Chris and the Ammersrichter Kirwa

My son Chris the traditional dancer? The latest version of “Shock and Awe”.

A Kirwa is a local festival that originated on religious grounds that have largely melted away … there must be a church or chapel nearby and a service but the rest is pure fun. If you’re so inclined to read the German version of Wikipedia you’d learn that each region of Germany has its own name for it, as well as their own customs and traditions. Here in the Oberpfalz (Upper Palatinate) region of Bavaria it certainly includes young unmarried dancing couples with a very rowdy weekend. For the rest of us, there is a beer tent, music and food … oh, and did I mention beer?

Anyway, it was with more than a bit of surprise two months ago when we asked Chris why he’d bought traditional lederhosen (leather pants) and learned from his girlfriend Vanessa that he was a “kirwabursch” … I laughed for several hours till I cried! My introverted, non-dancing son in such a troop? I think Vanessa has him around her little finger … she of Ammersricht.

Chris left the house Saturday morning at 5 a.m. to help find and cut down the tree … last night it was serviced by scalping the bark decoratively and then erecting it outside the large beer tent. I understand he got four hours sleep after pulling guard (shame to the entire village if another group of youths from the neighboring towns steel your tree) and this afternoon (Sunday) he and Vanessa were among 32 young unmarried couples who, in various states of sobriety, provided an hour and a half long traditional dance around said tree. If you look at the pictures, this afternoon was not in lederhosen but at least he had a corny hat that Vanessa had made for him. It was actually quite fun to watch and we even got to meet Vanessa’s parents on a lovely sunny afternoon. Click here to see more photos

Passau

For those of you interested in the sights of Germany, Lisa and I spent three days in Passau, a beautiful university city near the Austrian border and on the confluence of the Danube, Inn and Ilz rivers. It was a very pleasant trip, but of course not without some oddities. Follow this link to the photo gallery.

The first oddity came Thursday evening. We had a very pleasant Croatian dinner and then looked for a bar with a TV to watch the European Cup soccer game between Bayern Munich and the Spanish team FC Getafe. Bayern, a powerhouse in European soccer with lots of very well paid superstars needed a strong showing to make it to the quarter finals. Getafe has no real stars and ranked near the bottom of the Spanish league … they’ve been incredibly lucky during the tournament just to get this far. We found a small bar run by students with a big screen TV and settled in with a couple beers for what turned out to be a very exciting game that went into overtime tied 1:1. Soon Getafe was ahead 3:1 and after the 15 minute overtime we went home thinking Munich had lost. Oh, did I mention we’d had wine with dinner and an after dinner schnapps on the house? Or that we had three beers at the bar with two schnapps on the house? The first news story the next morning was how Luca Toni had saved Bayern in the closing minutes of overtime … the second overtime period. This of course clinches my status as a soccer genius. By the way, my hung-over four mile run the next morning along the River Inn was even less inspiring.

We took a river ship ride Friday with lovely weather and were among the five youngest on the entire ship of 350 passengers. And surprise, we accidently got on the Kristallschiff (Crystal Ship), a 262 foot three decked, 700 passenger river ship decked out with millions of Swarovski crystals. The tickets weren’t too expensive, neither was the on-board meal, but add in the drinks (only one beer thank you) over five hours and they did make some money off us. The 300+ group of elderly folk got off on the return voyage and left roughly 30 of us on board for the last hour or two. Of particular interest was going through a set of locks with another ship.

The last day held a trip to a nice museum, really lousy weather and a drive home.

Washington Dulles Airport ...

For those of you who think air travel is fun or exciting, let me rule out the former and elaborate on the later. Last month I flew to Norfolk, Virginia via Washington Dulles Airport. As some of you know, Dulles is my least favorite airport in the world … I’ve been to third world airports that are more efficient. The efficiency part basically held to norms but this time there were at least some silver linings.

On 2 March I departed Frankfurt late and listened to a dead-heading Purser sitting next to me complain about how his team had been treated getting on the flight (I wasn’t real happy either, having been led to believe my upgrade would clear, which it hadn’t). We landed late in Dulles but to my amazement I breezed through customs and would have made my connection had it not been canceled. The good part was that during the 5 hour wait for the last flight to Norfolk I met an American reporter for the magazine “The Economist” while having a beer. If you don’t know the publication, it’s a very strong news magazine … much more cerebral than most, thicker and more expensive. Living in London, she was in the states covering the campaign (her flight to Houston was also delayed; she was linking up with the Obama campaign). At any rate, I had a fascinating conversation hearing her take for the candidates, all of whom she’s been interviewing for years.

I arrived in Norfolk near midnight and the hotel nearer 1 a.m. (the conference started at 8 a.m.) but my suitcase didn’t show up for two full days. Where normally the airlines know where the bag is, this time they had not a clue and I feared for the first time it might truly be “lost” … a very good thing I wear a coat and tie and carry on two days of shirts and underwear J.

Going home on the 8^th and 9^th of March had just as much “excitement”. The weather forecast was less than great, resplendent with a tornado watch for Norfolk and high winds in Washington. My one hour layover looked iffy so I rebooked to an earlier flight out of Norfolk which predictably was late. The overseas flight was also late but it didn’t matter much since my upgrade had cleared. I went to the business class lounge where the only open seat was at the bar. The waitress ignored my signal for another beer and a guy standing next to me calls out loud enough for her to hear … it was a nice gesture and we traded a couple lines before he took his drinks to his seat. When a large flight was called seats opened up and I took one, only then noticing I’m sitting across from the guy and his female partner. After about five or ten minutes I realize she’s Vallerie Bertanelli, having recognized her primarily because I’d looked at her new bestselling book the day prior at a Barnes and Noble. They were late to LA, and a small group of us had a nice, somewhat rowdy, conversation while debating being how many times they could move flight back by 15 or 30 minutes. My flight departed first, 3 hours late.

Score for the trip, 4 flights late, one outright canceled … excitement pure. I’ll give Dulles one thing, since you’re likely to get stuck there you at least might have some interesting conversation.