Ringing in the New Year in Davos

What's this?! A notorious snow-hater going to a ski resort for NYE? UNGLAUBLICH!!! But there I was, booking the tickets, buying the boots, and boarding the train to Davos (did you also know that I love alliteration a lot? kekeke). Amy had been an au pair for a family who lived there year-round and decided to visit them again since they'd kept in contact. 

The train ride from Munich takes approximate 5.5 hours (via Lindau/St. Margrethen, and Landquart), and passes through some pretty damn pretty landscape on it's way to the Swiss Alps. 

Davos has a permanent population of around 11,000 that apparently triples during the snow season and sends accommodation costs skyrocketing through the roof. Not for us though - we were staying here, in the apartment of Amy's former hosts. Suess!

The view from the backyard.

Yep, I can really see why this is a ski resort.

Djinger (ginger)- The only member of the family I managed to take a photo of!

Having last skiied nearly 10 years ago and knowing my injuries since then as well as the knowledge that I'd have to get up early and flying to Melbs in a fortnight, I decided that I was ultimately too chicken and too lazy to enroll for skiing classes again. Hey, breaking something is the last thing I'd want to do before a 20 hour flight to Aus! This didn't stop us from participating in the apres-ski partying though!

Our first night. You can probably tell that the partying crowd is very tall.

The strandkorben outside of our party place, the Bolgen Plaza

The Bolgen Plaza on NYE before it got really packed. Needless to say, there were no photos after this.

So....

despite having ample overtime, I decided it would be worth my while to go in to work. But of course, it counts for nothing since I've already applied to have it off. Ahhh, the glamorous life of a research scientist. At least someone else is here to know that I'm at work at all. 

Southern Hemisphere Christmas

Having had no plans to go anywhere this year, I teamed up with other orphaned Southern Hemispherians, Amy, Adela and Matt (okay, they were all kiwis), to make a Xmas roast lunch.  What originally started out as a roast chook with side salad and cake for dessert turned into a multi-course feast when Peter, Amy's flatmate who's training to be a chef, decided to chip in and made us an extra entree and did all the sides vegetables.

Peter and I hand-making mayonnaise to go with the salad. 

Amy carves the chicken - it turned out pretty damn good!

We even made stuffing...

...and gravy from the chicken juices.

The finished plate.

Our epic dessert - chocolate cups with ice cream, raspberry coulis, rum balls, crumbled tim tams, and my ginger cupcakes. 

We decided beforehand that presents would not be exchanged but Fabi told me he'd left a gift for me so I decided to open it at the party - a scratchie map of the world where you scratch off the places you've been! DAS IS PERFEKT!! 

New boots!

Amy and I have decided to visit Davos for our NYE celebrations - HOORAY! But the downside is Davos is a ski resort and it is guaranteed to be covered in snow. Thick snow. Specialist boot-requiring snow. People used to the amount of snow I would be facing looked at the boots I currently wear in the snow and basically said, "You are going to slip, fall, and die." That could only mean one thing - TIME TO GO SHOPPING!!!

But snowboots aren't exactly the cheapest of shoes, so I wasn't sure if I wanted to invest in a sooper-dooper pair if I was to never to go over 1100m again. However, having been created to be functional, snowboots are also not particularly chic - and if there's one thing I strive to be, even when it's -10C and blizzarding, it's being chic. Once everyone stopped laughing and telling me to go to Prada, Christine told me there was a sports outlet store, near the Ostbahnhof and perhaps I'd get lucky.

Well, I got lucky! 

Behold - my proper snowboots!

Okay, they're not *chic* in the standard sense, but a pair of hardcore Columbia snowboots reduced to €70? Sold! And paired with Garfield/Basketball, my bright orange North Face backpack, I look the right snow pro! But that's not all folks! We also headed over to Kaufring on the other side of Orleansplatz and I found these boots which were reduced 50% to €50 :D

As Amy said, "They're like giant, mutant uggs...that snow pattern is cute!"

Two pairs of snow-appropriate boots for €120? I'd call that a mighty successful day's shopping. 

Juggling time.

Christmas holidays have started early for me. "But Mallymoodle, it's so damn early!" I hear you say. And yes, it is earlier than I anticipated taking Xmas-NY holidays, especially since I will be returning to Melbs not once, but TWICE! in the space of 4 months. So how did this situation come about?

Long story short, for the first time ever in my life, and to the amazement of many other scientists (from Aus and Germs), I get OVERTIME (ueberstunden)! Due to the conditions of my contract, I am subject to Federal German labour laws meaning that I am limited in the number of hours and days I'm supposed to work. "Huh? But as a scientist, you work as much as you need to work!" And yes, that's true, which is how I racked up over 80 hours of overtime, despite taking a few days off to drink at Oktoberfest and leaving work early(ish) on Fridays. The catch is that the overtime is not paid and only 50 hours roll over into the next calendar year, leaving me more than 30 hours - or nearly one week of overtime to use or lose. 

Given the Xmas Eve, Xmas Day, and Boxing Day are holidays, that left 3 days (27,28, 31st) as working days...so I'd still have time to lose :O! But then someone pointed out that if I took 8 days leave, using 5 days as overtime, I've have 2.5 weeks of holiday :D  So now that I'm forced to take more time off, I am using the time for now to catch up on cleaning the apartment and sleeping and shopping. ;) Yes, times are sweet. 

Also, 3 weeks until I return to Melbs!!!

Fate

For Schrott-Wichteln (literally, junk fairies, but more closely related to Kris Kringle), I won this mini-Feuerzangenbowle set. 

As Pooey said, *Wow, that's like fate!*

But Nicki (my technician) wasn't happy about it - she wanted it and I won it off her on the very last roll of the dice! Muhahahah! I kinda feel as though my experiments won't work next year now...

Nuremburg Christkindlesmarkt

This past weekend, Riccardito, Noelia, Basti, some colleagues of Riccardito, and I went to Nuremburg (Nürnburg) to see what has been described as the most beautiful of Christmas Markets. It was also a good opportunity to visit the city as none of us had been there before. 

Pretty!

The main market is held at Hauptmarkt, in front of the Frauenkirche.

Cute little stalls selling all kinds of delicious foods and weird stuff.

The Nuremburg Schoener Brunner - pretty fountain!

In the markets, I ate a roll with Nürnburger Bratwursts (smaller than usual bratwurst), a roll with prawns, a elisenlebkuchen, 1/2 a crepe with nutella and strawberries, and a mug of glühwein. After all that, I was happy for us to take a walk around the town! Nuremburg has a fairly significant role in the history of Western Europe. We didn't make it to the Nazi Rally Grounds, but we did walk up to the castle, unofficial seat of the Holy Roman Empire.

And it really does look like a mediaeval castle!

I like to keep prisoners in this tower

Like Munich, Nuremburg was heavily bombed and about 90% destroyed, but was rebuilt to resemble the pre-war city as much as possible. 

St Sebaldus. We took from feuerzangenbowle here. It was awesome.

As the sun set and the lights came on, we then really started to see why the Market was considered so beautiful.

The Schoener Brunnen being even more schoen when lit up!

Noelia checks out some tree ornaments

Schoen!

But we all agreed - the prettiest section was actually the Kinder Weihnachtsmarkt, which had really cute decorations on top of the stalls and a number of antique rides for the kids.

 

Like this Riesenrad (Ferris Wheel)

And this absolutely gorgeous Carousel.

Seriously, that's beautiful (and wasted on kids).

The Nuremburg Christmas Markets run annually during advent, but a word of warning. While the train ride varies from a 1.5-2.5 hours direct from Munich, get to the train station early or you'll end up sitting in the aisle like we did. 

Feuerzangenbowle!

Many moons ago, Markus promised me that when Weihnachtszeit (Yuletide) came, he would prepare selbsgemacht (home-made) Feuerzangenbowle and invite me to come over and drink it. And that is the background as to how I ended up with Markus, his gf Silvi, movie chum Felix, and others ended up soaking a sugarloaf in rum over some gluehwein, lighting it on fire, and then drinking the delicious beverage.  

Markus loads up the sugar as Silvi looks on.

Mmmm, rum-soaked...

Lighting it up...

KABOOM

Whoops, much more impressive without flash!

And even more impressive when some burning sugar falls into the pot and LIGHTS THE POT ON FEUER!!!

I will say it - this deliciously caramelised booze-drink is one of the best things about the coldness of Winter. Even more so when had in great company. Prost! 

Werk

From this...


to this...pretty! Green for astrocytes, blue for nuclei ;)

It has been snowing like crazy here. This is the view out of the lab window. 

But I'm trying to be more positive about it - isn't it beautiful!?!?!

(People at work say I'm not very convincing :P)

Dundu

I met a friendly giant this past weekend - Dundu, a 5m tall marionette made of light globes was a visitor to the Tollwood Christmas market!

The two of us making friends. Check out the scale difference!

Off he goes!

Seriously, watching this walk around the grounds was amazingly bizarre and bizarrely amazing. 

New vocab!

During his visit, Alix and I also visited the Pink Christmas Christkindlmarkt in Glockenbachviertel. While looking at some of the stalls, we noticed lots of things in pink with the words *Tussi on Tour* written on them, and I had to explain that I didn't know the meaning of the word. We asked the shop guy and he said "a Tussi is a girl who is blonde and walks around with her nose in the air." Okay, so a snob.

But then oddly enough, the next day at Schokostunde, someone called Emma Watson, "die Harry Potter Tussi." And I was "hold on, that doesn't match what that guy told me yesterday...guys, what's a Tussi?" Everybody being happy to improve my Deutsch chipped in with examples such as "Daniela Katzenberger...no, that's not right...a girl who's like a footballer's wife...", while Markus being Markus said, "A Tussi...you know, like a typical Munich girl who wears fancy clothes and high heels and she goes out and laughs like *(high pitched) hahaha!* while drinking her prosecco und....oh Gott, I have to be careful what I say here!" So then I asked, "Am I a Tussi?" "No, you're too smart to be a Tussi! Tussi's are stupid girls!"

Thoroughly confused, I then looked it up in a bilingual dictionary and, lo and behold!, it was defined as a *bimbo*. So, I am now armed with a new word, and the knowledge that my colleagues consider most of the girls of Munich (and to a certain extent my own behaviour) to be be bimbos! 

Joyeux Noel mit Alix!

Guess who came to visit me?! Mon cousin! And how better to welcome him here in this season than to go on a walking tour through the Altstadt and visit some of the different Christkindlmaerkte to eat local food and drink hot mulled wine! We started off at Sendlinger Tor and ate some kaesekrainer and curry wurst, making our way up Sendlingerstr. to Rindermarkt where we had some schupnudeln, and then heading to Marienplatz where we had some gluehwein. Mmmmm, lecker. 

Eventually we made it to Wittelsbacherplatz for some Feurzangenbowle. 

Alix declared it his favourite!

During this time, Pooey was actually messaging me telling me things I had to make Alix eat, things that she loved to eat whenever she visits. 

And so here is Alix enjoying some dampfnudel mit kirsche!

He realy enjoyed the food, but not so much the weather. Despite coming from France, he declared that he'd never been so cold in his life as he'd been in Munich!

Continuing on the happy times...

Wow, today's zodiac is also pretty good!

I was strangely happier than usual while doing my mouse work this morning, and, and...THE SUN CAME OUT!!!  wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!1 :D