The depth of my insanity

I have a confession to make. And just warning all of the romantics, this might throw you straight off your stools. Wham! You’ll be on the ground before you can even think of throwing rose petals to soften your landing.

I think bathtubs – including those corner spa things you find in honeymoon hotel suites – are awful. So awful, in fact, that I’d prefer for a guy to fart me a little tune in bed than to ask me to get into a bathtub which has previously been occupied by anonymous arses.

Because that’s what it is. I’m well aware that mere hours before I got there, the hairy arse of a giant sweaty man (or woman) has rubbed itself all over every bathtub surface and now I’m about to cover it up with warm water and sit in it. And you know what happens in warm water right? Bad things.

This makes things awkward for Mark because he’s a normal human being, which means he appreciates being submerged in scented, bubbly warm water. It’s relaxing and comfortable, and there is no higher compliment than to be comfortable. Not to Mark. According to him comfort is the bar by which all things should be measured – clothes, chairs, bathtubs...if Mark had his way we’d all be wearing moo-moos.

Because of this, all of our more romantic trysts are marred by The Bathroom Scene. That is the process whereby we inspect our room and, upon discovering that it has a bathtub, engage our alternate personalities. Mark throws his shirt over his head and does laps around the room shouting about comfort, while I curl up in a ball, find a suitably dark corner and rock back and forth mumbling about butt germs. They are the healthy foundations upon which our relationship is built.

So you can imagine my horror and Mark’s complete euphoria when we discovered that our romantic Amsterdam houseboat* not only had a bathtub, but a little tray thingie-ma-bob which could hold two wine glasses and a bottle for top-ups. Alcohol without having to leave the bathtub? SO MUCH COMFORT! And we had two hours before Luke and Bec would arrive.

So yes, no amount of whimpering was getting me out of this one. Anyway I just wanted to share that story because if Mark ever tries to mar my good name with tales of how I steal the blanket and roll him off the bed, you can remind him about the butt germ bath. Also I couldn’t sleep. You know, because of the nightmares.

* We shared this houseboat with Mark’s brother and his girlfriend. The reason why we got a romantic one was because the others were taken.

What it feels like not to sleep

It feels...a bit....where was I? Oh yes not sleeping. It feels like...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...ASSBELAUIB AEOUBAOSFDBLKS QQWIUGLAIUBSFD....huh? Who said what? I WASN’T SLEEPING...I was just making a point...but I don’t really remember what it was about. I have got to learn to finish my thoug...I love bread.   

A couple of weeks ago in a typical freelancer panic (or at least typical for me) I took on more work than I have time to do. Couple that with my intensive German course and exciting overseas visitors and the next thing you know I only have time to sleep two to three hours a day.

The world just shook with parents and pregnant women rolling their eyes at my dilemma. So I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate anyone who has ever fathered or mothered a child, because going off my recent behaviour, if I’m ever in that position there’s a good chance I will accidentally stick my baby in the washing machine as I prepare a delicious underwear sandwich for lunch and put a slice of ham to bed.

It’s just that sleeplessness completely destroys my ability to concentrate. Yesterday I spent several minutes down on all fours, frantically searching for our only set of house keys...which I was holding in my hand...which I had to put down on the bed because they were uncomfortable to hold while I was searching for them. Just saying, if you hand me a baby, you will see me on the news, scraping the floor with the bags under my eyes and wildly explaining that no, I don’t think that a pigeon looks like a human child, but that I was so busy picking out thread from between my teeth (due to an unfortunate lunch oversight), that I hardly paid attention to what I dressed in a Spiderman outfit and strapped into my stroller.

This is really just my way of saying sorry if I ever try to cram you or your baby (or your pigeon) into my fridge...and also a way to explain why I’ve been feeding Mark socks...

The egg explosion

Mark’s brother, Luke, and his girlfriend, Bec, are in town for a visit. This is pretty big news because town is Munich and they live in Sydney. It’s also big news because they’re fantastic tourists – the kind that want to experience everything with just enough detail as to make it worthwhile (but not so much that you want to pry your eyes out with hot pokers or something more awkward, like a bathmat).

The only downside of having ambitious, interesting people in town is that I’m forced to be a decent person who gets up at a decent time. The type of person who eats breakfast. At breakfast time.

So this morning, at a time I wasn’t prepared to be awake, I found myself sitting in a rather pleasant cafe. I say “found myself” because I don’t quite remember the trip there.

The whole thing put me in a jovial mood. I wanted to celebrate. But how? Champagne? No, decent people don’t drink alcohol at 8am, I told myself with just the slightest hint of a slur. Topless table dancing? It was an option. It’s always an option. But I came up with something even better...

When my breakfast arrived, I daintily picked up an egg spoon, placed my soft-boiled egg in the centre of my plate and then ceremoniously smashed the top of it so hard that its innards exploded all over the table. There was baby chicken guts everywhere – yolk on my scarf, egg white on the salt and pepper shakers, yolk on the egg white, egg whites on the floor, yolk in hair, egg shells between butt-cheeks...

It was just grand enough to warrant a call from whoever is responsible for Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks.

I’m waiting.

Breakfast time

According to Mark: breakfast is the first meal of the day, regardless of what time it falls on. As a secondary qualifying condition it must consist of eggs, an English muffin, barbecue sauce and “honeybread”

According to Simon: breakfast is the meal you have in the morning, before 11am.  It can involve any number of things.

This is how the conversation plays out in our house:
Mark:  “Breakfast; I’m breaking my fast, it doesn’t matter that it’s 6pm.”
Simon: “Well in German it’s “Frühstück” which means “early pieces” so that doesn’t make sense.”
Mark: “I’m breaking my fast.”

Then they settle things like men by wrestling in jelly.

Honeybread

What Mark calls bread/rolls/bagels with honey on them. He is yet to realise that it isn’t an actual word.

FUNNY!

And I mean REALLY funny.

The tale of the silver cock-ring

DISCLAIMER: This blog post will have pictures of above mentioned piece of...er...attire, as well as general nudity. My belief is that if it’s acceptable at the Englischer Garten, there’s no reason for it to be banned from my blog. If you’re not into it don’t scroll down. You have been warned.

With that out of the way, and because it probably isn’t as clear as it should be, this blog post is about Easter. We spent our first German Easter in the most German way we knew how: by getting among a whole lot of naked people at the Englischer Garten.

What we’ve discovered – and rather rapidly – is that Germans (at least a good portion of the local Munich ones) love to get their kit off. They love being naked! Our first clue was a nearby Isar sandbank which fills with nude, overweight, leathery gentlemen on sunny days.

The second clue was our good friend Yuri (responsible for the whole picnic idea) who spent the planning stages exclaiming with unbridled glee that we’d be right near the naked people. THE NAKED PEOPLE! You know, people who’ll be NAKED! And that we should bring a volley ball because playing volleyball is fun. Oh and NAKED PEOPLE!

Finally there was the actual walk through the park...or, more accurately, the weaving and dodging of saggy body parts and the diverting-away of eyes. But aside from the fleshy environment, the atmosphere was lovely, the weather warm and the food and beer delicious (you’d better believe we smashed two buckets of KFC chicken).

Of course things did get a little strange...three in particular:

1. An elderly gentleman of about seventy took to parading around our section of the gardens wearing nothing but a silver cock-ring. Disturbingly, during every trip he took a few minutes to stand and lazily gaze around the area while fiddling with it. Casually. Slowly. Deliberately. Like he knew he had all the time in the world and there was nothing we could do to stop him.
2. A distinctively naked, distinctively pear-shaped middle-aged man decided to play soccer with two naked children of an uncomfortable age (that is about twelve or so). He leaped through the grass, setting his feminine butt cheeks a-jiggle and laughing as he tried to coerce the ball away from the youngsters. It was strange.
3. Closest to us was a rather large naked man. He had splayed himself out in the sun in the graceful manner of a walrus (if a walrus had two legs which it could spread out in order to let its ball-sack rest on the grass, I presume). There was nothing overly odd about this gentleman...until he whipped out a pipe – a proper wooden pipe – sat up and smoked it with the expression of a weathered sea captain. 

And now, to commemorate this most chocolaty of holidays, here are some pictures. Don’t click the link if you have an innocent mind which you don’t want tainted....otherwise, enjoy!

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To make Luke stop whining already

So yes, you’re quite right; I haven’t written in a really long time and I don’t have any really valid excuses. Call it a character flaw if you like.

The misfortune of my laziness is that I’ve missed some rather critical updates...and that has led to whingy emails from one Luke Cornish. Emails to the effect of “I was a little disappointed I didn't merit a blog post. Oh well, maybe I need to do more than travel 22 hours to come see you to get a shout out...”

Clearly things need to be set right. So, firstly, from now on I shall refer to Luke as The King of Guilt and Also Beer Consumption (he has a knack for drinking beer and staying relatively sober while I slip ungraciously into an unflattering, merry, kind of state).

Secondly, I’m going to give a somewhat accurate account of The King’s visit (which was, and continues to be, the highlight of my year thus far....that and the cock-ring man, but we’ll get to that later).

His Highness arrived at our place on a mild Saturday afternoon and pretty much immediately demanded that he be given beer and taken to watch a football game at a local establishment. The rest of the afternoon/night is a little hazy.

On to the next day...as it happened, the week of Luke’s visit fell on Starkbierfest. This delightful tradition was developed by the monks who founded Munich. They found that it was too hard to work the land during Lent without any sustenance, so they brewed a special strong beer that would provide them with what they needed and set out to get approval from the pope. Since the journey took so long, by the time the pope got around to sampling it, the brew had gone off. So he deemed it in the spirit of Lent (for who in their right mind would count that type of beer a pleasure?). From that time on for two to three weeks in April the people of Munich get drunk on one-litre steins of delicious beer in the name of the monks. I love that story.

Naturally we joined in with the tradition. And boy, let me tell you, there’s really nothing quite like sitting in a room with several hundred tipsy Germans in traditional dress, it is charming and delightful and everything nice.

The rest of Luke’s time was spent in a much more respectable manner – with sightseeing and being precious about the weather (which had turned slightly chilly).

Here he is at Marienplatz:

And here he’s enjoying the goods of the famous Hofbräuhaus:

And having a swing at the front of our place: