Laufen & Lernen

Yesterday on my way to the Munchner Stadtlauf-Halbmarathon (Munich city run-half marathon), I ran into a man, just a minute from our flat, who told me I was going the long way, and to follow him (he was also wearing his official race shirt). So, he led me to the start, and we chatted a bit on the way. I mentioned that I thought it was strange that we did not get bibs (numbers) for the race, and he said the Stadlauf is just "for a joke". He also mentioned that he came here 26 years ago, and that he came from Indonesia, but was certain to mention that he was not Muslim, but Chinese, and that Americans hate Indonesians. I felt embarrassed.

Anyway, we parted ways near the start as he locked up his bike, and I wandered around a bit trying to find the starting line. Eventually, I figured it out, and held my ground. During races there is usually an MC blathering on about something over the loud speaker until the race begins--the Stadtlauf was no exception. I understood exactly two parts of the announcement:

1. The MC said, “Shake your booty”. This was preceded and proceeded by German, so I have no idea what the context was.
2. There was a countdown from 20 (zwanzig), which I understood, joining in with the crowd to finish the countdown to one. At this point in time, the race was already 10 minutes late, so the excitement was building. But we got to one (eins), and nothing happened.

I was starting to think that maybe I was in the line for the 5K walk instead of the 21K. Actually, I was certain of it. And I was too embarrassed to ask the folks pressed up against me if my hunch was correct. But finally they let us go, and people ran. You know, as well as you can run when you are packed in like cattle on a fairly narrow street. I had taken the first few steps in my first race outside of the U.S.A.

The run was beautiful, but mostly through the Englisher Garten and along the Isar, so while I enjoyed the scenery, I didn’t see as much of the city as I was hoping. It was a hot and humid day, at least by my San Francisco standards, which made for an uncomfortable event. I took my time, and finished in 2:34, sweaty, happy, but missing my running buddy back home.


That was yesterday’s challenge; today’s was starting language lessons. There are 12 of us in the class, I am the only American, and the only monolingual individual--I think (there is one Canadian in my class who claims to know some Italian).

Everyone speaks English, but English is verboten! The entire class is held in Deutsch. Ja. This is going to be fun. Afterwards, I went to the monster bookstore in the city center and purchased my books. Being the cookbook whore that I am, I also purchased a cool vegetarian cookbook, auf Deutsch, to help me learn. We’ll see how that goes.

In general, I am starting to feel a bit more at ease. I am learning the area, and learning to navigate the public transportation system. I am learning which vendor at the market has the best pickles (mmmmm). I am learning that in the German alphabet, "I" is pronounced "E". It is a process....