I thought I'd lost you, boy

Before we begin, take a moment to mark "one" for the AWAY Team.

ME: I bet you're glad to finally be in Germany, I said to him. Just hang on a sec.. I'll be right back.

Him: Is everything cool?

ME: Everything's cool. Be right back.

It started out innocently enough - really it did. You see, Germany has this "on your honor" policy with regards to using their public transit which I try to take very seriously. In my pocket were two unstamped "mehrfahrtkartes" err, transit tickets that you can use whenever you want. It's good to keep one or two in your wallet incase you find yourself without money to purchase a fare home. You're supposed to stamp them before you get on the train, bus, whatever, and I realized after Jesse and I sat down in the train that I hadn't validated our tickets yet. Do we ride as misfits who don't pay their own way, or do I get these suckers stamped and be a shining, glimmering, positive reflection of Good Society?

No worries; on the buses the validation boxes are located near the doors. Makes sense: you stamp them when you get on. But for some reason I couldn't find them on the train. I asked a guy next to us: "Verstehen Sie Englisch?" "Yah," he says, "I'm from Indiana." Sweet! Where can I stamp these mehrfahrtkartes? "Uhh, I'm sure the box is on the train somewhere." Well, we weren't going anywhere, so I walked down to the front of the train. No box. I swear I didn't see one. So I walked towards the rear of the train where Jesse awaits my return.

On my way back I see that the boxes are actually fixed to the station where you buy the train ticket. It's just a big rectangle blob, somewhat resembling a big steel door with an LCD touch-screen. Go or stay, go or stay. I'm weighing my options.

The train is still not going anywhere, and besides, I'm always notified by the conductor or pre-recorded voice when the train is about to go, stop, open the doors, which way to exit the open doors, yahdda yahdda yahdda. So off I go, maybe 10 feet away from the train to pop in my ticket. One ticket stamped. On to the next one!

Whew, that was close! I almost tempted fate with the SSB guys in the black coats. IF they stop you and you're without a paid fare, they pop you with a 50 euro fine. (less, I'm told, if you play dead about how the transit system works.. besides, isn't transit free in the States?).

As the second ticket is slid into the machine, I'm gripped with a new kind of fear. It's a fear of silence, because I hear nothing as the train's doors slam shut. I withdraw the ticket, and no matter how fast I ran to the door to open it they weren't coming open. The train starts movin, and hey, there goes Jesse - sitting happily in the back of the train near some random guy from Indiana. I try waiving at him as a signal to exit at the next stop, but somehow my wildly flailing arms go unnoticed.

Lucky me. I just lost my jet-lagged brother-in-law. To my knowledge he's without a local currency, our address, phone number, you name it.

If I continue this story in the same manner, you'll be here all day. Suffice it to say that after four hours, we finally caught up with Jesse at the main train station. After two hours of visiting different train stations, I gave up and returned home empty handed and curious what storms awaited my return. When I saw my wife I simply said, "Hi Honey!" and she said "What the hell happened?!" Great! He made it home before I did and I worried for no reason at all!

Well, not so fast. She received an anonymous phone call on her mobile. Something like "Meet me at the McDonalds at the Hauptbahnhof in one hour." It was very Cloak-and-Dagger. Actually the conversation was more "Hi, this is the Missing American Hotline, and we've found your brother. Please come get him at the Hauptbahnhof McDonalds before he consumes too many burgers and beers."

Our gracious neighbors Katie and Carl brought us into the city where we eventually located Jesse at McDonalds. We grabbed lunch for everyone back at the ranch, and I offered Katie my only 10 Euros as a small sign for a HUGE THANK YOU for her assistance, flexibility, kindness, altruism. We headed back to calm the travellin Parentals' hearts - and ate.

But hey, I learned a ton about the differences between trains and buses that day! For example, the next time I get on a train with someone, I'll be damned if I get off that train to validate my ticket. When the SSB black coat guys come by and demand my ticket, they're going to get a big smile and someone who just can't seem to explain himself very well. :)

First things first...

So, there have been a few e-mail and phone call queries, with inquiring minds wanting to know more about the lost family member thing. Well, as luck would have it, it's chronologically the first story on the list. I'll start with Part 1 of the story here, and let Andy take Part 2 to the finish line. Here goes:

The day of my family's arrival started off normal enough. We got to the airport early, to be on the safe side, and with our extra time purchased items essential to a proper German greeting....Nothing says "Welcome to Deutschland" like a beer and a pretzel. :)

Since there were so many suitcases to transport (thanks mostly to our special requests from the US and Christmas presents), we couldn't all fit in one cab. So, we decided that I would take Mom and Dad in a taxi to Busnau, and Andy and Jesse would take the train and meet us there. Super.

After an hour of being in Busnau, Mom and I were starting to wonder what was taking the boys so long. Maybe they stopped at the store on the way in, or maybe Andy's giving Jesse a tour of the neighborhood. No worries. Then, in the midst of showing my parents the cool features of our new cell phone, I notice that I have a voicemail: "Um, hi. This is the American rescue service calling. I'm here with your brother...uh...I think he got separated from your husband on the train. Anyway, he's safe and I've seated him at the McDonald's at the main train station. He'll be waiting here for you to come and rescue him."

It's blo-og, blo-og. It's better than bad, it's good!

Friends, family, devoted Clarktoberfest-followers: we are back. Over the last two weeks while my parents and brother were here, we toured a kingly palace, visited four Christmas markets, consumed many cookies and many glasses of beer, visited the Czech republic, and temporarily lost a family member in a mass transport shenanigan. Too many stories to tell now, but rest assured we will be sorting through our photos soon and promise to give updates on all of our (mis)adventures. :)

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Ah, the Company Christmas Party

On Monday, our department celebrated Christmas in the usual fashion: with a company party. Everyone brought food to share, we helped to lay out some lovely decorations, some tasteful holiday music was played in the background, and then we all sat around nibbling cookies and drinking spiced wine. The event started out somber and quiet...maybe because the spiced wine didn't have enough rum, or because the Christmas tunes were more like opera music than party music. In either case, this portion of the party was happily short-lived, and soon the party developed into an event with memorable highlights....

Once everyone had relaxed into the party, it was time for the annual secret Santa (Weihnachtsmann) gift exchange. To everyone's surprise, Professor Arzt decided to dress as Santa himself to hand out the gifts this year. Very funny. Kids at UIUC...just try to imagine Ian doing this...impossible, right?.Of course, no company Christmas party is complete without a healthy dose of embarrassment, so Shravanthi and I decided to perform a holiday line dance to show 'em how we do things in the south. The song we chose was "Santa Claus is Coming on a Boogie Woogie Choo Choo Train", which you can sample here. It actually turned out to be a success, and by the end we had half of the department on the dance floor trying to learn the dance along side us. Sorry, no video, but you can get the gist from the pics. Check out our amazing coordination!
So, until the next embarrassing moment, I bid you adieu!

Jack is BACK

In my glory days, I was 17, worked at Worst Buy, and occassionally received free copies of various computer programs from software company representatives. Among the top of the list were games like 7th Level's Monty Python and the Holy Grail - funny, totally new, and with HUGE replayability (ie, you could play it over and over without getting bored). Believe it or not, I'd never known Monty Python and this started a burgeoning love with British humor and Monty Python's interesting directions. But I digress.

One freebie in particular started an all-points-bulletin revolution. I'm talkin about neverending night parties, with both friends and families. This badboy even included stickers you put on your keyboard as an eternal brand signifying to visitors that you're both part of the elite YDKJ clan. This may be the most popular game that everybody never heard about. And it goes something like this:

YOU DONT KNOW JACK!

It slipped away once, don't let it happen again. Go home and plug this address in your browser window:

www.youdontknowjack.com

You can play some, you can buy them, just don't complain about how much they cost because you can't put a price on history, baby.

T minus 7 days...

With just a week to go until the big day, Andy and I have successfully put up a Christmas tree in our apartment. Our friend Petra drove us to the market to pick one out (and helped us barter in German by the way...26 Euros down to 22, not too shabby). The tree is a Nordman-Tanne, very popular here. We bought the star topper at the Weihnachtsmarkt downtown...isn't it pretty?

Too much Christmas? No such thing.

As though visiting three previous Christmas markets wasn't enough, we headed last Sunday to Nürnberg for the most famous Christmas market in Germany. The trip on the train was 3 hours, and only 20 Euros a couple thanks to the Schönes Wochenende (Happy-Weekend) ticket. We went with our friends Katie and Carl, and their friends, Kathleen and Mike.

Just across the street from the train station in Nürnberg is the "old city" section. This part is the original castle part of the city, and is surrounded by a wall and a long-since-drained moat. Inside the wall the buildings are filled with cute, touristy shops like the Old Tin Toy Shop and the Lebkuchen Bakery. Very charming.

Meanwhile, in the city center, the streets are full of pedestrians, strolling through and enjoying the 160+ booths at the Christkindlmart. The architecture is so nice, and such a contrast to modern Stuttgart. Nürnberg was more or less leveled during WWII, but was rebuilt to look just as it did before the war. It's really very pretty. While walking through the market, we got roasted chestnuts (new experience, pretty tasty), candied almonds, mini-bratwurst sandwiches, glühwein (mulled wine), and fresh lebkuchen (soooooo good). We also saw some fun performers, such as the one-man band, with a tin bandmate playing the drums:


....and found out that Nürnberg is famous for "prune people"... semi-scary figurines made with prunes and figs:

To see the rest of the pics from our grand day out, click here.