapped by tunnel vision and tripping over the cat.
The jetlag from Munich's 6-hour time difference lingered for five days, and now one missing hour produces the same symptoms.
Speaking of which, I think it's affecting him as well. If the alarm goes off a little too long because I'm still lost in a dream, he swats it off the nightstand so the speaker's blare is muffled by the carpet.
Every day since the switch I've woken up later than usual or crawled out of bed stiff and zombified, trapped by tunnel vision and tripping over the cat.
The jetlag from Munich's 6-hour time difference lingered for five days, and now one missing hour produces the same symptoms.
Speaking of which, I think it's affecting him as well. If the alarm goes off a little too long because I'm still lost in a dream, he swats it off the nightstand so the speaker's blare is muffled by the carpet.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Hibernating Columbus leaves its cave
I've never known a town so stir crazy when winter's cocoon cracks and its residents can finally roam again.
Any inkling of 50-60 degree temperatures, and the city roars to life, as if some long, demoralizing conflict has at last been signed away in treaty.
Children swarmed, locusts of the playgrounds; everytime I passed a park, the swings and slides bowed from a capacity crowd. Rarely will the crowds swell so large in neighborhood parks, even during summer vacation. There's something special about the first sunny day that cannot be cloned in June.
And finally, the porch party made its triumphant return to town, wiping away from the occupation enforced by single-digit highs.
In only a few hours on second-floor porch next to a busy glide path for bats, the feelings that winter seeks to crush now crawl away from their shallow grave and live again.
Today, the rain pounds away, and the Chicken Littles of television news already strut and cluck about rumors of snow by week's end, possible in time to give us a white St. Pat's Day (or as I have to call it in Melissa's presence, the day after Friday).
But a little taste of late spring will sate this body through the next visit from winter.
Any inkling of 50-60 degree temperatures, and the city roars to life, as if some long, demoralizing conflict has at last been signed away in treaty.
Children swarmed, locusts of the playgrounds; everytime I passed a park, the swings and slides bowed from a capacity crowd. Rarely will the crowds swell so large in neighborhood parks, even during summer vacation. There's something special about the first sunny day that cannot be cloned in June.
And finally, the porch party made its triumphant return to town, wiping away from the occupation enforced by single-digit highs.
In only a few hours on second-floor porch next to a busy glide path for bats, the feelings that winter seeks to crush now crawl away from their shallow grave and live again.
Today, the rain pounds away, and the Chicken Littles of television news already strut and cluck about rumors of snow by week's end, possible in time to give us a white St. Pat's Day (or as I have to call it in Melissa's presence, the day after Friday).
But a little taste of late spring will sate this body through the next visit from winter.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Deutschland detritus and random reflections
With nearly eight thousand words behind me, I wanted to run through a few items that didn't fit anywhere, and give my overall impression of Bavaria and surrounding nations.
Carnival
Despite New Orleans' plight after Katrina, there is no monopoly on frenzied party prior to Lent.
In a country as Christian as Germany, confetti still peppered space between stones in Munich's altstadt.
As for Wunsiedel, when the carnival season rages, we saw our share of teens dressed for the occasion (they can drink beer at 16, so it's all fare game). Wunsiedel sat in Franconia, a culturally distinct and deeply religious region swallowed up by Bavaria, so when midnight hits and Tuesday rolls into Ash Wednesday, the celebration ceases.
Yet there were no surging drunken mobs or OU Halloween-grade incidents with the police. It was almost placid, minus the parade float with a giant boot kicking the rear end of a Bavarian state minister-president Edmund Stoiber in effigy (this was in the Tuesday morning paper; we only saw the remains of the carnival parades on public squares and altstadts).
Die Hunde waren wunderbar
German dogs are by far the best behaved on the planet. Commands given in that tongue are harsh, and every time one drifted from its owner, a swift verbal reminder brought the dog back on course.
They trotted into bars and restaurants with their owners and rarely walked on leashes.
Sometimes a muzzle will intrude beneath the table, though with a word, it will withdraw just as quickly as the owner warns their pet.
Actually, among the few tethered dogs I saw, one leash stuck further than all others – it was folded up and the shepherd mix carried it in his/her mouth as it followed its owner through Munich's altstadt.
Whenever I get a dog, it will learn commands in German.
How could the once and future hound ignore a curt “Achtung!” after nosing through the garbage for chicken bones?
The German keyboard blues
The programs are all the same, and figuring out how to check English-language web pages from German versions of the search engines was simple.
But the typing took a few minutes to grow familiar.
I typed the key where “y” normally sits and found it missing. The keyboard took a quick primer at Dietmar's house or the Internet cafes where I swept away massive volumes of irrelevant work e-mails.
The @ symbol so vital to e-mail appeared only with a string of simultaneously-tapped keys.
And since the German language includes a few extra alphabet options, they too make their mark - a,o and u with umlauts all have their own keys, as does the long “s” that to Americans looks like a distorted capital B. Control+Alt+E will get you the symbol for the Euro.
I never typed comfortably as to where my falling fingers landed.
Walk on
The big conclusion I've drawn is while my linguistic skills needed improvement, my sensibilities are much more European than I ever imagined.
I like walking everywhere, past churches conceived by kings and bishops who died centuries before Columbus' fleet dropped anchor in the Caribbean. And we walked a lot – I'd estimate we covered 5-7 miles a day, possibly more in Munich. My legs were constantly sore and my feet blistered by the second day in Munich. However, there was a lot of sausage to burn off.
Drivers respect pedestrians, and I would not be alone in biking down congested streets. Many larger Munich boulevard reserve a portion of sidewalk for their bike commuters, and no one cares where you hail from so long as you meet or exceed the pack speed – or stay our of their way.
Germans don't like bullshit and phonies. If that means they come off as cold on the introduction, so be it. At least they're real, and not seething beneath a friendly veneer. Most of the people we encountered couldn't have been friendlier – I could have, by relearning more of their language. At most stops, the Germans did not scoff at the effort; it isn't as if I was in France. They appreciated that I tried to navigate their language, even if my raft was filled with holes.
The social end is similar to the States, yet drastically more comfortable. Strolling into the corner tavern for a few to wind down the night is past-time familiar to many here, but in Germany, it's a rich tradition, with patrons occupying the same tables for bull sessions or card games over decades. There were no frat boy types gulping down shots on their short, rough path to middle age.
The Thalgau Josephs had their fun, but it was not harassment; there was no punishment for failing their German language litmus test but a little mockery. I wouldn't mind brushing up on mein Deutsch and taking another shot; I don't think they'd mind.
After waking up to clanging in the belfries, I want to stop on the town square to chat with neighbors and friends.
That speaks to why I live in an older (chuckle away) area of Columbus, where I can accomplish most business on foot, and almost always run into a familiar face in the grocery or tavern.
So what does all this adds up to? Better odds of an annual trip to the Germanic countries.
(For now, an ending – with the wanderlust for a second round)
Carnival
Despite New Orleans' plight after Katrina, there is no monopoly on frenzied party prior to Lent.
In a country as Christian as Germany, confetti still peppered space between stones in Munich's altstadt.
As for Wunsiedel, when the carnival season rages, we saw our share of teens dressed for the occasion (they can drink beer at 16, so it's all fare game). Wunsiedel sat in Franconia, a culturally distinct and deeply religious region swallowed up by Bavaria, so when midnight hits and Tuesday rolls into Ash Wednesday, the celebration ceases.
Yet there were no surging drunken mobs or OU Halloween-grade incidents with the police. It was almost placid, minus the parade float with a giant boot kicking the rear end of a Bavarian state minister-president Edmund Stoiber in effigy (this was in the Tuesday morning paper; we only saw the remains of the carnival parades on public squares and altstadts).
Die Hunde waren wunderbar
German dogs are by far the best behaved on the planet. Commands given in that tongue are harsh, and every time one drifted from its owner, a swift verbal reminder brought the dog back on course.
They trotted into bars and restaurants with their owners and rarely walked on leashes.
Sometimes a muzzle will intrude beneath the table, though with a word, it will withdraw just as quickly as the owner warns their pet.
Actually, among the few tethered dogs I saw, one leash stuck further than all others – it was folded up and the shepherd mix carried it in his/her mouth as it followed its owner through Munich's altstadt.
Whenever I get a dog, it will learn commands in German.
How could the once and future hound ignore a curt “Achtung!” after nosing through the garbage for chicken bones?
The German keyboard blues
The programs are all the same, and figuring out how to check English-language web pages from German versions of the search engines was simple.
But the typing took a few minutes to grow familiar.
I typed the key where “y” normally sits and found it missing. The keyboard took a quick primer at Dietmar's house or the Internet cafes where I swept away massive volumes of irrelevant work e-mails.
The @ symbol so vital to e-mail appeared only with a string of simultaneously-tapped keys.
And since the German language includes a few extra alphabet options, they too make their mark - a,o and u with umlauts all have their own keys, as does the long “s” that to Americans looks like a distorted capital B. Control+Alt+E will get you the symbol for the Euro.
I never typed comfortably as to where my falling fingers landed.
Walk on
The big conclusion I've drawn is while my linguistic skills needed improvement, my sensibilities are much more European than I ever imagined.
I like walking everywhere, past churches conceived by kings and bishops who died centuries before Columbus' fleet dropped anchor in the Caribbean. And we walked a lot – I'd estimate we covered 5-7 miles a day, possibly more in Munich. My legs were constantly sore and my feet blistered by the second day in Munich. However, there was a lot of sausage to burn off.
Drivers respect pedestrians, and I would not be alone in biking down congested streets. Many larger Munich boulevard reserve a portion of sidewalk for their bike commuters, and no one cares where you hail from so long as you meet or exceed the pack speed – or stay our of their way.
Germans don't like bullshit and phonies. If that means they come off as cold on the introduction, so be it. At least they're real, and not seething beneath a friendly veneer. Most of the people we encountered couldn't have been friendlier – I could have, by relearning more of their language. At most stops, the Germans did not scoff at the effort; it isn't as if I was in France. They appreciated that I tried to navigate their language, even if my raft was filled with holes.
The social end is similar to the States, yet drastically more comfortable. Strolling into the corner tavern for a few to wind down the night is past-time familiar to many here, but in Germany, it's a rich tradition, with patrons occupying the same tables for bull sessions or card games over decades. There were no frat boy types gulping down shots on their short, rough path to middle age.
The Thalgau Josephs had their fun, but it was not harassment; there was no punishment for failing their German language litmus test but a little mockery. I wouldn't mind brushing up on mein Deutsch and taking another shot; I don't think they'd mind.
After waking up to clanging in the belfries, I want to stop on the town square to chat with neighbors and friends.
That speaks to why I live in an older (chuckle away) area of Columbus, where I can accomplish most business on foot, and almost always run into a familiar face in the grocery or tavern.
So what does all this adds up to? Better odds of an annual trip to the Germanic countries.
(For now, an ending – with the wanderlust for a second round)
Monday, March 12, 2007
Crawling through the last day
Apparently I ate breakfast Sunday morning, but had to take someone else's word for it.
I wasn't in the midst of a hangover (I avoided them the entire trip, a record owed entirely to the quality of beer imbibed), but I heard Mitzy and Hannah say they were going, and followed them down.
Just don't ask me what I ate, or why I didn't sit with them; all I remember is being hindered by exhaustion; I could have been walking through water – that I might have remembered.
Back in the room, I alternately watched TV and read Raymond Carver's Cathedral, then slept a little more.
Our final day in Munich was looking abridged compared to the rest of the week, though none of us minded. The breakneck pace finally paralyzed us, though not enough for us to squander the entire day at Hotel Alfa # 244.
We chose the Alte Pinothek, the art museum with the oldest works, and set out in the blustery afternoon, the first time we crossed weather close to what we left behind in Columbus. The FunSavers were used up, so the beautiful Konigplatsz (King's Place) which we passed is resigned to hazy memory.
The museum only cost 1 Euro on Sunday, so we found our first bargain on my last day – if it took more, I was ready. And with what I spent in the museum gift shop, they did well enough.
I saw my first Da Vinci (“Maria und Kinder,” of course) as well as three Raphaels. Nothing rivaled “The School of Athens” or “The Last Supper,” but knowing the great works helps to appreciate the style and technique in the smaller ones.
Among the oldest paintings were the gilded New Testament trilogy from Medieval master Giotto: a Last Supper, Crucifixion and Christ in Hell. They're not the viscerally detailed paintings of the Renaissance and after, but they hold up well for their time of creation.
As I glanced at the Albrecht Durer pieces, the goofy Monty Python ditty about him stuck in my head. Luckily, the haunting qualities of Durer's “Self Portrait” dislodged its nonsensical verse. Looking almost Christ-like and posed simply, the image does not fade from the mind rapidly. His panels of the Four Apostles are also striking.
The biggest stars were Reubens and Rembrandt, for wholly different reasons. Rembrandt builds power in his painting with the clash between illumination and darkness; a Crucifixion scene jumps away from its frame because of the blackness encroaching on the highlighted image. He only shows the focus and everything else is insignificant.
Reubens is almost gruesome by comparison – from his scenes of crodiles and lions ambushing humans to his massive Last Judgment and an over-the-top Massacre of the Children of Bethlehem, the bloody and sinew stood out in the gallery devoted to him.
Though it was a great excursion for a low-key afternoon, there were way too many “Die Beweinung Christi” and “Madonna und Kinder.”
We took our last march down the main avenue of Munich's altstadt and found the Augustiner Bräustüberl and its attached beer hall, where I sampled its Maximator Doublebock from one of the few major Munich brewers owned by Germans (and impossible to find outside of Bavaria, let alone in the States). I couldn't skip out at one more shot at the freshest doublebock I'd ever sample. It went down smoothly with the skillet dish I ordered, a mound of lentils and ravioli broken up by sausage.
I bought a ceramic half-liter mug from the manager to commemorate my only visit to a bier hall in Munich – even if we stayed on the restaurant side of things.
With that last gut-buster on the books, it was back to the hotel to gather my vacation wares for the morning commute back to the airport, and then home.
(Last look: The random, The reflections)
I wasn't in the midst of a hangover (I avoided them the entire trip, a record owed entirely to the quality of beer imbibed), but I heard Mitzy and Hannah say they were going, and followed them down.
Just don't ask me what I ate, or why I didn't sit with them; all I remember is being hindered by exhaustion; I could have been walking through water – that I might have remembered.
Back in the room, I alternately watched TV and read Raymond Carver's Cathedral, then slept a little more.
Our final day in Munich was looking abridged compared to the rest of the week, though none of us minded. The breakneck pace finally paralyzed us, though not enough for us to squander the entire day at Hotel Alfa # 244.
We chose the Alte Pinothek, the art museum with the oldest works, and set out in the blustery afternoon, the first time we crossed weather close to what we left behind in Columbus. The FunSavers were used up, so the beautiful Konigplatsz (King's Place) which we passed is resigned to hazy memory.
The museum only cost 1 Euro on Sunday, so we found our first bargain on my last day – if it took more, I was ready. And with what I spent in the museum gift shop, they did well enough.
I saw my first Da Vinci (“Maria und Kinder,” of course) as well as three Raphaels. Nothing rivaled “The School of Athens” or “The Last Supper,” but knowing the great works helps to appreciate the style and technique in the smaller ones.
Among the oldest paintings were the gilded New Testament trilogy from Medieval master Giotto: a Last Supper, Crucifixion and Christ in Hell. They're not the viscerally detailed paintings of the Renaissance and after, but they hold up well for their time of creation.
As I glanced at the Albrecht Durer pieces, the goofy Monty Python ditty about him stuck in my head. Luckily, the haunting qualities of Durer's “Self Portrait” dislodged its nonsensical verse. Looking almost Christ-like and posed simply, the image does not fade from the mind rapidly. His panels of the Four Apostles are also striking.
The biggest stars were Reubens and Rembrandt, for wholly different reasons. Rembrandt builds power in his painting with the clash between illumination and darkness; a Crucifixion scene jumps away from its frame because of the blackness encroaching on the highlighted image. He only shows the focus and everything else is insignificant.
Reubens is almost gruesome by comparison – from his scenes of crodiles and lions ambushing humans to his massive Last Judgment and an over-the-top Massacre of the Children of Bethlehem, the bloody and sinew stood out in the gallery devoted to him.
Though it was a great excursion for a low-key afternoon, there were way too many “Die Beweinung Christi” and “Madonna und Kinder.”
We took our last march down the main avenue of Munich's altstadt and found the Augustiner Bräustüberl and its attached beer hall, where I sampled its Maximator Doublebock from one of the few major Munich brewers owned by Germans (and impossible to find outside of Bavaria, let alone in the States). I couldn't skip out at one more shot at the freshest doublebock I'd ever sample. It went down smoothly with the skillet dish I ordered, a mound of lentils and ravioli broken up by sausage.
I bought a ceramic half-liter mug from the manager to commemorate my only visit to a bier hall in Munich – even if we stayed on the restaurant side of things.
With that last gut-buster on the books, it was back to the hotel to gather my vacation wares for the morning commute back to the airport, and then home.
(Last look: The random, The reflections)
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Two wheels and overloaded senses (Saturday in Munich)
Staring up at the Neues Rathaus from the crowded Marienplatz, awaiting the glockenspiel's chimes and story, I basked in the sun and fortune of a 45-degree February day.
Then someone frantically shoved a hand in my back pocket.
Though I wore a money belt beneath my shirt the entire trip, I instinctively sprung toward my assailant - to try to prevent him fleeing with my free bicycle map of Munch, apparently.
Until I saw he wore a Winking Lizard World Tour of Beers T-shirt.
Chris spotted me in the crowd and knew (I thought they departed for soccer, but they decided it could wait for the figures to dance high above Munich). Revenge will wait, but it will come.
I had just tested my bicycle with a quick buzz through the neighborhoods surrounding the old city, and walked it up to the Marienplatz to find a good viewing point for the noon spin.
While waiting for the bike rental guy to give me appropriate wheels, I spoke with an Chicago aerospace engineer taking his last day in Munich to tour the city under this own power. He told me just to go, and to enjoy the Englischer Garten, the largest public park in continental Europe and a cycling paradise with miles of paths.
You can only get so lost in a German city where the tallest spires are the churches you passed on foot the previous evening; so long as I could orient
So, juiced on the adrenaline rush provided by Chris' fake pick-pocket attempt, I rolled past the Odeonsplatz, a square modeled on those of ancient Rome with the Theatinerkirche, another large church piercing the skyline with its muted gold towers and dome.
In an English-style garden without shade
Quickly falling in with cyclists more seasoned on Munich's streets, it took no time at all to find hit the massive green blob on the map.
I was a rapid student of cycling through crowded European parks, weaving through the swell of people the park produced as I neared its attractions.
The major paths allowed walkers and bikers, with many offshoots marked just for pedestrians. A rare path was marked only for horse riders, and I only saw one user, a man riding a steed flanked by a pack of dogs.
Usually I stuck with the Eisbach, the man-made river that winds through the Englischer Garten and fans out into lake of varying size.
That route covered the main sites – the Monopteros, a small Greek-looking temple atop one of the park's few hills; the Chinesischer Turm, a pagoda with a sprawling beer garden attached; plus the all the nature I could soak up. That last one tapped the imagination frequently, since the warm weather could not hide its true season with the garden's acres of bare trees.
When I finally stopped aside one of the smaller lakes, 15 second elapsed before an Italian greyhound tattooed my pants with his pawprints. He dragged a stick twice as long as him over for me to toss while the woman who owned him smoked under a nearby pavilion. Three tosses, and they both were done, off to parts unknown.
Speaking of parts unknown, I strayed pretty far by 3 p.m., well off the central city map the rental guy gave me, and miles from the hotel, so I rode until the Isar River blocked my path, and turned back.
No ocean, no problem
I just traced the Isar south till familiar street names filled the signs, then headed back toward the central city. I was down the handful of photos on my FunSaver, and too many gorgeous – and anonymous buildings stood along my path.
Along the way, a mass of chattering people crowded against a small bridge; below them, on a standing wave in the Eisbach, a crew of wetsuit-clad Germans took to surfboards and road that surging wave for a few brief seconds before succumbing to the artificial river.
Even in the suits, they must have been cold – clear, sunny day receded into moody clouds drive by cutting, Arctic wind. Maybe the cheers drove them, as the crowd spilled over into the trees and shrubs on the Eisbach's banks.
Without food since breakfast, my meandering had purpose, but only directed me through the heavily-traipsed tourist rows with overpriced restaurants and stores hawking garish steins meant for the mantle, not lager.
I passed the infamous Hofbrauhaus, probably Munich's best known beer hall, which Dietmar remembered a friendly warning from Dietmar, and pedaled on as pain crept up my legs.
The needle finds “E”
I found a courtyard cafe with similar ambiance to the Parisian cafe in Amelie; I wish it's food and lager never found their way to my table, since the skunky golden lager called Schweiger and a ham sandwich were a poor man's lunch at a tourist rate.
But my legs were scorched, my mind exhausted, and a few hours of German television sounded fine.
In my typical masochistic way, I kept walking, going back through the altstadt in late afternoon, when the crowds reached their peak and walking fast required me to almost run when zipping through walls of pedestrians pushing toward the attractions.
On a different route back, I found the old botanical gardens, a little park overwhelmed by a fountain of Neptune surging from the ocean; it was less dramatic in winter, with no water to fill out the sea god's ascent. The garden ground was filled with small purple flower, a welcome contrast to the grays and browns everywhere else.
Night was not for the faint, even if that was the only thing I couldn't do. I was irritable from all the exercise, the lack of sleep and the news that the law closed almost every store in Bavaria on Sundays, killing most of my souvenir shopping. We ate at an American restaurant (the tortellini with sausage was pretty blah) and cramps fired down my calves, quads and hamstrings.
In a hunt for a new place for a nightcap, we crossed the train station and checked out the city blocks opposite from our hotel.
“Wrong side of the tracks” was no cliché, as all manners of tawdry hotels, strip clubs and nude revues greeted naïve tourists, who wasted little time in killing our curiosity.
We tried the streets north of the hotel, found the Spaten Brewery and glass windows displaying its brew kettles, but no bar. Better luck surfaced closer to the train station when we decided on a little bar with decent beer and no bullshit.
As a peace offering, I paid the full tab at our evening bar excursion, where Paulaner hefeweizen half-liters disappeared like water in August.
Next chapter: (A final gasp, a final gulp and a heap of art)
Then someone frantically shoved a hand in my back pocket.
Though I wore a money belt beneath my shirt the entire trip, I instinctively sprung toward my assailant - to try to prevent him fleeing with my free bicycle map of Munch, apparently.
Until I saw he wore a Winking Lizard World Tour of Beers T-shirt.
Chris spotted me in the crowd and knew (I thought they departed for soccer, but they decided it could wait for the figures to dance high above Munich). Revenge will wait, but it will come.
I had just tested my bicycle with a quick buzz through the neighborhoods surrounding the old city, and walked it up to the Marienplatz to find a good viewing point for the noon spin.
While waiting for the bike rental guy to give me appropriate wheels, I spoke with an Chicago aerospace engineer taking his last day in Munich to tour the city under this own power. He told me just to go, and to enjoy the Englischer Garten, the largest public park in continental Europe and a cycling paradise with miles of paths.
You can only get so lost in a German city where the tallest spires are the churches you passed on foot the previous evening; so long as I could orient
So, juiced on the adrenaline rush provided by Chris' fake pick-pocket attempt, I rolled past the Odeonsplatz, a square modeled on those of ancient Rome with the Theatinerkirche, another large church piercing the skyline with its muted gold towers and dome.
In an English-style garden without shade
Quickly falling in with cyclists more seasoned on Munich's streets, it took no time at all to find hit the massive green blob on the map.
I was a rapid student of cycling through crowded European parks, weaving through the swell of people the park produced as I neared its attractions.
The major paths allowed walkers and bikers, with many offshoots marked just for pedestrians. A rare path was marked only for horse riders, and I only saw one user, a man riding a steed flanked by a pack of dogs.
Usually I stuck with the Eisbach, the man-made river that winds through the Englischer Garten and fans out into lake of varying size.
That route covered the main sites – the Monopteros, a small Greek-looking temple atop one of the park's few hills; the Chinesischer Turm, a pagoda with a sprawling beer garden attached; plus the all the nature I could soak up. That last one tapped the imagination frequently, since the warm weather could not hide its true season with the garden's acres of bare trees.
When I finally stopped aside one of the smaller lakes, 15 second elapsed before an Italian greyhound tattooed my pants with his pawprints. He dragged a stick twice as long as him over for me to toss while the woman who owned him smoked under a nearby pavilion. Three tosses, and they both were done, off to parts unknown.
Speaking of parts unknown, I strayed pretty far by 3 p.m., well off the central city map the rental guy gave me, and miles from the hotel, so I rode until the Isar River blocked my path, and turned back.
No ocean, no problem
I just traced the Isar south till familiar street names filled the signs, then headed back toward the central city. I was down the handful of photos on my FunSaver, and too many gorgeous – and anonymous buildings stood along my path.
Along the way, a mass of chattering people crowded against a small bridge; below them, on a standing wave in the Eisbach, a crew of wetsuit-clad Germans took to surfboards and road that surging wave for a few brief seconds before succumbing to the artificial river.
Even in the suits, they must have been cold – clear, sunny day receded into moody clouds drive by cutting, Arctic wind. Maybe the cheers drove them, as the crowd spilled over into the trees and shrubs on the Eisbach's banks.
Without food since breakfast, my meandering had purpose, but only directed me through the heavily-traipsed tourist rows with overpriced restaurants and stores hawking garish steins meant for the mantle, not lager.
I passed the infamous Hofbrauhaus, probably Munich's best known beer hall, which Dietmar remembered a friendly warning from Dietmar, and pedaled on as pain crept up my legs.
The needle finds “E”
I found a courtyard cafe with similar ambiance to the Parisian cafe in Amelie; I wish it's food and lager never found their way to my table, since the skunky golden lager called Schweiger and a ham sandwich were a poor man's lunch at a tourist rate.
But my legs were scorched, my mind exhausted, and a few hours of German television sounded fine.
In my typical masochistic way, I kept walking, going back through the altstadt in late afternoon, when the crowds reached their peak and walking fast required me to almost run when zipping through walls of pedestrians pushing toward the attractions.
On a different route back, I found the old botanical gardens, a little park overwhelmed by a fountain of Neptune surging from the ocean; it was less dramatic in winter, with no water to fill out the sea god's ascent. The garden ground was filled with small purple flower, a welcome contrast to the grays and browns everywhere else.
Night was not for the faint, even if that was the only thing I couldn't do. I was irritable from all the exercise, the lack of sleep and the news that the law closed almost every store in Bavaria on Sundays, killing most of my souvenir shopping. We ate at an American restaurant (the tortellini with sausage was pretty blah) and cramps fired down my calves, quads and hamstrings.
In a hunt for a new place for a nightcap, we crossed the train station and checked out the city blocks opposite from our hotel.
“Wrong side of the tracks” was no cliché, as all manners of tawdry hotels, strip clubs and nude revues greeted naïve tourists, who wasted little time in killing our curiosity.
We tried the streets north of the hotel, found the Spaten Brewery and glass windows displaying its brew kettles, but no bar. Better luck surfaced closer to the train station when we decided on a little bar with decent beer and no bullshit.
As a peace offering, I paid the full tab at our evening bar excursion, where Paulaner hefeweizen half-liters disappeared like water in August.
Next chapter: (A final gasp, a final gulp and a heap of art)
Friday, March 09, 2007
At the gates of Munich, the endgame began
Munich was only sad for one reason: Our arrival meant the end of the European gallivanting, and only days before my flight to Philly clicked onto the departure board.
But before we could enjoy any of it, we needed lodging for three nights.
On Mitzy's orders, we fanned out into the city blocks around the Hauptbahnhof, Munich's central train stations, asking hotels about available rooms. Everything came in at $200 a night, if the hotel had any rooms open.
On my third stop I hit the Hotel Alfa, finding a room for four at 145 Euro per night; we grabbed, it unloaded the car, then Chris and I took off for Schweig, navigating the 25 miles with relative ease, and taking a larger look at Munich on the way.
The S-Bahn ran from the airport to the secondary train stations, and once we figured out which train to ride (I failed to realize the countdowns on the marquees were for the train's departure, not its arrival), we ended up at the Ostbahnhof (the east train station) with not a clue how to return to the Hauptbahnhof without a healthy wander amid the streetcars, bicycles and taxis swarming outside.Of course, we found it, and exited the train station just a block from Hotel Alfa.
Then, it was time for Munich.
Mitzy and Hannah explored the city while we deposited the car, so they took us through the wide vistas of the altstadt, which at first I had a hard time reconciling with.
Given that rubble populated Munich after World War II and it needed the Olympic games to vault to world-class city status, the old architecture worked unnaturally with vanilla shopping mall decor. A McDonald's awkwardly fills ground floor space at the altstadt's gates.
Just off Marienplatz, with the spiky rathaus (ironically, the German word for city hall) and its two-story glockenspiel waiting for the morning hours, we found a restaurant not too weighed down by tourism. The doublebock was smooth, poured from a high-tech taps, and the ox meat was heavenly. The meal actually started with a communal salad with beans and fresh greens swimming in oily dressing; it never stood a chance, and lasted only minutes.
Soccer was the topic of the evening, as Bayern Munich, the biggest and best Bavarian team, was playing the following afternoon and Hannah, Chris and Mitzy were itching to catch a game. I stayed quiet about it, but soccer has never been my thing. I enjoy it live, but not to where I want to squander one of my last afternoons in Germany with 70,000 soccer maniacs.
I gently told them that I was on the fence, though with our Friday on the stones in old Munich, I'd already hopped to the other side.
More than anything, I noticed the bicycles. Everywhere. Gears spun and bells rang; I wouldn't be in the stands watching soccer tomorrow.
(Up next: Behind the handlebars and February surfers)
But before we could enjoy any of it, we needed lodging for three nights.
On Mitzy's orders, we fanned out into the city blocks around the Hauptbahnhof, Munich's central train stations, asking hotels about available rooms. Everything came in at $200 a night, if the hotel had any rooms open.
On my third stop I hit the Hotel Alfa, finding a room for four at 145 Euro per night; we grabbed, it unloaded the car, then Chris and I took off for Schweig, navigating the 25 miles with relative ease, and taking a larger look at Munich on the way.
The S-Bahn ran from the airport to the secondary train stations, and once we figured out which train to ride (I failed to realize the countdowns on the marquees were for the train's departure, not its arrival), we ended up at the Ostbahnhof (the east train station) with not a clue how to return to the Hauptbahnhof without a healthy wander amid the streetcars, bicycles and taxis swarming outside.Of course, we found it, and exited the train station just a block from Hotel Alfa.
Then, it was time for Munich.
Mitzy and Hannah explored the city while we deposited the car, so they took us through the wide vistas of the altstadt, which at first I had a hard time reconciling with.
Given that rubble populated Munich after World War II and it needed the Olympic games to vault to world-class city status, the old architecture worked unnaturally with vanilla shopping mall decor. A McDonald's awkwardly fills ground floor space at the altstadt's gates.
Just off Marienplatz, with the spiky rathaus (ironically, the German word for city hall) and its two-story glockenspiel waiting for the morning hours, we found a restaurant not too weighed down by tourism. The doublebock was smooth, poured from a high-tech taps, and the ox meat was heavenly. The meal actually started with a communal salad with beans and fresh greens swimming in oily dressing; it never stood a chance, and lasted only minutes.
Soccer was the topic of the evening, as Bayern Munich, the biggest and best Bavarian team, was playing the following afternoon and Hannah, Chris and Mitzy were itching to catch a game. I stayed quiet about it, but soccer has never been my thing. I enjoy it live, but not to where I want to squander one of my last afternoons in Germany with 70,000 soccer maniacs.
I gently told them that I was on the fence, though with our Friday on the stones in old Munich, I'd already hopped to the other side.
More than anything, I noticed the bicycles. Everywhere. Gears spun and bells rang; I wouldn't be in the stands watching soccer tomorrow.
(Up next: Behind the handlebars and February surfers)
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Mozart, Mozart everywhere, not a Salieri in sight
Despite my reference to the atrociously inaccurate film about the composing genius, his hometown of Salzburg was noticeably different from our earlier German stops.
What I remember most are the crosswalks --- constantly bleeping when the “Don't Walk” figure shown, then doubling their speed when it glowed green. They should have just exclaimed, “Move your ass before this turns red.” It was hard not to run with that tribal soundtrack beating all around us.
Once we crossed the river into the altstadt, Salzburg turned pleasant yet touristy, with its boutiques and attractions geared to snaring newcomers out on the cobblestones. Cycling commuters grew frequent on the main streets.
If Passau is Pittsburgh, then Salzburg is the Denver of Austria, with its blunted foothills topped by castles just before the terrain soars into snow-dusted Alps.
Winding through Salzburg's old city were the narrowest streets yet, with some just wide enough to let a horse cart pass. And there were carriages aplenty; dozens lined up in the public square next to the cathedral (don't ask the name or style; I was weary of cathedrals and saving my last bit of architectural awe for Munich).
We walked beneath Mozart's birthplace into passage that produced sidewalk cafes and souvenir shops. Chris stopped for coffee, the girls window-shopped, and I stepped back into the brightness, only a square bustling with a public market. It was sensory overload again, this time with all the fresh produce, meats and flowers. I had to circle a few times to absorb all those wonderfully mingled smells.
Behind the market, I hit the University of Salzburg, where almost everyone was in class or on holiday; the outdoor vistas unavoidable for college students were empty save a deeply stained statue of Friedrich Schiller.
As 11 chimed from church to church, we moved toward the newer city, passing the other Mozart homestead and public park replete with spiny trees and classical statues that I believe appeared in the Sound of Music. Confirming that would require watching the movie for the first time, a plunge I'm not prepared to take.
Our rapid tour covered the basics of Salzburg, but it could have easily encompassed a fully day instead of 90 minutes.
On the way back to the car, we moved quickly; our parking receipt only gave us ninety minutes, and 4 p.m. loomed over all our actions that day. We'd have to pay for another day of car rental if pulled into Schweig (a town just east of the airport) any later.
(Up next: The last mad dash for lodging)
What I remember most are the crosswalks --- constantly bleeping when the “Don't Walk” figure shown, then doubling their speed when it glowed green. They should have just exclaimed, “Move your ass before this turns red.” It was hard not to run with that tribal soundtrack beating all around us.
Once we crossed the river into the altstadt, Salzburg turned pleasant yet touristy, with its boutiques and attractions geared to snaring newcomers out on the cobblestones. Cycling commuters grew frequent on the main streets.
If Passau is Pittsburgh, then Salzburg is the Denver of Austria, with its blunted foothills topped by castles just before the terrain soars into snow-dusted Alps.
Winding through Salzburg's old city were the narrowest streets yet, with some just wide enough to let a horse cart pass. And there were carriages aplenty; dozens lined up in the public square next to the cathedral (don't ask the name or style; I was weary of cathedrals and saving my last bit of architectural awe for Munich).
We walked beneath Mozart's birthplace into passage that produced sidewalk cafes and souvenir shops. Chris stopped for coffee, the girls window-shopped, and I stepped back into the brightness, only a square bustling with a public market. It was sensory overload again, this time with all the fresh produce, meats and flowers. I had to circle a few times to absorb all those wonderfully mingled smells.
Behind the market, I hit the University of Salzburg, where almost everyone was in class or on holiday; the outdoor vistas unavoidable for college students were empty save a deeply stained statue of Friedrich Schiller.
As 11 chimed from church to church, we moved toward the newer city, passing the other Mozart homestead and public park replete with spiny trees and classical statues that I believe appeared in the Sound of Music. Confirming that would require watching the movie for the first time, a plunge I'm not prepared to take.
Our rapid tour covered the basics of Salzburg, but it could have easily encompassed a fully day instead of 90 minutes.
On the way back to the car, we moved quickly; our parking receipt only gave us ninety minutes, and 4 p.m. loomed over all our actions that day. We'd have to pay for another day of car rental if pulled into Schweig (a town just east of the airport) any later.
(Up next: The last mad dash for lodging)
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Capped
So after emasculating him in its recent Civil War series, Marvel Comics has now gone ahead and killed off Captain American, one of its most stories creations.
Before the comic shop even opened, national media blurted out the shocker running through the pages of Captain America #25.
(Uttering these lines completely outs me as a comic book geek, but so be it; anyone who didn't know probably suspected it long ago).
I just got back into Cap, thanks to Marvel recruiting Personal Top Five writer Ed Brubaker to chart his course. I'd also come to see Cap had not been portrayed as the stereotypical good soldier who does whatever his country asks. He went rogue in the 70s after exposing a Nixonesque corruption conspiracy in the White House, he refused to tow the line when asked to hunt down superheroes who failed to register with the government.
Even when Cap openly disagreed with his government, his patriotism rarely faltered.
Brubaker produced amazing stories, bringing back characters and story elements others feared to touch for the past four decades. And in telling the death of Captain American, he hits a new emotional high. I mean, this was a character who punched Hitler in the face (albeit only in print) during the 1940s.
I'm no longer naive; anyone character killed in a comic book can return an issue later with a simple, illogical explanation. And Captain American is a symbol as much as a man (Steve Rogers, for the uninitiated); others have worn the costume in Rogers' absence, and someone probably will soon if they choose not to animate him on the morgue slab.
Maybe it was for the best, in a way - there were still good stories to tell, but America had moved on without its captain. These are dark days in real-life America, and the symbol he provides is too easily co-opted by either side. He wouldn't bust heads in Iraq or Afghanistan, anymore than he'd be standing with Cindy Sheehan in front of Bush's Crawford ranch.
Still, for however long he's gone, I'll miss the character.
You can't just shuck off one with 65 years of history behind him.
Before the comic shop even opened, national media blurted out the shocker running through the pages of Captain America #25.
(Uttering these lines completely outs me as a comic book geek, but so be it; anyone who didn't know probably suspected it long ago).
I just got back into Cap, thanks to Marvel recruiting Personal Top Five writer Ed Brubaker to chart his course. I'd also come to see Cap had not been portrayed as the stereotypical good soldier who does whatever his country asks. He went rogue in the 70s after exposing a Nixonesque corruption conspiracy in the White House, he refused to tow the line when asked to hunt down superheroes who failed to register with the government.
Even when Cap openly disagreed with his government, his patriotism rarely faltered.
Brubaker produced amazing stories, bringing back characters and story elements others feared to touch for the past four decades. And in telling the death of Captain American, he hits a new emotional high. I mean, this was a character who punched Hitler in the face (albeit only in print) during the 1940s.
I'm no longer naive; anyone character killed in a comic book can return an issue later with a simple, illogical explanation. And Captain American is a symbol as much as a man (Steve Rogers, for the uninitiated); others have worn the costume in Rogers' absence, and someone probably will soon if they choose not to animate him on the morgue slab.
Maybe it was for the best, in a way - there were still good stories to tell, but America had moved on without its captain. These are dark days in real-life America, and the symbol he provides is too easily co-opted by either side. He wouldn't bust heads in Iraq or Afghanistan, anymore than he'd be standing with Cindy Sheehan in front of Bush's Crawford ranch.
Still, for however long he's gone, I'll miss the character.
You can't just shuck off one with 65 years of history behind him.
Maybe next jackpot
The MegaMillions has come and gone; our pool coordinator made no attempt to contact me last night and our showing out of 51 tickets was pretty miserable. But one in 375 million is always better odds than zero.
A story in this morning's paper told of the tears and rage let loose when the system crashed across Ohio close to drawing time. Why so many people wait until the last possible second to buy tickets mystifies me --- yes, the pot jumped from $350 million to $370 million, but if you won, would you notice? A half-dozen places within one mile of my apartment sell them; I spent all of 30 seconds in the story for two random tickets.
This rash of lottery fever tugs me back to 1984, just after my seventh birthday, during our typical August vacation in Connecticutt with my mom's family. Rather than let us stay at my grandparents's house, my mom dropped the three of us in the car and with my uncle in the passenger seat, drove across the border into New York, found the first convenience store and joined the line coiling around the store.
For at least an hour we sat while they stood waiting for tickets.
Nobody won that drawing, so when my Dad flew back and we climbed into the car, we didn't follow the same route as when we arrived. We went back to the convenience store, spending another 45 minutes loitering for 20 bucks in tickets. I don't know how well we did the second time around, but I can guess.
I rarely think about the lotto line, though I often recall what happened next. Our yellow 1979 Ford LTD, weighted down with three children and an axle-straining load of Connecticutt garage sale loot, leaving behind our annual summer vacation spot by crossing the landmark which always signified its end: The George Washington Bridge. Mom said, "Say goodbye to New York," as Cindy Lauper's "Time after Time" played on the radio.
With glance at distant Manhattan and the bridge's towers slowly dipping out of sight, I don't know if music ever synced up so perfectly by accident.
I still can't think of that song without picturing that day.
The snaking lotto line, however, is better forgotten.
A story in this morning's paper told of the tears and rage let loose when the system crashed across Ohio close to drawing time. Why so many people wait until the last possible second to buy tickets mystifies me --- yes, the pot jumped from $350 million to $370 million, but if you won, would you notice? A half-dozen places within one mile of my apartment sell them; I spent all of 30 seconds in the story for two random tickets.
This rash of lottery fever tugs me back to 1984, just after my seventh birthday, during our typical August vacation in Connecticutt with my mom's family. Rather than let us stay at my grandparents's house, my mom dropped the three of us in the car and with my uncle in the passenger seat, drove across the border into New York, found the first convenience store and joined the line coiling around the store.
For at least an hour we sat while they stood waiting for tickets.
Nobody won that drawing, so when my Dad flew back and we climbed into the car, we didn't follow the same route as when we arrived. We went back to the convenience store, spending another 45 minutes loitering for 20 bucks in tickets. I don't know how well we did the second time around, but I can guess.
I rarely think about the lotto line, though I often recall what happened next. Our yellow 1979 Ford LTD, weighted down with three children and an axle-straining load of Connecticutt garage sale loot, leaving behind our annual summer vacation spot by crossing the landmark which always signified its end: The George Washington Bridge. Mom said, "Say goodbye to New York," as Cindy Lauper's "Time after Time" played on the radio.
With glance at distant Manhattan and the bridge's towers slowly dipping out of sight, I don't know if music ever synced up so perfectly by accident.
I still can't think of that song without picturing that day.
The snaking lotto line, however, is better forgotten.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Taunted in Tantalizing Thalgau
Editor's note: I didn't take this photo of Thalgau (it was 40 degrees with no sign of snow when we were there), but our guest house is the building next to the church; you can see our room on the second level closest to the bell tower.
From Passau, the roads turned against us.
Austria, while mostly beautiful with Alps punching up through its geography, is not friendly to the driver to strays from the Autobahn. The German and even Czech roads spoiled us with their relative ease to navigate (they didn't overdo it with the traffic circles).
It's a land of major non-highway routes turning at traffic circles and tiny, indecipherable road signs. Tempers were rising as we left Passau, and for the first time I entered the fray between man and wife in the front seat: We were lost, so another voice couldn't hurt. Much.
After attempting to follow the mountain roads through to Salzburg - the highway was not a direct route - we looped back around to the same highway we left an hour before. Road signs with tiny script and traffic circles led us around by the nose. Bickering was our language without borders for many a kilometer.
The sun was gone and the question became whether to press onto Salzburg for lodging or stop just shy and wait until morning. Our able and exhausted driver and his wife picked an exit just short of Salzburg; he got caught in a round-about at the bottom of the ramp and ended up back on the highway headed away from Salzburg.
We fared better at the next exit, which brought us into Thalgau, a little town with a soaring church and three guesthouses right on the main square. We found our spot on the third try and quickly settled in.
After we planned our morning in Salzburg, Mitzy chose to take the night off and relax, Hannah went down to the bar for an apple juice while Chris and I took a brief walk through Thalgau I don't think there was any other type, but it was a nice gasp of fresh air along the canal feeding water to the town).
We passed Hannah using her German language skills with the villagers, and grabbed a booth, where I repeatedly assured Chris I had one beer in me before I adjourned upstairs for a shower.
First asking for light (hell) lager, but I switched up to see if the bartender could recommend something good and local. Calling it the “best beer,” he handed us two old-style capped bottles which just said, “Weisse Bier.”
If it were a bad beer, one could have sufficed.
Unfortunately, the Salzburger Weisse Bier was the single-best wheat beer I tasted, or may ever taste. Sorry Celis White and American imitators requiring an orange or lemon slice to be palatable, the Salzburger was the champ.
We had no choice but to clear away three more half-liter bottles.
Die Katze aus Thalgau
I must mention the third weary face at our booth. When we inquired about rooms earlier, a furry Siamese with floor-scraping belly walked up to us, fell on its side and purred as we scratched him heartily.
As Chris and I worked our way through those glorious wheat beers, he hopped up next to me, demanding another round of knuckle rubs between his ears. He purred again, unleashed a few hoarse meows then curled next to me tightly to purr him/herself to sleep. Chris had to grab the next few beers, since I wasn't about to move and disturb my new friend.
The entire time we sat, the cat nestled up against me and moved only to stretch then curl into a new pose.
Try finding that at an American hotel.
Thalgau Revelers
Across from us, at the largest table in the tavern, I watched an unusual collection of local men – from their 20s to their 70s, it was a diversely aged crew with one member in a wheelchair. They smoked, shouted “Prost” to glass after glass and chatted away in a German dialect far thicker than anything we encountered yet.
The group began breaking up around the time we decided to join Hannah at the beer and finish off the night with a Stiegl, the Austrian lager on the guesthouse sign. The remnants of the party made their way to the bar and tried conversing with us. I got out our names, one of the three men their Joseph (we'll call him Handlebar because of his mustache) rattled off a string of questions that I had no chance of translating in my head, and we were lost forever.
His face reeled in disappointment when I told him I couldn't understand, that I only spoke the most basic German. Next to Hannah, we were a huge letdown. I couldn't blame him; in Zwiesel, I understood almost everything said, but in Thalgau, I was out of ammo.
One of Josephs (Pale Blue, we'll call him, for his eyes) told us in 1974, he took a motorcycle across U.S. 66 to the Grand Canyon – I wasn't sure how he got there until he added some sound effects. Even that was awkward.
Aside from snapping a picture, the third Joseph said the least, occasionally looking over to my quiet companion who spoke not a phrase of German and asking, “Was ist los, Kristoff?” (What's the matter?).
Gradually they all left, and the cute-in-a-German-way bartender looked shocked when I left a one Euro tip on the bar.
When we retired for the evening and cracked a window, we heard some of the bar crowd walking home laughing. Chris said he though he heard our names in that conversation. I confirmed that: Willy and Kristoff were definitely still on their minds.
But the funnier thing was I had too good a time in the tavern to care about the impression we left on the regulars.
(Tomorrow: 90 minutes in Salzburg)
You can't possibly Passau it
How do I describe the air within St. Stephan's Cathedral in Passau's altstadt (old city)?
Just a few minutes of it was intoxicating - cold, crisp and ancient as if a breeze ferried it through Christ's tomb early on Easter Sunday. Any tired muscles driving on purely from habit awoke anew beneath the magnificent columns and ceiling paneled in Biblical images.
I had to start with the rare, rich air, though our day started with a last shuffle through Zwiesel and the winding path to Passau, the town of 50,000 where the Danube meets the rivers Inn and Ilz, making it the Pittsburgh of Bavaria (similarities end with the river gathering, of course).
Home to a university 10,000 students strong, Passau follows history back 2,000 years when the Romans under Marcus Aurelius laid out a city there, hardly a surprise give the strategic importance of three rivers running into each other.
Few sites along our journey stood out like the cathedral (Der Passauer Stephansdom), home of what for centuries ranked as the world's largest pipe organ. Since surpassed by some megachurch's showpiece in California, 17,774 pipes are still nothing to sneer at.
Close to the altar, a column support an ornate gold staircase which ended at a single seat, as if engineer only for an emperor or bishop.
The architecture of the altstadt combined with the public plazas and streets often too narrow for cars turned the little burg into a can't-miss stop. Sidewalk cafes blossomed everywhere in the city's older sections and the crowds filled out the space between.
Stepping away from them, it's difficult to walk anywhere without running up against a river; much of the city sits at or just above water level.
Searching for an Internet cafe so Mitzy could solve the riddle of her rejected credit card, we wandered through a good portion of it, including some less picturesque stops like the bus depot, where we finally received directions to one such cafe from a student who apparently bathed in cologne (I almost gagged when the wind picked up, but then again, not showering that morning didn't give me the right to complain).
Solving the card crisis, we found nice cafe on the main stretch of the altstadt and happily went on hiatus from the heavy meats that occupied every meal thus far.
After dinner, I ducked into one of the many alcoves which ran into open-air courtyards surrounded by businesses and found a weather-streaked statue of a crusader or pope (he appeared to wear chain mail or armor, but carried a cross and no weapons) at a fountain's edge. Aside from a few sunset cityscape shots, this Medieval mystery was my last touch of Passau's flourishes.
Until after we departed, I had no inkling about one nugget from the city's past: Hitler's family lived here when he was just a toddler.
A laundry list of wrong turns later, and we crossed into Austria as easily as state lines come and go at home.
(Next time: Thalgau after dark)
Just a few minutes of it was intoxicating - cold, crisp and ancient as if a breeze ferried it through Christ's tomb early on Easter Sunday. Any tired muscles driving on purely from habit awoke anew beneath the magnificent columns and ceiling paneled in Biblical images.
I had to start with the rare, rich air, though our day started with a last shuffle through Zwiesel and the winding path to Passau, the town of 50,000 where the Danube meets the rivers Inn and Ilz, making it the Pittsburgh of Bavaria (similarities end with the river gathering, of course).
Home to a university 10,000 students strong, Passau follows history back 2,000 years when the Romans under Marcus Aurelius laid out a city there, hardly a surprise give the strategic importance of three rivers running into each other.
Few sites along our journey stood out like the cathedral (Der Passauer Stephansdom), home of what for centuries ranked as the world's largest pipe organ. Since surpassed by some megachurch's showpiece in California, 17,774 pipes are still nothing to sneer at.
Close to the altar, a column support an ornate gold staircase which ended at a single seat, as if engineer only for an emperor or bishop.
The architecture of the altstadt combined with the public plazas and streets often too narrow for cars turned the little burg into a can't-miss stop. Sidewalk cafes blossomed everywhere in the city's older sections and the crowds filled out the space between.
Stepping away from them, it's difficult to walk anywhere without running up against a river; much of the city sits at or just above water level.
Searching for an Internet cafe so Mitzy could solve the riddle of her rejected credit card, we wandered through a good portion of it, including some less picturesque stops like the bus depot, where we finally received directions to one such cafe from a student who apparently bathed in cologne (I almost gagged when the wind picked up, but then again, not showering that morning didn't give me the right to complain).
Solving the card crisis, we found nice cafe on the main stretch of the altstadt and happily went on hiatus from the heavy meats that occupied every meal thus far.
After dinner, I ducked into one of the many alcoves which ran into open-air courtyards surrounded by businesses and found a weather-streaked statue of a crusader or pope (he appeared to wear chain mail or armor, but carried a cross and no weapons) at a fountain's edge. Aside from a few sunset cityscape shots, this Medieval mystery was my last touch of Passau's flourishes.
Until after we departed, I had no inkling about one nugget from the city's past: Hitler's family lived here when he was just a toddler.
A laundry list of wrong turns later, and we crossed into Austria as easily as state lines come and go at home.
(Next time: Thalgau after dark)
Monday, March 05, 2007
Little Zwiesel goes a long way
With more stars than artificial lights to guide us through the swerving mountain roads, we carried on past the occasional castle, towns with a bar and a few businesses while bright Mars glowed to our north the whole way.
If the constant shifts up hills we could not see beyond the pale of the wagon's headlight got to Chris, he didn't show it too much.
The German tones in the Czech language grow more pronounced as we neared the checkpoint. At a gas station stop, the clerk spoke clearly with that influence. Some little differences a la Pulp Fiction: they only poured coffee ceramic cups - not a To-Go styrofoam to be found - so we had to sit while Chris got his fuel for the last stretch of the night; some local travelers drank Czech lager and smoke cigarettes at a little counter, so I polished off a half-liter of Gambrinus lager as we sat. I didn't even have to hide it in a brown paper bottle bag.
We debated calling it a night under the bright lights of a little town just inside the Czech Republic, but pressed ahead. A longer-than-expected stop at the border, where the guards took delighted interested in Mitzy and Hannah's German surname, put us in Zwiesel, 10,000 strong in the Bavarian forest, a little after nine.
From there, the clock raced, as one guesthouse after another told us they were full for the night, and closing time neared. Hannah ably served as our voice as we hit upon rejection after rejection. Despite Chris' comment that one we hadn't checked looked pricey, we discovered it wasn't in the same range as the others; more importantly, they had a room for four.
The little town was unlike any I'd seen before, with its brick sidewalks, little shrine to Christ on the main drag and loud confluence of two rivers
Stopping long enough to drop our luggage off, the only tavern still serving was a sports bar with an American theme; fortunately, all their beerly wares were solidly local. We talked with relief running deep in our voices, clanged glasses with every round, snapping the group photos we'd not had time for in Prague.
It was all great, but my need to explore our stop for the night was mountain, so my story departs here slightly: The town was shockingly dead outside, with one car cruising the main drag every five minutes at maximum, so with a little alcoholic warmth in me, I was set to wander. I followed the rivers past their meeting point for a while, amazed that I only heard the water.
For a short eternity, I just watched a flock of ducks drill their beaks into muddy, shallow water, hunting for dinner. I didn't need the big city to sate my fascination with big empty spaces and scenes no one else stops to see.
My fellow travelers emerged from the sports bar after a short time, and the hour for sleep arrived.
Or so we thought
A trio of locals left the same tavern shortly after, and proceeded to follow us all the way back to the guest house. I was too overjoyed with my fleeting time to wander a small town and soak in its overlooked intricacies.
As we moved to turn up the stairs and retire, the newcomers followed us through the locked door and struck- The guesthouse chef and manager wanted us to join them for an after-hours drink.
An older, third man, who identified himself as a guesthouse owner from a nearby town in for a visit, chatted with Hannah as the other disappeared then returned with beers. We toasted and they were gone again, though the sizzle of oil on a cooking service became a backdrop for the talking. I refused a beer at first, but soon remembered I was on vacation ... in a foreign country ... with gracious hosts.
The chef emerged again with a plate of sausage, cheese and a tomato relish. He would disappear and rejoin with fresh delectables several times, all the while killing any future urge I might have to taste American-made sausage.
We talked and toasted, though I preferred to listen rather than give our generous hosts a rope of pidgin German from which to hang me. The conversation is somewhat lost in the fog of sensory overload; while it wasn't one of those “meaning of life” types, it was exactly the sort of moment I wanted to rise from the breakneck pace of our German trip.
Though they only offered one beer each, we paid them for more to where we lost track of how many rounds went down (that holds trues for plates of sausages and cheese). The visiting guesthouse owner shuffled off before too long, and we (well, Hannah) continued with chef and manager.
I translated in my head and absorbed as much as possible, nearly euphoric that a moment that almost slipped away. Was it worth the loss of sleep? The value of that little gathering of Americans and Germans in a quiet breakfast room is not a number I dare estimate – nor ever fear forgetting.
(Up next: Just try to Passau)
If the constant shifts up hills we could not see beyond the pale of the wagon's headlight got to Chris, he didn't show it too much.
The German tones in the Czech language grow more pronounced as we neared the checkpoint. At a gas station stop, the clerk spoke clearly with that influence. Some little differences a la Pulp Fiction: they only poured coffee ceramic cups - not a To-Go styrofoam to be found - so we had to sit while Chris got his fuel for the last stretch of the night; some local travelers drank Czech lager and smoke cigarettes at a little counter, so I polished off a half-liter of Gambrinus lager as we sat. I didn't even have to hide it in a brown paper bottle bag.
We debated calling it a night under the bright lights of a little town just inside the Czech Republic, but pressed ahead. A longer-than-expected stop at the border, where the guards took delighted interested in Mitzy and Hannah's German surname, put us in Zwiesel, 10,000 strong in the Bavarian forest, a little after nine.
From there, the clock raced, as one guesthouse after another told us they were full for the night, and closing time neared. Hannah ably served as our voice as we hit upon rejection after rejection. Despite Chris' comment that one we hadn't checked looked pricey, we discovered it wasn't in the same range as the others; more importantly, they had a room for four.
The little town was unlike any I'd seen before, with its brick sidewalks, little shrine to Christ on the main drag and loud confluence of two rivers
Stopping long enough to drop our luggage off, the only tavern still serving was a sports bar with an American theme; fortunately, all their beerly wares were solidly local. We talked with relief running deep in our voices, clanged glasses with every round, snapping the group photos we'd not had time for in Prague.
It was all great, but my need to explore our stop for the night was mountain, so my story departs here slightly: The town was shockingly dead outside, with one car cruising the main drag every five minutes at maximum, so with a little alcoholic warmth in me, I was set to wander. I followed the rivers past their meeting point for a while, amazed that I only heard the water.
For a short eternity, I just watched a flock of ducks drill their beaks into muddy, shallow water, hunting for dinner. I didn't need the big city to sate my fascination with big empty spaces and scenes no one else stops to see.
My fellow travelers emerged from the sports bar after a short time, and the hour for sleep arrived.
Or so we thought
A trio of locals left the same tavern shortly after, and proceeded to follow us all the way back to the guest house. I was too overjoyed with my fleeting time to wander a small town and soak in its overlooked intricacies.
As we moved to turn up the stairs and retire, the newcomers followed us through the locked door and struck- The guesthouse chef and manager wanted us to join them for an after-hours drink.
An older, third man, who identified himself as a guesthouse owner from a nearby town in for a visit, chatted with Hannah as the other disappeared then returned with beers. We toasted and they were gone again, though the sizzle of oil on a cooking service became a backdrop for the talking. I refused a beer at first, but soon remembered I was on vacation ... in a foreign country ... with gracious hosts.
The chef emerged again with a plate of sausage, cheese and a tomato relish. He would disappear and rejoin with fresh delectables several times, all the while killing any future urge I might have to taste American-made sausage.
We talked and toasted, though I preferred to listen rather than give our generous hosts a rope of pidgin German from which to hang me. The conversation is somewhat lost in the fog of sensory overload; while it wasn't one of those “meaning of life” types, it was exactly the sort of moment I wanted to rise from the breakneck pace of our German trip.
Though they only offered one beer each, we paid them for more to where we lost track of how many rounds went down (that holds trues for plates of sausages and cheese). The visiting guesthouse owner shuffled off before too long, and we (well, Hannah) continued with chef and manager.
I translated in my head and absorbed as much as possible, nearly euphoric that a moment that almost slipped away. Was it worth the loss of sleep? The value of that little gathering of Americans and Germans in a quiet breakfast room is not a number I dare estimate – nor ever fear forgetting.
(Up next: Just try to Passau)
Friday, March 02, 2007
Prague in all its foggy, ornate glory
We started poorly – in fact, we entered the Czech Republic and returned to Dietmar's house before 8 a.m.
Upon arriving at the border and hastily digging around Chris' bag, we discovered the rental car contract preferred to wait out the vacation in Wunsiedel. The customs agent let us in as she said, “I hope you come back with the same car,” but after buying our Czech highway sticker, we headed back to Wunsiedel for that essential paper.
When we pulled up, she gave us a bewildered look then merely waved as we displayed the contract, the middle-aged passport control officer at the next window mutter behind the glass as he waved us through a second time.
From there, the sailing turned smooth, though the fog would dampen the colors until mid-afternoon. We rolled through the countryside, where the metal harnesses stood skeletally above the fields which would nurture hops once winter ended.
The fog did nothing to dissuade us that Soviet domination over the Eastern Bloc ended nearly 2 decades ago; villages of tiny cottages and the rusted hulks of cargo trains crawling down tracks provided more evidence. I had no idea what Prague held in store when the only city of any measurable size we crossed was Karlovy Vary (aka Carlsbad), and the overcast morning drowned any visible charm in gray shades.
After a few hours of little more than villages and the Ceskovice Brewery, the countryside caved into subtle suburbs, then a bridge across the Vltava into the Medieval core of Prague. We circled the business district and several neighborhoods before finding a guarded lot beneath the expressway where it only cost us 150 krona to park all day (the krona will soon become obsolete, like the border stations, are set to vanish into the Euro with the next few years).
If you don't pick a point to start in Prague, you won't go more than a block; it's that beautiful. We wandered the streets from the Nation Museum, St. Wenceslas Square and down through the street markets where no cars could fit. Every restaurant wore a Budweiser (not that one, not here) or Pilsner Urquell awning at its entrances, and where should I even start with the building design? Everything was rich in history and style, without a flawed touch from modern blandness interrupting it (all the Soviet-style apartment towers stood far from the old city).
Just in wandering, we found our path to the Town Hall 10 minutes before the famous astronomical clock marked 1 p.m. with the effigy of Death ringing a bell and the 12 Apostles speeding past a pair of windows above the ornate timepiece.
That hour marked the start of the sensory overload – moving across the square of churches and castles, we found the Vltava again, following its bank up to the renown Charles Bridge. The bridge gates were alone worth the walk, with their white statues contrasting sharply with the brownish-black stone. The statues lining both sides of the bridge with depictions of saints, popes, kings and emperors were nearly beyond description.
While somewhat crowded (warmest winter in 50 years strikes again), it was nothing compared to summer crowds, when the saying goes, "The quickest way off the Charles Bridge is to jump." As we crossed, the sun gained the right angle to punch through the interminable fog for the first time; it would remain bright until we left Prague behind us.
The only good thing about lunch at the worst Tourist Trap Cafe in Prague was it stood at the base of the hill we needed to climb to enter Prague Castle. It was probably the steepest street we walked the entire time, and without any signs to guide us, we reached the broad, winding staircase that led to the gates of the Czech government.
As with the bridge, words fail to bring the castle justice. It is centered around the soaring spires of St. Vitus Cathedral, finished in the last century but started 600 years earlier. Little known fact: St. Vitus is the patron saint of epileptics, so in the small row of pews open to the public, I dropped to my knees and said a few words for God about my brother Joe, who suffers from it. My first glimpse at the Gothic cathedral will not soon leave my memory.
Squads of Czech soldiers maneuver through the crowds gawking skyward – among such old buildings, it's easy to forget the country's government operates within the same walls.
After a long wander through many of the buildings, we descended down the rear stair, passing “Ami go home” spray-painted on the wall (“Ami” is a Germano-Czech slur for Americans, we were told).
From here it turned rapid fire - more bridges, more churches, more heavenly statues plus a grisly trip through the Museum of Medieval Torture devices (I really wish impalement meant sticking someone through the abdomen with a sharp spear, but it's that much worse).
Despite the old city's gorgeous look, a wrong turn on the path back to the car showed us how quickly the neighborhood decline; it rapidly became poor, and we retraced our steps past some of the most questionable hostels in the city.
A few confusing roads later, we found the highway to Pilsen, then onto Germany as darkness clenched on the capital.
Close to Pilsen, the time to gasoline finally arrived. Priced by the liter and exorbitant compared with prices called excessive in America, we stopped to smoke and stretch legs before decided where our night would end - at this point, it was too early to stop in Pilsen, and not knowing a word of Czech would hinder us further.
At the station, we tried to warn Chris that he can't pump gas at the truck pump he chose. He goes for it anyway; the day of nerve-wracking driving had taken its toll and he was fending off sleep, the burden of being the sole driver weighing more heavily on him by the second.
Inside, the clerk swore and cursed at me while I stood with my credit card and watched him realize the truck nozzle wouldn't fit in our Corolla wagon before pulled the wagon to another pump. Every curt word from the burly, mustachioed clerk grunted in his native tongue was soaked in venom.
At least I'm guessing so – it's hard to tell with a language in which harshness rings through every word, even the nice ones.
Up next: Last of the Czech land and Zwiesel.
Upon arriving at the border and hastily digging around Chris' bag, we discovered the rental car contract preferred to wait out the vacation in Wunsiedel. The customs agent let us in as she said, “I hope you come back with the same car,” but after buying our Czech highway sticker, we headed back to Wunsiedel for that essential paper.
When we pulled up, she gave us a bewildered look then merely waved as we displayed the contract, the middle-aged passport control officer at the next window mutter behind the glass as he waved us through a second time.
From there, the sailing turned smooth, though the fog would dampen the colors until mid-afternoon. We rolled through the countryside, where the metal harnesses stood skeletally above the fields which would nurture hops once winter ended.
The fog did nothing to dissuade us that Soviet domination over the Eastern Bloc ended nearly 2 decades ago; villages of tiny cottages and the rusted hulks of cargo trains crawling down tracks provided more evidence. I had no idea what Prague held in store when the only city of any measurable size we crossed was Karlovy Vary (aka Carlsbad), and the overcast morning drowned any visible charm in gray shades.
After a few hours of little more than villages and the Ceskovice Brewery, the countryside caved into subtle suburbs, then a bridge across the Vltava into the Medieval core of Prague. We circled the business district and several neighborhoods before finding a guarded lot beneath the expressway where it only cost us 150 krona to park all day (the krona will soon become obsolete, like the border stations, are set to vanish into the Euro with the next few years).
If you don't pick a point to start in Prague, you won't go more than a block; it's that beautiful. We wandered the streets from the Nation Museum, St. Wenceslas Square and down through the street markets where no cars could fit. Every restaurant wore a Budweiser (not that one, not here) or Pilsner Urquell awning at its entrances, and where should I even start with the building design? Everything was rich in history and style, without a flawed touch from modern blandness interrupting it (all the Soviet-style apartment towers stood far from the old city).
Just in wandering, we found our path to the Town Hall 10 minutes before the famous astronomical clock marked 1 p.m. with the effigy of Death ringing a bell and the 12 Apostles speeding past a pair of windows above the ornate timepiece.
That hour marked the start of the sensory overload – moving across the square of churches and castles, we found the Vltava again, following its bank up to the renown Charles Bridge. The bridge gates were alone worth the walk, with their white statues contrasting sharply with the brownish-black stone. The statues lining both sides of the bridge with depictions of saints, popes, kings and emperors were nearly beyond description.
While somewhat crowded (warmest winter in 50 years strikes again), it was nothing compared to summer crowds, when the saying goes, "The quickest way off the Charles Bridge is to jump." As we crossed, the sun gained the right angle to punch through the interminable fog for the first time; it would remain bright until we left Prague behind us.
The only good thing about lunch at the worst Tourist Trap Cafe in Prague was it stood at the base of the hill we needed to climb to enter Prague Castle. It was probably the steepest street we walked the entire time, and without any signs to guide us, we reached the broad, winding staircase that led to the gates of the Czech government.
As with the bridge, words fail to bring the castle justice. It is centered around the soaring spires of St. Vitus Cathedral, finished in the last century but started 600 years earlier. Little known fact: St. Vitus is the patron saint of epileptics, so in the small row of pews open to the public, I dropped to my knees and said a few words for God about my brother Joe, who suffers from it. My first glimpse at the Gothic cathedral will not soon leave my memory.
Squads of Czech soldiers maneuver through the crowds gawking skyward – among such old buildings, it's easy to forget the country's government operates within the same walls.
After a long wander through many of the buildings, we descended down the rear stair, passing “Ami go home” spray-painted on the wall (“Ami” is a Germano-Czech slur for Americans, we were told).
From here it turned rapid fire - more bridges, more churches, more heavenly statues plus a grisly trip through the Museum of Medieval Torture devices (I really wish impalement meant sticking someone through the abdomen with a sharp spear, but it's that much worse).
Despite the old city's gorgeous look, a wrong turn on the path back to the car showed us how quickly the neighborhood decline; it rapidly became poor, and we retraced our steps past some of the most questionable hostels in the city.
A few confusing roads later, we found the highway to Pilsen, then onto Germany as darkness clenched on the capital.
Close to Pilsen, the time to gasoline finally arrived. Priced by the liter and exorbitant compared with prices called excessive in America, we stopped to smoke and stretch legs before decided where our night would end - at this point, it was too early to stop in Pilsen, and not knowing a word of Czech would hinder us further.
At the station, we tried to warn Chris that he can't pump gas at the truck pump he chose. He goes for it anyway; the day of nerve-wracking driving had taken its toll and he was fending off sleep, the burden of being the sole driver weighing more heavily on him by the second.
Inside, the clerk swore and cursed at me while I stood with my credit card and watched him realize the truck nozzle wouldn't fit in our Corolla wagon before pulled the wagon to another pump. Every curt word from the burly, mustachioed clerk grunted in his native tongue was soaked in venom.
At least I'm guessing so – it's hard to tell with a language in which harshness rings through every word, even the nice ones.
Up next: Last of the Czech land and Zwiesel.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Thoughts and prayers for Every Two Weeks
Fellow blogger and co-worker's sister is critically ill, so steer a few positive thoughts and maybe add a prayer in her direction.
Click on the Title line to link to her post.
Click on the Title line to link to her post.
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