It has taken me a while to make the time to write an update. At this point it's more important than getting a full night's sleep tonight. I still have to pack for a few days of travel. Tomorrow I leave in the morning to visit some relatives in Kassel, which is north of Munich about three and a half hours by train. Then on Sunday or Monday I will take a train to Berlin, where I will stay until Wednesday when I will fly back here to Munich. I arrived here last Thursday night. I headed straight into the center of the city and stayed in a hostel called Wombat's. There I met a lovely young Austrian woman named Christine, who was in town volunteering at the Style and Air show - a big snowboard fest of sorts, I did not go so I'm not exactly sure what they actually did at this event except snowboarding?

The next morning I contacted SOMAhaus, a house I'd found on couchsurfing.com, and I caught a train out to Neuaubing on the far western edge of Munich. I was greeted at the station by a couple of guys one might describe as "hippies." They were very nice and walked me back to SOMAhaus where I entered another world. There were a few guys in the livingroom and crap was everywhere. The kitchen was absolute chaos and a thick layer of grime covered almost everything. The people I met were very inviting and I had a lot of fun talking with them.

I cooked a strange concoction of food that evening with the various things they'd retrieved from nearby dumpsters. It was all fresh food, the pineapples were absolutely perfect, golden and juicy, and there were lots of leeks which I added to potatoes. One of the men who often hangs out at the house is named Mansta, and is from Lamu, an island off the coast of Kenya! We talked a lot about Kenya, and he really supported my trip and my documentary project. He kept stressing that I should interview mostly women because they will be the most interesting and honest, heheh. I figure being a man and having lived there for most of his life he would know better than me!!! The following night I went to a huge world market in the city centre (same grounds as Oktoberfest) called Tollwood, where I had gluwein - hot spiced wine - and some good Polish food. Here is the entrance to the festival:

There was also some lovely Zydeco music playing in a big tent with lots of tree branches and pretty lighting. Afterwards we went to see Mansta's reggae band play at a local club. I danced and talked with the guys from the house (yes there is only one woman living there right now and she had to work). We caught the last train back out to Neuaubing and I went straight to bed. I tried to buy stollen from a bakery one morning, but the woman weighed and told me it would be 10.90 Euro and I said "No way!" like, "That's impossible!" and quickly recovered by declining nicely....I was just so shocked, I mean, my grandma makes the stuff, the ingredients can't cost that much or she probably wouldn't bother making it!!!

I saw some really cool graffiti on my way to the concert too:

Sunday morning I began packing up my bags to move to the house of my friend's from Mercer Island. The Williams family is living in Munich and had offered for me to visit them. After just two days in a filthy, smoke filled house, I was ready for a change. Don't get me wrong, the people were very nice and I intend to visit them again, there's just only so much I can take, especially when one is not surrounded by dirt but by the absolutely pristine streets and houses of Munich. Now I am staying with the Williams' in their lovely home with their wonderful three kids and their sweet geriatric cat, Dashaway. I have not yet done that much site seeing, but this has been a wonderful time to relax and regroup before I make my way to Paris next week. I have not visited a concentration camp, however there is a river just at the end of the street here where the Nazis marched thousands of Jews to death because they knew the Americans were coming. There is a statue alongside the river less than two blocks from the house. Someone had just put flowers underneath it just before I got here. This part of Germany is very strict, it will be interesting to see what Berlin is like in comparison...as well as Kassel.

I am doing well, and I am looking forward to spending the holidays with my family in Paris!!! WOO HOO! But right now I am just living one day at a time, it is nice.

Peace