WIFI, Leberkäse and Naked Germans

Okay, I’m finally writing a post in which I’m not on a plane or train. I’m at Vinzenzmurr in central Munich. Decided to come into the city tonight on a bit of a whim. It’s not very difficult for me to come into Munich, it’s just that it takes a little bit of time and some train fare. From my house I can walk to the Starnberg Nord train station in about 2 minutes, then the train ride to central Munich takes about 35 minutes. I really don’t mind the time, however. It’s fun to people watch, listen to some tunes, read or whatever. Today I took a cat nap.

I just finished eating a wonderful little Leberkäse sandwich – a couple of slices off a loaf of pork-like meat substance. They slab a bunch on mustard on top, the bun is incredibly fresh – crunchy and soft inside – and they plop it on a paper napkin. Step back to a stand up counter and scarf down this beauty. It’s lovely. They also sell a bunch of other quick take away food like bratwurst, schnitzel sandwiches and pork belly sandwiches. We don’t have one in Starnberb – sucks! – so I have to come into the city to enjoy this German version of fast food.

It’s been a whirlwind of a week. It’s Monday night as a write, so I’ve officially been back to Germany for about 10 days now. The work week last week was a bit insane as I was trying to catch up from being gone for two weeks. I felt slightly overwhelmed the whole time, but managed to do a bunch of things over the weekend to feel much more caught up this week.

Two major things happened last Wednesday. I finally got my resident working permit – or Blue Card as they call it here. I was supposed to have gotten it weeks ago but there was a delay because my Master degree diploma from St. Cloud State just lists “Information Media” and does not state “teaching degree” anywhere on it. This stumped the Germans and put my application into some sort of auditing cycle. When I applied they had told me that I can’t leave the country without my Blue Card, but oh well, I left twice without it and just faked that I was a tourist while passing through customs. But, anyway, now I’m actually official. They can’t kick me out of the country now. Well, at least not for not being officially here. I suppose a drug charge or stealing a dozen leberkäse sandwiches might do the trick.

The other development on Wednesday – I got wifi. Yes, if you’ve been paying attention you know that I have had an absolutely atrocious time getting the internet providers to hook up my apartment with DSL access. I won’t go into it in too much detail again, but there’s been some mysterious problem with the line to my apartment that has caused this major delay. My neighbors have tried to help. My landlords have tried. And several people at school have called and visited the shops on my behalf. It’s been an absolute freaking nightmare. The final straw was my sad trip to McDonalds for wifi last Sunday night – a bike ride in the rain in the dark. I couldn’t take it anymore! So, instead of waiting for wifi I opted for some high speed wireless hotspot contraption that delivers impressive speed. It works like a charm, the only hangup being I’m limited to 250 gigabytes per month. We’ll see what streaming and Skype do to eat into that. Whatever the case, I’m just grateful I can stay at home and do work, watch Netflix or Amazon (‘Modern Love’ on Amazon is the absolute bomb by the way) and stream sports through my DAZN subscription. I even got to watch the Gopher football victory on Saturday. I’m so happy!

Tricia’s doing really well back home, having returned to work last week. Her eye is bothering her, of course, but this is totally normal. She was super happy to return back to work, feel productive and see people. Every day she gets super tired, so she basically collapses into the couch at night. But she’s feeling progress and happy to have her life back to normal. You may not have known this, but along with her melanoma, Tricia was also dealing with somewhat debilitating back pain for the last several months. So along with all the stress of the eye diagnosis and treatment, she wasn’t able to exercise or move around normally. Thank God that has mostly been solved, too. She went to a doctor that gave her some shots in her back that have made her situation 100 times better. She’s on the mend in more ways that one, and her mental outlook on life is better than it’s been in a very long time!

With being home in the States for a couple weeks, I hadn’t had a normal weekend in Starnberg in quite a while. I wanted to make the most of it. As a way of celebrating and to thank people at MIS for all their support, I threw a little party at my place Friday night. It was incredible. A ton of people showed up including two of my friends – Maddy and Matthew – who are insanely talented guitar players and vocalists. They led us all in a sing along that couldn’t have been any better. A tiny part of me was worried that my upstairs neighbor, Stefan, would complain about the noise, but most of me just relished the fun. I needed it. I think after a full week of work, all of us at the party needed it! One of the things that people were drinking at the party was Gluhwein. It’s this mulled wine thing that becomes very popular in Bavaria this time of year as people put away their Weisbier and heat up their wine. I didn’t have any Friday night, but I might wander down to the Viktualienmarkt after I’m done here and give it a sample.

Saturday brought some party cleanup and then some resting and schoolwork. I also managed to sneak in a quick bike ride on a loop to Gauting and back, along the highway one way and through the forest and Leutstetten on my way home. It’s a great loop that takes about 90 minutes and passes through fields, villages and forests. A huge chicken farm as well – a good chicken farm where the little ladies are wandering around. Not one of those Golden Plump ones back home.

Then Saturday night I continued with my theme of making the most of my weekend by meeting some friends at a venue called Feierwerk for a music festival called Sound of Munich Now. It was fabulous, and again, just what I needed! The bands were loud, hard rock / heavy metal, and were extremely talented. A couple of beers and some good conversation between sets made for a great night! After a bus ride and a train ride, I made it home early - before 2:00. ;)

Finally, yesterday was mostly a day to relax, do some laundry, and more school work. But, the day being a pleasant one, I also took a 2-hour walk along Starnberg Lake up to Berg and back. The fall colors are still hanging on a bit, here, and people in Bavaria love getting out on a weekend day, so I was joined by hundreds of Germans for this pleasant walk. 

And then…a huge accomplishment happened last night. Last week I had signed up for a short-term membership at a health club in Starnberg that also has a “spa-like” sauna area – two dry saunas, one wet, one steam room, two relaxing rooms and a “warm” room. I love saunas, but I knew doing a sauna here was going to be a whole different experience from the one I’m used to back home. Germans have no issues with nudity. You’ll see people changing clothes openly at the swimming beaches, and some even swim nude in public. So they don’t bother here with a men’s sauna and a women’s sauna. It’s all one big party and everyone’s invited – as long as don’t dare bring your swimsuit. So I waited all week, trying to drum up the courage to take the plunge and visit the sauna for the first time. While shopping at Lidl one night last week I happened upon bath robes, so I quickly snatched one of those up for the experience. I also did a little internet research to figure out the dos and the don’ts of the whole German sauna experience. By Sunday I was ready – or sort of ready.

After my workout in the gym area on the first floor, I showered and changed and walked upstairs to the spa area. There were many closed doors and everything was labeled in German. I was hesitant to just start opening doors, so I just hung there for a bit hoping somebody might take pity on me. And someone did. A young male worker took me under his wing and showed me the ropes – all the rooms and just exactly how to do things. He also informed me that in about 30 minutes from then he would be doing an “infusion” where he’d be putting herbal-infused water onto the rocks. Great, I thought. I’ll do that.

So I went outside and into the hottest sauna. Go big or go home, right? I took off my robe in the interior room, basked in my nakedness for a brief moment, then stepped inside. To my disappointment, I was all alone. I was ready for the group nudity thing, then here I was, by myself in a huge, hot room. Oh well, I parked myself and soaked it in. Finally, another dude showed up then after about 15 minutes I left, going first outside for a brief moment then into one of the relaxing rooms. I was back in my robe for this. I settled in and waited for 10-15 minutes before getting up and going back to the hot sauna.

Okay, for this I was not disappointed. This herbal infusion thing brought about 20 people into the sauna. Grab a seat, get cozy, and oh well, you might accidentally brush up against a neighbor but no one really seemed to care. The young man then stepped in and did his thing. First he opened the windows and door to let out all the bad air. He then proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes alternating between ladling this sweet-smelling water onto the hot rocks and waving a towel over his head to distribute the steam throughout the sauna. It was phenomenal. And hot! I waited a bit, ready to leave and worried I might overheat, but I didn’t want to be the newbie who succumbed to the heat first. So I dug in and took it. Finally a few people stood up. This was my cue. I joined them and got out of there with my dignity and consciousness in check. Because I left with a group, however, we all stood together in close quarters in the outer room, getting back into our robes and towels. I tried to keep my head up. In the end, I absolutely loved it and cannot wait to go back.

Okay, done for now. Time to leave Vinzenzmurr and go in search of Gluhwein. Then back on the train for Starnberg. Here’s to a happy week ahead!