Hockey, Love, and an International Marriage During the COVID Pandemic - Part 1: Hockey is Love – June 1, 2021

It was March of 2020 and I was packing for a flight from Colorado to Ireland to visit my girlfriend.  Yes, that does seem like a really stupid idea now, doesn’t it?  We were watching the COVID-19 virus quickly spread around the world, but we were not yet worried about my visit.  I was preparing to propose to my girlfriend of 8 months even though we lived in different parts of the world and knew that merging our lives would take a lot of work and changes. While we are now happily married and staying in Ireland for now, we had no idea how much the pandemic would challenge us and continues to as I write this. 

This blog series is going to tell our story since last year and the ongoing saga.  Over the next few months, I will tell you about the wild and epic challenges of travelling to Gibraltar to get married, abandoning my life in Colorado, finding the silver lining of the pandemic, and navigating the vast challenges of living in Ireland as a newly married couple.  The story is crazy when I think about everything that has happened and everyone we know tells us that.

I had lived in Colorado since 1998 and had no desire to leave when I met the woman who would become my wife.  Even now, my primary residence is in Colorado even though I cannot easily get back there right now. My house in Pueblo was felt like the perfect sanctuary, I had a great job, and loved playing ice hockey as a goaltender two to five times per week.  Hockey was my main passion and a big part of my life and had no idea how much it would change my life.

In 2012, I moved up to the snowy and mountains of Colorado to work as a planner for Summit County with the plans to do a lot of snowboarding. The next spring, I was working and overheard a co-worker talking about how she needed to find more people for their novice hockey team.  I immediately thought “I need to try hockey!”  Quickly, I stood up from my desk and I told her that I would be interested.  My excuse was that I had only played a little street hockey while growing up in San Diego, but had always wanted to try ice hockey.  She told me that the season started in two weeks and that they could teach me.  I committed to it on the spot and decided that I would try to learn as much as I could before the season started.  The team was made up mostly of ski lift mechanics and their friends so the team name was the Mechanics with red jerseys and a skull and cross bones made of wrenches.  The jersey alone made it worth it and I was looking forward to putting that on and skating out for the first time.  I was joining the Mechanics hockey team of the Breckenridge E league and I couldn’t be more nervous and excited.  I had no idea how this decision would completely change my life from then on.

You are probably asking yourself, what the hell does hockey have to do with falling in love and trying to get married in Europe during a pandemic?  Ten years ago, I would not have imagined that I would be playing hockey and meeting the love of my life while on the ice after twenty years of trying to find a wife in every other possible place.  But for now, the first challenge was figuring out what to put on for my first game.  I looked up what gear I needed and went down to Denver to find some used gear and hockey skates that amounted to about $180. I had not even been ice skating in a few years, so I squeezed in about 5 or 6 public skate sessions and “stick-and-puck” sessions in hopes that I was somewhat upright for the first game and could at least get the puck to go generally in the direction I wanted to.  While I had watched a lot of hockey and understood the rules generally, Youtube videos became the nighttime training so that I felt like I had a good sense of what I should be doing with passing and positioning.

The first game was not my proudest moment as made a human tripod and was very apologetic about not knowing exactly what to do. I fell down a lot and could only stop barely on my left skate. When I wasn’t falling down I was a statue on ice and sometimes I was actively moving.  Most of my passes missed and I was pretty much useless in my opinion.  Still, I made sure everyone new that I was learning and my teammates were very supportive and educated me even if sometimes they were frustrated.  Somehow, by the third game along with more skating time in between games, I managed to be in the right place in front of the net and lifted a rebound off the opposing team’s goalie into the top left of the net over the blocker-side shoulder for my first goal… and the only goal that I had in my first two season of skating out. I'm the first to admit that I'm no Nathan MacKinnon and don't expect any NHL scouts in the stands. I only had one more goal about a year later but at least I got better at defense, skating up the puck and passing.  

I became completely obsessed with hockey.  I watched hockey with my roommate Hannah as she was a Black Hawk’s fan but still loved the Avalanche too so we didn’t have to hate each other.  I played every game I could, asked for advice, practiced on my own, went to scrimmage games, and actually started to skate better. After each game, I could hardly wait for the next Thursday night so I could get on the ice. I found that the camaraderie of a hockey team was so much more fulfilling than any other sport I had played. You might go out and have a beer after the game and talk through the game or just about life. It provided much needed friendships after moving to a small town where it can be hard to meet people.

While I was getting comfortable as a winger, I told my teammates that I would love to try out goaltender sometime.  I figured that I could be a backup when they needed it and was willing to learn the position.  In my mind, I figured that spending my whole life playing baseball and warming up pitchers during the few seasons that I played would translate well.  At the end of the third season, our team was not going to make the playoffs and our goalie had been having some knee trouble.  Before the last game of the season, his knees were too sore to play in net but he could still skate out.  It was a Sunday when our team manager Ty called up and asked if I would be willing to get in net for our last game of the season.  I told them I would be happy too if I could borrow the goalie’s equipment and if he could help me get it on before the game.  There were five days to learn as much as I could about the position.  I spent every night reading up on the goaltender position and watched a lot of videos, particularly helmet cam videos so I could see what it looked like as pucks were flying at you.  Just like the first time I played hockey, I was both excited and nervous.

Game day arrived and I can still remember exactly what it was like to have the goalie helping me dress out in the foyer outside the outdoor rink in Breckenridge.  The skates fit just right and fortunately our goalie and I were the same size. The equipment was going to work but would I work in net?

We spent about five minutes going over tips and positioning and how to handle the stick and best ways to drop to my knees and get back up.  The air was crisp as it was about 15 degree Fahrenheit as we stepped onto the ice.  I immediately noticed that the goalie skates were heavier and did not move the same way as regular skates.  I did a couple of laps to warm up and then got in net to take shots during warm-up.  It didn’t build confidence that I missed more than half of the shots and felt like I was draped in a wet blanket that made me sweat profusely.  However, the rest of the team was just happy to have someone in net and told me not to worry too much.  The first period wasn’t too bad but I made an attempt to play the puck way out on the boards on the right side and quickly learned that you cannot drop to cover a puck outside of the box in front of the net.  However, I quickly learned that catch pucks was like catching line drives and scooping up grounders and I started to get more comfortable by the second period.  I probably didn’t see more than 25 shots and we lost 4-1 but I immediately loved being in net.  

Ty, our captain was happy with how I did and told me “you are a natural” to butter me up for the next two questions that I did not expect.  We were all in the locker room and finished changing when in front of the team and the conversation went about like this:

Ty: “You played well for your first time.  Would you want to be our full-time goalie?”

Me: “Sure, that was fun and I’d love to be the goalie!”

Ty: “Also, I’m not interested in being the team manager anymore. Would you be interested in doing that too?”

Me: “I’ve never done that before either but I’m up for it.”

My brain: “WTF just happened?  Oh well, just act normal and roll with it.”

The summer league was a few weeks away and this meant that about a year after starting hockey, I had found a love for the game, took the first step to becoming a hockey goalie, and was talked into managing a recreational adult hockey team. It would be more than five years until I set foot on the ice as a skater as goaltending became my hockey obsession.  The summer of 2014 I played as much as a goaltender as my body would allow.  I didn’t care what level or what team.  I would play three games in a row if it was needed and sometimes up to six or seven games or scrimmages each week.  My philosophy was that the more pucks and ice time I had, the more I would improve.  I was 33 years-old and thought about how much time my body would still allow me to play. Then, the death of our teammate brought everything into focus.

Aaron Davidson was only 30 when he was hit and killed on his motorcycle on July 27, 2014. His birthday was August 30th, just four days after mine.  I had only known him for a year and only saw him on game days but he definitely had an impact on me in life and in death.  He was a good hockey player and a good guy.  Like many others on the team, he was a lift mechanic at Keystone and had known and worked with many of the others on the team for years.  He was a good hockey player and gave me pointers throughout the game.  I knew that when he yelled at me on the ice it was only because he wanted to make me a better player.  Constructive yelling is not a bad thing in my mind when someone does not make it personal. But, yeah, he definitely would get frustrated with me sometimes.  It was totally fine as I appreciated people who would tell it like it is.  Aaron brought an energy with him each game, made us laugh, and all of us were devastated when he died. In early August, Aaron’s family made arrangements to hold the memorial at the top of Keystone Ski Resort in one of the lodges at the top of the gondola lift that comes up from the base area.  They asked all of us teammates to wear the Mechanics jersey and most of us were able to show up.  The rest of the season was tough for everyone emotionally, but we kept playing hard and felt like we needed to do something for him.  We ended up going to the playoffs with a bunch of wins at the end of that summer.  Prior to the first playoff game, we toasted to Aaron and wished he was there.

This was not the first time that someone I knew my age had passed away.  Aaron’s death reinvigorated my belief that you enjoy the moments that you have doing the things that you love.  For a few years after I would be in net before a game and think “Aaron, I’m going to enjoy hockey as much as I can because you can’t be on the ice with us.”  Any day I could be maimed in a car accident, or like another friend of mine, shot and killed while watching a movie in an Aurora movie theater.  Every game being on the ice brings a smile to my face as if I were a kid.  I doubt anyone on the ice could see it but every game as I watch my teammates skating the puck down to the other end, I take a few seconds and think about how happy this sport makes me. Someday when my body is broken down from however long I can be on the ice, I will always remember in my old age the joys of playing hockey and goaltending.

My life became focused on working, playing hockey, and dating in hopes that I would find a good partner in life to marry and raise children together. My entire adult life had been spent without taking much time from being in a relationship or dating but it was much harder to meet women in the mountains who were close to my age, not already in a relationship, and not an alcoholic. I regularly played in net for the women’s teams just like any other team, especially for their practices. Some of them were former college players and I learned a lot trying to defend the net against them.  I wasn’t actively trying to date any of them but I really did hope that perhaps one of them might find me interesting and want to date but that never happened. However, I was happy with the friendships came of goaltending for the women’s teams.

I left Summit County and moved to Colorado Springs to take a new job. Right before I left the Mechanics managed to win the summer 2015 championship and I felt that, as a goaltender, I had reached a certain level where I knew that I was playing well but had more room to grow.  I had about two years of goaltending experience but was now playing comfortably in the intermediate leagues. It was October when I moved into a one-bedroom apartment on the Old North End catty-corner from Colorado College.  I intentionally pursued this location simply because I was within walking distance of the Honnen Ice Arena on campus and only a few miles from work.  By chance, a young married couple from Canada lived next door named Gill and Anil.  Anil was in the Canadian armed forces and stations in Colorado Springs as part of NORAD.  His wife played hockey and was in the Canadian NORAD Hockey League that played at the US Air Force Academy’s ice arena.  Their season had started in September so I continued to drive the two hours each way to Breckenridge on Thursday nights until I could find another place to play.

I signed up for the Canadian NORAD league in fall of 2016 and was added to the Foster Electric team. Each team had a variety of skill levels from beginner to former college players so it was a very different environment and I quickly learned that I was in for another steep learning curve. I could play intermediate hockey in Breckenridge but this was more challenging and I was around players who had a lot more experience.  My teammates knew that I had been in net for about 3 years now and so many of them took the time to teach me what they could and I actively asked for to let me know if I had edging too far to one side or if they saw some bad habit that I needed to work on. There weren’t any practices so this was when I could improve.  However, many of them also played at the Monument Ice Rink just up the road from the Academy.  Since I had been there less than a year, I had mainly been trying to get in leagues at Honnen without much success and had not contemplated driving up to Monument.  Only playing once or twice a week was not enough so I started to substitute for goalies as needed in Monument and slowly picked up more and more games.

I loved playing at the Air Force Academy arena.  Every Sunday we all came to the home of the Air Force Falcons hockey team with banners and memorabilia on the wall from the decades of college team achievements.  It was a great facility and I wished that I could have played there every night.  Unfortunately, it was just Sundays but my motivation to play better in that league pushed me to get as much ice time during the week at the Monument Ice Rink.  The manager there was and is Al Pedersen, the former Boston Bruin player who seemed to know everyone’s name and loved to help the young and not so young advance as hockey players.  Once I told Al that I was up for playing as much as possible and would actually show up dependably. he would call me to sub from Novice up to B league, Friday and Saturday night scrimmages, practices, and Ironman tournaments where you play between four and eight thirty-minute games in one afternoon.  In the Summer of 2019, Al put me on a team where they did not have a regular goalie and were getting outplayed by the other teams in the E league so far.  I came into the locker room for The Wolves and saw a lot of familiar faces from other teams that I had played.  It was an women’s team and two of the women I knew well from other teams in the past was Jen and Leah.  Jen is a schoolteacher and organized a monthly “Family Fun game” fundraiser to help youth hockey.  Usually on one Saturday per month, groups of people would donate a small amount of money as a game fee and come out to play a friendly scrimmage game where kids and adults who play at various skill levels.  Jen was usually looking for goalies because a lot of goalies weren’t interested in suiting up for something this low key but I just enjoyed any time to get on the ice and be around some friendly people on a Saturday.  It was a nice time to just practice some of the basics too. 

In July of 2019, Jen sent me a text to see if I could goaltend at a game a couple weeks away in mid-July at the World Ice Arena in Colorado Springs. I said yes but there was some miscommunication and soon before the game it turned out that they did not need me in goal but she encouraged me to skate out as some of the young women who were visiting from Ireland and would be training at the Monument Ice Rink.  As I was packing up my skating out gear for the day, I realized that I had not worn it since I first put on the goalie gear for the first time in 2014.  Would I still remember what to do?  Am I going to fall all over the place?  I decided that it did not matter and it was a fun game so just show up and have fun.  After re-learning how to put the gear on, I stepped out onto the ice and looked around to see who I knew.  I noticed that there were some skaters who were probably the ones from Ireland but I was not quite sure.  What I did not know is that one of the Irish women had seen me up close and decided I was interesting but kept it to herself at the time.

That week I played a game with the Wolves and went into locker room four in the East rink and two of the Irish players were there to play.  It was a really close game where we were tied 2 – 2 in the third period when one of my teammates scored on a great shot with less than a minute left to go.  The other team came back hard to our net and we barely held them off for the win.  We all enjoyed the victory in the locker room with a beer and recalling the game.  I noticed that one of the Irish women, Georgie, would occasionally glance over at my face as she sat across from me but would look away when I looked towards her.  She was very cute but I had never talked to her. Little did I know that she was shy but very interested in getting to know me. Jen and Leah were sitting next to me and invited me to a barbecue on Friday as a going away party for the Irish players as one of them, Georgie, was flying out of town on Saturday morning.  I was not sure if I had something going on Friday night or would be tired but decided that I should go.

Friday came and I drove up to Monument from work through the pleasant afternoon summer rainstorms that you get between my house in Pueblo and Monument.  I brought some bison sausages for the grill, potato salad, and beer. We all made up big plates of food and when talking with Georgie for the first time I recommended that she have some deviled eggs as they are my favorite.  She was a bit shy but had a nice voice and pretty eyes when they would meet mine.  I was still wary as I could not figure out if she was close to my age or not.  The rain started to fall as we were finishing our food so we all came inside and sat at the dining room table where Jen moved from her seat so that Georgie could sit next to me… that clever woman that she is!  Georgie sat next to me and we talked for most of the next two hours and sometimes paid attention to the rest of the guests.  She and I covered her childhood growing up in Zimbabwe, looked at pictures of her last time visiting there and Botswana, my youth in Boy Scouts and camping, and talked and joked about everything else.  And, thank goodness she was 29 as that was close enough to my age that I really felt that this might have the potential to turn into something. We joked about how our mothers both wanted us to get married and that I would have to provide a dowry of bison to seal the deal.  Bison sausages would have to do instead!

Hockey had finally brought the two of us together and we are so happy that it did.  Back in 2019, life was easy and it would be easy to travel to meet up so we could get to know each other.  The pandemic would make international travel so much harder and force us to make some life-changing decisions.

Finishing in Erlangen

I took an InterCity Express (ICE) train from Munich to Nuremberg and then a regional train to Erlangen.  Former Mayor Dietmar Hahlweg met me in front of the train station with his bicycle.  He was a tall older gentlemen and his English was pretty good.  We walked towards my hotel and he began to show me a few things along the way.  He explained that Erlangen had an influx of French immigrants, known as the Huguenots (Hugonauts), who were driven out of France in the 17th century because they were protestants.  This was important because they dramatically increased the size of Erlangen and built a grid-system of streets and blocks when most towns had a more Medieval layout.  This probably contributed to making it easy to form bike routes throughout the city.  Erlangen has a 30% bicycle ridership rate.  People are on bicycles everywhere and it doesn't take long to get around town.  Dietmar always gives tours of Erlangen on bicycle because it is the best way to see the city.  In fact, the underlying planning principles over the last thirty years were to create a city where bicycles could go anywhere while cars were being discouraged.  The philosophy was that a city is to be designed for people, not for cars.  It actually takes longer to get somewhere by car than by bicycle.  Much like Boulder, you don't need a car to easily get around town.

I dropped off my bags at the hotel, Hotel Villa Soy, and then we went over to the City Hall so that we could pick up a city-owned bike for me to use during my stay.  The building was built in the 1960s but they recently refaced it so it looks like new.

First, we went to the City Council chambers and that is Dietmar waving hello.  Their counsel has around 50 members!

Next we got on our bikes and road down one of the main commercial streets in the city.  Only bicyclists, pedestrians, taxis and buses were allowed on this road and there were tons of people out in the middle of a weekday when we moved on from this spot.

We made our way towards a place for lunch and biked down some smaller streets on our way to a restaurant that looks out over a park.  This street is what is known as a "woonerf" (pronounced vonerf), a Dutch creation where a street can have pedestrians, bicyclists, children playing but cars can come through slowly and carefully.  Basically, cars are secondary and must drive very slowly.  I had learned about these from a Dutch professor that I had ten years ago in college but this was my first time seeing one in person.

On the right side of the photo you will see a plant growing up the wall.  Throughout Erlangen, Dietmar and the city decided to work with residents to plant rose bushes that the residents would care for.  Along many of these streets, there are roses growing up to the base of the second story.  I'm sure it looks beautiful when they are all in bloom.  This woonerf lead to a small plaza.  The building in the background in the right half of the picture was a former local brewery that was converted into senior housing.

We rode on to the restaurant and had fettucine alfredo with wild mushrooms in it.  It was incredibly good.  We talked about planning, our backgrounds, and the plans for the rest of the trip.  Dietmar had been busy and made a lot of arrangements to meet with a couple of local officials, a professor, and an urban geography student.  We took our time eating and then got back on our bikes for a tour of the city.  There are a lot of green spaces in and around Erlangen.  They created green spaces within the city by eliminating parking lots and conversion of other hardscapes.

Pathways and some sidewalks were not paved but made of hard-packed sand or crusher fines giving an urban environment a more informal feel.  In this plaza below, students at Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg park their bicycles in front of the building without using bicycle racks.  Because there is intense bicycle activity during the day, Dietmar didn't want an empty plaza covered in bicycle racks when school is not in session.  Here's what it looked like during classes:

Here is the same plaza later in the day once class wasn't in session:

Now, I'm sure people are asking "but if they don't have bicycle racks, don't their bicycles get stolen?"  The quick answer is no.  The way people usually lock up their bikes is by chaining the wheels to the frame.  This means that usually when someone is carrying a bicycle instead of riding it, there is a pretty good chance that someone is stealing a bicycle.  Apparently, bicycles are being stolen but it is not that big of a problem. Crime rates are pretty low in Germany and it certainly feels safe everywhere you go.

We passed through the center of the city and went onto one of the trails that follows a brook on the north side of the city.  Here is some virtual trail riding (you'll notice that the guy who passes me almost runs into someone ahead of us:

As soon as you got onto the trail system and into the open space areas, it was hard to tell that the city was right around you.  With very little car traffic in the city, it seemed quiet and peaceful almost everywhere we went.  Dietmar described how in some places they had reconfigured their bridges to save costs, eliminated extra traffic lanes to increase space for bicycles and pedestrians, and acquired open space to add to their trails system.

We followed the trail until we came to a north-south street that we south towards a former military complex that was used for a long time by the Germans up through WWII and then by the Americans.  Part of the former base has been turned into a technical school for high-school-age students.  Barracks were turned into housing and other buildings have yet to be reused.

The open training grounds have been redeveloped into mixed-density housing a a large facility for Siemens.  Siemens has been in Erlangen for a long time and employs 25,000 doing everything from research and development to actual manufacturing.  Dietmar and I didn't like the way that this new plaza turned out in the development but as we found out later from the Cheif City Planner, the original design was much worse and this was the best that they were able to get.

Looking south from the plaza is a very large open green space with a bicycle path that connects the neighborhoods.

Siemens workers ride their bicycles a lot too.  This is one of the many many bicycle shelters (fahrrad stenden) that I saw.

We rode back towards my hotel and I got into my room and cleaned up a bit.  Dietmar picked me up around 6pm for a trip into the "Frankenschwiez" or "Franconian Switzerland."  The countryside was wonderful.  On our way out we started to come upon the actress Elke Sommer's house in Erlangen.  For those who don't know who she was, she was in a lot of movies from the 1950s into the 1970s and was in one of the Pink Panther movies, "A Shot in the Dark."  Dietmar has known her for decades of course and so when we saw her talking to someone in her driveway, we got out to say hello.  She spends her time between her house in Erlangen and her house in Hollywood.  It was another one of those bizarre moments that happen when you are getting a tour from someone who is very well connected locally.

Bavaria is very unique in how much they value the freedom to wander.  There is a very old law still in effect that anyone has the right to hike across any public or privately held land and even can camp for one night while passing through, as long as it the land does not have a crop that is about to be harvested.  Dietmar said that he would frequently hike across the countryside in his younger days and enjoy the vast forest that surrounds Erlangen.  We drove through a few small villages and commented on the need to keep land natural and how there has been a large boom in growing corn in Germany.  He said that over the last ten years, many farmers have started growing corn, which seems really strange since its not native.  When I think of German farms I usually think of livestock or fields of grain like wheat or oats.  With the corn, I felt like we were driving through rural Wisconsin or Iowa, which I have done a lot of.

We pulled over in a village that had a 600 year old tree in the town square and a very old church that was a castle church.  Since many small villages didn't have much protection from invaders during Medieval times, frequently, churches would be built so that they could also be used for defense.  This village has a church like that but the interior of the grounds are now a well maintained cemetery.

Here you can see the old walkways that have fallen apart over the centuries.

We got back in the car and headed to another village to have dinner.  I asked about what was a local specialty so we ordered Knockla Blau (literally means blue knuckle) which was a portion of boiled beef foot with out the hoof on it, of course.  You can see that it came with a pile of sauerkraut and a mound of horseradish, German black bread, and mustard.  We also had some of the beer that was brewed by the restaurant's owner.

The food was good and inexpensive.  However, I did not eat the much of thick layer of fat around the meat.  Dietmar did but I could only eat so much of the fat before it was just too much for me.  It was a good meal but I couldn't finish it.  It was a nice little family run tavern.  We drove back to Erlangen and discussed the big issues in Germany at the time.  For a long time, Germany has wrestled with the question of whether to expand nuclear power or get rid of it.  Parts of Germany were drastically affected by the Chernobyl disaster back in the 80s.  Some German communities had a lot of radioactive fallout and since then many Germans have pressed for alternatives to nuclear.  The German government had laid out a plan for extending existing plants and then eight months later, the Tokushima nuclear disaster created such public pressure that the German government is going to work towards phasing out the existing nuclear plants.

The following day, i ate breakfast at my hotel and then Dietmar and I met with a few people.  The first meeting was with Reiner Lennemann, Director for the Department of Environment and Energy Strategies for the City of Erlangen.  We talked about energy conservation, noise pollution, and recent flooding issues in the area.  His English was okay and I could understand what he was saying in German so all of us were able to communicate.  It was a 30 minute meeting so next we went to meet with the Chief Planner for Erlangen, Egbert Bruse, who was retiring the following day.

He only spoke German so this discussion was a little more challenging for me.  He talked about some of the challenges with redeveloping the former military base in Erlangen and how Berlin and other northern and eastern German cities had a lot of vacant buildings much like Detroit.  After the collapse of the Berlin wall and German reunification, there was an expectation that the economically stagnant cities of former East Germany would see a surge of development.  Instead, they have slowly redeveloped or stayed at the same population.  East Germany was like a place that time forgot.  During the Communist rule, very little had changed since the end of WWII.  Buildings were still the same and some had remained vacant since the war ended.  From the top floor of the building, you could get somewhat of a view of the city.  This building wasn't very tall and you can probably tell that most of the buildings are about the same height.

Afterwards, Dietmar and I headed off on our bikes to West Erlangen on the other side of the Regnitz River. It was a nice ride:

Around the river and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal is a large expanse of green space.

To keep the grass short, the city has a shepherd who lets the sheep graze the area.

Again, the bike trail went through some nice forest:

I saw this modified stop sign and had to take a picture of it.  Dietmar thought is was funny too.

We rode around the West side for awhile and then headed back towards Erlangen.  Here's the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal.

The next meeting was with Prof. Fred Krueger (...no, not the guy from "Nightmare on Elm Street"), head of the Geography Dept. and Vice Dean of the School of Sciences.  One of his students, Fabian was there as well. Dr. Krueger talked about some of the projects he was working on and we talked about city planning and the challenges in Detroit.  After that, I said good bye to Dietmar and I went off with Fabian to Nuremberg. Since he was from there, he gave me a tour of the city.  This was a redevelopment project with a green roof, apartments, and a movie theater.

Fabian spoke very good English since that was his major and he had spent a semester studying at the University of Minnesota-Mankato.  I think we covered everything from urban geography, German and American culture, city planning, urban agriculture, German history and how it shaped Nuremberg, and his experiences in Minnesota. Nuremberg is the smallest city in Germany to have a subway system and was also one of the first.  It's completely automated so there are no drivers.  Here is a ride on the subway:

After dinner at a Greek restaurant, Fabian took me back to Erlangen and I started to work on screwing up my sleep schedule so that I would be able to sleep on the plane ride back to the US.  I packed and watched TV until about 3am, slept, and then woke up at 7am to catch a train back to Munich.  I didn't sleep much on the flight back so I was very tired when I arrived in San Diego.

This trip to Germany was way beyond what I could have expected.  I feel like I packed a lot into 9 days yet i never felt overwhelmed.  I couldn't believe my luck in the people I met and the fact that two former mayor's were showing me around their cities.  Now I feel more of a connection with Germany than I did before.  I already felt a connection since I had spent time as a baby there and grew up with German children's books and my dad keeping elements of German food and culture in my childhood.  Now I feel like I know the German people better.  While they have a different manner of dealing with people, they were incredibly friendly, hospitable, and insightful.  I plan to keep in contact with these people and I can hardly wait to visit again.

Travel, whether its to Germany or Burning Man or Maine, takes us out of our comfort zone.  We escape and let go of the lives we are used to and learn something new.  When we return to our normal lives, we come back with new perspectives and new ideas that we can apply and possible improve the way we do things.  Get out there and travel.  Test the boundaries of your comfort zone and challenge yourself to do things that expand your world view.  It helps us grow as people.

I hope that you have enjoyed my account of my trip to Germany.  Now many of you will be asking "what is next?"  I will not be doing any major trips for a little while as I need a break from travelling.  Some have asked me to go back and post some material on the trips I did this summer on the Green and Colorado Rivers, and my road trip out to Maine and back through Canada.  I may do this but might also talk about other city planning issues that I have come across but I'll make sure that it is actually "interesting" material since sometime city planning is not.  Stay tuned and I'll keep you all up to date.  Thanks for reading!

Munich and Oktoberfest

The train to Munich didn't take too long on the train from Augsburg.  I had put on my trachten (traditional german clothing consisting of lederhosen and a plaid shirt) that morning so that I would be ready to head to Oktoberfest as soon as we got there.  We dropped our bags at the hotel and walked to the larger fairgrounds where it was taking place.  It was Sunday and so everywhere was choked with people.  It was overwhelming but in an exciting way.  I read before I left that about 7 to 8 million people were expected to attend Oktoberfest this year.  I could believe it.  After wandering around a few big tents that were completely packed and wondering how you get a table, we went to a small tent that was more of a restaurant and found an open table.  We eventually figured out that most of the tables will have someone's name and the times that they had it reserved.  Most of the tables weren't reserved until 5 or 6pm.  We found out on Monday that on weekdays, fewer tables are reserved so its better to go during a weekday and really crowded on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

It was 12:30 so we started off with some type of sausage with sauerkraut and some beer.

Lunch was delicious and now we were ready to spend the rest of the day in one of the big tents.  We went to the Lowenbrau tent and one of the waitresses found us a table that still had room for two people.  For about an hour or so we sat with this German family and talked with them for awhile.  Some of them spoke decent English too.  They left and a group of guys from northern Germany sat down.  We talked with them and they invited us to a table that they had reserved.  Doug and I hung out with them the rest of that day.  Here's some photos of the tent and some video of the whole tent singing.

About midway through this video you'll see a guy in a black shirt dancing funny.  We met them later in the day.  They were Australian and English.  Most of this tent were Germans.  The English speakers tend to go to the Hofbrau tent, which is why we avoided it.  Apparently, Americans, English, and Aussies overdo it and it gets disgusting over there.  We really enjoyed this tent and the Germans were so friendly and so much fun.

Doug and I learned some of the standard songs like "Ein Prosit" (a toast) and also became familiar with some of the German pop music, some of which was rather silly.  Some of the other popular songs were "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond and "Country Road" by John Denver.  We also heard some ACDC, Bon Jovi, Hey Jude by the Beatles and lots of other stuff you wouldn't expect to hear at Oktoberfest.  However, most of the music was German.

This is where they was all of the beer glasses.  I saw waiters and waitress carry out 14 mugs full of beer at once!

We sang with the Germans until the shut everything down around 11:30pm.  Doug had already wandered back to the hotel to check in and sleep since he was still jetlagged but I stayed till the bitter end.  Our hotel, Eurostars Grand Central near the Hackenbrucke train station was really nice and we had a good deal on it. Here is what it looked like.

This is the shower...

The hallway...

The next morning we headed out for some breakfast and wandered around Munich.  The big pedestrian area is the Marienplatz.  Here are some pictures that I took on our walk.  Keep in mind that this is a Monday and there were tons of people out because of Oktoberfest.

Munich's City Hall...

The courtyard inside City Hall...

We came upon this church and when I saw it I told Doug that it was probably going to be pretty cool inside.  It was.  This was another Rococo-style church with a very ornate interior.

After the church, we made our way back to Oktoberfest for another day of German-style fun.  It wasn't as packed and we wandered around the fairgrounds for awhile.  There were lots of traditional horse drawn beer wagons too...

We went to a different tent this time and a waitress found a table for us right away.  There were only four people sitting there and they were keeping to themselves.  We were just happy to have a table.  It was about 12:30pm so we ordered up some spaetzle (German noodles) and Doug had some sausages... and of course we ordered some beers.  Pretty soon, the people at our table left and four young Germans who had just finished their tests at one of the universities in the area sat with us.  They were very friendly and we hung out together the rest of the day.  One by one more of their friends came to the table until there were about ten to twelve of us.

The tent was pretty full by mid-afternoon.  It was completely packed by dinner time.

Usually as the night goes on, more and more people stand and sing on the tables.  Almost no one is sitting down at the end of the night.  There are a lot of factors that are key to enjoying Oktoberfest.  According to the older mayors that I met, the key is to eat lots of food and sing!  Doug felt that the key to enjoying German beer for 11 hours is to "drink slow enough that you can drink all day but fast enough that your beer doesn't get too warm."  While there are some Germans who will stand on top of their table and guzzle an entire liter while everyone cheers them on, we took our time so that we didn't overdo it.  Also, there are people walking around selling giant pretzels and its best to order your food before 5pm otherwise it can take a long time for it to come out because everyone is ordering around dinner time.  I ordered half of a roast chicken around 4:30 and it was the best chicken I had ever had!  Oktoberfest was great but many German's that I met actually prefer some of the smaller local festivals like Nuremberg's Altstadtfest or the festival that was starting in Ingolstadt before I left.  The beer is much less expensive and the festivals feel more traditional.  A beer at Oktoberfest is about 9.10 Euro (about $12) per liter and they don't fill it up all the way to the top.  At Altstadtfest, I bought a half-liter for 2.50 Euro or about $3.25.  I would like to go back to Oktoberfest someday.  It was a lot of fun and I met some great people.

We left when everything closed down that night at 11:30pm and went back to the hotel.  I caught a train to Erlangen at 8:30 the next morning.  Despite all of the beer, each morning, I actually felt pretty good.  I did have to change trains because of some construction on one of the lines but I made it to Erlangen.  I'll talk about Erlangen as my next and final post for the German trip.  Hope you enjoyed Oktoberfest too!  Thanks for reading!