Hitting the Swingin 60s

Lame pun in title works only in Fahrenheit of course ("early swing" would've been a bit more international). But it was indeed a rather balmy day for February with the strollers out in force. After the long winter stretch Karl reclaimed all parts of the donwtown playground (which is actually the one down by the hill and full of hipsters contrary to the one up the hill full of a rather affluent international crowd, so the whole analogy does work). Later on he got to accompany me on an assignment. Being one of the infamous anonymous food critics of my paper my current test assignment is a homey Italian restaurant more famous for the heated debate of it being a symbol of gentrification than for it's food. Karl very much embarassed Fred and me by demanding: "lobster! lobster! lobster!" (he did get lobster pasta when we went out with the Gorkows the other Sunday), thus reconfirming all fears about this being an outpost of gentrification.

No pics from the not so undercover assignment. Instead some more swinging (disclaimer: dad made some really stupid faces to get those giggles out of his son)....

Telltale Sign Of Spring Approaching

When there's a ray of sunshine in this town, people come out of their holes immediately. That of course includes the Eisbach surfers. So after picking up Karl on Thursday I was pretty sure we would see some of those fearless, thick-skinned guys.



And yes, their season is opened and Karl intensely studied if their techniques had improved during winter while comfortably seated in his stroller, chewing on a pretzel.



Later on we also went to check out the beautiful Ed Ruscha show at the Haus der Kunst. Karl actually insisted that we would go in when we walked by the museum on the way to our subway station. Once we were there though I soon found out that he only wanted to lure me into their bookstore to get him more reading materials. I'm wondering: is it already time to get a membership at the public library?

Llamas do it! Zebras do it! (...a day at the circus)

Nobody expects a subtle display of fine arts at the circus, but when we took a backstage peak before the show, the level of crassness reached new heights. So instead of the birds and the bees Karl got the llamas and the zebras.



He also does know where his little brother will come from. Yet to put two and two together though, so we'll leave it at wrestling llamas for now. You never know. At the circus. They could have wrestling llamas, no?



The show at Munich's traditional Circus Krone was all about gleaming eyes and bright smiles though. Just like last year. And just like last year the candied popcorn helped get through the still rather boring clowns' numbers. Winner of the day - the elephants. Huge hit. Literally.

Window Seat

I'm not very fond of sitting around in coffee shops with your kids, but Karl insisted on having chocolate cake and apple juice at Kaiser Otto yesterday. As I've mentioned before, their kids lounge is great and I saw myself sitting in the front reading glossy magazines. That didn't really happen though. Instead Karl explained to me all the different flyers and postcards that were lying around as well as the decor while snacking on the requested chocolate cake. Almost as good as my original plan.

Action Hero

After being all creative last year by dressing up Karl as a green Lego brick I took the easy way out for this years carnival and simply bought him a Spiderman costume (or Esbidersman as Karl pronounces it).

Ever since his dad brought home a Spiderman t-shirt from his last trip to New York he's in love with the cartoon character. And just as much as last years Lego brick he stuck out between all the princesses, lady bugs and cowboys at his day-care center.

More Winter Sports

Finally we got to introduce Karl to the great sport of riding a sled down some hillside at breakneck speed. Even though there was some steel heel slowdown action happening, Karl thought this was the greatest fun ever (so did his dad, i.e. me). To distribute the fun evenly Karl got to enlist all relatives present. Granddad was the most daredevil sledrider....



...while aunt Milena seemed to be the most pro, making sure rides don't end up as human snow salads (as did some rides with the male members of the family).



After exhausting ourselves to the point of reddest cheeks ever we stopped by grandpa's neighbors who had their very cosmopolitan German-Italian-London-living grandson Camillo houseguesting for a week. Camillo showed Karl the ropes in his very elaborate play-kitchen, which led to the preparation of a 15-course meal for everybody.



The home stretch on the highway was spent in deep-sleep non-rem mode.

Winter Sports

Karl seems to be immune against cabin fever, at least he put on a struggle when it was time to go to the park yesterday. Didn't take long though and he realized that it's much more boring to insist on a previous stance, when you could actually throw snowballs at daddy. Or stomp snowballs to mush. Or take snowballs and plunk them onto ancient gravestones (it's Bavaria, even the dead are thankful for any kind of distraction from all this idyllic-serenety-tranquility-business). Most fun of course was to chase dad down the pathways of the Südfriedhof (the Southern Cemetary, which has been defunct for over 60 years, but still hosts a variety of art nouveau gravesites of Munich luminaries who had streets named after them). Especially when dad was "really scared".

A good hour of snowball action also broke down Karl's resistance to finally try out the bike honorary god-mom Maria gave him for his birthday. Please note the breathtaking formula 1 style camera pan showing (slightly exhausted and very, very focused) Karl on his first speed-run towards home (where hot tea and freshly baked almond cake were served).

Sunday Dinner

I think Sunday nights are the best when there's no cooking and kitchen cleaning involved. So today I got really lucky since we went out to have a lovely dinner with Julie and Alexander at the Trattoria Seerose. Karl especially enjoyed Julie's interpretations of all the books we brought along as well as Alexander singing him Rammstein songs (no link here – it's baby blog after all...) while having him riverdancing on his legs. Meanwhile Andrian and I were able to eat in peace. Yay!

Today At The Park

On the look-out for the biggest snow melting puddles.