And so it was...Deutschland

Okay so it’s been a while since I updated this puppy, sorry all you fans out there. I just haven’t felt in blog writing mood for a while now, lets call it writers block, although I’m not really a writer though am I, more of a hack with his own website, ha.

I thought I would write a final update before I return to Melbourne on Tuesday. I can’t believe how fast the three months has gone for me. It’s been an awesome experience and I look forward to returning again sometime soon. I think next time though I will come back with a better German language repertoire and maybe in the winter so I can test out some of the famous ski resorts in the Swiss and Bavarian Alps.

So what have we been up to? The weekend after Munich, we went down to the border of Switzerland and visited a work colleague’s parents in their tiny village. It was nice to see some more of the real Germany and real cool of my friend’s parents to put us up for the weekend. Not to mention the amazing BBQ that they put on for us on the Saturday night. On the Sunday we went for a huge walk in the German countryside, which was nice. The great thing about walking in the countryside in Germany is that you can be in the middle of the forest one minute and the next you come across this great village where you can go to a restaurant, have a beer and a great feed – this is my kind of tramping! Although it might not appeal to you ‘purists; out there…I really didn’t expect Germany to be so green before I came. In many ways it feels so much like New Zealand.

The next weekend we packed our bags and headed to the U.K to visit Asia’s uncle in Cornwall. We flew in to Stansted airport in the north of London. We then had our ‘London experience’ by catching a train to the nearest tube stop and then catching the tube to visit Asia’s sisters ex-boyfriend in Stockwell which is somewhere near the center of London. London is absolutely colossal, I mean big like nothing I have ever experienced before. To be fair my first impression was not a good one – I mean compared to Germany it felt big, cramped, dirty and unfriendly. Although in Germany you are probably more likely to spot a U.F.O than a piece of trash on the side of the road, so it’s probably not a fair comparison. Hey, what the heck I might be being a little harsh – besides it was nice to speak English again for a weekend. The next day we hired a rental and did a mission down to the south-west of England to visit Asia’s family. Their hospitality was second to none - we had a great time and managed to visit some really interesting places in the English countryside. It was a bit of a speedy tour of England and I definitely have to go back sometime, if only to change my impression of London.

Okay so here I am sitting here at home on a Friday night writing what is probably my last blog entry while I am still in Germany. It’s nice to sit down beer in hand and have a quiet Friday for a change – it’s been fun and hectic for the last three months and it’s been a blast. I have quite enjoyed writing this blog so far, I think I might keep it going when I get to Melbourne – at least for a little while anyway until I get some friends…

We have had a slight change of plans and are not coming back to NZ before heading to Melbourne now, so I won’t be able to catch up with you NZ peeps in the immediate future. I plan to head to Christchurch to be with the family for Christmas and maybe a short holiday in the Nelson area – nothing concrete yet except for Christmas but we will see how things pan out. If you are around the chch area over Christmas give me a bell it will be good to catch up.

Otherwise, take care, keep well and I’ll see some of you soon!

Muenchen

Well, what can I say? Muenchen lives up to everything its reputation would have you believe. From the enormous beer halls serving up huge 1 litre ‘pints’ (yes they are one litre and they taste so good…) to the amazing architecture riddled with history and the quirky Bavarian sub-culture, Muenchen has it all. There is also a fare smattering of World War II history here as well, if you know where to look. After all, Muenchen was the birth place of Nazism and the Third Reich. Hitler staged his first attempted uprising here in 1923 but was shot down and imprisoned for eight months where he wrote that infamous book, hmmm what was it called again? Anyway besides its darker history, Muenchen is a blast – if there is one place to visit in Germany I think it has to be this.

We left early on Saturday morning for our weekend adventure to Bavaria. Despite one of the usual German ‘phantom’ traffic jams we still managed to arrive in Dachau, the oldest and most famous of the Nazis concentration camps, (our first stop and about 20 km out of Muenchen) about lunchtime. I won’t spend too much time describing Dachau, it’s one of those places you most go and see for yourself to truly appreciate the significance of what went on there during the war years. Suffice to say, the one real gem or piece of advice that really struck home with me while I was there was this quote from one of the tour guides. “We will probably never know what makes people do such horrendous things to each other…However, what we can say is that we do know what political conditions allow for such things to take place.” Sadly, while Germany has learnt the hardest lesson from world war two it appears much of the world has not. Once you take away individual freedom, things get bad very fast.

Anyway, enough politics. After an afternoon at Dachau , we arrived in Muenchen feeling tired and ready for some of the famous Bavarian brown stuff. We checked into our hostel ‘Easy Palace’ (the place is much better than the name suggests), a recommendation from Lonely Planet – never leave home without one. So we hit a local pizza joint grabbed a quick feed, which turned out to be not so quick because the waiter took six years to get our bill for us, and then walked down to the ‘Augustiner Brauhaus’, one of Muenchen’s famous beer halls. This place was full of everything you might expect in an authentic beer hall from hidden courtyards to stags heads on the walls, not to mention the lovely women waitresses serving huge beers, all decked out in their local Bavarian outfits. Then things got interesting, we happened to run across, (or they ran into us) a local Bavarian stag do. The guys, there were six of them, promptly ‘educated’ us in local Bavarian custom. Things such as ‘schultz’, where if someone burps they say ‘schultz’ and everyone must respond by also saying ‘schultz’ and putting their thumb on their forehead. The last one to do it gets a slap on the forehead. I’m not sure if this is an actual Bavarian tradition or if these guys were having us on – I seem to remember getting more than my share of whacks on the forehead. These guys were pretty good company though and we ended up having a pretty good time with them.

Okay so we woke up reasonably early the next day with the intention of having a good look around the various sights of Muenchen. Our first mission, or rather Asia’s, was to go and have a look at the ‘Glockenspiel’ a giant motorized play half way up the new town hall, which incidentally is a pretty amazing building, with or without the Glockenspiel. One of the most amazing things about Muenchen, despite appearances to the contrary is that almost the entire city was destroyed by bombing in world war two. So everything looks like it has been there for centuries but actually is probably only 60 years old. While waiting for the ‘Glockenspiel’ to kick into action we managed to stumble across a free tour of the city. Anyway the best bit about this tour was the Canadian/Bavarian tour guide ‘Oz’. This dude was hilarious and the three hours that the tour took went by like a few minutes. After the tour we grabbed a quick coffee and a bite to eat before the three hour drive back to Gomaringen.

Another superb weekend in the land of beer and bratwurst.