My name is Skawt

The other night some of the young folks (early 20's every one of them) were having a little party in the common room on our floor. Since the dormitory where we live is all concrete walls and ceilings and the floors are tiled, it's like living in an experimental speaker system at the Bose factory. Knowing I would not be able to sleep, I dropped in. Over the salsa music the Argentinean students were, one girl asks me my name.

"Scott Moore", I reply. She gave me a puzzled look and I thought perhaps the music was too loud or I was being too quiet. "SCOTT MOORE", I repeat. Again a puzzled look, but with a head shake meaning, "I am sorry traveler of the stars, but these vocal sounds you are making don't even sound like language to me". Exasperated, I simply say, "Ich heisse Scott". Here eyes light up and she says, "Oh! Skoht!", but with a very, very short "oh" like everyone else in Germany pronounces my name.

This reminded me of being in Germany last year when I met an old follow in a pub and upon hearing my name pronounced very distinctly, "Scott. Moore. I. haff. never. heard. this. name. before!" Sigh. My name is so common in English, you can't actually google me unless you add "phoom" or "online community" and there's still another Scott Moore who blogs about online community.

So, on a sleepless night, I mulled this over. Is my accent *that* bad? I repeated my name to myself over and over. Then I thanked the fates that I didn't have a roommate who would surely be cowering in a corner wondering why the hairy mad-man was whispering his own name. Then I realized that I pronounce my name with a longer "ah"ish kind of "o" as in dog. Not dohg, but dawg. How very American of me.

Sometimes it's easier to accept what is around you than struggle against it. So from now until I leave, I will be "Skoht", but my friends can call me Skawt.

How to surf in a landlocked German city in the Winter

Last weekend, as I left the Bavarian National Museum and headed toward the Englisher Garten to eventually get somem Gluhwein to warm me up, I spotted a crowd watching local surfers. In Germany. In December. In the cold (about 40 degrees F) . In the middle of a city in the middle of a land-locked state.

(Click the image to see the video)

If you do a google search on surfing the isar you will find longer videos and better pictures.

Class Picture

Back Row: Don from Chicago (now living in Germany), Me, Joseph from Canada
Middle Row: Suhail from the United Arab Emirates, Aies (sp?) from Greece, Frau Schwalb our teacher, Dan from Rumania
Sitting: Sarena from Italy, Ines from Spain, Roberta from Italy, Sarah fromm the UEA.
Not pictured are Thomas from Spain and Stephano from Switzerland.

Lots of pictures, not many descriptions

Although haven't been typing much, I have been uploading the pictures I take to my flicker account. I haven't been typing descriptions because I haven't found a tool that will allow me to create titles, descriptions and tags for each picture offline and then just batch upload them to flicker. For now, I pull them from the camera onto my laptop and then fromm the laptop, I can upload them (only when I have a fast stable connection) and then I have to go through them while online to change titles, add descriptions.

So, if anyone knows of a tool that let's me add metadata to my photos before I upload them to flicker (and will do it as a batch, not individually through their email service), let me know. In the mean time, enjoy this night shot of the back side of the city hall.

Aw, maw! Do I hafta blog?

Wow, I didn't realize it's been two weeks since I last posted. Basically, it's because I'm too busy getting through my day to have any desire to write. Heck, I still have postcards to write and those are mostly along the lines of "No snow yet. Hope this makes it by New Year's."

So here's the 5 minute catch up. The things that have been taking up most of my time and energy has been schooling, public transportation and food.

I'm not being a super-great student, but I'm improving. I will be far from fluent when we I am done here.

When I am not sitting and doing exercises or practice tests, I'm going fromm one place to another. While the public transportation here is really great (light rail trams, suburban trains, subways and busses every few minutes), it still soaks up time waiting and sitting on the train or taking a tram to the central station so you can take a subway a slightly different direction. and it's not like it's a commuter type train where I can whip out the postcards I haven't written yet or squeeze in some homework. Nope. You just sit or stand in often cramped spaces waiting for your stop.

And finally, food. While there are a gazillion sausage stands because of the christmas markets, bakeries literally on every corner and plenty of places to just grab somem food, finding actual vegetables or fruit at the these places is darn near impossible. I wind up stopping by various small markets every couple of days to buy some water (the tap water at my dorms really is drinkable, but kills the goodness of food when you cook with it), some veggies and some fruit. It seems like I am constanly loaded down with some little this or little that. My first weeks here were trying to build up a decent larder just to cook with: olive oil, salt, pepper, basil a kitchen knife and cutting board.

When I first arrived, I bought somme fresh dates. Not dried dates, but crisp, full dates. I have never eaten fresh dates and I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to get a half-kilo of them. After two days of eating fresh dates, I got tired of them and had to figure out what to do with them. I checked the mighty intar-web for recipies and found lots. Lots that would require me to buy all kinds fo spices and such that I would use only once. Instead, I dug into my memories of ordering bacon wrapped dates at a tapas bar and then improvised:

Scott's Use-up-these-fresh-dates-now Recipie
- A couple handfuls of fresh dated (pitted, duh)
- A couple of crisp apples (I used a couple Galas I had)
- A couple of ounces of fatty bacon (or what passes for bacon in germany)
- Roqufort or blue cheese

In a small thick-bottomed sauce pot (the kind issued to students in my dorm), fry the bacon so the fat is all nice and melted. Cut up your dates and apples into slices to they cook quickly. Toss them in with the bacon. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve on to a plate and crumble an ounce ro two of cheese into the mix and let it melt some. Serves one. Besure to eat in a common area where a girl from South Korea can wonder with either awe or disgust at your culinary skills.

Verbs, Verbs, Verbs!

So, I'm at the point, apparently where I have to learn verbs. Remember sometime in grade school learning the past tense of verbs? sink-sank-sunk. drink-drank-drunk. sing-sang-sung. think-thank-thunk. Oh, that's last one isn't right. Well, now you know how I currently sound when speaking to Germans about things that have past.

So I have a list of about 40-50 verbs that simply have to be memorized. It's a good thing I'm not here to goof off. No, that will come on the weekends. Not only does Munich have a Christmas market in nearly every plaza, but there is actually a Medieval-themed Christmas market. This should be entertaining. Be sure to follow the "Deutsch" link so you can check out the photos.

The cemetery of the living

Both the wired and wireless connections at the dorm are spotty and slow. I'm lucky if I make it through a couple of pages of surfing without the connection dropping. Thus, updates here will come in bunches when I plug the laptop into the schools media center connection.

On the morning I arrived late and missed my first class, I walked from my dorm over to a cemetery. I wanted to get to know the neighborhood and it seemed like an interesting destination. When I arrived, I found high brick walls surrounding a park with many trees scattered through out. Most of the headstones or memorials were from the mid-19thC and there were a lot of professors and teachers given high honors after their passing.

The walls had several openings where people were cutting through on their way to other streets. Just about in the middle, ironically, near a the tomb of a child, was a group of mothers with four children between them. As the mothers talked, the children played on the pathway, with each other and with the nearby garbage can. I've noticed that Germans are more free in allowing their children to walk about tethered as soon as they can so it's kinda nice to see really young kids at play in their miniature adult-like fashions.

When I decided to take a shot of the kids, I really was just trying to not get caught and accused of anything unsavory. But look close. I snagged the moment just as two of the boys are pushing the third against the can. I just imagine the little girl in the foreground saying, "that's right boys, rough him up until he hands over all his gummibears".

As I walked through the cemetery towards the path circling the inside, I started seeing the occasional jogger. These weren't any joggers, but out of the half-dozen or so, only two were even close to qualifying as young. Again, it seemed ironic that the old would partake in an activity that is intended to keep one healthy and living longer, if not better, in a place that is a perpetual reminder of the one fate no one can escape. Is it because of that reminder that they are spurred on to jog? Is it out of a sense of defiance? Or is it merely a convenient place to use as a track? It doesn't matter a whole lot. After all, cemeteries are for the living in more than one way.

I have arrived!

Whew! Lots to talk about. No pictures yet, I'm happy to have found a place to plug the laptop in. There is media center on the top floor of the Goethe Institut and while they don't have wireless, they will lend me a cable.

Despite Sunday the 26th being the busiest travel day of the year, I had no problems at all. My friend Amie picked me up at 7:30 and deserves a huge thanks for driving all the way down from Oakland just to drive over to SFO. Anyway, zero traffic along the way and at the airport. I checked in without a hitch, though I was thrown for a loop that United forces you to check in with their machines first. What got me was that I had to use a credit card in order to identify myself to the little machine. This worked even though I didn't buy my ticket. It made me think about the weird ways we are giving up privacy for convenience. had I been allowed to first use my driver's license or my passport, I would feel less uncomfortable about it.

And when I got to security, it was not thrilling to see that the young non-caucasian kid in front of me had his laptop scanned three times, turned on and generally held up while my backpack loaded with computer, camera, CD player, Nintendo DS, cables and batteries went waltzing through. Maybe I've adopted the I'm-really-tired-of-this-so-let's-not-waste-our-time look that I don't get hassled. Then again, it's probably because I'm white.

The flight stunk, but I generally hate being crammed into a tiny little place for hours on end. Even though the flight from Chicago to Munich wasn't full and we were able to swap seats around so I had two instead of one, it still stunk. There are few times in my life that I have wished I was well under 6 feet tall. Flying is usually one of them.

My first day was great, though. I took the subway from the airport to the city center and had little trouble finding the G-I. Once there, I went through an interview and, because they had sent me the entrance exam ahead of time (and I barely got it back to them the Friday before), I got to skip that part. After I was registered, they handed me 500€! Part of it is to cover breakfast and lunch which I expected, but the extra couple hundred just for grins? Sweet!

I turned around and spent part of that when I arrived at my housing. It's a dormitory that is part of another school in the city. As I was checking in, I asked if I could extend my stay by one week. It turns out that my room was available for that time so no problem, I just have to pay. But wait. It's only 16€ per night, so the extra week is about 100€! Double-sweet!

But my luck ran out this morning. I arrived when I was told, in the afternoon, to check where my class was being held. My name wasn't on the list so I asked and they told me. At the correct room is a room with five beautiful young women. I'm thinking I died and went to heaven. But it was not to be! I was in the right room, but at the wrong time. Crap, that means these aren't my classmates. Double-crap! I just missed the first day of my class.

So here I am in the Mediathek (I guess that's a play on words from Library which in German is Bibliothek), trying catch up on whatever work I might have missed and rescheduling my brain to the earlier class schedule. Not that I mind that, really. Having a morning class means I have the entire afternoon to myself rather than having my day broken up by needing to be back at the city center in the middle of the day.

So ending on a few high notes. The work I missed is mostly stuff I know so that's no biggie. And I have the rest of the day free to goof off, get further settled, take some pictures and figure out how to connect to the wifi at the dorm. If so, then I will have a few pictures of a cemetery up later.

Wieder Nach Deutschland!

In an unexpected turn, I am heading back to Germany. I've been taking German language courses at the San Francisco Goethe Institute for just about 2 years. Every year, they have a drawing for a 4 week course to learn German in Germany. Not only did I win the drawing, but it includes the flight, room and board (sans dinners and weekends) for four weeks. I have never won something this big before.

The catch? I have to take it before the end of the year. So I have been making sure my work is squared away and preparing for my trip. Just after Thanksgiving, I will be taking 5 hour classes 5 days a weeek for four weeks in Munich (München). And because I hate flying around the holidays, I am waiting till after Christmas to come home.

Stay tuned to this blog for what will likely be more regular updates. Not having to travel around is changing my packing. Not only will I bring more clothes (such as a suit and an overcoat), but I am also bringing my work laptop so I can write and make photo notations offline and then load it all up when I get internet access. I also picked up some a polarizing lens attachement and a rubber hood -- I will not tolerate anymore glare and reflections when taking pictures in museums. I'm also hoping my cell phone doesn't decide to die the second I arrive, too. Oh yeah, and some German grammar books with explanations in English!

I also have no real plans to travel outside the city much despite many the number of times I have heard "it's only a train ride". My main focus is to study. I want to get the most out of my time in class and the learning center. I'm even taking a workbook for the plane trip to use that time to squeeze in a few more words and practice.

Despite the preparation, it hasn't been feeling quite real yet. But today I got an email from the Goethe Institute in Munich with my placement test. I'll have to set aside 50 minutes to take the test (no cheating!) and send it back to them.

Okay, now it feels real.