Holiday Post

So I made it back from the final vacation of ’09 in one piece. Germany, it turns out, is an incredible place. Deutschelanders get a bad rap. As time as proven, Mike Meyers is a talentless fool and his Deiter/Sprockets routine isn’t even remotely close to any Germans I met. Indiana Jones has also tainted my image of Germans somewhat, but I wasn’t stealing any antiquities so those guys left me alone. Sure there were some severe mullets being sported, but for the most part the people we met could have been on any civilized street in the US. Notice I said civilized. I’m sure there are some German or Austrian rednecks out there and I’m sure they’re just as embarrassing, but I didn’t see any. It was a really angry salty cold out when we landed and it stayed that way for all but a couple of the days we were there, but we adopted some of the local adaptations. Namely eating as much street sausage and street wine as possible. Turns out Christmas markets are a sort of tailgate for the locals, except substitute ribs for 18 inch sausages and substitute chicken for cheese filled sausage and then swap burgers for curry sausages. Pickles get traded for sauerkraut, and cold beers get trades for steaming hot mugs of wine or kinderpunch. We stayed on the punch since I couldn’t read the signs stone sober and having a fuzzy head filled with steaming wine wasn’t going to help. I even discovered a stall that sold deep fried potato pancakes smothered in applesauce – why why why haven’t these made the trip over the pond yet? These were miles ahead of some dried out waffle fries or chalky steak fires you get at the carnival. Maybe it’s my fault for eating carnival food, but when I do, it needs to be shiny, salty and crispy. And best of all, since all of these things were served standing in a light drizzle or snow, you could eat them as fast as possible without fear of scalding your mouth beyond recognition. I may start wolfing down all my meals sans utensils and ankle deep in snow. (There’s about 2 feet of it right now, maybe I will….)

There were some other things we did on the trip. We saw a few castles, went to Salzburg and walked around Mozart’s old hood. We went on a tour about a movie? Something called ‘The Sound of Music’? I’ve never heard of this, but it’s quite popular. Except Austrians haven’t seen it and don’t know why so many people come to Salzburg to take a tour about the movie. I think there’s a lot of singing and dancing involved too – I’m way too manly to have seen this and even if I had seen it, my extreme manliness and interest in explosions would have blocked it out of my mind forever. Some call it cognitive dissonance. I say it’s physically impossible for someone to have seen something about a singing nun and some dancing singing children and be able to grow a prodigious beard at the same time. But I digress. Austria was excellent. M got us set up in a ridiculously nice hotel that had enormous racks of antlers everywhere. The room key weighed 5 lbs. The bathroom faucet was even heated so there was on-demand hot water. The Munich hotel was good too, but in a modern and minimalist way. I hadn’t been in an elevator with jungle noises before. I can now check that off the bucket list. We saw the Deutsches Muesum, which was by far one of the best museums I have ever visited. This was a museum of all things engineering. What would a true German museum be, anyway? There was mining, shipping, engines, electricity, timekeeping, weaving, manufacturing, metallurgy, bridge building, and a little astronomy. The WWII years were conspicuous in their absence, especially in the Planes/Ships section. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to see the whole separate wing dedicated to transportation (cars, trains) that I’m sure would have taken another day to visit. Even though 80% of the museum was in German, there were enough demonstration pieces to make it relevant. Just about anything big, like a bucket excavator or oil tanker, had a corresponding scale model with moving parts that came to life with the push of a button. There was even an entire room dedicated to an enormous model train complete with video feeds from the trains themselves, all orchestrated by a grinning trainmaster. Ordinarily I wouldn’t peg M as one for enjoying a machine museum, but this was an exception. There was one period of fatigue in the airplane engine exhibit, but overall we both had a great time there.

I was also pleased to see that the US does not have the monopoly on tacky crap. There was another market, away from the city center that M and I discovered. This was held in some of the gigantic tents where Oktoberfest takes place. When we investigated, we found an endless procession of incense booths, dreamcatchers, painted stones, magic pillows, wolf art, and super absorbent towels. It wasn’t quite a flea market, but it was definitely similarly bogus stuff. If you’re wondering if you’re getting any of this as a gift soon, you are not.

Shortly after we returned (7 hours to be exact) I got back on a plane to go to NYC for work. This particular project was a short one, so I promptly got on a plane on Monday and went right back home. Normally this would have been fine, but the combination of jet lag and clients calling me at home and denying me recovery time conspired to severely sleep deprive me. I may not look like a celebrity, but I sometimes travel like one. Somewhere in this swirl of re-circulated air, Guantanamo no-sleep torture and public doorknobs I picked up a nasty cold that refuses to leave. Despite my childhood of eating rusty nails and caterpillars, my immune system seems to have failed me here. Or maybe I am getting soft in my new world? Domesticated life took me out of the very grimy places that kept me ferocious and hardy. Or maybe the previous regime of all things bad brought my body into a sort of détente with itself keeping the illnesses balancing each other out in a House-like stasis?

Now for some lists:

Best Movies I have seen this year (in no particular order):
Charlie Wilson’s War
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
The Insider
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Meals:
The Father’s Day Smokeout
‘John Travolta’ Pasta at Ristorante El Profeta (technically M’s meal, but I had a bite)
The Birthday Prime Rib

Great Successes:
Cheap Life Insurance
Kitchen Painted
Car Acquired
Bathroom Reno’d

Abject Failures:
Clockmaking
Herb garden
CFA

Projects to be added in the future:
Post and Beam house with wood fired pizza oven
Putting a large engine in a small car and going way too fast
Greenhouse

I’ve also made good progress on reading more. I always have a book that I’m working on and I limited the number of magazines that I receive so as to be able to dedicate the proper time to them. I feel I am getting more out of them now. M may not dance with joy when I start quoting chapter and verse from whatever I am currently reading, but I am the second most entertaining person I know, so how bad can it be?
I’m cutting this a little short now. I’d like to write more but this work thing keeps stealing my free time. Merry Christmas everyone.