Year #2 - Back Into the Routine.......

Yes, I know it has been a while. The Paris trip postings wore me down from blogging. Combined with the start of school not too much is going on these days. We are starting to have various "second annual (fill in the blank)" activities. It has been over a year in Germany, we have started school for the second time at BIS, attended Volksfest in Freising, gone from summer to winter tires and about to go back to winter tires, etc. The good news is that things are a bit easier now, now that we know a little bit about the process. So this post will be an update and maybe a couple of stories. Thankfully, no observations or revelations on how to do something around here.

Leading up to the big event of the fall, Oktoberfest in Munich, all of the little towns in Bavaria have their own mini version. In Freising they have Volksfest in early September. Last year at this time we were still living in an apartment in Freising and we checked it out with the kids. They rode some rides, it is pretty similar to a county fair but with lots of beer. One difference this year is the traditional Bavarian apparel for the family.

One day I met Cindy for lunch and we went Dirndl shopping in Freising for her. Katherine's dirndl was ordered and we bought David's at a local shop in Freising. David is not a big fan of wearing it, to say the least. Once we get past the griping and moaning he does fine, and he looks great too. The above picture is in the middle of Freising, the main street. We went there first to meet up with some TI people that were running in a 6K race as part of the Volksfest activities.

The festival was in a different part of the city and our walk led us right past our old apartment and this biergarten and hotel where we ate a few times. We found a table outside of the beer tent and met up with the rest of the runners and friends. A little while later I took the kids out to ride some of the rides. One of the rides was the bumper cars. I paid for David and Katherine to ride twice each, but I had to ride with Katherine. It was fun for a while until these teenage boys started targeting other cars. They were hiding out in a corner, the driving against the flow with the intent of creating a head on collision. For some reason they targeted us the first time around and missed with a side swipe. The second time around they came after us again, and this time it was bad.

The safety harness left this mark on Katherine. I was really glad I was with her since she was leaning back on my arm and shoulder. It could have been much worse. As soon as they hit us I stopped the car and got out with Katherine to make sure she was okay. Then Daddy was on the war path. There were two guys in the car and as the ride ended they got out and joined up with two other boys standing on the side. I got right in his face and started giving him the business. I think he realized pretty quickly I was not messing around. He tried to back away and claim that he did not understand what I was saying. He knew, at least he knew the nature of the message. I could have been in a bad spot with these four strapping teenage boys, funny how his buddies backed away from the scene. None of them wanted anything to do with a ticked off Daddy. I had my say and directed my attention back to Katherine. It was then that another older man came up to me and asked me to follow him. I was not sure where we were going but eventually he flagged down some of the police providing security at the festival. He explained to them in German what he saw. The police asked me to follow them back to the bumper cars. I was kind of done with the whole thing, but now that the police were involved I was hoping to see them shaking in their lieder hosen. The police basically just told them to stay away from little kids. To my surprise he then explained to me that this is part of the fun of the bumper cars. He actually told me it was tradition to create these collisions. Germans, right? I am getting mad thinking about it again. We all agreed targeting little kids is poor judgement at the least. Hopefully those guys will remember the message.

The kids rode all the rides that they wanted to and we had some food and beer. Everybody has seen the waiters and waitresses at these beer tents carrying four of five 1 liter full glass mugs in each hand. It is impressive to see. While we were sitting there we saw one of the ladies almost make it to the table. Two of the mugs fell and spilled all over the people at the table. Two liters of beer makes a large mess. These poor people were all dressed up in their dirndl and lieder hosen. I am not sure how you get beer smell out of leather pants, I guess you don't. My next thought was wondering if those patrons got any kind of discount. In the US if that happened the round of beer and maybe the whole tab would be forgotten. If I had to place money on it here, I would bet they got nothing out of it. I know some of you will not believe that, it took a while for me to get over the lack of customer service around here. Those people did not have to pay for the spilled beer, but I still think they paid for anything they actually consumed. Cindy had another work dinner at Volksfest later that week. They are there in the late evening when everyone is standing on the benches singing and dancing to the music. I personally am not disappointed to miss that event. So that was it for our second annual Volksfest visit.

Over the past few months I have been playing with the softball team, the Garching Isotopes. Part of the same organization as David's team. We have had a couple of weekend tournaments over the past few weeks. It is a lot of fun, I have really enjoyed getting out and playing again. I am the old man of the group, but I have been able to hang with them and even show them a little something from time to time. My batting average is about .950 or so and I am the home run hitter on the team. Lately I have been the second baseman in the field.

Our first tournament we did not do too well. I think we were last out of nine teams. After about five games I pulled a muscle or something in my calf running to first base. I went home for the day to recover. The next weekend was another one day tournament in Rosenheim, a little town southeast of Munich close to the alps. On the drive I took one of the young players with me in the car. Many of the other players camped out at the ball park the night before. He received a call telling us that one of our players was not doing to well.

Above is Flo, he is more of an admin person for the organization and does some pitching for our team. He is mostly there for the beer. The night before he made it to the entrance of his tent but slept with his feet sticking out, so we were told. He got up long enough to get his uniform on and then was out again.  This was part of the view from the ball field.

From field 2 there was another view. I asked one of the guys what this facility was, he said it was German NSA. After getting back home and looking it up I found out it has quite a history. It is the Bad Aibling Station originally built after WWII for the US. It has a long history as a listening station for US intelligence and the NSA. It was supposed to be shut down in 2004 but it was referenced in the Edward Snowden leaked documents indicates that this facility still has direct communication with the USA intelligence networks. Interesting.  

Our team had a much better tournament. We won three games and made it to the semifinal game. There we lost by one run and almost made it to a new inning to try and extend the comeback.

During my lunch I had a pizza and beer and enjoyed the double rainbow in the distance. We never got any of the rain and it was a beautiful day in the high 60's.

 Friend on the back patio.

Quick hits:

Cindy now has a new job here – she is now the EMEA Accounting Manager. That is Europe, Middle East, and Africa. She is learning as much as she can as quickly as possible in the new role. This does not mean that we are planning to stay here longer. In fact, we've already established that we are on schedule to come home next summer. 

There was a warning strike of the teachers at BIS earlier this month. They are in the middle of a negotiation and have rejected several offers from the administration. The did a one day strike to send a message. It was a Wednesday and most of the teachers were on the strike. It was really odd to drive into Haimhausen and see the teachers holding signs and trying to win the public opinion as parents tried to get their kids to school. The kids ended up getting grouped together and spent most of the day playing I think. It definitely disrupted the normal school day. 

David has already gone and returned from another trip on his own. The 6th grade class left last Wednesday for Upper Bavaria to the Garmish Partenkirchen area. They stayed in a youth hostel that had a climbing wall and other stuff. They spent the days hiking up and down mountains and learning. I think he had a good time. He came home Friday afternoon. He has decided to take tennis for his after school activity. He seems really excited about it and had fun at the first lesson. Baseball is also going again for a few weeks. We have about eight games planned until the end of October. Hopefully it will not get too cold before then. He is continuing to get good reviews from school. This is the first time in his academic career that he has not gone through a rough transition to start the school year. He is in middle school and has to get himself from class to class all over the campus. He is doing really great. 

Katherine is also having a great start to first grade. She chose Capture the Flag as her elective and ballet for her after school activity. She claims to have a boyfriend with other boys always wanting to hug her. I am not a fan, and will never be. At least I know the boy that she likes and he is a good kid. David and Katherine, these two kids can not be more different. 

Today is Bavarian Day at school. One of them was more reluctant than the other to get dressed up for the occasion. Oktoberfest is in full swing in Munich and the traffic in the area is reflective of that. We are not sure what our plan is for trying to visit it this year or not. Yes, I know that millions of people make the trek to Munich to go. For us it is just a train ride. It is so expensive and there are so many people. I really don't mind missing out. I can walk down the street to the closest biergarten and pay less than half for the exact same beer and not have to deal with the crowds or trying to find a place to sit, etc. We will let you know what we decide.