Achtung Babz

Today is Tuesday, 26 September.

This is my last full day in Fürth, pronounced FyuurT. Rhymes with yurt.

It´s raining today, which is fine. I´ve been feeling a little tired, and the rain slows everything down.

Today, I am giving up feeling bad or frustrated that I do not speak German. I will enjoy what I can while I am here. I find that my favorite thing is just to watch people, and take pictures. I don't want to do too much shopping here, as I have to schlep my stuff on the train tomorrow. I will be buying beer steins in Müunchen, I know.

My friend Mike directed me to this internet cafe, it is way cheaper than the other ones. This one is about 1 € an hour. Others have been more like 4€, and in the hotel in Provence it was 8€ (but it had an American keyboard)

So far, for dinner I have eaten thai food and Chinese food. It was reallz funny trying to decipher the chinese menu last night. I don´t normallz think of chinese and german going together. The options were not, imho, normal chinese. i think they make it to appeal to the german palate. Not much spice, meat and rice mostly. My new friend and tour Guide Mike does not like German food. I think tonight I am going to eat German food for dinner, even if it means I eat alone. I am helping him practice his English. He wants to get a job in IT in the states, I told him I'd do what I can to help.

I really want to come back here after I have learned German. My hotel is on the outskirts of Fürth, near the sheep-shit smelling fields, and the bus ride in is good. Very nice folk on the bus. Old ladies, young mothers, and others, I haven't found one yet who speaks English. There were two high school boys, they spoke a little. Each day I take the little piece of paper that the lady at the hotel wrote down for me, a really long word that means day ticket or something. I live and die by that little piece of paper, it feels like.

Yesterday I saw the museum just outside of Nürmberg, where Hitler created his base of operations. Very good museum. I didn't know that Hitler was such a popular guy with the ladies, for example. He used architecture, art, myth, eloquent speaking skills, etc to do what he did.

There is no crime, or very very little. I remember from my old friend Monika who is from München, she told me that everyone is very clean and follows the rules, and there is a lot of pressure to adhere to the rules. Lots of stress. It is weird to walk around and not worry about pickpockets etc, especially after all the stories I'd heard about Paris. On the tour, we were always warned about pickpockets.

Jdawg was right, I look like people here, I fit right in. And no, I'm not going to Amsterdam in this trip. Next one, I'd like to see it.

I really like the German folk. They seem kind of exasperated with my ignorance of German, but other than that they are very nice. Or maybe their exasperation doesn't so much relate to me, it's their already-existing stress--these are the bus drivers, the workers in the stores.

The men here are built the way I prefer. I'm noticed here more by the men than the ones at home, I think. That's a nice combination of factors :-)

In travelling, I'm noticing that it has me think about the dust bunnies of the mind and heart--those things I normally push aside and forget about. I am also noticing how I orient to the world, as it's a lot easier to notice that outside of my normal context.

I am very concerned with what people think. I am trying constantly to be kind and polite, and trying to figure out what the rules are. I am trying to win at the game of being in Germany, just as I tried to win at the game of visiting France. I did okay in France, I got some compliments on my French. The French really don't like to speak english. Here, when I find someone who does, they don't seem to mind.

In the back of my mind, I wonder if people are going to be telling me what I should've done instead, if i was stupid and missed the biggest thing there is to see. It's like I think there's a certain way to have a good vacation on one's own. The crazy thing about it is that drive myself nuts thinking this way. It's impossible to live entirely by other people's rules. I can use what manners I have, but it's better that I be with my vacation just as it is. Big expectations are exhausting to carry with me.

People smoke in Germany, more so than in France. On Sunday, when I was walking around in search of food, I came upon a number of automatic machines that sell cigarettes. I haven't seen such things in the states since the 70's or 80's.

There was a shirt in a store that I walked by this morning, it said "Fuck Heidi." I got a good laugh out of that one. I think I know my way around enough to find it again--if the rain subsides, I can take a picture.

I turned on the tv for a bit this morning. Little House on the Prairie works really well in German. Another channel was an animal vet show, and I saw two large German women doing rude things to cows. It took me awhile to figure out it was an animal doctor thing. I was afraid that regular farm folk did that to their animals.

I found four channels showing soccer. CNN here is in German. Some version of CSI works very well in German, I think it might be Miami or Chicago version.

I ate bratwurst and onions yesterday for lunch. With a coke that is orange flavored, it sounds weird but it's really quite good. In the Metgerai (butcher), there were only women. I'm not sure what that says about German culture...

I have not yet had German dessert, I will try that today. Lebkuchen is favored here. I had a pretzel with brie for a snack yesterday, it was the closest thing I could point to in the pretzel stand. I think I can now say 1, 2, and 3 in German.

Because the internet is so cheap here, I will try to upload a couple of photos. I will surely share the photos when I get back in town.