I am in Munich and feel just a bit like a god. Germany and Sweden are playing in the World Cup, I'm nestled in my little hotel room with the TV on. In all directions, thousands of Germans are glued to their screens, clasping their 1L tankards of beer to their sausage-filled chests. It's 1-1. And, crucially, my channel is somehow eight seconds ahead of everybody else's. This has resulted in the most enjoyable soccer game I have ever watched. It's like lightning and thunder. I watch the ball hit the crossbar, blissfully count eight, then point at the window like a maestro just as a scream of AAAHHHH! erupts from a thousand Bavarian throats. And, not to give anything away, but in the 95th minute, i.e. the very very last minute of the game, well a pretty amazing goal is scored. And I savour eight seconds of pure anticipation, then close my eyes as all 1,320,000 Munchners let loose from the gut with unadulterated Frankish exultation.
I have had a remarkably nice day. Woke up quite early in Salzburg, walked the empty streets to the castle, which was totally deserted. Roamed around pretending it was mine, and admiring the view (Salzburg is quite pretty.) Apparently the king, or emperor or whatever, was quite the practical joker, and set up an entire hydraulic system within the castle walls in order to spray unsuspecting guests. Anyway, then I worked on the train to Munich, where I happily met up with my good friend Louigi from Montreal (hi Louigi!) We haven't seen each other in dogs' years, and blazed around Munich on foot talking about everything from the physics of giant soap bubbles to adaptive parenting, plus everything in between (including excellent jokes. How much do pirates charge for corn? A buccaneer!)
Turns out we are both fast walkers, and I managed a cool 26.4 km of walking today. Along the way, an unscrupulous German sold me a vegetarian bean salad containing "speck" (which I think is bacon, unlike spek which means the blubber of a whale). So I ate meat for I think the fourth time since 2002. Yuck. By the way, can pescatarians eat whale? They were very apologetic though, and gave me bulghur instead. We bought the smallest possible glasses of beer, which at 0.5L was probably the largest beer I've ever had.
Then we kept busting around Englische Park, which boasts a dual-purpose oval where riders gallop around on horses while others play bocce with metal balls. How this doesn't result in broken fetlocks and thrown riders I don't know. There is a cool river with a standing wave that carries you swiftly downstream, I might try it tomorrow if I'm not arrested for walking through town in my skimpy bathers. Later, we refreshed ourselves at a surly cafe, and had amazing Vietnamese food for dinner. But, mostly, we just talked for eight hours straight. I am now, impressively, homesick for two places at the same time, drawn to both the nostalgic friendships of la belle province, and the sweet chaotic unconditional noisy wonderfulness of Tamar, Aurora, Sophia, Tova and Zadie.
I have had a remarkably nice day. Woke up quite early in Salzburg, walked the empty streets to the castle, which was totally deserted. Roamed around pretending it was mine, and admiring the view (Salzburg is quite pretty.) Apparently the king, or emperor or whatever, was quite the practical joker, and set up an entire hydraulic system within the castle walls in order to spray unsuspecting guests. Anyway, then I worked on the train to Munich, where I happily met up with my good friend Louigi from Montreal (hi Louigi!) We haven't seen each other in dogs' years, and blazed around Munich on foot talking about everything from the physics of giant soap bubbles to adaptive parenting, plus everything in between (including excellent jokes. How much do pirates charge for corn? A buccaneer!)
Turns out we are both fast walkers, and I managed a cool 26.4 km of walking today. Along the way, an unscrupulous German sold me a vegetarian bean salad containing "speck" (which I think is bacon, unlike spek which means the blubber of a whale). So I ate meat for I think the fourth time since 2002. Yuck. By the way, can pescatarians eat whale? They were very apologetic though, and gave me bulghur instead. We bought the smallest possible glasses of beer, which at 0.5L was probably the largest beer I've ever had.
Then we kept busting around Englische Park, which boasts a dual-purpose oval where riders gallop around on horses while others play bocce with metal balls. How this doesn't result in broken fetlocks and thrown riders I don't know. There is a cool river with a standing wave that carries you swiftly downstream, I might try it tomorrow if I'm not arrested for walking through town in my skimpy bathers. Later, we refreshed ourselves at a surly cafe, and had amazing Vietnamese food for dinner. But, mostly, we just talked for eight hours straight. I am now, impressively, homesick for two places at the same time, drawn to both the nostalgic friendships of la belle province, and the sweet chaotic unconditional noisy wonderfulness of Tamar, Aurora, Sophia, Tova and Zadie.
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| A close-up photo of Mozart's birthplace |
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| Salzburg from the schloss. Note the giant golden ball, pretty snazzy |
I confirm that this is how things went down. I would post a selfie of Jakob and I in the Munich central station, but this blog doesn't seem to support image posting.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the lack of synchronicity between your soccer feed and that of the rest of Munich: I was alluding to a podcast called "Ways of Hearing", about how "the switch from analog to digital audio is influencing our perceptions", among other things. The first episode makes the observation that digital latency has affected our communal experience of sporting events (starting at around the 14-minute mark): https://www.radiotopia.fm/showcase/ways-of-hearing/