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Damn, I think I’m sick.

Well, I believe I have a sore throat/cough that could definately get worse, anyways.

Aside from that, I’ve had a couple of pretty good tours this week.  Today’s city tour was nice, I only had 6 people…so that’s always a good thing, well…not for the company, but for me.  All americans, but with one girl who’s been living in Munich for a few months.

On Wednesday I had a tour to Neuschwanstein that went great, nearly perfect….then yesterday I had, well…a half-way decent group, but one guy…who…well…was possibly the most annoying man I have ever met.  He was from Seattle…I’m gonna stay well away from Seattle for a while.  He just would NOT shut up…no matter what…his wife could have helped, but I think she was just happy that he had someone else to bore the shit out of. 

At this point I’m still playing with the features of the blog software that I’m using and am a bit unsure of how it’ll look….so any feedback could be useful.

The Wies’n starts in 8 days…here’s a pic of last year:
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So umm…I think my stomach is already hating me.

A day to reflect.

Well, today I got up and went out…and actually had a cancelled tour.  I’d have to look, but I believe it’s been a few months since I’ve had a cancelled tour due to no tourists.

SO, I had the day off.  Recent tours have been going fairly well, but for some reason I’m just feeling very jaded at the moment with tours in general…I just hope it’s not showing in my tours.  Tips have been pretty decent, hmm.

I got new business cards!  I doubt they’ll give me more business, but it can’t hurt to try.  Maybe when I’m feeling really motivated and have something else I want to scan, I’ll scan one and stick the image in the “about” area, why not.

On the subject of “a day to reflect”, I get it a lot where people ask me what the weirdest or most disturbing things I’ve seen on a tour are…and that’s a hard question to answer.  Part of it is my high tolerance to things that would normally disturb people…but also, part of it is that there’s been SO many disturbing, bizarre, strange, random, and wrong things that have happened.

A couple that I quite often mention just because A:  it’s true, and B: it serves its purpose to get some people who COULD NOT walk up to the bridge at Neuschwanstein to take the bus.  These are:  the 18 year old chubby-arse girl who collapsed on me about 1/3 of the way up (it was maybe 80F and well, I doubt she had left the couch in years)….and of course the Japanese man who looked like he was in pretty decent shape, but after walking 1/2 way up to the bridge, began puking….he continued for about 1.5 hours.  At one point I was talking to the group in front of a large map of Neuschwanstein and he was puking on the sign…I wish I had a camera, that really was a kodak moment.

I’ve got many more of these and should probably write more down, let me know if you like or dislike this idea. 

FYI:  the chubby girl’s sister said it happens “all the time”, and she came to in about 5 min.  She never made it to the bridge, but was able to see the castle and safely back to Munich, even fairly cheerful.

The Japanese man didn’t make it to the bridge…and was too busy puking to go into the castle.  I try to help people, sometimes they refuse….but what can you do?

Rain, rain, and more rain.

So, it’s raining again today.  Apparently between June and August we had 441 liters of rain (normal is about 377 liters).  Since I’m walking around outside all day nearly every day…this can be a problem.

The odd thing is, this year has been better than last year, so I don’t even realize it.

Finally yesterday I had a group that didn’t suck.  What do I mean by that?  well…the last three all-day tours I had before rock-am-see were some of the most boring people I’ve ever met.  The group yesterday to Salzburg was much better…hell, they were even NICE, weird, I know. 

However, there was one supid guy, he KEPT insisting that he had a dunkel spaten, it was on the menu, and it was BARELY darker than a normal spaten.  He said it was not their festbier, it was a dunkel…and it was pretty damn bright.  All I’m saying is, FIND ME A DUNKEL: 

http://www.spaten.de/3_produkte_markenwelt/3_1_produkte/3_1_1_sortiment/index.htm

I was really trying to be nice by saying well maybe the translation was bad on the menu, or maybe the waiter/waitress didn’t hear him right when he said dunkel because then they would have said, oh, spaten doesn’t MAKE a dunkel….*Sigh*…I really tried….  Anyways, he was a nice guy, and if he didn’t bring it up that he didn’t like Spaten’s dark beer…then he would have not gotten a mention here…but…here’s your sign, guy from South Carolina (ok, to be fair he’s originally from PA)

Back from Rock Am See

It was a very unique concert.  NOFX lost power…had to do hand-stands, some weird-ass dancing, and some trumpeting to kill time.  They did entertain, however.  NIN weren’t able to have any of their lights/screen because of the power problems…and were VERY pissed off.  That was entertainment.

All things considered, we had a good weekend…it didn’t even rain on us!

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Rock Am See

Well, we’re up…it’s 7:55am and I’m just checking the weather, making sure I have my phone (I’ll try and do a shitty recording with it), and maybe throwing some NOFX and NIN on the mp3 stick for the car.  We’ve got a 2.5 hour drive down there, we’ll watch the show which should last til midnight, then we plan on sleeping in the car.

I think this year I want a long-sleeve shirt, not sure yet if it’ll be NOFX or Rock Am See or whatever….but I’ve noticed lately that nearly all my shirts are short sleeved…and one more option might be good.

The forecast for today is 60% chance of rain til noon…then 40% up til 6pm…then it should be clear…making it questionable.  The temperature at the moment is 57F…high today should be 64F….I’m sorta cold just thinking about being wet out there…

Finally a half day off

Well, the weather isn’t that great at the moment…but I’m still very happy to have a half day off.  I had a Munich Highlights walking tour this morning, which turned out to be 10 people…americans, indians, australians…and a few that live in Munich, CLAIM to be from Chicago, but definately sound like they’re from Russia or some eastern european country…if they’re “from”chicago, then my name’s Phil.

Anyways…not a bad tour, I was just damn happy it didn’t rain.

Yesterday I was supposed to have a (2-hour) city tour as well, but I traded up for a Neuschwanstein tour, which of course is more money, but it’s also over 10 hours of work.  …and the forcast was for rain all day…turns out it only rained about 30 min of the day, so it was pretty nice.

When I got home today, I uploaded the rest of the pics from our trip to Rome…and some other random ones from my phone from this month.

That reminds me, I’ll try to write my “monthly update” for friends and family today…which is sorta like this, but without the fluff. *cough*

Petra bought me a few books, so I think I’ve got a lot of reading to do…it’ll probably take me the rest of the year at my usual rate, haha.  Anyways, here’s what I’ll be reading next: (by the way, you can buy these from amazon at my associate store, here:  http://astore.amazon.com/theproftour-20 )

  1. Planes, Trains, & Elephants by Brian Thacker
  2. No Shitting in the Toilet (the travel guide for when you’ve really lost it) by Peter Moore
  3. The Naked Man Festival (and other excuses to fly around the world) by Brian Thacker
  4. The Wrong Way Home (London to Sydney the hard way) by Peter Moore

Paracelsus and Neuschwanstein

Ok, you got me…they have nothing to do with eachother.

…but anyways, today I had one of the most boring groups I’ve ever had…and that’s impressive after a few years of this.  The only thing that was odd was that one of the guys on the tour who…well…was very odd…also had an odd question.  He asked about a sign he saw that said Paracelsus.  He knew all about Paracelsus (but had no idea of a Salzburg connection) and was definately going to go see his grave & house in Salzburg….apparently his friend wrote a book on Paracelsus!

OK, so most of you have no idea who he is, here’s a lil reading for you, then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

Anyways, the sign was for a clinic, but I also mentioned the connection with Salzburg, of course.  More beer.

Salzburg with Petra & Susann

Well, today was a weird one for me.  Petra and her friend Susann decided to go with me to Salzburg, which means it’s a weird one.  Petra and I had been together in Salzburg only once before and that was well over a year ago…in the spring…trying to see everything in a day.  This time, she took my city tour and got to see and hear something new. 

We also did the castle, which I hadn’t been up to for a good year as well…but apparently nothing has changed…I still love that castle. (by the castle, of course I mean Hohensalzburg)

We had lunch at an Irish bar in Salzburg….the Shamrock, which was an interesting experience, the barman was seriously hungover and was very vocal about it. My cheeseburger was a bit burnt…the bun was black.  Not bad though.

Two of the guys on my tour, from Dublin, were there for a quick drink too….very odd.  So to finish off the day right, after the tour we went with Susann to Ned Kelly’s Australian bar in Munich for some kangaroo.  Good stuff….we like skippy.

City tour & visiting puppies

Well, today I just had a city tour of Munich, which means I’ve got at least half the day to attempt to relax…didn’t work today.

The tour itself went great, had a couple kiwis, a couple scots, a russian, and a couple dutch on the tour…though the glockenspiel is not being nice lately.  We definately were early enough, and waited for it to start for 2-3 min, then it started…but it had skipped the best part (you know…with the knights…and if you don’t know, come to Munich…)…anyways, they only got 1/3rd of the show, in my opinion…oh well.

So, after that Petra and I went out to her Aunt’s place to check out their 2 week old puppies….they were damn cute.  We ended up biking and feeding all sorts of animals…and petting a pig for a while.

Go figure.

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Another day at Neuschwanstein

For some reason I feel like I’ve been working 10 days in a row already.  The fact is, I’ve only been working for 4 days since my last break, this is odd.  The sad thing is that I’ll be working 7 more days before I get a break again. 

However, that break will be Rock Am See…NOFX & NIN…should be good.

I just “talked” to Chaya a few min ago, looks like we’ll have a visitor for at least a day for the Oktoberfest.  So, if anyone wants our couch, it’s taken on Sept 24th. 

Here’s a random shot from my phone today:
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First real post

Hello everyone, this is the first of many posts I’ll make to this site.  Let me explain.  For months I’ve been writing monthly updates for friends and family which include what I’ve been up to.  The thing is, nearly on a daily basis someone tells me I should write a book…easier said than done.  One thing which is much easier to do is write a little here whenever I’m home.  So I would expect this to include all kinds of random things such as how recent tours go, people I’ve met, maybe some statistics, beer reviews, or really…whatever’s on my mind.

The first version of this site is very unprofessional, mainly because everything I can think to do with it would just make it more cluttered.  However, if you want to help with the design, send me an e-mail, I’d appreciate it.  Currently I have no plans for anything that would require someone with a slow internet connection to swear at me….though that does sound appealing sometimes. (the swearing, not the content)

I will be adding some advertisements.  Why?  Well…tour guiding is great fun and I meet hundreds of people every year from all over the world…but it doesn’t pay that great.  If the ads on this page pay for setting up the site, then I’ll be happy.  If I actually MAKE money off of this site I’ll be amazed.

So, anyways…Petra and I recently took a trip to Rome, I’ve been pretty slow on posting the pictures from the trip, partly because the deadline that I set for myself was the monthly e-mail update…which is at the end of the month.  However, I’ve posted the first few days on photobucket, so you can go there and have a look:  My photos