Scheiß Vuvuzela

There are a lot of things I’ll never completely understand about Germany, like how the honour system miraculously manages to operate everywhere without anyone going bankrupt, why everyone drinks bottled water when the tap water comes from the Alps, and the utterly ineffectual pillows that deflate completely when you rest your head on them. And don’t even get me started again on the poo shelf toilets.

And yet there are two things Australia and Germany very definitely have in common. The first is our general aversion to showy patriotism. (Even after almost four years in America, I couldn’t completely get used to all the rah-rah.) The second is that as soon as an international sporting contest comes along, we somehow manage to overcome that awkwardness and turn into a bunch of obnoxiously parochial chanting maniacs. Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi oi oi!

When I watched the Germany-England game on Sunday at Backstage in Munich, only about 10 or 15% of the crowd stood up when the national anthem was played. Some folks used the chance to go get another beer. But once the game got underway, people were on their feet for every shot at goal.

In America, I don’t get the feeling that people really care much about international sports. Most people I know get much more excited about the Superbowl than the Olympics. Here was the headline in the New York Post after Team USA was knocked out of the World Cup by Ghana (tongue-in-cheek of course):

In Australia, people love getting behind their national teams, but the adoration is splintered between too many sports – cricket, rugby, tennis, soccer. The only thing I’ve seen that can compare to the German public’s undivided devotion to World Cup soccer is India’s love of cricket.

If you own a pub or restaurant in Munich, it seems like financial suicide not to put up a big TV screen for your patrons during the World Cup. The week before the tournament, every joint in town suddenly sported flags from every continent and signs proudly announcing in bizarre Denglish “Alle Spiele Live!” My daily bike commute takes me along Leopoldstrasse, a major shopping street lined with dozens of cafés and restaurants. These days if I head home while a game is going on, I can ride my bike past the countless TV screens and not miss a moment of the game until the cafés peter out into office buildings.

If there’s a game on during business hours, I’m covered at work, too. One of my colleagues found a way to route the live broadcast through his computer to project onto one of our conference room walls. Since our office is pretty multicultural, you’ll find a decent crowd of people in the conference room taking advantage of each company-sponsored broadcast, which also includes free food and drinks.

Only one of Germany’s pool matches ended up being scheduled during work hours – the ill-fated game against Serbia. As the clock edged towards kick-off time, the office became a desert – almost every employee was packed into the conference room, which was gradually attaining the temperature of a moderate oven. Once the game got underway, we would hear the occasional roar from the conference room as die Mannschaft took another unsuccessful shot at goal.

When Klose, one of Germany’s star players, was red carded, I decided to go brave the furnace of the conference room for a few minutes and see the reaction of my German colleagues. By the time I got there, Serbia had already taken advantage of their extra man on the pitch and scored the only goal of the match. The atmosphere in the room took on a gloomy intensity as everyone willed their downsized team on against the odds. If you ever want to hear fifty people exclaim “Scheisse!!” at the same time, go watch a game when the German team is one star down.

Happily, that game has been the only blot on Germany’s record so far. They redeemed themselves against Ghana and made it to the final knockout stage of the tournament. I watched that game in a back building of the university with hundreds of cheering students. The next match they sent England home.

After both games, we headed to Leopoldstrasse, which I was assured is the place to be in Munich after a big German victory. On the train ride over, you get a taste of what’s to come.

I heard this “Humba Humba Humba” song so many times that I couldn’t get it out of my head for days. None of the words even made any sense to me. But overall, I was fairly pleased with how much drunken communal German cheering I was able to decipher. There were at least three or four cheers sung to the tune of Yellow Submarine. For example “Schade, England, Alles ist vorbei” (“Too bad, England, it’s all over”).

My personal favourite cheer was a very simple one, sung to the tune of Guantanamera. Even if you’re not German, you’ll relate to this one: the words were “Scheiß Vuvuzela” (shitty vuvuzela…)

Finally, after the crazy subway ride (at one point during which the driver couldn’t start the train until everyone stopped jumping), we spilled out onto street level with the rest of the happy, whooping crowd.

It was an utterly crazy scene. At any other time, Leopoldstrasse is one of Munich’s most handsome boulevards, lined with tall, slender trees, and filled with the orderly shuffle of traffic, shoppers, cyclists and diners. But when Germany wins a game, Leopoldstrasse becomes Leopodolskistrasse. As far as the eye can see, revellers in black, red and gold crowd the asphalt, yelling and cheering, blowing horns and beating drums.

The police were there to keep things under control, but couldn’t help getting into the spirit either.

On and on the crowds danced in the streets, “Humba Humba Humba”, over and over, and over, and over, till darkness started to fall. All with the kind of sustained and genuine enjoyment that can only be mustered by the truly, madly, deeply intoxicated.

Auf geht’s Deutschland. Onward to meet Argentina. Should be a cracker.

The fuss about Fußball

Attention aspiring world conquistadors: this coming Saturday might be your best chance for a while to take over Europe’s biggest country. Trust me: if you do it during the football, NO-ONE IS GOING TO NOTICE.

Well, there might be some people in Germany who won’t be watching Die Mannschaft play their next round of the World Cup. Maybe a handful of American expats or something. But I’m pretty sure you could buy their cooperation by bringing some decent Mexican food with you.

The World Cup is serious business here. People won’t ask you whether you’re watching the Germany game: they’ll ask you where you’re watching it. That you’ll tune in is a foregone conclusion.

It’s fun to live in a country where the World Cup matters this much. Soccer definitely ranks behind other sports in popularity in both Australia and the US. I’m not an avid fan of the sport, but I never minded watching the odd game. And growing up I would always follow the big World Cup matches with my dad. I still remember having to tell my Year 4 teacher that I was late to class because Brazil and Italy were contesting a nerve-wracking penalty shootout in the ‘94 World Cup final and my dad refused to get off the couch.

But y’know, it’s not something I actively hang out for every four years. So it was only when I saw this modified Airwaves packet in the grocery store that I realised the Weltmeisterschaft was right around the corner:

‘54, ‘74 and ‘90 are the years that Germany has previously won the World Cup. Oh, and did you notice?

1990 + 1974 – 1954 = 2010

But then again,

54 x 74 – 1990 = 2006,

and that didn’t pan out. But this year’s numerological sign is way less convoluted, so maybe that will take Germany from the semi finals to the cup.

I wanted to be all local and get into the German fußball spirit ‘n all. But I couldn’t do that, because Germany’s very first opponent was Australia. And although my accent might have been very nearly obliterated by four years in the States (*sob*), my sporting loyalties are still very much intact.

A colleague of mine won a radio competition to have a big screen set up in his backyard for Germany’s first game, so he and his roommates invited a big crowd over for a barbecue. Here are the radio dudes setting up the big-ass inflatable screen:

My colleague is Australian, but he lives with half a dozen Germans, and the ratio at this shindig was about the same. I walked through a gap in the hedge into Jarrod’s backyard wearing a bright yellow t-shirt and a green and gold lei wrapped around my head, and found myself face to face with about eight German girls with black, red and gold stripes on their faces. “Servus!” I squeaked, grinning frantically, and ran off to find familiar faces. Once I’d eventually established there were more than two Australian supporters there, I worked up enough bravado to put a temporary Australian flag tattoo on my face.

The lead-up to the game was full of friendly banter and gentle jibes about one another’s countries. “You’re Australian?” said several people I met. I answered in the affirmative and they looked sympathetic. “Good luck.”

Us Aussies spent a couple of hours trying to convince everyone we didn’t need any luck, thanks! And then finally, everyone sat down under the radio station-provided tents to watch the match. It was freezing cold and pouring with rain, and it wasn’t much drier under the marquees. The whistle blew, and the Socceroos and die Mannschaft started to play. My colleague Andrew, probably the Aussie who’d shown the most bravado before the game, turned to me. “Just between you and me,” he said, “I think it’s all downhill from here.”

He was right. The poor old Socceroos got schooled, and the Germans around us started making way too many jokes about convicts and Vegemite.  The giant inflatable boxing kangaroo that Andrew had placed under the big screen before the game was lying in a hedge somewhere. He was probably sobbing and sucking his thumb.

In the end, Australia lost 0-4 – practically a cricket score. The only team that got drubbed worse in the group stages was North Korea. That is pretty freaking embarrassing. Every German person I’ve met in the last two weeks, upon finding out that I’m Australian, has asked me “So did you watch the Australia-Germany game?” and given me this infuriating smile. Gah!

To be fair, Germany is historically the second-best World Cup team on the planet after Brazil. It’s a tough ask.  The Socceroos did manage to redeem themselves later in the tournament against Ghana and Serbia, but in the end it wasn’t enough to get to the knockout rounds. The upside of that was that I now get to be a wholehearted Germany supporter in Germany. And boy, that’s been exciting. More in my next!

Carnival comes to town

One thing I’ve been amazed by in Germany is how good the locals are at making their cold, bleak, snowy winter months bearable, even fun. From the magic of the Christmas markets, to the playful romp of the Perchten, to the little wooden shacks selling hot chestnuts on the street corners of Munich, there’s really a unique charm to winter here that I’ve never experienced anywhere else I’ve lived.

Mid-February marks the start of Lent in the Christian calendar, and while I can scarcely imagine the merry folk of Munich giving up meat and beer for four weeks, the festival of Fasching that precedes Lent seems much more up their alley. I’d never heard the term “Fasching” before (it’s only called that in southern Germany and Austria), but I had heard of the famous Carnivals in Cologne and Rio, and the Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans. I had just never made the connection that they were all regional variations on the same thing.

Everyone told me that if I wanted to do Fasching right, I should go to Cologne, which sees an Oktoberfest-like influx of party animals every year for its Carnival. But I found out about it too late, and the few train tickets and accommodations remaining had already become prohibitively expensive. So it was Munich and Fasching – not  Cologne and Carnival – for me. Luckily, I have no point of comparison, so despite the fact that it didn’t turn the city completely upside down, it was still a nice week-long diversion for me!

Fasching actually has its roots in pre-Christian traditions, but from what I can see, these days it’s mainly a big excuse for a party. You leave the office around lunchtime on Faschingsdienstag (Fasching Tuesday), change into a quirky costume (if you weren’t already wearing it at work – one of my colleagues turned up in full storm trooper regalia), and head out to have the kind of good time that results in distinctly suboptimal productivity at work the following day.

The festival kicked off on the first Sunday of February with a parade through the streets of the city. I’m sure it didn’t measure up to Köln’s parade, but what the procession lacked in size it certainly made up for it in colour and music.

The participants of the parade seemed to come from all walks of life, from retirees to schoolkids, hipsters to immigrants. For that hour or so, the dull, off-white sky didn’t seem so oppressive somehow.

Handfuls of confetti and candy emanated from each float as the procession made its way down Brienner Strasse, chased by throngs of excited children trailing sagging bags of loot. At one point, I was almost knocked senseless by a full packet of Liebnitz arrowroot biscuits, thrown with abandon by a guy in a Viking helmet, drinking beer at the helm of a wheeled wooden ship. Good times.

In the days leading up to the parade, I noticed that all the local bakeries were starting to stock up on different kinds of krapfen, or cream-filled donuts. As always, there is a story behind this tradition.

In pre-Christian times, at this time of the year each town would crown one of its men as “king” for the year. In order to randomly choose the king, the town baker would bake a single coin into one of a big batch of krapfen. When the donuts were distributed, whoever got the one with the coin would become king for the week. I suppose it mustn’t have been as good a gig as it sounds, or someone would have volunteered. I assume there’s some kind of government regulation against baking metal objects into food these days, but donuts are still king during Fasching.

(Btw, “krapfen” is a southern word too. In the rest of Germany, they are called Berliners. As in “ich bin ein Berliner”.)

Being a health-conscious gal, I can very rarely actually bring myself to buy and eat a donut. They are so deeply out of the question that they don’t even register on my radar when I scan the wares at a bakery – kind of like the choc-chip pancake-wrapped sausages in the freezer aisle at American supermarkets. But in recent weeks, there were some really eye-catching krapfen displays in bakery windows across Munich – piña colada, Vienna almond, Jäger tea, apple, cointreau and more.

After walking past this amazingness day after day, I was, unsurprisingly, starting to crave for donuts for the first time in years. Happily, the weekend before Faschingsdienstag, my marathon training schedule called for running my longest distance ever – 23km. I couldn’t think of a more guilt-free, seasonally appropriate way to break my donut drought.

So off I went on my run, a one way slog from my apartment at Universität to the suburb of Unterschleissheim in the north of Munich. I took the train back, and stopped in by my local bakery on the way home. Still sweaty in my running gear, I ordered the sugary treat I had admired in the window for the last fortnight – the Kinder-Krapfen (kids’ donut), schmeared with tan-coloured icing and dotted with Gummi bears and Smarties. Mmmmm. Mmmmmmmm.

My poor krapfen never even had a chance to be photographed for posterity. It was so delicious, that before I knew it I was licking the crumbs off my fingers. Light and fluffy, it almost melted in my mouth, and the chocolate-cinnamon cream inside made me a happy, contented woman. And, well, I’m a sucker for anything that involves Gummi bears. I’d forgotten how amazing a really good donut can taste.

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And the Faschingsparty I was invited to in my last post? Well, I had actually decided not to go – I was really tired from the run, and had to wake up at 6 the next morning for a full day of skiing. I’m not good in large groups of strangers at the best of times, and at this point my energy was ebbing fast. But since my neighbours had been nice enough to invite me, I decided to at least go and make my excuses in person.

So I went downstairs and rang the bell. The door was answered by a random dude in a clown costume. “Ist Vroni da?” I enquired, asking after the one person at the party whom I’d ever met in my life. The clown craned his neck to look behind him and caught the attention of Veronika, who excitedly flounced over in her black-and-teal flapper outfit, and started chattering to me in rapid German. “Oh! Hi! Hi! You came! Come in! Have a drink!”

“Well, actually, I’m really tired, and I have to –”

“Ach, alcohol makes everything better! You’ll stop being tired after a couple. Come on!”

And she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the room. Seconds later, she thrust a plastic cup of spiked orange juice into my hand. Everyone was in wacky costumes – Hercule Poirot, Charlie Chaplin, hippies. My favourite was a girl dressed up as cartoon onomatopoeia – on her front and back she was wearing giant jagged cardboard speech bubbles saying “BANG!” Awesome. It was kind of like Halloween, except none of the guys were dressed scary, and none of the girls were dressed naughty.

In the end I landed up staying for three hours and having lots of fun – possibly due to the liquid courage of my new favourite mixed drink, Amaretto and OJ. Thanks, Fasching!

Where the wild things are

Bavaria is known today for being the most traditional, devoutly Catholic corner of Germany. (We even get a public holiday for Epiphany and Corpus Christi. Score!) But before a single steeple towered over Germany, the villagers of the Bavarian Alps worshipped at the altar of nature – exalting the spirits of the mountains, the forests, and the elements.

These days, very few of the old pre-Christian traditions remain. Many of the important days on the Pagan calendar were adapted by the Catholic church into officially-sanctioned holidays (for example, Christmas replaced the Roman festival of Saturnalia). What couldn’t be Christianised was, in some cases, banned. But the isolation of the alpine villages allowed some of the ancient traditions to continue intact.

In those long-gone times, it was believed that the coming of winter brought not only cold weather and the deadening of the soil, but treacherous spirits of all kinds. Keeping these spirits at bay was the goddess Frau Perchta, accompanied by her entourage of helpers, some beautiful, some grotesque, known as the Perchten. Perchta was also said to know if children had been good or bad during the past year, and reward or punish them accordingly (sound familiar?).

Out of these beliefs came the tradition of the Perchtenlauf (Perchten run). On several sacred nights each winter, the men of the village would dress up in the fantastical guise of Perchten, and run through town expelling the evil spirits from their midst with lots of noise and mischief. Of course, each pocket of the Alps has its variations on the stories and traditions, but you get the basic idea. Gangs of dudes running through the streets, basking in the anonymity of frightening ten-kilogram masks. Much mayhem ensues.

With the resurgence of interest in Indo-Germanic culture, the Perchtenlauf has been dragged out of obscurity, and is now celebrated with renewed gusto across southern Germany and Austria. It’s even reached as far north as the outskirts of Munich. When a colleague of mine told me the Perchtenlauf was his most favourite Bavarian tradition, I had to go and check it out for myself.

In the 10,000-strong town of Kirchseeon, just outside Munich, a small but devoted group of neo-Pagan enthusiasts has been reviving the tradition of Perchtenlauf each winter for the last fifty years. Kirchseeon is only a half-hour drive from town on the autobahn, but it feels like a different world – rural and quaint. Its modest town centre is by the railway station, and narrow one-lane dirt roads link the main street to the tiny satellite communities of Riedering, Ilching and Buch, each literally only three or four blocks in diameter.

My friends Radhika and CM came with me on this adventure. We parked the car by the main street and walked through snow-steeped fields to the outskirts of Riedering, where a small crowd was gathering. There were a lot of kids there, and as the time for the Perchtenlauf approached, they were practically bursting with excitement.

After a few minutes, we started to hear rousing drumbeats in the distance. As everyone craned their necks to look out over the fields, a motley crew approached…

Hairy, wild-eyed monsters, horned devils, and savage-looking wolves made up the parade, accompanied by a marching band of drummers and cowbell players with oversized cartoon heads. It was really quite a sight!

The Perchten galumphed noisily into the village with the stream of spectators in tow. One long-snouted beast hung back with the crowd, accepting donations of coins and notes in his rather vicious-looking maw. 

The Perchten stopped at various points in the village to perform a strange ritual. They would form a pentacle with their staffs, and dance around this in a circle while singing exhortations to the spirits. I couldn’t follow the songs very well, but I did hear the word “raus” a lot, which means “get out” – so my hypothesis is that they were telling those pesky evil spirits of winter where to go.

The dances were accompanied by the musicians I mentioned earlier. Now when I said cowbell players, they weren’t each just ringing the crap out of a single cowbell like you would hear at the last mile of a fun run. No, these guys were playing what I can only describe as a xylophone made of bells. It sounded tuneful, and yet ancient and primitive at the same time. It reminded me of gamelan music.

It wasn’t all just a quaint rustic alpine song-and-dance though. The Perchten were having a field day fulfilling their secondary function of causing mayhem wherever they went. They tiptoed (if you can imagine a 6 foot 5 monster with tusks tiptoeing) behind old ladies and yelled loudly, scaring them out of their wits.

One creature stole a little boy’s hat and balanced it on one of his horns for the duration of an entire dance. For the first few seconds, the boy looked proud that his hat was the centre of attention in the dance. Then he started to get worried that he wasn’t going to get it back. His trembling lips were on the verge of emitting a wail, when the monster returned to deposit the hat on the boy’s head, gave his nose a playful tug, and then cantered back to join his fellow Perchten.

At one point, the procession passed by a small hill covered in fresh snow. One of the Perchten saw his chance, and ran up the hill overlooking the path. From this vantage point, he began to make snowballs and rain them down on the passing crowd. The children squealed with delight and began to make their own snowballs, giving as good as they got from the monsters three times their size.

And one Perchten simply went over to his wife/girlfriend and hugged her tightly, fangs and horns and all. The woman looked pleased, but still rather bewildered – kind of the same expression she would have had if her husband were roaring drunk, as opposed to dressed as a giant monster.

We got done with the first village of Riedering. The procession headed out into the fields to the next village. By this point, the Perchten and the civilians were completely mixed together on the little dirt road. A very hairy werewolf fell into step with me and put his arm jovially around my shoulder with a muffled “Grüss Gott”. (When I read that sentence over in isolation, it sounds so bizarre.) I turned to smile up at him, giving him the perfect opening to reach down and pull my winter hat over my face. Doh!

Darkness was quickly falling. The Perchten lit fiery torches and carried them during their dances, lending the scene a touch of drama.

As the action headed to the third village, we headed back to our car so we wouldn’t be wandering about the fields of rural Bavaria in pitch darkness. (In hindsight, that might have been fun. But it was so bloody cold.) We got there without being abducted by any evil spirits, so I guess the Perchten did their job!

Guten Rutsch!

I am standing on the rubble of buildings destroyed in Allied air raids. The sky glimmers fretfully with blinding flashes of light. My ears ring with loud explosions, punctuated by human cries and the yelps of traumatised geese. All I can smell is smoke.

Nope, I didn’t find a time machine to transport me back to wartime Germany. The scene I’m describing is the last night of 2009 in Munich.

New Year’s Eve, or Silvester as it’s called in Germany, is in many ways a pretty standard affair here. Everyone buggers off from work early; the streets are full of stumbling drunk people; and all the cellular networks jam up as the clock strikes twelve.

Now, I grew up in Sydney – the first really big city in the world to enter each new year. NYE is basically the one time a year that Sydney makes it onto global news bulletins, so we like to do it up big over there. Every year 5 tonnes and several million dollars worth of fireworks are blown up over Sydney Harbour – literally our fifteen minutes of fame. It’s unfailingly spectacular – the premier pyrotechnic display on the planet. You have to go camp out along the harbour at 1 o’clock in the afternoon if you want to beat the other 2 million spectators to the prime viewing spots.

So I’m not too easily impressed by fireworks. Once I moved to Seattle, I became pretty meh about the whole new year thing. Not much to write home about compared to my home town.

So why was my Silvester in Munich blog-worthy? Because in Germany, you get to light your OWN fireworks.

A lot of people have an impression of me as rather a sensible young lady, but I do also have my pyromaniacal side. When I went to a department store on the 30th of December and found the ground floor full of explosives for perfectly legitimate sale, the way forward was obvious.



With several score Euro worth of fireworks in hand, my parents and I made our way to Olympiapark, the site of the 1972 summer games. As well as housing the main stadium and several other event venues, the park is home to a giant grassy mound built over the rubble of buildings destroyed during World War Two. This hill, named Olympiaberg, is one of the highest points in Munich, which is otherwise pretty much as flat as a pancake. On a clear day the views from Olympiaberg are wonderful.



Olympiapark’s normally a pretty quiet place. I go running there a lot, because as I mentioned, it’s one of the only places in the city where I can get some hills into my training. It’s mostly joggers and dog walkers and kids on the swings. But on the 31st of December, Olympiapark is a magnet for all of Munich’s pyromaniacs.

Now, Germans have a reputation for being rather a stolid, orderly, rule-following people. And on the whole it seems fairly true. Until now I’d only noticed two major outlets for German non-conformism: they drive like maniacs on the highway, and they like to walk around and play volleyball in the nude. I have now discovered a third situation in which Germans like to go a little bit crazy: the situation in which they are in possession of legal explosives.

As early as 3pm, people were already letting off rockets in the streets. And I mean on major thoroughfares, off apartment balconies, in high density areas. I want to know how many buildings have caught fire from a rocket accidentally going through someone’s window. By 10pm, we were hearing several loud bangs every minute. And by the time we emerged from the U-Bahn station at Olympiapark, the scene I described in my first paragraph was well underway.



As we walked through the park, I almost jumped out of my skin several times as loud explosions erupted only a few feet away. Every square metre of non-flammable surface (ie. footpath) was colonised by groups of grinning revellers lighting fuses on products with names like “Dance of the Vampire”, “The Hell Fountain”, “Firefly” and “Moonshot”. The buffer zone between civilians and pyros was non-existent. Only about 30% of the people I saw lighting fireworks seemed entirely sober. We staked out a piece of territory by the lake and started our own fireworks show.

As expected, it was a LOT of fun. There was one scary moment where my rocket shot off on a sideways trajectory instead of straight upwards, but luckily it went across the lake and landed harmlessly on some wet grass on the other side. I was enjoying myself so much that by 11:45 we had already consumed our entire stock of fireworks.

But that was okay, because by this time you could see that other people’s pyrotechnics were building to a peak. As the clock ticked closer and closer to midnight, the seasoned pyrotechnicians were pulling out their big guns (literally). By 12am, the sky was absolutely chockers with fireworks and the sound was deafening. It didn’t have the professional coordination of the Sydney display, but the combined effect of thousands of Münchners’ fireworks was an equally stupendous sight. With our own bag of tricks empty, we could just sit back happily and watch the show.

Apart from being a whole bag of fun, the city of Munich's stance of outsourcing the NYE fireworks to the public is a pretty astute one, I have to say. Not only does it avoid shelling out millions of government Euro to put on a coordinated display, but it must also be a nice bump to the retail economy to start the year. Not to mention that it probably isn't worth Munich's while to try and compete with the globally televised pyrotechnic extravaganza up in Berlin.

I’ll never forget this New Year’s Eve. Open source fireworks FTW!

Other miscellaneous Silvester observations:

• The German phrase for “happy new year” is interesting. It’s “guten Rutsch” (or more fully, “einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr”), which means “have a good slide into the new year!”
• As if you needed any further proof how strong the drinking culture is in Bavaria, Munich has to be the only city I’ve ever seen whose official site has a page of tips on avoiding and treating New Year’s Day hangovers. Btw the German word for hangover is also fun – it’s “kater”, or “tom cat”!

To market, to market!

Comrades:
A new front has opened up in the battle between German food and my desire not to be the size of a bus. Advent is here, and that means across Munich, and across Germany, the Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets) are open for business.

The winding streets of Munich’s old town have been transformed into a maze of wooden huts fringed with pine branches and fairy lights. Hundreds of people crowd the markets night and day, inspecting the wares and warming up with the occasional glühwein (hot spiced wine) or sausage sandwich. When the city’s had a dusting of snow and night falls, it starts to look a lot like something out of a fairy tale.



Every market has a slightly different twist. The Christkindlmarkt in Munich’s main square, Marienplatz, is the most traditional one. It’s a one-stop shop for all your Yuletide needs, from tree decorations to candles to children’s toys.



I particularly loved this wooden figurine I found in the Christkindlmarkt. Clearly, his moustache is stupendous. But what tickles me the most is the fact that you actually see old Opas on the Munich subway with moustaches like this. Along with Indians, Bavarians are the only people I’ve seen who know how to grow a serious moustache. Everybody else is just flirting with the concept.



Just a stone’s throw from Marienplatz along one of the Altstadt’s cobblestone streets, you will find the Kripperlmarkt, or nativity market. Here you will find everything you need to bring Baby Cheeses into your own home. At each stall, shepherds, magi, angels, ducks and sheep of all sizes and attitudes are standing to attention alongside miniature bags of flour, buckets and mangers. Walking among these stalls makes you feel a bit like Gulliver among some seriously holy Lilliputians.



The nativity market was also where I found this wonderful stall selling the widest selection of cookie cutters I have ever seen. I ended up buying a moose, to use next Canada Day.



Glühwein is a serious business at the Christmas markets. Every market has at least half a dozen stalls selling this sweet, sweet nectar in all its variations. There’s your straight-up traditional glühwein – hot, sweet red wine flavoured with cinnamon, cloves and other spices – or you can order it “mit Schuss” (with a shot of rum or amaretto). There’s also a variety made with white wine, called Engelstrunk (literally “angel’s drink”).
For the underage and the alcoholically disinclined, there’s also Kinderpunsch, or spicy, hot, grog-free fruit punch. Or, if you’re in the mood for something milky, you can order hot chocolate or coffee spiked with your choice of poison: amaretto, rum – or, if you wanna go all old-skool, Eierlikör – a German egg liqueur, which Guido explained to me is only ordered by very rich old German men escorting a snooty fur-coat-wearing woman on each arm. No wonder I got a funny look from the stall guy when I innocently ordered it in Berlin.



A mug of glühwein is ideal oesophageal lubrication for a second course of lebkuchen, or gingerbread cookies. Oh my GOD. I have eaten gingerbread men in America, and the ginger snap cookies from Ikea (I know, I’m such a sophisticat). But I have to say there is nobody who does gingerbread like the Germans. Bavarian lebkuchen is more moist and soft and sublimely aromatic than any other gingery treat I have ever tasted. It’s not just sugar and butter and molasses that goes into these babies, but allspice, lemon zest, black pepper… nomnomnomnomnom.

I can pass the sausage and crepe stalls without a passing glance; I have even trained myself to steer clear of the glühwein and the roasted nuts, but apparently I simply do not possess the fortitude to resist the siren song of the lebkuchen. I walk nonchalantly through the stalls, repeating to myself: “I am training for a marathon. I am an athlete. I have willpower. I do not need another butter-, sugar- and honey-laden heartbreaker in my life.” And then forty-five seconds later, I am making out with my third gingerbread cookie of the week. FAIL.



A few blocks north, in Wittelsbacherplatz, is the Mittelaltermarkt, or middle ages market. (Open to everyone, not just 40- and 50-somethings.) Everything here has a mediaeval twist, from the costumes worn by the stall holders, to the live entertainment (I saw an awesome jester show!) and the food! roast suckling pig, wild boar sandwiches, smoked fish, rustic dumpling soups and sausages cooked over an antique stove. Mmmmm.



Many of the shops sell mediaevally-themed gifts, like swords, armour, jester shoes, and hunting bows. I especially liked this shop that sold nothing but bugles:



The closest Christmas market to my house is the Schwabinger Weihnachtsmarkt. Here the vibe is a little more modern, with rock bands providing the entertainment instead of church choirs (but in a typically German touch, none of the English music I heard there was more recent than 1990). And all the usual suspects – glühwein, crepes, sausages, chocolate-covered fruit – are in abundance.

One of my favourite places to be in recent weeks has been the Winter Tollwood festival, in Theresienwiese (the venue of Oktoberfest). It’s not strictly a Christmas market, but it runs from November to January and fills the Oktoberfest meadow with quirky stalls, art installations and off-the-wall live performances. It also doesn’t close at 8:30pm like all the other Christmas markets, so it’s always bustling with a lively post-dinner crowd.

Here is a cool piece of art by the toilets at Tollwood, made out of old road signs:



And here was my favourite performance of the festival so far: a French troupe called Fanfare Le Snob, who ride Segways around in formation (you can’t see them under their cloaks), while playing brass instruments and carrying flaming torches on their heads. Pretty freaking cool.



This ain’t a town that shuts down and boards itself up for the winter, that’s for sure.

The greatest party on earth

All of Munich mourns this fair evening, for tonight is the last night till next autumn that  Münchners can join the crowds in lederhosen and dirndls at a giant fairground, find a table under a giant inflatable angel covered in underwear, and drink copious amounts of beer by the litre, whilst gnawing on pretzels the size of bicycle tires and ox meat shaved off a giant spit. And then go puke it all up on a stomach-churning carnival ride that would have American liability lawyers putting a down payment on their next Porsche. And not have to go to work the next day!

If the above paragraph just blew your mind, rest assured that all will be explained. But before I start, I would like to let you know that I lied. In my last post, I claimed that millions of people come from all around the world to attend Oktoberfest. Double-checking this bold claim on Wikipedia a couple of days later, I read that only 15% of the 6.5 million visitors are actually from outside Germany, or about 950,000. My bad :)
Anyway, the last time you read this blog, your heroine was receiving Bavarian fashion advice from the grabby sales lady in Marienplatz Kaufhof. Here are the results from that adventure:



The next day, wearing my spiffy new dirndl, I headed to Theriesenwiese (or the Wiesn if you wanna sound all local) with three Seattle friends in tow. Oktoberfest virgins, all four of us. How innocent we were. How full of hopes and dreams and questions… and how empty of beer.

The latter, at least, was rectified within seconds of staking our claim on a table in the Augustiner-Festhalle, one of the larger tents that seats six thousand people and serves its beer out of individually-tapped wooden kegs. Our waitress came by and promptly deposited a litre of beer in front of each of us (called a maß). We all just looked at our steins for a moment, in wonder, gratitude and delight. Then we pulled ourselves together, picked up our maßkrüge (they are really heavy) and drank to each other’s health: “Prost!” And thus the sad, pre-Oktoberfest chapter of our lives came to an end.



There are some unique elements of Oktoberfest beer-drinking that really assist in the intoxication process. Firstly, the breweries in Munich make a special extra-strong brew to serve during the ‘Fest(around 6.5% alcohol). It’s as drinkable as your standard German helles, but it’ll hit you harder.

Secondly, as mentioned earlier, the beer comes by the litre. So you’re definitely going to be drinking at least that much. You could in theory order a Radler (half beer, half Sprite), but as I was informed by a colleague, being male and ordering a Radler is basically an invitation for your friends to call you out as a pussy in front of everyone. If you are female, they will probably think it but not say anything. So unless you want everyone to know you’re a pussy, just order a proper beer like all the other awesome people, okay?

From what I described above, you may still be wondering what the big deal is. You can get that pissed in your own house after all – so what exactly is the difference between Oktoberfest and your average beer-fuelled high school house party? Well, first up, I’d like to see a house party where the house looks like this:



… nuff said.

Secondly - this is something the entire city genuinely gets into. It’s not just for frat boys or yuppies or backpackers: in the beer hall, you’ll be drinking elbow to elbow with Bavarians from 16 to 60… or 70… or 80 (the drinking age in Germany is 16). And as famous as Oktoberfest is worldwide, it’s still very much a local festival. Over 70% of Oktoberfest attendees are from Bavaria (thanks, Wikipedia!). And with a few maß in them, they’re a really friendly, lively bunch. I think I got to practise more German during that one day in the Augustiner than I did for the rest of my time in Munich put together.

One cool person we met at our table was Philip, a twenty-something guy from the Bavarian Alps who taught us this simple drinking song (not my video):

The band will play this song every 5 or 10 minutes to ensure you’re progressing through your maß at a respectable pace. The words are “Ein prosit, ein prosit der gemütlichkeit” which apparently means something like “A toast, a toast to happiness” (Philip’s English was nicht besonders gut – but better than my German – story of my life).  Oh, and you’d better be standing on the bench or table while you’re singing – or you’re obviously not giving this Oktoberfest thing your 100%.

As well as playing Bavarian drinking songs, the bands in the tents also play German pop songs (like my current favourite, 54, 74, 90, 2006 – I think I impressed my German colleagues at our work party when I sang the entire chorus, in German, drunk) and random English songs (if you ever wanted to hear “Walking on Sunshine” played by a brass band in lederhosen, here is your chance). Once you have a maß or two in you, you may find, as I did, that you can sing way more of “Bohemian Rhapsody” than you ever knew you could.



You may still be wondering about the giant inflatable angel covered in underwear which I mentioned earlier, and which you can see in one of the pictures above. Let me enlighten you. In the Hofbräu Festzelt, the tent where our work Oktoberfest party was held, the section in the middle is known as the “Pig Pen” (for the record, our party was at some tables nearby). The Pig Pen has a reputation as the craziest, rowdiest patch of one of the craziest, rowdiest parties in the world. If you want to go in there, you better let go of all your inhibitions, because when you enter the Pig Pen with underwear on, one of your fellow drinkers will helpfully relieve you of it and throw it into the lap of the overweight cherub floating above you. I heard this story from several people, and decided to take their word for it and avoid the Pig Pen :)

It’s inevitable that during a festival where millions of people are walking around intoxicated, some unfortunate things are going to happen. The day after my first visit to the Wiesn, I happened to see a front page headline on the Abendzeitung (evening newspaper) saying that 800 people had been injured so far. And that was just Day 3 of 16. A girl at my office had her mouth cut open with glass when a drunk Aussie backpacker lost his balance and fell off a table, dropping his Maßkrug right on her face. And two tourists died this year – one an Australian who drunkenly walked into the path of an oncoming train, and another a Brit who got roaring drunk, tried peeing out a window and ended up falling out of it instead.

That said, the atmosphere at the Wiesn still feels amazingly safe and non-seedy. Sure, you will have a few people collide unsteadily with you as you walk around the fairground, but I didn’t see a single overly aggressive incident or fight in the time I spent there. People bring their kids to Oktoberfest, so it must be pretty safe overall. I think the vast majority of people are there to make merry, eat lots of wurst, and spend time with friends - and they do it responsibly. And that’s awesome.

Speaking of kids, I felt like a kid again at Australia’s Wonderland when I saw all the amazing rides spread across the Wiesn. I tried out this multi-loop roller coaster after 3 maß, and successfully got through it without puking or being puked on:



On another day my friend Punit convinced me to go on this ride, called Techno Power.



I’m not really sure how to explain the experience, except to say that I’m pretty glad I was sober and had a completely empty stomach. I don’t think anything like this would fly in the US. If I’m here this time next year, I would definitely spend one night at the Wiesn just trying all the ridiculous rides on an empty stomach. That wouldn’t protect me from other people’s puke, but I guess I could bring a rain poncho.

Oh, and the other thing you can look forward to at Oktoberfest if you really don’t want to drink is the copious amounts of really good food. Apart from the standard hendl/bratwurst/sauerkraut I got to sample some pretty amazing fairground food at the Wiesn, like roast duck, ox-sausage hot dogs, and mackerel salted and roasted over hot coals. And there was a lot more I could have eaten if only I could have fit it into my stomach (or been just a wee bit more drunk)!



I had the time of my life at Oktoberfest. I’m not a big partier or drinker the vast majority of the time, but there’s just such an amazing atmosphere at the Wiesn that’s really hard to put into words. It’s unlike any other party you will go to anywhere else. There is something really cool about standing on a table and toasting in Bavarian with a bunch of complete strangers. Even when you’re not actively there (I only attended 3 days out of the 16), you know something cool is happening. People are wearing their trachten to work and out on the streets, and there’s a buzz about the whole city. This has been two weeks that I will never forget. Prost!