Day 1 - Jersey City: Getting Settled

My flight into Phoenix happened without issue, but the connecting flight was held up for 2.5 hours. The first 2 hours we due to nasty weather in Newark and the last 30 minutes to our number one engine shutting itself down. When we finally did take off it was a white knuckle ride.

I arrived in Newark about 1:20AM, exhausted, and ready to fall into a bed. But first I had to get to the apartment. Silly me exited the terminal and tryed to find a cab to hail by just going out to the curb. I didn't see, at first, the line of people waiting for cabs to my left. Oy. What a snafu that would have been for me to stick my arm out AS IF I was going to sneak in front of all those people. I sheepishly got in line and waited my turn.

$46 for a trip to Jersey City. Do cabbies really expect to be tipped as well? Sheesh. My driver was nice enough. He got me there and I gave him $51. 10% tip. He should be thrilled. Highway robbery. I would have taken the train if it were earlier in the day. Alas.

It was good to arrive. I think I fell asleep by 2:30AM. Alarm went off at 6:30AM. WTF? Stayed in bed til 8AM and then rolled out of bed and hit up the local Starbucks on the corner. Nothing to eat in the kitchen. Unpacked, showered, worked a bit, then walked down the street to the local market. Fucking highway robbery, again. $71 for basic groceries. Where is my Trader Joe's? Where is my Whole Foods? Eating at restaurants will be cheaper than this. So I have some staples. Hurray. At least I can get a pint of blueberries for $1.99 here on the east coast. Small victory.

Made the unfortunate accident of telling the ex-wife that I'd arrived. She snipped, "So is he coming to see the boys tonight?" Ah, "No", I told her, 'we have plans tonight". She griped that because we had sex last night that I should be OK with him leaving. Ahem, I reminded her that I had paid $150 to show up a day early, if you can count 2AM a day early, and that I did not agree to whatever silly plan she'd cooked up. Oh, let's not forget the $51 for the cab. Maybe I should ask for her to cover the $201 I spent if she wants him sooner. Heh. She hasn't spoken to me the remainder of the day. Silly assumption on her part that I would pay $201 to show up early and then just be fine with him taking off after I'd seen him for, what, an entire hour and a half? She's smokin' crack.

Tonight we're doing dinner (South City Grill, nice place) and a movie (maybe "Wanted"). Weather is perfect. Not too hot, not too cold. Absolutely perfect. If this is normal, I could live here in a heartbeat.

Summer in Noo Joisey

Heading to the east coast in a few days. I'm going to be staying in Jersey City for the better part of July and August and working in Manhattan. My work isn't sending me to New York, rather I'm sending myself there.

You might ask why I would bother to venture to NYC during the hottest months of the year? Well, it's one of those multifold (read:cluster-fuck) things:

• Current love interest's ex-wife has decided that the kids need to spend the summer in Philadelphia and surrounding parts with her family
• Said man-friend used to live and work in Manhattan
  
• He doesn't want to be apart from the kids that long *and* his company would love to have him back in Manhattan. Company has agreed to pay for an apartment for two months in an effort to try to lure him back there.
  
• Two months without said love interest makes for a very unhappy Linda
  
• My uncle and step-father are simultaneously dying. Mom is pulling life support from her husband today, in fact, and it will be a matter of days to weeks until my uncle "goes hospice" on us and we lose him as well. So I need to get back there for support and the inevitable funerals
• And, hell, I've always wanted to spend significant amounts of time in NYC to see if I could, like so many others, actually fall in love with the city and want to stay.
  

So there you have it. I am going to Noo Joisey to stay for awhile.

I think it will work something like this:

Love interest will work in Manhattan Monday thru Thursday and then go to Philly or surrounding areas to see the kids Thursday night til Sunday night. Me? I'll work Monday thru Wednesday at the office, from the apartment or other locations the other two days. I'll head to Connecticut to see my ailing family on weekends or I'll join him to see the kids if accommodations have room for me. Rumor has it that the ex-wife's family has a cabin in the Poconos and we and ex-wife and her current love interest will take the kids and spend a weekend there. How's that for a big alternative family trip?

My job isn't at all happy that I've decided to leave for NYC. My manager said something like, "Just being gone 50% of the time is TOO MUCH!" I came back, "Being away from my partner 50% of the time is too much for me!" and then I reminded him that the man that hired me said that I could work in Manhattan and it's something I understood as being part of my overall hiring agreement. (Unfortunately this golden tidbit wasn't relayed to him but I've obtained an email from said hiring person agreeing that he forgot to mention this to my new manager). But we are a global company with an office in Midtown. The sun never sets on our company. And, my team is global, hell I'm in global marketing, so I don't quite get why it's such a stressful thing that I am out of sight from my manager for a few months.

In my life, some of my biggest regrets have centered around travel opportunities that I either missed or passed up. In college a close (and very rich) friend of mine was about to marry. She was Syrian (reportedly a princess) and her engagement party was being held in Paris. I was invited to attend, given a name of a hotel where I'd be staying (read: this trip was paid for) and an itinerary of wedding events that I'd be attending.

Well, at that time I worked as a wine pourer/bartender at a very nice restaurant not far from my college. It was typical in this establishment that is one wanted to take time off, you'd solicit other workers to cover your shifts. Unfortunately, because my job made less coinage in tips, no one wanted to work for me. I appealed to the manager/owner, but she said that unless I could find someone to work for me that I wouldn't be able to take the time off.

That should have been my red light to quit. Right there and then. I should have pivoted on my heel and headed for the door. But young, naive, unworldly me caved and relented. I passed up the paid trip to Paris and stayed home and worked. And seethed. For years. I'm still seething over this episode and angry that I didn't have a bit more balls.

But I've grown testicles since then and travel is now a priority for me. I'm ready to face the possibility that my six figure plus job might can my ass for leaving, but it's a risk that I'll have to take. I really don't want to live my life with more regrets, "Why did I pass up that trip!??!?!" I'm just not going to do it. So, bold one that I am these days, I didn't ask to go, I told them I was going. I had to. Otherwise it would be the Paris party all over again. You see? It'll be interesting to see what my work situation is like come September.

I wonder what they are going to do when late Fall/early Winter comes and I'm ready to make a trip to Germany for the Weihnachtsmarkts?

Mercedes Museum & Stuttgart Weihnachtsmarkt

I caved and finally went to see the Mercedes Museum. It's not something that I'd typically be up for doing, but I know the guys in my Mercedes club would freak if I'd come this far and didn't make a pilgrimage to the temple of Mercedes.

It was a fast train trip....just two stops from the Hauptbahnhof and a short walk from the station once I'd arrived. I do like the trains here, except for the stench of cigarette smoke, which is pervasive.

As typical it was cold and I'd regretted not wearing my thermal pants under my clothes. I keep imagining how much energy I'm burning to walk and to stay warm. Well save for the pizza that I consumed before boarding the train.

The building that the museum is housed in is a modern concrete and glass wonder. It's sort of a triangle shaped building with exaggerated curves where the points would be. Once inside, one takes an elevator to the top of the building and sets off on a huge spiral that ends at the bottom of the building. (The fee for getting in is 8E, unless you claim to be unemployed...and then it's 4E)

The display starts off with a horse...and a quotation from someone, I forget who, who stated that the automobile would be a temporary fad and that the use of horses would persist. It was a neat museum in all but I was disappointed that the era of the ponton was summarized by showing a 180, a gullwing, a 300SLR, 300 SL, and an Adeneur. They totally skipped over the 190, 219, 220S/SE or the coupes of the latter. What the hell? the 180 was the most barebones of the pontons and the 300SLs the most expensive (and now sell for upwards of $500,000). I think they do a disservice to the era of ponton by showing so few specimens and those of the extreme.

The bottom floor housed a gift shop overflowing with overpriced items (all probably made in China). The only thing I thought was sort of neat was that they'd reproduced some of the brochures from the 50's. I was thinking of buying a couple of those, but what for? To stick in a box with my other papers so I could look at it once every few years? I have enough crap laying about. I passed.

Resisting the cafe I headed back to the train and to Hauptbahnhof where the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) was about to kick off.

I arrived at the castle courtyard about 5:30PM and the crowd was still rather small so I took a spot near the front of the stage. The children were all practicing their choir. By 6:00PM the castle courtyard was packed with people to the gills and as German efficiency would have it, the program started right on time when the church bells had ceased. They did a selection of Bach and a few other composers, but I couldn't really tell who else being that the entire program was in German. It was lovely. I took a short video of it to capture the essence of the moment. I think it let out about 6:40PM. Thank god. My feet hurt and it was so cold. I immediately made off to buy my first dose of Gluhwein.

AA caught up with me shortly thereafter. We made our way through the mazes of booths and didn't buy anything more than spatzle and more gluhwein. (I should have stopped at 2 but went for a 3rd with dinner. Oy!) I just have such a hard time bringing back "things". Chocolate and alcohol? Now I don't have a problem bringing THEM back as they'll disappear, leaving me with nothing but the good memory of how delectable they were. But I just have a problem with buying "stuff" and cluttering up the house with more crap than we already have. If things were actually made in Germany, that is one thing. But so much of this "festival" merchandise is made in China these days and I don't need to go to Germany to buy this stuff: hell I can just buy it on Ebay.

So I am saving my suitcase space for things that are truly worthy. So far it's chocolate, local distillations, and I will be bringing back a buttload of pates, canned and dried meats, dried spatzle for J, and chocolates/candies for myself and everyone back home. I'd like to get a box of pastries to bring home, but as I'm spending a night in Amsterdam, I just wonder if they'll make it or not. They might be a bit stale by the time I return. One thing that might make it are the chocolate croissants. Not pan au chocolate, but croissants that are entirely dipped in dark chocolate. I think that they are about the most evil thing I have seen on the planet. The chocolate, thereby sealing out all of the moisture, would be key in keeping them fresh. And also, I haven't seen any boxes for pastries here. I think they just toss them all into bags. The Germans are weird about food packaging and paper products. You are charged for plastic bags in grocery stores (a good thing) but they take it to the extreme of only giving you one teeny little paper napkin when you get "to go" food. I have not yet seen paper towels in the markets. Do they exist here? Hell if I know. Likewise, I have not seen plastic wrap. Tin foil. Much of this is good as it leads to less waste. But on some level it feels extreme. I feel, well, I feel as though I'm camping. Working with less than I am used to I guess.

I could get over it I'm sure.

Ditching the Shoes

I was exhausted today. I stayed up late last night. What was worse that that my host woke up early to get to a doctor's appointment, waking me in the process, and I couldn't get back to sleep. Normally 5 hours is enough sleep but compounded with jetlag it was just too much to bear. I stayed inside till nearly 1pm today. I couldn't seem to feel warm no matter what I tried. But about 1pm I ventured out and went to Konigstrausse, the pedestrian shopping area of downtown Stuttgart.

I walked the entire length of the Konigstrausse looking for my shoe store before finding it. I was fearful that they might not take my shoes back. Maybe there was some sign that I'd overlooked or couldn't read pertaining to returns and exchanges? But they were actually quite kind and took the shoes back without a fuss.

Unencumbered by one less package, I made my way through some of the lesser alleyways off of the Konigstrausse. I spotted a Louis Vuitton. Could I have finally found the hidden alley with the "nicer" shops of Stuttgart? Yes, indeed I did. But the most exciting thing wasn't the LV store, but an amazing gourmet market that I stumbled into, almost quite accidentally! There was nothing outside to clue the passerby into the delights that one would find inside. But once inside, the store unfolded. I found about 5 or 6 rows of independent markets, each row containing 5 to 7 vendors. Each vendor specialized in produce or spices or meats and clearly had the best of what there was to offer in their area of specialization. Never before had I seen such perfect berries, such lean cuts of meat. Perfectly beautiful fillets like I have never seen before. Everything was so clean, bright, sparkley. It made you want to buy. I spied one vendor going through her grapes and carefully scissoring off the brownish ones. No wonder everything was so perfect, what with such intensive pruning and care?

I didn't buy anything but I did snap a few photos of this delectable display. I did stop by a meat counter that sold Langenjaeger sausages that were shrink wrapped and asked if they could be taken on the plane and left unrefrigerated for a day or so. He answered in the affirmative and I promised to return on my last day and buy a bunch of them. Not only does he shrink wrap the Langenjaegers but he can wrap just about anything up. Perhaps I'll get a few other things for the road as well.

On the way back to the train I passed through a Scottish rally for the Rangers football game. It was refreshing to see such passion in a city that is so clearly lacking. The Scotsmen were there in droves. Beers in hands. Singing. Chanting. Yelling. The news said that no less than 2000 flew in from Glasgow for the event. I'm sure that number was on target. I watched for a bit and wished I'd had someone to hang-out with so I could join in on the festivities, but I was on my own this evening and didn't feel like imposing on anyone. (Rare for me, eh?) So I grabbed a chunk of bread from a local shop (and was overcharged as usual) and grabbed couple of weisswursts from the local meat market and I was back home for the evening.

It wasn't the most remarkable day but tomorrow will be infinitely more interesting. I am going to make my way back to Schwaigern and try to get my hands on the "church book" that contains the names of my Keplinger relatives. I have to know, once and for all, if we're really from this inhospitable land. I so hoped we'd wind up being Austrian rather than German as they have a bit more to be proud of, meaning I'd have something to smile about. But if we wind up being German, at least we're Swabian and that's infinitely more interesting than being German.

After Schwaigern, I'll make my way to downtown Stuttgart to partake in the Christmas festivities and get some Christmas shopping accomplished. Whether or not I've company for the night.

Tübingen

Today I took the train to the quaint little town of Tübingen via the R8 train from Stuttgart (a mere 4.8E with my 3 day pass supplementing part of the overall fee). It was an hour or so train ride and as it was the first day I'd had where I could see anything of blue in the sky, it was a pleasant trip. The train was rather empty so I took over a cluster of four seats at one point and settled in quite nicely.

Arriving in town I scrambled to find the visitor center. Finally locating it alongside the river I bought a map and set about exploring. My feet still aching from Saturday night's all night dancing, I grimaced when I realized that most of Tübingen is hilly and the streets and walkways are all cobblestones. It's quaint to the hilt with a meandering river, turretted homes, river walks, and half timbered houses. They have a rather large gothic church which is really cathedral in proportions...it dates to the early middle ages and is where they hold many concerts. I just missed the last concert by two days. Drats.

To my excitement there were oodles of chocolate stores to be had. At 3:30PM I stumbled onto a coffee shop with a full view of the city center fountain and city building and settled in for my first caffeine in just over a year. Two cafe cremes and two shots of local scotch whiskey later I found myself wandering out the door with two bottles of the elixer to meet AA for dinner at the gasthouse by the river. I arrived early and ordered myself their special "dark Christmas beer". It didn't turn out to be as dark as I'd like. The waiter suggested their dark unfiltered beer on the next run.

AA arrived and we ordered two dinners to share. I wasn't too thrilled with their ideas on salad (with sauerkraut in it) or with the spätzle as it seemed rather plain to me. I did notice that the two men sitting next to me had a different variety of the latter dish: their noodles being thicker and longer and less ribbony than ours was. Reflecting back, we should have ordered the spätzle with the cheese sauce. I'll have plenty of time to try other varieties on this trip so it's all good. I ordered the unfiltered beer partway through dinner as the waiter had suggested. It was just a hair darker and the flavor was like a Heffenweisen, which is what AA had ordered. Tasty, yes, but not what I was looking for. But still, not bad.

Dinner behind us, we decided that we just had to get ourselves a taste of the local gelato before heading home. This is as close to Italy as I'll be getting on this trip and AA did mention that one of his Italian coworkers that he works with simply raves about this particular gelato shop in Tübingen. Mind you, it's probably close to freezing and here we are, two nutty Americans off on a gelato run. For 4E we walked out with two of the largest gelatos I've seen outside of Italy. It was too late to enjoy our delicious finds inside the store as they were closing, so we made our way out onto the dark, twisting, cobblestoned streets and slowly headed back towards our train.

What a way to end a day.

Lazy Sunday at the Apartment

It's 2:25PM and AA and I are still in our pajamas, on our respective couches (mine really a stuffed chair), and we don't seem to be moving too fast. Neither of us is hungover, not even close, which is an amazing feat in itself.

Gosh, I had a dark beer in Schwaigern, 2 small glasses of wine at the house, a beer on the train, and then a little over three beers at the party.

I should feel like shit today, but I don't. What's weirder? I didn't even get a good rip roaring buzz from the barley pops last night. What's with that? I'd heard all sorts of stories on how potent German beer is supposed to be, but I think I was a bit shocked. Not disappointed as I didn't really intend to drink myself into a stupor or anything, but shouldn't I have been a bit more inebriated? One would think so.

So, two cups of German decaf coffee down, a chunk of toast with goat cheese, and I am no closer to doing anything today. I think a long hot shower is in my future. It looks cold, gray, and windy outside. It feels like a day to ride the couch and watch movies more than anything. But I'm in Germany. Aren't I supposed to be doing something? I feel a little guilty just sitting here but my legs and feet hurt so much. I even had a dream about how much they hurt. Gah!

We might actually get out of the house by the time it turns dark. Fancy. that.

Schwaigern & Uber 30 Party

Took the train to Schwaigern today to see where the Caplinger's (Käpplinger) family came from. They left in 1720 or thereabouts and after seeing the town, now I know why: there's nothing there. NOTHING. It's tiny, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do. AA and I walked all over town, checked out a new old church dating to the 1500's, and tried to find a cemetery old enough that we might actually find a gravestone or two. But no. the oldest stones in their only cemetery dated to the 1800's, long after my family split from the desolate place.

We made our way back to Stuttgart via Heilbronn. We stopped at one of the Christmas shops in the main train station and I bought a squarish "Tirol" smoked sausage that looks like Langenjager, but I'm not sure if it is or not. We went back to the apartment and had an early dinner of sausage, cheese, bread, and wine.

Out 9PM we headed out to catch the train for Boblingen for the Uber 30 Party and each grabbed a beer for the train ride (yep, it's legal to drink in public here...so we wanted to be juvenile and give it a try).

It was freakin' cold last night and we had to walk about 10 minutes from the train station. I had my doubts about this so-called "party" but what the heck. I needed to get AA to socialize with folks and it would hopefully be fun in the process. We arrived at a building so large that I guessed that it was a veritable CONVENTION CENTER. You could hear bass emanating from the building. Hmmm, this party was bigger than I thought. Mind you, I still couldn't see the front door. We rounded the building and holy crap: this was one big party! It cost 14 euro to get in ($21 per person) and when I saw the size of the coat check was I then realized just how huge this party was.

We made our way to the main dance floor. There was a couple hundred people easily. Drink tickets were 1.25E each and beers were 2 tickets, or 2.5E ($3.75, not bad!). I bought 6 tickets, AA bought 8 and we made our way to the drink bar. I probably should have stuck with wine as that's what we'd had earlier in the day. Oh. save for that beer on the train. And the beer in Schwaigern.

Anyways, this party turned out to be gigantic. I would guess that there was at least 2000 people in five dance areas. There was one room for German/Oldies music, Techno, Salsa, Pop/Dance music, and a piano bar. It was amazing that there were this many people even living in Boblingen! Everyone over 30 must have been at this party. That's all I know. I didn't see a lot of hunky Teutonic boys, but there were loads of cute girls. We met up with AA's coworker W and his girlfriend, D, and went about checking out the various dance areas.

And dance we did. Till my feet and thighs hurt. We spent most of our time dancing in the Techno and Pop/Dance rooms. One thing I noticed is that most of the German men are just too shy to ask a girl to dance. It was strange. I did quite a bit of people watching this evening and it was fun to see how people intermingle in another culture.

We stayed til about 4:30AM and headed to the train. The train didn't get started until 5:30AM and we had a choice to find a warm spot to wait, or pay 50E ($75) for a cab ride back home. In hindsight we should have stayed at the party till it closed at 5AM just to stay warm until the trains started back up. But we opted to find a warm place and wait. I spied an elevator and suggested we hide out there as it would be somewhat protected from the cold. Come 5:30AM, we were never so happy to see a train in our lives. Arriving back at the house I whipped up a batch of maulthausen (sp?) fried in butter and we promptly went to bed. I think it was 7:30AM when I hit the pillow.

German bedrooms have thick wooden shades that cut out light and keep heat in. It would be nearly 1PM when I got up.

Flying to Stuttgart

Flight to Amsterdam was "less than". I flew KLM specifically because of the great food and service I'd had in the past. This time the food was really rather mediocre. I felt a bit like I was on an American airlines. (Mental note: fly Lufthansa next time).

Met a nice gal, NC, who lives in Atherton part time and in The Hague part time. She spends 2 months in The Hague, returns to Atherton, and then goes back to The Netherlands. She's been doing it for nearly a year and loves it. I would love a job like hers. We promised to get in touch with each other and she would hook me up with her friend "A" to show me around Amsterdam my last night. Cool.

Arriving in Amsterdam, I perused the shops, grabbed an apple (0.50E) and sat down to try to get my email to work. No luck. IPASS thinks I have a wrong password or login. Sucks.

Boarded a shuttle van to take us to our hop to Stuttgart. Plane seated 80 people and was probably 60 to 70% full. I counted 6 women on the plane, the rest being men. WTF? Where are the women? The gross man behind me hacked all the way to Stuttgart, making disgusting noises with his throat. "Ah, I know where the women are", I thought. "They've all left Germany because of the gross men!" My first impressions of German men on that plane weren't good ones.

Descending into Stuttgart we hit loads of clouds. The lower we went the darker it got. We were nearly on top of the runway when the clouds broke. Nasty weather. Dark, gray, windy, a bit rainy.

I was a bit nervous in the airport waiting area. I didn't have to go through customs, so that wasn't it. But AA wasn't there to greet me. I felt a bit conspicuous waiting for him but eventually he showed. Thank god.

We went to a tourist office and bought me a 3 day train pass (17E) and off we were. The trains are conveniently located in the lower airport area. Easy to find ever if AA weren't with me, but navigating the maps are more difficult. The trains are very similar to the metro in Paris so I'm not sure why I had a hard time. I think I was just tired from not sleeping on either of the flights.

His apartment was a short uphill walk from the train stop. Ah, didn't realize he lived up a hill. I didn't bring flat shoes with me. Big mistake. I'd have to buy a pair of flats at some point. Ugh. We passed an interesting looking meatshop and bakery. Food, conveniently located. A good thing.

We dropped off my bags and headed back to the train to check out the downtown area. A few of the booths were already set up for the Christmas festival that starts on the 28th (Wednesday). We chowed down a couple of sausages on buns with mustard. I found out later that the vendor stiffed me 2E ($3) on my change. Bah. I looked at some shoes in the windows of a few stores. God, these folks wear ugly shoes and boy are they expensive! Most shoes started at 75E (add 50% on to convert to dollars these days thank to our fearless leader in Washington who has destroyed the power of our dollar - another rant for another day - perhaps when the bills from this trip roll in?)

Made our way to a market to pick up food for the apartment. AA's refrigerator was, in typical bachelor style, quite empty. We bought bread, a bottle of local red wine (pinot style), fruit, coffee, and a buttload of ritter bars. Groceries are about what we'd pay at Whole Food's. I wasn't too surprised at the cost of anything, but I was blown away at the selection. I felt like a kid in a gourmet candy store. I think we bought EIGHT bars of chocolate.

The chocolate gluttony begineth.

OMGF. Their chocolate selection is to die for. I will have to return to the market to take pictures just of the chocolate selection. They must have had an entire wall devoted just to Lindt chocolate. It's so unfair that we can't get the same varieties!

Getting late, we headed back home, popped open the wine, two ritter bars, and set up my laptop. I was exhausted but I tried to stay up as best I could to ward off the jetlag. I woke up in my chair around midnight and decided I should go to bed. It had been such a long day.