Eating Bavarian Food

One of the great puzzles of life is how I moved to Bavaria and somehow managed to drop a clothes size. Juliane told her parents and it was jointly decided that I needed to be fattened up. And so, I spent this past weekend in Juliane's home village and in Regensburg where she went to uni as an undergrad, smack bang in the Bavarian heartland. Basically I spent this past weekend sight-eating, with a bit of sight seeing :D

Pooey kept asking me to eat dampfnudel and Juliane said she knew exactly where I could get the best dampfnudel, Uli!

 Take a close look, it's the Original Bayerischer Dampfnudeln place!

And the walls were duly decorated with Bavarian things (photos of politicians, flags, fuβballspielers, proverbs...). The vaulting indicates that Uli is situated in what used to be the chapel for an old palace. 

I can't remember what this drink was called but it was an awesome combination of apple, pear, and I think redcurrant juice with mineral water. Hausschorle?

We ordered some Wurst mit Sauerkraut und Reiberkuchen. 

Which was then followed up by the Dampfnudel!

It was doughy, vanilla custardy goodness and led me and Juliane to institute the *Can't talk, eating* rule. 

Another place we visited but didn't get to eat in was the Historische Wurstkueche. As the name implies (and which Hero Thomas found absolutely hilarious), this place is a historical wurst kitchen.

The tiny and OLD building!

Oh look, the kitchen is historic and the staff dressed to match!

I'll come back to eat here when I return to Regensburg in the Summer :D. 

Im Deutschkurs

I had just over a month between when I decided to accept the job offer to when I actually arrived in Munich. During that time, I did attempt to learn the language and took 8 hours of lessons with the Goethe Institute with my awesome tutor, Carolin. Awesome as she was and hardcore as we went, 8 hours was surprisingly not enough to give me fluency :P. Anyway, after months of promises from my Institute that I could take lessons with the in-house course and finding myself imprisoned where the nurses couldn't speak English, I finally cracked the shits and enrolled at the Deutschakademie to finally learn how to communicate properly in the language of this country. 


And so now four days a week, after a whole day of work, I am spending three hours learning German with fellow non-German speaking Riccardo, Ivan, Pawan, Eleonora, Ruben, Jing, Dana, Eva und unsere Lehrerin Stephanie. It is really tiring but is it working? Keine Ahnung but I think my main problem is the lack of time to go over the Vokabular and learn the grammar rules because people at work are beginning to speak to me in German and I'm usually pretty good at guessing what they're saying even if I can't reply in Germs. Also, it's nice to spend time with people with different accents all asking how Germany could have acquired such a reputation for being logical when they're using a language that has three genders (funny, I thought only two existed!) and many exceptions to their many rules. 

Bleu de Chanel

Psycho Hot Gaspard Ulliel resurfaces!!!! 

I started seeing the posters for Bleu de Chanel sometime last year and thinking *Hey, that looks like Gaspard...ooh yeah!* but at the same time, the photoshopping kinda made him not look like himself?

 Then I saw the ad on TV and stopped caring!!!

(Image source)

Patri's going away - booooooooo

In my short time here, I feel I have already made some pretty good friends. One of these is Patri. As I once observed, we have the same taste in clothes, shoes, and men. In her words, "Why did it take you so long to get here!!!" Anyway, this weekend was also Patri's going away party at the same place we took Boodle, The Martini Club. 


Here are some pics of the night.

Patri had expressed her intention to go buy one of the catalogues from the exhibition for herself. We silently hoped she wouldn't do it before Sunday!

Tearing off the plastic...

and showing the large page she got in the catalogue!

We also got her some earrings which she's seriously working in this pic :D

The packed bar looking like something out of magazine - you meet a lot of people over the duration of a 4 year Phd!

I met this couple on the night and they're very nice but I can't remember their names. Anyway, I included this pic because of what Trung's doing in the background.

One of their legendary Chocolate Martinis.

Caro lays into a Melon Martini while Silke looks on

Johanna, Juliane, and Thomas

Me and Jennifer

With Silke, Anna, Sebastian, and Caro

And finally with the Goodbye Girl herself :(

I'm gonna try and visit, Patri! Whether it be Bilbao, Seattle, or Hawaii, I'll try to make it!

Art purchase

Another good thing about Gnoudesavane's visit is that he has opinions about things (many things) including art. Other than the Kunstreal, Maxvorstadt is filled with little antique stores and galleries and looking at the stuff in the windows and commenting on them put both of us in the mind to buy stuff.


We passed on the antique store selling Art Deco furniture and Gnoudesavanes resisted the Art Nouveau glassware due to price but eventually I saw something so fitting (and moderately cheap) that I had to purchase it!

OH YES INDEED!!!

Inspired by the Keep Calm And Carry On posters, I found this screen print on wood to be so me that it was duly purchased and given pride of place next to the flatscreen and Ikea Fruit Basket in my room!

Admiring my placement 

A visit from Gnoudesavanes

Native European Gnoudesavanes was happy to hear that I'd finally taken the great leap to move to Euroland, and he was even happier to hear that I wasn't moving to Paris. Mostly because as a Lyon native, he hates Paris. *cough* Anyway, armed with a list of things he wanted to see, he came to visit me this weekend. High on the list and with numerous repeats was *boire beaucoup de biere allemand* as well as *visiter le Hofbrauhaus* so the two were duly combined.

The Menu for The Hofbrauhaus am Platzl (Lowenbrau)

Enjoying his 1L stein with my Weissbier in the foreground.

We followed up lunch by walking around Platzl and then admired all the Porsches on Maximilianstr. 

We had a lot of fun in a specialist salt and spice shop down the street from the Hofbrauhaus. I'm sure we weren't supposed to taste the stuff but oh well! They sold Murray River Salt!!!

And on the topic of Australia....DAYLESFORD ORGANIC?!?!

It was a nice day so we walked all the way back to Marienplatz, got some Apfelstrudel from Wimmer and then later had some more Weissbier near the Staatsoper for afternoon tea. This time we had Franziskaner which I didn't photograph but it was pretty good. 


Gnoudesavanes made a number of observations during our trip around the city. Firstly, the city doesn't look the way he anticipated (Gothic), and that all the houses seems to look the same with the yellow, grey, pink colour scheme. Secondly, everywhere we walked (including my area of Maxvorstadt) seemed to be quite affluent and he asked where in Munich poor people lived. My reply, "They don't. I AM a poor citizen of Munich." And finally, he admires a city where it's perfectly acceptable to drink beer at breakfast, lunch, and in public at all hours of the day without condemnation. He's decided that would be worth moving here for.

Paper dress model.

One of the first things I did when I moved to Germany was, believe it or not, was agree to pose as a model for an artist. One of the girls in the lab had read about Elvira Rodriguez Puerto's call for models for her project - Singles on Tour Bachelor Party (Novias en Pergamino), in which she was going to dress 1010 women in wedding dresses made from paper. It seemed interesting and harmless enough - plus we'd get a copy of the photos she'd take of us! 

On a chilly and snowstorming Tuesday in December, Bettina and I went to Elvira's studio near the Ostbahnhof to be photographed. It was an experience. A before photo was taken of us and if I recall correctly, Elvira took a quick look at us and deciding how we were going to be *dressed*. We would then proceed to the photography room, strip down to our undies, and then Elvira and an assistant would garb us up. Other than a slight mishap where my paper dress would move to the side and my undies would show necessitating the construction of a paper miniskirt, I had a pretty good and easy time! 

Elvira finally had the grand opening of the exhibition this week and so we headed over to check it out!

Some of the pics

Some more pics

The opening was quite crowded!

With the artist, Elvira in her own paper dress!

Juliane with her photo

Patri with her action shot

Bettina (central photo) said she felt uncomfortable during the shoot because she was constantly worried that her headpiece would fall off. Can't tell that from the final pic!

And here I am with mine!

Is it art or just a crazy idea? I don't know. What I particularly liked was the different effects brought about by the use of paper and how it could be made to look so much like different fabrics. Personally I don't think art can be judged by its contemporaries unless it's something so outstanding you can't deny its genius. Would I do it again? Definitely - I going to get the catalogue to remember! Also, I can now add 'model' to my CV :P

Skeletons and schnitzels

I felt it was time to do a few more touristy things in the city and I discovered that the Palaeontologische Museum Muenchen was having a (free) first Sunday of the Month open day. It's no Natural History Museum but I was duly impressed by the various fossils and skeletons they had on display.

Mammoth skeleton. 

(I'm having problems with the picture uploading)

Ancient moose!

Triceratops skull!

Overview of the place.

It's a really cool building too.

Whitebait!

More fishies!

Chris, who'd agreed to be my companion for this nerdiness, had a massive hangover (this IS Bavaria) so we ended up walking over to Glockenbachviertel where a hankering for crumbed and fried goods duly satisfied  his desire for fatty stuff and my willingness to eat anything.

Butter-fried pork schnitzel.

We also got a side of fried camembert!

Mmmmmmm....

For the Paleontology Museum, go here (site is entirely in German)
I can't remember the name of the schnitzel place but I'll link it as soon as I do!

International Food Challenge.

A while ago, Pooey and I were discussing her dinner options in Radelaide. I made the comment that every country I'd ever had McDonalds in (Aus, UK, France, Italy, Germany, US) has tasted always the same. This then brought up the question - does KFC also taste the same? Pooey confirmed that while the chicken tasted the same in the UK, the lack of chicken salt made their chips substandard. She then set me a challenge - find out if KFC is the same in Germany as it is in Aus!


We then investigated where I could get KFC in Munich. Apparently KFC has only been in Munich since 2005 and there are only 3 outlets?!? I decided that the most convenient one I should visit would be the Bayerstr. location, between the Hauptbahnhof and Stachus. I happened to be in the vicinity of Stachus today so I decided to drop in and get some Wicked Wings (aka Hot Wings here).

Never received my wings in a bag before. 

Also, the minimum number of wings I could buy a time was 6. Lucky I was hungry.

  

One of the things I like about KFC is that depending on what you order, the pieces are actually identifiable as chicken (no comment the hormone stories). Yep, looks like a wing to me! 

On first bite, I was mildly disappointed. While it was fried and it was chicken, it didn't taste particularly hot. I then thought to myself, *well wicked wings in Australia don't really taste hot either.* And so, my disappointment dissipated as I enjoyed the crispy deep fried batter with the occasional pseudo chili tang. 

Unnatural movement

At 11am, I got the call from Christine (well to be honest, it was actually an SMS) - "Hey Mallymoodle, do you want to go ice-skating today?" Being curious and foolhardy (hi Arthur!) the answer was of course, "Sure why not?" I took Tram 27 to Petuelring and then walked over to the Olympiapark and the Eissportzentrum. 


It was such a nice (albeit cool) day that I took some photos.

I'm not the only person strolling!

So peaceful looking with the trees and lake.

Looking towards the Olympiaturm. I might have to be a tourist and go up it one day.

Inside the Eissportzentrum, I rented a pair of skates, met up with Christine and got on with it while trying not to remember stories of people who had fallen on the ice and died or had near death experiences. 

Skates on!



Other people doing their thing.

Christina was ready to teach me how to skate...

and then later palmed off to her husband, whose hand in a deathgrip as he advised me on technique.

Oh look, I'm skating!!! 

Well not the most comfortable hour and half I'd ever spent, I managed to fall only twice! Once when my skate hit a hole in the ice and the second not long after the first fall, probably because I was forcing myself too much. I'm not sure if this falls within Sport of the Year category but it was definitely something I'd never EVER done before and I will probably try again this year to master!

Shopping. Or not.

Today I'm going to talk about shopping in Munich. 


For the most part, shops are closed on Sundays in Muenchen. As you can imagine, I was pretty shocked to discover this fact. When I asked people about it, I was told, "It's the law." My reply? "Yeah, it was the law in Australia as well. AND WE CHANGED IT!!!" Turns out Germany is a pretty religious country and Bavaria/Munich in particular is the real Catholic Heartland of the nation. The current pope (Benedict XVI aka Joseph Ratzinger) is Bavarian after all. At first, I was DAMN PISSED OFF!!! What was I going to do on Sundays in Munich? Other than work or go do touristy things? 


But you know what? It turns out it was a blessing in disguise! Considering the (significant) pay cut I took by agreeing to come here - no thanks to those hefty German taxes - while I'm not exactly saving a lot of money, I'm sure not spending as much as I probably could. Because I only have Saturday to buy my groceries, I can't spend time in Zara or H&M doing some impulse buying. Throw in the fact that stores that I am known to frequent and walk out with something I didn't really need (e.g. Primmy in London or NineWest Melbourne) aren't in Munchen, while I'm not exactly breaking new fashion ground, I'm staying moderately financially secure. 


We'll see how long this goes for. If I keep losing weight at the current rate (discovered I'd dropped a size when I got to London) I'll need new clothes if the warmer months ever arrive! 

Settling in

So I'm developing a sort of life routine now that most of the excitement has died down and I've acquired most of the things to live a life (of sorts) in this city.   


Apartment in the city rather than in the sticks - check!
Housemate with whom there is a slighly difficult relationship - check (dammit)
TV - check!
Working computer - check!
Shoes - check!
Place to put my shoes - check!
Cheap supermarket nearby - check!
More expensive supermarket where I can get brands that I know - check!
Knowledge of the location of Asian grocery stores - check!
Bakeware - check!
Baked goods made for co-workers - check! 


Now as far as I see it, all I need to be able to live nicely in this city (other than a larger income) would be some friends outside of work and knowledge of where to party. 


Oh, and knowing how to speak German.