Happy Leap Day!

and Happy birthday to Rossini who would have been 220 or 55 years old today!

Nightmares

So for dinner last night, I met up with a number of people for my regular Milbertshofener Stammtisch and we ate a lot of Greek food. It was pretty good - I had a mixed seafood grill with fish, baby calamari tubes and prawns with a mixed salad, potatoes, and taramasalata as sides (that came with the dish), all washed down with a radler. The waiter also gave us complimentary ouzo and a strawberry flavoured liquer. As we polished up our meals and drinks, Saray mentioned that with all this food, she'd have nightmares. I scoffed and said that when I eat too much food, I don't have nightmares - I conk out like a snake that's swallowed a whole antelope!


Well I then ate my words because I DID have a nightmare :( Does this mean that I should no longer be a glutton lest I be punished by the god of bad dreams?!


Lets just say I was pleased to wake up and realise it was all a dream but I was still slightly stressed when I got to work. But having mentioned that I'd had a nightmare, Jul and Jacob said that they too had bizarre dreams last night. We have now decided it's just due to the change in weather. Bring on the sun! But not the bad dreams kthnxplz!

A great thing about going to the gym

Television! 


I went to the gym and did 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer followed by some core work. Having finished that, I decided to try and do more work and so I hopped back onto an elliptical trainer when - hey ho! I realised that Futurama (auf Deutsch) was on VIVA. And not just any old episodes of Futurama - two of my most favourite ones, Amazon Women in the Mood and Parasites Lost.


Great thing is, I've seen the episodes so many times in English that I totally got the German translations and picked up some new vocab! Ich habe gesnu-snu!

Unfortunately I couldn't find the clips in German - luckily it also works in Spanish!

Too True.

(Source)

seals, googlestreetview, and Parc Asterix

First of all, before he left, I showed Gnou Pooey's wedding dress and he gave it the 

French Seal of Approval! 

Then while me and Pooey were talking, she gave me the link to a blog that consists of interesting photos from googlestreeetview. We noticed that one of the pictures on the blog is actually Zeus from inside Parc Asterix! 

I thought to myself, how is this so?! They rode their googlebike through the amusement park? And so I headed to googlemaps myself to see what else showed up in the park. I worked my way through the park with great amusement! It was like reliving my 30th birthday :D. But this amusement soon turned to shock when I saw this...

Impedimenta and Vitalstatistix in the Village?! There are other characters walking around?!

Well okay, I can imagine that it's best not to have too many of the village characters walking around at the same time and we did get to see the two druids. But then my shock turned to anger as I navigated my way around the village. 

ASTERIX AND OBELIX WALKING FREE AND TALKING TO PANACEA?!

OMG, WE WERE RIPPED OFF!!!!

We decided it must have been a case of because we were there on a Sunday afternoon, they do it to stop the characters from getting mobbed by hoards of rampaging children. Clearly we need to return to the Village early in the morning on a weekday. 

Less-typically touristy German food

Usually when people come to visit, I take them to the Hofbrauhaus. It's totally touristy and features an Oompa band in lederhosen all year round. But since he'd already been there, I decided that for dinner, we'd go to a less touristy and possibly more authentic place to eat - the Weisses Brauhaus. Weissbier (wheat beer) is the speciality here and while you can get the usual Schweinehaxe und Halbhendl, we chose to get food that I'm guessing is less chosen by tourists.

My half litre helles stands by while Gnou poured his. 

Okay, obatzda is actually quite common but we both like it so had it for entree.

I can't remember what Gnou's dish was called but it was somewhat fittingly like boeuf bourgignon.

And I had pork liver with roast onions. Miam!

Both meals came with side salads and despite being quite full, we decided to also get apfelstrudel with vanilla ice cream. It was pretty good but Gnou decided he actually preferred the Hofbrauhaus version because the pastry is flakier. Tough call!

Tierpark Hellabrunn avec Gnoudesavanes

Gnou was moving back to France from Poland and since Muenchen is about midway between cities, he came to crash this weekend! He also brought Polish vodka (to be discussed later)! After looking through Fabi's 111 Orte in Muenchen man gesehen haben muss to try and figure out what to do (this was his third visit), we decided to go to the zoo. 


The zoo is pretty good in terms of what the grounds are like. It's quite nice and park-like with a pleasant stream running through it and what seems like large enough enclosures for the inhabitants. But you know, given that it was just after the Big Freeze, there was still a lot of snow around and I was glad I wore my gummistiefel (gumboots). 

Some wolves looking right at home in the snow. 

Not quite home on the range, but these American Buffalo looked pretty comfy as well.

And then we came across this woman taking her hawk for a walk.

Moving through the zoo, we came across a number of indoor enclosures featuring the more exotic creatures.

Like these pink and red flamingos.

We went to the jungle house that housed a some terrariums and the great apes.

Gnou watches a chimp.

And was soon joined by a little friend.

There was an impressive number of silverback gorillas of various age.

But I noticed that the oldest male had a tendency to stick close to walls and huddle in the corners

The same was of the oldest male orangutan. He actually looked really sad as he stared back at Gnou :(

The younger ones seemed to play happily though.

Unlike the chimps, gorillas and orangutangs, the mandrills were surprisingly in the outside part of their enclosure. The dominant male mandrill had an impressively rainbowed-bum.

We left the great apes feeling somewhat depressed - I'm totally convinced that they're too intelligent to be caged up - but we watched some acrobatics from the gibbons and that cheered us up. 

Moving on, we decided to go look for more traditional zoo animals that would make us feel less sad at them being caged up. Unfortunately the elephants weren't out in the cold and the last lioness died not long ago :( 

Some giraffes - a mum and two babies!

There was another jungle house with lots of little birds and some ocelots behind glass. It was really humid inside and I was thankful that each enclosure had a defogger for glasses near the doors. 

Looking at the map, I saw there was an *Australia* section and feeling a bit homesick, I said we should push on there!

But you know, kangaroos aren't built for the snow and they were all lying inside their (kinda small) enclosed section.

There were two wallabies looking outside - I could totally hear their thoughts *WTF is this white stuff?!*

An emu was also hanging around under the underhang.

Nearby were some seals and other animals more suited to this environment

Like polar bears! This one was trying to get that plastic bin up a slope. He wasn't very good at it. 

And some penguins. 

But at the same time, it was so cold that these wildboars, are known to live in a snowy forest, were snoozing indoors. 

After this, we came to what actually turned out to be my favourite part of the zoo - the kid's section featuring domesticated animals!

This really cute goat was standing right by the fence and let me and Gnou pat his ears and nose. Since he was standing near the feedbox, I decided to buy some pellets to feed him. As soon as those pellets fell into the tray, the little bastard climbed the fence and stuck his head in! Smart guy!

Once the others realised he was eating, they came running and climbed the fence as well! But since his schnoz was stuck in there, there was no food for others. 

Well, this lucky guy got food since some other zoo visitor was smart enough to have spare bread on him

Shetland pony!

And a..er... room full of guinea pigs.

At this point, we realised we'd missed a few significant animals. We went to the bear enclosure and stupidly remembered while reading the sign that bears hibernate during the Winter. 

But we saw the Siberian Tiger. 

And a European lynx.

Fittingly enough, we finished up at the exhibit we came to see - Die Grossvoliere - a giant aviary. 

And then we went home to warm up by drinking the hazelnut vodka Gnou had brought me as a present. It tastes like nutella!

Salt and Pepper Squid!

A while ago I bought some frozen squid tubes because I wanted to throw it into a claypot. Also, squid keeps its texture quite well after freezing. The only problem is that it takes up a fair amount of space so I defrosted some during the day and contemplated how I could cook them. Somehow I settled on salt and pepper squid, one of my Chinese restaurant faves. Finding a recipe, I'm happy to report that it's pretty easy to make! 


I did modify it though - I used corn flour instead of plain flour, and because I didn't have five-spice powder, I threw in cumin (and hoped it would taste a bit like meat harmonicas). I also shallow-fried it rather than deep fry in 1L of oil. The shallow fry is slower but by scoring the squid, you can still tell when it's ready! And then with the small amount of leftover oil, I fried the coriander and spring onion garnish! I should have put chili in it though for an extra kick. 

More snow photos

For people who read this and who aren't on Stalkbook, it was sunny on the weekend so I decided to try and get some vitamin D. It's not often I look into the mirror and think *gee, you're pale!* but it has been done!

 Very uncomfortably making a snow angel.

 It was very uncomfortable because I wasn't wearing waterproof trousers and BY GOD! I could feel the cold through my jeans!

 Way back in July, I had purchased some tulip bulbs 

The fish fountain in Marienplatz was semi-frozen!

This archaeological/building site behind the Rathouse was completely frozen.

I walked from Marienplatz through the Hofgarten

Where I got to see the snowy lawns from many different angles

It was a bit of a tease actually. The cold was really winning the battle against the sun.

I then made my way to the Englischer Garten and watched the geese and ducks swim in the lake around the Japanisches Teehaus.

The lake was both impressively and disappointingly semi-frozen!

Some trees looking really snowy.

Continuing north, you can see how impressively snowy it was. It was also quite deep!

The hill up to the Monopteros was being used by some kids as a sledge run! At it's steepest, I'd estimate that it's about a 45 degree angle. 

I then climbed the Monopteros and got a nice view towards the city!
Climbing down was pretty hazardous though and I wished I had some cardboard and wasn't so chickenshit as to be able to slide down the hill. 

The Chinesischer Turm looking pretty. There was a gluhwein stall here and I decided to imbibe :D

While drinking I saw these poor horsies who were so cold they had to wear blankets!

I also saw this dog which had some natty dreads!

And then I headed west back towards Leopoldstr. 

And admired the gardens as the sun started to go down.