23 Nov 1999
Nuremberg, Germany

Ah wintertime is coming. The clocks have turned back (the same day as the States) and it is dark early, the weather is chilly, and our feet are starting to twitch to get the skis on. Looks like we can start to ski around mid December. This is later than the states but there is less snow making over here. Although there are resorts that never close because they have runs on glaciers. We are going to miss our condo and being able to wake up and be on the slopes in minutes as opposed to the two to three hour drive we will have this winter. But then again Austrian ski slopes and villages is the image all skiers dream of.

We did visit Munich for the first time. This is a great city that only takes about an hour and a half to get to from our apartment. This is a place with great beer halls that look like we Americans expect them to look. It also has a great market area with people selling just about everything that one can grow. The weekend we were there was so beautiful that we skipped going to the museums but since it is so close we will be going back to check out this side of the city.

A Franconian trail sign

We spend most Sundays wandering and now that it is cold stopping in at local gausthauses to eat and try the local brew. You know the beer is fresh when the brewery is across the street and you have been hiking through hops fields all day long.

We have also spent weekends going down both the Castle route and the Romantic Road. This is one of the nicest things about living here. We get a chance to see these very busy tourist sites off-season. I think that seeing an old castle ruin and exploring its walls is even more exciting with a nip in the air and a light snow coming down. It really lets your imagination wander back to the days when this was really peoples lives.

I just received our bank statement that has the charges for when we were in Austria. This is a real trip. We paid for items in Austrian Shillings, our bank charged us in German Deutsche Marks and we get paid in American Dollars. To those of you that are world travelers this might not seem weird but it hurts my head to try and figure it out. One thing I can figure out is whether it is a German or an American bank they all think they ought to charge us a fee for the currency conversion. Some things are the same all over the world.

The other exciting thing about money is that finally we actually hear what people are charging. I know it may seem like a little thing to you and maybe you think we should have caught on faster but it is hard. But today when I buy something and I hear 31 marks and 10 phenig I actually understand without having to see it written. A little step that means a real lot. Oh by the way just to make numbers harder the Germans do them backwards. That is when you say 31 in German you say one and thirty and this goes for all numbers. They start with the smaller number and then add it to the set of ten it belongs to. I may not have explained that well and if my explanation confused you try living here everyday and trying to figure it out.

A typical Gasthaus menu...translation here

Language is getting even more exciting. We are hearing more and more words and at times we even follow concepts. Now as soon as we open our mouths people realize that we have a long way to go but hearing and following concepts (at least sometimes) is a start. The real problem comes in when we think we are understanding yet what we are hearing has nothing to do with what the people are telling us. One example is we are in a Gausthaus and we order Wiener schnitzel. The waitress brings out one plate and then rattles off a bunch of German. Then she leaves. I am really excited because even though I did not hear every word I did understand that she said that this is the way they serve food and that we should cut the schnitzel in half and share. Sue concurred that she also understood that. So for the next few minutes we congratulated ourselves on how far we have come with the language. Then… The waitress comes over with another schnitzel and we are both sitting there with our plates full. She looks very confused and we start to realize that last barrage of German we heard had nothing to do with cutting the schnitzel. Oh for the good old days when people spoke to us and we just smiled and hoped what they were saying was not important. We will get this language but it might be the day that our plane leaves to take us back to the states.

The music scene in and around Nurenberg continues to be fun. Since last writing we have seen a great concert in one of the medieval churches with a string orchestra, a Chorus and of course that great big organ. We then went to an Indian music concert. We also decided to live in the past and go see Jethro Tull and John Mayall.

Now it is time to talk about German TV. Like Chauncy Gardner "I like to watch." German TV in some ways is one of the biggest cultural shocks in living over here and in other ways it is the same old thing. Obviously the major difference is that these people speak German. This is really madding when you are watching an interview on the news or during a sporting event and the person being interviewed is speaking English and they dub German over the top of the conversation. You find yourself straining to hear the English which can be heard but the German dubbing is getting in the way. Then sometimes the German translation ends before the English so you get to hear the last few words in pure English. This is giving us a headache. So what is on German TV? There are some strictly German shows that we have seen. They are the basic sitcom with the same silly jokes centering on male female relationships and then some action type shows. They also have there own versions of hidden camera, funny videos and wild police chases. These are not the same shows we get in the states but the same concepts, although the police chases are primarily from California. Game shows are also big even during prime time. They have a German Jeopardy show with a German Alex Treveck. They also have a version of the newlywed game on during prime time. Or at least from what Sue and I can tell it is the newly wed game. They also have standup comedy and variety type shows that we really do not understand. American sitcoms are on during the day of course dubbed in German. There is no weather channel, but they due like Chuck Norris in that Texas Ranger show. Unfortunately they do also show reruns of Roseann, how embarrassing for all Americans. There are only 32 stations and the only way to get more is with a dish. Oh don't worry MTV and VH1 is on so the kids can stay hip. We are also able to watch two different home shopping channels.

One fun thing is movies. We have heard some great lines like "Guten tag Null Null Sieben" or good day 007. Or how about this "gibt es nicht in baseball weinen" obviously translated to there is no crying in baseball. Tonight Ferris Buhlers day off is going to air that should be interesting. They do a great job with dubbing so that the voices match lip movement but it is still real hard to watch John Wayne speaking in German and with a different voice. We have not seen White Heat yet but I am looking forward to hearing Jimmy Cagney scream "Top of the World Mom" in German.

Commercials are really weird. They run large blocks of commercials so that you may watch uninterrupted for 30 forty minutes and then get a 10 or more minute barrage of commercials. Now this might sound good because you could then go get something done but this is not always the case so it is difficult to understand. Commercials are pretty much like we get in the States just different products. They also sprinkle in a lot of English words to reinforce the power Madison Avenue has over the world. Sometimes when I hear these English phrases coming at me I think I am actually starting to understand German and then I realize what is really going on.

The other weird thing is that you have to pay a monthly tax for every TV and Radio you have. This includes the radio in your car. The tax is around $15 per unit per month and is primarily done on the honor system although some Germans have tried to convince us that they may knock on your door someday and see if you are reporting correctly. Being from New England we do not pay and subscribe to the credo "NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION" Hope that my next note is not from German TV prison.

We have called off our trip to Berlin over your thanksgiving because we feel the need to ski. So we have saved the vacation days to visit the Austrian Alps in Mid December. But we will be going to Koln that weekend and visiting old friends from college whom are living there thanks to the Ford Motor company. Small world sometimes. We wish all the very best thanksgiving possible have fun, eat too much and watch what you guys call football. We call it American football so as not to confuse it with Fussball.

Next update will include the saga of us getting our German driver's license.