Winter 2008/09 - Munich
11th January - Nymphenburg Schloss
A new year begins and maybe for the first time in a long time I can see the year ahead quite clearly. I can't remember the last time I could look at the coming year and 'know' which country I'll be living in in a year's time let alone which job. I guess I'll have to find my variety and unpredictability in some other form.
My first week back in Munich and it's cold. Not the normal -2, -3 cold, but bloody freezing. Currently the maximum daytime temperature is colder than -3. Overnight it's getting down to -12 and beyond. Today I headed out to Nymphenburg Schloss which I went to back in November because I'd heard the canals and ponds were all frozen and everyone's out skating, playing ice hockey, a form of curling and generally falling over on the ice. It was great. The mile long canal up to the house and grounds totally frozen solid and hundreds and hundreds more people on the ice having fun.
Snow, snow, cold and snow (and a little culture)
We're getting intermittent snow to go with our cold. It looks great but makes walking around treacherous. Ice with a layer of snow on top, lovely.
In the last 2 weeks we've had 7 guys arrive from India to work on our project, I can't imagine how cold they're finding it. They're from Trivandrum on the very bottom tip of India, tropical all year round rarely dropping below 30 degrees. 4 of them had never seen snow before, was fun seeing them standing outside whilst it was snowing at lunchtime taking photos of each other and getting strange looks from the Germans as they hurried by.
Now we'll have to get them into a beer hall and give them a few steins to show them real German life.
Time for a little culture. Being in Munich I should take in a bit of Mozart, Wagner and Strauss. But I'll build up to that today I did a tour behind the scenes at the National Theatre. Probably the most impressive thing was that the tour was in German and I got most of it. We got to sit in the Royal Box and reception rooms. We saw backstage and underneath the stage. It's amazing the backstage area is 6 times the size of the visible stage. All the stage is on rails so that one stage set can be quickly replaced with another. Scenery dropped in and lifted out. The stage sections themselves raised and lowered.
I'm going have to go to see all this engineering in action.
25th January - Starnberger See
For the last month or so in Munich we've had 2 sorts of weather, cold and snowy and very cold and sunny. Some days we have a half hour blizzard followed by blue skies followed by more snow and more sun.
Took advantage of a sunny day to get out of Munich. I took the S-Bahn to the end of line S6 Tutzing. on the Starnberger See. This is a big glacial lake about 14 miles from top to bottom and 3 miles wide. It's lovely quite like the lakes in Switzerland, Zurich or Geneva. I'm told the house along the shore are owned by the rich and famous.
On a crisp Winter day it's great. Not many people around but I expect in Summer you wouldn't be able to move. Would be good to come down again when the boats around the lake are running though. I just walking along the lake for a while then back along a hill which gave good views. All the way watching my step. I thin covering of snow and ice on the ground with the sun melting it a little bit to make it even more slippery. Glad to report I made it back without injury.
Stopped of in Starnberg on the way back at the northern tip of the lake. It has a real see-side town feel, right down to the choc-ices and saucy postcards.
Sunday Squash
My wrist has just about recovered from my accident back in October so it's time to start playing squash again. There's a Toytown (ex-pt) squash that meets every Sunday so a great way to get back into it. I'd not played in 2 1/2 years so I was a little rusty but is went well, but it's not the squash I want to talk about ...
The changing rooms. The changing rooms themselves are completely separate, you can probably guess where this is going already. I came off court totally knackered, staggered to the changing room, stripped off and went to the showers just carrying my towel rather than having it wrapped around me. I showered, there was no one else in there. Whilst drying my self I saw there was a sauna and quiet area with sun loungers, with a woman lying on one of the loungers! It hadn't crossed my mind that they would be mixed showers. I've no problem with it at all, I've got nothing worth hiding, but had a woman walking in before I'd realised then I'm sure I would have got confused, embarrassed, felt awkward ...
So this week I'm fully prepared, had a shower and went into the sauna. I'm ready for naked men or women, but expecting middle-aged, a bit old, a bit wrinkly. But there's one woman in there, early 20s, absolutely stunning. I didn't know where to look, or should that be I didn't know where to look first! So many inappropriate comments came to mind, like a cross between Geoff in Coupling forgetting the whole English language apart from the rude words, Sid James in a Carry On film and some character from a 1970s German under-the-counter film.
I'll definitely be going back next week
21st, 22nd, 23rd February - Hamburg
Had to head up to Hamburg on Monday to meet the guys in the Marine Dept. so decided to go up over the weekend to get away from cold, snowy Munich and explore Hamburg. I traded the icy streets and burning cold for dark, misty and damp. Reminded me of February in England where the best place to be is indoors. But I'd only got a couple of days so out and about to explore. From the Saint Nikolai Memorial a bombed out church now left as a memorial to the Victims of War and Persecution 1933-45, to the Rathaus and on to the docks both old and new. Hamburg has a completely different feel to Munich. I love being by the water, there's canals, rivers and the port, water really makes a city for me. Much better that the little stream running through Munich. Hamburg feels like a working, industrial port city as apposed to the country town Munich. I think Munich is more liveable but I bet Hamburg is more fun.
Saturday evening I headed down to the Reeperbahn. It's the first thing people think about when you mention Hamburg so I had to take a look. What a horrible area, although I'm sure the fact it was tipping down with rain didn't help. Big neon signs, 'Girls', 'Table Dance', sex shops and clubs. Like Amsterdam's Red Light Area without any of the charm. Eastern Europeans on the streets grabbing at your arm and offering services. Then there's the actual 'windows' area. It's cordoned off behind solid metal barriers making it all seem more dirty and sordid. Early night so that I could head out early Sunday down to the FischMarkt, Hamburg's oldest biggest open-air market. Bargains galore, fruit, veg, fish. Selling every cheap and in big volume, gotta think most of it has fallen off the back of a boat. In the picture above the bags above stuffed full of fruit all for 10 Euros. Load traders playing to the crowds, 'some cod, some eel, some salmon, some sole who wants this for 10 Euros?' Wish there was a market like this in Munich. In one of the warehouses there's quite a party going on. A live band playing rock'n'roll, stalls selling breakfasts accompanied with beer. Some market shoppers having breakfast alongside groups having one last beer or three at the end of a long night.
An interesting city ...
19th March - Starkbierfest (Nockherburg)
The Starkbierfest, although celebrated throughout Munich, is focussed on the Paulaner Keller at Nockherberg not far from the centre of Munich. The Festsaal has capacity for 3,000 drunkards and is decorated like an Oktoberfest tent. Like the Oktoberfest there's a brass band knocking out the Bavarian drinking songs, people dancing on the benches and serving wenches dishing out the steins. Starkbier is a Doppelbock which under the usual strict German rules means that is must consist of at least 18% wort. The famous "Salvator" Starkbier brewed by Paulaner for the Starkbierfest weighs in at 18.3% wort. This means that for every litre of Starkbier, if you boil away the water and alcohol you have 183 grams of solids remaining. So one Mass (liter) contains roughly the same amount of Stuff as 16 loaves of bread. Liquid food. For the monks fluid doesn't break fasting rules so during lent the don't go hungry and given that it's about 8% alcohol they spend the 40 days pissed!
I decided to organise a 'Team Building Event', we booked a table and headed down for our 4pm reservation. 6 Europeans and 6 of the guys from India. It was a fun evening. The Salvator tastes great, far better than the usual Helles lager you get over here. About half a pint in Arun was singing and dancing, 20 minutes later he was asleep on the table. Next casualty was Sarath he nearly managed 2 litres before he crashed out! By this stage the whole tent was rocking. The band had switched to playing cover versions and most people were up on the benches. Remembering my accident back in September I decided to keep my feet firmly on the ground.
Sarath leaves, with a little help from his friends