Wies'n Eve

It’s the eve of Oktoberfest. I am almost ready. Have a dirndl, and a blouse. Not sure what shoes to wear – it will depend on the weather. I will, of course get pictures & post them.

It has been a busy week. I came down with a horrid cold over the weekend, it peaked on Tuesday. Over the weekend we got most of the remaining boxes unpacked. All that is left is the box of office supplies. And we need to get a filing cabinet, but will probably just make use of a small dresser in the room where the computer is set up. I’m tired of going to IKEA!

Monday night I went out to Marianplatz to meet people for coffee.

- interrupts – Whoo hoo! The DHL guy was just here, dropping of the first (of many) shipments from Amazon.co.uk! Love this!

Back to the story. Monday night was beautiful – mostly clear, warm. We sat out at a café on Marianplatz and the sky was gorgeous. I was with Gayle, Dawn & Peter. Gayle is looking to get a holistic therapy business going here; she’s from the UK. I met her a few weeks ago at one of the Toytown events. She met up with Dawn that day; Dawn is also from the UK. She is a playwright now here to be with her boyfriend. Peter works for a brewery, doing training. He & his wife came from Vancouver, and decided that they wanted to live here. He’s writing a book that touches on holistic healing. We had a great conversation. Peter has seen ‘What the bleep” and I have it on DVD, have promised to do a screening for Gayle & interested others soon.

Tuesday it rained, I felt awful. I pushed myself into a hot shower in the afternoon, bundled up and went onto the U-bahn. (It’s 40 steps out the front door.) Went one stop to Munchner Freiheit, and into the Apotheke in the station there. Got some sinus stuff. I hated to foist myself on the unsuspecting public, but was so congested I was having trouble breathing – even standing up. I knew I wanted to be able to sleep so I resorted to pills. I think what really worked best were these awesome vitamin C/Zink tablets; you drop them into a glass of water & they fizz. I consumed 3 or 4 of those during the day and had one in a glass of hot water just before bed.

Wednesday was the monthly IWC meeting. I met Gayle in the train station and took her to the meeting as my guest. The program was incredible – it was a couple, friends of the current IWC president, who had driven from London to Bombay for their 25th wedding anniversary. They went through Iraq & Afghanistan, in 1996 – 97. (Started in October and finished up in January.) Their pictures were amazing. Many of us, afterwards, said we liked seeing their travelogue but don’t sign us up for that trip. After lunch Gayle & I came back to the apartment and she gave me a Reiki treatment. It felt wonderful and I think it helped me get over the cold.

Thursday I worked in the office (apartment office, that is) and then met friends for dinner at El Patio, a Mexican restaurant near here. On Thursday, the U-bahn, bus and tram drivers were all on strike. The streets were jammed. And I have never seen so many people on bikes. Sept 15 is Mexican Independence Day, and the restaurant had a buffet and was doing a big celebration at midnight. Well, I didn’t see that but it was a great dinner and wonderful to be sitting outside chatting with new friends. It was quite an international group. Eva is Polish, she moved to California when she was 18. Met Glenn, who is now in Munich working for Infineon. They had been living in Dublin, California. Lizabeth is Mexican, was raised in the UK by her grandparents, went back to Mexico City for college, spent the last 7 years living in Norway and is now in Munich with her husband Roman. He’s German, works for BMW, spent a year in Mexico working for them. I guess a move from New York state to California would be exotic to some people, but I felt very bland in comparison to the multi-national people I meet here.

Today, I had another guest at the apartment, Phillip from Transnet Internet Services came by to configure the wireless router. We had been trying to get on the phone & do it, but he locked himself out of the firewall this morning, and just came by to get everything running. And it does.

Now, I’m going to go to the post office, then meet up with a couple of women to take over the monthly lunch “committee” for IWC. Tonight I will go to the Twisted Bavarian, a Tex-Mex place run by a wonderful human named Dory. She’s hosting a Katrina Benefit tonight. I’m hoping to get a nap in beforehand. Still not quite over this cold.

Logan is currently in Stockholm. My cold and the extremely high ticket prices prevented me from getting on a plane today to spend the weekend there. Instead I will finish getting the apartment in order, get groceries and on Sunday go see the Trachten parade. Trachten is the Bavarian costumes, and the parade is apparently quite something to see. I hope the weather is good, so I can take lots of pictures.