Bunglemunchen

So I am in Germany. Been resting and trying to adjust to life over here so I don't have too many observations to share with you. Nor many pictures of the Germans as I had promised.

I will say this about Munich. Beautiful city, truly. Watch out for them trains that run right down the middle of the steet, though; they'll flatten ya. Lots of cigarette smokers. Lots of bicyclists. More than a few cigarette-smoking bicyclists.

And the language -- wow. I knew I didn't speak any German before I got here, but when I heard the people talking, I was like, Holy Cow, I really don't speak any German! Like, they speak it really fast and effortlessly. And they aren't afraid to drop multiple 19-letter words in the same sentence. I kind of thought I could fake it, because a lot of the words are basically the English words with like an extra "jammer" or "weisen" or "nugen" thrown on for emphasis. Like, the word "dog" might be "dogestrauterzugen" or something, like "Now that's a goddamn dog right there, yo." But even with my little decoding system, these people are just too good at German for me to keep up. My hat's off to them: they have mastered the shit out of the German language.

Luckily, they all speak English so I don't even have to go through the motions of sprechen sie whatevs. I'm just, beer please. Thank you. I mean Danke. Danke Schoen. You know.

My goal is a different beer every day. This Franziskaner stuff is one of the most common beers around here. I guess we must have it in the states but I had never had it before. Very tasty.

I thought of starts to a couple stories but I'm not sure how much more I want to give them. Here goes.

***

"Your chocolate is in the peanut butter of my soul," she said, tossing her head back.

Where does she come up with this stuff, he thought to himself, and spanked her again, a little harder.

***

Maybe that's the whole story.

Here's the other one. maybe more the start to a blog post than an actual story.

***

I once heard a story about Michael Jordan's days at UNC. It seems that the varsity players had just played a pickup game, dominated by Jordan of course, and a bunch of his dumbstruck teammates began debating whether Jordan could touch the top of the backboard or not. Finally they asked Jordan directly whether he could do it. He honestly admitted that he had never tried.

Now it became a challenge. Money was laid down, bets were taken, and Jordan agreed to give it a try (after laying down a couple hundred on himself, of course).

He took a running start, deciding to approach from the baseline instead of head-on so he wouldn't smash his face against the glass. And he touched the top of the board with relative ease, landing hard on both feet after a leap that was probably close to 60 inches at its peak.

Everyone was high-fiving, money was being forked over to the winners, but Jordan just stood there, holding his shorts, stunned. Finally, someone came up to him and asked him if he was OK.

"I'm OK," he said, with uncharacteristic shakiness, "I just never really tried to see how high I could go, and when I did, when I saw what my potential was...it scared the shit out of me."

From that day forward, Jordan never jumped as high as he could again.

Now you know what every day is like for me.

***

Thanks to cW and Doug O. for more Munich suggestions. I aim to check some of that shit out as soon as I can. For five GP's each, name the meat dishes that Ma Bungle has consumed in her first two days here. Total = 3.