Love is a reciprocal torture

Or: My Trip to Munich through the eyes of Pemulis's brother, through the eyes of Pemulis, as he is imagined by the author (part 3)

It's Tuesday lunch time and we're on the Bayerische Oberlandbahn (or, BOB) heading south and slightly east of Munich to the Miesbach district of Bavaria and the Schliersee. From here our plan is to hike over an alpine mountain and end up on the other side at the well-known (from Pemulis blogland) Tegernsee. Any one of these three paths should do the trick:

As you can do doubt guess, however, (and since you know Pemulis and his luck/plans/what-have-you) the route ends up being something more like the following:

So, instead of the ~3 hour hike we expected, we ultimately complete a near-20 km hike over the course of approximately six hours. No matter, however, as Pemulis ultimately convinced me to take part in this 6-hour death march with a promise of delicious cold fresh beer at the end. And not just any beer. The world-famous Tegernseer Helles, brewed (one imagines) from the fresh crystalline waters of the Tegernsee. On broken-down heels and arches, and after several false-starts and teases of potentially arriving at the majestic brewery, finally we turn a corner and -- behold! -- the building rises before us to what must be 100 m if it's a foot. The grounds are composed of the world's largest (or at least the biggest I've ever seen) beer garden, with tables as far as the eye can see. Most importantly, hustling about with a ratio of approximately 1:3 (tables in the denominator) are probably hundreds of dirndled Bavariennes* carrying anywhere from 1 to even 8 (!!) Maßes of delicious, cold, fresh, brewed-on-premises Tegernseer Helles beer. The pain in my feet, shins, and ankles (well, not so much the ankles as I'm 95% convinced there's at least a small fracture that's developed but come on) has subsided and it's clear that the hike from hell was worth it. Our waitress arrives, we order the promised-brew and some sausages (we're still in Bavaria of course), and we wait. The wait is agonizingly long but oh so worth it. The stories are true. In Tegernsee, they brew them right.

* the thing that really gets me about English is how can one properly describe the world about him without the grammatical gender? Sure, if I say "dirndled Bavarians" it's probably fairly clear that the Bavarians clad in traditional dirndl dresses are of the female variety, but isn't it just a little smoother if I can explicitly make that clear with a gendered version of the word? How about Bavarienne, then? For now let's revert to the French: "des jolies bavaroises partout!"

{we continue next time in part 4 as Pemulis and his brother visit the BMW World after a family visit to der Sizilianer for an Italian breakfast, the heroes attend another public-viewing to cheer on the home team in the semi-finals, the whole crew gets back on the train to head to the mountains again, and much more...}

My Canadian Adventure

[a guest blog by Helga]

  Hi, it’s me again—Helga!  You might remember me from my previous blog.  Well, since then I’ve gotten twice as big and four times as smart.  And, like the Beach Boys, I get around.

  I went to Canada, and my parents, Pemulis and Joelle, went with me.  Canada!  OMG, the noise . . . and the people!  (That’s another allusion—if you know where to look.)  Get this: my dad has a dad!  And my mom has a dad!  Who knew?  One of them is never home and the other is always home.  I know what moms do (look after me), but what do dads do?  Beats me.

  I have a cousin Liesl, who can walk.  And I have a cousin Emily, who is even bigger than Liesl, and a boy cousin (Yecch!  Boys!) John, who is enormous.  In Canada, they grow them big.  In Germany, they just grow them fat, like Dieter in my swimming class.

  This is Dieter:

  From John and Emily I learned to talk.  Well, everyone thinks it’s shrieking, but really it’s talking.  I’m trying to teach my mom and dad to talk like I do, but it’s hard going.  They are so quiet you can scarcely hear them.  If you don’t exercise your lungs, they’ll disappear.  Use it or lose it, I say.

  Anyway, Canada . . . it’s like Germany, only full of my relatives.  Do you know how many relatives I have?  Scores.  Scads.  Multitudes.  One of them has 4 legs and lives with my mom’s mom.  He can’t pick me up, so I guess he’s kind of the idiot in my family.  Nice guy and all, but if you can’t pick me up and carry me, what use are you anyway?

  In Canada I met my Onkel Tom, and he liked me so much he followed me to Germany.  Onkel Tom owns a house and 2 cars!  What’s wrong with my dad that he owns almost no cool stuff?  Check out this comparison:

Onkel Tom                                   Dad

2 cars                                           0 cars

1 house                                        0 houses

5 guitars                                       1 guitar (he claims to have a 2nd)

962 Neil Young CDs                    0 Neil Young CDs

12,798 toys                                  6 toys (all mine)

1 outdoor pool                              0 outdoor stuff 

0 David Foster Wallace books     8 David Foster Wallace books

39,804 hairs                                 162 hairs

Leading in 7 categories:  Onkel Tom.  Leading in 1 lameass category:  Dad.  When I get older, I’m going to send my dad out to work at a bigger company than the internet startup that employs him now.  Obviously if we’re going to live in the style to which I hope to become accustomed, we’re going to need more euros.  My mom can hang with me, though.  I need an entourage.

  Auntie Jenn is really nice.  She carried me around for a whole day.  Of course, she can carry my cousins, who are gigantic, so it can’t be all that hard to carry me.  Someday I’ll be big too and when I am I’ll buy a house and a car and eleventy-six gazillion toys and have servants to pick up my toys.  Right now my mom and dad pick up my toys, but it’s not really a hard job when you have only 6.

  All this writing is tiring me out.  I feel as if I could sleep for 19 minutes.  And then eat.  And then sleep for 12 and a half minutes.  My life is just one crazy whirlwind of eating and sleeping and crawling after stuff I’m not supposed to have.  It’s not an easy job being the baby in the family, but someone’s gotta do it.

Down and Out?

Is there some kind of irony associated with reading Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London in a 5-star hotel in Pisa? Should I feel strange about enjoying the passages where he describes feeling so hungry after not eating anything for five plus days that he begins a descent into madness which includes hallucinating having a conversation with the cockroaches marching up his wall? Is it wrong to derive enjoyment from stories of scam after scam and endless pawnshop visits and sleeping on the floor of a friend's slum hotel with a coat wrapped around one's shoes as a pillow while you're drinking a fine Barolo accompanying salmon tartar with fresh burrata on an air-conditioned terrace? Would Orwell have been upset to know that his vivid descriptions of living amongst the destitute did little more than help me to feel hungry enough after both my primo and secondo to further enjoy a Dolce and Caffè? Perhaps more importantly, how did Orwell (or Blair) feel when he went to his aunt in Paris for financial help during this period? Similar to how I do now? Did it push him to empathize with his "true" down and out compatriots? Does it do something like that to me? Are there enough questions in this post? How about now?

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion

Or: My Trip to Munich through the eyes of Pemulis's brother, through the eyes of Pemulis, as he is imagined by the author (part 2)

It's now Monday morning and the changes I've felt within myself seem to not be fleeting. I feel healthier, more free, and again full of energy. I make a mental note to convince the wife and kids that we should move to Europe. Pemulis heads off to work for the Obama Administration (basically) and I'm left with nothing to do but make use of my quiet restlessness. I suit up in my running shorts, sweat band, and Beats Sports headphones, and head to the Nockherberg mountain to do repeats of the 93 or so steps up the hill. I run up the steps, run around the beer garden, run down the hill, and run up again until my lungs are full-on just burning. I feel a sweet metallic taste in my throat that pushes me to go harder until finally I collapse on the pavement below me. The sun burns fiercely high in the blue sky and the liberating of the toxins being sweat out from my body built up over the last several years working in an Asbestos-filled office in downtown Hamilton is more than simply cleansing. Seated on the sidewalk with the grandness of the city below, I take off my soaked-through T-shirt and yell from the animal within me towards nothing at all; my screams startle a murder of crows and they perform a beautiful flying dance as they escape the trees and set off into the summer morning. I finally make it back to the Pemulis and Family Abode and I'm still shocked at how young I all of a sudden seem. I look and feel amazing. I flex in the mirror and can swear that my arms have never looked so defined. I shower in as cold German water as I can stand and drink six espressos, two mixed with Ginseng. Joelle, Baby Helga, and I step out the front door to meet Pemulis in the alt stadt quarter of Lehel for a Bavarian lunch.

I have a hunger that I've not felt since my early 20's and at the traditional Bavarian Wirtshaus Tattenbach I order a Schweinshaxe, a potato salad, 8 Bratwurst, and a liter of Weißbier. Helga smiles at me for the entire three hour lunch as I order course after course; Käsespätzle and Sauerkraut, Weißwurst and Senf, Kaiserschmarrn, mashed potatoes, and all manner of Kellerbier. After lunch we make the short walk to the German/French café / patisserie Dukatz and drink thick delicious espressos. Pemulis returns to work, and Baby Helga, Joelle, and I walk along the Isar towards the city centre to look for Dirndls for my daughter and BMW toy cars for my son. We shop the Marienplatz and the Viktualienmarkt and already enough time has passed for Pemulis to have generated 100 billion euros or so in revenue for Malaria medicine and so we go to meet him to consume more consumables. We walk across the Praterinsel and past the Gasteig up the Rosenheimerstraße to the "best ice cream in Munich" at True&12. I've been highly lactose intolerant since the age of five but this ice cream is worth all the _____ in the world. The ice cream put me in such a state of bliss that I can't remember if we went back 2, 3, 10, or even 50 times for more. None of those numbers would surprise me in the slightest.

The rest of Monday is uneventful as the whole house is preparing both mentally and physically for the upcoming event of the week: Helga's Baby Swimming at the Michaelibad. Tuesday morning we wake up bright and early to ensure our admittance to one of the coveted 10 spots in the exclusive baby swim lesson. We arrive before 9 o'clock for the 9:30 lesson and begin Helga's preparation. Being the star of the class is something that comes naturally to her but that's not to say that keeping up the image that goes along with that status is easy or not-exhausting. The fact that she's a foreigner (in some sense) has its own associated set of problems that don't make being the star any easier for her or her entourage of three. The class gets underway with the standard welcome song Wir sind die Mäusekinder which Helga unsurprisingly executes flawlessly. Some of the baby-mom pairs leave early because it's clear that they just can't keep up. Helga does (the baby equivalent of) a 3,500 m interval workout including intense butterfly sprints and thigh crushing kick sets. When the class is finally over we race to exit the pool to get away from the media and autograph seekers and so that we can make the next BOB train to the Tegernsee and go hiking (end of part 2).

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple

Or: My Trip to Munich through the eyes of Pemulis's brother, through the eyes of Pemulis, as he is imagined by the author (part 1)

As our sparklingly new 787 Dreamliner touches down on Warsaw soil I begin mentally preparing myself for the week that lies ahead. I will be sans children for the first time in at least 2000 days and every time I start breathing the European air I feel something that brings me back to my youth and not only energizes my body and soul but leaves me feeling ready to take on the world. I step on to the tarmac with the other tired and weary passengers but I feel disconnected from them; I've slept a luxurious 7 hours and my first deep breath electrifies my senses. I feel as I did in 2003 schwarzfahren the TGV from Venice to Rome, filling Pemulis's coke can with duty free Canadian Club. I'm envisioning beer halls, soccer hooligans, schnapps-fueled all-night parties on the Ludwigstraße, white sausage breakfasts beside an alpine hut with majestic mountain landscapes surrounding me. I'm thinking about girls in Dirndls holding 1L steins of beer as high as the ceiling; men dressed in Lederhosen carrying freshly-timbered logs from the Waldperlach; and gleaming shiny BMWs racing down the Autobahn at 200 km per.

After a brief sojourn in the Warsaw airport I'm finally bound directly for Munich. I relax into my Lufthansa city jet seat and sip a refreshing Bitburger as we calmly sail over Prague and whatever crap there might be between Łódź, Wrocław, and Walbrzych. When I finally step off the plane in Munich my energy levels still have yet to subside. I practically bound out of the airport luggage area eagerly awaiting my warm welcome from Pemulis and family. I particularly look forward to Baby Helga's smiling face holding a hand-drawn sign with "Onkel Tom" lovingly written upon. I scan the crowd and much to my dismay all I see is a solitary Pemulis looking older than ever. As a side note to myself I make a mental reminder to at some point in the future (if Pemulis gets over whatever it is that seems to be ailing him) upon re-seeing Pemulis to sing him my rendition of Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat and put particular emphasis on my favourite line "the last time I saw you, you looked so much older". But that will be for another day. For now, my smile turns to a frown and I, as innocently as possible and doing everything I can to hide my disappointment, ask "where's Helga?". When Pemulis explains that they simply ran out of time while getting ready to come to the airport and that if everyone had come they probably wouldn't even have yet left the Welfenhof, I take a step back (mentally, I mean), and realize that I would have had to be crazy to imagine that they all would have made it here on time. We're talking about Joelle and family here, people...

We take a short S-bahn ride into the city and upon our arrival, dang! Es schüttet wie aus Eimern! But no matter. Pemulis and I step into a local café and I indulge in my first European coffee break of 2016. Even with the El Niño rain (I'm assuming) coming down like the world is ending outside, there is still something special about sipping a cappuccino on a cobbled pedestrian street in a European city in July. Pemulis fills me in on his plans for the week, and to be honest I'm a little frightened. While my feelings stirred up by the plane ride were real, I'm now starting to remember how close to 40 I am and how drinking beer in the afternoon just makes me want to sleep. I start missing my kids and my wife and even, just a little, my Tim Horton's coffee, despite the ritualistic vomiting that it normally induces in the hours after its consumption. What is this joie de vivre I'm seeing on the faces around me? Do they not see that it's raining outside? Do they not remember that they're in Munich? Germany is dark, cold, and efficient! It's not where one sips surprisingly delicious coffee in a comfortable artfully decorated café staffed by cheerful young German girls. Ok, never mind.. I like it here.

The rain lets up a bit and we continue our journey home. We walk past all manner of Europeany stuff: statues, a few trams go by, I hear church bells 7 or 8 thousand times, people dressed nicely, squares with people actually just sitting around instead of rushing off somewhere as fast as they can go, old women on bicycles bringing their groceries home, more people on bicycles everywhere, places to walk that haven't been taken over by cars, and, not quite as nice, a lot of people smoking. Like a lot. But finally we make it home to Pemulis & Co.'s train-track-located abode. The apartment is nicer than I would have imagined. Compared to Pemulis's previous dwellings that I've visited it is bigger, cleaner (despite baby Helga's presence), and surprisingly well-decorated. Of course I'm sure this has zero to do with Pemulis and 100% to do with his lovely wife Joelle who I finally encounter when we make our way into the apartment. It's great to see her and all that, but at last the apple of my eye appears. The reason I made this trip in the first place. The one true hope for the Pemulis Darling Family. The proof that there is hope in this frightening world. The light that guides Pemulis home at the end of his long days slaving away for an American multi-national. The Princess, Queen, and God of the household: Baby Helga. She smiles at me and my heart melts into a mollified bundle of gooey gooey organ mass or whatever. Wow what a baby that Baby Helga. If the trip takes a major nosedive from this point forward and I'm forced to, for example, accompany my hosts to a real-estate open house out in the boonies of Munich, even as far as Waldperlach, for example, or vertical-death-march up a mountain by the Tegernsee only to descend and then re-ascend the other side, then the trip will still have been worth its weight in gold. Baby Helga, you are one hell of a baby.

It's Saturday and thanks to my ability to sleep well on the plane I'm ready for the evening's festivities: Germany's first elimination game at the Euro Cup, where they will take on the much-hated Team Italy. If there are two things that everyone in the world knows they are thus: (1) Italy is the most boring soccer team to watch in the world; and (2) Italy is the cheatingest soccer team in the world. As you no doubt know, the Germans almost gave it to the Italians with their new style of "Superman" play, but watching the game in the Paulaner Nockherberg biergarten, drinking a Maß of Helles in the evening twilight, surrounded by good people and good fun, the night is a great success. We make our way home and despite the vast quantity of beer that you are expected to drink whilst in the South of Germany, my jet-lag, and my near-40 age, I again feel the European air re-energize me. We even almost head out on the town to celebrate but quickly think better of it and go straight to bed.

Sunday morning greets me with warm healing rays shining from the sun and descending upon me in the Pemulis apartment. I hold Baby Helga close and am reminded of why life exists in the universe. Pemulis suggests we take a bike ride to "The French Bakery" up in Schwabing and I reluctantly agree. Soon my reluctance proves to have been a folly and we have great fun gliding through a sleepy Munich Sunday morning to the North of the city. We pass by parks and cafés (of course), and go by the consulates and the Bogenhausen villas (the "Munich Bridle Path"), and through the Englischgarten where Helga breathed her first breath, and past the Habsburgerplatz and across the Leopoldstraße and finally to the world-famous French Bakery. Pemulis tries to show off by speaking French to the boy at the counter but to me he kind of just looks like a douche. Sorry Pemmy. In any case we load up Joelle's Brompton-brand Carry Bag with crossants and pain-au-chocolats and baguette and set forth once more into the great unknown of the beautiful city. Pemulis leads us on a different return route past the river surfers of the Eisbach where the coolness of this city bowls me over all over again, and finally past his workplace where he serves the overlords of the American Military Industrial Complex. At home we fix espressos and cappuccinos and relax with our well-deserved French pastries and Italian coffee and I think to myself, can life really be so grand? I dare venture that it can.

<End of Part 1>

Old Fashioned Blog

In the style of old-world "blogging" where you talk about your day and your week and your month and all that, welcome to the latest installment of GWMD the July Edition. Most importantly: Happy Canada Day to all of our readers! On this fine first of July in the Central European Subcontinent we find ourselves enjoying sunny skies, partly cloudy, with a high in the environs of 26 degrees centigrade. The summer has finally gotten under way after an agonizingly stretched-out warm-up process that included, inter alia, ninety-four billion metric tons of rain falling in and around the Greater Munich Area along with seventeen EU-officially-recognized matters-of-record "severe" thunderstorm and/or wind-combined-with-heavy-rain-and-thunder/lightning events as codified in the EC 483.48 directive of the Warsaw Treaty of 2011.

Stuff in the news: Euro Cup (7 teams left; at the end of the weekend it will be 4, hopefully including Iceland and discluding Germany); Brexit (Leave Campaign really actually hoped to lose by about 52-48 instead of things going the other way around so that this whole thing that was meant as a crass political move could actually work out only as that but shit); Austria will vote again probably in the Fall after it seemed there were too many irregularities in the vote that saw the Greens just beat out the Neo-Nazis (seriously) by 30,000 votes (what a world); Tour de France (starts tomorrow! big names? Contador, Froome, Quintana -- it's gonna be big! But for the first time in quite a few years no Canadians will be on the starting line); and the major headline last: Hannah now officially has 2 teeth. Let the Champagne rain down...

Pemulis family news: we will be hosting Helga's favourite name-starting-with-a-T uncle as of the day after Canada Day; we have developing plans to go expose Helga's young skin to the Tuscan Sun as the Earth flies into the position that represents mid-July; what else? Helga-Mom will do what she can to make the family proud in September's world-famous Tegernseelauf as she races the 21.1 km distance through the Alpine foothills of the Bavarian hinterland (important side-note concerning said Tegernseelauf: "Mission accomplished: The Tegernseelauf 2015 was CO2 neutral" -- finally!).

Random innocuous tidbits of data (not necessarily "information"): no new apartment yet (project postponed); no running/cycling/swimming progress (project postponed); no world-famous bread recipes invented (project postponed); not yet vacuumed (project indefinitely postponed); apartment not yet "baby-proofed" (project postponed); GWMD blog "reboot" with fresh new writing and a daily dispatch from the field (project abandoned).