This is Saint Winthir, but I’ve got no idea what he’s known for. The fact that he’s riding a donkey is why he’s got my attention.

Sweet ass, eh?

Have a huge backlog of photos I’ve taken that I’ve never bothered putting anywhere. I suppose that while I’m occupied with other things, this blog can be a place I at least leave a few curious shots I’ve not found any other use for.

In Asam Straße in the Au neighbourhood in Munich

Sometimes it’s best just to let the girl be with her wolf.

Was scrolling through some photos I took last year and never used. Why has it taken me so long to insert this one in the blog? There are wonders waiting round the corner…all you need to do sometimes is let your gaze float upwards.

If you could get your cat to sit on the back of your donkey, you’d make that your screen saver. Wouldn’t you?

(Photo credit: Taylor Isaacson)

It’s been raining hereabouts. A lot.

I suppose one of the advantages is the green that sprouts as a result.

Even in the bed of a private auto.

There’s a brand of portable toilets in Germany called toi toi, which I thought was odd. In French, ‘toi’ is the informal form of ‘you’, and I wondered if there was any connection. Not that ‘you you’ was a logical name for a portable toilet, but it was the only connection I had to ‘toi’.

Later, I come to find out there’s a phrase in German (toi toi toi) that you use when wishing someone luck. A friend has a big day coming up and you simply say to him, ‘toi toi toi.’ The word here sounds like ‘toy’ in English, so say that three times and you’ve just wished your German counterpart luck in whatever he’s got in front of him.

Back to the name of this particular portable toilet company. It’s only ‘toi’ doubled. Not the customary three times. Almost as if they’re wishing you luck as you go in to do your business, but not too much luck. Reserved luck.

Can anyone explain this cartoon to me?

There are several from the same illustrator pasted around my neighbourhood in Munich, and I simply don’t get this one. Any ideas?

Where are we going, anyway?

There’s only one way to ease back into this ol’ Dachshund Blog, and it’s not to ease in at all. My intention is to slog in full speed. As quickly as one can slog, I suppose. Where have I been? What have I been doing? Well, the specifics are rather unexciting for the most part, but there were a few moments in the last several months that have made it really difficult to blog. Difficult to do much more than the bare minimum, actually.

One incredibly traumatic thing happened, however, and I just couldn’t talk about it. Not here, not on social media…not anywhere for a while. There are people I’m relatively close to who didn’t hear about my moment of inexplicable horror until much later. I suppose it’s not fair for me to mention such a thing and then not to be any more specific, but that’s the way it has to be.

Almost immediately thereafter I had a moment where I questioned nearly everything. It’s not quite gone, actually. That moment seems to have spread out into a long surreal moment. I’ve lived in Germany for more than a decade and have really enjoyed it, but in an instant I couldn’t be here anymore.

What’s difficult for me is that being here is part of my identity. This focus of this blog has partially been about being an outsider in a very curious place. A place that’s equal parts charming, preposterous and inexplicable. How can one attempt to explain such a thing, you ask? Those are the best things to try to get at, actually. The ones that might at first seem insurmountable.

So, what happens next? First of all, I’m going to use this space to say goodbye to Germany. There’s no telling what’s in store for me, so it’s entirely possible that I end up back here someday. Perhaps I only come back here periodically. We shall certainly see.

I speak the language, am fascinated by the culture, and am genuinely curious about how they got to this point and where they’re going. My German experiment is by no means completed. However, things do change, and my intention is to take you along for the ride.

There aren’t any definite plans as of yet, by the way. What’s that line about a journey of an incredibly long distance starting with a single step? This is my first one of those. Right now I’m wondering if there are still any of you who’d like to come along.

This week I was asked to do the twitter account at @MunichLovesU, and I’ve already done four of the seven days. I’ve tried to write most of the tweets in German, although I was told a mix of English and German would be fine.

So far, it’s been a little odd. I’m so accustomed to my twitter feed, and here’s an entirely new crowd of twitterfolk. Sometimes I’m incapable of even getting in on the conversation because I’m transfixed by all the shiny new people.

Also…irony’s easy in your mother tongue. No matter how well you speak/understand a second language, nuance can be tricky. Some Germans are more droll than you might expect.If this were some sort of performance, I’d say this was a tough room. Like I say, I’ve still got a few days left. Maybe by the end of the weekend I’ll have gotten the hang of it.

The people I know via social media seem to get me. However, it’s taken a significant amount of time and interaction to develop that. I’m not throwing in the towel. Far from it. More importantly, I’m not using the language barrier as an excuse. I read/write German rather well. If anything, this is challenging me to up my game.

The people at the site asked me a few questions at the outset and included my answers on their blog. As long as they’ve gone to the effort, I don’t see why I can’t send you over there. Take a gander, won’t you:

MunichLovesU and their 52 week

Oh, should I have warned you that it was all in German? Well, you probably wouldn’t have clicked over there then, would you?

Hopefully back to your regularly scheduled blogging soon. There’s certainly plenty going on to talk about. Till then.

Die Neue Synagoge

There’s been a lot in the German media this week about the 80th anniversary of the Nazis taking power in Berlin. Actually, there was much more written about a ridiculous story involving a politician allegedly making sexist remarks to a relatively young journalist more than a year ago, but that’s gotten more than enough coverage. I’m certainly not going to add to it.

The anniversary wasn’t exactly forgotten, but was arguably overshadowed by what seemed to me to be a non-story. Overshadowed maybe but certainly not forgotten.

I took the above photo of Die Neue Synagoge when I was in Berlin last year, and going to that city often makes me think of the plight of the German Jews. Not a pretty story, but important to remember what happened there. Also read something in the Guardian this week that I found compelling. Take a look at Hitler came to power 80 years ago. I remember it like yesterday by Fritz Lustig.

It sounds so cliché to say that we should stay aware of the past to avoid its repetition, but it’s times like these that we need to remember. This generation of people who were actually there are slowly disappearing.

Maybe because I enjoy living in Germany so much, I find myself particularly vigilant about keeping these topics fresh. That’s not to say that I think this country should be forever shunned and cowed by its past.

Nevertheless, most Germans I know have been raised in a particularly pacifistic society that, as a rule, goes out of its way to distance itself from the National Socialists. It’s a difficult balancing act that I think the modern German state does a decent job of walking.

If the German media this week is any indication, this society’s not in danger of forgetting anything. Not remotely.

dragon on a wall in Landsberg am Lech

Because I blogged relatively rarely over the holidays, I have a backlog of photos that I haven’t bothered putting here. There are a lot of dragons on walls and in paintings that I’ve been running into lately.

The one above was in Landsberg am Lech, which is a little village west-southwest of Munich. Because of the drudgery of getting everything set up in the new flat, I’m equating my daily struggle with fighting dragons.

It’s certainly dramatic. I get that.

Even though these tasks aren’t insurmountable, the sorting of them is momentarily daunting. I look at the competing websites that offer a DSL connection and they look indistinguishable to my eyes. I call the service number and they’re quite good at throwing numbers around…numbers that then swirl through my head, as I try to comprehend what exactly it is that I need.

But in the meantime, I’ve got only my phone connecting me to the web. Aside from a few moments in the café, I’m without internet. Last night, I read a book and actually went to sleep at a reasonable hour.

My hope is that even when I’m completely connected again, I’ll remember to turn all these devices off periodically. Just me and a cup of tea and my thoughts.

Dragons be damned.