Author Archives: Pamela

I had some time on the computer and when I got in here I didn’t feel so much like writing so I went around and checked my gossip and regular sites and checked up on how the credit card bill is looking (not so bad). So, now I’ll squeak out a quick note before lunch.

The night we arrived even the locals were going BRRRRR and commenting on the cold. Flori said it was -20 C which according to the handz conversion page I found is about -4 F. I was cold but not miserable and felt better to see the regulars were cold as well. Right now it is -10 C which is about 15 F.

The first night we were here, Lisa had a party with her English students and Bob and I joined them. We went to a nice, small restaurant where Lisa knows the owner-chef and we chatted with the various women and helped them practice their English. One woman had actuallz been to Vancouver and visited the Portland area frequently so we had some things to talk about.

Yesterday Bob went with Flori to Deggendorf to visit the campus and meet with the President of the school. They will return this evening.

Lisa and I spent a lot of time hanging around visiting and drinking tea. We went for a long walk in the morning and turned in some bottles and picked up some food items and then went to the vegetable market and picked up additional food items for the meal.

We had a pot of soup with the kids for lunch and then headed out doing the Mom with 4 kids things: drop off one kid and then take another to try on clothes for a xmas present, then pick up the first kid and drop of the second and then to a different store for another xmas present for a different kid and then back to pick up the second kid and then drop off the third kid — we did this for at least 3 hours. By the end, everyone had choir practice and piano lessons and French dictation and xmas presents and a ride at the Kristkindlmarkt and then home for dinner.

This morning we went to Annie’s class for her holiday party. It was an international theme and everyone brought foods to eat and there was a belly dancing show and then magic tricks. Quite fun.

Annie has just called me for lunch so off I go.

We arrived at GAP yesterday at 414pm. Our train car was empty from Munich to GAP and the sun was low in the sky and a ton of fresh snow had fallen in the last 24 hours which made for an indescribable ride. Beautiful light, winter scene. I put down my book and watched the scenery with my chin on the floor.

We didn’t see an Internet cafe in Nürnberg until the daz we left when we saw 3 in a row and had no time to check email or update you on everything we’ve eaten and drank since mz last check in.

We arrived in Nürnberg on Saturday at Noon. The whole ride over we had sunny sky but as soon as we got off the train the sky spat hard pellets of snow for a few moments. Onlz a light dusting of snow here as well. We checked into the hotel (Ballardblog: Hotel Astoria gets two thumbs up, thanks) dropped our bags and headed out into it. First stop was the tourist information center for our tourist 2 day pass that would get us into all the museums for free and all public transportation free.

We had foolishlz thought we were more acclimated to the cold but found Nürnberg awfully chilly as we walked around. We had to find food and I spotted a Bratwurst Häus that Id read about in my supporting materials and we opened the door and it was like a barn packed to the rafters with people and strollers and so forth. Nürnberg has the most famous Christmas market and this was the last weekend so the town was packed.

We ended up finding a little cafe with a lunch buffet and had a beer and mz attitude brightened considerable. After lunch we hiked up to the castle with a cold wind whipping about. When we got to the ticket counter the man said, in a thick German accent, “The castle is finished. Come back tomorrow,” and shooed us out the door. We (and 200 other visitors) wandered around the outer part and again, the sun was low in the sky and grey clouds sailed across a peach colored sky and we all elbowed each other for a place at the castle wall for a view of the city. Gorgeous.

We hiked down to the Modern Art Museum and it turned out being further than we thought and we got lost and turned around and I was getting tired of being cold and lost and was almost readz to give up when we found it. It is a giant modern building of glass and concrete hidden behind some old churches and stuff. We were practically alone in there and enjoyed the heat and exhibits and I used what is probably the most amazing bathroom I’ve ever been in. I wish I knew more about materials so I could explain it – jade colored tiles and a sort of slate with modern lighting. Very cool.

I don’t have too much more time as we are taking the kids to piano lessons so I’ll have to come back tomorrow afternoon.

We spent a lot of time in the Kristkindlmarkt mainly finding interesting things to try eating. I bought this one dessert that was called a Schneeballtraume and it looked like a donut the size of a grapefruit and had a lot of flavors which I guessed were fillings. We bought two and it turns out it’s this giant hard cookie. Sort of like a fortune cookie except instead of being folded with a fortune inside, it’s crumpled into a big ball and dipped in chocolate. Unfortunately, we didn’t travel with a mallet and chisel and had to bite chunks off with our teeth while making lots of crumbs. Big disappointment.

The famous Nürnberg Lebekuchen, however, was not. I didn’t know which was the primo stuff and there was a Lebkuchen stand on every corner so I went to the store highlighted on our tourist map and pointed to a few things and I tried one and it was one of the best cookies I’ve ever had. A sort of gingerbread with ground nuts and chocolate coating. I’m not sure if I’m going to share the rest of the bag or not. (I have lots of other things to share, I can hoard this for myself, right?)

We went to a Van Morrison tribute (Blues for Bethlehem) at a church that night and then the next morning up bright and early take the SBahn out to the – thez call it the something document center. It’s where Hitler was building his showcase for the Nazi Partz and it’s a detailed exhibit of the Nazi rise and fall. Very well put together, informative, tons of information. Very heavy day but worth it.

From there we went back to town and to the German National museum which was amazing and we saw the Drürer works. (Forgot to mention we went to Drürer house a day earlier).

More to tell but out of time for now.

Well, if yesterday was smooth, today was extra crunchy. We had a sleep set back being that we woke up at 230am wide awake and could not get back to sleep until what probably was about 6am. We were dead to the world until the phone rang at 945am when they called us from downstairs to find out if we planned to eat breakfast. (Included with our hotel.)

Yes, I said groggily as we threw on clothes and smoothed our hair down and then staggered downstairs where the breakfast lady gave us a disapproving glare and pointed at the hours for breakfast service. Even though I was still more asleep than awake and not remotely hungry I ate and we thanked everybody for letting us come down so late and then ran upstairs to start our day already totally behind.

We intended to go to Mainz to see hero of the last millenium Johannes Gutenberg museum. But there was some snafu with the SBahn. It was running late and this is the same one that goes to the airport and there were hysterical people with luggage stampeding about. (Aside: WTF is it with Frankfurt and school children? Do they ever have to go to school? There are giant roving packs of them, all ages, everywhere, esp. the train stations. The museums are largely empty except for Pam, Bob and dozens of loud, squirrely school children.)

After standing around the platform for about 20 minutes we decided to alter the plan and exit the station and visit the Goethe museum which ended up being harder to find than it should have been what with the Frankfurters apparent aversion to good signage. Come on, Goethe was a rock star in his day. Doesn’t his museum deserve a bunch of big signs? I get the feeling that Frankfurt is totally incovenienced by its rich history. Old stuff seems begrudgingly preserved while all the modern commerce stuff is built up all around.

By the time we were done with Goethe it was too late to go to Mainz so armed with our super expensive deluxe public transportation day pass we headed back to the Dom/Römer main drag. Before we got there Bob saw some sign about Jazz and turns out the Kloister musuem was hosting a Jazz in Frankfurt exhibit which was very cool with tons of earphones stations and movie clips and photos. (And brochures for live jazz tonight … I must be building a hell of a karmic bank right now.)

From there we visited the Struwelpeter Museum. Struwelpeter is a very famous character in German children’s literature. The stories are sick and twisted and obviously made a distinct impact on many children, not just me. There were parodies and turns out Mark Twain lived in Germany for a year and did an English translation.

Struwelpeter was this kid who ignored his personal hygeine and birds came to live in his hair and his nails grew to long twisted prongs. In another story, a girl isn’t supposed to play with matches and she does and lights on fire and burns to ashes and the cats cry over her remains. In another story, a kid isn’t supposed to suck his thumb and he does and some guy with giant scissors comes and cuts his thumbs off. Neat for children, eh?

From there we went back across the Main to this Bible musuem that Bob read about that we thought would make a good story, and it was weird but not as weird as I expected. I’m not sure what their goal is as it seemed old Testament centric. You could sit in some tent and feel Sahara sand and try grinding wheat to see how hard that is. I’ve ground acorns, that doesn’t impress me. There was also some boat supposedly a replica of a boat found in some ancient place and dating back to Jesus times. And there are Bibles and scrolls. One scroll was labeled “Esther Rolle” and I said to Bob, “wasn’t she an actress?” There was a Gutenberg printing press which actually worked and made up for missing out on Mainz. There was a class of kids about 8 years old going completely apeshit so we got out of there pretty quick.

We found a great place for dinner. More apple wine and plates of wursts and stuff. Remember when I was a vegetarian? What happened? I think I’d eat yak if I was hungry enough and it looked good.

It’s raining now. (Shouldn’t it be snowing?) We’re going back to the Christmas market to try some sweets. Bob had a pear covered in chocolate and shaped into a mouse the past two days. I wanted a chocolate pretzel but the stand didn’t have any just now when I walked by. Also want to try one of the crazy hot drinks with wein and liquor and whipped cream. yum.

Oh, and remind me to tell more about the Communications museum later because it was super cool.

Tomorrow to Nurnberg.

Welcome back to the land of the shitty shower and the kick ass breakfast.

I changed computer terminals and now I can at least see what I am doing. The keyboard is still all jumbled but that is just how it is going to be.

We got off the plane yesterdaz at 11am and did one of our smoothest transitions ever. We bought a public transit daz pass and the gals at the info booth were totallz useless. (I guess in Frankfurt information means a bored shrug followed by ‘I do not know.’)

We went back into the airport and this totallz German looking guy listens to our question (which I had attempted to pose in German) and tells us in what had to be a Texas influenced drawl “First you gotta git yer ticket. Then you gotta git to track one.” We made our way to track one, transfered at the Hauptwache to U6 and exited the Liepsiger Strasse (spellings are approximate as I have no supporting materials and I repeat, I am butt tired). We easilz found our hotel.

Good, inexpensive accomodations can be found on the Internet. Our place is out of the city center, near the Universitat and reasonablz priced. Our room is tiny but nice and the people are all nice and the breakfast this morning was excellent. I had a big chewy roll with lunchmeat and lox and cream cheese and a bit of fruit. There was tons of other stuff. Ask Bob, he tried everzthing.

We did 6 museums todaz: Icons, World Culture, Communications, Architecture, Film AND Photographz.

Plus we had an excellent lunch and now I can tell you why my husband said “hot and kinky sex” to the the server in a German cafe. She was very nice and wanted to practice her English and asked us a few questions of things to say. As we were eating (veg quiche, corn goulash with noodles for Bob, roasted chicken and potatoes for me, cake for dessert and I tried the Apple wein: not bad) there was this cheesy pop music playing.

The song was some woman bleating about wanting to get freaky and the server calls across the cafe, “What does she mean ‘freaky’?” So Bob finishes what he is chewing and says “Hot and kinky sex.” He then takes another breath to explain further when she says, “I get it.” Meanwhile, the cook is sticking his head out from the kitchen. It was probablz more hilarious if you were there.

Back to the sleeping thing. We found our hotel at about 1230pm and put our stuff down and then headed back out to the Hauptbahnhof to buy our train tickets for Nürnberg and Garmisch. Then we walked around a bit. We would have walked more except the temperature was 5 celsius which was about 20 degrees colder than what we left (I think, not good with the C to F translation) and even with layers it was a bit painful.

We found some dinner. I had a Glühwein, Bob had a Pils. The food was meat and potatoes. One kind of potato was like a power tater tot: bigger and harder and browner on the outside and more like mashed potato on the inside. I think it is a perfect food and ate every one and would have ordered a side order just of that if it was offered.

At this point we were losing it and we staggered back to our room at 5pm and I thought I might read for a few hours and go to bed at 8pm. My goal was 8pm. Well you can imagine how being horizontal and reading is going to keep me awake. I put my book aside for just a second to nap for a bit and fell into an unwakeable sleep and did not stir until 3am when I was wide awake.

It’s been a great day. We headed back to the Christmas market for more food. (Excellent food on every corner.) Will check in again as we can.

The blogger page comes up in German. I wasn’t expecting that.

Okay, this is not optimal as I can’t see the left margin so I’m typing in the dark. Add to that that I’m dead tired and this is one of those funkz German keyboards and prepare yourself for craziness to come.

Part I: I Suck

I used to be most organized punctual person on the planet. What happened?

I wasn’t readz when Priscilla picked us up, not even close. I was still packing my toiletries. My hair = rats nest with out buckets of products. And I didnt (the apostrophe thing is poorly located so Im not even going to trz any more) have time to do any of mz last minute things like grab phone numbers (If anyone sees the Neuners, tell them were arriving on the 4:14 train on Mondaz). (What kind of crayz people switched the kezboard around?) I also never found my mittens and it is prettz damn cold.

One problem causing the lateness was the decision to bring mz bday present: a mini ipod and I had to rip the music I wanted to put on it and organize the playlists and then since I was still totallz not ready Bob had to set it up and then I transfered enough music to get me started. Also since I had myself prettz worked up about the trip I decided to take a nice walk so I could relax and collect mz thoughts.

A major thing I never did was take care of a bunch of email issues like answer mail, thank BallardBlog for the care package for the trip (those snacks came in verz handy at 3am when I was wide awake and starving).

Also the PamNewsletter is done and you can find it here. Long storz short: I designed the page using CSS and I dont know what I am doing I just fiddle until it looks how I want and I look at it using Safari, the OS X Mac browser. When I tested it on other browsers, it looked like shit and I wanted to either (a) fix it, or (b) change it, or (c) write a warning apologz for those who are seeing it in its crappz form but I ran out of time and never even announced that it was up. So, if you are here visiting to see what happened and whether I shined you on this year: no I did not. I am just not organized. If you are not seeing this I will be sending out a notice when I get home.

It’s that getting ready for a trip time when the cranky panic hasn’t yet given way to the punchy “who cares? I’m blowing this town.” Way too many last minute tidbits to take care of. Excessive adult beverage consumption is tempting but need to be responsible for a few more hours or risk arriving in another country with not enough underwear and too much sunscreen (not needed where we’re going.)

I have a widget on my desktop with the local weather. It shows today plus a three day forecast with the temperature and a graphic. For example: a sun and cloud or clouds and rain. Today’s graphic showed clouds and what looked like booger colored hailstones. What was that? I think it had to do with the wind but why green boogers?

Here’s my other Creem letter to the editor which was printed in METAL Creem Close-Up January 1988 with Metallica (James and Kirk) on the cover.

The mail column in this spin-off was:

CHAINMAIL (CHAINMAIL is your forum … if you have any opinions, observations, secret knowledge or simply a godlike insight into metal, we’d love to hear from you. So, to become a force to be reckoned with in metal circles everywhere, send your letters … .

LEPPARD: ULTIMATE SELL-OUT OF ALL TIME EVER IN HISTORY … OR NOT?

At the end of last year I wrote you a letter whining about the whereabouts of some mythical Def Leppard record. Now, finally, I have it after scratching on the door of my local record supermarket first thing on August 3, watching the brain-dead clerks trying to get the registers turned on.

Now that I have my record home, what is this? Where is that fabulous “raise your fist and beat the air” music that never left my aural cavities daily for almost three solid years? Listening to the pounding battle-cry of Pyromania (the album I want to be buried with) I ran laps, did volumes of calculus and fought with my stupid boyfriend. I was AWOL from a collegiate torture known as sorority rush in order to go to the fabulous Forum and sit in the nosebleed section with said boyfriend and three of his drug-snarfing pals and I was virtually drooling in euphoria. Now, five long years later, I break all speed records buying this album only to find my idols have mutated into some kind of Night Ranger.

It’s like these guys skimmed the perfect (nauseating) elements of every bogus commercial rock outfit from Bryan Adams to boys-of-the-moment Bon Jovi, and made the quintessential commercial rock cupcake album. There’s no punch, not stomp, no fun! And their formerly crappy lyrics have, amazingly, become worse! I am distraught. Well, I suppose the album will be huge; they probably could use the money. I hope they’re happy now!

Yeah, I never liked the Hysteria album as much as Pyromania but it did spend a lot of time in the CD player back then. It didn’t occur to me until re-reading this letter recently what an oddball biography I was offering what with the metal, calculus and sorority bits. Not what you’d expect from a headbanger, eh?

I needed to buy this fancy product for a gift. Normally I would get it at the spa but since I wasn’t going to be at the spa before I gave the gift I decided to order it online. The reputable seller I would normally use was out so I randomly searched for the cheapest price and placed my order.

Yesterday I got one of those orange cards in the mail that says I have a package from Hong Kong that I need to sign for at the Post offce.

I had a box to mail anyway so I trucked down and showed my ID and got my package from Hong Kong. Get this: the shipping box had a lovely blue ribbon on it. Have you ever seen that?

Turns out it’s the product. The online store said it was in CA. I was a little nervous that I bought a knock-off but I opened the box and if it’s fake, it’s a brilliant fake. It even has the insert about the product in about 10 different languages. So what’s the gimmick why they can sell it cheaper from Hong Kong and does this violate any laws?

I wish I could blog while I was driving because I always think of all kinds of things to say then. But later, when I’m sitting here in front of the computer (I almost just typed “sitting here in front of the TV” I don’t even know what I’m doing right now) I’m a big fat blank.

In case you didn’t hear, Mötley Crüe is reuniting for a big tour. I already informed Bob, with a big HA HA HA, that he should find his earplugs as he would be attending this event. All the hippies and so forth that I’ve been a good sport over the years: it’s time for payback.

But upon futher reflection, I realized I don’t even want to see Mötley Crüe. Yeah, sure the Shout at the Devil show at the ECen at UCSB was wild and fun and LOUD but I never listened to their CDs much and I wouldn’t even trudge to the arena last year to see Def Leppard or Van Halen, why would I go for Crüe? The only reason would be to watch Bob suffer through it and that doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to go.