The End

This Journal is now closed to new posts.

If you are interested in the much more mundane events surrounding life in eastern mass my new journal can be found at http://dragonxbait.livejournal.com

Final Dispatches

Well all, due to circumstances being such as they are (ask me if you really want specifics and I will tell you the truth or something else depending on who you are and what I wish you to know) I will be leaving this fair land come Sunday. It was a nice trip, for the most part, but I am looking forward to coming home. I will either be finding appropriate work in Troy or (if things seem uncool there) hitting the long road to elsewhere. I am thinking perhaps a German class for the spring semester. For once I may actually get somethign from a foreign language class (having some understanding of how the language is actually used, in practice, now). Have a lovely time everyone...This wraps up my travel journal.

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Well, my german classes have begun. Of the three other students in my class , two are Turkish and one is from Chili. All of us attempting to communicate in German is a sight to behold.

To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds
are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless,
dogs are male, cats are female--tomcats included, of course;
a person's mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet,
and body are of the male sex, and his head is male
or neuter according to the word selected to signify it,
and NOT according to the sex of the individual who wears
it--for in Germany all the women either male heads or
sexless ones; a person's nose, lips, shoulders, breast,
hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair,
ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience
haven't any sex at all. The inventor of the language
probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay.

Mark Twain, "The Awful German Language"

'S' is for Schnell!

So I finally made my way into the city of Munich yesterday, in the pouring rain. I bought an umbrella and learned that the huge EU tax is included in the price of items and things seem to cost about the same (maybe slightly less given the US dollar's unfortunate position). My umbrella was 9,95 Euros, tax included. I wandered around Marienplatz, got wet, listened to some brass bands playing in the rain and then headed home.

To get home, I need to ride the Munich S-bahn. I think Munich is the only city I have ever been to where figuring out how much to pay is more difficult than figuring out which train to get on. The Germans have a beautiful, modern train system with whisper quiet super fast trains, and the most evil (dare I say the F-word, no not that one) ticket system ever devised. See, to ride the German trains, one must figure out exactly how many units of fare it costs. There is no one taking tickets, no information counters, you fold over the correct number of stripes and stamp it in the ticket machine. Every now and then however, someone will be on the train checking tickets. The fine for an invalid ticket is 60 Euros. Joerg says he thinks the Munich trains are funded by hapless tourists. I think he may be right.

Logic and a library card.

I have a lovely tinkerbell wallet, from Disneyland. Imagine my dismay, when I first filled it, to find that the cash section was about a quarter inch too short to hold bills. Well today, the mystery was solved. My wallet is the perfect size to hold Euros. Now tell me, what is more American than Disneyland?! I think this must be part of some sort of apocalyptic, one world government, anti-christ conspiracy. Or perhaps it was just poor wallet design. Either way, my wallet is happily holding my Euros and my new library card. I no longer own any American cash. I am finally starting to feel like I live here.