Wo Ist der Bahnhof?! (Part 4)

(Above photo: A page from an ice cream parlour menu in Frankfurt that Juliane took us to. Yes, those dishes are all concocted from ice cream!)

Just got back from the cottage. Now to sorting out the chaos that is my office; I still have to finish unpacking from Germany, then back to general unpacking from our move. I have an article due at the end of this week; I also hope to get a query or two out as well, and resume work on my novel (which has been sadly neglected since I left for Germany).

I took my giant German Toblerone bar to the cottage to share with my nieces and nephews; they were very impressed. And I've started learning Italian in anticipation of a trip Jeff and I are taking (courtesy his mom) next year! My main challenge is that German words keep popping into my head when I'm trying to think of Italian. I'm going to try my best to compartmentalize my German language efforts so as not to mix them up. That would REALLY confuse the natives, I think. And me.

(Photo above: At the Hamburg airport with Steve and Katy.)

Thanks to Gary McGath for sending me the German translation of The Hockey Monkey Song:

THE HOCKEY MONKEY SONG
Translated into German by Gary McGath,
with help from several German filkers
(Original music/words by James Kochalka)


Die Wissenschaftler suchen sein Gesicht.
Sie suchen den Affen, doch sie finden ihn nicht.
Denn er ist an dem Teich, mit den Kindern Hockey spielen.

Und die Mütter suchen jeden kleinen Wicht.
Sie suchen die Kinder, doch sie finden sie nicht.
Denn sie sind an dem Teich, mit dem Affen Hockey spielen.

Es ist eins, zwei, drei, der Affe ist frei.
Und mit vier, fünf, sechs, Hockey spielen ist ein Klacks.
Und sieben, acht, neun, niemand wird's bereuen.

Die Polizei sucht suchen sein Gesicht.
Sie suchen den Affen, doch sie finden ihn nicht.
Denn er ist an dem Teich, mit den Kindern Hockey spielen.

Und die Lehrer suchen jeden kleinen Wicht.
Sie suchen die Kinder, doch sie finden sie nicht.
Denn sie sind an dem Teich, mit dem Affen Hockey spielen.

Es ist eins, zwei, drei, der Affe ist frei.
Und mit vier, fünf, sechs, Hockey spielen ist ein Klacks.
Und sieben, acht, neun, niemand wird's bereuen. ... Ja!!

We pulled Gary on stage with us during this song so he could do his German version. Gary did a wonderful job despite having no warning that we were going to do this. :-)



I've added some more photos to my Flickr Germany/Filkcontinental photo set, by the way. The one above, for example, is of Lissa reading my sister's newest book, "And You Can Come Too," to her son Alex. I very much enjoyed meeting Alex and Amy for the first time; I had only seen them inside their Mom's tummy before this. :-)



Above picture: only part of the enormous breakfast spread generously provided by Juliane Honisch on our first day in Germany. Holy toledo. This woman certainly keeps her guests well-fed! Breakfast included various types of German meats, cheese, freshly-baked breads, crispy bacon, scrambled eggs, tea, coffee, juices, and a wide variety of jams (including quince jam!) and spreads.

One of my favourite food experiences of the trip:



Sadly, I don't think you can get it here, though I'm going to look around for it anyway. Juliane suggested I try making it myself: "Find ripe (very ripe!!!! Leave sitting on window sill for a couple of days if it is not very ripe) and pungent camenbert type cheese. Squish with fork, mix with a little soft butter, add clove of garlic (crushed), onion (finely chopped), salt, pepper and paprika powder. Mix and blend all ingredients into a paste. (Some people add a tablespoonful or two of beer) Sprinkle over with fresh chives (finely chopped)."

Another favourite food experience was Katy's fantastic homemade salmon casserole. Here's a photo that Allison took of me helpfully assisting in the preparations at Katy's place.

Other favourite German food experiences this trip included:

- Cherry juice at a restaurant that Katy and Steve took us to in Hamburg.

- Ice cream fest with Ju, Christine, Allison and Jodi in Frankfurt.

- Checking out German supermarkets.

- Sabine's cake for Jodi and Allison.

- Sampling different kinds of chocolate in Germany.

- Eating at a traditional Hessian restaurant with Ju, Harry, Christine, Allison and Jodi. I had the Frankfurter Sepcialittätenteller: 1 Handkäs mit Musik, Grüne Sosse mit zwei halben Eiern, Salzkartoffeln, einkleines Rippchen mit Kraut, Brot und Senf. I liked everything except the Handkäs mit Musik.

- Sampling cakes, courtesy Ju and Harry! See below (Harry, Juliane, Franklin, Jodi and Allison):



This photo and the ones of the cakes and ice cream were taken especially for Joey Shoji. :-) Click on the photos to see Joey's comments.

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Wo Ist Der Bahnhof (Part 2)

I've updated yesterday's Blathering to include links to photos and con reports that I've come across so far. If I've missed any, please do let me know and I'll add them to the list. I also added a link to the lyrics and rough sheet music notes for "Wo Ist Der Bahnhof."

Blatherphotos today were taken by other people at Filkcontinental; thanks to both Aryana and Hitch for their permission to reprint them in Blatherings. I've been gradually uploading photos from the trip along with comments to my 2005 Germany/Filkcontinental photoset, for those interested. I'll be posting a few highlights in Blatherings after Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, but I'm realizing it's going to be impossible to write about EVERYTHING I enjoyed during the trip. Even my photo report is only a small sampling of the experience.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish posting photos (mainly from the Hamburg leg of the trip) before the long weekend; if I'm not, I'll finish up later next week. Allison has also been posting photos from the trip; you can find them here.

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Wo ist der Bahnhof?!

(Above: our audience at Filkcontinental in Germany this past weekend)

Updated 10:30 am with links to other con reports (see bottom of page). Also *** Samurai seems to having problems again, so please send e-mail to my Gmail account for now, thanks. Hopefully my other e-mail is just queued up and not lost. :-(

Home! Jetlagged but happy; our Germany visit was *hugely* fun. Many thanks to the Filkcontinental convention committee and everyone at the convention...Allison, Jodi and I were quite overwhelmed by the welcome we received (and the amount of chocolate! :-D ).

Much more later when I've had a chance to unpack and catch up on work and e-mail, but feel free to check my growing collection of Filkcontinental photos on Flickr. I'll be gradually adding photos to this set over the next week or so, from our visits with Ju & Harry in Frankfurt, the convention itself, and our visit with Katy & Steve in Hamburg. I'm sure Allison will also be posting a report and photos in her Livejournal.

Explanation of the entry title: Urban Tapestry debuted my newest song in our concert. Here are the lyrics. The chorus is a 3-part bit which is fun for us to sing. Fun for others too, apparently...we were SO tickled when people at the convention kept singing bits of the chorus back at us the rest of the weekend. And when we were asked to perform it in the Request Concert on Sunday, everyone sang along. :-)

Update: I've scanned the rough music notes for the song, for those interested.

Con reports/photos I've found online so far:

CJ
Kirstin (photos)
Hitch (see rest of LJ for other parts)
Steffi
Julianne
Teddy
Zander
Claudia/Delennara
Richard Wheatley (photos)
Christine
Sybille (also has a Filkcontinental Flickr photo set
Gary M.
Phil
Aryana (photos will be uploaded soon)
Keris
Magician
Rika


Fun pics:

Our first concert (from Hitch)
Surprise birthday party (from Phil)
Group hug at the closing ceremony (from Hitch)

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Leaving for Filkcontinental, woohoo!

Ok, I'm packed. Papers organized. My reading material for the plane: Lonely Planet German phrasebook and Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone. I was going to bring Choice Cuts by Mark Kurlansky (editor) as well, but I don't think I'll have room. I love food writing books.

I'm hoping to sleep for much of the flight as I can, which is a red-eye. Julianne Honisch and Christine Hintermeyer have kindly offered to pick us up in Frankfurt. ESPECIALLY kind considering our flight gets in at 6:50 a.m.! (To Ju & Christine: Um, my suitcase is going to be bigger than the one in the cartoon above.)

Jeff and I had some dim sum on Yonge St., then went browsing at HMV and Chapters-Indigo. He's promised not to throw out too many things while I'm away. :-)

Have a great week, everyone, and looking forward to seeing some of you at the castle!

Some travel quotes:

"I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in an Irish bog to see the moon when it is full." ~ Lord Dunsany

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." ~ St. Augustine

"The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes 'sight-seeing.'" ~ Daniel J. Boorstin

"Most travel is best of all in the anticipation or the remembering; the reality has more to do with losing your luggage." ~ Regina Nadelson

"Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness." ~ Ray Bradbury

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." ~ Mark Twain

"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries." ~ Aldous Huxley

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three days!

I was touched by feedback to yesterday's entry about Urban Tapestry. Here are a few comments:

From Gray:

"It is heart warming to see that. After all the bands I have been through that have come and gone. Here's to you lot."

From David W:

"What Graham said. As I've said before, back in the early/mid 90s when I was just starting to get into fandom, you three, Rand-&-Adam, and Randy H. were filk, the doorway to a brand new, warm and rich world. May it continue to be much-fun for another 13, 26, 39, 42, etc. years to come ..."

From Judith:

"It's been a wonderfully productive partnership. Watching you all grow as the group grew has been fun!

I freely admit that I envy the collaboration you have. I'm still hunting for a filk partner who doesn't live and hour and a half away!"

I also got the following feedback from Paul K. about my Tiberius Rising blather:

":{)} All these years, and it never occurred to me that you wrote that, and Ookla had borrowed it. I heard your version years before I ever met Ookla, and when I did hear theirs on the CD, I guess I just subconsciously assumed that you'd copied their guitar riff. Well, probably more accurately, it was just "part of the song" for me, and I never considered that it hadn't always been."

Just wanted to clarify: When I wrote out my flute part for Tiberius Rising, the main musical motif was written by Ookla (e.g. the riff in the intro). The only bit that Rand borrowed - much to my delight - was a very short musical phrase in the bridge, and he did so with permission. I've updated that entry to clarify this. :-)

THREE DAYS until Allison, Jodi and I leave for Germany! I can't believe it. I can't wait. But I have to wait. And I have to pack. I've already did a pre-pack and discovered that not everything I want to take will fit, so am doing a heartless purge today. I've been playing my German language CDs in the background as I pack in the admittedly feeble hope that some of it will sink in.

And a complete aside: there was a WOODPECKER on my Squirrelbuster birdfeeder yesterday! Which, incidentally, has successfully foiled squirrels thus far. I've also had cardinals, chickadees, red-breasted nuthatches, a grackle (I might adjust the weight so that bigger birds can't access the seed; don't look horrified, I already have a platform feeder they can use), and lots of goldfinches on my niger feeder. I've hung both so I can watch the action while I'm eating at the dining room table. I love this house.

Another happy aside: Check out Amanda's ultrasound! Looks like a boy. :-)

And if you're at Word on the Street in Toronto tomorrow, don't forget to drop by the Kids' Tent to hear my sister read from "And You Can Come Too" from 1:40-2 pm, as well as see her do some public sketching. After her reading, she'll be hanging out at the Mable's Fables booth for half an hour. It's her birthday tomorrow!

Three days.

I'm giddy and incoherent and panic-stricken (about all the stuff I still need to do before we leave) so should stop now.

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