no escaping the trouble with being foreign
New Axe-deo ads were introduced at the movie
theater Friday night. This should have happened Thursday night without the stinky deo.It’s been a busy time these past days. This is a ramble, recap post, detailing earlier moments during our long weekend, consisting of a trip to Regensburg and the blight of our favorite Indisches restaurant. We took our minds off of the crazy curry service brush, with a late-showing of the new “Pirates of the Caribbean” film. Johnny Depp was just what I needed although I could have done with a mute Elizabeth Swann. She’s pretty to look at but that’s about it.
This past Saturday, we welcomed Martin and Lydia for the first time to our home and had a grill party for their arrival. It also happened to be Lydia’s bday. They brought us a beautiful tree with purple flowers for our balcony. How sweet. Saturday also welcomed a rain spell that still wants to trump my immune system. I’ve been tired for three days straight. But I refuse to be sick so close to our trip to Rome. So here’s the rest of the beginning of the story. It’s a touch of rant..
Thursday, I made a surprise visit to Regensburg for the 4. Jubiläum des ersten Kusses. Although the romantic surprise was slightly thwarted by work and simply turned to an extra treat for us to see each other a day early. Boom chicka wahwah plop.
I had perfectly planned my trip to Regensburg, left on time, remember all my belongings etc. But I did tax me a bit. I woke up Friday morning beat, eyes itchy and reluctant to stay open and a headache. Dust? I noticed that there was pollen floating all around Regensburg. It could be I am not used to the plants in this part of Bavaria. Or some bug going around. I headed out to the city center after the Hausmeister stopped by, took one long, puzzled look at me and tried his best to utter his request in the clearest and slowest Hochdeutsch he could muster. Sweet, but really I need to practice my understanding of Bayerisch.
I made my way to the Burger King near the cathedral to set up my study area and try the new “Long and Strong” chicken club sandwich. Like I said in the previous post, I’m a weakling to xxl photos of tasty looking sandwiches. You may ask yourself, why not study in a library? Most libraries (if not all) in Germany require that you put your bags in a locker and carry your material in your hands. Considering my writing utensils, calculator, dictionaries, study material -I just don’t have that many hands. And forget sneaking in some water or a candy bar for quick, by-your-desk, brain fuel. It’s just more convenient to sit in a restaurant and absorb the grease and thermo. It’s a mystery to me why this Burger King am Dom rarely has any visitors. I think I got a clue with the improper use of the English language, phallically named chicken club. So disappointingly Ew. Oh well, I got a lot accomplished in BK’s deserted lard-mill.
Alex and I left Regensburg with Sebastien relatively early for Munich. Since we were having company over the next day, I didn’t feel like cooking Friday night. Soon as we arrived at home, I suggested we go for Indian food at Baldeplatz. There were little signs in the beginning that this evening would not end without a hitch: waiting for 10 minutes for a waiter to see us, the appetizers tasting not-so homemade, the impossibility of getting the three server’s attention and our meals though tasty, just not as spectacular as before. Maybe they lost their cook, the head guy was on vacation, who knows.
Everything was slightly off kilter. When it came time to pay, they took our credit card but said that it may take some time because they had problems with Telecom. After a few minutes the servers gave up and demanded cash from us. Between the both of us we didn’t have enough to pay for the meal. Alex then suggested that they should be able to use a manual card swiper in the event of a electronic failure. Our server said that the didn’t have one. This is when things got prickly.
The server apologized said that they had been having problems with Telecom all day, that they didn’t have a manual swiper, blah blah. Alex asked if they’d write out a bill and we’d come back to pay after we both picked up cash from our bank. The waiter said we had to leave something behind. Yeah right. Alex then reminded them that we were not obligated to pay then. They have signs on their front door stating they accept credit cards, EC cards. We didn’t receive a warning before we ordered. This is was just plain bad business.
I stayed while Alex made the 600 m trek to the bank. At this point I was okay, a little annoyed but still enjoying my pleasantly full belly. The server came back apologized again and said he’d bring out some schnapps. I shouldn’t have refused. But I didn’t want anything else to eat or drink. Nothing else would fit. But the poor, embarrassed server took that as a challenge that I was doubly dissatisfied and kept pestering me, what did I want!!
He finally offered a Mango Lassi and I gave in and said fine. Anything to relieve his suffering. He came back with a double serving in a beautiful copper cup. I had two sips of the good necker, but I had already eaten too much, discomfort was setting in so I let it sit there. When Alex returned, he rightfully asked for all the change back. The server blew his top, ‘we tried everything we could, we offered you (me) Mango Lassi..’ which he then looked at the copper cup and with an accusatory tone, ‘you didn’t even try it!!’
Then it felt like I was sent back in time. The days when I had to sit at the dinner table when I was mentally and digestively done with the plates before me and mother and father fighting with me to finish my food. I detest being put in this position so I reacted with a child-like response, ‘Yes, I did!’ That was it. I was done with this place, this crap from an over excited, disorganized idiot. More words come to mind but what’s the point. The evening was damned. It was just time to take a breath and start over.
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Feiern: Bavarian-Czech Style
The card
Normally I’m a procrastinator. After the blog snafu, I was wishing I wasn’t so good at doing things at the last minute. So I’d like to think. I packed our bags Friday afternoon, two hours before departure and rushed out the door to buy a wedding card and snacks for our five hour drive.
The first store I visited was closed (early weekend, eh) and the second had these colorful cards with cheering people gathered around the bride and groom climbing a towering cake -too tribal, yikes! I picked something simple while wondering, what does Vermählung have to do with Hochzeit? I didn’t ask salesperson, she was already in a non-helpful mood. It turns out that Vermählung means Hochzeit or wedding, however it is just the formal way of announcing a marriage on paper. Germans, ugh.
Die Fahrt
So car packed, tomtom navigation system advised, and visas on hand -we were set for take off. It would take us 2.5 hours to get to the border. Five miles before the border control, we saw a line of semi trucks on the right-hand shoulder. What could this mean?
During the summer, trucks aren’t allowed to drive on Saturdays in Germany between the hours of 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. (this in addition to holidays and Sundays from 12 a.m. to 10 p.m.) This restriction isn’t implemented on Saturdays in the Czech Republic but there are restrictions on Friday evenings, so they wait and circumvent the verbot.
Once the Czech controller saw my face, he stopped us to check our visas. He was immediately uninterested after he saw I was a U.S. citizen and Alex, German. Schwoo. The highways are brand-spanking new between Germany and the Czech Republic, a sign of prosperity. The Czech Republic was made a new member of the EU in 2004 and they hope to switch their money in 2010. In the mean time it’s the Czech koruna; 50 Euro got us 400 koruna at the border. It’s hard to believe just 16 years ago the border between Germany and ‘Czechoslovakia’ was guarded with armed tanks and under Communism.
It was a good thing we had a navigation system, the highway signs are a bit different in the Czech Republic, nor could we read them. It’s just best to follow GPS directions:D
Hotel Na Statku
So we arrived at the hotel just outside of Prague around 10:30 p.m. We received one of the last rooms, which contained two twin beds at different locations in the room. Um. Not gonna happen. The bride was nervous, the groom chatty. We met the bride’s parents at the hotel restaurant and Alex and I each ordered a Pilsner Urquell, the world’s first golden beer, developed by a Bavarian brewer. Just when I wanted to brush up on my Bayrisch everyone went to bed while we finished our beer. Party poopers..as if there was some major event going to happen. At night’s end, we were buzzed and looking forward to springing into our rearranged twin mattresses.
Die Vermählung
So the wedding started at 12 noon, which meant early breakfast and getting out of the hotel by 10 a.m. We met the wedding party at the hair dressers. The bride, in a beautiful creme wedding dress, was even more nervous and asked for schnapps. Her dad came back with a shot of the strong stuff. When asked where the groom was, someone said that he was with the bottle. It’s okay if the groom see the bride in her dress before the ceremony.
The Church and Priest
The wedding was held in Vyšehrad near the Vltava River at the beautiful Basilika St. Peter and Paul. The interior is extremely ornate although rather small in comparison to the cathedrals in the major Bavarian cities. The Catholic service was officiated in German and Czech; the priest, I thought, did a fine job at both tasks. It was quite amusing to analyze the different ways he spoke depending on which language.
In German, the priest stroked his beard on one side and spoke slowly with many pauses between words, making it hard for me to follow. However, he seemed more relaxed with Czech, hunching over the podium and either waving his hand or stroking the opposite side of his beard. I later heard that the priest 
smelled very strongly of alcohol, but nonetheless he held a good service, encouraging the bride and groom not to worry so much about their lives together, everything will be alright.
Euphony and Lumberjack Duo
The highlight for me was the Choir, which sang Bach/ Gounod’s Ave Maria and Panis angelicus with perfect intonation. The music sent chills down my spine and I found I was swallowing tears. I’ve always been a softy for latin hymns. The ceremony lasted for about 1 hour with sitting, standing and kneeling on kneelers made of hard wood and angled so one has to hang on to the pew in front in order to keep from falling backwards.
After the ceremony, it started to rain while we all congratulated the newly wedded couple outside the church. It stopped enough to bring out the wedding log for “Das Holzstamm- Sägen“, a common wedding tradition in Germany. It is a symbol of how the married couple can overcome obstacles, under the Motto “Together we are strong”.
The Reception
Everyone was starving and thirsty. Alex and I rode with “die Zeugin“, which means witness or in American equivalent, the maid of honor, and her husband. We got lost in Prague, but a trucker was kind enough to show us how to get back on the highway. We arrived behind the married couple. Ups.
Die Rede and Festing Part I
After a toast with very sweet Seht, we sat down on long tables and heard “Die Rede des Brautvaters“, the father of the bride’s speech. He said that he has lived his whole life near the border and traveled the world but was never allowed to visit land behind the mountains (that being Czech) and now his family will be merged with another, who lived behind those very mountains. The speech was translated in Czech by a Czech German teacher. Pretty handy.
So eating commenced with the mid-day meal: tomato and mozzarella with drizzled olive oil, then wedding soup (noodles and meatballs made from liver), then a traditional Czech dish with meat slices, a creamy sauce made from beef stock, lemon, and berry sauce, and five large slices of something like dampfnoodle or softbread. Then there were snacks, wedding cake, beer in half litter portions. We were stuffed and we still had to look forward to a barbeque for dinner.
Gifts, Melody and Playtime
All the while, there were traditional songs sung between the bride’s family members and friends of the groom in their respective languages. The couple received gifts in between. Most were hand-made and in some creative way present money for the bridepair. Other gifts were related to an adventure the two would share. One gift, resembled a scarecrow, called a “Kindsbaum“, which is supposed to bring luck and a baby before their one year wedding anniversary. The tree is wrapped with money, baby clothes, and toys. If that doesn’t happen in a year, then the newly weds invite the gift-givers out to dinner and make a similar Kindsbaum, returning the wish to the original party.
Audience participation was also key to keep people active till the wee hours of the morning. One game resembled musical chairs only the players had to find an object among the guest and bring it back to the chairs. The one person left without a seat had to perform a task with or for the newlyweds. Since there were 12 players in the game, that meant that the new couple would meet one of the players for each month during their first year of marriage. Some people had to bake a cake for the couple. I lost the 3rd round, and my task is to take the couple out for a movie in November, sitting in between the pair holding the popcorn. Although we agreed to nachos and something sweet for the bride.
Dancing and more Feasting zum Schluss
What’s a Bavarian-Czech wedding without a three-piece Czech band. They were awesome, providing something for everyone for 8 hours with maybe a 30 minute break in total! Although, it was clear that no one pays attention to the words on english-language pop hits. Okay, just because they are slow songs does not mean that Annie Lenox’s Why and Toni Braxton’s Unbreak my Heart are songs to be played at a wedding, Bah.
In between the sets, more food was served in an other room: veggies, cheeses, alcohol soaked fruit, then red deer patties, grilled salmon and the best tasting Goulash I’ve tasted yet. At the end of the evening, Garlic soup was served. Boy, one could smell that soup for miles! It was so tasty. I’m still dreaming of the Goulash and Garlic soup.
We hit the sack by 3 a.m., what a day! I was so happy to be apart of it, it will be an experience I hope I don’t forget (especially with the help of this infinity post.) We didn’t stay to sightsee in Prague on Sunday. We want to dedicate a whole weekend for such an excursion and we wanted to plan for our vacation in Southern France starting in 3 days!
Hosting Parties
Well, we believe our housewarming party was a success. I cooked like a mad momma Friday and Saturday and Alex cleaned the apartment and carried the heavy cases of beer. Our team work together has dramatically improved… as long as only one of us occupies the kitchen.
All in all we had 12 people at our party. A very intimate atmosphere and the potato candles added that special touch. A few people changed their minds the day of (normal), so the amount of beer and sweets left-over is enough to have another party (oh, hindsight). Everyone was good sports with the “multi-culti” food I prepared, despite the scharf level. Although we now know our ‘crowd’ of people are no longer the beer guzzlers of our *choke* youth. The weekend starts today because tomorrow is Christi Himmelfahrt holiday. To celebrate the long weekend, we’re having a few friends over for a brunch tomorrow, that is, beer and lunch :dbuds:
—-oÖo—-
If you have nothing to do this weekend, come over here. Munich is hosting over a hundred bands throughout the city, with Die Lange Nacht der Musik. We’re hoping to enjoy some classical guitar and a modern cello concert in Haidhausen, jazz at Stachus, and a few cover bands around Münchner Freiheit.
AOK Insurance, Buttah, and Bubbles in my Flan
So what are the perks to being a student in a German university? Health Insurance, apparently. I took a walk down Landsbergerstaße to the AOK (Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse) and signed up for the government-based student insurance. Or so I thought.
At the moment I have Klemmer insurance for visitors taking German as a foreign language, which covers medical emergencies other than a toothache or GYN stuff. The government-based student insurance from AOK is about 50 Euro a month and better than the insurance I had in Florida for about $70 a month, but paid by my employer. German “staatlich” insurance covers everything (except for reading glasses and composite teeth fillings) and there is no cap for what it costs to stay well. My Florida BCBS insurance had a million dollar lifetime cap for everything…easy to reach with the common illnesses/accidents these days. I had to buy supplemental insurance to cover a rogue cancer or unexpected hospital bills…ugh, stress, another 100 bucks a month.
So get me connected with the good stuff that those 50% German taxes pay for, ASAP! Only the kind people of AOK didn’t understand me. According to Alex, they filled out an exempt form for the insurance which would have meant that I could never again get into government-based insurance. He had them rip the piece of paper and I must return to AOK today with the correct form. I should have asked questions, the foreigner genius strikes again.
parkay?? nein, buttah dishon another note more and more people are all of a sudden able to make our party this weekend. Um? Great!?! We need more beer!
At least, now I don’t have to worry about refrigerator butter; I finally have a petite, ceramic butter dish. Ja, big deal you say! But I love my buttah (ooh and bacon!) and there is nothing like a smooth spread of fatty goodness. Okay…sorry I had to share.
tiny bubblesSo another question? (Thanks to those who responded to the drill Q) Why are there bubbles in my flan? I suspect it has something to do with the egg white, but I made a flan with virtually no bubbles before but I can’t duplicate those results. It tastes alright. But German grocery stores don’t carry Vanilla extract. I had to use Vanille Zucker. It taste like artifical sweetener and fills the room with a funky vanilla fabreeze scent. Gross. Maybe I’ll have luck at the Asian stores. They seem to have the stuff you typically find at home.
