What the hell is Sivlitz?

So what the hell is Sivlitz anyway? It isn’t anything special or mysterious. Simply put it, it was a convenient mistake.

A long, long time ago, I happened to be passing through when I caught something interesting on the TV. Someone was watching a program about places in Europe and they were featuring a little ossuary/chapel in the Czech Republic. This place is called Sedlec. I, however, did not know that as I only caught the opening of the segment in passing.

The ossuary itself is remarkable for one simple fact: its interior is decorated with human bones. It seems an abbot of the town was sent on a diplomatic mission to Jerusalem in the 13th century. When he returned to Sedlec, he brought with him a handful of soil from Golgatha – the spot where Jesus was reportedly crucified. He sprinkled the soil in the chapel cemetery and by doing so, made it a hot spot (so to speak). Everyone wanted to be buried in the holy ground and not just locals, people from all over Bohemia were vying to be buried in the Sedlec chapel graveyard. There were more remains than they had space for so bones were dug up and stored in the chapel itself. In the 1800s, a Czech artist took the bones and began decorating the chapel with them. In its present state, the ossuary contains remains of about 40,000 people in various decorative arrangements.

I saw all this on the TV and decided that it would certainly be a unique place to visit. Again though, I didn’t know the name of the town. They only said it once during the time I was watching and they never showed it spelled out in any way, shape or form. I grabbed a piece of scrap paper and scribbled down the name “sivlitz” which was as close an approximation as I could muster.

(If that doesn’t make any sense, you have to realize that Sedlec is actually pronounced “SED-letch.” All things considered, “sivlitz” wasn’t that far off, phonetically speaking.)

To give you an idea of how long ago this was, I was registering for one of my very first aol accounts and was running out of ideas for a name. I didn’t want to be joe2364432 or anything like that and then my eye caught the piece of scrap paper I had written my little note on. That’s how Sivlitz was born and it’s been a sort of online handle for me ever since.

I should also note that I did finally have the opportunity to visit Sedlec in the Spring of 2002. It is near the Czech town of Kutna Hora outside of Prague. And yes, it is every bit as creepy as it sounds. Still very cool though…

More info at http://www.kostnice.cz/ and
www.ludd.luth.se/users/silver_p/kutna.html

German Sex Ed.

Apparently German kids begin their sex education early as illustrated by this childrens book. I stumbled across these pages (see the rest here) and nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

Sweet butt-fucking Christ! Look at the kid’s goofy smile as he prepares to make his entrance into the world! Note the position of his arms as he prepares to fly out of the womb a la Superman. No detail is spared in the panel series: notice the jism spurting out of the father’s dork, note the kid breast feeding in the final panel.

Dear lord… too much funny...

Delta Lambda Phi breaks fraternity stereotypes!

So I was eating breakfast and reading the newspaper this morning when I stumbled across this news story: Gay frat hopes to find niche at the UA. Whaaaaa???

If some gay dudes want to start a fraternity, that’s cool. I’m pretty open-minded about that aspect of human sexuality. I mean, one of my best friends when I lived in Germany was gay (well… I assume he’s still gay – I just use the past tense to illustrate that we aren’t in frequent contact anymore. But I digress…) and one of my good friends now is gay. I mean, Andy says he’s straight but we all know the truth.

Back to the article though; one of the things I noticed immediately was the name of the fraternity. Delta Lambda Phi. For those that weren’t or aren’t part of the Greek System in college, those letters stand for something. Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) is rumored to stand for “Zionist Brothers of the Torah.” Kappa Kappa Gamma (KKG) is rumored to stand for “Keys to the Kingdom of God.” I’m a Kappa Sigma (KS) and I know that those letters stand for ______ ______. So what could Delta Lambda Phi stand for? Delta (Greek equivalent of “D”), Lambda (=L) and Phi (=F or Ph).

D.

L.

F.

What could D L F stand for? Gay fraternity. D. L. F. Gee, I give up.

The second thing that immediately jumps into my mind is that gay dudes aren’t known for discriminating taste in who they sleep with. Maybe I’m over-generalizing with that statement but there are bound to be some odd situations. I am a firm believer in the “Don’t Shit Where You Eat” philosophy. Don’t date/sleep with: your roommate, your co-worker, your buddy’s sister, your buddy’s ex, etc. If something goes sour, you don’t want to be stuck in an uncomfortable situation with someone that you have to see all the time. Of course there are mitigating circumstances and exceptions but that’s pretty good as a rule of thumb.

Sleeping with your fraternity brother adds a whole new dimension to the “Don’t Shit Where You Eat” philosophy that I’m not ashamed to admit I hadn’t considered. Vice President Dan Churgin claims there is a strict rule that prohibits members from dating one another. Well Dan – I’m pretty sure the DPS has rules designed to prohibit me from traveling faster than 55 mph on the freeway and we all know how that works out.

Thank you again Veronika

I have now written about all but the smallest details of my last visit to Germany with one notable exception. I wanted to save my last post in the “series” for the person that makes everything possible: Vroni! First of all, she’s my ride from the airport. I always tell her that if it’s any trouble for her to pick me up, I’ll make my way with the public transportation. She never even lets me consider it. Instead of making me take the S-bahn to a certain station to catch the U-bahn to another station to then catch a tram to the apartment, she simply scoops me up at the airport and that’s the end of that. This leads to the next biggest thing: she lets me stay at her place. Once again, she makes it seem like no big deal but I feel compelled to point out to her that yes, opening your home to someone for ~10 straight days IS a big deal. In all the time that I’ve spent at her apartment, neither she nor her sister has ever made me feel like a guest but rather as roommate. It’s a very comfortable atmosphere and I cannot thank the two of them enough for all they do for me while I’m there.

Thanks again Vroni – I wouldn’t be able to come back to Germany without all the things you do.

Nürnberg and conclusion

On Friday morning, Vroni and I left Rothenburg to visit Nürnberg. Catching the train proved to be less stressful than the trip from Munich to Rothenburg. Everything went smoothly and we arrived in Nürnberg shortly after noon.

We checked our bags into a storage locker and set about exploring the city. Fortunately, the city’s Altstadt (historical part of the city, literally “old city”) was within easy walking distance. We were greeting with the remnants of the medieval city wall and then the Lorenzkirche shortly after that. After a brief stop in a bookstore, we continued on over the Karlsbrücke and into the Altstadt. Vroni took a little lunch while I downed a beer (one of the first things I did upon arriving was buy some Nürnberger sausages). After the brief stop we walked to the old castle and wandered around its grounds aimlessly for a bit. After leaving the castle, we made a quick stop by the Albrecht Dürer house and set off to see the zeppelin field where the Nazis had their giant rallies (the 1934 gathering was made infamous by Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will” propaganda piece).

The first part of this tour was a stop at the Congress Hall which was planned as a Colosseum-like arena but never finished. Now it is a museum which documents the rise and fall of the National Socialists in Germany. After taking the guided tour, we walked over to the zeppelin field and the scenery was amazing. There’s a little lake where people practiced sailing, trees that form a sort of covered walkway – very tranquil. And then you see the grandstand of the zeppelin field. Although it has fallen into disrepair and is mainly used for, well… nothing now – it is still quite the experience to climb up to the top and stand near the podium where Hitler stood as he address half a million people. Adding to the surreal aura were the German teens who skateboarded on said podium and the other kids who practiced their bike stunts or roller hockey moves just below. The occasion was not without a small dose of humor though. There were some adult German men playing a tamer version of suicide/wall ball/butts up against the grandstand. They were throwing with all the proficiency of a 4-year old girl with palsy. Good times.

We left the zeppelin field and hard a bit of a hard time finding the s-bahn to get back to the main train station. When we finally did, I realized we had enough time to visit the site of the Nuremberg trials. We made that our final stop before heading back to the train station for a bite to eat. We settled on McDonalds and got scolded by the cashier for photographing the “Royale mit Käse” sign for my non-believer friends back at home. We ate boarded our train and Vroni fell fast asleep while I was driven to distraction by the idiot kids in the train car adjacent to ours. At one point they were joined by an American dude who spoke a tiny bit of German and my irritation morphed into amusement as listened to him attempting to communicate with the teenage German gang-STAS. By the time we arrived back in Munich, we were both too tired to move so we washed up and hit the hay.

The next day was to be a very relaxing day. I would be flying out the next morning so Saturday was a day to tie up loose ends. We went out to Karlsplatz where we ate, went book shopping again and I made a quick visit to the sport shop. I picked up some World Cup souvenir posters and made it back to the apartment with my loot. The rest of the day was spent watching soccer and packing. That night we watched Germany lose to Turkey which was an interesting result (Turks are a relatively sizable minority in Germany, much like Mexicans in the southwestern U.S.). We ate a delicious meal of Rindsroulade and Spätzle which Vroni prepared. I sacked out early and resigned myself to the fact that my vacation was drawing to its end. Vroni drove me to the airport the next morning and hung out with me as long as it made sense to do so. I boarded my flight and spent 10.5 hours flying over the Atlantic, with a 6.5 hour layover in Atlanta. I debated heading out in to the city but figured by the time I cleared immigration and customs, headed downtown and tried to get back to the airport with enough time to pass through security it might be best if I just stayed put. I was wrong. My plane to Tucson was delayed by two hours and by the time I found out I was pretty much stuck at the airport. I ate, caught up on some football (I watched the Falcons almost beat the Patriots and heard the Braves lose to the Astros in the epic 479 inning game) and read for the rest of my time. I finally boarded my flight and was actually able to get a bit of shuteye on the flight home.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Wednesday morning, Vroni and I left Munich to head to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Rothenburg was plundered during the 30-years war and was left without the money to modernize so it’s a perfectly preserved medieval city.

Our trip got off to a rocky start. Vroni had everything timed out so that we would arrive at the subway station in time to buy our ticket to Rothenburg and have plenty of time at the Hauptbahnhof for a quick bite to eat or whatever the case may be. What she didn’t account for was the giant bag I was carrying with me and the extent to which it would slow my progress. We missed our subway and waiting for the next one was going to put us in a tight spot if we were to catch the train to Rothenburg on time. Well, we did so everything was good in the hood.

The train ride itself was pretty cool. I like staring out the window at the German countryside. I also took the opportunity to listen to my iPod and read. We got to Rothenburg and found our hotel easily enough. I had a bit of a surprise up my sleeve though. Vroni thought I’d booked a simple single room but I reserved the apartment and I was glad that I did. Our hotel door opened up to a staircase that led to our living quarters. We had a giant living room complete with coffee table and entertainment center (board games, TV, etc.). We also had a full kitchen with stovetop, oven and refrigerator, fully stocked with utensils and appliances. There was a master bedroom, a second bedroom and a third bedroom upstairs. The bathroom was incredibly spacious and had a separate shower and bathtub as well as a vanity and a cupboard full of towels. On top of that, the door out the back of the bedroom led to our balcony with a great view of the city and the countryside. The balcony was spacious enough to have its own patio set with table and chairs. Phenomenal accommodations. I think Vroni was pleasantly surprised.

The city itself defies description. It is like stepping into a time machine. The city walls were still fully intact and we spent the rest of Wednesday wondering around checking out the city and looking for the notable sights. We ate a great dinner, did some browsing and called it a night.

We had more of a purpose on Thursday. We had a good idea of the sights we wanted to check out. We walked around the circumference of the city on the outside taking pictures of the cities fortifications, came back in to the city and visited most of the notable places then got up on the city wall itself and went around the entire city again. The whole day was a great big tour but every second of it was unbelievable. Rothenburg is definitely worth another visit when the chance presents itself.

Oktoberfest

Monday, October 3rd was going to be an interesting day for me. Vroni’s dad had invited us to eat lunch at his apartment and when Vroni asked me if that was OK I naturally said yes. Why not right? Well, as Monday came nearer and nearer her consternation seemed to grow. She didn’t want to go and certainly wasn’t looking forward to it. Apparently her dad is somewhat gruff and on top of that, he was planning on inviting his girlfriend and all her kids to what was turning from a simple lunch to a considerable spectacle. To make things interesting, he doesn’t speak English. I’m usually OK speaking German but it becomes somewhat intimidating for me when I know for a fact someone doesn’t speak any English. That means there’s absolutely nothing to fall back on if my German fails me. Good times.

Monday came and we got ready for the lunch and it was a pretty good time. We met Kathi (Veronika’s sister) and her boyfriend Florian on the way up to the apartment and soon met Brigitte’s (spelling?) kids. They were all nice and Vroni’s dad, for all her worrying, was a cool dude too. He was pretty quiet actually but when he did speak, he spoke with a THICK Bavarian accent. My ability to speak German I would rate as passable but my ability to understand the language is pretty good. I mention that because I didn’t understand a damn thing Vroni’s dad said. There were a couple of instances where he spoke directly to me and I was able to understand and respond but when he was chatting with his kids or his girlfriend’s kids I was hopelessly lost. I was reassured by Florian later though – apparently he doesn’t understand Vroni’s and Kathi’s dad either, and HE’S GERMAN. The rest of the people in the room that day were Bavarians but Flo’s from Stuttgart and he had as much difficulty as my lost American ass. That made me feel a little bit better about things. And I should mention that the meal her pop made was quite tasty and delicious. Schweinebraten with Knödel and Salat. Nice

Later that day, we finally made it to Oktoberfest and got into the beer tent. We sat down at a table with some guy that had an AWESOME mullet and mustache combination going. Oktoberfest was off to a GREAT start! We made our beer orders, ordered a few giant pretzels and Vroni ordered a half chicken for dinner. Honestly there isn’t too much to report from the Wies’n. It is exactly like you would expect it to be: giant beers and good times. They pack 10,000+ people into a tent, stick a band in the center and everybody just drinks and parties. With that many drunks in one place, you would expect some drunken shenanigans but the few (4 times?) I’ve been in an Oktoberfest tent, I have never seen any instances of beer balls or violence. The band plays and everybody sings along, clinking beers together and pouring them into their gullets. Even people that don’t really know the words to the songs somehow know enough to sing along. It’s an environment I’ve never seen matched anywhere. It lives up to the hype and then some.

Tuesday was a pretty relaxing day. The only thing on the agenda was to head over to the FC Bayern München headquarters and pick up some souvenirs for myself. I got lucky the last time I was in Munich and found a couple of autographed Roque Santa Cruz jerseys but all I found this time was Andreas Görlitz jerseys. Ehhh… no thanks. I settled for a team yearbook and miniball. We left there to meet with some of Vroni’s friends for dinner. Her friends Bea and Rocky were leaving to Ireland and that was there going away party. Again, no too much to report except good food, good beer, good people and good times. The end of the evening was highlighted by my discovery of a bus/van that was barely bigger than me! I’ll have to put a picture up later. We ended the night with an adventure filled drive home with Nicole who was nice enough to offer us a ride back to the apartment. Thanks Nicole!

(note on the pic: That’s Florian and Kathi. Great people to hang out with. Flo saved my bacon during my last visit to Munich when Vroni and Kathi went to some reunion for a dance studio that they both used to attend. If it wasn’t for him I probably would have eaten my own head. We had a great time again at the Wies’n.)

Return from Germany!

Ok – I left for Germany on Thursday, September 29th and arrived Friday morning. Vroni was once again nice enough to pick me up from the airport. For those of you that haven’t experienced a trip to Europe, the travel day is pretty much like this: you get up at 3am in order to grab a bite to eat, finish packing and wash up in time to get to the airport by 4 – two hours before your flight is scheduled to leave is the recommended time frame for international flights. What they don’t tell you is that the check in desk will not be manned that early in the morning so you get to wait until the airport staff takes their positions. Then you wait at the gate until your flight boards, take off at 6 and spend the next 3.5 hours in the air to Atlanta. After arriving you have to kill another 4+ hours until the next flight to Munich. When you board that plane, all that you have left is a 9.5 hour flight, a wait at immigration, baggage claim and then customs. Good times.

After Vroni picked me up, I put my luggage down and kicked it with her and rested a bit. We talked a bit over a cup of tea but I was near dead from exhaustion (note: I only slept 3 hours the night before taking off so I even more sleep deprived than usual). By the time I arrived in Munich, I had been awake/traveling for 20 hours and with the time difference, it was only 8am in Munich. Ideally, you’d like to stay up as long as possible to acclimate yourself to the time change but I was too tired for that and took a nap. After waking up, Vroni and I went to the Wies’n (Oktoberfest) and wandered around a bit. We didn’t stop in any of the beer tents but it was a good idea to take a walk around anyway, just so I could get up and about. After that, I bought some beer had dinner and went to bed.

The next day was going to be fun as we had tickets to the FC Bayern München game. We attended the game and had a great time (well, honestly – I had a great time. I don’t think Vroni was as excited about it as I was but she humored me). I had initially planned on attending Oktoberfest after the game but repeated assurances from Vroni and other friends that I know made me realize the futility of my hopes of being let into the sure to be full beers tents. With Oktoberfest out of the picture, we had the chance to meet up with Jessica and Christoph for dinner.

Sunday morning was going to be our big chance to attend the Wies’n. We planned on meeting some friends of Vroni’s at 11am in front of the Winzerer Pfändl (Paulaner) tent but even at that early point in the day the tent was full and our admission was denied. We ended up at some little shithole tent but still had a good time. Then we tried to get into the nearby Augistiner Keller but other folks who were denied entrance at the Wies’n beat us to the punch and we ended up in a long line. Since that wasn’t an appealing alternative either, we packed up and headed to another small restaurant/beer hall near Marienplatz. We ate and hung out there before Vroni, Nicole and I broke from the group to catch a movie. Fortune still wasn’t smiling on us as all the movies we were interested in seeing were either done, in progress or not starting for a few hours. We regrouped and headed back to Vroni’s to watch a dvd. The rental shop was closed so we had to select from Vroni’s and Kathi’s home library and choices were, well… less than abundant. I was lobbying for X-Men 2 but was vetoed and forced to watch Romeo Must Die. I was so impressed that I fell asleep.

(note on the picture: in my first post on this blog, I recount the tale of how difficult it was to acquire tickets to this game. Looking at the picture is kinda misleading in terms of judging attendance. There were 66,000 people and the arena was sold out. The empty seats you see in the pic are the corporate seats that aren’t available to the public. Fuckers. They have their tickets comped, or are at the very least able to afford tickets yet their seats remain empty while fuckers like me clamor for the remaining seats like a dog looking for crumbs off the dinner table. I’m not bitter about that or anything…)

Take that stinkin' Smurfs!

Ok – first post after returning from Germany. I’ll post again soon with pictures and descriptions of my time overseas but first another bit of politics. It seems UNICEF has produced a piece that’s airing in Belgium and depicts Smurfs be blasted to bits by warplanes which some are interpreting as American aircraft. This was simply too….. odd (?) to ignore. The projected goal of the cartoon is to raise money for the child soldiers of Barundi but again, many are taking this cartoon as a not so thinly veiled swipe at the USA and its war effort in Iraq. The link to a British article on the cartoon is below as is the commentary from a member of the site where I discovered the article. I wanted to run his commentary because I feel it’s dead on accurate whether or not the cartoon is intended to portray US military aircraft. The commentary neglects to mention the Holocaust or any of the Japanese atrocities like the Rape of Nanking, Pearl Harbor or the Bataan Death March…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/08/wsmurf08.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/10/08/ixhome.html


“If there was any justice in the world the U.N. would at least produce another skit with some of the smurfs sawing the heads off other cartoon characters for trying to register voters -- but naturally, I won't be holding my breath.

I live overseas and just today found myself criticizing a Japanese academic after he skipped over 90% of all the atrocities committed in the past century to focus on the bad deeds of the United States. What really surprised me about the conversation though was his total inability to respond when I started throwing out what I thought were universally recognized examples of far worse massacres -- The Soviet Union under Stalin, China under Mao, Cambodia under Pol Pot, North Korea even now, etc. It wasn't that he wasn't able to converse with me either. The whole exchange took place in Japanese and the best response he could muster was "Americans just can't take criticism." No, Dipshit. We take it every day. In fact, our system encourages it. What pisses me off is the intellectual dishonesty coming from so-called academics like you who either ignore or excuse the massacre of millions under socialist governments to spout revisionist garbage that always -- always -- leads to the preordained conclusion that everything is really America's fault.”