June 15 Munich Groundhogs Day

So, I’m getting the hang of making sure I use the right country code and the correct number of zeroes and ones in front of all the foreign numbers I get to call. But I inadvertently mess a couple up on the first try. Which leads me to wonder: All those mis-sent text messages around that world that don’t make it to their intended recipients, what happens to all those? Are they just disappearing in to the collective ether and leaking into space to confound ? Causing cancer? I like to think that they’re affecting peoples’ dreams. All those drunk, poorly typed after-bar sexts are turning into surrealist wet dreams, while the 4 AM angry, drunk ones turn into nightmares. I’m pretty sure I’m on to something here.

We try to go culture ourselves despite the rain. Museums, I love you but I don’t have 10 euros for each of you. So we just poke our heads in the lobbies of museums and explore their gift shops.

Honestly, I could spend just as much time in a good museum gift shop as in the museum itself. Sure, a lot of them are just full of schlocky, over priced rubbish, but some of them are filled with just as much creativity as the galleries. Chicago’s MCA gift shop comes to mind. The Pinakothek der Moderne is right up there.

Maybe I’m just a sucker for cheeky postcards, but I love being able to flip through the catalogues for past exhibits and the catalogues for other shows that the curators put in their museum versions of RIYL.

Tonight’s tour task requires settling on a car for the first five-week leg of the tour. We’ve been looking for days and have come up with some ideas, but we need to get moving tomorrow and need to make a decision. I mean, I have to make a decision, that’s why I’m band dad. Everyone likes to throw out ideas, but no one can be bothered with following through with the details of actually getting a vehicle rented. That’s what I’m here for. The band wants a van, but a van seems kind of excessive seeing as everyone in the band is a hobbit. They also want the cheapest thing possible, which is most definitely not a van. But I attempt to fulfill everyone’s desires anywho, which entails me over thinking things and making things a bit more complicated than they need to be. I do the same thing when I’m trying to make ramen more interesting. At about 7PM, I’m staring at a sheet of paper filled with my scribbles and a load of different quotes and I realize there’s just not that much difference between one company and the next. So I close my eyes, flail a finger in the paper’s general direction, and book the one I land on. VW Passat Wagon (or similar). Will it work? We’ll soon see.

I felt a bit funny making nachos the other night. We are in Germany after all. So tonight I make a real deal German feast. I almost go for the mystery meat in pretty cans, but I decide against it. If I was just cooking for myself, I would have gone for it.

Sausages cooked in sauerkraut, blue sauerkraut, spaetzle, roast potatoes. It rules. I want more now.

Oh yeah, and New Zealand scored their first world cup point ever. Three of my four New Zedders don’t care.