Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

My wife and I are visiting our son in Germany. Being a good, bad Ugly American, I have thoughts that capture the entire country ( 😉

My youngest son has been teaching English in Ludwigshafen, Germany this school year. Since the year is almost over, my wife and I are visiting him. Yes, this is a bit late, but that is how it works sometimes.

This photo from Wikipedia is the view from our window at the Best Western Motel.

The weather has been cool with a few sprinkles every morning. There, the facts are out of the way, so now I can share my opinions with the world. Please understand, I am jet lagged and fatigued from not sleeping on a motel bed with lousy pillows. Don’t take most of this seriously.

Germans grind all their meat and form it into patties of one sort or another.

Germans don’t put much spice in their food. I was saved one day to find a bottle of Tabasco on the table of a restaurant.

Stuff here is really old. Here is a photo of my son and me standing on a tower that was built 900 years ago in a place called Bad Wimpfen. 900 years old folks, that is really old. Note: the wooden railing is not 900 years old.

My son and me on the Red Tower in Bad Wimpfen

I am surprised at how much things in Germany are like things in America. The clothing fashions are almost identical. I keep waiting for someone to walk up to me and start in with, “Hey, Kevin Durant is going to dominate basketball for the next ten years. The Thunder will win 6 or 8 titles.”

I have always been confused about whether the “i” went before the “e” or the other way around. I am totally lost now.

I stood in the same spot and looked at the same things that Mark Twain did over a hundred years ago. That is pretty neat.

My son lives in a part of town called “Little Istanbul.”

The Germans are off to a good start in the 2012 UEFA championships. I am not sure if that is the official name of the tournament, but they are trying to beat all the other Europeans in a soccer tournament. They are very excited here.

I have never ridden trains so much in my life. I like them. My son tells me all the ways you can ride without paying (he pays, so do my wife and I).

I go to bed at 3PM and wake at 11PM. At least that is what my watch tells me.

I should have paid for international data roaming on my iPhone instead of just telephone roaming. I really miss not having maps and other data accesses on my phone. I could be ruling Instagram by now.

German Doner is like American pizza. No one would recognize it in the old country, but everyone here seems to like it.

Germans spell many words the same way Americans do, but they pronounce them differently.

Enough rambling. It is time for breakfast. My watch says 1AM.