Last weekend I decided to go see my friends Julie and Christoph up in Hamburg. It was nice to be alone and get out of Bavaria. I was reminded time and time again, anything I didn't like about Germany was because I was in Bavaria and they are crazy down there. Hamburg and Bavaria are just like the Yankees and the Rebels. Somethings never die.
Hamburg is a wonderful harbor city with nice people and a nice overall feeling of a normal city. It reminded me a bit of Seattle having that artistic creative feeling close to the water type town. That's seattle to me! We started off Saturday morning with a little German breakfast by the Harbor. Christoph asked me if I think the group of people next to me enjoy fashion magazines and such. I informed him later that those were "hipsters." I can't lie and say Munich doesn't have hipsters, cause they do, but it was just nice to see some more in Hamburg.
We then met up with another one of Jakob's friends I met 3 years ago at New Year's, Nils, and went to a flea market and checked out the local scene. It was pretty cool to see all the old vintage German goods. I bought some crazy watch I think I left up there. It was nice to see the other side of Germany. No huge steins of beer, not that many sausages, just a normal cool city.
The old outside by some bridge in some European city shot again. I have no real way to gauge anything out here, I just believe my friends who are all from Hamburg. Things are a little conservative and slow here in Munich and overall I just felt like the people in Hamburg were more friendly, the customs were more hip and there was a stronger drive towards artists and other creative outlets.
Christoph and I 'posting up.' After walking around, shopping and enjoying coffee, Christoph took off for his Father's birthday while I met up with Julie. We had some a nice Sushi dinner and took of for the Goldfish bar in the Schansen viertal. On the way there Julie stopped to talk to some friends she saw. It turned out I had met them last time I was in Hamburg 3 and half years ago with Jakob! They were a little surprised to see me, but, I was actually more surprised that I would later run into almost every single person I've met here when I was here last. 1.8 million people in Hamburg, but I guess its not that small.
A Picture from inside the Goldfish Bar. After the goldfish bar I hopped a taxi to Prizenbar for the Jan Delay after party. Jan Delay is a friend of Christoph's as well as a hip-hop icon of Hamburg doing his own projects as well as being part of rap group Beginner. The party was pretty cool with lots of good music and people dancing. I had a good time and we decided to leave way past any normal time a bar closes in LA.
The only really decent party pic where everyone doesn't look absolutely wasted. Needless to say every single other picture was pretty much something nobody ever needs to see.
The next morning I borrowed Christoph's jean jacket and took a trip back in time to a 1984 Bon Jovi concert in New Jersey.
Hi Julie!
I spent most of the day catching up with Julie, a wonderful friend of mine who I was so lucky to have spent 4 months with in LA during one of Jakob's internships. We went down to the Alstar lake. It was a beautiful day and I had water with bubbles in it. It was sad to leave as it is always sad to leave your friends on a Sunday night after a fun weekend, but alas, I will return.
Saturday morning blessed me with the strong desire for fluids and fatty foods. I rolled out of bed and headed to the San Francisco Coffee Company coffee shop. The main shop in our neighborhood for internet and a drip coffee. The guy there is Italian and doesn't speak any English. After I wrote about everyone only speaking English when you speak German here comes Salvatore; only Deutsch or Italian. It's fun to ramble through words to try and communicate.
While at the coffee shop I felt it too beautiful outside to waste a Sunday. I looked at a list of racing events my supervisor Eric Bauer threw together for us before we left. (Shout Out!) It's quite an awesome list, thanks Eric. So low and behold, Friday-Sunday WRC World Championship Rallye Deutschland in Trier! I looked at the time. 3:27. I looked at the Deutsche Bahn website. Train leaving Munchen Haubtbahnhof 5:39, arrive in Trier at 23:54. I put two and two together and called Parker to make sure he was ready to go. Two hours was plenty of time to catch the train yet Curtis had the house keys, was off at Dacheau and would kill us if we went with out him. I told myself it has to happen. It's meant to be. I wouldn't have checked that site in time if we weren't meant to go to this.
I get home and tell Parker, its time to go. Curtis can try to catch a later train if he gets a hold of us. As I'm walking out the door, Curtis calls, says he's still in Dacheau, but should be able to get to the train station in time to get on the Trier train. Long story short we got to the train station bought tickets 10 minutes before the train left right as Curtis was walking up. We all got on a 7 hour train ride to Germany's oldest city founded in 16 AD as part of the Holy Roman Empire.
We got into Saarbruken around 10:30 and had to wait for the train to Trier. For whatever reason the station was packed with baby boomers. We thought, man everyones going to Trier for the Rallye! Yeah right. Eventually the train got to be less and less people the closer we got to Trier. Our Expectations of a country town with a couple hotels and a bunch of rowdy race fans waiting to greet us became less and less likely.
I guess if I would've have even taken a second to look at how big Trier actually was, or where the race was being held, or if there were tickets, or lodging or did anything that was actually rational, then maybe we would have had some idea. But we didn't. We get off the in Trier look around and realize, 'ok so it is a city.' I know it might sound dumb, but just imagine that all you looked at was an email that said Trier Rallye 17-19th, then train 5:39. That's all I needed to know. The rest was in God's hands.
So there we are in front of the Haupt Banhof in Trier. We see about 15 Scooby (Subaru) fans sitting outside a cafe. First instinct : Man! It's the Subaru team, look at those jackets! Well once again, imagine if somebody from Europe came to see Nascar and found 15 dudes with Jeff Gordon jackets and Mullets and Mustaches, I'm sure they might think the same thing.
So we go up to them and ask if they could help us. Turns out they were just hardcore fans. Most in their 40s. Men and their wives. Pretty cool. I wouldn't mind following Rallye's around the world when I'm that age. They gave us a map, told us there are no hotels and no tickets. Most things are booked up to 3 months in advance. This was a tarmac rally in a decent sized city in the middle of Europe making it one of the most accessible Rallye's to get to.
We decided they weren't going to take us in and thanked them for their help and moved on. The town was pretty dead for a Saturday night and there wasn't a main hotel or bar going off with race fans, like I might have expected from races I've been to in the states. Our plan to maybe just mingle in a party and pass out at least inside on a floor died quickly. It was getting cold and we were getting tired.
The first place we decided to lay down didn't work out to well. There were many a drunks coming out of bars and it just wasn't time to fall out yet. We decided to pick up, walk around, keep up the heart rate and look for better digs.
We stopped for rations.
Now its about 3:30. We found turn 9 of the Circus Maximus. It was seriously beautiful under the moonlight. I'm a total car race dork, but I was so excited to see what was to come. I was walking on the track the night before the race. It was surreal. Check that dream off the list. I imagined the next day we would be seeing Solberg and Loeb destroying streets that never imagined enduring such a beating.
Throughout the night there were lots of people coming home from bars, not to mention girls walking alone. I figured we were safe sleeping outside. We felt a calm surreal being close to the track and made this our base for the night.
I didn't sleep much. I only had a hoodie and jeans. The concrete was so cold. Parker warmed up in a phone booth across the way. All night i heard the sound of the flag pole rope rapping against the aluminum thinking it might someone sneaking up on us. We wouldn't have done what we did unless we believed our intuitions were at their best. That being said, you can't control your imagination in a town you've never been 7 hours away from your new home, 6000 miles away from your real home. I tried to keep it all in check waiting for a little sign of sun rise.
After a couple hours, the cold was too much. I woke up Curtis and said we had to walk around. We had already been walking around for probably 3 hours, but it was time to keep moving. We went back to the Bahnhof, got some coffee from a kid who spoke perfect English with no accent. We asked how this is possible and he said his dad was German and his mom was from Iowa.
Enough with the theatrics. Morning. Race day.
We asked ourselves at 7 in the morning.....uh, so guys how are we going to get tickets? Security was pretty loose in the morning because everyone had to get to their houses which were all located throughout the stage. We went back to our stoop and decided to just wait there and act like we had tickets...um ok. Not thinking, no sleep.
So that didn't work. T-minus 2 hours until race starts. Curtis says, lets make signs saying we need tickets. Ok I decide we split up, I go by the train station and Parker and Curtis go up to the other main entrance to the track.
So this isn't Staples Center and there aren't a bunch of people selling the tickets of their friends who flaked out on them. I held up a sign that said "suche Karten" and looked sad. People looked sad back at me, but nobody had tickets. I wasn't too far from the gate and I was happy to see the race from there. I said whatever were here and were gonna see some rallye cars.
Just then Curtis called and said he got one ticket. Good enough for me. We switched back and forth and it worked out way better than expected. Curtis got down to the hairpin just as Solberg and loeb were taking turns navigating a full 180 while looking through their passenger windows.
Check out this video of some clips of the cars brought to you by me and Curtis pus us getting asked for tickets.
Another, now I can die a happy man moment happened when they let loose an Audi Quattro, Lancia Delta, Renault 5 Turbo Monte Carlo, VW GTI Rallye Golf G60, (yes!!!), and what no....really...what no....oh my god i didn't even get a picture..yes Lancia Stratos.
Things got weird after the race.
Me kissing a moose Munich has lions, Seattle has pigs Trier has feet All in all, I was happy about how everything turned out. I have done these "adventures" before and usually nothing spectacular happens. You think you're going to get lucky and some angel is going to come down from the sky and make everything fall into place. Having been through a couple before, I knew this wasn't the case and expected to sleep outside. I was worried a little about tickets, but I knew we didn't get on the train within 10 minutes of it leaving to not see some Rallye cars. It really went better than expected. From now on though I'm fine with maybe consulting a map or just bringing a blanket.
Wednesday last week was a holiday. I decided let's go to Salzberg. I woke Parker up and only an hour and a half south east of Munich is Beautiful Salzburg in Austria. We arrived and walked forver. Here are some pictures of a beautiful city.
And some panoramas!
Click on the Flickr link at the top to see more pictures.
When you want something in America and you ask the supplier when you shall receive the service, they usually reply, "Oh, it will be done in 2 days," or "Yeah we should get it tomorrow." A week goes by and you get what you wanted. In Germany they say, "It's going to take 3 weeks." A week goes by and you get it.
This obviously sounds strange to someone from America who knows the task can be completed in less than a day, the same way someone from Germany would be upset if someone didn't complete what they said they were going to do in a couple days. Either way you slice it, the service indusrty is not commiting to anyone all around the world.
So of course there are many things to be learned and many things to not take for granted and many regrets about how I treated some kids at Artcenter who couldn't speak English. So when you don't know a language and somebody starts talking directly to you, and you're scared or whatever, a common response might be to just not say anything at all. A couple times now, some people have asked me something of which I don't understand a single word. A couple of valid responses would be:
1) I don't speak German. (in English or German)
2) Wie Bitte?
3) Nien English. (which doesn't make sense but sometimes comes out)
So instead of saying one of those flavorful sentences, I decide to just sit there and not say anything at all. Just straight up dumb founded. This usually brings on a German person thinking, well this guy's an idiot. They say something and then leave.
Now more than once, I've been at ArtCenter and have asked some Asian kid, "Hey, is that printer working?" He looks at me and doesn't say a word. I'm like, come on man, just a response would be nice. But now I know how it is to not say anything at all. It's just something that happens sometimes.
Also because the response from people in Germany is usually the same when using broken German versus just coming out and speaking straight English, I've decided to just bounce between the two. Things that involve Trinken, Essen and numbers aren't too bad, but heaven forbid there is something wrong with what you ordered.
You might say, "Hi, I would like a Tuna Fish sandwich." Any response other than the person behind the counter punching the register signals that they must be out of Tuna Fish. So I order something else. But all they really asked me was if I wanted my bread toasted. I say, nein? ok give me a salami baugette. She asks the same question again. I'm starting to think that they are out of everything.
So everyone speaks German, and instead of helping you figure it out, they just speak English. Imagine if you didn't know how to ride a bike and every time you were trying to ride it down the road and you fell in front of a stranger, he just threw your bike away and told you to walk. That's how it is. But I guess if you hardly knew the basics of how a bike works and could get to your destination faster by walking then maybe you would spend a little alone time practicing on the grass.
So it rains alot here. I went outside to go buy some german plugs from Gravis for my Macbook and as I approach the corner a sudden torrential downpour attacks the ground. Like clockwork, boosh!, 25 germans bust out their umbrellas out of no where. I was SOL on my bike.
I think I slept until 15:00, which is 3, I ate a great dinner that Curtis threw together, and later we checked out a bar we wanted to go to for awhile in the neighborhood. Curtis pointed out the people coming out of and going to the subway near the bar and thought it cool that people come to our hood for the bars. I basically live in the mission of San Francisco or better yet the castro I think.
I liked the bar, although it was quite packed and hot. There were plenty of the hipster type here. Some dude with a scarf, i mean ascot, and a zoo york shirt and some 80s style race cyclist hat/beatstie boys ad roc scruff. I just thought, wow this guy must love NY/LA. I'm not sure though I didn't ask. I'm thinking while this is sort of rare in Munich, it must just be the rage in Berlin. That's just what I've heard. As we were leaving a girl said Caio and a bunch of other stuff I didn't understand and the usual response to that for me is to just ignore it all together, but then I felt something aggressive directed at me so I said, Entshuldigung nicht zu viel deutch fur mich tut mir leid. And I'm not sure if i got that out but i guess if someone says Ciao or Servus or whatever and you don't say anything then he or she is going to beat you up.
Friday at work, I did some more on my maya scene. I've been working with a program that produces the same things you saw on the big screen with Transformers!! That's right I'm awesome! No not really, but I've doing work in this 3D animation program building a "scene" to put cars in. It's supposed to be Sardinia and I've gone the Marco route on this project and just made guards rails in Alias and signs and benches with polygon rocks and bunch of other things everyone is confused about right now! But its fun, my right hand man for the time is Neil giving me pointers on everything. My buddies in the configuator department, which I'm in right now, are boys from England Neil and Clive. Clive showed me how to do things in Maya, which begins after starting and restarting the program until it works and repeating things until i now remember them which has actually been helpful and hilarious.
After work I went down to the Second-hand bike shop called Hand Sports and had my bike all fixed up by Harry. It's a cool place and he's a cool guy. He didn't charge me much considering the rear fork had to be pulled out and the rim had to be straightened and a whole bunch of stuff had to happen which I didn't have the tools for. My bikes back and happening and that made me happy.
That night we went to this crazy building behind RTT which had about 25 clubs in it. It was basically Germany's answer to Cancun. I didn't particularly want to go but I was having fun with die Mitbewohneren, and figured why not gotta get it out of the way. Yet it was bad and I didn't even take pictures because it was so bad. But they did have Big Lebowski playing on the wall with German subtitles. You can see the Dude and Walter. We came in right at the part where Walter asks Larry, "Do you know what happens when you f--- a stranger in the ass?!" Unfortunately I didn't catch how that translates into German.
Later that night, Curtis and I left early and got some grub at Wolf Berg. Soooo good! Currywurst and fries drenched in mayo and ketchup going off at 3 in the morning. When we got back to the house Curtis remembered that Parker had the keys. We really need our own sets.
So Thursday at work, was pretty fun. I've been putting down like 2-3 Adelhofzener Sanft waters a day here at work. I'm addicted! These things are great, I can't stop drinking them. Ever since I found out about them here at work, i've been in the bathroom at least every hour. Man I love these things, even nicked a couple fur das crib! Damn don't tell anyone.
I've been pretty stoked on all the cars here. I like to act like it doesn't effect me, like seeing mk2 GTI's with single rounds and recur seats is just an everyday thing. And it is! But not in LA of course. Besides that we see alot of cool shit like this avant rs4 just chilling out side work.
This was kinda cool. So I read about a car that AC Schnitzer is going to put out for the Frankfurt auto show on Jalopnik (click here to see press realease) and then I walk outside and there it is. I assume it the same one, unless they made a couple of these things. The pick was from like 100m away, its just to show that I saw it drive by work.
Another great find was a scirocco with some she-ra goddess painted on the hood. Another great prollig example this just proves that the trailer park in Three Rivers Michigan and this guy from Munich are one in the same.
I miss driving slightly and knowing that there are roads within a few miles of me with no speed limits encourages that yearning. Looks like I'll have to figure something out.
So Wednesday night we decided to check out a little bit of the Munchen indie rock club scene. Thank God I found an American Apparel!
I've also quite my job and suggested that American Apparel put some plaid into their lineup.
We walked around Sendlinger strasse and scoped out one of the places on the list.
It was about 9:30 or 10:00 at night which is a normal time to go out in LA. This is more of a normal time to be drinking at home in Europe. It's a good thing, but clubs don't really get popping until after midnight. So needless to say there was no one really at the first place, so we went back to the city centre to the Atomic Cafe
This place was alright except for the fact that being older than 21 was working against you for once. It was packed, but it was wednesday and I didn't feel like getting all sweaty with some 18 yr olds to le tiegre decepitcon, which probably just dropped at the record store here in Munich...ba zing!
On the way back from the club I decided to take advantage of one of the many lions on the streets here. Seattle had a bunch of painted pigs everywhere and now Munich has a bunch of Lions. I don't know which is better, lions or pigs? I guess I'll have to come to that conclusion one day, but for now I think I prefer the lions.
Thank God my wrist is 300% better today. I've been to the doctor for this a million times and usually they make me get a wrist protector for $200 and spend another grand on xrays. I figured i could go to the apotheke and do half that. So i bought an ace bandage for the meantime.
At work it was more of the same. Do a little maya, ask about beds and keys, have the feeling that people think were baby americans who demand everything, but seriously we should all have our own keys and beds.
We rode home, ate at a good thai fusion place for like $75 american or something. I've tried not to think about the exchange rate anymore.
Overall I'm really happy with everything. The only thing is that its a little unorganized here. No one really knows what we should and there is nobody directly responsible for getting us stuff if we need it. So we just buy it for now and worry about it later. It will all get worked out eventually. The overall stress of adjusted to something foreign is making every little thing seem like a big deal. I feel like I've been here about 3 weeks. My German is getting slightly better. I'm surprised I understand way more than I thought I would. Thanks Jakob!
Monday morning. First Monday of Work. The day after getting all busted up is the worst. My wrist was...I really don't want anyone to worry, it's all good now i got it wrapped and im typing and its not broken or anything, just describing my life and how much has happened in one little week in a town across a big body of water.
So I go to work and the wrist is bugging me, and guess what? Ice does not exist in Europe! Before I decided to buy a small bag for 3 euro I used a frozen pack of what looked to be brine shrimp out of the freezer downstairs. I guess there is an aquarium somewhere.
Work itself was ok, I'm learning maya and what not. Apparently everyone learns a little maya. After work I ate a pizza and tended to my wounds and hit the hey for like 12 hours.
Sunday, I think we slept in until 1. We went to the Marienplatz and ate at a touristy little joint by the haufbrauhuas. Curtis and I took off down to the Isar for a little bike ride around the city. Once again the whole city was either down by the river or in the beer gartens. Germany works hard and plays even harder. That night we went to a cool show at the kafe kult which I found when looking up LA hipster punk band Mika Miko. I saw they had played here early this summer. I figured this bar was a safe place.
Unfortunately on the way there my tire got stuck in one of the Tram tracks and I went down hard. We were booking pretty fast too. I skinned up my elbows and hurt my wrist alittle, but don't worry! I'm really ok. These things happen and worse has happened in the last 5 years, I'm just not writing about it. So please don't worry mom or Jin. I won't post pictures of my injuries, nobody wants to see that!
Falling kinda threw me off a little. I was way overconfident flying down the road and I had seen those tracks and been aware my tires are the same size and the wrong move could mean pavement time. Luckily nothing serious happened, but it did wake me up a little bit. Here we are first week in Munich and I fall off my bike. Well at least its out of the way. The bike still works and it made me think of when I used to skateboard and every body part was all busted up all the time and i never thought twice about it. I'm getting old.
Back to the show. The show was amazing! It was the typical hipster crowd. Tight pants and mustaches are alive and well in Southern Germany! The band was from Italy and they were called Neil on Impression. They sounded like Pelican but only a little more emo, which I liked. I like Pelican, but they get a little metal and experimental and i just like it to be build ups and passion and emoness. These guys had that down. They were really nice and played a couple extra songs for us. The music soothed my injuries as I let it all in.
Oh Saturday, what didn't we do today. I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking. We got on our bikes and rode about 3km to the beautiful Englischer Garten.
Somehow we stumbled upon the wonderful Chinese tower in the Englischer Garten.
We ordered Maß Biers and Maß bretzels. I took it easy with a Rß'n or Radler or the likes which is bier and lemonade. There were so many people in the park and hundreds more at the Chinese tower.
classic (video)
I don't think I've experienced a park like this one. Germany knows how to take breaks on the weekends. I'm pretty sure the whole city was here. It was huge, had a lake, you can drink anywhere, people on bikes, guys with accordions, babies, old people, hidden little gartens with german bands playing. It was seriously wonderful.
So that wasn't enough for the day, and we decided to ride our bikes all the way up to the Olympian Park near the BMW building and the BMW Museum.
This car is the definition of prollig. Apparently Rollerblading never left Munchen and grew into a highly evolved dance style. We figured that the cones were there to calculate the german technicality of the sport.
(Must see videos.)
That night we were pretty tired and instead of going to the bars in the neighborhood we joined the other 30-40 people in gartner platz and enjoyed a cheap brew. I felt like part of the hood here, kinda got sad though missing Jin. Europe is all romantic and here I am with the dudes, ah c'est la vie, oh wait are we out here on work? :)
Allen Pinkerton is a working professional in the automotive design world. In the little time he has available he likes to work on his e36 m3 and take it to the track. He has no qualifications for writing. He also cannot spell. Allen takes no responsibility in what you do to your car after reading these posts.
