Walking around

Well, the last couple posts have sort of been filler. There's not much one can do when they're crippled. The doctor hasn't gotten back to us yet on what was up with my knee, though it's feeling much better now. A couple days ago Anne and I went to Bautzen which is a cool old town about 18 miles from Hoyerswerda, and it's where I would live if I had to live in Germany. We had a pretty good dinner there, and we walked around and saw all the old buildings and stuff. Torsten had his birthday, so we went over to their place and had dinner and hung out a bit. Everyone seems to be doing pretty good. We also went over to Oma and Opa's to hang out and have dinner. They have a really cool garden house with a nice little lake near by, though we didn't think to take our swimsuits. It seems that swimsuits are, though officially required at that lake, optional. Then yesterday we went with Pe and Axel to the Czech republic to buy groceries for the big party next weekend, the 'Anne and Ted are in Germany' extravaganza. We're doing an American theme with hamburgers, hotdogs, potato chips, fried chicken and lots and lots of beer. We're also trying to find something that will be a good substitute for Margarita mix since it's unavailable in Germany. It was originally supposed to be a fourth of July party, but there's a wedding somewhere that weekend so we had to move it a bit ahead. I also picked up a tasty bottle of Absinthe in the Czech Republic though I've yet to meet any green fairies. Anne's making arrangements for our next round of trips for information gathering. Next week we're heading up to Kiel which is close to Denmark and heading over to Braunshweig which is home to the famously disgusting meat spread. She loves that stuff, but she also loves raw pork. There's a guest house up there where we can stay for cheap so that'll be very nice, and there's a sale on train tickets too!!!
Right now it's actually horribly hot and humid, just like Kansas, and there's a big thunderstorm rolling in. It seems like it rains here a lot, which would explain all the really nice gardens we see. Pe and Axel's garden has been growing like crazy and now looks like something out of the Amazon.
I've started reading all the Harry Potter books so I can be caught up when the last one comes out. I've only previously made it through the first two or three so I've got a bit of reading to do.
I'm expecting that we'll have more interesting stuff to write about if things go as planned for the next few weeks. Just a couple more weeks of research, then the big trip with Pe and Axel. We had to decide, because of our detour to Britain, on whether to visit Belgium or Amsterdam; this was a very hard choice but we have decided on Belgium. This will also guarantee that we will spend the 36 seconds needed to drive across Luxembourg. Anyway, it seems like everyone goes to Amsterdam, who the hell goes to Belgium? And it's the Mecca of beer, which had a lot to do with the decision, so Belgium it is. And out of our disdain for Brussels Sprouts, we will be boycotting Brussels on this trip out of protest; it is a protest against the forcing of every child of the world to sit for extended periods of time at the dinner table staring at those little green globes of Jolly Green Giant poop. No one like Brussels sprouts, so Brussels, you can go to hell, we hate you.

Monkey!

Meow

Hi, my name is Katinka. Why am I so happy? Oh, I don't know, maybe from planning to... oh, I've said too much. Beef?












Click on Katinka's Photo for Mega Size!

Not much going on

I'm sorry to say that there's just not a whole lot going on. The past few days have been spent sitting around, which at least is better than laying around. I was back at the doctor's again today for more blood tests which should give us an idea by next week with what I'm dealing with. I was able to go out a bit today after the doctor's appointment and walk a bit with Anne. As a precautionary measure (because all this pain may be a gout attack), I've cut myself off of beer, which is a cruel irony considering that I'm in Germany. The doctor thinks it may be gout, but she's also suspicious of my extremely high white blood cell count and thinks that this may be some delayed after effect of being exposed to some tick-borne pathogen. God knows that I've been the feast for many a hungry tick, so who knows, but personally I never considered it. We do have a couple of parties to go to this weekend, and we have our big party next weekend, so hopefully they can figure out whats wrong with me in time for some fun. Dad has informed me that he has become Katinka's new best friend, and also her new favorite chew toy. I guess since her little buddy(i.e. kitty brother) is spending most of his time hiding and pretending to be a ghost, she has no choice but to try to convince people to play with her by trying to bite their legs off. I guess she can get a little jealous too; she probably thought Dad was giving the neighbors some turkey and she thought she'd give Dad a little warning about cheating by biting him on the leg.
Anyway, I can tell you one thing, being a gimp sucks! I have managed to watch every video on YouTube in the past week which is a world record. Luckily we had broadband in Berlin while we were there, and we got it to work here in Hoyerswerda after we got back. The upside is that I am no longer dependent on CNN for hearing english. The downside is that most of the english I hear comes from videos of people setting their asses on fire. I'm also able to sit here in the living room and type on my own computer which has a wonderful American keyboard, sans of all that umlat and y mixed up with z nonsense.
I did manage to restring my guitar tonight which wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated. Now my guitar no longer sounds like I'm playing it through a sleeping bag, which is what happens when strings start to oxidize and go bad after a month of non-stop playing. Well, now since I'm just writing about stupid stuff I figure it's probably time to call it quits for tonight. Hopefully if everything goes well we'll have alot more interesting stuff to write about. If not, well, there's going to be alot of posts about different ways to say 'ow, that #&$*@)! hurts!' in German.

some cool stuff

I'm just laying around here today, so I figure, I might as well share some of my cool photos from the past few days. I went to the German Natural History Museum 2 days ago, and to my surprise, almost everything in the museum is closed. I found that out after I paid admission. Remember National Lampoon's Vacation when they got to WallyWorld and it was closed---yeah, something like that. To be fair, they are setting up a new exhibition which will be open in a few weeks about the Evolution of life on earth, but I was pretty sad as the German Museum has the giant skeleton of the Brachiosaurus, which is the largest fossil skeleton on display on earth. I could see some of it's vertebrae soaring about 30 feet into the air through some gaps in the paper that was covering the windows, but that was about it. But there was one VERY COOL fossil on display that was worth the trip. I got to see the fossil of Archaeopetryx! That's the little dinosaur with the feathers that sort of settled the 'where did birds come from' question. It's undoubtedly the most famous fossil in the world, and according to the museum, the most expensive. I'm not sure how much it is worth, something like $100 gazillion. But I have pictures of the most famous fossil in the world. Would you like to see them? Here they are!!!

Berlin killed my knee.

It was bound to happen. After weeks of walking around and seeing stuff, my right knee has pulled it's "oh, I'm going to hurt like a mother#^$%*& and be all unusable" act and went out. So I've been all gimped up for the past couple of days here in Berlin and I can't do anything but sit around and smell bad. I'm hoping it'll get better soon, it usually only takes a day or two to get better. But considering how inconvenient this is, I imagine it'll take weeks to get better.
That's my rant. At least I have a good supply of beer.

Potsdam

Yesterday we went to Potsdam. Potsdam is the capital of the state of Brandenburg and it is know for its castles and Palaces. It used to be the summer residence of the Prussian king and it is about 10 km west of Berlin. After a slow morning, we were still kind of sore from the Berlin day, we took the S-Bahn (a kind of commuter train, like the metro link) to Potsdam. There we went after a short hello to an old friend of mine, to the big castle gardens. They are beautiful with a lot of straight, tree lined alleys and little houses and palaces hidden in the green. The main castle is very famous for its terraced gardens and its majestic view. After a little picnic with view up to the castle, we climbed the 132 stairs up and enjoyed the view down in perfectly trimmed gardens. The castles name is Sans Souci - without worries - and once you stayed there and looked down the hill, you understand why.
After the castle we walked or better strolled to the huge gardens on hidden path without meeting anybody on our way.

In the late afternoon it started to rain and we had to buy some umbrellas otherwise we would have been totally soaked.

We meet again with my friend for dinner and went to the dutch quarter for food and a lot of good beer - Ted was extremely happy that they served his favorite brew, Orval, for less than half the price than back home.

It cooled down a lot after the rain and after the long hot day I was kind of chilly, but the train back was still hot and stuffy.

We were back at 11 pm and after some chatting with Holm we went to bed.

Today I was in the library, that unfortunately didnt open until 1pm, because of a staff meeting. While I spent the rest of my day working, Ted stayed home and played computer - but he deserves it after two days of walking, and sun and a lot of touristy stuff.

More later.

Berlin

After a long long day in Berlin just a short post. We went to Berlin last night with my uncle Holm. This morning after going to bed late, we slept in a bit and left for the town by 11 am. A short ride with public transportation and we were in the city center. After some desperately needed coffee at Starbucks we started our big tour of Berlin. First stop was the Dorotheenstädtischer Cemetery - yeah yeah you all think now what are they doing on a cemetery -but I always wanted to go there, because all the famous Germany are buried there, especially authors and philosophers from the 19th and early 20th century. It was really pretty and relaxing like a little green oasis in the middle of a bustling city.
From there we walked down the Friedrichsstraße famous for its shopping and entertainment. After a short stop at the Library, where I will spend the next couple of days, and some taste of German bureaucracy, we headed towards the Brandenburger Tor. A short look around, some photos and of we went to the Reichstag.
There we had to wait about half an hour to go up to the dome. But the wait was worth it because we were rewarded with a great 360 view over the city.
After that we went to the Potsdamer Platz and to the checkpoint Charlie, the former main border crossing station and from there back through the town to the Alexanderplatz from where we went back to the apartment.
It was a long and very hot day - we had at least 90 degrees - but we had a great time. More pics are as usual at Flickr.

Tomorrow we will probably head to Potsdam, about an hour away and with lots of old castles etc. There we will also meet a friend of mine and hopefully get a good tour of the city.

GPS coordinates

I forgot to post these on the last blog, but in case anyone was wanting to look on google earth, I'm posting the coordinates I took for the apartment and garden house. I've been meaning to do this for all rest of the places we've visited but I seem to forget the unit alot.

Apartment-
51 degrees, 25.907' N
14 degrees, 16.612' E

Garden-
51 degrees, 22.801' N
14 degrees, 06.322' E

Hey, a new post!

German keyboard be damned, I'm going to write anyway. If there's a weird symbol instead of an apostrophe, or I write kittz instead of kitty, well, blame the keyboard. Anyway, I'm just sitting here and it's a sweltering 73 degrees outside so there's nothing better to do than write. Anne has been really busy the past few days heading back and forth to Dresden, which involves a nice 2 hour train ride back and forth. The train ride really provides a good insight into the European impression of distances, afterall, Dresden is only about 36 km away, that's 22 miles for us Americans. I may be wrong about the distance, I mean it may be 40 km away, but the point is, it's less than 50 miles away and takes 2 hours by train, which incidentally is almost faster than driving. Oh, but the German autobahn is soooo fast you think, but there's not much of it, so any trip between cities with less than a billion people in them involves travelling down very narrow highways through very antiquated and charming villages. What the Germans call highways, we would call a paved farm road in America, albeit a very nice paved and smooth farm road, through the middle of some very nice barley fields. Thus, the Autobahn is not the only driving adventure in Germany, if avoiding semi-trucks on a 1 1\2 lane road is a good idea of adventure. Of course as an American, there's also the challenge of learning the German rules of the road; unfortunately the manual is 15,379 pages long and was written in middle-high German during the 30 years war (the Germans, if anything, had alot of foresight.) Ok, it's not that bad, I'm attempting humor at the expense of my beer loving hosts though it may be a bad attempt. If there's anything Germans take more seriously than beer it's driving, so from here on out I have to watch my p's and q's.
Anne previoulsy mentioned our participation in the Elbschlepper, which is the German word for- "8km hike while swilling 20 beers that you have to carry with you along the Elbe river while very well dressed locals look at you funny." For a while there, I felt like the most beloved person in Germany, as it is very rare that a single person would actually carry the entire case of beer on their shoulder for the entire route. In fact, I believe I made history by being the first person to ever do so. The Germans believed that this incredible power came from my prodigious american beer belly, which they gleefully posed with for photos after the race. We also made friends with the band that was playing at the event, which was called 'Stampede' which played some very good covers of some Rolling Stones tunes. We shared our love of rock 'n roll and a few beers and then Anne and I headed back with Pe to the garden, where I spent the next two days regretting my decision to carry a case of German beers on my shoulders during a 5 mile hike.
The past couple of days has been spent (by me at least) hanging out in the apartment and working on my German and playing guitar. I did go to Dresden with Anne on the first day and spent the entire time wandering around the old city looking at the sights. I also realized how helpful and friendly the Germans are when I tried to order food and beer in German. (that's not a joke, people here for the most part are very friendly once they realize you're American and are trying to speak the language) We also impressed a group of kids in our train car with our quacking abilities, something which has yet to become common in the German dialect. I also became the hero of many of the boys in the car with my video game playing abilities. I'm probably going back to Dresden tomorrow as the prospect of watching another 15 hours of CNN International is nauseating. CNN is the only english language channel here and is my only refuge from impending culture shock. Ok, the culture is not all that different, but I've run out of people whom to say Ich möchte Bier to, which really limits my conversations. Of course there's always the hilarity of saying the St. Louis Rams are my favorite football team as the Germans have an entirely different concept of football. As a result, I do now have an authentic German National Team soccer jersey which I proudly wear around the apartment. I'd hate for people to confuse me with a Brazil fan or something. Ronaldinho, who's that? I also have a nice hoodie from the Leibzig city team, FC Lokomotive, which I soon realized is extremely popular with Anne's family.
Ok, for the part everyone has been waiting for, the official Ted Beer Count. Ted has had about 50 beers so far, and out of that, there has been 17 different brands. I'm not going to write all of them down right now, but I'm trying to save as many labels as possible for posterity. The last western beer I had was on the airplane, and I had a big Heiniken in the Amsterdam airport, but since then, it's been German and Czech beers. I'm having a beer now. So that's 51.
I guess that's it for now. Enjoy the pictures, we'll be posting some more soon.
Tchuss,
Ted

Beer Race Pics

Pictures of the Beer race ar on Flickr, just follow the link and click through the pictures until you find some where everybody wears a red or orange T-Shirt. I will put on some comments for the pictures later. Enjoy :-))

The Beer Race

Saturday it was finally there – the big beer race in Dresden. We left the garden at 9 am and were at the location at shortly after 1030 am. At first we helped with all the preparation – nailing start numbers to the ground etc. I did the check-in while Ted was a bit bored, because nobody talked with him that would change soon. Because Axel had to work and Teds new partner didn’t show I run with him. Here again the rules. A team of two had to run a track of 5 miles with a crate of beer filled with 20 bottles (16 oz.), during the 5 miles the team had to empty all the bottles. We carried the crate for about a mile together and than Ted decided it would be easier if he carries it himself on his shoulder. So he got out of his shirt and lifted the crate on his shoulder showing of his American belly and his muscles. Everybody was quite impressed and by the time we were done everybody knew the “big American” from Kansas. We drank about half the beer and the other half we dumped but once we were back there was no lack of beer and we had our share of it. We finished in the first third after about two and a half hours. We had a great time and a lot of fun. Photos follow soon.

But after a day like that we were rather tired and sore on Sunday. Teddys shoulders are bruised and hurt and we feel the pain every time we move. According to our hang over, very autschie feeling the weather on Sunday was cold and gray and rainy, so we spent the whole day on the garden and hung around. Ted helped Pe and Axel repairing the water pipes in the kitchen, that were leaking.

Today we are going to Dresden, I have to work and Ted for exploring. Unfortunately the train is packed with kids – I guess around 4th graders – and it is rather loud. So I decided to write the blog and upload it later. The kiddies a very impressed by our computers (Ted is doing whatever with his) and that we speak English – I feel a bit like in a zoo.

Ok that’s for today – more later, I hope Ted will do the updating next week, because I will spend the week in the library in Dresden and I don’t think anything exciting will happen there.