Saturday, September 29, 2007

Air Execute

A long time ago I was sitting at a large table with a bunch of my extended family. I was sitting near to my cousins whom I am very close to. While we were chatting I kept overhearing my aunts and uncles and parents saying, "Eric's change." I was confused about why they were talking about my change, like my spare change. Why would anyone talk about that? After listening closer I realized that they were saying, "air exchange." I don't remember why, something to do with a flight. I got a kick out of that. It is a funny play on words.

So being the clever guy that I am, I always write "Air Exchange" on my coin jars now. A few years back I was living in a town house with a bunch of guys. I had this jar on the windowsill in my room. After living with these guys for a while one of them asked, "why does your coin jar say air exchange," probably expecting that I was saving up for something. So I smiled, happy that I finally get to reveal my ingenuity, and said, "just say it fast." He tried a few times and got it and smiled. It is always something with me.

So just say the title of this post several times quickly and enjoy :)

We will be in Munich until Wednesday for Oktoberfest. I am not sure if we will have internet access, so we may be out of touch. I will be sure to take lots of pictures and let you know about our adventures when we return. Au Revoir. -Eric

Closing Hours

It is still raining today. It is coming down hard enough at the moment to keep us cooped up here at our place. We need umbrellas, as I previously mentioned. I had to quick read my last post this morning to make sure I didn't post anything naughty. It is fine, kinda funny, I guess I am not that crazy of a drunk, nor was I that drunk. I am regretting the Riesling I drank, too sweet, I have a headache now. I had a great bottle of Sauvignon Blanc just before I left Tennessee. I could go for some more of that. Though, it is a tad more expensive than the wine here.

I feel some compulsion to always have a photo to post. Here is me playing poker a few days before I left.

They have some weird laws here. For instance they do not allow businesses to be open later than about 8pm. Also, nothing is open on Sundays. There are some exceptions, bakeries and newspaper stands, things like that. The effect of these laws is that it is difficult to do any shopping after work during the week. Then, because this is the case for most people, everyone shops on Saturday, so it's crazy. On Sunday if you walk around you will see that everything is closed, but there will be all sorts of people walking around looking into the shop windows wishing to buy things. They have these laws to protect the workers and such. Inevitably it is just the government micromanaging things. They should just let the system work itself out.

There are other examples of laws like these. None of them act to directly repress you, but there is that continual undertone of control that is annoying. It is interesting how different the mentality is between here and the US with respect to freedoms (or maybe it is a lack of caring about all the details.) It is subtle, but we can feel it. I am not saying that we are perfectly free in the US, I wish we could dissolve a lot of government programs. All government ever manages to do is make a mess and waste money. And the majority of politicians are incompetent fools, this we know. Why we trust them to make laws, determine our taxes and spend them is beyond me.

Ok, enough of that rant. We leave tomorrow for Munich :) Finally we will get to see people in lederhosen and large breasted women carrying around huge beers. -Eric

Friday, September 28, 2007

Good Morning Germany

This is like the best possible time to write a post since I am kinda drunk. Hemingway would be proud (except I hate the word like... jeez Eric.) Ok, so we walked and met Banuti for some lunch at Myers. It is a place in town, we've ate there several times. The thing is, they have good food, and an American style breakfast. That is eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes. They don't do that here. They are nuts. You know what else they don't do (I am completely aware that I am using terrible grammar by the way,) they don't drink apple cider! Are they crazy, they must drink half the worlds apple juice here, but they don't drink apple cider. Gosh. I happen to love apple cider, I think Sean feels similarly. We need to rectify this. What am I going to drink when I am cold? Hot chocolate? Are you kidding me? I can only take so much. I feel repressed. Fascists.

(I watched 'Good Morning Vietnam' yesterday, so this seemed fitting.)

Ok, so we sat around for a while. I just happened to introduce Sean to the show 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' which is great show with Larry David, one of the creators of Seinfeld. Anyways, we watched some of that since it was raining. The rain didn't let up, so we decided to go to the grocery store anyways. Stinkin' rain. So we walked, got some pasta sauce and soups and wine (tonights culprit.) God I love you cheap decent wine, you have redefined a cheap date. (me?) By time we got back the rain was really pouring. We were soaked. Note to self: get a God dammed umbrella already, would ya. We watched some more 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and that has been it. We finished two bottles of wine and now my lips feel tingly. That is when I know I've had enough. Unfortunately, Sean does not have such a response and he just drinks and drinks. I love tingly lips. God, too many memories.

(What is the deal with the random pictures. Well this one is for Dan Lehman.)

We are going to Munich on Sunday. I don't know if we will have access to the internet, so we may be out of contact for a few days. We will be back late on Wednesday (I really hate capitalizing weekdays, they don't deserve it, but Nazi spell checker feels otherwise.)

(Daniels license plate. He picked them today. Can anyone tell me what a M163 is??? It is special to us.)

Daniel left to pick up his car today. That will be a good post, but then hopefully I will have good posts about Sean getting stuck in chimneys in Munich - like this one. HAHA. Life is too periodic to make a continuously entertaining blog. I miss you all, some more than others :) they know who they are. I am a little concerned that we haven't been drinking enough in preparation for Oktoberfest. We drank heavily for over a month, but we have eased up since. We will be fine. Ok, bed time. Yours Truly, -Eric

UTSI Lab "Work"

I was going through some of my pictures yesterday when I was looking for random pictures to post. I came across these photos from the lab. I thought they would make a good post. This has nothing to do with Germany, except for Lutz, who is a German.

This was the experiment we were working on. It was for Lutz's experimental methods class, but it was also related to Dr. Flandro's research. We were killing two birds with one long plastic tube. We painted a lightning bolt on it - we are cool. Just so Lutz knows, when I spell check his name it comes up as 'klutz' - ha, new nickname?

I was bored waiting for Lutz to calibrate the hot wire anemometer, so I took some photos.

Josh showed up and he took some pictures too. This is me being bored while Lutz works. I am wearing an appropriate shirt for all this hard work.

We were having a hard time getting any good results. That is Lutz above being annoyed. The equipment just wasn't able to measure the little oscillations we were looking at. So we decided to play a rousing game of drop the hammer on your foot.

That lasted for one round.

Still bored we took some more photos using some weird color swap options on my camera. They turned out pretty creepy.

To wrap things up we spun a hammer in the air. The point on the hammer which appears to not have moved is approximately the center of gravity. So that is a day in the life of a rocket scientist. It is a very stressful life we lead. -Eric

Thursday, September 27, 2007

German Engineering In The House

I don't completely remember writing that last post. I was tired and a touch drunk. I am glad to see that it was normal. I have no good pictures to put up today, so I am putting up other random pics that I like.

(Me laying down the law at the roulette table)

Today we went to the bank and tried to figure out how to transfer funds from our US bank to our Deutschebank account. We didn't figure it out, well, we have to see. We can brute force it by just withdrawing money at the ATM depositing it here. That will at least work for the time being. We then went to the town hall to fill out some residency form, but they wanted us to fill out some work permits, but the regulations say that we aren't working long enough to have to do that. So, we need to check on that. No big deal, just something else to figure out.

(Sean and Banuti on the surface of Mars (or Kennedy Space Center))

We worked some too, it's been a productive day. I've been programming in C and have everything setup on my mac to do that. Sean was playing around with Linux. Hopefully soon we can have some basic computational fluid dynamics code running. Then we can move on to bigger tasks and change the world :) For instance, we helped the second in command in our division at the DLR decipher an American Volkswagen commercial. Vid At some point in the commercial, which is a great commercial, the guy says in a fake German accent, "this is your '98 vhatchamacallit." they didn't know what that meant and did not know how to spell it (nor do I) to look it up, so they asked the native English speakers. I'm glad we are good for something :)

In other news, we are going to Munich on Sunday. We just walked across town in the rain to get our train tickets. Mira has a friend there that we can stay with. That is great. Thanks again Mira. She is a great girl :)

Also, Banuti purchased a new (to him) car. His parents drove down this evening to give him the papers so he can go to the town hall tomorrow and get a car permit. He will leave tomorrow to pick it up. I'll leave it a surprise as to what car it is until I get some photos, but I'll tell you now, it is a nice ride. I am going to sit back now and watch a movie, enjoy your evening. -Eric

P.S. I don't know what is going on with the line spacing. It is doing it on its own. hmm.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Here Is Now

I am trying to think of what I have already written about. I had a weird dream last night. I was swimming in a lake and then there was a big oil spill. Mark Olles and I cleaned it up. We setup those floating things to contain the spill and slowly closed the loop making it smaller and smaller. As a result it made the oil into a tall thin column reaching down deep into the lake. So I decided to swim down this column. The first try fail, the second time I made it. I followed the oil down and that lead me to the bottom of the lake. There was some dinosaur bones, and dinosaur carcasses. I was surprised. There were all of these animals piled up like something killed them all at once. Then I found a pair of giant boots. I took out my camera and took a picture of that (that is funny to me.) I don't remember too much else, but I found some underground building and other people and the dream ended with a Mormon kid stealing my Baby Ruth candy bar (that is super funny to me.) Yeah... so I am strange in my dreams too. Don't try to be all Freudian on me and analyze it, it is just crazy, that is all.


We worked today, Sean fixed his computer, we read some things too. Mira (Banuti's girl) came to town and we all had some dinner together and a few beers. Then me and Sean had a few beers afterwards. We need to get some things done tomorrow so we didn't hit it too hard. It was busy at the bar. As we were leaving we let an older couple and a younger couple who were together take our place. They seemed like nicer people than the other douche bags around. I was just glad that they spoke a little English and that I could tell them to take our place. They appreciated it and asked us where we were from. I said, "America." The older lady gave me a look like that completely explained our kindness. We were surprised. Now I am sleepy and a tad drunk. Have a wonderful evening. I miss you all. -Eric

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

C'est La Vie

"I love beer," says Sean. Banuti retorts, "well, you came to the right country."

We worked a long day yesterday. 9:30am to 6pm. Only about 8 hours, but that is really long for me. We've been reading books on computational fluid dynamics, Riemann solvers, programming in C, using Linux, reading technical papers on CFD methods and the DLR Tau code and combustion instability. (all I was doing there was thinking of every big confusing word we are working with so the non-technical readers feel left out :) We found some interesting papers, we also found some other ones that are crap. So it goes.


After work we went to a coffee shop type place just down the road from the DLR and had a beer. Afterwards we dropped our bags off at our place and walked to the bar. The three of us had several more beers and continued the good conversation. At some point in the night we had a guy come up to us. He asked us where we are from, yada yada. He spoke very little English. Banuti told him that we are all from the US (him included - that is a lie that we've wanted us use, so this was good practice) and then we attempted to explain to him that we are researchers and design rockets and stuff. It was funny at first, but the guy just would not leave, so then it was annoying. The guy smelled pretty awful too and he was stretch out over Banuti.

(This picture is great. Right before I took this picture Banuti was thinking to himself, as he told me later, 'Eric really needs to take a picture of this' and right as he thought that I took one. This is the next picture where he turned around and laughed. That is the dude in white.)

The bartender also spoke English to us. He sounded Irish or Australian. We still spoke German to him regardless. We got back late and went to sleep and then woke up 'early' for work. Sean got some pastries at the local bakery, that was nice. We strolled into work and continued the reading and programming and such. Sean tried to add Linux to his machine, and it worked, but it screwed up the Windows operating system, so we (he) need(s) to fix that now.

After lunch we went to the town hall to declare our place of residence. We went where Daniel previously showed us to go and Sean asked a guy, "sprechen zie English?" which means - do you speak English? And the guy responded in German, "no, I speak German" and proceeded to talk to Sean in German??? So Sean said, "uh, ich spreche kein Deutsch." (uh, I speak no German) And then the guy asked us in German, "Do you speak English?" (sprechen zie English) Well duh pal. Ja, sprechen wir Englisch. (Yes, we speak English) So then he directed us to someone who speaks English. Of course, he told us that in German :)


Sean went to get a haircut after work. Me and my hippie self stayed back at the apartment and wrote some emails. A bit of dinner and now I am writing this blog post. Yeehaw! Have a nice day. -Eric

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Eric Is Sad

Psych! Just cutting onions. We used Daniel's place while he was gone to iron and make a call and stuff. To make it up to him, we made him some French onion dip. He liked it in the states and you can't get it here. I found a recipe online and we went about it. Our first try sucked. The recipe sucked. So we made some changes, looked online again and had at it. This next one was pretty good, but there is room for improvement. After a long deliberation I think I've got it. The next batch will be perfect. I'm glad to see I can use my mad cooking skills here. Unfortunately, now Banuti's place smells like onion, oops, sorry pal. I like the picture above: blood shot eyes, the lone strand of hair and you even get the tear rolling down my cheek. Perfect :)


The onions, they kill me, boy oh boy I cannot deal with cutting onions. Though, sometimes, if you are feeling sad and you don't want anyone to know, just cut some onions and cry cry cry :)

See - I am not sad. To prove it to you here is a link to a funny video about Germans saying nice things. Germans saying nice things (For you old people, it may take a minute to load and you might need to download a program that will play flash videos. Don't fret, the computer will show you how to.)

Gosh it was a beautiful day today. I love sitting in the sun, soakin' it up like a big mantastic sponge. Ha, I swear, I am not drunk (yet.) I just have a vivid imagination and the occasional willingness to let it show. (shine?) One of my favorite examples of this is occurred one fabled day. The guys and I were driving down the road. We were going to Knoxville for a football game. At some point I spotted two trees in the distance and I shouted, "those trees look like dinosaurs!" Because they did. They looked like two brontosauruses with their long necks like in Jurassic Park. The guys got a kick out of that, I don't blame them, it is a strange random thing to say. Anyways, I'll just think things like that and say them. So yes, I have a wild imagination and I love it.

Oh God, it's back to work tomorrow. Heh, now I am sad :) -Eric

Here Comes The Sun

Today is a lovely day. The past two days have been gorgeous, bright, sun shiny days. Days like these are making me miss the sun. We went from 100 deg F weather in Tennessee to 60's and 70's here. I think that I did not fully appreciate the sunshine while I had it.

(The view outside our place today)

In the few weeks before I departed for Germany I was having a hell of a time. The softball season was finishing up, we had an amazing post season win, we were getting drunk and having some great parties where we also made some great new friends. It was a blast. During this time I also started another habit, which I can't do here, but works in Tennessee during the summer. I would wake up early every morning just a bit after sunrise (which is really early for me) and walk down to the lake. I would lay down a towel out on the dock, stretch out and relax. Usually I would listen to some music on my mp3 player. A little Chuck Prophet, Corinne Bailey Rae, Jack Johnson, something calm. Otherwise I'd appreciate the silence. I would do this for about an hour.

(A picture of mine of the dock by the UTSI dorms in the fall)

After sitting in the sunshine I would head over to the gym and do my routine there. Then head back to my room, shower and continue my day. Soaking up that sun, waking up so peacefully and slowly on my own terms with good friends and good times to follow. I really miss those few weeks.

Now I know what I am going to do next summer :) -Eric

Friday, September 21, 2007

Working Like A Dog

I was a little toasted when I wrote that last post. I am thinking that maybe I should write all my posts drunk. They are more fun that way. Then I was thinking, maybe I should not get drunk so often.


We have some good ideas for a project. There is a paper that Banuti found on the effect of passive devices on combustion instability. Basically the guy just did some CFD and looked at the acoustic effect of baffles and Helmholtz resonators. He found, as expected, that the baffles disrupt the acoustic harmonics and that the resonators, well... they resonate. It was just interesting they way he went about it and that he got results. Although, we are interested in knowing more than that. What types of baffles work, why, how, what shapes? Does combustion effect anything? Does viscosity effect anything? Injection? And is the code here at the DLR capable of capturing these effects? This would be an interesting project that would benefit both the DLR and UTSI.

Sorry, I had to nerd it up a little there. For the non-technical audience: we want to run a complicated computer program that will give us pretty pictures (this is the joke that we usually make, because a lot of the time that is all that they are) that will hopefully tell us whether or not a rocket engine is going to go crazy.

(A picture from inside our place)

Banuti went home this afternoon, he is going to look for a new car and his mother's birthday is on Sunday. We are bums :) Well, I need the rest and hopefully then I can be finished with this cold. -Eric

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Another Day, Another Dollar

Like a sweat shop :) get it, nah... oh well.

Today we started working. I know. Calm down. I am not screwing with you. I swear. We actually are working. And so as to prove it to Sean's Mom I'll post a photo of our ID's.


We got a hold of Banuti this morning. I was a tad hungover, plus sick, and tired. Well, either way, we went into work. We got the ID's figured out and introduced to our temporary office. There is some girl that is leaving soon and we'll take over that office. This chick, if it is the one I think it is, is f*ing hot. Banuti, pal, you gotta tell us these things. This is very relevant, critical info. Work with us here :) we would have been working a month ag0.


Ok, so we ate lunch in the cafe (I had some pea soup and a viener) and were introduced to most of the people in our department afterwards. Banuti gave us some books to read and we discussed possible topics for a project. We have many ideas, so it is a problem of figuring out which to do, not what to do. We took off at about 4pm. Took a nap and then we went to the grocery store. We got some pasta and sauces and wine. The wine is cheap here. We were trying to figure out if it a matter of consumption levels or transportation, but in the end we think that it is just overpriced in the US because people think it is special. So we are getting decent wine here for about 3 euros (4 bucks) a bottle. Four bucks would only get you some sink ass boxed wine back home. heh.

We cooked some pasta and drank our wine. Well, I am still drinking it right now. That would explain my more open use of vulgar language. Sorry :) Today is actually going to be the first day in over a month that we have not had a beer. But don't worry, two bottles of wine will do the trick. Sean's Mom asked him if we were going to go through a detox program before starting work. She is lucky that we are not working in southern Germany where it is ok to drink beer at work.

Alright, I miss you guys and gals. Have a splendid evening. -Eric

P.S. - Sean is old. Ha!

Happy Hunting

We spent yesterday with Mira, Daniel's girl. Our landlord came over to make the initial inspection so we could point out any flaws so they don't get blamed on us. She acted as our translator. Well, she just did all the work. Afterwards we got a bite to eat and stopped by Daniel's place for some coffee and donuts. While we were there Mira taught us a few important lines. Here they are, in order. I'll give you the translation after so you can try to decipher them first.

Ich Finde dich süß!
Kann ich dich auf finen drink einladen?
Mochtest du mit mir tanzen?
Zu dir oder zu mir?
Hast du Kondome?
Die nachy mit dir war sehr schon!
Ich brauche eine zigarette.
Wie ist die name?
Wie ist diene telefonnummer?
Ich kanne nicht bleiben.
Ich habe ein wichtiges meeting morgen.


And now the rough translation back to English:

I find you sweet.
Can I buy you a drink?
Would you like to dance?
Your place or mine?
Do you have condoms?
I think that you are very beautiful.
I need a cigarette.
What is your name?
What is your telephone number?
I can't stay the night.
I have an important meeting in the morning.

After our lessons we went back to our place, had a bite to eat, and went to the bar - to practice our German :) zing. -Eric

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Rain, Rain, Go Away

To celebrate one month of Germany we went out to grab a few beers. I am still a bit sick, but whatever. I am happy to report that we have not gone a single day without a beer (probably 4-5 avg.) So, we are doing well. We hit up Thanners, but the service was lacking and as good capitalists, we left. We went over to the Irish bar, it is just a few blocks away. This is a nice bar, but it is listed in Wikipedia Travel as a 'place for English speakers to gather.' So... we don't want to be tourists. They do have Guinness on tap though, so we'll go there anyways.

There were some girls sitting behind us (not attractive ones) and at some point Sean turned around to look at the TV where a soccer game was playing. One of the girls said in English, "Is this guy looking at us or the TV." or something like that. Apparently unaware that we spoke English as well (or that everyone does.) I was at the bathroom at the time. Sean should have screwed with them and asked them something in German and pretended that we don't speak much English. Or we could have turned to them and said in clear English, "no, we are not looking at you, the soccer game is much more interesting... even to us Americans." :)

It rained on us on the way back. Just what I needed - sick and drunk and wet and cold. Well, it wasn't all that bad except that on the way back while running we got lost and took a rather long way. The pic above is of us just after we returned. We stripped down (not together) and got dry. After a good nights rest I am feeling a little better. It is rainy today so I might just catch up a little on some reading and get some more rest. Have a lovely day. -Enrique

Monday, September 17, 2007

Time Is An Illusion

Today Sean and I have been here for one whole month. It does not seem so long.

We took a walk this afternoon to get some lunch, but that was about all that I could handle. I am still feeling a little under the weather and needed some more rest. I got a doner (that turkish thing) with feta cheese and Sean got a pizza. Otherwise everything is cool. Once we get our paycheck for the next month we are heading down to Munich for Oktoberfest. We'll do a long weekend or something. Gotta see what we can handle.

(I like this picture. It isn't framed right, but I am all smiley with those bums looking like, well... bums.)

I am trying to think of something more to write so I our blog is not so lame. Ahh, we'll do some small details... like when Banuti smashed his car up. The dude he hit got out of his car dressed completely in camouflage with a gun holster. We were like, "what country are we in???" The guy was totally cool though. He didn't show an ounce of emotion as he lit up his cigarette. I guess, as Daniel explained later, that he was on his way to hunt some Boar and that he had just happened to miss his exit and was in the process of turning around. Bummer. When the cops showed up the officer asked them for their driving license. The holster guy asked the cop if he wanted to see his hunting license to which the cop replied, "why? did you shoot at him?" :)

[Please note that in the previous paragraph I used the word 'like' in the valley girl sense (we were like) and I hate to do that, but I don't care right now. Though, it does remind me of a Demetri Martin joke... I have a friend who always talks in similes. He is like... annoying.]

Have a great Monday folks. -Eric

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Lazy Sunday

Last night we went out and had a few beers (1...2...3,4,5,6...) I don't remember how many. I've been fighting off a head cold for a few days now and right now it feels like it may be winning. This morning we met Banuti for breakfast. He made some white sausages and pretzels which is a traditional Bavarian breakfast. Oh, and a beer too.

(A view of the town near our apartment)

After breakfast we took a stroll around town, sat down and had a cup of coffee. There was a group of people playing classical music across the walkway from us, so we enjoyed that. Sean got a craving for some ice cream, so we fulfilled that craving and got ice cream cones. I got peppermint. We stopped at a magazine/newspaper shop after finishing the cones. It is always fun since magazines here openly show nudity, even on the covers. This particular shop has a section of English magazines, so we read some of those. We walked back to Daniels place to grab a couple forks and plates for our place and then Sean and I walked back to our place. Since then I have been resting since I feel slightly crappy.

Heh, on a lighter note, they have these tiny 1 cent coins. They are just a bit bigger than a skittle. We always joke that they just feel like you should eat them. Mmmmm copper :) -Eric

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Sean = Ladder

So... we moved into our place. I'll add some more pics soon of it. We had to install a few lights and build the tables and other furniture. We had no ladder so we had to improvise. In other news, we decided to quit engineering and join the circus.

Our make-shift ladder, I like how my feet are only about 2 feet off the ground.

Us admiring our work.

Later in the evening we went and had a few beers and a bite to eat at the place we refer to as 'the hamburger place,' not because they have good hamburgers, but because of the chick from Hamburg that I met there. That place has good food and always has 2 Euro wheat beers and cute waitresses too. 3 liters of beer later we stumbled back slightly drunk to our new place and slept there for the first time. It is morning now and we are going to get some lunch with Banuti. -Eric

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Just A Note


A note that we left for Daniel a few days ago. Enjoy - Eric

Once It Hits Your Lips, It's So Good

We had a reasonably busy day yesterday (Wednesday.) We went to IKEA and got some furniture and blankets and such. So, we've got a lot of that stuff taken care of. I found a frog and stuck it on my head.

So, we got stuck in a bit of a traffic jam on the way back but we took some side roads and made it back in pretty good time. It was late when we got back and after we unloaded the vehicle (packing that stuff in these tiny European cars was fun) we got a bite to eat. Good pizza at a good place in town. We had a few beers there too. Afterwards, Banuti, still felling a touch ill, went back to his place. Sean and I continued onto Thanners for the Wednesday night wheat beers. We lucked out and found a place to sit even though it was late and pretty busy by time we got there.

At some point in the night a chick came by who was getting married in a couple days. They do strange things here. So, she was trying to sell kisses or liquor or I don't remember. She had a striped outfit on, nice... you can see it above in my blurry photo. We did a shot of some crap with her.

This is a pic of her friend taking a pic of Sean and Me and the striped chick. Her friend was cute (I just raised my eyebrows when I wrote that, heh.) We made our way back to Banuti's. Sean had taken one of the small bottles that we took the shots from and proceeded to rattle it on every fence all the way back. Nice pal. -Eric

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Das Kitzelt = That Tickles

Ok, not too much new. We got some furniture from Banuti's home and we will move that in soon. Daniel caught a cold on Sunday, so we've been just kind of chilling out for a few days. He seems to be feeling better today. He got a note from the doctor saying that he didn't need to work for the week and that he should drink a lot. Daniel asked him what he should drink, the doc said that it didn't matter. Hmmm, sounds like trouble.

(The dessert at Daniels home which wasn't sweet enough for us Americans :)

Tonight is wheat beer night at Thanners, so we'll hit that up. It'll be packed so we'll get to push around people to get through the bar. That is half the fun. Hopefully they push back. That is even more fun.


We are itching to get back to work, Sean is doing some research for his dissertation. I am working on, well... yeah. Once Daniel is feeling better, we are going to go in. -Eric

Monday, September 10, 2007

Banuti's Email

I forgot to mention this a long time ago, but Daniel sent us an email before we left and it had a great line in it:

"if you want to provoke a fight, tell some leftish or punkish looking guy you are paintball-playing, big car driving, hunting, gun-owning, rocket building, Bush-voting Americans, who believe in God but not in global warming and support the war on Iraq. Hmm. Maybe he'd just get a heart attack, seeing the stereotype of his favourite enemy come true. ;-)"

That is great. -Eric

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Ich Bin Heiß = I am HOT!!!

Ok, new phrase for the weekend.

I last left you on Friday afternoon. That evening we went for a walk around town, later that night we went to a place that we hadn't eaten at since the first few days we were here. They had a couple cute waitresses so we figured we'd give it another shot. We had some decent food there and many beers. I had some pasta, Sean had some sandwich thing and Banuti had a hamburger. I met a cute girl from Hamburg and we had a nice conversation in the hallway near the bathrooms. I am changing my entire wardrobe to tight white t-shirts. Sean tried to hit on a waitress, but no luck. Waitresses are a tough catch anyways. We stumbled back drunk and passed out.


Saturday we went to visit Daniels family. On the way there we got into a little fender bender. Everyone was fine. Just by chance I took pictures of his car right before we left. We got to his parents house and had a nice German meal. His parents are fun, his mother speaks very little English so it was an interesting conversation. Daniel was a good translator. His mother went out and bought extra Coca Cola for the Americans, joked that we are not allowed to put ketchup on the meat and then insisted that the dessert was too sour for us and we would rather have something sweeter. After dinner we drove to a glider pilot party and hung out there. We had a few beers and danced to some good music. It was a bit of a sausage fest, but not terrible. They had some fireworks show at the party, I joked that I could by those at the store and fire them off in my backyard. We are just trying to be arrogant Americans, we usually succeed. At about 4am we left. We stayed the night at house of Daniels girlfriends family.

We left there at about 2pm, went back to Daniels parents and had dinner in town at a Chinese restaurant. Afterward we went to his home and had some cake and coffee. I was so stuffed. We got a few items from his folks (coffee maker, some lights, shelves, etc.) so that will help with the furniture. Tired and full, we drove to Daniels apartment, now I am more tired and need a shower and I need to have a few more beers to meet my daily quota (enough beers each day so that I should not take aspirin :)

(A view from the party)

We are going to start work in the next couple of days and finish furnishing the apartment as well. Then I just need to find a bike, we are going to look for a gym and that is about it (maybe some more Hamburgers too :) heh. Also, we are going to rent a BMW one of these days and take a ride on the autobahn.

See you later alligators. -Eric