Driving

I had a meeting two hours north of Munich this week and got to experience all three types of driving in Germany.

First, there was heavy traffic so I got to spend 30 minutes in first gear. Traffic is global.

Next, since I was now late, I took advantage of the autobahn sections that do not have a speed limit. I had rented an Audi and it easily pushed past 200 km per hour (125 mph). I still wasn't the fastest car on the road. It is quite an experience to have a very well made car on an excellently maintained roadway. Pure fun.

On the way home, late in the evening, it began to rain pretty hard. The third type of German driving was now on display: high speed driving in the rain. I could not participate. These guys were still flying at 160km+. Too much for me.

Daphne's brother is visiting this weekend an unfortunately David is sick. Dave and I are home now while all the others are touring the Allianz Stadium.

George, the dumb dog

Oh boy.

You would think George would be team player.

He got his bed and toys on Thursday. The picture shows him relaxing.

After he and I went for a jog (with the kids on their bikes) and a stop in the park for him to run around, he came home and was bad again.

We left for a pasta dinner across the street and came home to find he grabbed a loaf of bread off the counter and ate it. He also opened my laptop bag, reached into a pocket and grabbed two pieces of candy. The candy was wrapped in plastic. He must have been looking all over for ways to be bad. He probably was smoking and we haven't found the ashtray.

Once Mom and Dad showed their unhappiness, the kids rallied to his defense. Mom was spouting the usual, "...He's got to go..." but I think we have invested too much to send him home in an Amazon box. His Lufthansa ticket was $600.

His punishment was time in his crate. He flew over in the crate in the body of the plane. Does he look repentant?

Lazy Sunday

We thought Sunday would be a lazy day since Brian was invited to a soccer party.

The party was at an old warehouse that they have converted into a full indoor soccer park. They have eight or nine full fields and a big sports bar in the middle. Poor Julia was doing her report on Heart Attacks during the party. All the kids had a blast and Brian came home dirty an smelly with a goody bag. Great party from his view.

After the party, Daphne was feeling tingling in her fingers and called her father. After a cross-Atlantic consult, he suggested we go to the ER to make sure it wasn't serious.

Now - both Daph and I hoped not to ever go to the local:

- Hospital

- Police Station

- Auto body repair shop

- Child welfare office

or Pet cemetery but we had to face the recommendation.

Luckily - the hospital is across the street. We got our passports, international insurance cards, etc. and set off. We entered the front door and hit a language barrier. Once the information person got an English speaker on the phone we found out how to get to the ER. We walked in, a doctor greeted us in English and helped us get registered. We were the only people there and were directly taken to an examination room where they took Daph's pulse, BP, temperature (in Celsius), and a EKG. 2 minutes later a surgeon came and examined her, gave a diagnosis, and made her feel more relaxed. The whole group was extremely professional and friendly. They said she bruised a nerve in her arm.

To top it off, they said they could not charge us since it was a brief exam and she will be ok. Wow. We ain't in Kansas anymore.

As long as she doesn't die from a obvious error in the exam today, I am impressed.

USA in Munich

We had a nice, action filled weekend. Daphne had spent all day Th and Fr unpacking and making the apartment look livable while I went to Paris Friday to recruit. I flew back Saturday morning determined to play with the kids.

We started with baseball in the local park. The boys and I all had our gloves, baseball caps, and a bat and we had many observers. David and Brian loved it. Hitting the tennis ball and running around the pretend diamond was a taste of home.

We agreed to play football, USA style, the next time at the park. We will all have to put on our football jerseys - Dad (Buckeyes), Dave (Seahawks) and Brian (Jets).

Later in the day we took advantage of having our stuff... including our bikes.

You might notice the sidewalk has two halves: one is for foot traffic and other is for bicycles. If you dare walk into the bike lane, the Germans will ring the bike bell signaling your gross violation of the rules. Brian has picked up on this and loves to ring his bell at anyone he comes close to while riding. I had to tell him he is not allowed to ring anymore today. He gave me that, "what?" look. He's assimilating.

The kids loved riding along the canal to the Schloss Nymphenburg (castle).

We also took some pictures of our neighborhood since a couple people have asked about where we live.

I love the look of our area. While we live in the city, it feels different than the glass and steel cities we are used to in NYC. They call Munich the big village. The shot down the street is one block down from our block. Very nice.

We also took a picture of our new car - it's hiding behind the kids mugging for the camera. I also found out from the insurance agent that it has been modified and "chip tuned" for a 30% increase in horsepower. So German...on a swedish SUV.

Moving in...

Today, Daphne worked with the movers to bring our Munich stuff into the apartment. 150 boxes of things and the furniture. Since we packed in July, we had some fuzzy memories of what was to arrive.

We still have movers coming Monday to take the 3 bedroom apartments worth of ikea stuff to storage on Monday so you can imagine how overstuffed our apartment looks now. We are like the inn on Christmas eve.

We have one whole room packed with beds, dining room chairs, a couch, etc.

The kitchen needs some work.

But we finally have our family room furniture and rug. This will work out just fine. (sorry for the blurry picture- low light and iphone camera)

It is a bit of one-step-forward-and-half-step-back however: Daphne is so tired from moving in and unpacking that she is wiped out and feels down again. This moving stuff is tiring.

The kids spend the evening playing with the toys and books they haven't seen in weeks.

So much happening...so few posts

Sorry to not connect for a while; it's not because we are sitting around doing nothing.

Last week we made some decisions: we decided on an apartment and decided on a car. This means we can arrange our move and convert our remaining dollars into a couple of Euros to buy the car. We will stay in our current apartment - by moving out the 'temporary' furniture - and moving our furniture in tomorrow. We get to pay rent and storage. We now have a huge container in NC, Munich, and our space in Neuhausen.

As for the car, we bought a Volvo xc90 with every feature they offered. The salesman said the pope drives this model.... thereby proving car salesmen are the same all the world over. (c'mon, the current pope was previously the cardinal of Munich... and you expect me to believe he would drive a Swedish car?)

I had a 46 hour trip to the USA starting Sunday so Daph and the kids went to the zoo and had fun. I was only allowed to go since I promised to bring back:
- two packages of oeros (daph)
- skittles (David, Brian)
- Bon appetit, Living magazine (Daph)
- Henricks gin (Daph)
- tiger beat magazine (Julia)
- pad of drawing paper (Brian)
- more candy (David and Brian)

We have the movers bringing our stuff beginning tomorrow (TH), we pick up the car Friday and the temp stuff goes to storage on Monday.

In addition - I have to travel again Friday (overnight) to Paris to recruit at Insead (don't yet know the shopping list for this trip) but we have tickets to the Oktoberfest on Saturday.

Updates should be coming!

George....RIP

George is a dog. He doesn't realize that he needs to keep Daphne happy. Dumb.

Take a look at this picture.
You will notice 1. Cookies and fresh pretzels hanging around our necks and 2. a smudge on the children's noses. It is tradition that in the parade, people throw the pretzels and cookies out to the audience. The cookies are a gingerbread cookies (Lebkuchen) shaped like a heart (herz) therefore they are called Lebkuchenherz. They say things like "Greetings from Munchen!".

Daphne bought some Lebkuchenherz for the grandmothers and Lisa K. as gifts on Saturday. When we went to the parade on Sunday, George ate the cookies off the counter. Daphne was sooo angry.

We got two more from the parade on Sunday and Daphne put them on display in the apartment.

Believe it or not - George ate the new ones while Daph and I were at the Hard Rock. Anyone want a dog?

Issue #2 - the smudge. During the parade, court jesters, roam the parade and approach children and smudge them in the face with black grease. This comes from the 1500s during a very bleak time, when these people encouraged a depressed Munich population to find a way to have fun. It's pretty cruel - all the adults laugh while a guy smudges a cute little, unsuspecting kid's face.

David left it on his face both days. Julia didn't find it funny.