Ayelet had a great chance to visit London, and I fully wanted her to check out this city that is very dear to me. Usually when Ayelet goes away without me I do very little around the house. However, this time was different. Work was busy with planning for a field trip. Family was in town. And some friends and I had made plans for the night Ayelet left.
Munich has dubbed a phrase called "lange nacht," which is used for a variety of events in the city throughout the year. I attended the long night of museums where about 100 different locations around the city stayed open until 2 a.m. The highlights from the night included our first stop with a short tour of a local swimming pool (Volksbad) that is decked out in an Art Neuvo fashion. Then my last stop was at an old city restaurant where there was an original single bowling lane in the basement followed by a surreal marionette featuring a 10 foot tall lead character. Beautiful. Wish I had pictures, but the camera was in London.
A few days later I was able to live another first. Ayelet's new cousin-in-law, Roe'e, invited me to a futball (soccer) match. I jumped at the chance. Strangely, we went to the game with Roe'e's friend Roe'e that had just moved to Munich a month ago. Yes, I was a bit confused at first too. My confusion continued upon our arrive to the stadium. I was hoping to watch the game and enjoy a beer, but for some reason this was about the only thing in the entire country that was only serving "Alkohol-Frei" beer. I had a Sprite instead. However, my spirits were rustled very quickly as we walked down to our standing area. The tickets we got were with a rowdy bunch of young Germans that played drums, chanted, and waved flags during the entire game. The Munich team ultimately won 3-2. Thanks in part to the goalie name Butt (pronounced "boot" by the locals). See some highlights - I'm next to the waving flags in row 5.
It was a couple of late nights in a row for me. The day after the soccer game I joined Ayelet's family for dinner. Her cousin was wrapping up the European honeymoon with some quality family time. Scoots was having a quieter than usual week and really kept close by when I got home and attempted to finish some work for the field trip I had planned for the following day.
Early morning on Thursday did not look go. The sky was cloudy. When I got to school and stepped outside with 65 grade 7 students it started to rain and I think I even saw some snow. We were off to dig for fossils in a big pit. Ayelet and I had done this last summer and I absolutely loved it. I was very pleased with the kids reactions both at the museum and more at the quarry. Two of our students even found some great fish fossils. I'll leave you with the same question they got. If you found the 150 million year old fossil (seen below) on a hill in Germany, what does it tell you about Germany at that time?
You found the art nouveau!
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