Yeah!

Spotted at Rosenheimerplatz S-bahn

Migrant crisis in Australia? Germany is predicted to accept up to 800,000 people in 2105. For some perspective, that's more than the population of Frankfurt.  

US Election Results

I can't believe I forgot to write about this! Needless to say, sharing an office with some pessimistic Germans discussing how we could all see Romney winning due to voter disillusionment was an issue, and I was ultimately, incredibly relieved to wake up on Wednesday morning last week and see on my BBC news app that Obama won the election. Phew. 

I'm also highly amused/bemused by all the American saying they want to move to Australia since the US is going to hell, especially this fool of a girl. So I'd just like to re-post this image...

and this mashup video of Obama doing MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This!

The First Annual Macaron Challenge

Laduree vs. Pierre Herme - the question of who makes the best macarons in Paris was an issue that needed to be decided. And I used the past tense because NOW it has been determined in a highly scientific manner! I will say that one of the explicit aims of our Paris trip was to determine who was the one we would recommend to others when they headed to Paris. And now, we can say for sure.

Firstly, we had to determine how we were going to test them. We decided the the most important thing in about macarons comes down to 3 aspects - they way they looked (admit it - this is a lot of their appeal), their texture, and their tasted. It was decided that we would try to do this by comparing the classical flavours - chocolate, rose, raspberry, lemon, and pistachio. PH threw a spanner into this when the boutique we visited didn't stock all of those flavours so we eventually picked ones that we hoped would be comparable. In the end it was:

Rose vs. Rose

Citron (lemon) vs. Pamplemousse (grapefruit)

Framboise (raspberry) vs. Cassis (blackcurrant)

Pistachio vs. Creme Brulee

Chocolat vs. Chocolat

It was simple. We had two macarons per flavour, which were carefully dissected into thirds. After eating, we would discuss and debate its merits and determine who received the point for each criterion.  

We got some cremant to wash away the flavour in between testing rounds. 

The lawyers said the scientists had to be the dissectors!

Sharing the segments

The rose looking mighty pretty. Tasted pretty too.

Gosh, look at the perfect appearance and solid texture of the cassis

Who's having a good time testing?!

The results of the Challenge were compelling. Firstly in terms of looks, PH was the runaway winner. While the Laduree shells had the nicer *feet* and bright colours, PH macarons had a lovely glossy and even apparance, and some flavours (notably the chocolate and creme brulee shells had decorative effects. For each individual flavour,

• Rose Battle - Laduree took the points for taste and texture, being a rich flavour bomb. PH's flavouring was more subtle and unfortunately blown away.
• Citrus Battle - The lemon had great tang but the grapefruit actually really tasted like a grapefruit, right down to the sour kick at the end. We were all actually amazed that they somehow managed to replicate that. Taste and texture to PH. 
• Berry Battle - Wow. Readers, if you can get your hands on the cassis, GET YOUR HANDS ON THE CASSIS! The raspberry was actually quite disappointing. One comment was that the ganache seemed like it was actually jam. 
• Nut/Cake Battle - The pistachio was solid, if somewhat unexciting. But upon being sliced into, the creme brulee let out such an amazing aroma and a great replication of the vanilla/custard-y flavour of an actual creme brulee!
• Chocolate Battle - Laduree was the clear winner here with a strong dark chocolate flavour that won us over PH's lighter one. 

And so PH basically blew away Laduree to win the competition but it was no so clear cut! The strength of PH's work is clearly their less orthodox flavours and the  ability to replicate those flavours. Laduree was the clear winner in the more traditional rose and chocolate, but I would say that it is possible that their lemon would have beaten a *lesser* PH flavour except that the grapefruit was so unexpected in actually being a grapefruit. Future visitors might want to take this into consideration when deciding where they should purchase their macarons in the future.

And so after a hard day's science, we sat back and congratulated the winners by eating a *bonus round* and finished the cremant...

...ending on a classy note. 

Dachau Konzentrationlager

On one of the last beautifully warm days of the year, I actually took a break from the Oktoberfest revelry to go to Dachau Concentration Camp (Konzentrationlager) for some perspective and quiet time. 


As much as life in Munich seems to be a never-ending stream of parties, beer, and good times, it's sobering to think that the city was a hotbed of extremist politics and Munich was a Nazi stronghold and where the party came to prominence. The town of Dachau is 16km or a 15 minute ride on the Munich s-bahn (S2). From there, the walk is approximately 30min or there is a bus to the camp itself. Because it was such a lovely day, I chose to walk. The way to the camp is marked with several signposts denoting significant places (e.g. where prisoners were made to make roads/buildings). The proximity of the camp to the town was a little startling, even accounting for changes in geography with time. 


Dachau was the first concentration camp, existing for the entire 12 years of Nazi power, and the model of how all subsequent camps worked.Unlike Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau was not an extermination camp (people sent there solely to be killed), although it too had a gas chamber and crematoria to dispose of the bodies. Instead, the camp tended to kill by starvation, abuse, withholding medical treatment, and overcrowding. Originally starting off for political prisoners, the camp was built two hold 6000 people, eventually holding at least 10 times that amount. In addition to holding people declared 'undesirable' by the regime (i.e. Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals), the camp also held a large number of clergy (mostly Polish Catholics) and Bavarian Royalty. Although most of the buildings have been demolished over time, two of the 'barracks' have been left standing with examples of how the conditions inside the camp changed over time to become more crowded and unsanitary. The camp was the second liberated by Western Allied Forces and the museum contains several photos and videos showing the atrocious condition of the camp and inmates, living and dead.  


On that note, one of the things that startled me about actually being in Dachau was the contrast between what happened there and the state of the camp now. As most the pictorial evidence from the time was in black and white, it was startling to emerge from the cold museum and barracks and see the gloriously warm day with the golden birch leaves against the deep blue sky. It's easy to think of everything that happened here occurring in gloomy grey conditions from the photos when the reality is the prisoners would have also experienced all the horror on similarly beautiful days. For some reason, this actually made me really sad. 


While I totally recommend that tourists come here, I would just like to say that I don't believe this is a place where one should act like a tourist. By this I mean I found it incredibly tasteless to walk around the space where atrocities occurred and see people posing with the Arbeit Macht Frei gate or taking photos of the plaque that denotes where POWs were shot. Hence the photoless entry.


Entrance to the camp, now a memorial, is free but I recommend getting the audiotour to guide you through the various buildings still standing and the survivor testimonies. 

Evil animals

Before I start my orgy of Bilbao-associated posts, I just want to post this (somewhat disturbing) video of baboons kidnapping feral puppies and raising them as part of the family. These dogs then become guard dogs for the baboon pack against other feral dogs. 

This is a really disturbing video - to see how the baboon acts and especially for people who would get distressed at watching the baboon drag the puppy away from it's mother and hearing the puppy whining and yelping. However, while I was watching this, I started feeling even more disturbed to realise this may have been how humans domesticated dogs :O!

Why no blog updates?

I realised last week when I had time to be at home (no German class last week), that I really REALLY hated my housemate and I was living in a state of avoiding going home early or thinking how much I hated her which obliterated most of my other thoughts/moods.


I'm not saying I'm a perfect housemate, in fact, I'm sure I do/did plenty of stuff to annoy her. But if you want to work it out, there's got to be talking and not just the leaving of passive-aggressive notes! Or try being polite when my friends visit. Or not leaving your (washed) laundry in the washing machine overnight. I'd write more but people who know this have told me it frustrates them as well. 


I can't believe I've lived here for only 3-4 months. Feels like an eternity. But in better news, I spent Sunday lying in the Englischer Garten. I wasn't naked, but it sure felt nice. 

Pet shop puppies

Like Pooey, I am somewhat torn between admiring the cuteness of puppies in petshops and the belief that they probably came from puppy farms.

Beagle x Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

Chocolate Labrador

Is it just me or do they look kinda bored and sad? I dunno :(
But for those who do think they look sad, go to http://www.closepuppyfactories.org and sign the petition to close puppy farms!

Hung Parliament?

So, the election is over and it appears we may have a Hung Parliament (also known as a Minority Parliament) because neither major parties managed to score the 76 seats required to gain control of the House of Reps. There have been jokes about whether it's going to hang to the left or the right. I just hope it manages to hang to the left because when I think about Tony Abbott going to a conference of international leaders, such as the G20 or APEC....*shudder*.

For more of these, go to TonyAbbottisRight.com

It appears many people were as uninspired as myself about both parties, except that while I submitted my ballot paper correctly filled in (below the line to make sure that preferences were directed to whom I wanted, not by the party), many others submitted informal votes. Whether this is because someone told everyone to vote informally on TV is currently being investigated.

Intellectual shame?

This might come as a surprise to some of you, but I'm generally considered moderately intelligent. Lately however there have been times when I have really thought to myself, *Wow, you're really not living up to your intellectual potential.* Here are some cases in point.

In 2004, I would have called myself pretty close to fluent in French. While in Paris on a study trip during the Great European Adventure 2004, I purchased myself a number of 19th century French Literature classics to read and keep it up. One of these books was Nana by Emile Zola. I started it, but in 2007 I ended up purchasing a study guide (also in French) because I just wasn't reading it. I didn't read the guide either. But for some reason while I was trawling Wikipedia, I ended up just reading their summary of the book instead. This lazy reading then continued for the rest of Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle.

(On the theme of books, the large majority of thosen I completed reading during the years of my PhD have been historical bodice rippers. A couple of years ago, Lydia invited me to a book club meeting where I delivered a defence of the romance genre and discussed its complexities in the face of overwhelming derision from the general reading public. She said everyone was impressed!)

We're currently in the latter stages of an election campaign. A campaign I've found largely uninspiring, mind you. Someone asked me whether I was watching a political discussion and my thoughts on it. I told them I was instead watching a political satire show. This was a bald-faced lie. I was instead watching a police drama show that when I tell some people that I watch it, look at me in amazement when I say it's highly entertaining!

When asked my opinions on what should be done to counteract pollution, the economic crisis, and global warming, my reply of "We need a new global pandemic - think about it!" was met with rounds of laughter. I was then asked what I really thought. When I repeated, "We need a global pandemic!" people were less pleased.

So yes. Should I be ashamed of my lack of opinion on the hard hitting questions and inability to complete works of literature? Perhaps its due to brainfry from research and alcohol abuse of the last four years. Or am I simply in the process of moving away from elitist intellectual thought and back into the popular fold? Either way, I'm going to get some KFC!

Totally looks like

The Federal Election is going to be on at the end of the month and it's been somewhat amusing and disheartening to see the various debates, policy releases and so forth. Anyway, because the incumbent PM is *gasp!* an unmarried woman with no children there has been a level of debate about how can she understand policy about family given that she doens't have one, why her (male) partner isn't by her side, blah blah blah. It also means that she's been featured on glossy women's magazines because if there's one thing the Debate taught us, it's that she's highly appealing to the female voter.

And the biggest female glossy in the country is the Australian Women's Weekly, and lo and behold, Julia's made the cover. Except...with the make up and hairstyle and photography and whatnot, she now looks like this:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard
(Source)

Which, to me, makes her look somewhat like this woman:

Older woman sexbomb Charlotte Rampling
(Source)

I suppose there are much worse people you could look like, especially when you don't particularly look like her. But I think we should all be thankful that Gillard chose not to do some of the more risque shots of Rampling's past!

As an aside, I re-watched Keating! The Musical on the weekend past and it made me nostalgic for politicans who took part in those old school verbal stoushes with much colourful invective. The blandness of the Federal Election Debate and the way they seem to have similar policies with different levels of spending reminds me of the Election episode of Futurama where John Jackson and Jack Johnson are the opposing candidates.