A perennial expat rambles on about life in Munich and her travels around Germany, Europe, and the world. And takes pictures of funny stuff.Please come visit my exciting new and improved site over at www.zurika.com for more wacky expat adventures.
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After a couple nice visits last year, I was really looking forward to our evening reservation at the Weinzelt this year. Overall it was a fabulously fun Oktoberfest night, but my esteem for this tent has dropped considerably. I'll have to be on the lookout for a new favorite.
The main reason I love the Weinzelt is because almost all of the tables are booths, meaning there is a nice barrier between you and the asses of the drunk, sweaty, squirmy guys sitting at the table behind you. This little detail increases my enjoyment of a long session at Oktoberfest considerably. Another nice touch is that the Weinzelt stays open an hour later than the other tents.
The Weinzelt, per its name, serves a decent selection of wines instead of Oktoberfest beer. You can get weißbier at the Weinzelt, but not all night long (I forget at what time they actually stopped serving it). The food at the Weinzelt is top-notch, but comes with a similarly high price tag (evening reservations are around €80 per person). While I very much enjoyed my dinner, fine food seems kind of out of place at Oktoberfest. There's so much else going on around you that it's hardly possible to give your meal the attention and appreciation it deserves.
The worst part of the evening was getting into the tent: only one door was open, and there was a giant crowd of angry, drunk, reservation-holding people all shoving to get into it while asshole security guards looked on and offered no assistance. It was a horrendous experience, even by Oktoberfest standards. And from what I've heard from other people, this is pretty much standard practice at the Weinzelt on popular evenings. If you can't be bothered to allow customers into your tent in a way which does not squish the air out of their lungs, I'm not sure I can be bothered to fork over money for an evening reservation at your tent again. No matter how cute your flashing pink bunny ears, nor how awesome you Oktoberfest band's renditions of Lady Gaga songs.
We'll see which parts I remember most when next year's Oktoberfest comes around.
Anyone know where I found these adorable cross walk signs? I mean, they're not quite as awesome as the East German Ampelmänner, but they're still pretty cute.
Put your guess in the comments. Maybe there will be a prize for those who get it right, or for those with the best answers.
UPDATE: We have a winner! Eva guessed correctly; these little guys are found in Andorra. More about our trip there soon.
I was happy to finally get back to Bolzano (Bozen in German), a city where we spent some time many years ago and completely loved it. At the time we were living in Italy and found Bolzano's German-ness to be novel and charming; this time around it was the Italian side we were more interested in. Although the locals supposedly prefer German, the city feels almost perfectly bilingual, and almost every conversation I had involved exchanges in both Italian and German.
Luckily it wasn't too hard to find enough Italian details in Bolzano to completely delight me. Bolzano's cafes serve real espresso and delicious aperitivi. The city's center contains many winding, cobblestoned pedestrian streets teaming with life. The cuisine in most restaurants is heavily Austrian-leaning, but we had an amazing Italian dinner at Hostaria Argentieri. We took it as a good sign that the only menu available was in handwritten Italian, and and our instincts were dead on.
This time we stayed at the Parkhotel Laurin, a grand old-timey hotel with a gorgeous private park and an elevator that contains a sofa. The location was great for exploring Bolzano on foot, and the rooms were clean and modern. We've also stayed at Hotel Figl, which I can also highly recommend: central, good value, clean, good.
The views of the vineyards and Dolomites surrounding Bolzano are gorgeous, and there are many nice hikes that you can start right from the city. We skipped him this time, but I also recommend a visit to Ötzi. That is, if you can tear yourself away from people-watching as you sip your prosecco at an outdoor cafe.
Tomorrow (Saturday, October 17th, 2009) afternoon Munich will experience its first Carrotmob. If you understand German, watch the video below (if you don't, check out Carrotmob's English-language website):
The idea behind Carrotmob is to reward businesses which pledge to become more environmentally-friendly by delivering a bunch of consumers to their door. In this case, a small Munich grocer has signed up to spend 30% of their sales from the Carrotmob to make environmentally-friendly improvements to their refrigeration system.
Tomorrow's Munich Carrotmob will take place from 12 to 3 PM at Löwenzahn, Lindwurmstraße 135. There are Carrotmobs in many other cities (especially around the US), so if you can't make it to Munich tomorrow, try looking for one in your area.
UPDATE: The Carrotmob was a success! Despite crappy weather, their money-raising goals were reached. When we went there seemed to be the perfect number of people milling around and buying things - no long line, but it was definitely the busiest shop on the block by far. Unfortunately the rain made us not so eager to stick around and listen to the band play, but it was still a fun time.
I could have wandered up and down this street all day.
Not that Munich doesn't have a nice market; it does. But for some reason everything looks more delicious when it's in Italy.
Luckily we didn't have to just look.
We came home with many delicious Italian treats from this market.
My husband gets credit for most of the photos. He was shooting away while I was buying as much as I could carry.
Greetings from Italy. We're recovering from Oktoberfest in a cute mountain resort town, because the best way to get over too much German beer, pretzels and kaesespaetzle is to wash it down with Italian wine, pasta, and cheese.
I'll be back to finish off my Oktoberfest posting in a few days. But for now, the sauna is calling me.
A new set of visitors, a new introductory tour of the Wiesn. We went around noon on Wednesday and poked our heads into several of the tents. Most of them were pretty quiet, and all of them had free tables. Only the Hofbräu tent was full of rowdy drunks at this hour.
We decided to lunch at the Augustiner tent. The service was pretty bad but the food was decent (including my veggie ravioli). The tent's most striking feature was its forest green canvas roof.
Fake lederhosen at the beery-go-round. You can't buy Oktoberfest beer unless you're in a tent or on its patio, but there are a few places around the wiesn where you can get wießbier. One of those places is this slowly rotating platform (actually there are a couple of these).
I get the feeling that this ride would not meet US safety standards.
This sign struck me as an interesting example of Denglish, advertising a little temporary cafe outside of the Oktoberfest grounds. Wiesn is the place where Oktoberfest is held; Treff is a German word meaning 'get-together'. Obviously the After part is supposed to be understood as the English meaning of the word, and the sign is trying to say 'hey, here's a place where you can hang out with your friends after Oktoberfest'. At least I hope that's what they're going for, since the alternative would mean using the German meaning of After, which is, ehem, anus.
And on that note, we're off to the last day of Oktoberfest. Ein Prosit!
Thanks to its charming decorations and lively atmosphere, the Hacker tent (Himmel der Bayern) makes it onto lots of people's list of favorite Oktoberfest tents. The walls are painted up into a fairytale-like Bavarian town, and the ceiling is a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. Today (a Thursday) we decided to go for lunch, and had no trouble scoring a prime table at around 11:30am.
The tent finished filling up pretty quickly, and there was constant competition for the extra seats at our table. We were joined by an adorable old Bavarian man for part of the day; he was thrilled to death by all the attention the bedirndled foreigners were giving him. I think we made his week.
It's actually quite easy to get a lot of attention in Bavarian Heaven: just stand up on your table and chug a liter of beer (or better yet, have your friends hold the table in the air while you stand on it, like the guy in the photo below). The whole tent will cheer you on, and celebrate your inebriated victory. But be warned: if you fail to finish they will boo mightily, and never forgive you.
We had lunch (merely so-so food) and a couple rounds of beer in the tent. Around 5:00pm we got kicked off of our table due to an evening reservation, but by that point we were ready to move on anyway. It was time for some rides.
[I spent about a month in Dublin this past spring, and wrote most of this post then. I figured it's high time I got around to publishing it.]
What I enjoyed most about this stay in Dublin were the little bits of daily life: the grocery stores, the pubs, the friendliness of the people. Spending hours wandering around a giant bookstore full of English books. Cheddar cheese. But naturally I fit in couple touristy adventures, too. We hit several of Dublin's big sights on our first trip to Ireland, but there was still plenty left to see this time around.
Dublin Sights
Kilmainham Gaol - This no-longer-in-use jail is slightly outside of town, but worth a trip if you're interested in learning more about Ireland's political history. The tour was informative and interesting.
Old Jameson Distillery - The €13.50 entrance fee feels like kind of a rip-off, especially since real distilleries tend to charge much less if anything at all. But if you're up for a Disneyfied version of a whiskey tour, it's definitely a good time. Be ready to volunteer enthusiastically when they ask for tasters near the beginning of the tour - everyone gets a shot of Jameson, but only a chosen few get to do the taste-test comparing American, Irish, and Scottish whisk(e)ys.
National Gallery - this art museum has a fabulous collection of old masters, impressionists, and Irish paintings. And free entrance! But the best part was the security guard who out of the blue just wanted to let me know that I was "very welcome" in Ireland. When was the last time a German said something similar to you, I ask?
Gogarty's - in the center of Temple Bar, Gogarty's offers live Irish music every night of the week in the cozy upstairs bar. Touristy, yes, but the craic is still excellent. Drinking Irish ales by the pint is part of the full cultural experience, which you will surely want to have. Actually there are tons of pubs that offer free live music all over Dublin, so don't feel like you have to stop at just this one.
Hugh Lane Gallery - a fabulous little art collection plus an excellent exhibit (including his reconstructed studio) on Francis Bacon, everyone's favorite crazy fuck artist.
Book of Kells - Em dragged me here. The book itself wasn't even on display (I think it's being restored), but surprisingly I enjoyed the exhibit, which talked about the book's history and production.
Dublin Eats
The Mermaid Cafe became my favorite restaurant in Dublin after a meal of creative, elegant food in their relaxed atmosphere (great service, too). The seats near the windows make for excellent people-watching.
We also had a nice meal at The Church, a former church which has been beautifully converted into a bar and restaurant. The prix fixe menu felt like a good value in a city as expensive as Dublin.
In more casual dining, I quite liked Juice, a vegetarian restaurant with a good selection of creative international vegetarian and vegan fare. The lunch special was a good deal.
I completely fell in love with Dublin and its people. I'd go back in a minute.
Complete the following sentence:
In anticipation of Oktoberfest, we should ______.
A. Start drinking more, to build up our tolerance.
B. Stop drinking entirely, to let our livers rest up before the big event.
C. Other (please specify).
[Note: if you're not planning on using Munich's public transportation system anytime soon, I recommend skipping this post. Instead go look at some funny t-shirts from Gatlinburg.]
Even Germans are bewildered when they first encounter Munich's public transportation system in all its glory. The various zones, trams, S-bahns, rings, U-bahns, and Streifenkarten are enough to leave anyone's head spinning when trying to purchase a ticket on the fly. That's why I put together this post containing the information I think would be most helpful to tourists and other visitors to Munich. Basically, I'm tired of repeating myself to visitors.
First for the good news: MVV (the company that runs Munich's public transportation) has a relatively useful English website, which includes route maps, ticket prices, and a recently-improved Journey Planner. You can input your origin and destination (in the form of addresses or stops) and receive one or more suggested routes (along with PDF maps and fare information).
There's also an independent iPhone app which shows local transport as well as Deutsche Bahn trains.
The other good news is that Munich's transportation system is rather comprehensive and integrated. You can take buses, trams, U-bahns (subways), and S-bahns (urban rail) all on the same ticket. The travel part is relatively easy. But choosing that ticket? Not always so easy.
Munich's transportation network consists of four zones, which are further subdivided into four rings (or circles) each, for a total of 16 rings. The zones are denoted by the various background colors in the map above. Travel is on the honor system most of the time: it is up to you to buy and validate the right ticket for your needs. Chances are no one will look at your ticket, but if you are checked and found to be without a valid ticket, you will pay a €40 fine.
Tickets can be purchased from machines in all S-bahn and U-bahn stations, as well as at some tram and bus stops. At major stops, such as the airport and the main train station, you can also buy your ticket from a real live person (assuming you can find the MVV counter). Most trams and buses have ticket machines on board, as well, although the ticket selection is more limited. Tickets purchased on board a bus or tram are usually valid immediately; most other tickets must be validated with a stamp. To validate (activate) a ticket, stamp it in one of the machines (usually blue boxes) that can be found as you enter the S-bahn or U-bahn system or on a bus or tram. Passes (day and 3-day) must be stamped only once, on your first trip using the ticket. Be sure to carry your ticket in a place where you can find it.
As a tourist, chances are you'll be staying within the Innenraum (center zone - white) for all of your travel needs, with the exception of trips to and from the airport and/or Dachau. Personally I prefer to get passes that are good for the whole day (or longer), so I don't have to spend time buying individual tickets or thinking about how many rides I plan to take in a given day. Even if I end up overspending by a couple euros, to me it's worth it to just buy one ticket and be free to roam all day.
There are dozens of ticket options, but as a tourist or short-term visitor to Munich, you are likely to find the most useful tickets are the ones listed below. Note that the word 'Partner' in a ticket name means the ticket is good for up to 5 people traveling together; these tickets can be great deals. Note also that in Munich, a day ticket (Tageskarte) is only valid until 6am the following day, rather than for 24 hours.
Getting around central Munich:
A reader (and friend) sent me these photos of a building in Munich. She said she thought it'd be perfect for my blog.
As if I would post such an obscene thing.
What do you think this building is for?
I keep forgetting to post about this, but the event is fast approaching. On the weekend of September 4th - 6th, expat bloggers from all around Germany will be coming to Munich to hang out, chat, drink, eat, walk around, and chat some more. I am all kinds of excited to get to see some of my favorite out-of-town bloggers (such as TQE and the Regensbloggers) again, as well as to meet some others (such as Snooker and Mausi and Heidelbergerin) for the first time.
New folks are more than welcome, so if you're a blogger in Germany (or somewhere nearby) and would like to attend, go sign up on the Expat Bloggers in Germany Website to learn all the dirty little details.
I am in all kinds of love with this NYTimes piece containing a list of code words for use in telegrams. They are infinitely more sophistimicated than the LOLz and WTFs from our age of text messages and Google chats. Hell, I might even start twittering if we all agree to start using words such as 'morisco'* and 'babylonite'**.
I actually have a Twitter account, but so far the appeal of using it has alluded me. Sure, every once in a while I like to read through the tweets of the few friends I'm 'following', but any more than that and I fear it would become a hideous time suck of proportions greater than my Google Reader and Facebook combined.
Do you Twitter? If so, please explain to me its advantages over, say, telegrams.
*Money no object.
**Please provide bail immediately.
