Oktoberfest fur elf Stunde

Friday was our first full day of Oktoberfest. We arrived at the Augustine Bier tent around 10:30 am... there were so many people on the U-bahn that we thought we might not be able to get a table. As it turns out, we found the tent only half full, so we had the pick of tables. Some people were really happy to get drinking early:


See how empty some of the tables are? It did not stay that way for long.


Now that looks better after the first beer; the other tables are filling up! Mark wins the first round, while Arthur comes in as a close second. What you cannot see if how much beer I still have left!



What catches the eyes of the girls? Look at all that food! Yumm-o.


Oh, and the guy carrying these was hot (and get a load of those cool skills, could he carry one more Mas?)



The Augustine tent, complete with a band on the boat, and happy drinkers to entertain.


Ein Mas:



Ina (eine) Mas too many...


I made a friend! Verena and Laura at Oktoberfest:


After 6 beers and 11 hours at Oktoberfest, Arthur's feminine side comes out:

A cultural study of Oktoberfest

After the BMW tour, we headed off to check out Oktoberfest (some of us... me... for the first time ever!) Others were just happy to be there.








The festival has tons more than I expected; I am not sure what I was thinking a big party in Munich would like, but I guess I was not expecting anything more than a parking lot carnival. As you can see, the Germans take their partying seriously.









Then, when I heard we were going to a Bier tent, I thought for sure it was a TENT with grassy and muddy floors, like you might find at a state fair. Uh, nooooo... this is what a temporary bier "tent" looks like:



Arthur, Mark, Martin, Maureen, Lanette, Ina, and I headed into the Pschoer Bier tent for ein Mas and a little food.

Bottom's up!





It doesn't get better than this, a beer and a pretzel, both the size of my head!


Ahhh, food! Maybe it does get better, beer, beef, and a pretzel.


After the occupants that had reserved our table showed up, we hit the streets again.




It is not just drinking that the Germans take seriously:



Ahh, beer, beef, and the final thing needed at Oktoberfest... boobies:

BMW tour - I want one!

Thursday morning we woke up early to meet at the St. Gallen Hauptbahnhof, for the BMW tour.

The not so short bus:


The four towers at the BMW factory in Munchen. Jeff, you would have loved this tour! It took 3 hours and we saw almost everything: from putting the engines together, we also saw the forming sheets of metal into panels of the car, to painting the car, to the rotating fuselage for ergonomic assembly, and to the final test stations. We unfortunately we not allowed to take pictures in the factory.





I accidentally did not time my food consumption well, so I was feeling weak and cranky during half the tour, but the fact that we had some car aficionados and the tour was long, maybe it was not totally my fault (I was not the only one who needed some water or a small break, lol.)

The tour is not always available, so it was a great treat for all of us. Some of us stayed on in Munich for Oktoberfest, or went on to other places for a four day weekend. I personally had plans on taking in the local culture...

The Swiss electrical nightmare!

This morning I had planned on meeting some classmates to take a day trip to Lake Constance. I was up before my alarm, got online to say hi to my hubby (who was fast asleep and unavailable for an online chat) and got ready. I took a shower, brushed my teeth, then WHAM! I plug in my hair blow dryer and all the lights go out. I blew a fuse. So I run down to the basement and only found switches labelled 1 through 7 and some electricity meters.

I called the executive director of our program, because I dis not know who else to call at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, or at any time! While she was juggling her two small kids, she tried to walk me through resetting a breaker. Only, the problem was all I can find was the switches for the central heating, the washing machine, etc. So I had to resort to knocking on people's doors. Third time was a charm- I woke up my upstairs neighbor after she slept for only two hours. She only spoke German and I am at a loss for some technical terms here. I told her "mein licht ist kaputt" meaning my lights are broken, and she asked me if it was just my lights, so I told her "alles". She stumbled downstairs in her PJs with some fuses, showed me how to change my fuses (I finally found the fuse box in the kitchen), but then, she could not get any of the fuses to work. She told me that the ones that were bad were hot, so I needed to go buy more fuses.



I took the bus into town and found some fuses, bought them, came all the way back, just to discover those types of fuses were NOT the problem. I actually had replacement fuses for the fuse that was broken. You can tell that the fuse is broken because the little indicator pops out of the front of it. They are cylindrical fuses made of metal and ceramic; they look a lot like knobs. I never would have known to unscrew them and take out the core to "reset" the fuse. LOL.

Maestrani Chocolate tour

Today we started off bright and early for a tour of the Maestrani Chocolate factory. I made sure Paul cleared the credit card so I could get some, er, samples.



They make dark, milk, and white chocolates. The cocoa bean is pressed under heat and pressure and separated into two substances- the raw cocoa butter and the cocoa powder we know. They use a combination of those two ingredients, with milk powder, and sugar to make each of their sugars:

cocoa powder + cocoa butter + sugar = dark chocolate
cocoa powder + cocoa butter + sugar + milk powder = milk chocolate
cocoa butter + sugar + milk powder = white chocolate

(See white chocolate is still chocolate!)

This factory had the *best* smell, all calorie free!

And I got a few samples to take with me:

Swimmbad juete

Today, Sunday, I woke up with no real plan on what to do. The only pressing thing on my list to do is laundry so I have some socks to wear. So after chatting a little with the hubby at home (it was nearly 1 am his time), I grabbed a shower then caught the 3 bus down to the Haubtbahnhof. Since it is Sunday, only some of the bus lines run, and those that do, only run about half the frequency. For the first time, I took the number 7 bus toward Neudorf. This bus goes only about a mile away from where I live, but the 20 minute bus ride took me away from old town and into the Swiss equivalent of a suburb. There were many multifamily house buildings and some of which appeared to be assisted living areas. I was getting off at the last stop before the bus circled back on itself, at Neudorf (I figured out in a moment that Blumenwies would have been better).

I was on a quest to get to an indoor swim club called Hallenbad Blumenwies. It was a short walk from Neudorf, and right in front of the bus stop Blumenwies. It cost 8.50 CHF for a day of swimming. The changing room is all one room- boys and girls. They have little changing rooms that you can close a door for privacy, then you grab a locker for 2 CHF to stick you clothes into. The showers and the bathrooms are separated by sexes, and you have to go through them to get to the pool.

There were two lanes for lap swimming in a large pool, a three diving boards in a deeper separate pool, a shallow small pool for kids, and a HUGE indoor water slide (it went up three stories) that dumped into yet one more pool. I hopped into the professional swim lanes (where people were swimming in circles doing flip turns) but halfway into my first lap, I unpleasantly found out that my goggles do not fit my face. I got two big handfuls of water in my eyes right away. I gave up on the lap lanes and tightened my goggles. I managed to swim a number of laps (maybe 200m) by dumping water every length of the pool. By then, I was getting pretty cold, so I bailed.

Once back into town (I took the 1 line back since it left earlier than the 7), I picked up a few funny Switzerland postcards and considered buying a book in German. I grabbed a salad and coffee at a place called the Seeger (Paul, this is the place we had a beer when you were in town). Then back to the apartment for laundry, dishes, and er... pre-studying?

Eating:
Italian marinated Olives
Paprika Pringles
Red-Orange Gatorade

First day of class

Wednesday was the first day of school… and the day that Paul had to fly home. We got up really early since he needed to catch the 6:40 am train to Zurich. We had an orientation at 8am, which I was terribly early for (since I was up and at the HBH at 7 am!) Then we had a lunch for just the ISP students.

Email to Paul, to share

I wrote this email to Paul, but he said I should post it on the blog to update everyone on the silly little things I am doing! Enjoy!
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I went out this morning to pick up some more groceries. I ate the ravioli for breakfast this morning, but I thought it might be a good idea to have something easy for breakfast, so I got yogurt and cereal. Just in case, I also got bread, butter, cheese, chips, and some paper towels. I still need to pick up Kleenex (before I run out!) I picked up some more detergent so I can run loads of wash. Is this all boring? Now that we are thousand of miles apart, I resort to telling you a blow by blow of my shopping?

Anyway, I still need to find an ethernet cord and a space heater. I did however, find a four story book store. It was not as good as the one in Berlin, and it did not have the 501 German verbs book. I did buy three books though that I think will help me while I am here. I am signed up for the German class, but I spoke with the teacher (in German) and she said that I would not like her class because it is too rudimentary. She suggested that I could visit the class and write some essays about what I did on my vacation. She was really being nice about helping me with my German without trying to teach one class on two levels.

My first class is actually on Monday, European Cultural History. Then I also have German. Tonight is the Buddy System Pub Crawl. I will probably go, but I think I will skip out on most of the drinking. I am hoping to make it to the swim club today or tomorrow for some exercise.

I also picked up a pair of Keen sneakers (hiking/ running) in an REI-like store, albeit, very tiny. I think they will be well worth it. I had checked out some sneakers earlier today that were much less expensive, but I need to use them for an outdoor leadership course with the university and I think I might be able to make it out hiking before it gets too cold. I think the hybrid sneakers are a better idea or I would have had to buy two pairs. Guess I should have brought more shoes with me... plus I need some heels for company visits and class presentations that require business casual dress.

I found a coffee mug in Appenzeller with Christa's name on it, so I bought it. It is pretty sunny today and a little less cold than the day before, so I must try to get out of the house again and possibly get a coffee and read a book downtown. Maybe I will do that in between the swimming I think I want to do... oh and the shopping. Guess I am booking up my schedule already.

Wish you were here.
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Langgasse, my new home

Before I moved my stuff into the new apartment:














Paul, hooking up my internet connection:

Berlin wochenende

Am Freitag, sind mein Mann und ich nach Berlin gefahren. Mein Mann Paul, hat einer Stadtplan gefunden. Er ist sehr gut mit Plänen. Wir nehmen dem Bus zu unsere Hotel. Wenn wir unsere Gepäck lassen, dann essen wir in einem indischen Restaurant.

Am nächsten Tag, wandern wir zum “Checkpoint Charlie” und der Berliner Mauer. Paul ist nie mals nach Berlin gereist, also alles ist interesant zu sehen. Ich habe früh Hunger. Wir gehen in eine Bar und Paul hat ein Berlin Kindle Bier probiert. Das was sehr schlecht; Er konnte das nicht trinken.

Am Sonntag, willt Paul sich ausrufen, also gehen wir in die Sauna. Hinterher gehen wir ins Kino. Wir möchten Harry Potter IMAX auf Deutsch sehen. Paul hat nichts verstandedn, aber habe ich Spaβ.

Unsere Freundin Verena kommt am Montag ihre Familie besuchen. Sie ist aus der DDR (ost-Deutschland). Sie zeigt uns ihre Stadt- wir gehen zum der Berliner Dom, zur die-Ost Galerie, zum die DDR-Museum, und auch zum das Denkmal für alle verbrannten Bücher. Dann müssen wir ein Bier trinken.

Montag nacht nehmen Paul und ich am den Nachtzug. Wir fahren zuerst nach Bern, dann Zurick, und endlich St. Gallen, meine neue Heimat.