Hanne

21 July 2009

My first Bavarian beer garden, a maze in maize, fresh blueberries, river-surfing and ice cream to die for. Plus to top it all off my two-wheels thirst was quenched by a joy ride on a scooter! Last weekend I visited a friend in Munich and, for want of a better term, had a roaring great time.

First up, I am sure you will be glad to hear that this time no one proposed to me on the train. So that was a good start! I arrived in Munich on Thursday evening and Julia met me at the train station. It was her mum’s birthday so I baked cookies to take along. I think they were quite surprised by my lack of luggage – I managed to fit everything into my 35L backpack and had a shoulder bag with uni books and danish vocab… The packing practice necessitated by the ‘strictly one pannier’ rule has finally come in handy!

Thursday night we packed a picnic and headed for a beer garden in the next village over. You can bring any food into the beer garden but no drinks, so we found ourselves a bench under the trees and enjoyed a beer with our giant, freshly baked pretzels and fancy cheese. Mmm, Bavaria, so bad for the heart and yet so tasty!

On Friday morning we were up bright and early and headed into the city for breakfast. We took Julia’s scooter and it was the first time I had even touched a two wheeled vehicle since leaving New Zealand. You know you are suffering from withdrawal symptoms when a 4 stroke 125cc scooter can make you tremble with excitement! We zipped around the city taking in the sights and that evening Julia’s dad took me on a ride out to a nearby lake. Riding again was like drugs to the veins. It didn’t take long at all to get used to driving on the right (I suppose that is something that you really can’t afford to not get used to) and the evening was gorgeous. Actually, that is not strictly true, we did race a storm on the way home and had lightening chasing at our tails. Didn’t catch us though. And although the scooter was red the red this did not seem to help too much with boosting speediness once we hit the autobahn. Yep, the legendary Autobahn, without upper speed limits… we passed through the 100 zone, through the 120 zone… I actually managed to get the scooter up to fully 122 km/h! How rebellious is that? Super badass.

Perhaps my other weekend antics would be better classed under the ‘rebel’ category. Although I didn’t MEAN to smash the plate in the street café… I think it must have said something to my elbow as my joint acted of its own accord when I stood up, leaping out and attacking the (relatively) innocent piece of china. At least we had finished breakfast and were leaving! Julia took me to the café because they have the best traditional sweet buns. They were good. In fact, I would go back again, albeit with sunglasses and a moustache… Our next stop in Munich was the English Gardens. They were… very English. Then we turned a corner and suddenly England was flipped to down under and Australia (or Piha) stole the show. That’s right, there were a bunch of surfers strutting their stuff in the river. How do you surf in a river? Well, there is only one wave, where the water exits under a bridge and the river suddenly gets deeper. Some of the guys could surf across it eight or nine times before bailing, kind of like skateboarding to and fro. Apparently the really hard core guys are only there in the Winter, but we watched the eight or nine who were there practice for a bit and let ourselves begin to work up an appetite.

Next came the book shops and the tea store. Julia is like my mum when it comes to book stores, you have to keep an eye on both of them or they will end up taking home half the store! We found lots of books about König Ludwig II… and then we went into an amazing tea shop, with every flavour of tea imaginable. There was Christkindlmarkt tea with real popcorn and dried fruit in it, there was strawberry and pepper, vanilla, Oktoberfest… Oh the possibilities! We took home christmas tea and strawberry and pepper. And then it was time for lunch… Remember IKEA? Or rather, remember my very first reaction to it? Munich’s IKEA was even better because it was not being renovated! We had couscous and hot chocolate and watched the men’s 1m diving champs. Now Julia wants to go to Italy as the Italian won her good-looks contest! We had a wander and did some posing in various kitchens and apartments and then I got to use the snow cone machine! Exciting stuff! You put in the cone, press a button, the cone is lifted up and filled with icecream and then you can take it out. Oh, the small things in life…

Saturday was very wet. I seem to bring bad weather with me wherever I go! But we had an explore of the castle in the city centre and checked out the Hofbrauhaus. It was built exactly 400 years before I was born and exactly 380 years before man landed on the moon. I guess that makes it pretty old, but it was also filled with noisy tourists so we took pictures and left to a smaller Lokal around the corner, where we could hear ourselves think. Mmm, dampfknodel and hot chocolate… Once again I was most impressed by the traditional food. Will have to try out some of these recipes when I get home! Then it was time to get soaking wet in the four blocks between there and the cinema, where we watched Harry Potter. Along with just about every American in Munich. I have NEVER seen such a squish! That evening we played Wii Fit and had a virtual golf tournament. Apparently having a score of +15 is NOT a good thing… Oh well, at least the machine told me I had a healthy BMI!

On Sunday we did too many fun things to count on one hand! In fact, looking at the back of my hand one might think that I had been partying it up in the Munich night club scene, there were so many stamps there. A pirate ship, a skull and cross bones, a horsie, a cow… Actually they stemmed from much more exciting endeavours. Such as a maze in a corn field. We wound our way through the labyrinth, collected clues, discovered that the squirrel had forgotten to invite the turtle to his party, then went to pick berries. I don’t think I had ever seen a blueberry tree before, but the berries were so sweet and juicy! I got the hang of picking pretty fast. One for me, one for the basket… (the younger you are, the higher the ratio of ‘for me’ is!). And I had a revelation! Johanisbeere are currants! I have been wondering all the time what they are called in English, and they are Ribena berries! Yay for didactic harvesting.

Actually I had only half a Sunday in Munich as my train left at 14.23, but we managed to pack quite a bit in. The train station was having its 160th birthday so there was a giant blow up train and little ICE trikes for kids to zoom about on. A lederhosen-clad band was playing jolly music and there was also a giant tiger roaming about giving out hugs. (Yes, I went and had a hug too). Actually his mother was a tige, his father was a lion ,and he had a green mane. His name was Oli. Oli asked if I liked Bambi and I was glad I had on a jumper so only the innocent part of my T-shirt showed! I told him we had no green-maned lions in NZ so he gave me a sticker of a green-maned lion to take home so there would be one. It was so exciting to meet a lion in the train station! (I think Julia was hiding at this point, pretending not to know me…)

So after that I hopped on the train back to Freiburg, and only nearly missed it! It was great to see Julia again and I will be visiting her very soon in Spain, so that is something to look forward to. In conclusion, the trip was a success, I have not acquired any new fiancés and kid’s games and activities can be just as fun when one is 20 as when man is 2. Sometimes watching a snow cone machine do its stuff can really make your day!

Bis nächstes Mal,

Hanne