Kids and Bumming Smokes (people watching in Munich last week)

More people-watching in Munich:

German men hanging out in front of the subway station tried to bum a light off me (sadly I did not have a lighter, but I was pretty delighted that I looked like the sort of girl who might.)

.......

While I was painting au plain air in the park, I watched Eustice and Emma playing with their wonderful, long suffering dad. Eustice (about eight) was having a difficult day. He was constantly asking his dad to play "one more" round of soccer with him. He liked to pretend he was a star, yelling "goal!" And sometimes even narrating the game like a sports announcer.

He and his Dad were engaged in what seemed like a constant, good-natured argument. Eustice wanted to be treated like an adult, as his kid status subjected him to incredibly "unfair" treatment. To which his dad replied, "I'm still bigger than you!" Emma was a quiet, self-directed little girl who I felt an immediate kinship with. She liked to ride on her little tricycle around the park paths and pretend she was leaving, saying, "Bye!" And her dad would say, "Bye Emma! See you later!" Only one time she actually started to leave and her father had to hop on his bike and go after her. During one particularly stressful moment when both children ganged up on their father, he blurted out, "No, now it's time to go home!"

"What?! Home?!" Both children were outraged. "Sorry, now its time to eat!" The difference between home and a picnic in the park was clearly much greater in the children's minds than in their father's.

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A girl about my age who got up to give her seat on the subway to an older woman who'd just gotten on. The older woman took the girls hand in both of hers and said, "oh thank you honey but I really prefer to stand."

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I asked these two Italian guys for the time as we were getting out of the subway. Unfortunately they spoke neither English or German and couldn't understand me. I thought the matter was over, but a minute later (apparently after conferring with each other) they turned back around and asked me, in accented but perfect English, "you want to bum a cigarette?" After shaking my head no I pointed at my wrist in the universal sign language for "watch" and they very kindly showed me the time on their phones.