Rearrange the letters of “Munich”, and you get “I Munch”

Did anyone else notice?

I decided to record here some of the places I’ve enjoyed eating, drinking and making merry in Munich. If I’ve missed anything awesome, feel free to comment. Maybe I can fit them in during this final frantic week ;)

When you haven’t hit your beer and pretzel quota for the month:

• Weisses Bräuhaus – I discovered the flagship beer hall of the Schneider Weisse brewery way too far into my time in Munich. Schneider was the first brewery allowed to make weißbier under the beer purity laws, and they still make the most delicious and interesting weißbier I’ve had in Bavaria. The Hopfenweisse (hoppy weißbier) and the Aventinus Doppelbock are the standouts for me. I’ve heard the food is good too, although I wouldn’t know first hand – I have only ever visited solely for the beer :)
• Andechser am Dom – I never really liked lager until I tasted the lager from Kloster Andechs. It’s a brewery run by monks in a little village just south of Munich. You can make the hike out to the monastery’s beer terrace and look out over the farms with a maß and a pork knuckle, proving that in Germany, beer can be a religious experience. But that’s a day trip for good weather. When leaving Munich isn’t an option, you can go to Andechser am Dom, the Andechs outpost right next to Munich’s cathedral. A malty dark lager at the outdoor standup bar is almost as heavenly an experience.

• Löwenbräukeller – Just go there and eat the roast duck with the crispy skin. DO IT.
• Bratwurstherzl – This cosy little tavern tucked away behind the farmer’s market serves cuisine from Franconia, the northernmost part of Bavaria. If you don’t have a chance to visit Franconia itself, you can come here and eat regional specialties like Franconian sauerbraten and Nürnberger Bratwürstl (Nuremberg finger sausages). I always try to get a table in the room on the right hand side, so I can admire the beautiful exposed brick and enjoy the warmth and smell of the sausages cooking over the wood fire. Yum!!
• Hofbräuhaus – Locals will turn up their noses at this suggestion - Munich’s most famous beer hall is as hokey and touristy as Disneyland, the Eiffel Tower and the Blarney Stone put together. But I still take all my first-time Munich visitors there, at least for a five minute stroll through the madness. (Ok, jostle might be a more accurate verb than stroll.) Why? Because this is the closest you’ll get to experiencing Oktoberfest without actually coming to Munich during Oktoberfest. It’s raucous, permanently full to the rafters, the oompah band plays drinking songs late into the night, and old, magnificently mustachioed Bavarian men walk around in lederhosen, gartered knee socks and feathered hats, smelling like they’ve been drinking beer non-stop since the place was built. The beer is pretty bad, but the beauty is, of course, that the more you drink of it, the less you care.

When you feel like wearing your fancy pants (make sure they have an elastic waist):

• Schuhbeck’s Südtiroler Stuben – Alfons Schuhbeck is the Roy Yamaguchi of southern German cuisine – bringing a very homely cuisine into the rarified world of white tablecloths and Michelin stars. In my mind (and I’d suspect most people’s), Bavarian food normally evokes images of a long, bare wooden beer hall table shared with strangers - the epitome of informal dining. So when I heard that there was a Michelin-starred Bavarian restaurant in Munich, I had to try it. They have a six-course tasting menu: splash out, you won’t be disappointed, the food is in-cred-ible. Caveats: not for vegetarians or those on a budget. Also, have more restraint than me and try not to snort at the ridiculously OTT wine pouring rigmarole – the service is a little snooty.
• Acetaia – Italian food is one of the cuisines that I have always adored enough that I’ve never really felt the urge to wander beyond the average mid-priced Italian place. Around the beginning of my time in Munich, my friend Kostas, who probably has the most refined taste buds of anyone I know, suggested we try Acetaia, a hoity-toity Italian restaurant in Nymphenburg suggested by a colleague of his. That was the night I realised that Italian food had so many more dimensions than I had imagined. This place is just utterly superb.

When you couldn’t possibly eat any more heavy Bavarian food but want to stay on the same continent:

• Rosso Pizza – My favourite pizza in Munich (and that call is vindicated by the sheer number of Italian people who seem to come and eat here). And lucky me, it’s only a block from my apartment! The place is tiny, and has a giant coffee sign out the front, so I only realised it was a pizzeria when I happened to take a deep breath as I walked past one day, and promptly fainted with pleasure. The staff are Italian, chatty and friendly, and the Pizza Spinaci is to freaking die for.
• Rive Gauche – An cute little French bistro in the Glockenbachviertel – the perfect start to a night out in Munich’s party district. Leave room for a slice of one of the delicious tarts or cakes.
• Kranz – Another hidden gem in the Glockenbachviertel – light modern German cuisine made with fresh, local, seasonal, organic ingredients. Sooo good.
• The Sconery – When the only thing that will satisfy you is a nice, soft, crumbly warm scone. With proper clotted cream that makes your thighs expand with every bite. Omnomnom.
• Makassar – The cuisine at this place is hard to pin down – the best way I could describe it is “Euro-colonial”. Lamb provencale and satay chicken might seem like strange menu-mates but it’s all delicious.
• Pommes Boutique – Perfectly crisp pommes frites (Belgian fries), 20 kinds of sauce, and home-made lemonade. How could this ever be bad?

When the sugar cravings hit:

• Ballabeni – The. Best. Ice cream. In the world. Lemon-basil, chestnut-Grand Marnier, dark chocolate-ginger, apple strudel, chai-cayenne pepper, it’s all about offbeat twists on classic flavours. I will miss this place so, so dearly.

• Kreutzkamm – Munich is crammed with divine patisseries, but this little one has got to be among my favourites. It just feels so old school, with all the Austro-German classics (Sachertorte, Prinzregententorte, Marzipantorte) served by waitresses who look like they’ve worked there since the 50’s.
• Maelu – The cakes here look so stunning, I simply can’t walk between Marienplatz and Odeonsplatz without having a perve. But it’s not just pretty window dressing - everything is also super-scrumptious, from the electric purple, hyper-modern-looking Provence cake (lavender mousse with a chocolate ganache centre) to classics like rhubarb tart and macarons.

• Tambosi – Slices of cake as long as your arm, decadent spiked coffees, comfy antique armchairs, and arguably the best people-watching Munich has to offer.

When you’ve been travelling in Europe for too long and need something different desperately:

• Mama’s Kebap Haus – My favourite döner joint in Munich. It’s not your dirt-cheap €2 hole-in-the-wall, but at least it still tastes fantastic sober. They do a respectable rendition of all the favourites (falafel, döner, pide, lahmacun, baklava) and best of all, they have a really good Mediterranean salad bar.
• Chang Noi – I was completely despairing of Thai food in Germany until I ate here. Asian restaurants in Munich tend to dumb down the cuisine to suit local palates, resulting in flat flavour and zero kick. Chang Noi is one of the few exceptions I have encountered. Also, they can carve the hell out of a vegetable.

• Cyclo – Yummy and authentic Vietnamese food that actually manages to register something on the Scoville scale.
• Kerala – Munich’s first and only south Indian restaurant. You’ll find a lot of dishes here you won’t find in any other Indian restaurant in Munich. Of course they do the south Indian staples like dosa, idli, vadai. Some Keralan specialties I tried here for the first time and loved were the jackfruit curry and thenkai thokku (coconut and banana pudding). I have a huge soft corner for this place, which originates from this incident: one evening I brought my dad’s friend Chaitanmam here for his birthday dinner – at the time he was living alone in Munich, and his family was in Australia. Between courses, I asked the waiter if he could bring out a dessert with some candles on it. The waiter said he would do his best, and then proceeded to run two blocks down the street to a neighbouring restaurant, bringing back an arsenal of candles and sparklers so that Chaitanmam would have a properly inflamed birthday cake. Awesome. They won two loyal customers right there and then.
• Dean and David – I don’t know about you, but it only takes about 3 or 4 days of travelling/eating out before I. JUST. NEED. SALAD. This place has really delicious salads, soups and sandwiches, and would be a nice change if all that German vacation eating is weighing you down.

When you want a little bit of everything:

• Viktualienmarkt – Munich’s main farmer’s market is firmly on the tourist trail, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome. You can get pretty much any European thing you want to eat here. The cheese shops sell Gruyere from Gruyere, Parmigiano from Parma, and the freshest Bavarian obatzda you’ll find anywhere. The antipasti stalls sell more varieties of olives than you ever thought existed. The organic bakery sells giant round loaves bread as big as car tyres. The dried fruit stand sells things you never knew anyone ate dried, like tamarillos, honeydew and rockmelon. The butchers stuff fresh, warm rolls with roast pork, leberkäse and bratwurst and slather them with mustard. Some days I’ll just walk around and nibble all afternoon, followed by a nice beer under the chestnut trees.

• Delikatessenhaus Dallmayr – A gourmet food hall in the heart of Munich, with counters selling everything from handmade pralines to pear mustard to rabbit terrine. With this place plus the Viktualienmarkt, you’re all set for your ‘oigh brow picnic in the Englischer Garten. It ain’t cheap, but sometimes that’s the price of deliciousness.

Living in Munich – what I’ll miss

It only really hit me today, when I was packing up things in boxes, ready to send back home. I’m leaving Munich in only ten days.

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of relocation errands – cancelling contracts, putting together visa paperwork, sorting, packing and finding new owners for things. Oh, and tracking down exact copies of all the glass objects I’ve broken in my landlord’s kitchen. (I must be one of the few people in the world whose extreme clumsiness makes that an effort in itself.)

And all the while, I’ve been waxing nostalgic about this city I’ve been lucky enough to call home for a year.

Little things I’ll miss:

• Summer sunrises.

• Padded butt rests on the train. So unnecessary, yet such a great touch. I haven’t seen them in any other city.
• Street stalls selling white asparagus in spring, cherries in summer, persimmons in autumn and roasted nuts in winter.
• Sitting on the banks of the Isar in midsummer, with a beer bottle wedged into the river rocks to stay cool. Good times.

• Anything that involves flour and spends time in an oven. Omnomnom.
• Train drivers with Bavarian accents announcing the stops. “Nöchste Holt… Morionplotz…”
• Communal seating in restaurants. You never know who you’ll end up talking to.
• Not having to use the Fahrenheit scale. (Come on, America – even the country that invented it has moved on.)
• Seitenbacher Müsli. Not really sure how I’m meant to go back to granola now.
• Wearing a giant heavy coat, boots, scarf, hat and gloves in winter, like the people in the movies. It’s the one time of the year that I can fool people into thinking I accessorise.

Medium-sized things I’ll miss:

• The fabulous public transport system.
• Weißbier on tap. SIGH.

• Spontaneous weekend trips to anywhere in Central Europe. Hmmm, shall I go hiking in Austria tomorrow? How about hitting up Budapest next weekend? Why yes, I think I will.
• White Christmas.

• Riding a bike around town sans fear of death.
• Walking around all hours of the night sans fear of death.
• Picking up a new language. It makes everything a learning experience.
• 15 minute commutes. That look like this.

 

Big things I’ll miss:

• Working at Ciao – the most fun and fulfilling job I’ve ever had.
• Work-life balance and 6 weeks of vacation a year. If I could find a job in Seattle that paid me 25% less but gave me 30 days instead of 15, I’d jump on it in a flash.
• The friends I’m leaving behind. I really need to stop moving around so much and creating ever more sets of awesome people to miss.

And just to balance things out a little…

Things I won’t miss (in no particular order):

• Paying for water in restaurants. What the deuce?!
• Germanised Asian food from restaurants with names like Thai China: the True Taste of Japan. A Sydney girl can only take it for so long.
• The bizarre invention that is the German pillow. It’s about twice as big as a normal pillow, but doesn’t actually provide any kind of neck support, which I thought was the single and entire purpose of a pillow. It just sinks under the weight of your head, slowly hissing as the air is pushed out of it. Somebody help me understand.
• The GPST.
• Reading contracts in German. Once the words get over twenty letters long my head starts to spin…
• Waking up on Sunday morning and realising I’m out of toilet paper and milk, and all the shops are shut.
• Having to go all the way to an ethnic supermarket just to get some damn coriander.
• Being in a long distance relationship. Skype makes it work, but there are some things you just can’t express over the wire.

• Being away from Seattle and all its wonders, like good friends, pale ale, the Cascades, and cookouts.

When you add it all up, I’m basically swapping one awesome life that I love for another. I’m a pretty lucky lady, yo.

Has spring sprung?

It’s certainly felt like it in Munich recently. I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up – it’s only February – but I can’t help myself! A full week of blue skies and (positive) double-digit temperatures has obliterated the snow cover, made scarves and gloves redundant, and brought the beer gardens back to life. This week I ate my first outdoor lunch at work since October, and my bike got its first outing in months. Even my running pace has increased by a good 5%. (Excuse my one track mind. Nine weeks down, nine to go!)

My Bavarian colleague tells me it’s just Mother Nature lulling me into a false sense of security so she can ambush me with snow while I’m caught without my winter jacket. He’s probably right. But I don’t care if I’m a fool, ‘cos the wildflowers got punk’d too. And they’ve lived here a lot longer than I have.

Whether you want to call it spring sunshine or winter sunshine, either way Munich is a dream when bathed in it. I spent a glorious Saturday wandering my favourite spots on bike and on foot.

Viktualienmarkt, the city’s biggest farmer’s market, deserves its own separate mouth-watering post (it’s in the works) – but suffice to say for now that it’s nice to see the tables back out on the cobblestones, crowded with Münchners downing leisurely steins of helles and munching on leberkäs-semmel. I hadn’t seen the place this hip ‘n’ happenin’ since Christmas Eve-Eve, when half of Munich was queuing there in the snow trying to buy a last-minute goose.

(Btw. The dude in the suit striding along in this picture is, like, almost ridiculously Bavarian-looking.)

On a day like this, you’re reminded that Munich is a city by the Alps. Any and every high perch in town is packed with people taking in the sweeping views. It looks like there was plenty of Entschuldigung-ing going on atop the clock tower of Alter Peter, the oldest church in Munich:

To avoid crowded tower stairs, I headed to the highest point in the city I know of that isn’t a church spire – Olympiaberg, the hill that dominates Munich’s Olympic park. I’ve never seen the summit so packed – but I guess people are much more willing to put in the huffy-puffy for the climb when the rewards are like this:

Gorgeous. Reminds me of a Vancouver built a few hundred years early.

Dear Munich,

I politely request, once again, that you cease and desist from being so flippin’ sweet. I told you from the start that I’m not ready for a serious relationship. I have to go back home soon. We’ve been through this several times, if I recall!

Best regards,
Urmila

The art of filling a rainy day

One upshot of moving to Munich’s university district is that I now live only blocks away from the city’s clutch of prestigious Pinakotheks (art galleries).

I completely ignored all museums through summer and autumn, reasoning that I should make the most of the weather while it was still  conducive to outdoor exploration. But finally, a few weekends ago, I found myself twiddling my thumbs on a cold, rainy Sunday, and decided to go see some of what my new neighbourhood had to offer.

I soon discovered that the Pinakotheks offer one of the best deals in Munich. Every Sunday. entrance to each art gallery is a mere €1. This is not a cheap city to live in, and I was pleasantly surprised!

Now, as I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m something of a Neanderthal when it comes to art. I can only spend a short time in galleries full of old paintings, because there’s only so many portraits of kings and duchesses and the Virgin Mary that I can take. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to the Prado and the Uffizi, and they were both amazing. But after two hours, I was done. Done.

And really high-concept modern art goes completely over my head. When I visited Berlin, I visited a tiny but greatly feted art gallery called Kunst Werke, which was featuring the work of a contemporary German artist. Of the perhaps dozen installations, I felt like I connected with about two of them. The others were completely wasted on me. For example, there was one work where two antique projectors were creating a little Venn diagram on the opposite wall with their yellow haloes of light. And that’s it. Not only did I not understand it, I didn’t even understand the explanation in the little booklet I got at the front desk. D’oh.

But enough complaining about my art illiteracy. On this rainy Sunday in Munich, I decided to visit the newest addition to the Pinakothek family: Museum Brandhorst. Partly because it’s new, partly because I wanted to give modern art another chance, but mostly because the building is rainbow and stripy. And anyone who knows me knows I am a sucker for rainbow and stripy.

Having paid my single paltry Euro for admission, I wandered into one of the few art galleries I have ever thoroughly enjoyed. The stuff in there was edgy and interesting, while still being accessible enough for barbarians like me. Of course, there was loads of Warhol (everyone loves Warhol):

 

And plenty of visually pleasing finger-painting:

But also some genuinely amazing, confronting stuff. There was this work by Damien Hirst, which was giant boxes full of medical waste that was generated treating civilians in a war zone. It was called “Waste, Twice”.

Oh, and this room full of er, larger-than-life turds, accompanied by a quotation from a French philosopher saying that no great civilisation has ever existed that didn’t figure out how to nicely dispose of human waste. “If we gave this phenomenon what we might call its fundamental import, we would find the prodigious analogy that exists between sewage and culture.” Deep.

And, well, a lot more interesting stuff. I won’t spoil it all for you. I will definitely recommend this gallery to anyone who visits me in Munich on a rainy day. Talk about bang for your buck (literally)!

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!

Cool runnings

I have a small confession to make: I’m one of those weird people who likes to run. I spent my single-digit years watching my parents run the City to Surf every year, until one day in Year 6, I convinced my dad to take me one of his weekend jogs. I’ve been running on and off ever since.

2009 was a high watermark in my running career. I ran my first half marathon in San Francisco. I was in the best shape of my life, and would enthusiastically spring out of bed before 6 each glorious Seattle summer morning to enjoy some miles before the sun got too high. But I’ve always had one weakness: I’ve never run through the winter. Each year, when the days get short and Seattle’s thermometer starts to dip below 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7°C), I hang up my joggers for the season. Running in the rain for 6 months is no fun.

So perhaps it was a rather foolhardy move on my part last October to sign up for my first ever marathon, in Vancouver in May. At that point, there were still leaves on the trees, the beer gardens were still open, and daytime temperatures were comfortably in the teens. I guess after a typically sublime Seattle summer and an autumn spent drinking beer under the lime trees, I had managed to forget what winter actually feels like.

And then… it got cold. Kind of batshit insane cold.

The first stage is always denial. I went and hid in the gym all November and December, taking shelter in the fact that my 18-week marathon training schedule only started after Christmas. Ah, sweet procrastination.

But then the holidays came and went, and it was time to stop being such a complete and utter wusser. As a wise, 100% genuine Münchner colleague of mine told me: “there’s no such thing as bad weather – only bad clothing.”

My baggy trackie-dacks and jumper weren’t going to cut it in Munich, that was for sure. I had to shell out for some proper cold-weather running gear. This is what you’ll see me decked out in these days for a run:

• My green knitted tuque that makes me look like a homeless lady
• A moisture-wicking t-shirt (I now understand the catchphrase “cotton kills”), under a breathable fleece, under my trusty old REI rain jacket
• Stupendous ninja-style running tights with racing stripes, which cost me almost as much as the rest of my clothes put together. But they are worth every penny, god bless them: miraculously warm, and if I am ever hardcore enough to run the Polar Circle Marathon, these are the pants to whom I will entrust my life.
• Moisture-wicking gloves, with woollen gloves over the top.
• 2 pairs of long socks, and running shoes.

The first time I put on this outfit, I went over to the mirror, fully expecting to look as sleek, athletic and stylish as the runners I saw in Montreal last Christmas, cranking out hill repeats on Mont Royal in -20.

… I’m sure you already know how this ends. I possess no such natural elegance. To be exact, my ensemble had more of an eclectic, hobo-meets-lycra-goddess-meets-Paddington-Bear’s-goth-phase aesthetic. As I shuffled out into the street, an old lady hurried by me with the sideways glance you give someone who looks mildly dangerous.

You might think I’m exaggerating about how I look, but I don’t think so. The following has happened to me three times:

It’s still dark, I’m pounding down the street, probably inadvertantly emitting random words of whatever song I am listening to on my Zune. A young woman is walking alone in the twilight about half a block ahead, and, hearing my quick footsteps and strange vocal gymnastics, quickens her pace. Pretty much oblivious to everything but my body and the music, I continue full steam ahead.

When I’m about 10 metres behind her, the girl turns her head slightly and catches in her peripheral vision the apparently terrifying sight of me bearing down on her at 8:45 pace. The poor girl clutches her bag even tighter and starts to run. It’s at this point that I usually realise what’s happening and have to control my laughter. I barrel past the wretched high-heeled fruhaufsteherin and give her a cheery “Morgen!”. She looks sheepish but relieved, and slows back down to a walk.

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After a couple of weeks of acclimatisation and clothing refinement, I got comfortable with running in the cold. It’s only the first few minutes out of the house that are hard. As I step out into the street, the sudden cold is like a slap in the face. But then after a few seconds, the only thing that’s really freezing is my feet. I haven’t figured out how to keep my feet warm when I can only wear so many layers of socks inside my runners. It’s fine once I get going, but every time I stop at a traffic light, I swear can feel the bridges of my feet creaking.

Sometimes, there’s a wind blowing. Oh good lord. That wind slices straight through every layer.  I could be wearing a bikini for all the good my layers do in a breeze.

But as my body slowly starts to warm up and I hit my stride, I start thinking how nice it feels to be out on such a crisp winter’s morning. Munich always feels big and bustling, but this is one time I have the city to myself. The sidewalks are practically deserted at this time of the morning, especially on Mondays. Only the occasional Volkswagen trundles down Ludwigstrasse. Munich’s Starbucks-style coffee chains, which were even open on Christmas Day, are yet to crank out their first Doppel Espresso. Sometimes I make it a point to run past the Wimmer bakery, which opens at 6:30, just to get a whiff of the croissants.

The sun won’t be up for an hour or so. For this surreal 60 minutes before dawn, the sky is a deep, arresting shade of royal blue (or mauve if it’s cloudy). People rave about sunset, but to me there is something just as magical about running in l’heure bleue. The sky is subdued yet radiant, the calm before the storm of urban activity ahead. Running at this time of the morning is sublime.

When I run on the weekends, the dark isn’t as much of an issue, and I can choose the warmest part of the day. (That is, I get to run in –2 instead of –10. Ha!) But there’s still another challenge. Unless there’s a been a consistent string of days either above or below freezing, there is almost always ice on the sidewalks. For the record, I am the world’s most uncoordinated person, and that’s a fact, so I don’t need any help tripping over my own feet, thanks very much.

Initially I put an embargo on running while there was any snow on the ground, but it didn’t take me long to realise that if I really followed this rule, I might as well drop out of the marathon altogether. It’s been snowing at least once a week here since early December, and we’re a long way yet from spring.

So I finally bit the bullet and went for my first run on snow. The feeling under your feet is that of running on sand, but with a lot less give, thank goodness. The main challenge is to stay upright when you accidentally hit an icy patch. The trick to this seems to be the same as with skiing – just keep going. Against all your instincts of self-preservation, you have to keep leaning forward and ploughing on when you feel your grip on the ground start to loosen. It’s the only way. 

Once I figured that out, running after the snow fall was simply wonderful. All the local parks and soccer pitches were vast fields of undisturbed white. I ran past a huge cemetery named Nordfriedhof that was full of big old gravestones and big old trees. These old European cemeteries look beautiful any time of year, but covered in a dusting of snow, they look particularly picturesque.

The most fun part was running through Munich’s Olympic Park. The home stretch of my first snowy run went over Olympiaberg, a big hill built over the rubble of World War Two air raids. There’s a cobblestone path up over the hill, popular with dog walkers, old couples and tourists getting the panoramic view out over the city. On this day, it was all kids out with their sleds, squealing with delight on each ride down the slope. Oodles of fun to watch.

By the time I got home, the cold wasn’t bothering me at all and I was navigating the ice like Torville and Dean. The best way to banish an excuse forever is to break through it once. None left now! Onward and Vancouver-ward!

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”!

Christmas wrap-up

Just realised the title of this post is an unintentional pun, ha!

Per my family’s tradition (or rather, lack thereof), Christmas was rather a low-key affair this year. As a Hindu family in Australia we never really celebrated the holiday itself, but would each year take advantage of the long summer weekend to have a picnic at the beach or a barbie in the backyard.

It wasn’t exactly beach weather in Munich, as the desolation of the usually bustling Seehaus beer garden attested…



… but all the same we had a nice Christmas Day stroll around the English Garden. My parents saw a frozen lake for the first time, and as you might have guessed from an earlier post, watching their reaction was good fun!

When I was a kid, I had this book called Usborne Children’s Encyclopaedia that had pictures showing what all the seasons look like in the northern hemisphere (it was an American publication). The English Garden reminds me of that. It’s so nice any time of year. In summer it’s lush and green and full of sunshine; in autumn, it’s a riot of fiery fall shades, and in winter, whether snow-covered or not, it’s still beautiful in its bareness. (Don’t ask me about spring, I haven’t seen it yet!) Being within jogging distance of this place really is one of the most wonderful things about living in Munich.



As requested by someone back in Seattle (Was it you Sean? I don’t remember), I took advantage of my parents’ request for a post-walk coffee pit stop to conduct recon on the seasonal drinks available at the local Seattle Embassy (ie. Starbucks).

• Dark chocolate cherry latte – a McDonalds-esque attempt to play on a well-known local flavour (cf. the truly awful “McGreek” I once tried in a fit of desperate hunger at Athens airport). Nicht so gut.
• Lebkuchen latte – this tastes exactly the same as the gingerbread latte in the States. Mmmm.
• Toffee nut latte – this didn’t seem a typically German flavour to me, nor was it particularly good. *shrug*
• No eggnog latte. Sniff!

Aaand that’s the first and last time I will visit Starbucks in Europe.

For lunch, we ate the very traditional Christmas repast of bhel. See? We’re total heathens.



Dinner was a more traditional affair. I had decided that for my one and only Christmas in Germany I wanted to go all out and make a traditional German meal. Plus, my family has never made roast dinner-type food at home before, so my parents (or at least my dad – my mum’s pescetarian) would get a treat too.

So on Christmas Eve-Eve, I visited Viktualienmarkt (the farmers’ market in the centre of town) to buy a bird for roasting. The traditional Christmas meat in these parts is goose, but (a) they cost €70 apiece, (b) a whole goose is way too big for only two people, and (c) the only mechanism for roasting I have in my apartment is the little toaster oven that Natasha, Punit and Kostas gave me as a housewarming present. Goosey no fitsy.

(Oh, and (d). When I move back to the PNW, the scary Canadian geese would get me. Fo’ sho’s.)

I went to talk to the nice man standing outside Geflügel Paradies (Poultry Paradise), who convinced me to settle on a humble chook. Not the most exotic of meats, but given my size limitations it was the only workable option. I memorised the stallkeeper’s instructions like a mantra, which is why fellow U-Bahn commuters heard me muttering under my breath all the way home: “hundert sechszig Grad, eine Stunde fünfzehn Minuten”.

I had very clear instructions on how to make my German roast chicken with apple, walnut and sultana stuffing, but nevertheless it wasn’t the most relaxing cooking experience. I couldn’t shake the irrational n00b fear that I would take out the chicken and it would still be raw as Gollum's supper, spoiling my dad’s one and only traditional Christmas dinner. But happily, everything turned out just lovely. Thanks, Geflügelmann!



That’s the chicken and stuffing in back, some spinach with pine nuts and sultanas (a substitute for blaukraut, which my parents don’t really like), semmel knödel (German bread dumplings – I cheated and bought sofort – instant), some grilled cod for my mum (not at all Weihnachtlich – but I did find the recipe in a German book!), and a simple green salad. The gloop in the middle is gravy made from the pan drippings.

I am pretty proud of myself for not burning down the building .

I decided to leave dessert to the experts, stocking up on lebkuchen, plätzchen, Dresdner stollen and früchtebrot from the Christkindlmarkt. Omg. If the German people could just master irony and customer service the way they’ve mastered baking, I’m not sure I could ever bring myself to leave.



And then, completely fat on Christmas food, we all immediately went to sign up for the next season of The Biggest Loser.

Frohe Weihnachts, all!

Other miscellaneous observations:

• Christmas store hours here are a bit different. Since Christmas Eve is the big daddy in Germany, everything is shut by noon on the 24th, but many essentials (supermarkts, coffee shops, bakeries) are open again by noon on the 25th.
• I saw no surfers on the Eisbach on Christmas Day. That was a first!
• Yes, that is a real Christmas tree (!)

Let it snow…

A solid week of wintry weather in Munich and I’m beginning to understand why the nickname for this city is Toytown, Germany. Even in November, the place was looking enough like a fairytale with its quaint old buildings, bustling Christmas markets and bare winter trees. With a liberal dusting of snow on top, the place is basically a Christmas card. I live in a Christmas card. Cool, nein?

My parents arrived here last week to stay for the holidays, and it’s been fun seeing their reaction to the weather. My mum and dad have never spent winter anywhere except Mumbai and Sydney. (Edit: Oh, and Chennai and Calcutta. But that doesn't change anything.) Neither of those cities have ever recorded a negative temperature reading. My childhood memories of winter  (“winter”) in Australia are of me and Amma cowering in front of our little gas heater as soon as the temperature dipped below 10 Celsius (I blame our tropical Indian genes). So for my parents, the last few days have been a baptism of fire. If you could imagine a really really cold fire.

Munich ups the ante a bit compared to either of the places I’ve lived before. It’s no Ontario (where I spent last Christmas – brrrrr…), but the temperature does stay below freezing even during the day, and the snow sticks for several months. This is in contrast to Seattle, where we have lovely mild (for North America) winters, apart from the 48 hours of Snowmageddon that result in not driving or bus-ing anywhere until either (a) the snow melts or (b) one of the twenty dinky council snow ploughs finally makes it to your street.

Yesterday was the first time my parents saw real big fat snowflakes falling. Here is a brief summary of the scene.

Emerging from a U-Bahn station, 8pm:
Me: Hmmm, it’s really starting to come down. *mothering my mother* Do you have your hat and gloves on?
Amma: Omg. It’s so pretty! And fluffy! Snooowwwwwww!
Pappa: Omg. So. Cool.
Amma: OMG.
Pappa: Did you realise that if you stick your tongue out, you can taste the snow?
Amma: Whoa.
*Both of them stand on the footpath squinting skyward with their tongues out*
*Old Bavarian lady across the street stares unabashedly*

I have the coolest parents EVER.

In related news, I have come to the conclusion that my usual winter get-up of thick socks + hiking boots will not cut it in Munich, unless I want my feet to spend the entire winter alternating between numbness and pain (I have low blood pressure). So I am now the proud owner of a proper pair of winter boots. They are thick and lined with cosy furry stuff, and each is the size of a small animal. They go clump-clump-clump as I walk around, and I could probably inflict some major ass-whooping with them if I wanted to. Love ‘em. All they need now are names. Yeti and Sasquatch? Matze und Ute? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

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.