Apparently, a bar in Baltimore is giving free beer (or soda) to anyone who votes. God bless’em.
Bring on the free beer.
[Listening to: clown cars on cinder blocks – Dillinger Four – Civil War (3:16)]
I went to German class today, but apparently everyone else was sick. SO, I’m back home and on my walk home I took some pics of my walk. Here’s what many would recognize if they’ve been in the area:
Other than that, the day was relatively uneventful.
I had a normal Munich Highlights Walk today, which is the standard two hour walk trying my best to fit most of the sights into two hours. It more or less works, but seems a lil rushed to me and doesn’t allow enough time to go into the churches or the Hofbräuhaus for example. Had a few Americans (Obama supporters), had a couple Aussies, and a guy from Ghana
For the record: the Americans tipped and the guy from Ghana tipped. Australians: what’s going on? I know, it’s not in your culture…but it should be. If I wasn’t hoping for tips, I’d probably be a mediocre tour guide, maybe that’s why…oh, this line of thought might get me in trouble.
I’m going to grab a Weihenstephan from the fridge, cheers everybody.
Had a couple tours recently, I’m no longer sick, though my nose hasn’t fully gotten the messege. Either way, I’m 95%, which according to many people, is about 45% better than your average tour guide.
I’ve got German class again tonight, which is down to just a couple of us…it moves too fast. I don’t think there’s any way AT ALL a complete newcomer to the German language could make it past lesson 3 at this pace, and if they made it to lesson 3 I’m impressed. Petra and I went over the first few lessons a lil bit yesterday and I think I’m better off scheduling time with Petra. The problem is, therefore, actually scheduling time for it rather than saying “oh, umm…not right now, in a couple hours…”…which means we’ll be too tired then and never mind.
It’s a good thing I still have my German book from Winona State, because it’s 50x better than the book that German schools use (they nearly all use the same books…which are horrible, imo).
The U.S. election is only a week away, so I’ve booked a spot at a big election night party for the night of the 4/5th…and plan on it being a long night. Even if everything goes my way, it’ll be AT LEAST 2am before the presidential election would be called, and much later for the Al Franken decision.
Anyone in Minnesota: VOTE FOR AL FRANKEN. Thank you.
Tomorrow I have a Neuschwanstein tour, but today…another day off to recover from whatever sickness this is. Petra took half a day off yesterday because even she couldn’t work with how sick she felt…and she NEVER takes off sick. (which I don’t understand with an office job…)
Anyways, one of the things I’ve been doing lately is playing a game very similar to RISK, but online. The game’s called Conquerclub, and is better than RISK, as there are all kinds of maps and always people to play against. If anyone wants to play against me, here’s the link.
A lot of people have been adding me to Facebook recently…kinda odd. Especially since myspace has been rather quiet lately.
[Listening to: Louise – NOFX – Pump Up The Valuum (1:49)]
Last week was typical, but today I’m sitting here….two days in a row, sitting here. Very odd. I’m thinking I’m going to have to start up my various other jobs to fill in the cash drop next month as business for me looks like it hit the toilet. Oh well.
In other news, I’ve been reading my cousin David’s blog here.
It’s good to have some sort of “news” from him as he seems to attempt to be as elusive as possible to me. (do I smell?)
German classes are coming along, I spent most of the day going over the articles (die, der, das) of various words I already know…but it’s the little things that can make all the difference.
As some of you may have also noticed, I sometimes have what I was listening to at the time of writing at the end of each post. In this case, it’s Kepi Ghoulie…the song that he played specifically for me when he was here in Munich. You might know him from the Groovie Ghoulies. If you don’t know them at all, it’s fun poppy rock-n-roll with a halloween theme. This is from his solo album though, similar theme.
That’s right, after several years here in Munich, I’ve finally found the time/money to take some German lessons again. Petra found this school that’s extremely reasonably priced compared to other schools we looked into, and class sizes are…well, 3 people in my class!!
So, I’ve had the first class now and the 2nd class will be tonight, and so far it’s looking promising. At the same time, we’ve only covered things I already know, so far…so…well…it’ll get harder quick. However, I’m excited to be taking classes again as everyone around here seems to insist of German, go figure…
Here’s a pic of the school’s sign:
I seem to be doing lots of both private tours and Neuschwanstein lately, but that pays the bills, so that’s fine by me. Since the Oktoberfest is over the crowds have settled down quite a bit and that is certainly a good thing.
Today I had a private tour, a group of older Americans, and it was great. It really is nice when everyone on the tour actually is interested in what they’re seeing and don’t just want to click and run. Also, since it was a private tour, I had a little extra time to show them things that I always like to include, but rarely have the time for. *sigh*
Here’s a couple recent pictures taken in the last week er so:
As I mentioned in my last post, Petra and I went to the Oktoberfest (Wies’n) on Sunday and yeah…we had a good time as always, not perfect…but always fun. We went as part of Toytown‘s gathering…so we had reservations and it was MUCH easier than usual.
Anyways, we made it home safely and I recovered within 24 hours, which is nice.
OK, I’m heading over to the Wies’n (commonly known outside of Munich as the Oktoberfest). Because of this, I don’t believe I’ll be functional for the next 48 hours.
Cheers.
Hey everybody. It’s been a while since I typed anything, really. Technically that’s not true, I wrote a review for a CD for a friend’s website that you could read here.
Other than that, on nearly every tour in the last couple weeks I’ve thought “oh, I should mention those two crazy Australian guys that were on my tour today”, or “oh, I should mention how that Stanford University group did with the 7 BMW’s and stopping at Andechs along the way.” …but the fact remains that when I got home, I thought “oh…tomorrow I’ll do that.” Sorry for dropping the ball there.
Yesterday Petra and I spent a day out at our favorite waterpark for adults only/spa type thingy. It was wonderful as usual. The day before we spent the day spending money, or so it seemed. We went to the Wies’n (Oktoberfest) for lunch, bought Petra an mp3 player, bought myself some pants, and went to an art museum which has an exhibit on how Walt Disney relates to European Art.
The exhibit was, like the last exhibit we saw there, quite expensive but very well done. We were happy to see Destino there, which we had never heard of before the exhibit….and overall we happy we saw it. Some of you may recall the last time we visited the hypo-kunsthalle last January.
Anyways, tours for the most part have been going rather normal, meeting nice people and having a few beers along the way.
Well, for years I’ve been doing tours to Neuschwanstein, always by train/bus. Yes, Petra and I have driven down there a few times also, but by far I’ve found it the easiest to go by train. Friday, I’ll be doing a tour with seven cars down to Neuschwanstein and even less time than I normally have…which is a major concern. Cross your fingers for me.
In other news, train works have been a lot of fun recently. For Neuschwanstein I’ve been impressed that despite doing the train, train, bus, bus, (optional bus), bus, bus, train route to Hohenschwangau and back, it’s worked quite slick and we actually get to Hohenschwangau 5 minutes faster than normal and back to Munich exactly on time. Weird how these Germans work.
Salzburg is a little different, the train we want to take physically isn’t going at the moment, so the tour has been delayed until an hour later. This means an hour less in Salzburg, but everyone seems to be fine with it and I’ve had happy customers.
Both of the train problems stop about the 15th or 16th (gotta check on that…it’s coming up…hmmm)
[Listening to: On the Ave. – Pinhead Gunpowder – West Side Highway VLS (2:43)]
Today I had a typical Neuschwanstein tour, well sort of. It happens for a few weeks every year and a few other random times throughout the year where I have to go one hour, switch trains, go another half hour, go to a bus, go another half hour, go to another bus, then then make it to Fuessen 5 minutes later. This is what happened today…and of course the same thing in reverse to get home.
Everything works out, it always has. During the world cup here in Germany in 2006 was the worst version of it. At the time, the trains were at absolute maximum capacity, standing room only, and no attempting to breathe. Of course, they would only send two buses for the extremely full bus…and I’d have to warn the group at the office before boarding the first train that it would be like that…and how they’d need to run, etc….but ya know what? It really did always work, even with the number of elderly people I get on my tours…it always worked, everyone was always happy, and at the end of the day, we all got back home. (er, at least my home, Munich)
So, we had to switch to buses in Marktoberdorf (market over the village…they’re creative with the names around here). On the corner of the train station is a lil statue of Saint George and since I take pictures of georgie boy wherever I go, here he is in Marktoberdorf:
…and here he is in one of my favorite churches in Paris, Saint Severin:
…and here he is in my favorite church altar that I’ve ever seen, in Kloster Weltenburg, which is up near Regensburg…and done by the Asam bros. :
Anyways, tomorrow I get a day off…then launch into another 7-day run with nearly all Neuschwanstein or Salzburg tours. More fun.
[Listening to: Tornado Love – Kepi Ghoulie – American Gothic (3:38)]
It’s that time of year again, when tour numbers have hit mid-winter numbers, yet we have pretty darn nice weather. It makes for some great days as a tour guide, but it also means the company is not that happy, as they’re not making hardly anything, if anything.
Then of course there’s the new plague of beggers trying to extend their vacations by becoming “free tour guides”, learning a script and telling all kinds of factually inept tales….but let’s not get into that.
Today was the first day in a long time that I had to cancel a tour, as no one turned up. Oh well, it gives me time to listen to Groovie Ghoulies cd’s, as the singer will be doing a free acoustic set of Groovie Ghoulies stuff and his own solo cds, of which he released two this year. They’ve been a favorite of mine since I was about 16 (seen the ghoulies manyt imes), so it’ll be fun seeing him doing his thing in Munich.
As many of you know, when I first moved to Munich, before I started actually doing tours, I worked for a bike tour company and basically was their PR person to all those coming in at the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) in Munich. *sigh* thankfully, I’ve moved on from those days. The work isn’t bad, it’s just that I don’t function that well at 6am. Anyways, today I had to train in a new girl on how to do that while dealing with the typical cast of characters around the station…I swear we should make a movie about it….I’ve got many fond and not so fond memories.
Other than that, tours have been going well for me, though our tour numbers are drastically down. Personally I think it’s just that we’re at the end of August and there just aren’t many tourists out and about until the Oktoberfest. I like small tours (5-15 people), but at the same time I understand the company needs good numbers (20+) at least ~4 months of the year. If I could have 10 people on every tour, I’d be one happy tour guide.
Paris’s metro (subway) is LOUD.
15 euro menus are even better. (see part one)
Why the HELL would anyone want to do the Paris sewer tour?
The only real line we’ve stood in at all is at the Eiffel tower, even Versailles on a Sunday was just a walk right in experience.
Trips in August are great, everyone’s afraid of the non-existant crowds.
Here’s a few thoughts on Paris:
Munich’s subway is better, no question.
The Eiffel tower is standing in line non stop all the way up, all the way down.
I was expecting Paris to be more expensive than Munich, it is not.
10 euro menus are excellent.
It’s my birthday.
Our feet REALLY hurt. The A/C works great at the hotel…so does the internet access.
After 2 1/2 days in Paris, we’ve taken over 500 pictures.
Pictures to follow….going to see Jim today, then St. Denis….then who knows.
Tomorrow Petra and I go off to Paris for a lil over a week and we’re going to attempt to see everything. (of course)
Day trips from Paris include Versailles, Chartres, and Disneyland Paris. Fontainebleu might be able to fit in there too…we’ll have to see.
After talking to many tourists about Paris over the last few months, we decided to book a dinner at the Eiffel tower as well as a boat cruise. As usual at this stage in the game, we’ve really started to worry about running out of time there, but I think we’ll do alright, even if she collapses on me a couple times 🙂
I want to thank everyone who chipped in for our honeymoon, I’m sure it’ll be awesome.