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Published: March 2nd 2010
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Photo 1
Nymphenburg Schloß...Cold! By the time February rolled around I was well and truly settled into München. I started my second month of language classes in a new class...this time with a few English speaking people and I’m loving the fact that I am not even the oldest in the class! It’s all going OK although very frustrating at times. The German language is just chock-a-block full of rules, tenses and of course grammar, grammar and more grammar! I really can’t complain though as it is only 3 hours a day plus homework (I kind of feel like I’m 15 again!).
February copied January and continued to deliver a lot of snow. I have well and truly gotten used to the sub-zero temperatures. Whilst it can be excruciating to have to put on 4 layers of clothing just to walk for 5 minutes to buy the bread, the cold and snow delivers a few specials...especially for a boy from Sydney.
We took a short trip to Nymphenburg Castle, which is actually only about 30 minutes from where we are living. The castle whilst nothing really special compared to the many I have seen throughout Europe, is still very grand and has vast
Photo 2
Day Trippers at Nymphenburg Schloß. surrounds (and we’ll give it points for having a kind of raunchy name). We walked around the grounds which include a manmade lake, tree-lined canal and a plethora of shaped walking paths. It was a beautiful sunny day but probably about -5°C! It’s just crazy! The highlight for me was the abundance of activities in progress on the frozen canal. A simple clearing of the snow (sometimes even with a fancy snow brushing machine) and hey presto you can play ice hockey, you can ice skate or you can play curling (or at least a poor non-Olympic version of curling). The latter appealed to me the most. Replace the ice with grass, the steel and wooden thingies that they slide down the ice with a ball with bias, and boom, you have a very cold version of lawn bowls. Everything else is the same. The teams bring beers, wine (hot though) and food galore. We even heard a call for “a measure” on one of the ends. I had to laugh.
The snow might slow things down over here but it certainly doesn’t stop anything. The people just find ways to utilise it. Snow fights are fun.
If
Photo 3
Chris at Nymphenburg Schloß. it gets too cold, there is always a sauna on offer. The collective term for saunas in Germany is “therme”. In short, a therme as I have found out can anywhere from 5 to 40 or so saunas and steam rooms all surrounded by swimming pools, sun beds, resting rooms, massage facilities etc. The kicker here though is that clothing is prohibited (for health reasons of course). On the day we went there would have been over 1,000 Germans happily frolicking nude in the therme...many even sitting at the in-pool bar with friends enjoying the odd alcoholic beverage. What an experience. And let me tell you no-one is shy over here. For the men whose minds are now racing......yes there are plenty of youthful, slim and beautiful maidens amongst the population but unfortunately the signage at the front doesn’t prohibit the extremely overweight older types from entering and showing off their (very unattractive) bits too. Anyway you take the good with the bad, get it all out yourself and just enjoy the show. All in all it is an extremely relaxing and interesting day out.
A day trip when you live in München can mean a number of things.
Photo 4
Anyone for an end of Curling? One of the more exquisite things to do is to just jump in a car and drive to another country. Yep, 1.5 hours on an autobahn and it’s hello Austria. We spent the day in Salzburg, home to the late and great composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. You can buy everything with Mozart’s scone on it in Salzburg. The best souvenir we saw however did not include the great man rather it was a T-shirt depicting a kangaroo and the words “Austria No Kangaroos”. I found it very smart but was reluctant to shell out with €20 to buy one. I just took a free photo.
The city was blanketed by snow during our visit. Due to this, it probably met my expectation of how an Austria city should be. It is a truly, truly pretty city. The 900 year old Schloß Hohensalzburg (Hohensalzburg Castle) guards the city from above and is forever spying on you from the dark ends of narrow cobble stoned lanes and from between buildings of fine baroque architecture. We strolled around the fortress taking in sweeping views of the city on our way. We stopped by Mozart’s birthplace on Getreidegasse a magnificent shopping lane in
Photo 5
The Locals in Action on the Ice. the heart of the old town still seriously in touch with the way things once were. The shop signs and street lamps are stunning. We took a peep inside Salzburger Dom (Salzburg Cathedral) and had a snow ball fight in the gardens of Mirabell Palace (which for those playing at home, featured in the “Do-Re-Mi” song in “Sound of Music”). A day was undoubtedly not enough time to really experience Salzburg but if you compare it to taking a 1.5 hour drive from Sydney and arriving in Lithgow, Salzburg as a Sunday destination is a mighty fine option!
Mid-February turns the straightest, strictest and even most law-abiding Germans into raving lunatics. You see, the second week of February each year is Karnival time. Our new Munich family invited us to spend a weekend with them in Düsseldorf (sounds like a character or town from Harry Potter doesn’t it?). Don’t try to compare this to the more well known carnival of Rio de Janeiro though...the -176°C temperatures and driving snow keeps the lasses well rugged up. Again I must add though that the weather didn’t stop anything (it just added 3.5 hours to our train trip!!). Karnival is really just
Photo 6
All the Action on the Frozen Canal. an excuse to wear something outrageous and to get torturously drunk. We succeeded in both regards. Chris dressed as a Flensburger bottle in honour of her home brew (don’t ask) and along with a friend I dressed as a removalist - you will need to see the photos and videos to understand (just as we did the next day to recall what transpired!). Great fun although a long way to go to forget a day of your life.....
So we returned to Munich only to go straight out and celebrate carnival in Bayern - they call it “fasching” so we convinced ourselves that we weren’t really doubling up. See above paragraph to find out what we did at fasching.
The fun kind of ended in the 3rd week of February with Chris starting a new job. It had been over 6 months since she had worked so I suppose you could say that she has had a good holiday. Karnival was one hell of a way to say goodbye to her holidays!
The Vancouver Winter Olympics got amazing coverage over here. Every night we watched prime time events almost always featuring gold medal winning Germans with seriously
Photo 7
Under the Bridge on the Canal. excitable German commentators. I keep telling these crazy medal-tally-topping Germans though that for the third Winter Olympics in a row now Australia has actually won the Games when considering the number of medals won per head of population in each square kilometer of our country. A little far-fetched I know but hey......
February marked my last month as an official tourist. After 5 or so visits to the immigration department I obtained a 1 year student visa. It only cost €50 which I think is pretty cheap. I did have to get local health insurance though as the Department would not accept my Australian travel insurance (unless of course I could get my insurer to sign a letter confirming my level of cover - the letter could only be submitted in German though...what chance did I have?).
I will leave you now by telling you that I knew I was going to like living in Germany the minute I found a place to lay my head in Munich. My initially thoughts were well and truly confirmed during the Winter Olympics when a German competitor named “Andreas Wank” took to the giant ski jump. When you can turn on
Photo 8
The Famous Rathaus at Marienplatz München. the telly and scream for A. Wank and no one bats an eyelid you just know that you are into something pretty good! FYI....Herr Wank blew most other competitors away and achieved a silver medal!
Liebe Grüß
Ryan
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Karolina (mrs v) and Gooma (mr v)
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HELLO !
HI Guys! Thanks for your blogs Cliffy .... keeping us entertained and amazed! I love the photos (the snow looks stunning) Photo 25 of the roof tops is amazing! Disappointing there werent any photos of the "therme"saunas... (he, he)... Dont know if you guys had anything on the news about the famous photographer who takes naked photos of people all over the world. Well, around 5000 crazy Sydneysiders nuded down in the cold and had their photos taken in a group on the steps of the Opera House. Was pretty weird seeing all the naked white bums on telly. Guess what... ? Baby V is officially overdue today! My due date was the 2nd of March.. we are waiting in anticipation for the arrival of either the Prince of Ceylon or the Princess of Poland. Thinking of you guys and so great to hear your having a BALL! Love Karolina and Gooma and the very comfortable Baby V xo