There were several important looking things in there so for the last two hours I have been translating mail and paying money out the nose. The first one was a notice from the school that I never paid the money for Camilla's class trip in September. I was so sure I had but I checked and I hadn't. So I paid that. (Remember that I can just go on-line at my bank and make transfers to other people's banks so easily.) The next one was some kind of traffic ticket from Rome dated from our trip there last April. They said our car had driven in some kind of restricted zone without authorization. They had a website and there was a picture of our van. (I couldn't tell where it was because it only showed the back side with the license plate.) The letter was from some kind of European traffic violation clearing house and was written in German because our car is registered in Germany. So I paid them too. I'm certainly not going to call the Italian number, even though they so helpfully will have German speakers on hand, to ask any questions.
Finally a letter from the German tax authority about my car. I translated down enough to see that it's something like a car registration fee and property tax that I have to pay every year and I remember paying it last year. I was about to go on-line and pay that too, but then I remember about That One Time With The Utilities. So I keep translating and find out that they're going to just withdraw the money from my account on the due date. Whew! (A few months ago I got a letter from the utility company showing how much electricity, gas, water, etc. we used for the past 12 months and how much we paid with our uniform monthly payment. The payments, of course, came short of what we actually used so we had to pay the difference right then and then our monthly payment went up accordingly. I didn't translate all the way to the end and so I paid the difference and then the next day they took it out of our account. So I had to call the utility company and ask for an English speaking representative and get that straitened out.)
Whenever I think I'm going to have a nice afternoon to do some things I want to do in peace and quiet, my time gets all eaten up by dumb stuff! I think I'll put off getting the mail again for several days.
Anyway, Oktoberfest just finished here in Munich (it's three weeks long). We didn't feel it much out where we live except when we took trains downtown. They were jam packed! Everywhere you looked were people wearing lederhosen (leather pants for the men) and dirndls (dresses the women wear). We even saw some women wearing some pretty skimpy leather shorts. Of course all of us got lederhosen and dirndls. The girls and I had to hunt pretty hard and then do some sewing on the white blouses that go under the dresses so that we could be modest. You never saw so much cleavage bouncing around!
The main celebrating is at a huge, huge field downtown where they set up several huge bier tents (made mostly of wood) and lots of carnival rides and food stands. The major bier producers all have their own tent where people reserve tables months and years in advance. Some people or companies have the same reserved table year after year. Microsoft Deutschland had a table in one of the tents where Eric went with his coworkers one night. This huge fairgrounds type of place is called the Wiesn (Veesen). Then there are some bier "tents" in a few other places in Munich too. I think the Wiesn is cleared during the rest of the year. I'll have to go down there and look and see. Also, we found out that the breweries have a special recipe they make during Oktoberfest where the alcohol content is tripled!
That is a 1/2 meter bratwurst. You can see the ketchup and mustard dispensers hanging upside down from the ceiling over the counter.
This was my favorite treat from that night. Chocolate covered fruit!
So Jason went with some friends during the day and had a good time riding rides and eating food. Eric took Hayley and Camilla one Saturday when Jason, Rand and I were camping with the Cub Scouts. Then one night, during a week I was really stressed, Eric said "Let's skip German class and just go to the Wiesn." I never skip anything I'm supposed to go to but I was so stressed that I agreed. And we had a really nice time! We just walked around trying all the different food, riding a couple of the rides, and going in one of the tents to take pictures. They're packed with people drinking from these big bier mugs. A band is playing and every ten minutes the band plays a special toasting song where everybody stands up on their bench and sings along and toasts everyone at their table. They serve food too. It's so loud!!
Everybody eats these little, whole chickens, ducks, and turkeys.
Those are radishes, not strawberries
This is a video showing the volume of bier served in a bier "tent".
One of the things they always sell during Oktoberfest are these huge gingerbread heart cookies with sayings on them, a lot like Valentine candy hearts only much bigger. The one that Eric is wearing says "You are my one and only". He got that for me but I had to take a picture of him in his lederhosen wearing it. Isn't he cute! Sometime we're going to have a family picture taken with all of us in our tracht (clothing).
