Summer in Munich, May 15 - Aug 12, 2006

August 15th, 2006

I am writing this final entry about my summer in Munich from my room at the International House in New York City. I arrived back here after a very crazy last night in Munich three days ago and am now waiting for next week when orientation for the new MBA students starts, followed by a week of vacation on Martha's Vinyard, then classes begin. I'm very excited to be back here and for the university to start up again, but it was also very hard to leave Munich after a memorable last night out.

My internship with Amazon ended on Friday, and I must say it was a really great experience. I was really lucky to get a very interesting project which exposed me to many different aspects of Amazon's business and to present my findings to upper managment. I learned a great deal and had a lot of fun doing it! When I was arranging my flight during the Spring I decided to fly back the Sat morning after finishing up work and thought 'leaving the next day won't be a problem at all', but in the end it turned out to be quite hectic!

I thought for a while about how I would want to celebrate my last night, but it became an easy decision a week before I flew home. That night I was out with Heike, Markus, Walter and Colin at Jazz Bar Vogler, and Colin volunteered to host a pre-party at his place! Colin has a fantastic apartment in Lehel, very close to downtown, and he was kind enough to offer to get everything set up for a fun party. I invited everyone who had helped to make it such a fun summer, and nearly everyone was able to show up.

me and Colin
Mari from Norway
Colin and Elke

Italy, Finland, Germany
Hungary and USA
California Connection

me and Sebastian
Amazon
Gianluca, Christian, Walter
Most of the people there could be sorted into one of three different groups. First there were the people I know from work. Sebastian was definitely the one I hung out with the most outside of work, but it was great that Olaf and Dirk showed up as well. The next group was the Scandinavians I met, some of whom through Aida and aSmallWorld, and others while watching Sweden play matches during the World Cup at Bachmeiers. Mari, Birgitta, Jesper, Iris (though she isn't Scandinavian) and Anna were in this group. Then there were my friends from Beach Volleyball on Sundays: Gianluca, Walter, Vera, Cornelia, Tina, Melanie, Christian, and Henrik. Rounding things out were Heike and Marcus who I knew from San Francisco, Colin who I met through Krisztina, my flatmate Max, and some friends of Colin (Sabina, Elke).

the volleyball crowd
Birgitta
Aida

Swedish connection
Heike!
Tina

Vera Melanie Sabina
Vera & Sebastian
me and Max
We stayed at Colin's place until around midnight when we made our way to Cafe am Hochhaus in the Glockenbachviertel. We had hoped to meet up with some other friends, but we were a bit late in getting there so they had already left (sorry Sabina!). Quite a few made it to the first place, but as the night progressed, people started dropping off. Around 3am six of us headed to Ersta Liga (me, Max, Sabina, Melanie, Sebastian and Vera). We ended up staying super late and I ended up catching a cab that got me home at 6.45, giving me 15 minutes to take a quick shower and pack up the rest of my stuff and catch another cab to the bus stop to get my airport bus at 7.08. In the end I made it to the airport with time to spare, though I was completely exhausted. It was an incredible last night in munich though, and it was sad to know that I was flying away from all the friendships I have developed the past three months. I hope to stay in touch with a number of people there though, and to come back and visit soon! (maybe Oktoberfest?)

Colin and Sabina
Anna Birgitta and Aida
Colin me and Jesper

those crazy girls...
hadn't seen each
other since college!
at Cafe am Hochhaus

getting sweaty
Sabina and Chistian
Sabina and Sebastian
I also was lucky enough to get a hold of pictures from Colin and Vera's cameras and wanted to include them here! It was such a memorable night; thanks to everyone who came and helped make it a night where I had a smile on my face for 10 hours straight!

Group photo
someone was happy
Colin me and Jesper

me and Vera
August 2nd, 2006

My time here in Munich is rapidly coming to an end now. I only have 10 more days until I head back to NYC! It really has been an extraordinary summer, and I have had a lot of fun meeting a lot of new great people, and also seeing a lot of old friends in Europe. In the last three weekends I have had three major events: my visit to Stuttgart to see Tilman and Mona, my visit to London to see Rafael and Amanda, and the Running Dinner. One at a time now...

Two weekends ago I took the train over to Stuttgart to visit Tilman and Mona. Tilman was my flatmate back in 1998-99 when I was living in Stuttgart for 8 months working at Hewlett-Packard. In the meantime he has gotten married to his long-time girlfriend Mona and they have moved into a penthouse apartment with a fantastic view over the city that they renovated according to their own plans. Despite the fact that 7 years have passed since I moved away from Stuttgart, Tilman and I have remained good friends, and it's always a lot of fun to see him and catch up.

He and Mona found this apartment with a huge unused attic spanning over two apartments a couple of years ago and managed to buy it from the owner. They ended up completely renovating the place, creating an amazing two storey penthouse with an amazing top floor under the roof complete with huge windows overlooking the city, all kinds of furniture made to order (of their own design), an incredible roof deck that easily sits 8, and more than enough room for visitors like me! They have done an amazing job desinging and furnishing their apartment, and it definitely motivated me to get my act together and get a place like that! Such a nice place to come home to!

Half (!) of top floor
View over city
Tilman and me
Our major events for the weekend were a rooftop BBQ with many of their friends who I still remember from my time there. We had a great time enjoying the super weather, drinking wine, and eating some great food. Earlier that day we went to the new Daimler-Benz museum which was definitely worth a 2 hour tour. As always, the weekend came quickly to an end, but I still managed a nice quick visit to my old boss Sylvia from my time at HP and her family before jumping on the train (literally!) to head back to Munich!

One of many galleries
in Daimler-Benz museum
Up, Up, and Away!
The next weekend I flew to London to visit Rafael and Amanda. I originally met Rafael through Anna in the spring of 2000 while he was doing his Masters Thesis at UC Berkeley. While we have only had those couple of months in the same city together since we met, we've stayed very close as well over the years. There have been some great visits over the years to London and Stockholm, as well as meeting up in Thailand a couple of times! This time I flew in Friday night and met up with Rafael and Amanda at a restaurant where they were eating with some friends of theirs where we discussed among other things the merits and disadvantages of working as a management consultant. Saturday was comprised by an interesting visit to the V&A museum for an exhibit on Che Guevara followed by a fun night out with some of Amanda's friends. Sunday Rafael and I headed over to Fulham to meet up with Jo and Mark from NYC for a traditional English Sunday brunch.

A nice English pub
Amanda and Rafael
Me and Rosa

Me and Rafael
Jo and Mark
This past weekend I took part in my first ever Running Dinner. I was invited to attend the event by Karine who now has organized a total of three of these interesting events. Supposedly, the story goes that running dinners started among the elite of Europe who would have a three course dinner in three different cities on the same night: London, Paris and Rome for example. For our purposes, it was toned down a bit. The logistics look like this: I got teamed with one person (Isabelle) who was my partner for the entire evening. At 6:15pm we had to show up at an address in Munich for an appetizer with two other teams. By 8:15 we had to be back at my place with a main course ready to go for two new teams showing up at my door. The dessert course started at 10:15 at yet another address with two new teams. Starting at midnight there was a party at a lounge where we got to see everyone who was involved with the event (12 teams totalling about 26 people). Throughout the night you get to have a course with 12 new people in three different locations. Definitely a cool idea!

Isabelle and I met up Saturday afternoon to go shopping for the main course we had chosen. The main course is the most challenging to prepare since you have to choose something that can either be prepared in advance and then just warmed up, or something that goes very quickly. We chose the second alternative and managed to prepare somewhat before we left for our appetizer. The dish we made was baked halibut with a chanterelle risotto and roasted pepper sauce.

Fresh Halibut
Chanterelles at the market!

Isabelle getting started
on preparations
Some of ingredients
We managed to get things in my place reasonably well prepared before leaving to our first address. It turned out to be the aprtment of a girl named Victoria who, along with Karine, organized the whole event. There was a group of three that was in charge of preparing the appetizer, a very nice minestrone, and another group of three showed up along with us to eat it. Just when it seems like everyone was settled down, it was time for Isabelle and I to go back to my place to finish our course in anticipation of our guests! They don't call it a running dinner for nothing!

Victoria and Alice
Isabelle and me

The other team there to eat
The chef
We rushed home and started the serious cooking. It was a bit complicated, especially given the fact that we knew the guests were going to arrive at any moment, but it all turned out great in the end. In fact, the dish was simply fantastic, and I can highly recommend it! We also got two bottles of a stunning Chablis which really make the entire dish quite special. We got a lot of positive feedback from our guests who got to try it! We had a fun group of guys over including one ex-MBA guy whose job it is to turnaround firms in bankruptcy which was really interesting to hear about.

Cooking!
I'm excited to eat!
Our dish - yummy!

Our guests
CBS Happy Hour's
New Super Duper Wine Opener
We had to leave the kitchen in shambles to run to dessert which turned out to be yet another fun group. The girls were all set to leave for Norway two days later, so I naturally put them in touch with Tommy in Oslo who will hopefully take them out for a good time. Obviously, this was a big networking event!

Dessert!
Norway bound...

Kai and Susanne
Our hosts
We made it to Glockenbachviertel where we met up with the rest of the running dinner people by 1am. It had been a very fun and successful event, but the evening was still far from over. After an hour or two in a lounge, about seven of us ended up going to a German dive bar until about 5am. There was a 40 year old guy in a mustache and lederhosen playing old Bavarian tunes on an accordion and the owner of the establishment would go around handing out the lyrics to the song and encouraging everyone to sing along and dance. When we got there at 2:30 or so, it was only about half full, but by 4am every table was taken (by young people). People were all in a very good mood and we had a fun time talking, singing, and joking around. All in all it was a great night filled with lots of really nice people. Unfortunately for me, it had to happen two weeks before I am leaving, but I am very happy to have been able to take part anyways. Thanks Karine and Victoria!

me and Karine
Singing in dive bar
You go boys!

The owner helping with lyrics
Making new friends
Let me in on that!
July 12th, 2006

After six weeks of virtually no contact with the US and no Columbia interaction, the last few weeks have changed all that. First of all, Mark Futyan from my Cluster at Columbia ended up visiting for a weekend, then Bethany (also from Columbia) visited right after for a week. Adding to that, my Dad was here for a weekend, and I found myself speaking English all the time for the first time since I arrived in May!

Mark is a first year in my cluster who is doing his summer internship with Booz-Allen Hamilton in London. He ended up getting staffed with a client here in Munich, and we quickly arranged for him to stay here over one weekend instead of flying home. He picked a great weekend to be here since the first night was Germany's exciting victory over Argentina in penalty kicks! One funny story to tell before I get too much in to the rest of the story has to do with my German jersey. I mentioned that I got a lot of attention wearing my Swedish national team jersey when Sweden played against Germany a few weeks back, even getting interviewed on national TV, well one of my co-workers decided that he needed to do something about it. The next week back at work I had a present waiting for me: a German jersey! Matthias gave it to me saying that I "needed something appropriate to wear" for the next game. So, when Germany played Argentina I left my Swedish jersey at home (along with my Swedish language) and showed up at the beer garden with the German jersey ready to drink beer and speak German! Mark and I went with some people from work to our standard beer garden and enjoyed the great game. As usual, after the victory Munich exploded with people celebrating in the streets, and once again there were 10's of thousands of fans filling up Leopoldstrasse near my flat.

The German Look
Me and Mark
Leopoldstrasse
after the game

With Patricia from work
One big ball
Tilo & Sabina

Nice wigs
More Beer Garden
Munich from the
English Garden
It was great seeing Mark and getting a chance to catch up. Having not seen anyone from Columbia in a few months I had forgotten how fun the people are there. We spent a lot of time talking about possible career paths, living in NYC, the MBA program, and life in general, and simply had a great time.

The day after Mark left, Bethany arrived. She had already been in Europe for two weeks, going crazy on Mykonos (such a fun island) and exploring Turkey with some other friends from Columbia. I had invited her to come by and visit Munich at some point, and tried to plan some fun things for the two of to do (including going to places new to both of us!). I ended up using three of my precious four days of vacation when she was here, and the first vacation day we took in Neuschwantein!

Neuschwanstein is perhaps the castle that Americans think of when they think of Germany; in fact it was the castle that inspired the design of the Disneyland castle! What people don't realize who haven't been there before in person is that the castle wasn't built until the end of the 19th Century, and then only by a certified crazy king (Ludwig II) who loved Wagnerian operas and who had this over-the-top castle built. He ended up dying near its completion after which the construction stopped with many rooms remaining unfinished. Oh well, its unique look have won the adoration of the US and Asian tourists (the only place in Germany I have ever seen with Japanese sign posts on the street).

Neuschwanstein
Brickwork
Bethany and me
Just as we walked up to the castle, a huge thunderstorm rolled in. We had an hour and a half to wait before our tour, so made our way to the cafe next door and watched in amazement as the storm passed over us. Severe wind, huge hail stones (see the picture below) and crazy tourists running for cover. It was funny watching them all from the safety of our table looking out into the madness!

The storm rolling in
After the storm
View towards the Alps

After the storm
Herr Salamander
Check out the hail!
Color contrast

The gorge
The keep
Main gate

2 hours AFTER storm!
Disneyland?
Somewhat picturesque

Happy Americans
Into the gorge
Chantarelles!
I need to make a brief comment about the Chantarelles in the last picture. We had originally tried to find this inn on the way home that my Dad had recommended to me from a trip that he made there 30 years ago, but it was unfortunately closed for the night. Instead we found this great little restaurant in a city called Berg on the Eastern shore of Starnberger Lake. Chantarelles are in season now in Germany, and I got that plate you see in the picture for dinner. I do love chantarelles, a holdover from my time in Sweden, and was super excited about eating that many for dinner! For those of you who have never eaten them, make sure you find them at some point this summer! They are best when picked fresh from the forest (the Norwegian ones are the best I have had so far), but even the ones you get at the market are something special!

Our second trip was to Salzburg, home of Mozart and "The Sound of Music". I made reservations for a hotel in advance, but when we got there there were some complications with our reservation, and they ended up upgrading us to this crazy nice room in a 5 star hotel right in the middle of the old town. Our room was the largest on the floor, and I've never had that big of a room before. Definitely something special!

Our hotel
The 'office'

The salon
The Water Closet
While we were suitably impressed with the hotel room, we did in fact manage to see quite a lot in the two days we were there. Salzburg has a beautiful old town with a massive castle overlooking the city from above. I don't know if it's worth visiting there for much longer than a weekend, but we definitely had a great time exploring the city while we were there!

Salzburg
From the castle
Castle walls

Precursor to
girls on cars
inside castle
marionettes!
On our second day there we took the "Sound of Music Tour". It turns out that while the Sound of Music is super popular nearly everywhere, the Germans and Austrians haven't even heard of it. There was a movie made in German before the American version that was popular at the time, but when the Hollywood version came out, people were very critical to how much had been changed to satisfy Hollywood that it never became popular. The tour was done completely in English, and we had the most hysterical tour guide leading us by bus to all the places around Salzburg where the US version was filmed.

Von Trapp House
Posing
Forgot what scene

St. Gilgen
Wedding scene
Mondsee

Mirabelle Gardens
Doh Re Mi
The final picture I want to mention here is the one on the left. When you walk the streets of Salzburg, you see wrought iron signs for all the stores sticking out from the walls above the doorway. Every single store there has one, and they need to be made in the traditional style, even if the firm has a very strong symbol that they love to make as large as possible. See if you can tell what store this is!

Can you guess what store?
Happy girl
When we got back to Munich, we met up with my Dad. He is in Germany doing research and he came to visit for two days. We had a great time watching the World Cup final together, then going out the next night with my flatmate Max and Nadine. While beer is the way to go in all the outdoor seating areas in Munich, the place we went was a wine restaurant featuring specialties of the Palatine region of Germany. It was definitely a nice change from the usual Bavarian food and we had a great time trying various wines and eating Flammkuchen!

Asam Church
Family Resemblance?

Nadine and Max
2x Nicols
Bethany & me
June 25th, 2006

The world cup here in Germay is in full gear here now. It's been an amazing experiece so far and I am very happy that I have been here to experience this. The city is always on rocking, but after Germany plays (and wins) the city goes crazy. Everyone is out in the streets celebrating, waving flags, in great moods. An interesting thing to add here is that many Germans have told me how this is the first time in their lives that they have been able to be patriotic. Before, being patriotic was synonymous with being nationalistic, something that was shunned in Germany given its past. During this world cup however, people are waving a German flag for the first time in their lives and being proud to display the black red and gold. This is something that many Americans or other nationalities just cannot understand.

I've been hanging out a lot with Swedish people which has been quite a lot of fun. Especially now that the Swedes just played (and lost) to the Germans, you get a lot of attention when you wear a Swedish jersey. There have been at least two games every day for the past two weeks, and I've probably seen about 1/2 of them so far.

Watching the
Swedes play
Gotta love Boobs
Munich in Summer

Australia - Brazil
Munich Fan Park
Amazing Atmosphere

Movie of the crowd
BMW Headquarters
2 blocks from my home
Here is an example of the Germans getting into their own games. I went with some people from Amazon to a beer garden (can you see the pattern yet?) after work and we had a fun time in the sun watching the game, and then going to Leopoldstrasse with the rest of the people from Munich to celebrate afterwards.

Jörn
Sebastian
Our Table

Leopoldstrasse
Celebrating German style
Swedish Fans

Colin and Andy
Swedish Jerseys
Between football games I've also met up with some old friends as well as friends of friends. First off, I met up with my old flatmate from Stuttgart back in 98-99, Tilman. He was in town to watch the Ivory Coast play Serbia Montenegro, and I had the chance to meet up with him and with his wife MOna for a beer and some food before the game. We had a great time seeing each other, though it was quite short, but I will be going to see them in Stuttgart in a few weeks. Then I had the chance to meet up with Bettina, a good friend of Nancy from Columbia. The two of them went to undergrad together, and now Bettina is living here with her German husband. We had a nice dinner together while watching the Brazil - Japan game.

Tilman and me
Bettina and her husband
Me and Bettina
The quarterfinals began yesterday with the big Sweden-Germany match. It was perfect weather and an amazing day. Unfortunately, the Swedes didn't play anywhere near to their potential and were beaten handily by the Germans, but it was a great day anyways. I walked around the whole day in my swedish jersey and had many people make comments to me, both before the game, and especially after the game. The most popular chant was "ihr seid nur ein moebellieferant" which means "you guys are just a furniture deliverer". Everyone seemed to love that one and they kept repeating it throughout the game and afterwards on the streets of Schwabing. Before the game I headed to the park to celebrate Swedish midsummer for a bit. We had had a bbq the night before on the shore of the river with about 100 Scandinavians there, and I ended up meeting a lot of great people with whom I would end up watching the game on Saturday. Midsummer was fun, and a German TV crew showed up and interviewed some of us with our jerseys on, and they ended up putting mine on national TV about an hour before the game started! Pretty cool, though they had no idea I was an American pretending to be a Swede! Oh well.

Anyways, before the game I headed to the park to meet up with some more Swedes to celebrate Midsummer (again) on Saturday and on my way past my local restaurant (1 block away) I saw that there was a traditional Bavarian brass band playing and had to take a picture. Everyone was there drinking their beer and eating their pretzels and weisswurst of course! We then hung out in the park for a bit (notice all the yellow) and then headed to the Englischer Garten to watch the game outside. THere is a good picture of the TV we were all packed in around with our 1 liter beers in hand cheering on the Swedes, but alas to no avail and the Germans totally controlled the game. After the game we went back to Leopoldstrasse, the place that everyone goes after the games and joined the masses celebrating. The crowd you see in the pictures went uninterrupted for about 10-15 blocks and it was PACKED! Great atmosphere with lots of singing songs and drinking.

The oompa band
Midsummer
Watching the game

Onto Leopoldstrasse
Heja Sverige
Siegestor

The crowd
was going
CRAZY!

Energizer Bunny
Movie watching the game
Movie on Leopoldstrasse
June 11th, 2006

The world cup started here in Germany this weekend. The German team played in the opening game against Costa Rica on Friday, and we were lucky enough to have the game played here in Munich. Me and some guys from work had originally thought to go the fan park set up at the stadium built for the 1972 Olympics near our work, but ended up finding out that it was insanely overcrowded with German fans excited to see their team play. In the end, we just grilled some meat and drank some beer at work and watched it there. After watching an impressive offensive show by the Germans (as well as a questionable defensive effort), I got the impression that the Germans still have high hopes for their team to possibly will the World Cup on their home turf.

After the game, we headed over to the Fan Park to see what the atmosphere was like and catch part of the second game (Poland-Ecuador). I had actually never been over to the stadium before, and it actually is a very impressive structure, especially considering that it is over 30 years old. On our way over we passed hundreds of fans coming out who were draped largely in German flags and showing the gold black and red colors of Germany, but there were also a surprising number of fans dressed in the colors of other teams at the tournament. There were a lot of drunk people running around, but everyone was in good spirits and everyone was behaving themselves very well. We watched the game in the nautral ampitheater by the stadium with I would guess about 15,000 other people around, and it definitely was a great atmosphere there. After the game we went into town to a bar called Nippler, and then to a big clubbing area on the on the East side of town for a cultural experience of seeing many 'stereotypical' Germans (at least the way the Americans think) in their mustaches, soccer uniform shirts, and questionable style. As I said, it was a good cultural experience, but not much else.

Three Amazon fans
1972 Olympic Stadium
Cool glass rooves

Yes, those are
The fan park
Check out the moon
The ampitheater

East meets West:
Fans in the U-Bahn
Me and Sebastian
A random Munich picture
Saturday night I met up with Colin and his friend Andi to go to watch Sweden play against Trinidad and Tobago in an outdoor beergarden downtown. It was a great location, and the people there watching the game were a mix of people from around the world, most notably a rather excited table of mixed Swiss and Mexican fans (interesting). After watching the Swedes dominate the game and still only come away with a tie, the three of us headed to a Greek restaurant to meet up with Jenny and Aida who had been invited to a birthday party there for one of their friends.

Aida and Jenny
Jenny and Jesper
Andi & Colin
I met Aida and Jenny last weekend and we had a very fun night out then, and they didn't disappoint this night either. The party was at a big Greek restaurant and it all started off harmless enough. The three of us only knew the two girls, but we quickly met some other people sitting at our end of the table. The party was about thirty people, and I think I can say with certainty that our end of the table was the most lively and had the most fun! It started off with drinking beer and eating food, but after a few hours they started playing live Greek music and things started to get out of control. Breaking plates on the floor, dancing on tables and benches, and fun all around.

Those crazy Swedes
Someone was ready to party
The whole group

Aida
Our end of the table
Smashing plates
So by this time people are starting to get up on the tables to dance to the music. There are shattered plates all over the floor, and people are having a fabulous time. We all ended up going pretty crazy and avoided any serious accidents (though I was quite close one time when I misjudged how far it was to an adjacent table and almost found myself among the shards on the floor).

She is freaking the waiter
Standing on tables
Sweden & England

Luckily the tables were stable
Aida
Who is that cute guy?

The Birthday Boy
Making more friends
Swedish connection

Skirt action
Nice pose
Jenny and Monica

Working the ceiling
Brigitta and Jesper
Between the legs shot

Go team go!
Keep the drinks flowing
Hmm, what did I find here?

I think I'll take her home
Nice necklace!
Pose, quick!

Andi
Get everyone's picture
Putting up with Sam

Da Boyz
Check out the smile
On the way to the club P1
All in all, it was a very fun night though I think there were many people who were suffering quite a bit the next day. To think that there are still four weeks left of football fever awaiting Germany! It's going to be a crazy summer!

June 5th, 2006

My second week in Munich is over, and I'm starting to feel more at home now. Things continue to go very well across the board. At work I had to hand in my first deliverable on Friday which went smoothly. I am enjoying my job quite a bit so far, and had my first deliverable on Friday which went smoothly. I am learning a lot about how things function at Amazon, and despite my total lack of experience in media and retail sales, I do feel that I am able to contribute, and it's great to have a project that is all my own (though I get immense help from those around me!).

This weekend my little sister Julia and her boyfriend Luke came to visit. Julia is studying abroad in Heidelberg this year and Luke is another American who is studying in Tuebingen. They came in on Friday and it was really great get a lot of time with her since we haven't had many opportunities to hang out in recent years.

The weather has been REALLY REALLY bad here so far: in two weeks there has been only one really sunny day (the first day I was here) and since then it has been cold and rainy basically the whole time. There was even snowfall reported in the alps down to 700m (2000ft) last week! Anyways, the weather cleared up a bit on Saturday and we took the chance to go on a long walk around town and do some shopping. Munich was completely destroyed during WWII by American bombing, but they did rebuild a large proportion of the original buildings, so walking around downtown is quite an experience for tourists hungry for stereotypical german views. I took the opportunity to look for some of them myself!

Frauenkirche
Shopping on Saturday
Fresh fruit stand

Yes, those are
lederhosen!
From Viktualienmarkt
Old meets new

East meets West:
Beer garden and Chinese tower
Low rider bike gang
Julia and Luke
This next picture is of the Muenchener Lach und Schiess Gesellschaft. I walk by the "Munich Laughing and Shooting Club" every day on my way to work, and the first time I saw it I definitely did a double take. A club where you both shoot and laugh? In Germany? I mean, if I would have seen this place in Texas or something, I wouldn't have been surprised! In the end in turns out that it is a cabaret, but for a while I was imagining what kind of people were members of THAT club!
Laughing and Shooting Club
Saturday night Julia, Luke and I met up with Katie and Colin. I know Katie pretty well from last year since we both live at International House in New York City. She was in town for the weekend traveling with her family, and we ended up going out for a really fun night with her parents and some connections of her fathers. Colin is a good friend of Krisztina, one of my old buddies from UCSD whom I have had a parallel life with. I had never met Colin before, but Krisztina introduced us via email since he is in Munich for 6 months working in government relations for Sweden. Our group for the evening was completed by two girls who worked as interns for Katie's dad in NYC who are from Munich, a girl who knew Katie from her stay at I-House before I arrived, and a friend of the intern girls. We had a nice night out and it was definitely fun to see Katie here in Europe and finally meet Colin.

Julia and Luke
Colin and me
me and Katie

our whole crew
Family resemblance?
May 27th, 2006

Last night we had our Sam moving in / Wolfgang moving out party at our flat. Max and WOlfgang invited about 50 of their friends over and I had four of my own there, and we ended up having a fantastic party! Max and Wolfgang ended up spending quite a lot of money buying stuff for the party, and we ended up filling up the whole bathtub with beer and ice. Needless to say, the beer was all gone by midnight and they had to make a run to the gas station to get more. It ended up going until 5am and it seems like everyone had a great time.

Bathtub of beer
Heike!
Ian from Manchester

Wolfgang's sister and Andrea
I get the feeling this
guy likes to take pictures
Prosecco!
Wolfgang and Max have known each other since high school, and the majority of the people at the party were friends of theirs from Weilheim. Wolfgang had been Max's flatmate, but is now moving to Brussels and I took over his room.

Babsi & Dagi
sisters (obviously)
My flatmate Max
Bettina & Birgit

Kristina Bernd Nico
Wolfgang in the crowd
Sebastian, Tina, Mattias
Even though most of the people there were from Max and Wolfgang's home town, there were a couple of randoms that spiced up the party a bit. Max bought three sofas this week from a classified ad and the girl he bought the sofas from showed up with a fried of hers. I had two guys from Amazon show up, as well Heike and Markus. People were all in a really good mood and it was very easy to meet everyone and we had many a laugh during the night.

Sofa girl Sandra & Matthias
Is this guy with
the camera for real?
Andi & Bobbi

Danni
Nico & Birgit
The hallway was the
cool place to hang out

Germans love Americans
Wolfgang
Smoking in the bedroom!

Armin & Dani
Krissi
Sonja

Krissi and Markus
Christoph & Nico
Max

Wolfgang & Carolin
Carolin
Anja & Flo
If you haven't noticed, a lot of people here use nicknames with 'i' at the end. Is it a Bavarian thing?

I guess you can tell here that I switched over to sepia on my camera and experimented a bit. It's actually quite nice since there are no problems with red-eye, and I have to say that everyone looks good in it! I will have to use it more often!

Carolin and Wolfgang
Crazy Carro and Tina
The one normal
picture I have of Carro

Gotta love the floor
The American contingent
blending in

Sonja & Dani
Welcome to Munich!
Interesting angle

Say Cheese!
Is he constipated?
Carolin & me

Tina & me
The girls
Gettin' in the mood

We work at Amazon!
You have something
stuck in your mouth
Andi wants in on that
We are now reaching the later hours of the night when pretty much everyone is running around being silly and laughing. Amazingly the cops never did show up, and the neighbors never complained, even though the party was definitely still going strong at 4:30 in the morning. People were all super welcoming and it was great to meet many of Max's friends, and a great start to my first full week in Munich!

Yvonne & Mattias
that guy is drunk!
More Carro faces

Flatmates
Getting late
Waiter! Check please!

He's all ours
Bed time
Kitchen table
About 10 people ended up crashing at our place who couldn't or didn't want to go home. Max had five people in his bed (you go boy!), and people were strewn about the apartment laying on various (very dirty) carpets. I was lucky enough to have my room to myself and ended up getting a fairly good few hours of sleep in my own bed with no one around, though we were up at 9am again, all of us hung over. The people who were left were great and helped do about 80% of the cleaning for an hour or two, then we all went to a nearby restaurant for weisswurst and weissbier. It turns out that this is the Bavarian hangover cure Number 1 and the majority of us were drinking at 11am (though just one or two beers to ease the hangover). I was given instruction on how to skin a weisswurst, and then we headed back to our place to watch a movie and just zone out for a few hours. It's 3:30pm now and I am just starting to feel normal again, though after only a few hours sleep, I don't think I'll be doing that much tonight. It was a great party though and many thanks to all the people who came and made it a night to remember!

Get those sunglasses out!
Mmmm beer
Hung over breakfast
a la Bavarian

Weisswurst!
Pretzels and Beer
Recovery...
May 25th, 2006

Today is Ascention in Germany (Kristi Himmelfahrt) which is a national holiday. It came perfectly timed for me! I started work on Monday at Amazon and it's been pretty hectic between getting to know a lot of people, learning about my project, adjusting to speaking in German all the time, trying to get to know people, and trying to catch up on sleep after last weekend's fun in Sweden. Here though is a breakdown on how things are going:

I had my first day of work three days ago. Amazon is located on the Northern side of Munich right next to the Olympic Center, home of the notorious 1972 Olympics. It takes about 30 min for me to get to work, first walking from my place through Schwabing to the subway, taking it a few stops, then walking by the BMW factory headquarters to Amazon's building. One fun thing is that our offices are next door to BMW M, the place where they modify the BMWs into the M class (sporty) cars. There are 4 or 5 M5's parked in our lot every day ($100k+) and we can look over and see the M roadsters as they come out.

Being the first ever MBA intern at Amazon and not having ever talked to anyone I was going to be working with, I was a bit unsure how well I would be accepted. So far it has been great though. They have been very prepared for my arrival, and are very excited to have me there. I have been given essentially a consutling project within the DVD retail business, trying to solve an 'important' problem they have. They are expecting a lot out of me which is great but a bit scary! Everyone I am working with seems to have extensive experience in both media and internet retail, two areas I have virtually no experience in, but they have been quick to inform me that they really wanted someone without any preconceived ideas on the team to look at their business from a fresh perspective. I do about 90% of my oral communication at work in German, and I feel quite comfortable already speaking my mind, though when it gets down to real business analysis I still have to switch over to English. Everything there is first name and informal (du), and everyone is quite young (as expected). In fact, I think my boss is about my age, having worked at McKinsey for 2 years and Amazon now for 6. There are 200 people working there, and supposedly about 5 Americans, though I have yet to meet any of them.

Socially things are going very well also. I am getting along fabulously with my flatmate Max which has been really great. We live in an area of town called Schwabing, NE of the city center. It's known as an area with lots of students and outdoor cafes, and one of the hipper places to live in town. Max has lived in Munich most of his life and he's been great showing me around and introducing me to people, and we've already had quite a few nights of long conversations over a beer or two. We live very close to the Englischer Garten and have the Seehaus biergarten just 5 min walk away. Here is a picture of the biergarten from across the lake on the walk there along with a picture of my room and the view from it.

Seehaus biergarten
My room
View from my room


As for interesting observations during my time here, there are a few. Germans are known for their bureaucracy and their need to follow rules, but I have to say that my experience so far has been very non-bureaucratic. Dealing with the tax authorities, getting everything set up at work, no contract for my room rental, opening up a bank account, getting a mobile phone, etc. It's all gone very easily and smoothly. Also, I have found most Germans to be quite outgoing and friendly so far. People have invited me to join in things with them, have opened up somewhat about their personal lives (something that took forever to do in Sweden), and have aided immensely in my transition. Beer is a big deal here. It's the cheapest thing to drink on the menu (!) and we always have one with dinner. For those of you who know Bavarian beer, Augustiner seems to be the consensus favorite for 'best beer' of the moment. Also, working full time after being a student for a year is exciting and challenging, but studying really does kick ass!

May 20th, 2006

So today I woke up with this idea in my mind that I wanted to buy a man bag. It's something that I have been close to doing in the past, but for some reason today I made the decision that it was time to take the plunge. I have since come home now without finding a bag and now feel that I understand what many women go through when they complain about the difficulty in finding the perfect bag. Some of the bags were too big, others were too small, others the wrong shape or the wrong color. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted and must have walked into about 10 different stores, but never did find 'my bag'. Oh well, it was an experience anyways and I'll just have to keep my eyes open in Munich for the right one! Here are some random pictures I took while walking to the downtown area that show the part of town where I am staying right now (Haga).

Typical steet in Vasastan
Cobblestone streets
My first home in Göteborg
Walking around town I made some interesting observations. I thought a lot about how much money the Swedes spend on clothing. Salaries are a lot lower here than in the US, and people (both men and women) are often dressed in the newest fashions. While I'm sure many of them shop at H&M (which is cheap here as well), they are still decked out in clothes that are far from classic and will be out of fashion the next season. For a country that supposedly isn't superficial (as they claim the US to be), they sure do spend a lot of time and money on their appearance! There is a preponderance of blondes here, but so many of them are over bleached and are combined with sitting way too long in the solarium, giving an end product of super beach skin & hair combined with the newest fashion. The whole effect just looks so fake to me, a gripe that I know Europeans have about Americans which is pretty funny I think.

The last two nights have been spent is very different company. Thursday night I had a boys night out with three American guys who live here teaching at an international school. The four of us sat around chatting long into the night and had a great time. Last night I was part of a girls night (at least until Jimmy showed up) out with some other old friends and had a good time at afterwork (the swedish friday night happy hour). One of the great things about Sweden in the summer is how late it is light. The sun sets at about 9:45 and it's light out until 10:30 or so which makes evenings so wonderful!

Jennie, Elizabeth,
Page, Anna
American Connection
Martina

Martina & Elizabeth
Jennie & me

me and Jimmy
Lotta & Elizabeth
One thing I heard that really made me feel great was from a number of people who said that even though I have been gone for a year, people can still feel my presence. It turns out that a lot of people I met on my own at various times during my time here who I introduced to each other in my final few months before I left have become very close. The most significant of course is Camilla and John who I knowingly introduced to one another with the idea that they would like one another and who are now expecting a child together in two months. I also introduced a number of other teachers who Camilla works with to some of my other friends, and now they have become a super group of girls who are inseparable. It's such a great feeling to know that friends of mine who I really enjoyed speding time with ended up making new friendships that mean a lot to them today.

For those of you who like these new pictures and want some blasts from the past with the same people from a few years ago, check out the following party pictures:
Anders' James Bond Birthday Party (April 2005)
My going away party (July 2005)
Karin's party and Gbg in Spring (June 2005)

May 18th, 2006

So today was my first day in Sweden after being away for one year. It was amazing how fast I got back into the Swedish and really felt 'at home' again.

I am staying with John and Camilla, a couple that I introduced to each other just under a year ago who are now expecting a baby in two months (matchmaker matchmaker make me a match!). It was quite amazing to see Camilla with a big tummy and to see how they have changed their lives, moving into a nice big apartment in the center of town and with John settling down after a few years of nomadic lifestyle. I am very happy for them, and they were extremely nice to let me stay in their extra room. Camilla was arguably my best friend during my last year in Sweden, and it was great to catch up with her in the afternoon about everything that has been going on in our lives especially in the last six months.

She invited a number of friends to come down and join us in the evening at a nice bar, and I ended up having a fantastic time seeing everyone again. John showed up as well as Anders, both guys I met climbing quite early on in my stay in Gothenburg, back in 2002. A bunch of teachers from the international school showed up as well, Haley, Doug, Chad, and Page. I didn't meet them (along with Camilla) until my final year in Sweden, but we definitely spent a lot of time together during my final months before moving to New York. My ex-flatmate Andreas showed up too, and it was fun to talk to him about Columbia since he is the one person in Sweden who has actually experienced what my life is like in NYC since he was there over the weekend of the first LABA party back in September. Ahh the memories! Anna also showed up and it was great to catch up with her as well!

Camilla and her tummy
John and Anders (blurry)
Haley and Doug (blurry)

Page Camilla and me
Anna
me and John

me and Andreas
Skåne connection: Camilla & Anna
I was quite amazed how fast we all fell back into hanging out and talking about life. In some ways it didn't even feel like I had been gone for a year since the conversation flowed so easily. Since we were quite a few Americans most of the conversation went on in English, but I was glad to see that I could still speak Swedish when I had to and to be reassured that I still have a number of really great friends here in Göteborg!

May 17th, 2006

My first entry into what I hope will be a regular update on my summer here in Germany. At this point I don’t know how well the whole blog thing will work, but I’m game to give it a try!

I am sitting on the airplane right now flying somewhere over Northern Germany on my way over to Sweden after two days in Munich getting settled. It promises to be a great five days visiting old friends and hopefully resurrecting my Swedish skills. As always, I entertained hopes of seeing someone I knew on the plane, but the only thing I can be happy about is how easy it is to tell the Swedes from the Germans.

In any case, my summer trip got off to a great start the last few days. The flight over was quite uneventful, that is until we flew into Geneva where I had a stopover. The weather was fantastic, and we had absolutely amazing views over the Alps and Lake Geneva. The mountains were still covered in snow and were much larger than I remembered. The Alps just don’t compare with anywhere else I’ve been; the Rockies have big mountains spread apart, but the Alps are just a massive jumble of high density sharp peaks. Seeing the area from the sky reminded me of times I have spent there in my life before: visiting my Grandparents at their summer cottage on the Southern shore of the lake, and the summer of 1996 when I spent a number of days in there, drinking pastisse in an outdoor cafe, going skinny dipping in downtown Geneva in the middle of the night, and admiring the mountains from the chateau gardens in Nyon. Such great memories!

I arrived in Munich and made my way without too much hassle to Heike’s place. I met Heike through Anna back in California in the summer of 2001. She has since moved to Germany and was kind enough to let me sleep at her place for two nights since my place I will live in wasn’t available yet. Sitting in the subway (U-Bahn) on the way to her place from the airport, I noticed two things. First, the subway cars are SOOOO 70’s! Fake wood paneling and brown fake leather seats. Quite a contrast to NYC’s subway! Also, I remember at one point the subway got quite full and warm, and my nostrils were suddenly hit with a smell so distinctly German. I cannot describe it, and it’s not necessarily displeasing (though you do occasionally get a whiff of someone who hasn’t showered in a long time), but it definitely made me feel ‘at home’ again. I also took some pictures of the city which came out quite well. There are numerous cafes on the streets and lots of people were out enjoying the fantastic weather.

70's subway
Marienplatz
The city hall

Next to Frauenkirche
Cafe in city hall
Hofbräuhaus
The first night I went with Heike and her boyfriend over to Max’s place to check out the flat I will be living in for the summer. It’s located in Schwabing, one of the hipper neighborhoods in Munich with lots of restaurants and outdoor cafes. I had met Max through a networking site on the internet and was very happy to find out that he was just as nice in person as he was over the phone. I am very happy about the place and its location, and to already feel that I have three people I can call my friends in Munich.

After checking out the apartment briefly and dropping off a monster backpack I had brought with me, the four of us took a five minute walk to a beer garden in the Englisher Garten, one of Europe’s largest metropolitan parks. Max’s place is just one block from the park, and the beer garden is located right on the edge of a nice lake. We ordered Wienerschnitzel, Massbier, and Bretzeln, and I had the ultimate German welcoming dinner.

View from Heike's building
Welcome to Germany!
Mmmm, Massbier!
The next day I had set aside for getting all my paperwork done with the authorities. I headed down to the Kreisverwaltungsreferat, a monster of German bureaucracy, to register myself and get my work permit. Right off the bat I realized that I was going to be stuck in a Catch 22: They said I need a Lohnsteuerkarte (like an American W-2) since I am being paid very well by German internship standards (will make more than annual base deduction and will have to pay some tax), however they don’t give those forms out to people who are staying less than 6 months. I needed a form that I couldn’t get! Amazingly to me, they were creative with the rules and worked out a solution very quickly (saying that my internship was a required part of my education and giving me an ‘extension’ on a visa that I never had in the first place). It all went fairly smoothly, though I did have to deal for the very first time with someone who spoke real Bavarian and I really had to concentrate to understand!

On my way to the internet café I went into a coffee shop to get something to eat, and what did I see? Bagels! I remember how much I missed them when I was living in Sweden all those years, and was very excited to find a place that sold them in Munich. I had a discussion with the people there about how easy they were to find and they said that actually there aren’t too many places that sell them, so I consider myself very lucky to have only gone two days without a bagel available to me.

Last night I went out with Markus and Heike again after they got home from work and we went first to an Indian restaurant followed by a great lounge in the other hip area of town where all the artists live. After two days of speaking German I really started to feel that I was getting back into the language and that it was beginning to flow off of my tongue without thinking (or was it just the great $3 German beers?). Coming home I proceeded to have a couple of dreams in German and my transformation from the USA to Germany was complete. Now though, I am heading up to Sweden and finding it difficult to come up with Swedish words since German keeps on popping into my head. I’m sure after a few days it will be back, just in time to head back to Germany to start work on the 22nd.

Heike and Markus
Notice the fake wood paneling again!
Bussi bussi




Back to Main Page