Culture...check

Last night I went to some opera/dinner concert thing at the royal Banqueting Hall (yes, I realize that I can't really be cultured if I call it a "thing" but I don't know what else to call it). I went with some co-workers, it seemed like an appropriately "london-y" thing to do. I think I was expecting a large room with big round tables with a sit-down dinner and some string quartet in the background. Not quite. It was a very intimate concert of 300 cultured people (me being the youngest in the room by generations, well besides my coworkers) with three opera singers in coat-tails, followed by a buffet dinner, church-social style, downstairs in the "fellowship hall". There was a bass, with a slicked back pony tail who fit his part as the phantom in Music of the Night very well. A precious spanish tenor. And a counter-tenor (whatever that is), who I lovingly refered to as Falsetto Fanny the rest of the night. Falsetto Fanny was a 60ish, gray haired man of moderate stature with ants in his pants. About 6 ft, bit of a belly...so you'd be as surprised as I was when you heard the sounds that came out of his mouth. I'd call him more of a soprano, and not the gun-toting, brass-knuckle wearing, guido type. Poor thing had a bit of a lisp too...I felt bad for the front row. But I wasn't sure whether it was the shower of spit that was probably flying out of his mouth from his lisp or his sweeping hand gestures throughout his performance that might hit them the hardest. Either way, I did enjoy myself even though I only knew two songs. Music of the night and Ave Maria...which they sang twice with different arrangments, so technically I knew three.

Well at least I have checked off my culture box for the month, next month, Hadrian's Wall exhibit at the British Museum.

Prost!

I didn't know what to title this entry, it could have been and array of things. Among them, just plain "Beer, Beer, Beer" or maybe "Men in tight suede pants" or "Holy Lederhosen" or "Wurst Hangover" but I'll just stick with "Prost" it is the German equivalent to the rest of the world's "Cheers", but don't forget to look your drinking buddy in the eyes. Or it's 7 years bad luck, and I'm not talking the kind you get when you break a mirror or cross a black cats path.

Oktoberfest was a success, I had countless beers ( I say countless b/c they are all served in Liter glasses and have well over 5% alcohol so I can't really relate that back to a specific number of Miller Lites I might have had at a similar event in Texas), ate a few too many different types of wurst (that's sausage for those of you who don't speak fluent German like me), tried veinna schnitzel (while trying not to think too much about my aunt's old dachsund Schnitzel), ate pretzels larger than my head and found out I do in fact like mustard!

The Notorious Eisbock, 12%

Munich is actually one of my favorite cities hands down. I loved it 5 years ago when I went after my study abroad trip and I enjoyed it just as much this time. And I'm not just talking about enjoying my alcohol enduced experiences, although the city never seems to fail me on those. Munich is great, they have beautiful, interesting architecture, the freindliest people I have come across, tons of history, great shopping, ok...and great food and beer!

The New Town Hall

So the actual Oktoberfest was quite an experience, I don't know if I was all together prepared or knew what to expect. It blew any expectations I had out of the water though. At least in sheer size and scale alone. When they said beer tents I was thinking a bunch of tailgating tents propped up in a field 'a la' Chilifest. Or maybe if this thing was as big as I'd heard some of those huge white tents people rent for Weddings. Ha! These "tents" had wooden floors, balconys with seating, a huge kitchen, and actual bathrooms with plumbing...and held between 5-10 thousand people each. And I'm not talking standing room only, they had tables and benches for that many. Although, by the end of the night everyone was standing on their tables dancing to the music.

A "Tent"

Inside the "Tent" (this is just one half)

Amy and I went to the tents on Monday to meet her Aunt and Uncle (Molly and Kevin=hilarious). They were fully dressed in Lederhosen and Dirndl and I knew it was going to be a good day! We got to the tents around 11 and actually found a seat in the Paulaner tent right by the band. Another sign it was going to be a good day. By noon the entire tent was packed and Liter beers and roasted chickens were being served by the thousands. By about 7 pm all of the families had left and been replaced by the serious drinkers. The band was in full swing and we were on top of the benches. By 10 pm there was and inch of beer on the floor, people were falling off of tables and we were all dancing arm in arm with our new German friends. It was quite an experience.

Meet Molly and Kevin

Oh and (hide your face in shame Mom) I had to partake in the Oktoberfest tradition of standing on your bench and chugging your Liter...I killed my Ring Dunking time :)

More pics are on my shutterfly site at lwaterfield.shutterfly.com

In the words of Heidi Klum, Auf Wiedersehen!

All Roads Lead to Jesus...

...if you know where you're going! This seemed to be a theme for mine and Kelly's trip to San Sebastian last weekend. The locals are friendly...if you know their language (or any language other than English I assume). Eating tapas is fun...if you knew what you were eating. It's fun to try the "local" places...if you like locals glaring at you openly. Ok, really...I did have a fantastic time and San Sebastian is the cutest city, right out of a picture book! It really has it all; sandy beaches, picturesque city, fun nightlife...which is why we were surprised more English people haven't yet discovered it. I guess that is for the better since as soon as they do it will probably lose some of it's quaint charm and become a tourist haven with the promenade lined with cheesy tourist stalls selling hokey souvenirs rather than cute park benches with old couples eating ice cream.

So back to Jesus, the town of San Sebastian is set in a bay and at the tip of the bay there is a big (bigger than you think) "hill" with a huge statue of Jesus looking down over the town. Now it would have been appropriate for me to probably do some research as to the history of said Jesus, but I'll just take a wild guess and assume he was put there to look over the city in some time of need. Well, a friend of mine who had been to San Sebastian before had told me that you can climb the hill and go up to the Jesus and there is a great view of the city below. He assured me it is an easy walk and worth the time so Kelly and I decided it was a must on our trip. This brings me to my alternate title for this posting "How do you get to Jesus...." this was the question I posed someone the night before. His response "Pray."

So Saturday afternoon, after napping off the night before on the beach we decided it was time to be productive and take a look around the city and head to up to Jesus. We figure it can't be too hard we'll just walk towards it and surely there will be a marked path or something. Sure enough we get to the end of the bay and there is a gated road that leads up the hill with some sort of Park map so we head in. I must mention that in the half hour it takes us to get from the beach to the hill the weather has taken a drastic change...overcast, windy..foreboding if you will. I guess this has driven many of others who would normally be exploring this park out of the park, but not us. We are determined to get to Jesus. As we begin our walk we pass a man peeing on the side of the road...we turn around (to make sure he's not following us once we pass him, of course) and see him sitting in the same spot he just pee'd in, meditating. Interesting. So we carry on, we round a corner and see that the grade in this hill goes from an easy stroll to some serious leg burning action. We carry on. Only as we climb higher and higher do we realize we haven't seen anyone in a long time and we are pretty high up. Trapped, if say a peeing, meditating bad man jumps out of the lush bushes that surround either side of the road. We continue on. Then there is a fork in the road, to which i reply, "All roads lead to Jesus" ...well our road lead to a cemetery. We contemplate going back and trying the other road and in jest we yell out "God, lead us to Jesus" then, right at that very moment there is the first booming clap of thunder. I kid you not. We decide it is time to skedaddle.

Here are some of my favorite pics from the trip. I will have the rest on my shutterfly site soon, lwaterfield.shutterfly.com

view from the beach

other side of the bay

the fishing port

Cathedral

typical street in the old town

our hotel...apparently pretty swanky per the locals

lamps on the promenade

Me and Kelly

2 months, 2 days, 2 hours

I didn't mean to do this post that way, but that is actually the exact amount of time I've been here in London. One would think from the title that I am counting down the time, but that is far from the case. All I can think about lately is how fast these two years are going to go by. Too fast I think. Although, I just figured out that in the three rent payments I have made since moving here, I have already spent more on rent than in an entire year in Dallas...how's that for some perspective!

I just tried to analyze my last months bank statement to see if I was anywhere near the "budget" I blindly planned for myself before moving out here. I exported it all into excel, color coded each line depending on which category they fell into and made a little pie chart (Dad, aren't you proud! Even though I know what you're thinking...Microsoft Money will do all of that for me, but there is something I like about doing it myself...maybe it is the color coding!) I was actually quite shocked at how well I did, even though there was a lot more money than I had planned for on groceries, but way less than I had budgeted for going out to eat. So it all evens out in the end. The second largest pie in my chart, albeit a fraction of the largest piece of pie (bills), is cash...this is the dark abyss. I don't know how to categorize this, because I have no idea where I spent it! This was never a problem for me in Dallas when I was trying to analyze my expenses because cash was a thing of the past, I used my debit card for everything...even a 85 cent pack of gum. But here I have stepped right back into the past where cash is preferred to plastic. I'm assuming it falls into the grocery, food, entertainment category. Yes, I had an entertainment category. Although it only had 15 pounds in it so I'm assuming that is where most of my cash went! Here's my pie...but not the pe-CAN kind I prefer....