One more midnight Super Bowl + 4 boxes

On Monday 8 Feb 2010 I can cancel my subscription to Kabel Deutschland since the only reason that I have cable TV is to be able to watch American Football (as if there is any other kind...) on ESPN America. The programming is actually pretty good since they show the live feeds of the games starting at 19:00 Sunday evening, plus they replay the later games on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Great for me although Jenn, Sterling and Kimeko do not seem to enjoy it as much as me. I will say that I am a bit tired of seeing the Patriots and Tom Brady's big chin although this year was better since the Pats were not shown every other week like during the past few "dynasty", video cheating, tuck rule (It was a FUMBLE!!) years.


The big event is the Super Bowl of course.

Sterling and Kimeko can skip school the next day if they watch the whole game...No napping. If they fall asleep, then they must go to school. Rules are rules. They both have watched the game for the past 2 years and the Giants win over Tom's undefeated chin was particularly thrilling 2 years ago. Jenn never watches the game, preferring to sleep or whatever. 


I have a few German friends who enjoy football (although they root for questionable teams like the Titans, Bengal and Chargers) and we will watch the big game together for the last time this year. The game starts at midnight and we will have a typical big game meal of beer, chips, nachos, and hamburgers from the grill at halftime while the Who have heart attacks at midfield. Burgers at 2am...what could be better? 


Update on getting rid of stuff:
Paul's Book & DVD club has been wildly successful and I think that this week will be the last. In its place I will be starting up a sort of shoppe where we are free to give away all sorts of junk and hopefully people will provide generous donations. So far we have moved a squash racket, a table and a pair of ladies ice skates. We have big plans for getting rid of furniture and stuff...but I will save that for another time.
I cleaned out an area in the basement where we have started placing packed boxes. So far there are 4!!

135 days left in Germany and already 4 boxes packed. We are in amazing shape.

The Holidays are over

Our last holiday season in Germany is now in the history books. We have spent most Christmas holidays in Germany since we moved here. I think we only went back to the USA for vacation during Christmas twice...And one of those trips resulted in a very sore back while sledding on Foisy Hill. At least Brian Kennedy (son-in-law #2) was there to witness my crash and then continue working on the sled path and jump while I lay at the bottom of the hill. 


We have had the good fortune of several friend and family visits during the holiday season. Munich is really nice in December and it is fun to visit the markets that are set up in the town squares and drink warm mulled wine in the streets. Of course, thousands of other people are doing the exact same thing so fighting through people to get your wine is part of the charm. I must take this opportunity to unequivocally state that Germans are the worst at standing in line. The worst. People will cheerfully cut the line in front of you from every direction. There is no use struggling against the tide, so dive in, knock that old lady out of the way and get your wine!  Frohe Weihnachten!

Christmas dinner 2008: Miche, Kimeko & Jenn

The New Years Eve tradition is to buy as many fireworks as you can afford, drink, and then go light them off from about 11pm until 1am. I must admit that it is really fun, but it is safer to swim with sharks than to be in the streets at midnight. Fireworks are flying around in all directions with no regard given to proximity to other people. Despite the noise, one is able to still make out the distinctive wail of emergency vehicles.Very exciting.

The New Years Day hangover

Update on getting rid of stuff: 
There are now less than six months until we are back and we are really looking forward to it. I started "Paul's Book Club" at work. I bring in some books every few days and people can come take them, leaving a donation if they desire. The only rule is that they cannot give the books back for any reason. It has been really successful so far, so I might try it with DVDs and then maybe silverware or bags of trash. We'll see...

Christmas 2004

Chicago Sports and Shopping

Well, I have just returned from a week in Chicago and I must admit that I am starting to get excited for the move. Chicago has never been that appealing to me for some reason but now that I have actually spent some time there I am starting to think that this may be fun after all.


Most people know that Chicago is a pretty big sports town and while I am not a big fan of baseball, hockey, basketball, tennis, handball, track & field, dog racing, laser tag & Wii Fit, all of those sports are more popular than soccer. To open the paper and see non-soccer related sports news will be a wondrous treat, even if that news is about Harry Carey's. If I never, ever hear about Bayern Munich ever again I will know that Walter Payton is smiling. Also, the Bears are terrible, so the series of endless Jay Cutler interceptions will deflect attention away from my hapless Raiders.


I went shopping on Sunday which was amazing. I have not been shopping on Sunday in 8 years since Germans would rather spend Sundays stuck in traffic on the famous autobahns. We are looking at places to live in the western suburbs of Chicago and I now know for sure that shopping opportunities are plentiful.


Update on getting rid of stuff:
We have made the big deal and sold our car! I know that walking is for suckers in the USA, but it is quite acceptable to walk here in Munich. Plus the public transportation system is excellent. Our 1998 Opel Astra did not pass inspection this year, so rather than throw money at it for another 6 months of driving we simply sold it. We were able to sell it quickly because of the awesome Oakland Raiders sticker on the back window.

Halloween is a ghost town

When we first moved to Germany, Halloween was basically non-existent. There were no trick-or-treaters, elaborate costumes, jack-o-lanterns or zombies. It was tough for the kids since they were still quite young and therefore did not understand why Germans were so clueless when it came to Halloween. Sterling did have a pretty fearless friend named Sven. They did go out and knock on doors. What they got was typically confused or angry old people and sometimes just a little candy that some people had lying around.


Over the years, Halloween has grown in recognition and popularity, but oddly it is not a children's holiday. There are still relatively few trick-or-treaters (our street was a ghost town last night), but now adults are dressing up and having Halloween parties. As if Europeans need another excuse to dress silly and drink alcohol...What do they think soccer games are for?!? A travesty of the candy harvest I say!


My daughter had a Halloween party with her friends last night. A house full of 14 year old girls is scary...so Sterling and I retreated to the comforts of shooting virtual zombies.

Update on getting rid of stuff:
-Playmobile Zoo: SOLD!
-1 book: given away!

Slovenia is not Buffalo

As I have already hinted at in previous entries, life here in Germany has been pretty swell. Not only is Germany pretty cool (I can even write this blog with extra letters... like ö and ü and ä and ß) but we have traveled to all sorts of strange and wondrous places. If we drive for five hours from our house, we can be in Slovenia. When we drove for five hours from Steeleville, NH in August, we were in Buffalo, NY. Not the same.

So, here are some photos of our travels. The kids become older and older while Jenn and I stay amazingly youthful! Swell!

2002 Munich, Germany at my friend Henrik's wedding 

2002 Garmisch, Germany

2003 Sweden 

2004 Switzerland

2005 Sovenia 

2005 Salzburg, Austria 

2005 Normandy, France 

2006 Utah (OK, not Europe but still cool) 

2007 Vienna, Austria 

2008 Prague, Czech Republic 

2008 Amsterdam, Netherlands 

2008 Munich, Germany in the backyard 

2009 Munich, Germany 

Chicago is next...

The Last Time

Well, Oktoberfest 2009 is finally over. I am not a huge fan of Oktoberfest. It is fun to go with Jenn and the kids and go on the roller coasters and eat a chicken (the secret ingredient is salt...a lot of salt), but essentially it is a giant Vermont country fair with thousands of drunk tourists. Imagine drinking 2 or 3 liters of strong German Beer and then trying to pick up the hot chicks (or dudes) and then eating some salty meat and then going on rides where you speed up and down and around in circles. I am pretty sure you know what happens next. Multiply by ten thousand and then multiply that by two weeks.

We usually go once a year...like here in 2006

Now that Oktoberfest 2009 is in the books, it got me to thinking about things that I will miss when we move to Chicago. I was thinking about it because people keep asking me if I will miss Oktoberfest. No. No I will not. I also will not miss the traditional vomit puddles.

But I will miss:

Weisswurst: White sausages that I eat every Friday morning. Breakfast of Bavarian Champions

Krustenbraten: Fantastic roast pork that I really like as a sandwich. mmm...

The alps: See my last blog entry for details

Bier: German beer is better than American beer. That is a simple fact. I will miss German beer

Go outside!

Like most teenagers, our children spend what seems to be a huge amount of time in front of either the computer, the television, or some other kind of electronic device that you hold in front of your face. It probably isn't as much as it seems and I cannot really tell them to reduce their time since I spend a lot of time on the computer and Jenn even got a Netbook so that she would not take away valuable Left4Dead time from me. Yes, I spend quality time with my son by killing zombies.

While the summer has not be overly awesome in terms of weather, these last few weeks have been pretty nice indeed. We always talk about doing stuff outside, but we often do not get around to it. For example, we live quite close to the Alps, but we have never gone skiing in our 8 years here! We just never seem to get around to it. Lame. So anyways, we went for a 2 hour bike ride yesterday through the villages south of Munich and today we are going on a hike in Schliersee.

It is really cool to be able to do these activities so easily and while we have not taken advantage of the Bavarian countryside as much as we should have in our years, we will definitely miss it. Or we will at least miss the possibility to do these things. Let's see what Chicago has to offer...

Here is a bike ride shot from May 2005

Hiking in Sept 2006

Sterling is playing Mass Effect right now...