A day in the life

View into our courtyard, with our apartment
building on the right.
(Yes, that's a trampoline, in the back...)

April has been calm, and "routine" (no travels, no visitors), so for my own memories later - and in case you're curious - I'll describe a roughly typical day for me here in Munich.
[Actually, the weather is finally improving, so my schedule may change as I spend more time outside.]


First, maybe it makes sense to include some pictures of my day-to-day setting.  I walk around this neighborhood a lot, so it's unlikely I'll soon forget what the streets and buildings here look like, but here are some of them, for the record...

Here is the view down our street.  Just opposite our entrance are several
buildings with lovely facades, which date from before the war.

Upon turning the corner onto the nearest cross-street, you really see a

 difference in the style (and attractiveness) of the buildings.

These were quickly built after the war to replace those

which had been bombed, and are not nearly as nice.

Mornings:
The alarm goes off at 6:40 and we're eating our muesli by 7.  Thankfully after many dark months it's now light out in the mornings...  The kids leave the apartment around 7:30.  It's great that they are so independent, and take public transport on their own, no worries.  (Although Julia, lately, is on her bike, and I worry more about her on the crowded streets and bike paths than on the subway).

Just for the record, here's the grocery store I'm in essentially
every day, a 7 minute walk away...

On the 3 days I go to my gym class I need to leave home a little before 9, so I putz around with a bit of housework or run to the grocery in the hour or so after the kids leave.

(If it's not a gym day for me, I join Thomas for a workout on the treadmill and cross-trainer in the basement of our building, while watching German news).

My fitness club, "Body Up Diva," is the entire top floor of this building
in Haidhausen (near our first apartment). The red banner runs along the
balcony, from which, on a clear day, you can see the Alps!

 It's hard to believe that my mornings at the gym really take all morning -- not that I'm complaining:  the 60- or 75-min classes end at 10:30 and they are really tough, so I'm sweating buckets by the end (air-conditioning in a fitness studio seems to be a foreign concept) and then usually sit in the lounge/bar area for a while to cool down.  Admittedly, I often have a coffee there with my new friend Liz for an hour (she's American, so it's not so great for German practice, but it is lovely to just freely chat without having to think about every word...)  A shower, sometimes groceries and errands (this is in our first neighborhood, which has much better shopping -- mind you with my gym bag and groceries I feel like quite the pack horse), and then with the U-Bahn trip back, I'm not usually home 'til well after noon.

I spend a fair bit of time in the kitchen.  My NPR app keeps me company!
(Yes, I'm still an NPR addict, although I should probably listen to
more German if I really want to be immersed.)

Lunch is usually left-overs, or bread and cheese, or I grab a sandwich from one of the many bakeries around.   Occasionally I'll have lunch with one or two of the women in our building I've become friendlier with (also English speaking, in this International Researchers living center).

Afternoons:

Practicing choir music takes a fair bit of time.  We have
a lot of concerts and relatively few rehearsals (since most
 of the choir already knows most of the repertoire so well!)

I usually manage a combination of a few choices:  Practice my choir music, practice my German, write this blog, figure out dinner and grocery shopping, walk around the city, read (rarely, actually -- I don't know why I feel guilty reading novels in the middle of the day...), or occasionally nap ;-).  It's lovely, but a bit unsettling at times to have such an unstructured and sometimes lonely schedule!

I often sit at the kitchen table when working
on my German grammar/vocabulary review
 book, or writing this blog...

Julia gets home around 3, and we sometimes go shopping together (if she's not burdened down with homework); Benjamin is not home until 4:40, and Thomas usually arrives an hour later.  We don't have nearly as many after-school activities as we do at home, refreshingly.  Just a viola lesson and orchestra for Julia.  (Benjamin has violin lessons, choir, and homework study hall during his school day.)

Evenings:
Twice a week I have Munich Bach Choir rehearsals, 7-9:30, so I'm gone the whole evening, and Thomas deals with a lot of helping kids (mostly Julia) with homework.  I'm not sure what we do other evenings  -- Julia often does homework, and we often all just talk together (often enjoyably even...), waste time on-line, go for a walk, occasionally play a card came.  At 8 pm we watch the German news together for 15 min.

 Luckily the kids are old enough to stay by themselves now when we're close by, so once or twice a week Thomas and I may walk around on our own after the kids are in bed, or head to our local pub for a Weissbier!

All in all, this year is a great experience for me, although I must say I miss a bit of the structure (but not the craziness) of my schedule back home.  I also miss my friends and colleagues, and the ability to joke and converse easily in my native tongue.  Luckily, new aquaintances in the choir here are friendly and chatty in German but it's sometimes frustrating that I can't spontaneously (try to) be witty...

Yesterday was really like the first
day of summer... and we enjoyed
it on our tiny balcony.

But I highly, highly, recommend a year abroad.  It's good to see other cultures and points-of-view from within, and certainly the change of pace (and the Weissbier) is very refreshing!