We're All Just Big Kids At Heart...

Click on photo for a bigger view. In preparation for the annual Nuremberg Toy Fair which starts next week-- a VERY big deal here (historically, Nuremberg was the European center of toymaking for hundreds of years), the good folks at Playmobil ponied up with these man-sized figurines scaling the downtown Karstadt store (a mix of Macy's and Fred Meyer) to greet the almost 3,000 exhibitors and thousands (the show website claims 80,000) attendees. Playmobil is HQ'd two towns over, and offers a Fun Park (as in: be in a Playmobil diorama) for the young'uns, though I wish they offered a grown-up night or something.

Off to Munich to do a little work next week, so the posts will be lighter than usual. Have a great weekend everybody!

I'm Sure This Means Something Different In German, Pt. 2

Click on image for larger view. Bumper sticker spotted on a car near the Nordring. Not the kind of thing a parent should brag about, eh? Actually, this is about as close to a "Baby On Board" notice as you'll find-- the German root verb "Fähren" has no exact, literal English translation, but can mean "to go," "to travel," or "to drive." For Part 1 of this occasional series, click HERE. Actually, the artwork reminds me of something similar. Click HERE to see if you agree.

Local Weather: Use It Or Lose It

It was pushing 40 degrees this past week, which led some optimistic local cafes to set out the outdoor chairs, complete with sheepskin seat covers and blankets for their hearty and hale clientele (and add some much-needed seating space to their smaller shops). Here we are at early afternoon, and no takers. Outside the Black Bean coffee shop, Konigstrasse.

Language Class Is Back! And I Still Stink!

While it sure is good to get back onto a regular schedule and better myself through education and exercise in addition to the smattering of paid work I get as a copywriter, it's still plenty humbling to have the German language knocking me down a couple pegs (again!) in less than 5 minutes. I'm now attending a different school than my last one with different books, emphasis and curriculum. So instead of German for beginners, this one is called an "integration course," which promises a more practical everyday living sort of German. Gone are all of those pesky articles-- that whole "Der-Die-Das" nightmare, and more of how to do stuff, complete with field trips to the museum, the train station, and so on. Sounded good, because at best, all I can seem to process is what I call "survival German" in the short-term, and this looked to be right up my alley-- right now I don't need to know the names of each bird in the park, but I DO need to know how to order a pizza over the phone. So this couldn't possibly go wrong, right? Wrong. While I thought I'd have some sort of relative advantage over these "beginners" due to the same-level class I took in November, it became readily apparent that most of my new classmates have taken German before, however informal (and in some cases, quite formal) it may be. Plus... this was an immersion class, which meant that it was all German all the time, rapid fire. Quite a lousy feeling right out of the box to find out that I'm already near the bottom of the class, and it's likely going to stay that way. Sheesh. So anyways, I waited around until class was over to get some face time with the teacher (who speaks English quite well), just to see if, well, I belonged in this class-- was there a more basic course, perhaps something more structured? What happened next was a doozy-- she began by replying in English, then 30 seconds in, bam, switches to German. And wouldn't switch back, despite my gentle requests. Um hel-LO!! Student threatening to leave class over here!! Hey lady, turn off the meter-- the ride's over! But I could see what she was doing, as much as it ticked me off-- she was trying to show me how much I understood German after all. So I'd speak in English, she'd get it (duh), and respond in German, and I'd eventually understand what she was saying. And what she WAS saying-- I'll paraphrase here, because I don't speak German-- was to stick it out. Baby steps. Let it slowly build up. I'm not in over my head. Which was good to hear, even though she told me this in German. In the end, this 2 folks speaking different languages yet still understanding each other was sort of like Han Solo and Chewbacca from Star Wars, except that Han never wanted to headbutt Chewbacca. The image above is a still from one of the most famous movie parodies ever made, Hardware Wars, a low-budget send up of Star Wars, and one familiar to a whole generation of folks who watched early incarnations of HBO (back when they used to put short films between the features). That's Fluke Starbucker, Ham Salad, Augie Ben Doggie and Chewchilla, The Wookie Monster in the pic. George Lucas himself said that this was his favorite parody of a Star Wars film. Funny, I figured he would say Episode One: The Phantom Menace . Ba-ZING! Anyway, click HERE to see Hardware Wars. So I'll be sticking this language class out in the meantime.

Bored, Ticked Off and Waiting

In a couple more days, I'm back off to intensive German language class and regular gym workouts (conviently located between the language school and the apartment), effectively giving me a daily schedule of 6-7 hour days, which I'm kind of looking forward to. I did not expect to spend my final "downtime" week sitting in the apartment waiting for the final workmen to come and complete the laundry list of finishing work-- you know, all the stuff that should have been completed before we were handed the keys to the place over a month ago. But here I am, waiting for guys that do not show up when they are scheduled, don't call when they know they aren't coming, and who do only partial jobs when they get here (lacking tools or vital parts they full well should have brought), which means more visits later down the road. There's still wires sticking out of the walls, a kitchen countertop that needs replacing (the first one was installed incorrectly), a missing kitchen cupboard (the first one was mis-ordered and never installed), touch-up paint to be applied all over the place, various construction flotsam inside and outside the place that needs to be removed, and other minor odds and ends to be accomplished. This was supposed to be 100% completed by yesterday. But by 6:00pm, only 1 guy showed up to do the most minor of jobs (installing a light, literally a 2-minute job), and nobody else was answering their phone. While it's been explained to us that this is fairly typical of German apartment move-ins, even our German friends are aghast at how long this process is taking. Our British relocation agent is a former prosecuting attorney, and she is already cooking up escape plans, short-payment of rent schemes and nastygrams to the apartment landlord. If we don't get some sort of resolution by week's end, at least some of these ideas will be implemented. But in the meantime, I'm chained to this table, waiting.

C-Lister Heaven

I've mentioned before that most of the bigger touring stage shows and music acts skip over Nuremberg, even though it's the second largest city in Bavaria. The reason is simple: Frankfurt and Munich are roughly equal distance from Nuremberg, and are both significantly larger cities with major airports and transportation hubs. So while we do get the occasional top name acts grace this town, the locals usually have to make due with the second string, as evidenced in this announcement billboard (click on picture for close-up). Now, I have nothing against Lionel Richie or Simply Red (other than I'll never listen to their music), but I can't remember the last time either of these acts had a single on the charts. Elton John is a bit of a special case however: He'll be playing the local soccer stadium (47,000 seats) in July, and is a living legend... who also hasn't had much action on the charts lately. But hey, we also have both an ABBA tribute show and the Nutcracker on Ice coming to town though!

Holidays Are Officially Over

It took nearly a month for all of the 180+ stalls at the famous Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt (Christmas Market) which ran fron November 28-December 24 to be set up, but by yesterday (Friday Jan 11), all traces (except for the fencing in the foreground) have been removed. Christkindlesmarkt is a VERY big deal here-- it's one of the largest Christmas fairs in Germany, is arguably the oldest (dating back to at least 1628), and is certainly the most famous. Every year, 2 million(!?!) visitors come to Nuremberg to check this out, with surprisingly large contingents from Italy and Japan. We only went a couple times, but mostly stayed clear for any number of reasons-- always seemingly bitterly cold on the days when we had the time to go down there, insanely crowded, and very similar stuff at too-many booths. I will say this about German Christmas though: it's a refreshing change from the aggressively commercial North American version. Christmas here is less about gifts (even the booths at the Christkindlesmarkt primarily sold handmade toys and tchotchkes, food, and drink) and more about treasuring and connecting with your family and friends. This is the Hauptmarkt square, centrally located in Nuremberg's old town, with the Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady), a structure that began construction in 1352 (and is much smaller inside than it looks) in the background.

Dear Europe: On Behalf of America, I Apologize

As mentioned on a previous post, we get MTV Germany here and to fill in their programming gaps, they often broadcast older US-market programming. While it was recently reported that MTV has decided to commision more "life affirming" reality programming, we still get the drecks of their vaults, as evidenced by the recent premieres of the 1-year old Flavor of Love 3 and Paris Hilton's My New BFF, two shows that actually make a person stupider as they watch them. Flavor of Love, if you're fortunate enough not to have watched this trainwreck, is a show that has human cartoon/rapper Flavor Flav put 20 skanks... er, fine ladies through a series of increasingly degrading "contests" to see who "loves" him the most, with Survivor like eliminations at the very end of the episode (for better or worse this show set the template for MTV-Network's dating reality shows, which all follow this basic setup). Must not be working that well, since this is Flav's third attempt of finding true love using a reality show where his producers pick his potential life partners-- hmmm, can't possibly see how that could go wrong!

Paris Hilton, talentless heiress/celebutard, has a history of burning through her friends ("BFF" means "best friends forever"), so it comes as no surprise that she needs to recruit and pay equally catty vapid famewhore strangers to be her friend using a reality show with contests and eliminations. While we positively CRAVE English language programming here, watching both of these shows' first episodes made me feel frankly embarrassed-- again, if these contestants are young European kids' only exposure to "typical Americans," it's not doing us Yanks here any favors.

"It Never Snows in Nuremberg..."

"... but it does get cold." Well, the locals are batting .500 with the weather talk. We've had intermittent (light) snow since before Thanksgiving, which tends to disappear after a couple days. But most of western Europe got spanked with record cold and snow late last week, and Nuremberg is no exception. The high temps this week will scrape the high 20's; the overnight lows will hit the teens and single-digits. I actually don't mind the snow all that much (my formative and college years being spent in Upstate New York and the Midwest); it's just that I wasn't expecting it, though the road crews here are totally on top of it, and all major roads are well-salted and gravelled. Next week it'll be in the mid-upper 30's, so once again we will be snow-free.

Really Late Reviews (First in an occasional series)

Welcome to something I've been mulling over for a little bit, and what will likely be a semi-recurring feature-- my 2 cents on entertainment options that may have slipped under the radar, or are worth a second look-- or avoiding completely. I thought about calling it "Really Late Biased Reviews," but that would be redundant. So without further hesitation, here we go:

Any Trouble: Where are all the Nice Girls? (Stiff Records) 1980; Re-released 2007

I did call this "Really Late Reviews," didn't I? May as well start with talking about a record that came out some 28+ years ago, but brought back to the fore with this band's recent reunion, and a lovingly packaged and remastered re-release of this underlooked gem. There are some bands who make one really great album, then spend the rest of their careers trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle-- or running like crazy away from it. Any Trouble is one of those bands-- but what an album! This CD was in constant rotation in my car, at work and in my head for most of the summer, and it's an absolute knockout, a frenetic slice of power pop played with punky abandon, hooks that kill, and topped with wonderful lyrics and memorable choruses all sung by a great singer and not a clunker song in the bunch-- the perfect storm that couldn't miss, right? Wrong, but this album and this band had enough of a cult following that it remains a critic's darling nearly 3 decades after its first release. Later albums showed Any Trouble (and their record company's) increasing desperation to find a wider audience, saddling them with overly-slick production (like using A Flock of Seagulls' producer), and turning them into a synth-pop outfit before they finally called it quits in 1984. But don't let that deter you-- Where Are All The Nice Girls? has since been reissued by the label (Stiff Records, home of Elvis Costello, Madness, Graham Parker, early Devo, Nick Lowe, and most any of the cooler New Wave bands we all used to watch late at night on MTV), complete with extensive liner notes, bonus material (early singles and B-sides, alternate takes), and a remastering that has this band fairly crackling off of the speakers. Fans of Joe Jackson's first two albums, early Elvis Costello, and Squeeze should definitely check this out. You'll be glad you did.

New Year's Day Aftermath

I'm glad somebody gave us a heads-up on this one.

New Year's Eve in Germany is a bit like the Fourth of July in the USA and as such, celebrated (in these parts anyways) with high-dollar amateur fireworks, bordering on professional level quality, some of them quite impressive. But the place was a war-zone, and seeing as these pyrotechnics are completely legal, there's not much for the local cops to do other than make sure everybody's safe. To start the night off, we had a brief run-in with our usually drunk, and always batshit-crazy neighbor just before we left for the evening, then a pleasant dinner out with a friend before the 3 of us set out to the castle wall to get a bird's eye view of the city from one of its highest points. All day long there were fireworks and explosions being set off with increasing frequency as midnight approached. As we left the restaurant, it seemed like every block had a group of folks who were indiscriminately setting off some serious firepower, sometimes pointing it at each other (and passerby) for snicks. It's times like this I feel like I do when riding in a NYC taxi with a driver who doesn't know the traffic laws and drives at twice the speed limit-- could get seriously hurt, but I can't really do much, so may as well relax, laugh and enjoy the show. We got to the castle walls, and everybody there went predictably nuts at the stroke of midnight just like any New Year celebration, but in 22-degree weather. And it was a sight-- all corners of this medieval city were alight with fireworks, and it was going pretty solid until 1:00am, when we packed it in, went home and watched TV until almost 3:00am just to calm down and allow the ringing in our ears to subside.

On New Year's Day almost everything was closed, but we found out that all of the fireworks enthusiasts hadn't bothered to clean up after themselves-- the city was a mess, and even now on the 5th, there are still plenty of wrappers and paper on the streets-- these pics are really quite mild representations of the hundreds of pounds of trash and mess in our neighborhood alone. Next year (providing we'll be around-- there's already talk of us fleeing the city, er, make that the country for New Years), we'll be even better prepared to deal with this-- stuff like garage the car and wear earplugs to bed. Our first German New Years was an eye opener to be sure.