Little Macho

I know, Karl plays with dolls and even has a pink buggy for them, but hey – as you can see he definitly has some macho moments, too.



And something else, not really Karl-related, but totally blog-worthy: Andrian had another gig with his band, the Deadliners at the Tollwood festival yesterday. This is him performing one of his great saxophone solos.

More Culture (No Beer)

Most of you readers will know that I'm still not crazy about Munich and its inhabitants, but that I'm trying really hard (okay – hardish) to make the best out of our life here in the great capital of Bavaria. And I am succeeding, I think. Through Karl I have met a couple of really nice people, made friends even. I guess the recipe is to avoid too much contact with the natives, which of course is hard sometimes. You can never completely eliminate them from the equation of your everyday life, if you want to leave the house here and there. I know, this is a total snobbitude and yes, we have a super-cushy washer-and-dryer-combo-life here, but I'm telling you THIS WEATHER makes the Munich aborigines really unbearable. You know, Winter here can be depressing, but the Bavarians don't mind because it's the time they use to recuperate from the beer drinking season. The problem is that if they can't do their whole sitting-out-in-the-beer-garden-in-the-sunshine-thing in Summer, they get mad and mean. Because the whole city is defined by BEERABILITY! Well, I could go on but I won't.



As you might have figured out by now there's no going to the playground these days so we went to see the recently opened Jean Dubuffet show. Karl correctly identified eyes, noses and mouths on a lot of the very abstract portraits, which made me proud. It's a great exhibition and I would have loved to stay a little longer, but we were treated unfriendly, in a couple of places in town even hostile yesterday, so we retreated to our home with a nice piece of strawberry cake.

Golden Hour At The Golden Bar

Since today Karl got his dose of fresh air early in the morning I decided not to take a chance with our unpredictible weather and go to the museum this afternoon. The current Thomas Schütte exhibition was a big hit with our son. I told him that the models for those big sculptures had been made out of toothpaste and he totally believed me. It might be true actually. They really look like it, but I haven't had time to read the exhibition leaflet. Karls favorite piece though was a huge, maybe 10 meters high sculpture of a man without pants (but a shirt hanging over his private parts) holding a dowser. Whenever we left that main exhibition room with the man in it, Karl immediately asked for him and went back to check if he was still there.



Only a little apple juice at the Golden Bar could calm him down. When we went back through the big hallway he happily climbed around on some folding table art installation by Konstantin Grcic, but was still asking for the Mann...

The Weekend

The annual neighborhood flea market was staged yesterday. Which is always a great excuse to hang with the neighbors and snoop around the backyards of the area. Business was slow though. I guess, if the annual neighborhood flea market biz grinds to a halt, recession mindset has truly conquered hearts and minds. Here Fred is directing the sales force while Karl is test driving a bobby car in the one color he can actually correctly identify (or.... say? Because all colors are "blau" in his world). In the end Fred brought home a nice amount of cash though, which she deposited in Karl's chickie bank (nope, not a piggie, it's a psychedelically colored, hysterical chicken from the neighborhood China market).



Sunday morning we went on our usual bobby car ride. Karl was very disappointed, when he brought me a flower from the bushes, that the seeds weren't flying like a battalion of paratroopers, when blow at it. Tried to explain the difference between dandelions and buttercups. Kinda hard to make a point when they truly share a lot of traits (porcupiny seed clusters, yellow petals, to be found in the bushes).



Otherwise it was very darwinian at the playgrounds. Karl did manage to wrestle away some toys from other kids. But he's too much a diplomat to be bothered with pointless battles going nowhere. He did find a great way to play undisturbed with his loot though - under the slide, where nobody will find you (notice the bobby-carjacking in the background). Later on it got kinda scary, because there was a procession with a oompah band playing ultra-maudlin hymns followed by a bunch of catholics in full garb and a crowd that looked like they bought their outfits sometime in the 70s in Bulgaria. They were singing along the creepy hymns and Karl looked really worried until they had passed. Only a good helping of raisins and an animal cookie in the shape of a hippo brought back his devil may care smiles.

With Luisa at the Isar

Those are glorious days in Munich. I can see the Alps from my desk almost every day of the week. And if I squint really hard, I think I can see Karl lounging down at the river Isar with his buddy Luisa (I think it rhymes in English as clumsily as in German). They were throwing stones at each other (I guess that's how you express infatuation at that age). When they turned to rocks they luckily failed to do any real damage, because they couldn't really throw them too much further than just short of their own toes.
Later I heard there was some major rocking over at the playground, where they also had some serious "cute overload" competition. Here's a round Luisa won. Karl seems to be good sport and not a sore loser.

Hard Work In The Countryside

As you might have noticed in the previous posting, Karl and I are not touring Bavaria, but drove up north for my fathers birthday (now a.k.a. Popa). There's a lot of stuff that needs to be done here. Like drumming early in the morning.



And watering the watering can with another watering can. And sliding away from the dog. Stuff like that. Important stuff.

OBBB Enabler Omi

The misery has ended. Karl has his very own buggy now and is THRILLED. Thank you, Omi!

OBBB – Obsessive Baby Buggy Behaviour

Karls obsession with those toy baby buggies carries on. Today at the playground he managed to snatch an extra special one. It had a baby inside! He clearly was happy and proud. And he was saying babeee right when I took the picture.

Hat

Karl got a new hat.

Down By The River

As mentioned before - contrary to other German cities like Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt our city didn't give the riverbanks to the yuppies and their overpriced prosecco bars, but to the people. That's us, of course, so now we have miles and miles of riverbanks shaded by old and stately trees where Karl can work on his pebble throwing skills. First there was a bit of drama, because the new watertight surf shoes were too tight. He hated the shoes so much that he rather went barefoot, which so far he hated as well. As a coneseuqnce each of the first steps was accompanied by a whiny "Ow!". The lure of water and pebbles won over pretty soon though. While sitting on a rock in the river getting an endless supplies of fresh, cool pebbles from the water, Karl also met his match - Valentin, a very skilled pebble thrower. Karl learned from a master. A true master - Valentin told us that he just threw one pebble to the other side of the river and one all the way up to where that airplane was flying, just when we weren't looking. All the strenuous activity was followed by the local version of a balanced diet - pretzel and ice cream. You should try it. Ain't half bad. It actually kinda tastes like chicken.

Bathtime, Baby!

Still so much fun to be had in that lil' ole' baby tub – it looks like he knows that soon he will be transferred to the big one though.

Doopah!

My father was in town for business today, so he came by to see us and of course his grandson Karl. We had cake and coffee and Karl got – as requested emphatically – a reading of one of his current favorite books
Emma isst (Emma is eating). They both had a great time and when he was gone, Karl asked for his grandfather quite a few times by calling him not Opa, but something like Doopah.