A Night At The Movies

Last Friday, we bundled up and headed out to the movies. There is a cinema where they show movies in their original language, meaning that many are in English. We showed up, unsure of what they were showing and found that they only have 1 screen and that the movie was “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” The tickets were 8.50 euros (a fifty cent surcharge because it was a long movie) and we had the option of paying 2 euros more to sit on the balcony. We were handed our ‘parquet’ tickets and discovered that we had assigned seats. There was, of course, beer available for purchase, but we went with the more traditional coke and popcorn. Here, they serve it with either salt or sugar, but popcorn with sugar is the standard. Whenever I’ve asked German friends about it, they shudder at the thought of salted popcorn. S asked for salt, and they must have figured that since he was American he liked a lot of salt, because it was very, very salty popcorn.

We filed into the theater and found our seats. It was kind of nice having assigned seats because we didn’t have to have that back and forth about where each of us wanted to sit. The previews were short and the movie started. We both thought it was funny, because people kept accidentally kicking over their empty beer bottles, so it was kind of like being back in college. After the movie, large doors in the back were opened and we were sent right out into the snowstorm.

As for the movie? eh. It was ok, but I’m pretty surprised it was up for an oscar. It kind of felt like a paint-by-numbers oscar effort.

The Great Apartment Caper

Theresienstr. 3-Zi.-Whg., 4.OG/Lift, ca. 62m2, Parkett, Balk., sof., 800,- Euro + NK

We’ve had to learn a whole new vocabulary in our hunt for an apartment. The listing above is actually one of the clearest I’ve come across. Most are way more inscrutable. Apartment hunting in Munich is notoriously awful. There is a pretty short supply and a lot of people looking. If you see a listing for a really great one, you’d better call quick! Sometimes they’re pulled off the internet after only a few hours because so many people have already called. Then you go, cattle call-style, to an open house where you fill out an application that details your financial information, lists your nationality, and anything else they feel like asking you. So far, we’ve seen I think 8. We’ve applied for 4 and were offered 1. The one we were offered was a great apartment in a dullsville neighborhood and was only a 2 room. All this tramping around and looking has made us realize that we really need a 2.5 or 3 room apartment.

In Germany, or at least in Munich, they don’t count the bathroom or the kitchen. So, a 2 Zimmer Wohnung (2 room apartment) is the equivilant of an American 1 bedroom. After getting spoiled over the years with such spacious apartments, we are pretty sure that we would drive each other batty with only 2 rooms. Unfortunately, this realization has meant that we’ve needed to up our budget significantly. AND most of the 2.5 room to 3 room apartments we can afford are on the top floor. In buildings with no elevators. Which means the prospect of facing this everyday:

Sunday in Munich

After several days of gray, gloomy, rainy, sky-spitting weather, it was sunny on Sunday! S and I took advantage by taking a long stroll through the English Gardens. As it is whenever it’s sunny, Munichers were out in force – faces upturned to the sun. I’m sure they could be used as a rudimentary sundial. Days are still short here and if there are rays to be caught, there will be many, many trying.

The park was full – families with strollers, bikers with mud-splattered backsides, dogs wearing faux-fur coats, young couples holding hands… Every 1/2 mile or so, a street musician would be squeezing out a sweetly sad tune on an accordian. Eventually, we ended up here:

The Chinese Tower, or Chinesischer Turm. Originally built in 1789, the tower standing today is a replica built in 1952 after the first was destroyed in the war. In the summertime, up to 7,000 can sit here and enjoy the late evening sun, beer, and conversation.

Now you see it:

Now you don’t!

A Walk in Munich

Out the door, a left onto Amalien Str., a left onto Theresien Str., under Ludwig Str., a left onto Von Der Tann Str. and into…

The English Garden, or Englischer Garten, is sort of like the Central Park of Munich. It’s huge and has a couple of beer gardens, a lake, a couple of rivers, and all sorts of sport fields. Everytime I have been there it has been full of people out for a stroll.

We’re Here!

Finally, 11 months after we first visited, we landed in Munich. Here are pictures of us looking bedraggled and jet lagged on our first night:

We’re on Marienplatz, where the world-famous glockenspiel is, about a 20 minute walk from our temporary apartment.

We’re getting spoiled with this apartment. It’s probably about 20 sq.M larger than what we will actually be able to afford. The location is amazing, too. It’s walkable to just about anything you’ve ever heard of in Munich, 1 block from a subway station, and quiet because it’s nestled in the middle of a block. Like, literally. We are surrounded by a ring of buildings and you have to walk through a little driveway archway to get to our building.

And even though we’ve taken a bit of German, it quickly has become apparent just how little of a bit we know. Very rarely do people have formal exchanges with you, inquiring after your health and your place of origin. No, they want to know if you want to buy a bag for your groceries, if you want your receipt, and if you have a good reason for blocking the aisle. We didn’t learn that part yet. So we kind of make half-sensical gutteral noises and look sheepish. I’m starting some intensive language lessons on Monday.

Some very nice things about Germany, so far: Tiny refrigerators that look like cupboards, bottles of very good beer cost .79 euros for 1/2 liters, pretzels (oh my goodness, the pretzels), lieberkäse mit semmel, walking everywhere, watching ‘the simpsons’, dubbed.

As you can tell from that list, we haven’t gone too crazy yet with the ‘going out’ or ‘seeing the sights.’ As many of you know, just before Christmas, S and I decided to get married. Before we left. So, instead of having 2 weeks to pack and get ready to move to another country, we had 1.5 weeks to organize and plan a wedding, and .5 weeks to pack and get ready to move to another country. Jet lag and wedding lag have meant a lot of sleeping. A lot. But, today I finally feel normalish. mostly.

Yargh.

Sorry. I haven’t been much into this lately. Moving is kind of exhausting. Hopefully I’ll have something interesting to write soon. In the meantime, check out my new blog, Sound/Curious, all about radio – pieces I love, inspiration, etc. etc.

Sold!

Moving is a pain. This is a gallery of success. Craigslist, thank you very much…. Yargh. One week left until the moving van arrives. Power through!

Good Boy!

Another non-post post. A link to a blog entry by fellow Grinnellian Molly Backes about the transformative power of kindness. It made me cry, in a good way.

‘I will always feed you’

So, I checked out of the internet for a few weeks.

I’ll post a real entry soon, but in the meantime check out this amazing multimedia piece. It is a good example of why I love radio. There are things that voices convey that written words just can’t capture.

Rasterate!

Just what the procrastination doctor ordered!

It may not look like much, but zoom out and it’s part of my banner picture!

At The Rasterbator, you can upload any image you want, and they will turn it into a pixellated pdf up to 20 METERS wide. You print off the pages one by one and tape them on the wall. If you like to change your decor a lot this could be great! You can print in color and just tape up a new one every time your mood changes. Who needs fancy wallpaper? The possibilities are almost endless. For example, I put this one up above S’s desk to motivate him to write his thesis:

Mabel, our cat that likes to glower, will keep him on task!