Amsterdam day one

What a lot of great memories from Amsterdam! When a decade ago Chase and I sat down in rural Oklahoma to plan our summer Eurotrip, I campaigned against the city in or itinerary, since all I had heard about it was its infamous red light district and loose drugs policy.

What a shame I missed, but then I don't think I would have appreciated it as much as I do now. My first reaction on leaving the train station was "this is a city for people who love cities."

After recovering one day from Munich, we jumped on a Germanwings flight which, for some reason, bumped the three of us up to the "Best" class catching all of us off guard. We were in the front row of the plane, acres of legroom, and the stewardess brought us a menu full of prices first and asked us what ever we wanted, we could have, free.

Tay did a double take as he rapidly tried to figure out which was the biggest and most expensive item on the menu but pressed for time selected a can of Pringles and a beer. The hostess cheerfully asked him to let her know when he wanted another one. It was great, it felt like flying in a limo.

Anyway, flying between EU cities is really easy and fast: there is tighter id checking and security between US states. Rolled off the plane, grabbed our giant common bag, and caught the train to the central station.

Amsterdam reminded me of many cities, with the best of each: the canals, and every step a picturesque photographic moment of Venice, the vibrant multicultural urban life inhabiting old buildings of London, the piratical looseness of tiny alleys, red lights and dark wooden bars, thronged with tourists of old New Orleans, the clean and straightforward public transit systems of northern Europe.

We walked to the AirBnb canal house we were staying in, right on the canal in the old brewers area at the top of the ever hipster Jordaan. We had the entire place to ourselves, our host, Christian the carpenter, ran the place as a business. The canal house was only one room wide anyway, so he tore out the top floor partitions and installed a bathtub in the bedroom. Cute, and it opened the space up, but no privacy. No doors in the place either, apart from the front door. Privacy emerged from the separation of all the floors, by ever rickety and more vertically inclined stairs. Tay slept in a loft accessible only by a ladder above our double bed, tucked up in the apex of the roof amidst the beams. It felt a lot like living on a ship.

We shared a wall with the tiny but busy cafe next door at the corner and on the other corner, the most chill and unobnoxious [weed] coffee shop I saw in Amsterdam.

The bar around the corner where we wanted to grab our first drink we couldn't get anyone to wait on us. Life moves slow, I understand that, but I'm not going to kill an hour to put in an order for a beer.

Tay kindly acted as our restaurant consultant, picking out an authentic Dutch place for our first night, and also to check off that box since we read that authentic Dutch food is about as exciting as potatoes and sausage.

We walked along the canal rings to the restaurant, the 30 minute stroll made longer by our stopping to take photos every 90 seconds. Amsterdam is really just that Twee. It is a fountain of Twee, a hipster Disneyland where everything is as adorably aged, and the guy in the tweed vest living above the fair trade coffee shop really makes a living making barrels for the craft brewer down the street.

The restaurant turned out to be in one off the big tourist streets, filed with Argentine steakhouses (which were everywhere, everywhere, what the hell??) , "Authentic British Pubs", and American food. We were seated next to a group of middle aged Brits on holiday, who were trying to control the volume of their inebriated men.

The food was actually better than we'd been lead to believe, sausage and potatoes yes, but still good, and distinctly different from the typical German fare I'm used to.

We wandered back the long way through the red light district. Actually we had a hard time finding it at first. Upon finding it and waking through, Tay and I were a bit underwhelmed. For me at least, the Red Light District of Amsterdam was something you whispered, that brought up visions of a hedonistic den of sin, a writhing and hallucinogenic city dripping with smut. It was more like no pants day at the Olive Garden, but not as kinky. I think I was more scandalized as a teenager at the mall Spencers Gifts.

We joined the gawking tourists (actually, it's really hard to miss the red light district, given its location in the center of town) and wandered past dozens of backpacker oriented coffeehouses and a few dozen red lit windows. With the Spartan tiled cabins and the bored and listless looking women hanging out in underwear, it looked more like they were waiting for their clothes at the laundromat.

We stopped at a bar for another beer on the way back home, at The Gilded Gaper, which featured Victorian era medical illustrations and apparatus, plus tons of old carved wooden heads of turban-hatted Indians? Arabs? sticking out their tongues.

Stumbled back and took turns hanging out the dining room while we bathed upstairs with the showerless tub.

Munich Sonnentag

The best way to get to München is by ICE train. It`s a direct shot from Stuttgart, roughtly two hours in quiet comfort, from the heart of the city to the heart of the city. It´s also really really expensive. Say, $60-$80 normally.

Fortunately, there are a few bus lines that also make the run, for less than a third of the price, and only an hour more of travel. So sunday morning we got up early, packed, and cabbed it over to the Zuffenhausen ZOB (central bus station) about twenty minutes from the house. Actually, the price of the cab ride was about half the price of the ticket to Munich for all of us.

The cab driver did a U turn after dropping us to wait for passengers. When he saw us walking up the stairs to get some coffee, he rolled down the window and shouted after us, pointing, ¨BUS!!¨
Still too early for me, I didn`t realize it was our driver and shouted back ¨No thanks!¨

We were too early, so we got a coffee from the bus station bar/cafe where some people were already ordering beers, and got back down the station to board. The driver scanned our barcode and we jumped on board. It was a long forgettable trip. Three hours went by ok and I played a lot of super-breakout. Tay and Saori napped a bit. We stopped outside of Ulm and in Augburg before pulling into the bus terminal near the central station around noon.

Our hotel was on the other side, a bit of a hike, but we got there. H+ Hotel is located in the middle of a large, seedy neighborhood on the less classy side of the train station. The street was a colorful mix of cell phone stores, translation centers, strip clubs, bars, and ethnic restaurants, mostly middle and far-eastern. Tons of middle easterners walking around, Turks, gulf Arabs, Indians, Eastern Europeans. The hotel was nice though. The room accomodated the three of us although Tay had to sleep on the fold-out couch. The only thing they forgot was an extra towel for the third guest, and toilet paper.

We dropped our stuff and crossed the street to a Lebanese restaurant for lunch. It was really good! We ordered Lebnah with olive oil, some cheese quesadilla things, chicken schwarma, and a variety of drinks, and I think our bill still came out to be less than $40. Tay also ordered a salty watered down yogurt drink which tasted exactly as it sounded and we all took turns trying to appreciate it.

Tay wanted to go direct to the city center platz, but we convinced him to make a detour to Lenbachhaus, a recently renovated (and very nicely done) museum of artwork, mostly focusing on pre-WWII German modernism and expressivism in painting. Lots of work by Paul Klee and Kandinsky. I was really happy we went. From there, we walked to the city center and the ¨virtual alien market¨ where of course, everything was closed because it is sunday. What did we do all day? We mostly walked around. We probably spent about an hour at the museum, but by the time we got out and downtown it was already late afternoon. We shopped around for a good beer hall. At Zum Paulaner, we wandered through the Disneyland of huge beer halls, lederhosen clad waiters carrying giant sausages and pretzels, and an Ompah band playing lustily in the bandstand for the hordes of tired tooking tourists at the wooden benches.

We ultimately decided to get dinner and drinks at the main Augustiner restaurant. It was a LOT quieter. We sat under a wall decorated with a Greek nautical motif and oystershells under a glass canopy. We were all not that hungry but ended up splitting two meals of various fried and baked meats and potato dumplings and some really good white asparagus with Hollandaise sauce. After dinner, we were all just really exhausted so we decided to make an early night of it at the hotel.

We tried facetiming mom for mothers day, but because of technical difficulties, we decided to try her again later. Slept restlessly, filled with bizzare dreams.                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Follow the Lederhosen

Saturday morning after a pancake breakfast and a lot of coffee, we sat around and planned out the final trip details of Amsterdam, namely finding an apartment from AirBnB. After we hammered out those details, we all got dressed up for Fruhlingsfest, the biggest spring festival in Germany. I wore my special shirt and Tay happened tob bring his blue gingham check, which was perfect. Saori lent him her big felt hat and after we downed a few beers we caught a U bahn over to the fairgrounds by following the people in Lederhosen.

It also happened to be a home game for Stuttgart, so the trains were packed with a mix of Lederhosen, Drindles, red tricots, and red and white scarves. Fruhlingsfest is always the same, but the day was a little less packed. We grabbed a beer, and strolled around the fairgrounds until we got to the Dinkelacker tent, where we were able to surprisingly, get a seat almost inside the tent. Tay and I both ordered a Mass of beer (about 0,8 liters) of the Fruhlingsfestbier, a strong Marzen. We also munched on french fries, chatted with a bunch of people from Frankfurt who were also there for the fair, while Tay went on a beer-fueled intensive discourse on the American penal system to a Swede sitting across from him, while trying to fend off the random questions from the group of kids next to us.

We all ended up fairly boozed up but nobody was stepped on or had beer or any other bodily fluid splashed on them so I would call that a pretty good visit. We did poke around inside the tent a bit so Tay could see the crowds dancing on the benches and singing. Tradition!

We caught the U bahn back home and stopped to grab a pizza a late night kebab shop down the street. At home we chowed down on the pizza and fries and everyone drank a lot of water. Saori and I went to bed relatively early and Tay actually stayed up to chat a bit with Chelsea, mom, and dad. It was a great saturday.

On writing

These blogs have become bloated and bogged with minutea, but at least I am trying to keep them free of overblown rhetoric.

For me, nothing passes the time better than writing, so with lots of travel, there are empty hours to fill in bus terminals and airplane middle seats.

But writing is also a mind dump- it calms me down and helps me clarify my thoughts.

But it also tampers with experience and reality. Something happens to you. The event itself changes you, and it is inprinted in a certain way. But when you remember it, your mind emphasizes certain parts, mutes others, and spins and edits it. When I record a memory in words, I must articulate feelings, senses, impressions, plus the background overlay of my own mental state at the time. All of this must be edited down, compressed, put into words which have themselves particular meanings and connotations different from how other people may shade the same word. When I articulate, the force of words re-writes and hardens my own memories, like I am making a photocopy of a photograph of a cloud.

To articulate a memory is to alter it, but for me, it is worth it to gain the use of the memory through repetition. I have to remember the event, write it, and then often I read what I have written, giving me an additional three times to process this event and see how it fits into the larger narrative.

Four workings days in May

My month has been a little all over the place. Two weeks ago, I jumped on a flight in Stuttgart to the US. I got back to Stuttgart late monday night this week, and picked up Tay ar the airport wednesday night.

That was a small adventure for everyone involved. Tay had booked a cheap flight to Germany through Turkish airlines, flying out of Chicago. Tay lives in Indy, and decided to save some cash by taking a bus. The problem was that Tay timed it exactly so that he would arrive in Chicago a little over two hours before his flight.

Late tuesday night my time, Tay texted me that his bus was going to be delayed- by an hour and a half. There was a slim chance he was going to make his flight, and Tay was wondering if they would just put him on the next flight or reroute him. I replied that he probably would lose the ticket.

There was a flurry of activity on Tay and dad's end, who was also working on the logistics. Tay finally got through to an agent who told him that if he missed his flight, they would credit him the cost of the ticket for the next flight he wanted to take, which of course, would have been close to double at the last minute what he bought it for on sale months ago.

Dad managed to book Tay on the next flight out of Indy to Chicago, so Tay booked it to the airport from downtown. That flight was delayed too, due to weather in Chicago, but at the end of the day, Tay made all his flights.

At the airport in Stuttgart, he didn't pop out of the international arrivals like I expected. An hour after the flight landed, still no Tay and all the baggage had been unloaded and people were clearing out. Had he been detained by customs? Did he leave his passport on the plane? Was he stuck, for whatever reason, in Istanbul? I calmed down and reasoned that Tay was a seasoned international traveler, a grown man, and a trial attourney. He would be ok. I found him at the domestic EU terminal exit waiting for me, for which I was very glad.

When he came through customs and immigration, they were grilling him about what he was doing and who he was going to see. He didn't have paper tickets for his return flight or my phone number or address since it was all on his phone and of course his phone was dead. Tay told the immigration officer that I was waiting for him outside, so she walked him out the waiting area. No Alec. Tay attemped to make some small talk with her for about ten minutes while his phone was charging, and finally was able to show her the ticket info and my info.

Before she left, she concernedly asked if he was sure I was coming, and I found Tay shortly after. We caught a cab back to my apartment and set up a pallet for Tay to sleep on under the dining room table, which we covered with sheets to make a little sleeping fort.

Saori cooked us up some sausages and a fixed a salad, so we happily munched on that. We dug up an old iPhone and a sim card, and roughtly outlined a schedule for the next day before we all went off to bed. We were all exhuasted.

Thursday, I met Tay for lunch at the beer garten by the hauptbahnhof, the same place where I met dad a little over two weeks earlier. We ordered spatzle and sausages and fleishkase and some beers. Tay liked the Schwabian food ok, but he was not such a fan of the radler beer I was drinking. Actually, I even hesitated to order a mix of beer and lemonade- despite the hard drinking culture, Germans do not like to mix business and pleasure in this way. They want to do their work in a working environment and drink in a drinking environment. The whole concept of an office happy hour where you drink at would would be a strange concept for them. Actually, the longer I work over here, it doesn't really make sense to me either. Why not just quit work early and go to a bar?

Anyway, Thursday night, my coworkers invited us to Palast for a drink beacuse the weather was one of the best of the year, one of those days where everyone in the city comes outside to enjoy. So I swung by the house and picked up Tay and some bottles of beer, and we went to Palast together. We caught up with my coworkers and plopped down on the concrete to make our own little drinking circle. It was a really novel drinking and socializing method for Tay, but I think he got a kick out of it. Saori came out too to join us and she brought a few more beers as well. We all ended up drinking a bit more than intended, although I had some good conversations with a young Italian guy about the risks of giving lifts to hitchhikers.

There is a system of hitchhiking in Germany which extends into other neighboring countries, called the BlaBla car(d?) and what it is you register online, and say where you want to go and when you want to go. Then drivers looking for someone to help with gas and passing the time, can go on and contact people to ride with them. I was skeptical at first, but apparently the system works pretty well. Saori and other people I know have used this system without any problems, other than a few last minute cancellations but I have heard it's pretty rare. Anyway, the Italian guy is a driver, and he usually tries to find passengers on his trips to Italy and back. The problem is if he takes someone who is an illegal migrant, if he is caught, he can be charged basically as a human trafficker. So he has to be scrupulously careful about checking the documents of people he's picking up.

Anyway, it was getting late when we left, so we stopped by one of the best kebab shops in town nearby and caught a late metro home.

Friday was really rough. I was hungover, ill, exhausted (remember, I still havn't had a good nights sleep in about two weeks at this point due to jet lag, travel, late nights, drinking, etc.) and I had to finish a model at the office before I left for the day. The problem with the model was that the floorplans kept changing which changed the facades, so I wasn't able to really model the building until around 5pm. I ended up working until about 8pm, alone in the office, until my boss came back from his trip to Italy. I explained what I was working on and he said we could discuss it on monday. I realized at this point that nobody had told him that I was going to be taking three weeks off in the middle of a very heavy competition schedule. He was not happy about it, understandably. "Who was so irresponsible to give you the time off?" He asked incredulously, in his joking-but-not-really way.

He quickly recovered, however, and wished Saori and I the best on our trip and to enjoy Japan, and especially to enjoy soaking up the Japanese architecture so that I would be charged up when I came back to the office.

When I got home, Saori was setting up the grill with Tay. I got the fire going and we planned out the rest of the trip. We decided that it was going to be too expensive to try to hit Amsterdam that weekend, and too expensive to combine with Berlin. Instead, we opted to compromise with a day at Fruhlingfest in Stuttgart, an overnight stay in Munich, and three nights, four days in Amsterdam after I found some screaming tickets on Germanwings.

I slept really well friday night.

The eternal return

I really should have picked better flights. I rushed through the booking, I was flustered, and concerned especially after Saori tried to pay for them but couldn't and then I had to go through the entire search and booking all over again. But what is done is done.

Saturday morning we met up with Grandma Loretta at the airport and transferred over my suitcase and stuff to mail. We caught up at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast and I said my goodbyes to mom and Larry.

Grandma drove us back over to her condo and I checked out the background of some people who were wanting to shoot movie at her empty Blanchard house. I got a name and checked out IMDB. It was a legitimate outfit actually. A small, independant production team which made small dramas and comedies, no clue as to what the outlet for this stuff is. The plot of this movie is that a country girl returns to her stifling childhood home after failure in the city, and then falls for her brother's fiancee. Anyway, we drove out to meet them at the house. They were three californians, younger than I am, who had driven across country and had apparently been in the area for a few weeks rounding up talent and production crews, and scouting for locations. They took a lot of photos and told us they would let us know.

We ran a few errands and then back at her condo, I helped her put up a pegboard wall in the garage to hang her tools. Afterwards, we ran up to Edmond to see Josh, Endera, and thier 7 month old baby, Jett. They live in a nice little suburban tract home. Not quite my kind of thing, but it's close to Jeff and Ashley, and not too far from Andera's parents either.

Jett is a huge, happy baby. At 7 months old, he is above the 95 percentiles for weight and length. He also looks like a pure Perkins: stubby little bear paw hands, those sleepy Perkins eyes, strong square chin, and built like a football player. He is going to be a big guy. Totally regular, totally open and friendly. His parents adore him, perhaps too much. They both admit they still fight over who gets to hold him.

Perk the pig is suffering for the attention. He was locked up in a pen while I was over there, and I imagine he doesn't get out much these days. Andera wants him gone, but Josh is having a hard time getting rid of a pig he raised from a piglet. And what are they going to do? The only one interested in taking on a full sized porker is someone who has sausage casings lying around. The most humane thing they could do to a family raised animal is to put it down. It's still irresponsible, but I too have foisted my animals on friends and family when I moved overseas. Plus, they are doing so much right, its hard to fault them.

Anyway, it was a good visit, and I was really happy they made time to see us. Afterwards, we drove by a long line of chain restaurants along the interstate and I could just not muster up the requisite excitement, so I proposed going back to the BBQ joint close to grandmas. It was really OK this time. Wish I had ordered something else. Anyway, it was something authentic and local.

Back at her house, I re-balanced my luggage. I came to the US with a duffel and a man purse, and returned with a 50 pound suitcase in addition to the stuff I came over with.

The next morning, Grandma took me out to breakfast at Jimmy's Egg and we chatted for a bit before she dropped me off at the airport in Oklahoma City. It was really great to see her. Don't do that often enough.

The trip back was mind-searingly long. I had an hour to kill before my flight out, then there was a five hour layover in Atlanta, followed by a 10 hour flight to Amsterdam, followed by ANOTHER five hour layover before my flight to Stuttgart. I was so exhausted I slept at least five or six hours on the intercontinental flight, which helped a lot with jet lag. Saw a tiny mouse in the Amsterdam airport, and also drank the smallest of Heineken beers at one of the many airport bars. While I was there, I picked up a guide to Amsterdam.

But after a taxi ride and a grueling trek with my 50 pounder up the six flights of stairs, I finally got to set my bag down and take off my shoes and socks. Saori had laid out a plate of cookies and tea for me when I arrived since she was still at work. Seriously good to be home.

After the funeral

The funeral was Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday went by in a blur of cleaning, eating, sorting, and a million tiny errands and repairs.

I took on the office and the task of sorting through all the papers and files and photos. There was a ton of old family photos stretching back four generations, from a 1890's photo of Betty's grandfather all the way through this year. Too many too keep. I sorted out the most interesting and highest quality old black and white photos and also pulled photos of Tay and I for dad since he doesn't have any albums from our childhood.

I was ruthless. I tossed marriage certificates, no longer valid deeds, high school diplomas. If I saved every scrap of paper, we would be counting family geneological data by the crate. None of the children wanted anything. Probably the only person interested in all that stuff was uncle Bill, who is pushing 85 in Florida, and I'll probably end up taking his geneological files too.

What I really want to do is get all this stuff scanned and organized into a coherant narrative, with photos and family trees and personal narratives. I think I have Ethleen Peacocks autobiography, and I also have the audio interview of Grandma Betty and what her childhood was like. At the very least, it will all be together,  and when I die, my grandchildren can pull out these old photos as they are sorting through my stuff.

The powder room toilet had a small leak, so Tracy and I made a run to Lowes for some parts and I took apart the toilet tank and reassembled it. I dealt with the painter who was trying to figure out who was actually in charge of this circus after David and Brenda left. The Jacuzzi tub switch was broken so an electrician came by who happened to have been an old high school classmate of Tracy.

We shredded about 40 pounds of various sensitive personal documents, including old income taxes, bank statements, insurance information, etc. The last night we were there, mom found an entire new box of income tax statements that they had to haul back to Phoenix.

Larry bought the car. Grandma had arranged everything so that when she died, control of the bank accounts and the house and actually most of her assets, would transfer immediately to Brenda's control as executer of the estate. The car was not- I called it the "probatemobile" and our two lawyers seemed to enjoy calling it that.

Everyone who went to the house took stuff. Tay sent back a big box, Brenda and David sent back several. Larry bought and filled the car, and Tracy filled his car and rented a SUV to take stuff back with him. Velma wanted the kitchen table and hutch so Tracy and I ran around disassembling and reassembling heavy wooden furnature from the back of Uncle Bob's borrowed pickup. The cleaning lady took the cuckoo clock. The house was still filled with stuff.

It was funny and a little sad, all the things that were saved, assumably because someone might need or want something someday. We kept uncovering staplers, and complete sets of china that nobody wanted. It's a reminder to only keep the things that give you frequent pleasure or near-future use.

We interviewed a local estate sale planner who laid it on a bit to thick at times the 'liquidation with dignity' tagline. Having been to many estate sales I can tell you, there is nothing dignified about strangers haggling over things priced to sell. The problem was the timing as they couldn't squeeze us in for several months. The auctioneer came by too and everyone liked him ok. They both gave about the same low price for the white living room sofa. It sounds like both the estate sale and the auctioneer expect to get about $5000 for the entire contents of the house. The estate people get 30% of the sales. The auctioneer, $500 up front for advertising and then 25% of the sales or the first $1000.

Either way, the estate is not going to make much money off of it. And thats totally fine with them since either will make sure the house is empty and clean and none of us have to be there to take care of things.

The longer I stayed in Ponca, the more my allergies kept ramping up. Friday night, I was so miserable I turned down Mexican food at Enrique's, probably the chance I will have to eat there. My head was pounding, aspirin had no effect, my nose and sinuses were throbbing, my eyes and nose ran, and my stomach hurt. I took some allergy medicine and texted mom to bring me a neti pot on her way back. Got some immediate relief with the neti pot as far as the congestion went, and I felt a world better the next day.

Finally, we left a check for the painter, made one last sweep through the house, and left for the last time in two cars. I still forgot the blazer, despite all of our sweeps. It felt so surreal, to leave in the early morning without grandma there in her nightgown sipping a cup of weak coffee. I rode with mom out of Ponca in the rental car as a beautiful red sunrise rose up behind us.

Remainders

I am sitting on a plane to Stuttgart, after a five hour layover in Atlanta made more tolerable by the availablity of local craft beers. With every flight, I am called up to the check in desk and my credientials verified. Delta is having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I am an American citizen who lives in Germany, and does not have a return ticket.

Anyway.

Grandma Betty left us a week ago friday. She did not want to go. She loved this world and the people in it. But it was not to be. Ultimately, she came to terms with what lay ahead of her with her characteristic grace and spirit of adventure.

I landed in Oklahoma City sunday afternoon where I met Tay and Larry who had driven down from Ponca to pick up me and my cousin Danny, who works as a stock trader in Chicago, transforming volitility into profits. I was a bit loopy from exhaustion and 20 hours of travel, and chattered intermittantly on the two hour ride into Ponca.

It was great to see everyone again, but especially mom whom I had not seen in about eight months. It had been years since I last saw Kim and Tracy and their kids. Mom pulled me into the master bedroom with Brenda and Aunt Kim, and we all picked out jewellry for Saori.

Sunday night, there was food at the house, but I do not remember who brought it. Everyone was already there save for Jenny who would be arriving monday. Danny had a hotel room to himself, all the children and their spouses slept in the various bedrooms, and I decamped on the leather couch in the TV room. Carrie had the office, which provided her with a bit of a sanctuary from the social bustle of the greiving household.

Monday morning, mom, Larry, Tay and I made a run to Braums to pick up breakfast. We ordered 20 breakfast sandwiches, plus fifteen orders of hashbrowns from the disbelieving cashier who drily asked if we wanted our order to go.

Brenda took lead of organizing everything. She dictated a list to mom of all the things we needed to do. Sell the car, find a realtor, paint the house, lne up the housecleaner, make duplcate keys for everyone, dispose of the house contents, cancel credit cards, phones, newspapers, and cable. Figure out what to do about Tina's trust. Sit down with the lawyer and go over all the financial estate and the will. Go through the house and handpick the things to keep, locate and shred sensitive documents.

She delegated and people claimed tasks. Since I was going to claim grandma's newish phablet, I took care of canceling the cell service, and took over for David in directing the painter.

Monday was really a blur. At one point, we went to the visitation at the Funeral Home. Her mouth did not look right, and neither did grandpa Cases when he passed away. They had dressed grandma in a light teal suit, and her gold earrings which I always associated with her. The casket was pecan, the same stain as her kitchen cabinets. It just looked right.

Later, the four of us played a few rounds of daihime which I won handily. For the crown, I used the "a case is better than a six pack" hat that someone made many years ago.

I think we had fajitas for dinner, that Tracy ordered from Chili's. The entire week, I slept terribly. Waking up with thirst, with jet lag, with bizzare dreams. Everyone drank a lot, especially sunday and monday night.

Tina called to say she was going to come. She drove up from Tulsa, a little less than a two hour drive. She arrived at the house half past midnight and called Brenda. Brenda told her to get a hotel room.

Sunday morning we ate reheated and uneaten breakfast sandwiches from the night before. We dressed up and went to the Woodlands Church, where they tried to stick us in a dingy old sunday school classroom before the service. We unanimously decided that it wasn't for us and trooped back upstairs and became part of the informal greeting group, welcoming people for the service.

I wore my dark navy blazer. Should have rented a suit. And gotten a shave and a haircut. Oh well. What's the quote about half of credit is just showing up?

I sat between Tay and Tina at the service. Her neice Patti, a minister in the same church in Indy, spoke as did her usual minister. I felt a special emphasis on faith, and the importance of her Church. The minister talked about the conversations they had in the hospital, where grandma expressed her simple anxiety about not knowing how to die, and how she led him in prayer. They played a snippet of her recorded interview with Patti's daughter, from a few years ago, which was odd and a little sad to her bright voice again. Jenny got up and sang "For Good" accompanied by the piantist. Lots and lots of flowers. Saori's boquet was front and center, and almost all of them were pink, which was one of Grandma Betty's favorite colors.

We sang a few songs, there was a short announcement about lunch, and that was it. I was a pallbearer. Once again, I joined my brother in carrying the casket to the waiting hearse. We waited around with the other pallbearers while people started leaving for the cemetery. In addition to me, there was Tay, Carrie, Robbie, Jimmy, and his son. Jimmie and I chatted about black powder hunting and noodling on the way. Our limo and hearse had a police escort to the cemetary.

I had worried because the forecast was rain, but the weather was cool and overcast, and steadily improved over the week to become the most beautiful weather I've ever seen in Oklahoma.

Let me tell you, caskets are heavy things. It's not so much the weight of the remains inside as much as it is all the heavy wood. Tay a really hard time with it, since I got the two Oklahoma hunters on my side, and Tay was just assisted by Danny and Carrie. But we managed. We stood in a line behind the casket while a very short service was given at the grave including the reading of a cloying 'native american' poem about being a part of the world and not really dying.

Actually, it was a nice service after all. It really doesn't matter which hymns were sung, or poems read, or even the content of the service. It was a gathering of people who had loved her or had been touched by her, and a time to mourn together. You really can't ask for anything more than that. Leave 'dignity' to those trying to sell you something, like the funeral home and the estate sale organizers.

We drove back to the church, where the sanctuary had been transformed into a dining hall, with long tables running the length. Grandma Betty had provided for a luncheon for her entire Church, which was catered by a local outfit who gave Casey a bit of trouble because thier phones were disconnected.

But they delivered. Ham, fried chicken, fried catfish, potatoes, green beans, fresh hot rolls, and lots of iced sweet tea. It was all reallly good. I was really happy that she didn't ask Chick'n Millie's to cater it.

We went back to the house. A few guests came by. Tay and Jenny and Danny had to throw their things together and jump in the car to catch their flight out of Tulsa. The realtor came by, and discussions with him took awhile. Uncle Bob brought over grilled steaks and his family who also came for the funeral. Amy and her husband provided the steaks.

Hope: reprise

Grandma Betty loved her children and grandchildren, but it pained her the way they had turned from the Church. I hope that at least she saw thier quieter, more personal faith in the Divine. I do not know what lies beyond the end, but I hope that it is something wonderous.

The hope of another life was in the heart, long before the "sacred books" were written, and will remain there long after all the "sacred books" are known to be the work of savage and superstitious men. Hope is the consolation of the world.

The wanderers hope for home. -- Hope builds the house and plants the flowers and fills the air with song.

The sick and suffering hope for health. -- Hope gives them health and paints the roses in their cheeks.

The lonely, the forsaken, hope for love. -- Hope brings the lover to their arms. They feel the kisses on their eager lips.

The poor in tenements and huts, in spite of rags and hunger, hope for wealth. Hope fills their thin and trembling hands with gold.

The dying hopes that death is but another birth, and Love leans above the pallid face and whispers, "We shall meet again."

Let us hope, if there be a god, that he is wise and good.

Let us hope that if there be another life it will bring peace and joy to all the children of men.

And let us hope that this poor earth on which we live may be a perfect world -- a world without a crime -- without a tear.

-Robert Ingersoll Rand

The bar

I tear up as I write: It's late. I'm sitting at the bar in grandma Betty's house, twisting on the old wooden barstools, and eating a bowl of ice cream. The freezer was empty, save for the last lonely carton from Braum's. Grandma loved ice cream. It hit me that I'll never eat at this bar again. It's a great bar, running the length of the kitchen.

It's always been a connection point in the house. I'd meet my brother or cousins here crunching their way through bowls of breakfast cereal, receive grilled cheese sandwiches from Grandma in the kitchen, pass dirty plates back to Grandpa washing dishes in the sink in front. At this bar I progressed from CountryTime lemonade to 7up to beer to highball drinks.

From this chair, I still still half-expect to see Grandma shuffle in from around the kitchen corner, and watch her light up in delight at seeing one of her grandkids.

But she's gone. And soon we will be too. Tomorrow, and early, we will leave this house for the last time. With a but of luck, the house will sell quickly and somebody else will own the bar. The barstools and the old parfait glass with the puddle of melted ice cream will be sold and scattered, perhaps $100 for the set of barstools, four parfait glasses for a dollar. Time to move on.

I will remember this bar.

sunday travels

My alarm got me up at 3:20, and for a few moments, I sleepily thought, it's too early for whatever it is, I'm so tired, I'll just sleep in. But then reality kicked in and I jumped out of bed to throw on some clothes and get out the door. I kissed sleeping Saori goodbye and called the taxi company. It was there by the time I got down the stairs, and we sped off through the night/morning. I was at my gate an hour before boarding.

Flew first to Amsterdam, cleared EU customs, and then had to jump in line immediately for the US flight, even though it wasn't scheduled to depart for another two hours. Because my destination is in the US, we have to go through a few special extra checks. They have to take you aside, one at a time to small portable lecterns, and go through the security theater catechism:

Does your bag belong to you?
Did you pack it through and through?
Did strangers give you something new?
Do you have something wet?
Or something sharp did you forget?

yes of course the bag is mine,
why else would I have it in this line?
The only thing a stranger gave to me
was coffee that cost too much money.
Why waste my time with silly spam?
I do not like it, Uncle Sam.

Anyway, my interrogator was quite concerned and had to go back and forth to the main counter a few times. Apparently I raised a few red flags, probably because I didn't check any bags and because I bought the ticket within 24 hours of the flight. Also, because she was confused about my overall trip, coming to the US and leaving it again. Anyway, that took a short while to get sorted.

Sat at the back in the middle of a giant 747 with the 3-4-3 seating configuration. Got a little sleep on the 8 hour flight, but most of that was the hour we sat on the tarmac waiting for the rain to clear. It's a long flight. But at least its Delta, which has a really good selection of movies and they finally figured out that people need to drink lots of water the super dehydrated airframe environment. I watched the latest Godzilla movie and Groundhog Day which I had never seen before. The former was surprisingly unenjoyable. Everyone in this movie was completely stupid. I realize that monster crises make you do stupid things, but this is a deep, entrenched stupidity. From Dr. Samurai who thought the best plan of action was to feed a 30 meter tall monster radioactivity, to the military forces who kept shooting the damn thing with bullets despite bullets having at no time any noticeable effect, to the protagonist, and aptly named, Ford, a character whose main characteristic is coincidentally being in precisely the right place at the right time and trained in plot-advancing skills. Also, the military idea of bringing the nukes to the water to lure the monsters in was a good one, but the rail line with all the nukes on board, unshielded, across the very place where the monsters are known to be rampaging was not such a good execution. Groundhog Day was really good though.

Anyway, cleared customs in Detroit, hung around their bright, airy, and entirely anonymous airport before catching this tiny flight to Oklahoma City.

Saturday

Nobody slept well saturday night. When I checked messages in the morning, I read that Grandma had passed away while I slept. When we FaceTimed, she talked about "fading away," and that is how I imagine she left us, fading from this Earth with family close by.

Dad was up early with his jet lag. He met me shortly later at our apartment and we walked over the Bosch Bakery to stock up on pastries. There was a typical long line, and I talked about Grandma's passing and how conflicted I was about going to the US. I wanted to go, I felt I should go, but a ticket to the US is so so expensive, and frankly, I am living paycheck to paycheck without savings. Dad encouraged me to go.

He loved the bakery. We bought sesame covered laugen croissants, chocolate crossants, poppy seed sweet danishes, and a big farmers loaf of bread.

Next door at the fruit shop, he picked us up a box of incredibly ripe and delicious strawberries. From there, we walked the short distance over to the saturday market on Bismarkplatz, and bought more cheese, fruits, and vegitables.

Back at the apartment, Saori sliced up some fruit for us, and I fried some eggs and sliced up the pastries. We washed it down a few pots of black coffee. Over breakfast we talked about our options for a rainy and gray day.

We took the U bahn back to the city center and went to the Landesmuseum, which is a collection of mostly archeological and significant historical artifacts from the local area. The museum is also located inside of the Altes Schloss, the old castle (although actually it was rebuilt twice in the 20th century). As it turns out, the area in close proximity to Stuttgart has a rather representative slice of the history of human pre-civilization and civilization.

There are locally found fragments of Neanderthals, some of the oldest carved artworks, period, dating back 35-40,000 years ago. The area witnessed the rise of the Celts, the Allamani, Roman occupation, the christianization of the Germanic tribes, the struggles of the Protestant reformation, and the rise of mechanical and industrial industries in more recent times.

Actually a very well done museum although intense, and we needed a beer afterwards. We had a pint and a light meal at the Alte Kanzlei nearby. The service was unusually bad. The standards of American service are such that I constantly remind myself to lower my expectations in Europe or elsewhere abroad, but one of the waiters here suggested to Saori that if she couldn't wait for her drinks, she should just go home. This is after we got our food which is a long enough wait.

Anyway, at that point, I had made up my mind to come to the funeral, so we let Dad on his own in the city center and Saori and I went back home to look at tickets.

They are still so expensive. The only way I could bring down the price was to fly out the following morning at 6 AM and stay a full week.

Even before grandma passed away, Saori was asking me if she should plan on going to see grandma. Or if she should come to the funeral as well.

Grandma's passing really hit Saori hard. She, like many, loved grandma, and it eats at her that she had not been back to see her since the Christmas right before she left for Germany. It eats at her that she has been absent from so many family gatherings, and especially as a Japanese person, it eats at her that she was never able to return the hospitality to grandma like Saori wished she could have done. As it was, and as ticket prices are, we decided that I should go and represent both of us, and she would cover half of the ticket.

We rested and planned and then arranged to meet dad for dinner at Turkish restaurant nearby. A bit of humor punctuating the heaviness of the day transpired while I was making reservations. I asked if the person who answered the phone spoke english. He replied, " one moment", and there was a bit of chatter and conversation in Turkish at the other end before a younger man hesitantly picked up the phone

Hello?
Hello! I would like to make a reservation.
um, no thank you. We are not interested.
You are not interested?! I want. to make. a reservation. at your restaurant.
ohhhhh ok

but we finally got it all straightened out. We met dad there for dinner and actually the food was all really good. The best meal we had with dad while he was there.

We said goodbye at the bus stop where dad could grab the bus back to his hotel (we taught him to say 'Kurz' for short trip). I am sad that I couldn't stay another day with him in Stuttgart, but the connections monday all had me coming in very late monday night, very close to the tuesday morning funeral.

It has been such a flood of emotions for me- happiness and warmth of seeing dad again, and the pleasure of showing him around, but combined with the weight of grief for my Grandma, and my frustration at being so far from family I wanted to comfort.

I packed until about midnight, took a shower, and crashed in bed, wishing that this wasn't at the same time as dad's visit, wishing I was coming to the US under different circumstances and wishing that my flight wasn't leaving in six hours.

wednesday, thursday, friday

It's been a long week. Earlier this week, I met up with Rafa and we went to a pool hall in Stadtmitte to catch up. We talked a lot about his office and the work he does, and some more personal issues he's going through right now. The bar is really cool, my new favorite. Across the street from the sleek mall [with the crappy, cheap stores], there is a driveway through the facing buildings that takes you to a small asphalt courtyard. There's an open door with a sign that reads "no one under 25 allowed," and a flight of stairs that takes you down.

The bar is dimly lit, sparsely populated, with a bright patch illuminating a few pool tables, and a dark, dark bar where every shelf is lined with various bottles of whiskey. There is also two large deli-case refrigerators filled with cold imported Belgian and French beers, mostly of the Trappist variety. The bartender pops them open and serves them up in the particular glass for that variety of beer. The various rooms are filled with old dark leather sofas and lounge chairs. It's somewhere between a dive and a country club.

There were rail strikes that day, which means that it must have been wednesday, since Rafa had a hell of a time driving into the city center. Whenever there are rail strikes, the S bahn also shuts down to nearly nothing because of the affiliated unions, and then all the commuters have to drive. Accidents and huge traffic jams clog the roads.

Thursday afternoon, I saw aunt Brenda's post about grandma's turn for the worse, it was upsetting so I left the office shortly after at 4pm. It was also in part because I wanted to try to catch grandma on FaceTime.

Aunt Brenda was there, and she connected me with her cell. I knew it was going to be our last conversation in this world.
Grandma was clearly not doing well. She was really in a bad way actually. She was mostly lucid but kept fading in and out. Brenda cheerfully conversed with me and I talked about wedding plans, life in Germany, how things were going at the office. Grandma was happy to see and hear me. Brenda and I did most of the talking, when we talked about the wedding, Grandma said that Saori was really a swell girl. Grandma started to slip more and more into sleep, we wrapped it up and I told her that I loved her, and that Saori loved her very much and we said goodbye.

That was so hard for me. And it must have been even harder for Aunt Brenda. But she was so strong.

We had chicken skewers that needed cooking that night, so I hooked up the electric grill on the patio and we had a quiet and subdued grill with tortillas.

All this in the background, and the next day I met up with Dad.

Dad happened to be in the neighborhood, so to speak, so he came down after his business trip to Norway. Actually, his flights all connected through Frankfurt, which is a little over an hour train ride from Stuttgart.

I left work early on Friday to and we met up at the large beer garten outside of the main station. He was easy to spot since he was the only person out there working on a laptop. It was a really beautiful day, and I suggested we meet up there because the weather for the weekend was forecast to be cold and rainy.

I helped dad with his luggage back to his hotel from there, we walked through Stadtmitte to the Calwer-Eck brewery where Saori saved us an outside table. I'd tried to make reservations but they wouldn't me, although I didn't understand why at the time. We were tucking into our appetizers when a group of 300 conventioners shuffled by and filed into the restraurant. Alles klar.

After dinner, we walked a bit back through the city center, and took an U bahn up the hill to get some gelato, check out the city at night.

Hope

Mom texted me yesterday to let me know grandma Case was in the hospital, with what was shortly after diagnosed as a massive heart attack. It came as a bit of surprise actually, since I've been told that non-smoking Cases are basically indestructible. When Tay and I went too visit her in January, she was surprisingly clear and sharp, especially in contrast with her friend Mrs. Head, six years her senior. Fragile, though. But still the quiet and not no quiet indomitable will she always has. And so happy to see us. I am so glad we decided to make that trip.

The Ponca hospital transferred her to Oklahoma City where she is now. Mom and Larry took off this morning and they will join Tracey and Brenda who are already there. I have heard she is weak but conscious. I hope with all my heart that she will recover quickly, aided by the love of her many family members and friends around her.

O captain my captain

I'm so excited that the new election season has kicked off. It's going to be a conservative throwdown over who is the family-valueist and trying to outdo each other's claims to dismantle the federal government. This is particularly funny to me because considering the position they are competitng over, it's like they are all campaigning to be captain of a ship by promising to scrap it

Grilli

Yesterday, we were sitting around on the wood terrasse after our typical PennyMarkt run for lunch, and Cesar, one of the Mexican interns said "So are we doing it? Barbecue tomorrow after work?"

He had been pitching this idea for a few days, including on WhatsApp, which he claims he actually proposed originally as a test of German spontaneity. Actually, everyone in the office decided to come, including Katrin, Thomas, and the secretary Petra.

So today during lunch, I threw down for some beers, some bratwurst, some charcoal, and some marinated paprika pork steaks. In Germany, chicken is the Other white meat, and beef, well, it's so American. I also came prepared with wooden plates, chopsticks for the grill, hand sanitizer, and a big vinyl blanket.

So we quit work a little after six and Cesar and I lugged the office hibichi grill up the hill to Uhlandshöhe, the hilltop, with pleasant views of the city and benches. It was nice. Saori came out, I built up the fire which turned out really nice, and people were amused by my chopsticks (but admired how deftly I could maneuver things on the grill). We ate and drank beer and chatted until ten, and called it a night, cleaning everything up and hauling it all back down the hill to the office before catching a bus back home.

In other news I started running again, 45 minutes. Lots of hills in Stuttgart. Lots of hills. I actually bought new running shorts and a cheap long sleeve running shirt from H&M. It's orange and black and I feel like a mobile road construction sign. Good to be running again though I have to get up at 6:45 every morning I want to run before work.

Also in the news: fucking allergies. But at least it's spring. With spring, finally spring, I can deal with allergies.

Five things that seem strange about Germans to an American

1) Germans use travel agents. In the age of the internet and a slew of travel deal websites, most Germans still pop over to the corner travel agency, where you can still find models of airplanes, small international souvenirs, and big posters of massive beach resorts.

2) In the rare cases where it is used, many Germans make ice in the freezer by filling an specially designed thin plastic sack with lots of little pockets. There is a clever and simple water-lock which keeps the sack of water closed when the bag is full and sitting on its side. You tear apart the sack to get to the ice.

3) Considering their history and their inclusive and accommodating federal policies, many Germans are surprisingly racist, and the way it comes across in their comments and conversation suggests they don't really see it as a racist or problematic position.

4) Many Germans think that Americans live on nothing but hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, and a few other vaguely conceived "American" dishes. The prevalence of international food in the US is a real surprise to them.

5) Germans prefer wardrobes and free-standing cabinets rather than built-in storage or closets. Part of this stems from the design of apartments and houses where no closet space is provided, perhaps because space is at such a premium.

Duck Dynasty

One of the heads of the Duck Dynasty family recently went off on a frothy tangent about atheists. He described in detail a hypothetical situation where a family of atheists were robbed, raped, and murdered and how the violent perpetrators could say "what is the problem here if there is no divine judgment? Isn't it great that there is no real right and wrong?"

All I can say is that it is a good thing this guy believes in God, since obviously it is only his fear of hellfire which prevents him from murdering, raping, and stealing. Is he only a dog, only chained by fear of the master's lash?

I have been reading a long book about the Protestant Reformation lead by Martin Luther in a long book about Germany at the end of the middle ages. It's very interesting to get to know the characters and motivations of the major players, and the fundamental theological questions which were being asked.

When I was much younger, even as a ten year old, I remember my opposition to three major concepts we were taught in Church: 1, that I, sinner and 2, that mankind itself was irredeemable, corrupted even before consciousness, and 3, the metaphysical nature of the soul (I demanded to be shown the location of the soul on my book about the human body).

I contested the notion that I was a sinner: I sincerely felt at that age that I had lived a blameless life and actually prided myself on my righteousness by the standards of what I thought people were supposed to behave. I must admit that this position was pretty weak and if hauled before an ecclesiastical tribune, I would recant, because I have NOT led a blameless life, even by my own standard. There have been ethical failings in moments of indulgent weakness. I am not a perfect person.

But I am not Martin Luther, and these are not the 95 theses.

In a nutshell, and as I understand it, the main theological points are these:

Pre-reformation Catholic: submit to the rituals of the Church, unquestioning faith in the Church hierarchy and its spiritual authority as intermediary between you and God. You can be saved by your actions and through propitiating the Church.

Luther's Protestants: you may be dammed, you might be saved, But probably the former. You were born as one or the other and there is nothing that any mortal can do can change your final destination. This world is "the front porch of Hell." God has a direct relation to the individual and if you are really good, you may get a hint as to what your fate is. Your good deeds will not save you but maybe some things will go well for you since God is also benevolent.

Duck Dynasty there's a big angry guy in the sky with a stick and he is gonna punish you.

Palast

Today it finally started Springing again after a few more weeks of winter, so the 20somethings in my office (plus me), went to have a drink.

If you are between the ages of 16, when you can legally drink beer in Geramny, and 36 and you live in Stuttgart, odds are you have had a drink at this particular bar. If you are in your early to mid-twenties, you are probably at this bar weekly. It is one of the true loci of drinking culture in Stuttgart. People come there to meet up, and most people never actually set foot inside the bar because the bar itself is in a tiny pavillion. Most people buy beer elsewhere and sit down on the pavement in the small square where the bar is, brushing aisde broken glass and cigarette butts. The bar is a tiny pavillion because it used to be a public toilet. It is still, largely, a public toilet, and for me, the underground toilets at the bar are so squalid they come across as exotic in the surgical suite that is Germany. The name of the bar is Palast der Republik, but everyone calls it Palast (Palace).

On the walk to the bar, one of the Mexican interns chirped happily about how were out early (it was shortly after six) and how good it was going to be in the city. I felt kind of bad breaking it to her that most Germans get off work before five on Fridays.

Palast was packed. Standing room only as the little square was filled. The line for the bar (or the toilet?) stretched across the plaza so we did what everyone does: we walked the five minutes to the small overpriced grocery store by the train station and bought beer there to bring back and camp out.

Saori, unfortunately, couldn't join us because she was recovering from her root canal. Both of us have been going through the dental wringer. Earlier this week, I had three cavities filled, which cost me slightly under $200 US because I opted for the plastic instead of the metal fillings. Saori had a nasty cheek infection a month or so ago, and this was a root canal to treat the problem tooth that was the source of the infection.

The upshot is our teeth are a lot healthier and I my rogue brown tooth which makes me look like a chronic smoker is cleaned up.

This and that

Easter weekend means four days off for us: good Friday through Easter Monday. Not sure why Monday is celebrated, but I'll take it anyway.

Things I'm reading right now: A Very Short Introduction: Art Theory, uncle David's book The Death of Drawing: Architecture in the age of simulation, and A History of Modern Germany: The Reformation, all of which touch on the life and works of Thomas Aquinas, incidentally.

Things I've cooked lately: an easy chorizo penne pasta, Mexican sopa de lima, and German white asparagus soup.

Spring in Germany means white asparagus: it's on menus, in bundles at the grocery store, even sold in temporary stands like white, edible fireworks.

Today we took a short walk to rotwildpark, not far from Botnang, which is a fenced in enclosure for a small troop of boars. Two weeks ago, I was out there with Rafa and we were surprised to see a litter of tiny piglets nursing, with the characteristic watermelon striping. This time there were tons of piglets, perhaps 20 in all, bigger, the size of small dogs, still with the striping, but running around, fighting, climbing over the giant hogs and sows, and napping in big piles of other piglets.

Afterwards, we stopped into an awkward bio-center that seems to sell everything bio and had coffee and cake, which turned out to be really good. Watched The Zero Theorem__ tonight at home, which I clearly had too high hopes for.

a more succulent career

With the start of a new month, it is time to change things up. We are both tired of coming home late, working weekends, and doing architecture. Saori and I have been getting more and more into desert plants, and we were thinking, you know, we should really do something with this. Today, we handed in our two week notice to our jobs. We are going to go into business cultivating and selling cactus and succulents. It's really a natural transition for us, no pun intended. I grew up in the desert, and I am excited to tap into my expertise and enthusiasm about water conservation and sustainable landscape design. We have already drawn up plans to enclose the terrace and turn the apartment living room into a greenhouse, and we have submitted plans to our landlord to grow more plants on the roof which will substantially increase our productive area. The amazing thing about most succulents is that they self-clone. You take off a leaf, and the leaf grows a new plant! In two months, we expect to open Perkins' Pointy Plants to the public with a wide array of succulents, agave, sedum, and cacti for sale.

Please check out our website www.pointyplants.com

1 year

One year in Stuttgart down! What a year.

I have traveled a fair amount, or I should say, we have traveled a fair amount, especially since one of the main reasons I came to Germany was to be reunited with my traveling partner.

We went to a wedding in Paris, a day trip to Munich to meet an old professor, a few days back in Munich with Mom and Larry, and a long weekend in London. On business trips, I saw Innsbruck in Austria and Geneva in Switzerland. With Apo and the Mexicans we took a road trip to Venice for the architecture biennale, which was one of the events I've always wanted to attend. Saori and I day tripped through a handful of increasingly adorable southern German towns, and also a spin through Alsace, back and forth across the border to Strausburg in France. After the winter holdiays, I came back to the US for a quick road trip to check in on family in the Midwest (with apologies to mom and others in AZ), Indianapolis, Oklahoma, and Texas.

All in all, its a hell of a lot of travel. Which is good, because I do love to travel.

My German has improved dramatically since I arrived a year ago. When I arrived, I could say "the chicken." I can now say things like "He told me that he thinks the baked chicken is too salty." I have spent approximately $500 on German classes and books, which has taken me now through A2.1. (Standard courses run from A1.1, A1.2, A2.1, A2.2, B1.1 etc with mid B level considered a proficiency for university enrollment.)

Saori and I ran a 5K earlier last year, and Saori goes through cycles of three times a week yoga when she isn't taking German classes. I went on a total of three runs, including the 5k, which is not so good. However, I have been hiking on average once a month through the trails and hills around the city. Plus, we don't have a car so we are walking everywhere.

I proposed to Saori, which is a big deal and I still haven't written about it here yet or publically posted anything about it because that's a longread on its own.

My feelings on German beer changed a lot. I came over incredibly excited to drink the famous German beer, and was frustrated to quickly discover that the only beer I could find was weisen, pils, and lager. Sometimes, you want a beer with a little character. I gave up on German beer and picked up liter bottles of better beer whenever our travels crossed the border, or hit special stores where I could pick up expensive imports now and then. It's really only within the last few months that I have been picking up the quiet trail of good German beers. Ferreting out interesting beers from small towns, secret little microbreweries in the city, and rumors of bars which serve craft beers. It's not that German craft beers don't exist (actually that scene is exploding right now in Berlin), they are just really really hard to find.

However.

There is a lot to drink about here. I write about trips to London and Paris, bitch about access to good beer and Mexican food, and generally come across as a entitled, self-absorbed hipster, but it hasn't all been butterbrezeln und gummibären.

I have been filled with anxieties really since graduation, and they have waxed and waned. In Mexico, I worried about what the hell I was doing with my life, but I wanted to be with Saori so I joined her in Germany. It had been over a year since we last saw each other and we both wondered what was in the other's minds, and how we would fit into each other's lives post-university.

Finding an apartment was a huge cause of anxiety and stress. We worried if we were doing everything we could to find a place, we worried about the costs, and the bureaucratic paperwork. Additionally, it's stressful to spend every day interacting in a foreign language. Thankfully, most Germans do speak some English, but it's always something you have to ask for specially, a handicap. You will always be a tourist in a city unless you can speak its language.

We have been worrying overall about the effect of Stuttgart on our future. Here, we are both earning less money than we would be earning in the US in a major city like Boston. Our cost of living is probably the same for the lifestyle: we pay less for housing and insurance than we probably would be in Boston, but we pay more for everything else. Our employers are not matching contributions or offering a 401(k) and neither of us are currently putting money into retirement accounts. We should be saving money NOW since its going to have a major impact on the future finances, but we are also paying a lot on our student debts.

The accessibility of fantastic European cities is also a huge temptation. Probably, my grandmothers would accuse of living too 'high on the hog' but from my perspective if you are living three hours from Paris, at least one trip a year is too big a temptation to resist. Apart from our travel, we live very cheaply. We go out to eat less than once a month, we never order take out, and most of my lunches I either make at home or buy $2 package salads at the discount grocery store down the street from my office. We don't have a cable TV package (nor cable nor TV) and apart from housing and insurance my biggest monthly expenses are the $70 monthly transit pass and the fees for my German classes. And airfare to Japan and the US is not cheap either.

I worry about my career trajectory. I am 30 years old with a lot of wide experience but not so much specialist experience. Without a firm fluency in German it is difficult to run real projects here. I can't even sit down and converse with an engineer about a competition project. It is an understandable position for the office to take- what the hell do you do with a non-german speaker? I am basically a professional intern, a competition manager when required, and a graphics expert. After one year at the office, I see myself taking on some of the duties one of the two associates has. In another year or two, I would probably be working side by side, depending on how my German progresses.

How long do I want to stay here? That's the big question. Money is a big problem. Less immediate term and more long-term. We need to be making more money. This means to me that either I need to get some raises or find a job that pays me more.

Pot weekend

Thursday afternoon, I made a beer run during my lunch hour. This may seen not so special to those of you who have the good luck to live someplace where you have easy and ready access to a wide variety of good beers, but it was a big deal to me.

I heard through a friend about a small brewery in Stuttgart called Cast. The name comes from the founders, who were supposed to be a Californian and a Stuttgarter (CA-ST). The logo, actually, includes two shields, one with the Californian bear, the other with the Stuttgarter stallion. Anyway, they do small batches, bottle them all in the same brown bottles and slap on a wet-stick label when you go pick them up. There is no tasting room, no bar, not even a shop or a window. You can find the small brewery easily enough off of Schlosserstrasse, and you ring the bell.

The guy who answers the door, likely wearing an apron and galoshes, will then tell you what they have on stock as you look past him into the working brewery. This trip, I just picked up two six packs ('sixers'), one of them for the co-worker who had recommended the place. It was more expensive beer than the typical beer from the big brewers in town, who charge less than a euro a beer (not including the bottle deposit), but it was a lot cheaper than the imported or craft beers I have been finding at the British shop or the small 'sophisticated' beer section at the das Gerber grocery store. So I am excited. Apparently this place regularly brews IPAs and other ales, which are really my preferred brew.

Anyway, the beer I bought was a Roggenweißebier, a rye-wheat beer, unfiltered. Really good, although more like a weiße (wheat) beer with a hint of rye. I'm going to come back after Easter, when they will have some ales for sale.

Friday, Saori and I were going to hit a design fair in the Liederhalle but decided to take a pass since neither one of us really felt like paying $15 for the privilege to buy overpriced felted purses and 3d printed jewelry. Instead, we popped open one of the beers I had been carrying and drank as we walked over to Lumen, a hipstery place in Stuttgart west for some more beer and sweet potato fries.

We wrapped up the evening watching Big Hero 6 which is really quite a phenomenal movie from the technical graphics point of view. The movie story overall was not so good, but the graphics, wow.

This morning I made us hash browns, fried eggs, and ham, which was delicious. When I say, I made hash browns, I mean, I made them from scratch, which turns out to be easier than one might think. You grate 1 potato per person, squeeze out as much water as possible in a cheesecloth or thin and clean kitchen washtowel, and nuke it for two minutes before frying it all up. Turns out really nice. Crispy outside, chewy inside.

After cleaning up a bit, we walked across town towards Olgastrasse. First, we popped into a tiny cafe which we first mistook for an antiques shop of which it is also a part. The bearded eccentric owner had decorated the cafe with victorian-era decor including a wall of tiny deer skull trophies surrounding a silver-gelatin print of his grandmother. And there was a plastic bat hanging from one of the skull antlers. Over to a plant shop where we bought some new pots for our latest plants. It's an expensive shop, but they sell used and old pots in the loading zone behind the store, so we picked up a few cheap ones there.

After that plant shop, Rafa got back to us and asked us if we were still going to Uhlig Kakteen today. He has a car, and so we said 'YES'. We had another cup of coffee at a nearby cafe popular with the Argentines, and then Rafa drove us all over. We bought a few more plants, and a few more pots. It was fun to show Rafa the place too. It's really quite surreal. Massive white tarp covered greenhouses, eeriely quiet except for mysterious droning mechanical noises outside somewhere, endless rows of tables covered with bizarre plants. They sold us clay pots for fifty cents, too.

On the drive home, we passed a large group of people marching, protected or watched by a huge group riot police. They were marching, I believe, against homosexuality.

Anyway, we invited Rafa up for a quick bite after he dropped us off back at our apartment before he headed back out to go serve and cook at Mezcal hoch Zwei. I headed out again too, to do some last minute grocery shopping before coming back home for the night.

Updates

After about three months of a nearly unusable tablet, Google finally released a cumulative lollipop OS update this week. It's like I downloaded a brand new tablet. No more lag, no more random crashes. I have actually started to download some apps again. Like Facebook.

Also updated: my teeth. I'm paying a lot for my insurance (well, probably less than in the US) but it also covers dental. Considering dental health is a real and vital part of overall health, its another cruel and greedy trick to make people buy additional insurance in the US. Anyway, today I went to the dentist for a checkup. Two small cavities up front, two larger in the back. No co-pays, no visit fees, and if I decide to get metal fillings in the back, then its all covered by insurance. If I go plastic reisin, its €70 a pop, which is probably the same fee schedule in the US for the cotton pads they stick in your cheeks.

Spring is here! Finally! In some ways, it's terrible because you feel so happy and relieved and it makes you realize how much the shitty winter weather gets to you. But you're nearly Disney Musical level of happy so you don't think about it too much. Everyone at my office sits outside soaking up sun on the terrace during our lunches together (and often we all walk to PennyMarkt to buy our lunches) and now people are starting to meet up after work for a drink or an ice cream.

Uhlig knows his Kakteen

Saturday morning was cold and gray, so I put on some Glenn Miller and made banana pancakes. After breakfast, we say down and wrote a note to our hausmeister asking to what the antenna cable jack in the wall connects. Many German apartment buildings will come with a hausmeister, the person who acts as a landlords representative and takes responsibility for cleaning the stairs and the common spaces. He lets in workers, and accepts packages on our behalf when we are gone, so all in all, a very useful person.

Anyway, after the letter, we Skyped Saori's parents in Japan where Tim and a pregnant Ayumi are visiting with their little Joshua. Joshua is almost two now, and he gets more interactive with Skype every time I see him. It was a bit of a chaotic scene with five adults, one toddler, and the chihuahua, but fun. Saori's mom was particularly exited to have everyone there and chatting.

After Skyping, Saori and I hiked down to the S bahn station and caught a train way out beyond Vaihingen, all the way out to Uhligs Kakteen.

While we were in London, we picked up a book about succulents and cacti. There is surprisingly limited books on this topic- you have a ton of "cute display and flower arranging" type books with cacti and succulents, and, available online, massive multivolume compendia of taxonmetric characteristics of various species. Really there are very few books between the two, which would combine practical advice about propagation and care, along with the different types of plants and the kind of soil, water, and sun they need. We did find one quirky book, which was published in 2004 but all of the photos inside from the author are at least 30 years old. However, at the back of the book was a list of places one can also go to buy cacti and cacti supplies. There are ten listings for Germany alone, one of which was Uhlig Kakteen, which turned out to be very close to Stuttgart.

As Vonnegut said, strange instructions or coincidences are dancing lessons from God, so we headed out. It's a 20 minute train ride from our station, and another ten minutes walk. Rommelshausen is a boring suburb, small, and mostly surrounded by agricultural fields. We found the place easily, marked as it was by a large display of prickly pear outside.

We were Charlie in the Cactus Factory, huge greenhouses of varying temperature all filled with cacti and succulents divided into three sections: stock plants, a nursery, and for sale directly. We spent over an hour wandering though the massive place. In the end, we ended up buying some special cactus soil, some perlite and vermiculite, a few cheap pots, a half dozen baby cacti and succulents, and I splurged on a beautiful agave from Mazatlan, Mexico. Lugged it all back in a few IKEA bags we brought for the purpose except for the agave which was too pointy.

I carried the heavy stuff back to the apartment and Saori bought us lunch from the kebab place down the street and we wolfed it all down before I ran out the door to meet up with some coworkers for a drink. It was Benni's birthday the week before and he invited a bunch of us to his place. Great location, nice apartment. I was jealous of how easily it all fell into place for him, considering the stress and months of searching it took for us. (Although I can't complain about the end result- we have an amazing place for an amazing price in a good location).

I drank with my coworkers for about two hours before excusing myself early to head out to the Long Night at the Museum. Not the terrible Ben Stiller film, but a night once a year where many of the museums and institutions stay open until midnight or 2am, the bus system is reconfigured to serve particular cultural "tours" or loops, and many of the places run special programs. The prices of the tickets were a little expensive at 17 euros, but they did include transportation on the entire network from noon until 4am and all the museum entrance fees. It's a very popular event. Nearly all the museums in Stuttgart participate, and the city becomes packed.

Saori and I joined a long line at the Alte Schloss for a "through and up" tour. We were in line between an hour and 90 minutes in the castle courtyard. There was at least beer and bratwurst sold. The tour ended up being well worth the wait- the Alte Schloss mostly contains a historical museum of the region with artifacts from prehistory through contemporary times. This tour took us in the back way through the ancient and original cellers, and threaded us between ruins, working spaces, outdoor plazas, backrooms, and polished exhibitions halls by way of a series of tunnels and doors marked 'do not enter', 'emergency exit', and 'authorized personnel'. It was great. It was like jumping through portals since one minute you're in a vast ruined hall with the floor torn up to expose the old city wall foundation excavations, and you pass through a door and you're suddenly on the public street.

After this tour, we headed over to the other big item on our list- the old bunker hotel. I had heard rumors when I moved of a massive bunker under the train station , but I couldn't find anyone or anything to corroborate it. I did hear from a local tour guide about the bunker under the market platz. Only open on special occasions. Like tonight.

There was a line, but it moved a lot faster. We only waited half an hour to get in. Before WWII, or during, a large bunker was constructed under the plaza in front of the city hall. After the war, the bunker was converted into what must have been a quirky and cheap hotel. How you can get away with a hotel with no windows in a place like Germany is beyond me, but one cannot beat the location. One enters and exits by way of two openings in the pavement which are normally hidden. There is a large lobby with a bar and a reception desk, and then three long corridors with rooms off both sides. The rooms are exceptionally small- the size of a walk-in closet in many American homes. No bathroom, no window. Just a bed and a desk (in the rooms which were furnished for example). The place was filled with layers of ripped original wallpaper, mold, and decay. Alone, it would have been eerie and terrifying. Filled with excited people, it was surreal and still a little eerie. We didn't stay under too long.

Afterwards, we popped in an out of the music museum, and the big contemporary art gallery, and I realized that I was utterly exhausted. We left shortly after, about half past midnight.

al Pastor

At the edge of the Stuttgart city center, still in the pedestrianized zone, a  small mall was opened which is filled with such insignificant, trashy stores that it is anchored by Urban Outfitters. Das Gerber, as it is called, does actually have some partially redeeming features apart from the Urban Outfitters and the fact it offers new housing above the mall. In the basement, there are not one but two grocery stores.

Everyone knows I love density and downtowns, but the problem is that to live downtown, you really need to offer grocery stores downtown. So I was pleased to see there were two offered in the lower level of the mall. Aldi, the discount store, and Edeka. This Edeka is actually quite impressive. They have a really decent selection for German grocery stores, especially 'inner city' branches, and they sell different kinds of beer. In a country where the beer offerings are typically limited to what is brewed in a 30 mile radius, they sell IPAs, pale ales, American craft brews, and some Belgians. All wildly overpriced: an American made IPA, for example, can run about $4 a bottle.

I drink, on average, between three to five beers a week. Mostly during the weekend, and mostly German beer, with perhaps one exotic thrown in. If I'm drinking something brewed outside of lager and pils and hefe territory, I am going to relish it.

For example, right now, I am drinking a Warsteiner Herb, which is basically a Heineken. It is entirely unremarkable, but I was lured in by the misleading pictures of hops on the bottle.

Anyway, I am getting sidetracked here. I really wanted to talk about Mexican food. Back to the basement of Das Gerber....

...where we find a new fresh-Mex style of counter fast food called Bugan. The shop is so new, the website on the brochure isn't online yet. Normally, I skip places billing themselves as Mexican. Even in the US, I approach Mexican restaurants with extreme skepticism north of Arizona and east of Texas. This one, however, was trumpeting its al pastor.

Constant reader, you will know my feelings on al pastor since I have written about it a lot in Mexico City. A cultural adaptation from Lebanese-Mexicans, marinated pork cooked with pineapple on a vertical spit, it is the taco of Mexico City. Bugan, does in fact, correctly point out in its glossy brochure that al pastor originates there. But they get everything else wrong. For one, they are roasting chicken on a spit, not pork, and narry a pineapple in sight. Additionally, they serve it as a burrito, which is totally alien to Mexico City. It wasn't bad, to be honest, just more like a Mexican themed doner kebab. What was bad was their spelling of quesadilla as 'casadia'. That was painful.  It was like poking a wound of the distance to Mexico.

The whole experience resolved me to make more Mexican food, so I straightaway went to the Edeka and bought ingrediants to make sopa de lima, a limey chicken soup from the yucatan.

mein kleiner, greuner, kaktus

So begins a rather silly song which was popularized by the German group 'The Comedian Harmonists' who were apparently one of the most popular musical groups in Europe before the outbreak of WWII.

The song, which begins: My small, green cactus sits on my balcony, was very popular, and even at the early time suggests to me the popularity of cacti in Germany. One has to admit this is a little strange on the face of it.

Cacti and other succulents, which are also very popular here, are much more at home in drought-prone, warm, sunny places with rocky and sandy soils.  Most of Germany has warm summers, but freezing winters, dense treecover, and lots of overcast skies and rain.  However, here in Southern Germany, one can see them gracing many balconies and sold in many stores. So what's the appeal to Germans?

Two theories- I have noticed that Germans love exotica in general, but only in carefully controlled form. There is a fascination with 'wild' tribes, especially north American, and 'savage' craftwork of African peoples. Cactus and succulents conjure up images of the exotic, sunny lands far from the gray and tidy set of blocks which are most German cities.

There is also the history- the earliest, best, and most thorough scholarship of succulents has been by German authors. German botanists traveled through Africa and South and Central America, making careful notes and drawings documenting the strange plant forms they saw. Perhaps, by bringing attention to the results of their works (which were naturally in German), they captured the imagination of their countrymen and made cacti popular in Germany before the rest of the world took notice.

While one can find plenty of Opuntia and other cacti native to Mexico here, we have had difficulty finding succulents from the Americas here. Most of the succulents come from South America. I bought a small prickly pear cactus which reminds me of Arizona and Mexico, but I would really like to find some agaves. Most of the agave-type plants here are actually aloes, native to southern Africa.

London calling

After a particularly onerous weekend at work and several long weeks of competitions, we decided we needed to get the scheiße out of Stuttgart. By a rather fortuitous coincidence, Stuttgart is located very close to vastly more interesting and exciting cities. Like London.

We caught a 9am flight out of Stuttgart to Frankfurt, and thence on to London. It's awkward. The flight time to Frankfurt is a scant 25 minutes: it took us double that to run the labyrinth between terminals and immigration and security checkpoints to board the flight to Heathrow. The UK's awkward part-of-the-EU, not-part-of-the-EU makes it awkward for tourists coming from the continent.

Flight to London was about an hour. The cloudy skies over the continent stopped at the edge, and we had an amazing view to look out over the English channel. In one view, the long shoreline and beaches of France and the white cliffs of Dover and England, with tiny cargo ships plying the channel. From above, the sediment laden water from the Thames is easy to spot as it flows into the sea. Our route took us up the Thames, and we landed in London a little after 11AM.

Breezed through customs, and picked up an oyster card at the tube station. The harried ticket sellers explained that we pay £5 for the card, refundable on return, and load up the card to tap our way through turnstile's on tubes or busses.

Piccadilly line runs to the center of London, but it's a long haul. 50 minutes from station to station. It was so exciting to be back in London, although tinged with the sadness that we wouldn't be returning to the hospitality and countryside of The Pines in Milford.

London was bright and chilly. We had pricelined a hotel near Euston station in Camden, and dropped off the luggage before hunting down some food. We were able to grab bar seats at a trendy ramen restaurant, Ippudo. When we walked in the staff shouted greetings at us. We toasted not being at work with pints of cold Asahi and tucked into our delicious steaming bowls of ramen with fried pork.

The rest of the day saw us make a stroll along Oxford st where I stocked up on (what else?) Oxford shirts at Japanese Gap meets American Apparel store UNIQLO. For dinner we headed over to Kensington, to the Natural History Museum.

It was one of their late nights, where they are open until 10pm and serve food and beer. It was surprisingly popular. Tons of people, mostly hip late 20s to late 30s Londoners kicking off the night. I've always loved this museums architecture much more than the exhibitions, which are kooky and surreal at the best of times and simply dated and disgustingly decomposed at worst. It is, I must say, a fantastic place to have a drink. The beer was served from a makeshift bar in front of a massive glass case housing a giant bird, presumably extinct, stuffed with a quizzical expression.

They was also something about the sight of dozens of empty bottles (many of which were obviously brought from outside) sitting on a table in front of a directional sign MAMMALS. One could almost read it like an exasperated exclamation of dismay over the effect of the bottles' contents on mammalian brains.

We lingered through the venerable halls with our beers until everyone was asked to leave by the harried staff anxious to close before ten. We went back to the hotel directly, since we were also really tired from the early day and travel.

The game is afoot

Saturday morning, I caffeinated Saori and we went across town to the Broadway market in East London. East London is apparently the hip new place to those people "in the know" and it was, actually, swimming with hipsters and other young urbanites. The New York Timesactually published a "36 Hours in East London" a year or two ago, which I relied on heavily to create the day's itinerary.

No Tube stop near the market so we got to figure out the buses which turned out to be my new favorite way across London. When I'm using the Tube, the feeling I get is like a fish fighting it's way upstream to spawn through the tunnels of a massive hydroelectric dam. When I use the iconic double decker bus, it's like we getting a free city tour, floating between buildings and watching the city stitch itself together.

The market was fun. Fresh baked breads, craft jewelry and pottery, felted hot water bottle covers, way-to-cute woven socks with foxes on then, screen prints, Vietnamese food trucks, organic free trade coffee shops with poppy accent colors and weathered wood tables, and even some shops which were around before gentrification. In short: the accoutrements of the good, instagramable, life.

We bought some delicious baked thing with nuts which was something between a croissant and a muffin from an old table at the entry to a warehouse, behind which was the actual independent bakery. We also bought a small ceramic hanging planter for our apartment.

After wandering through the market we waked along Regent's canal, a waterway with a pedestrian path alongside filled with runners. It's a cool area. Old, industrial, blue collar, but filling in with artists and bohemian creatives, the harbingers of gentrification.

We went to a recommended Bangladeshi restaurant near Spitalfields market, another market, this one specializing in handmade, boutique, and vintage clothing. The area, incidentally, is a huge immigrant center, with a historic Bangladeshi community. We were the first customers of the day at Monsoon, but the food was good. Ordered garlic naan, mushroom rice, a lamb bindi, and a prawn curry of some kind. Not so obviously spicy at first bite, but builds to a deep, slow kick.

The the street is actually overflowing with Bangladesh restaurants: part of the challenge was getting the attention of our waiter who would fairly leap out of the restaurant at anyone who as much as slowed down in order to entice them in.

After lunch we stopped at a pub and I got my first cask British pint of the trip. The pub was modern, bright, airy, with a carefully constructed weathered industrial look. I started calling it the Anthropologie Pub. Outside, a young architect was intently measuring the front entry. We were curious about what he was doing so I asked him.

Between scribbling measurements, he told me. Many bars and pubs lack back entry's and loading zones. Beer comes in giant metal or wood kegs, which are quickly dropped off on the porch of the entry . Then, the walk-off mat flips up revealing a chute in the floor to the basement. The problem is that the kegs bang up the porch floor when they hit. It was true: many of the tiles were missing or broken. He was going to replace it, he said, with rubberized athletic gym flooring.

After our pint, we bussed back to central London by way of the financial district, and from there, walked over the bridge to the Southbank center. We ended up browsing through the bookstores, perusing the food market and finally split some curry. After dark, we followed the exited stream of people back to Waterloo station. Waterloo made me miss dad and Tay particularly, since this was always the way I entered the city coming from the Surrey countryside.

We went back to our neighborhood, and walked from the Baker Street apartment and museum of Sherlock Holmes, to nearby North Gower, where they shoot the TV series. In the dark and rain, we stopped in front of Speedy's cafe, and the apartment which is the stand in for 221b.

We had a few pints more at the nearby pub, the Anchor, which was mercifully free of Sherlock tie-ins. No Eggs Benedict Cumberbatch, Morijitos, or Moffat Fries. For me, just beer and some STP.

London sunday

Sunday morning was a delight. The night before, I had made a reservation for the Sunday Coffee concert at Wigmore hall. These are concerts featuring up-and-coming classical virtuosos and small groups, an hour long performance followed by complimentary coffee or sherry. A steal at 12 pounds a ticket.

Saori picked out a breakfast place, the Riding House Cafe (21 on Zagat) which happened to be along the way in Fitzrovia. We showed up at 9:40, nervous about making the 11:30 concert, and with good reason. The place was bustling with activity, and the hostess asked if we had made a reservation for brunch. She put our name down and told us to wander around the neighborhood for 20 minutes.

We did, and when we came back, we were promptly seated. I was worried about the speed of service, but it was lighting. We were seated at 10:00 and had paid the bill by 10:30. It sounds fast, but it was actually quite perfect. We both ordered the big British breakfast: toast, poached eggs, breakfast beans, black pudding, and sausage. Everything was delicious. Clearly, they had taken great pains in the sourcing of their ingredients and meats. The coffee was fantastic.

From there, we had enough time to stroll through the posh neighborhoods to Wigmore hall, a turn of the century chamber music hall. Our seats were unfortunately at the back, but I was happy to have secured seats to the sold-out performance. The artist this morning was a young woman named Beatrice Rana, who played intense selections from Bach, Chopin, and Ravel on piano, including the famous Funeral March. She was very, very good. Lots of thunder from a piano, actually. After, we enjoyed our glass of sherry, and made our way to the exit and another swing through UNIQLO to pick up another few work shirts for me. Relatively cheap, good quality, good cut.

We caught the bus from Oxford street across the Thames and hopped out at the Southbank centre where we walked over to the Tate modern. They were building a new addition, also by H+dM but it wasn't very promising to me. The installation in the main hall was also disappointing, a fabric and wood piece by an American artist, which looked like the designers of the Beatles yellow submarine had tried their hand at aircraft and gave up halfway. We poked through the bookstores (we spent a lot of time in bookstores this trip) and headed across the Millenium bridge towards St. Pauls. We were starving by the time we got across so we poked into a few pubs, and resigned ourselves to a mediocre tourist trap near the church.

We knew it was a mediocre tourist trap going in. But one of the best rules of travel is to eat when you are hungry. The experience was exactly as expected. The food was mediocre, the service sucked, and they blared contemporary radio hits. At least it wasn't ungodly expensive. It will be quickly forgotten from our collective memory.

We took another bus back to Soho, where we wandered around