On the morning after the wedding we again managed to make it up just in time for breakfast at the hotel. I think I wasn't feeling too bad, although there was definitely some hangover there. At around midday we left the hotel and got taxis back to Plattling - not everyone who'd been with us on the way out was heading back at the same time though. Our return train to Munich was huge - a double decker with loads of carriages - so we had plenty of space to spread out. Why they'd not put on such a train on the Friday afternoon when we'd been travelling out I don't know! This time there were no unexpected stops.
For the next couple of days in Munich we were going to be staying in the Sofitel - a very fancy hotel (if you left your shoes outside you room at night someone would take them away to be cleaned overnight!), that my girlfriend had managed to get on a cheap deal from lastminute.com and which a some other friends had also decided to stay at. It was right next to the hotel, so was easy to find when we arrived. We didn't get too much time to indulge in the luxury to start with through, as a couple of my friends had to leave for the airport that afternoon and wanted to see at least a bit of Munich before they left. We wandered into the centre of town towards the Frauenkirche (Munich's main cathedral) and found a place to have lunch next too it. Most people had the roast pork, but I decided to go for a wurst dish that sounded quite nice (as far as my translation of the menu went), although didn't realise until it turned up that the sausages were boiled in a bizarre oniony vinegarette - it was ok, but not something I'd go for again. Luckily one of my friends wasn't able to finish her pork and crackling, so I was able to clean her plate.
After lunch our two departing friends had to head back to the station, so the rest of us went back to the hotel. Getting back there we realised how tired we still were after the exertions of the wedding the day before, so managed to fall asleep for a couple of hours on the extra large and comfy bed. That evening those of us that were left met up again and headed to the Löwenbräu beer garden, which is set in a pretty park (it's pretty if you can avoid the few local alcoholics that hang out there). It was a nice evening, warm with clear skies, so we were able to sit outside for a couple of hours with a Maß or two and a flammkuchen.
The next day my girlfriend and I decided to go exploring on our own by hiring a couple of bikes. Last year during Oktoberfest I'd done a bike tour, so I basically followed the same route we'd taken in that tour. After taking a slightly convoluted route we got to the Englischer Garten and had a look to see if any surfers were about again - there weren't any. We headed up back passed the Chinesischer Turm and out the north of the gardens. We then headed along towards the Olympic Park (home of the 1972 Summer Olympics). We had lunch (I had Currywürst) at the restaurant at the base of the Olympic Tower and then went up the tower itself, which has a great view of Munich. By this time the weather wasn't great - it was overcast and had started raining lightly, so we actually didn't get that great a view (the postcards seem to suggest that on a good day you can see out to the Alps) - last time when I went up it was similar weather.
From the Olymipic park we travelled further west to the Schloss Nymphenburg, an impressive Palace with massive gardens. We briefly wandered into the gardens and had an ice cream (not that the weather had really improved to make ice cream particularly appropriate), but didn't stay long as we needed to get our bikes back and meet up with others. We headed back toward the station where we'd hired the bike, taking a brief detour through the Hirschgarten (the biggest beer garden in Munich) - last year we'd stopped here for a drink, but this time decided not too (it was very quiet anyway, and the rain didn't make it that appealing).
After returning our bikes we decided to take advantage of the spa in our hotel. It was all very fancy with a bizarre shaped swimming pool. We decided to avoid the sauna though, being as it was
in the "Nude area" and us being prudish Brits.
The evening we decided to try to complete our visiting of the four major Munich brewery pubs (Hofbräu, Augustiner, Löwenbräu and Paulaner) by going to the Paulaner bräuhaus. This place had a reasonably small beer garden (although still massive by UK standards) and was described in our guide books as being "cosy" - it wasn't what you might term cosy, i.e. small, over here, but was very nice inside. Despite speaking pretty much no English the waitress managed to tell us that we were in on the all-you-can-eat buffet night - almost everything on the menu was done in buffet form for only €12.90 (or there abouts). We all decided that was the best way to go, along with another Maß. It was all very good - roast pork, wurst goulash, beef, fish, chicken and even plenty of vegetables - but general overindulgence from the previous few days meant none of us quite made the most of all the food on offer. However if you are in Munich on a Monday night I'd very much recommend it as the place to go.
The next day was my girlfriend and my last day in Munich - our flight was about 6pm that evening - but we tried to see a bit more of the city before we left. We walked from our hotel to the River Isar, where we'd previously been to the Deutsches Museum, and crossed to the Müller'sches Volksbad - a public baths - were we had lunch in the cafe. We then walked through a park along the Isar towards the state parliament building - the Maximilianeum. From here we walked to the Friedensengel (Angel of Peace), and then headed back across the river towards our hotel. We did get caught in quite a downpour on the way back, but managed to shelter in a department store. We got back to the hotel and sadly said goodbye to the luxury to head back to our normal lives.
That was it for our trip. We had an uneventful flight back and no-ones bag got lost. It was really nice to be able to see Munich again (and not with the Oktoberfest crowds about) and of course the reason for the trip, the wedding, was fantastic. The next holiday will be to Nice next month (although, airport strike willing, we're going to another wedding in a couple of weeks time in Cork), which I'm very much looking forward to.
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Munchen Glad-to-be-bach 2: The wedding
Here's a follow-up post to my earlier Munich post.
Following a day of exploring Munich it was time to head to Auerbach for the wedding. There were a few of us planning on getting the train from Munich to the wedding location, but we had to wait until early afternoon until our whole group had arrived in Munich (not that we were in a particularly good state to have actually done anything in the morning). When at the station we went to get special Bavarian tickets, which each allowed 5 people to travel and only cost just under €30. After some help from one of the station ticket agents, we managed to negotiate the various screens on the ticket machine and come away with enough tickets for us all to travel. A good start to the journey at least. After this we took over a station cafe for a couple of hours, whilst waiting for our the final arrival to join our group from the airport. During the wait two of the best men (there were three in total, but the other one had travelled out separately) took this time to go over there speeches and I got a sneak preview of one.
By 3:20, once everyone had arrived, we were able to get a train to Plattling, from where some lifts onwards to our hotels had been organised. The train was quite busy, especially the front half of it (which would prove to be telling later on), but we just about managed to all get seats (one of our group decided to sit on the floor, but it wasn't entirely necessary). The journey was going smoothly until we pulled in to Landshut where everyone seemed to be getting off our carriage. Initially we thought that this was good - we'd be able to stretch out round the carriage a bit - but it soon became apparent that we probably should be getting off too (a man had tried to explain this in German to us, but we'd not really been able to understand a word of his explanation). On getting of we realised what was happening - the train was splitting in two with the front half carrying on to where we wanted to go and the back half that we'd been in heading back to Munich! However due to our tardiness getting of the train there was absolutely no way we, with all our luggage, could squeeze onto any of the front carriages. So we had to call ahead and say we'd be delayed about an hour and a half waiting for the next train. Luckily the station we were at had a bar in it, so we were able to occupy ourselves there by having a beer.
We were able to squeeze onto the next train and eventually got to Plattling. The group then split as half of us were staying in Auerbach (where the wedding ceremony was taking place), whereas the other half, myself included, were staying in Hengersberg (which was the where the reception was taking place - and in my opinion therefore the sensible place to stay). We got a lift from the bride and therefore got a bit local information on the drive. Our hotel was a nice place called the Hotel Erika.
After getting settled into our room it was soon time to head through to Auerbach for the evening for some pre-wedding celebrations. Auerbach is a small and pretty village (farming and hunting country) where the bride is from, and where a lot of her family still live, so we got to meet many of them - and also some of the brides ponies. It seem that it's a Bavarian tradition that on the evening before the wedding guns should be fired to scare off any bad spirits - the bride and groom were wearing traditional Bavarian dress of a dirndl and lederhosen respectively. So, to this end we had a lot of explosions being set off during the evening, but rather than guns being fired we had milk churns - milk churns with gun powder added, then a plastic football wedged in the top, and then the bottom being lit, firing the football 50 metres or so and making a very loud bang. Unfortunately the bangs didn't scare off the many mosquitos. There was also beer.
The next morning we were up in time for the hotel breakfast and decided to have a quick walk around Hengersberg before having to head to the wedding. The weather was sunny and hot, with only a few clouds in the sky - perfect wedding weather. It's a small town, and therefore there's not a great deal to see. We walked up to a church, which had a good view over the town, and then back to the small town square where we had an ice cream. It was then back to the hotel to get our wedding gear on.
We arrived in Auerbach just before the first part of the wedding took place - the official state bit involving signing of papers and such - during which time we went for a quick drink (although I stuck to diet coke for the time being) in the local pub/hotel/butcher shop. Then came the church ceremony part of the proceedings. This was the first Catholic wedding I've been to and I was quite worried that it could last quite a while, and I didn't know if I'd be able to make it through awake - the vast majority of it was also going to be in German. I needn't have worried - we were having to stand up and sit down so many times, and there were many hymns sung and readings given, that it would have been hard to catch any sleep. I thought the highlight of the ceremony (other than the fantastic looking bride and groom) was the singer (a friend of the bride), who had a great voice - there was also a very good choir and band (we couldn't see the choir and band as they were above us, and when I first heard trumpets with the choir I thought it might be recorded until I saw one of then pocking over the balcony above my head). During the ceremony there had been several people dressed in full lederhosen sitting at the back of the church. Just before the end of proceedings they all got up and filed out - the reason became apparent when we all got out. On leaving the church there were more load bangs - the lederhosen-ed group all had big pistols (wood and metal with a big blunderbuss-like end) that they were firing into the air - this went on for about 10 minutes. There was the standard photo time and then time to head to the reception - the bride and groom had a special white Citroën 2CV to take them there.
The reception, back in Hengersberg, was held in a big converted barn and courtyard - from the outside it looked slightly like a building site as not everything seemed completed, but once inside the courtyard it looked great. There was an Oompah band and lots, and lots, of cake - I think having cake at the start of a German wedding reception is another tradition. Chocolate cake, cake with fruit on it, and all very nice too, but quite light, which was necessary given the amount there was. The groom then had to tap the first beer barrel and the drinking could properly begin!
The whole reception was great. After spending a while in the sun in the courtyard listening to the band, socialising, drinking a few beers from the barrel, and trying not to eat too much cake, we headed inside for the meal and speeches. It's not normal in Germany for there to be best men speeches (in fact I don't even know if they really have best men), but seeing as this was a multi-national wedding we had them. These were only read out in Enlgish, as none of the best men were particularly well versed in German, but they all went down very well (each of the best men had there own take on the groom from the different times of his life that they'd known him) and the bride was able to translate some of the most salient points. The groom also gave a speech, but this time in both English and German, which was very impressive and very well pitched - it got a lot of laughs in both languages. Later in the evening there was a surprise "speech" - as a way of getting round the dual language problem some of the brides friends has put together a silent play enacting out how the couple met and got together. It was very well done and everyone enjoyed it. The beer flowed quite readily the whole night - and despite apparently later that evening telling my girlfriend "I don't like dancing or singing" I was quite eager to get on the dance floor and was energetically throwing myself (and her) around, occasionally causing some near misses with other dancers, and singing at the top of my voice to the cheesy, but wedding-appropriate, band - without too much persuasion we got them to play 99 Luftballons. Not content on just having beer (which was all free) we had to end the night with rounds of schnapps (the only booze that wasn't free) - I can't say that it was particularly good, but I did manage to keep it down. I forget if this was before or after we did the limbo-ing! Unsurprisingly my memory of the end of the night becomes vague-to-non-existent, but my girlfriend managed to guide me back to the hotel despite my "outer wibbles" which threatened to wibble me into a river.
As I've already said, and without wanting to sound too gushing, it was a great day and the perfect way to celebrate the newlyweds.
Following a day of exploring Munich it was time to head to Auerbach for the wedding. There were a few of us planning on getting the train from Munich to the wedding location, but we had to wait until early afternoon until our whole group had arrived in Munich (not that we were in a particularly good state to have actually done anything in the morning). When at the station we went to get special Bavarian tickets, which each allowed 5 people to travel and only cost just under €30. After some help from one of the station ticket agents, we managed to negotiate the various screens on the ticket machine and come away with enough tickets for us all to travel. A good start to the journey at least. After this we took over a station cafe for a couple of hours, whilst waiting for our the final arrival to join our group from the airport. During the wait two of the best men (there were three in total, but the other one had travelled out separately) took this time to go over there speeches and I got a sneak preview of one.
By 3:20, once everyone had arrived, we were able to get a train to Plattling, from where some lifts onwards to our hotels had been organised. The train was quite busy, especially the front half of it (which would prove to be telling later on), but we just about managed to all get seats (one of our group decided to sit on the floor, but it wasn't entirely necessary). The journey was going smoothly until we pulled in to Landshut where everyone seemed to be getting off our carriage. Initially we thought that this was good - we'd be able to stretch out round the carriage a bit - but it soon became apparent that we probably should be getting off too (a man had tried to explain this in German to us, but we'd not really been able to understand a word of his explanation). On getting of we realised what was happening - the train was splitting in two with the front half carrying on to where we wanted to go and the back half that we'd been in heading back to Munich! However due to our tardiness getting of the train there was absolutely no way we, with all our luggage, could squeeze onto any of the front carriages. So we had to call ahead and say we'd be delayed about an hour and a half waiting for the next train. Luckily the station we were at had a bar in it, so we were able to occupy ourselves there by having a beer.
We were able to squeeze onto the next train and eventually got to Plattling. The group then split as half of us were staying in Auerbach (where the wedding ceremony was taking place), whereas the other half, myself included, were staying in Hengersberg (which was the where the reception was taking place - and in my opinion therefore the sensible place to stay). We got a lift from the bride and therefore got a bit local information on the drive. Our hotel was a nice place called the Hotel Erika.
After getting settled into our room it was soon time to head through to Auerbach for the evening for some pre-wedding celebrations. Auerbach is a small and pretty village (farming and hunting country) where the bride is from, and where a lot of her family still live, so we got to meet many of them - and also some of the brides ponies. It seem that it's a Bavarian tradition that on the evening before the wedding guns should be fired to scare off any bad spirits - the bride and groom were wearing traditional Bavarian dress of a dirndl and lederhosen respectively. So, to this end we had a lot of explosions being set off during the evening, but rather than guns being fired we had milk churns - milk churns with gun powder added, then a plastic football wedged in the top, and then the bottom being lit, firing the football 50 metres or so and making a very loud bang. Unfortunately the bangs didn't scare off the many mosquitos. There was also beer.
The next morning we were up in time for the hotel breakfast and decided to have a quick walk around Hengersberg before having to head to the wedding. The weather was sunny and hot, with only a few clouds in the sky - perfect wedding weather. It's a small town, and therefore there's not a great deal to see. We walked up to a church, which had a good view over the town, and then back to the small town square where we had an ice cream. It was then back to the hotel to get our wedding gear on.
We arrived in Auerbach just before the first part of the wedding took place - the official state bit involving signing of papers and such - during which time we went for a quick drink (although I stuck to diet coke for the time being) in the local pub/hotel/butcher shop. Then came the church ceremony part of the proceedings. This was the first Catholic wedding I've been to and I was quite worried that it could last quite a while, and I didn't know if I'd be able to make it through awake - the vast majority of it was also going to be in German. I needn't have worried - we were having to stand up and sit down so many times, and there were many hymns sung and readings given, that it would have been hard to catch any sleep. I thought the highlight of the ceremony (other than the fantastic looking bride and groom) was the singer (a friend of the bride), who had a great voice - there was also a very good choir and band (we couldn't see the choir and band as they were above us, and when I first heard trumpets with the choir I thought it might be recorded until I saw one of then pocking over the balcony above my head). During the ceremony there had been several people dressed in full lederhosen sitting at the back of the church. Just before the end of proceedings they all got up and filed out - the reason became apparent when we all got out. On leaving the church there were more load bangs - the lederhosen-ed group all had big pistols (wood and metal with a big blunderbuss-like end) that they were firing into the air - this went on for about 10 minutes. There was the standard photo time and then time to head to the reception - the bride and groom had a special white Citroën 2CV to take them there.
The reception, back in Hengersberg, was held in a big converted barn and courtyard - from the outside it looked slightly like a building site as not everything seemed completed, but once inside the courtyard it looked great. There was an Oompah band and lots, and lots, of cake - I think having cake at the start of a German wedding reception is another tradition. Chocolate cake, cake with fruit on it, and all very nice too, but quite light, which was necessary given the amount there was. The groom then had to tap the first beer barrel and the drinking could properly begin!
The whole reception was great. After spending a while in the sun in the courtyard listening to the band, socialising, drinking a few beers from the barrel, and trying not to eat too much cake, we headed inside for the meal and speeches. It's not normal in Germany for there to be best men speeches (in fact I don't even know if they really have best men), but seeing as this was a multi-national wedding we had them. These were only read out in Enlgish, as none of the best men were particularly well versed in German, but they all went down very well (each of the best men had there own take on the groom from the different times of his life that they'd known him) and the bride was able to translate some of the most salient points. The groom also gave a speech, but this time in both English and German, which was very impressive and very well pitched - it got a lot of laughs in both languages. Later in the evening there was a surprise "speech" - as a way of getting round the dual language problem some of the brides friends has put together a silent play enacting out how the couple met and got together. It was very well done and everyone enjoyed it. The beer flowed quite readily the whole night - and despite apparently later that evening telling my girlfriend "I don't like dancing or singing" I was quite eager to get on the dance floor and was energetically throwing myself (and her) around, occasionally causing some near misses with other dancers, and singing at the top of my voice to the cheesy, but wedding-appropriate, band - without too much persuasion we got them to play 99 Luftballons. Not content on just having beer (which was all free) we had to end the night with rounds of schnapps (the only booze that wasn't free) - I can't say that it was particularly good, but I did manage to keep it down. I forget if this was before or after we did the limbo-ing! Unsurprisingly my memory of the end of the night becomes vague-to-non-existent, but my girlfriend managed to guide me back to the hotel despite my "outer wibbles" which threatened to wibble me into a river.
As I've already said, and without wanting to sound too gushing, it was a great day and the perfect way to celebrate the newlyweds.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Munchen Glad-to-be-bach
The other day I arrived back from my second trip to Munich. The first was time was last September for Oktoberfest (which for some reason I didn't really document on this blog) and this time was also to commemorate a wedding, but that of my friend rather than between Ludwig I and Princess Therese.
My girlfriend and I arrived in Munich a couple of days before the wedding (which was actually taking place in the brides home village of Auerbach) to have a bit of a holiday - as our guide we'd bought this book to give us the low-down on things to do whilst there. Our plane arrived in Munich quite late, and unfortunately without my girlfriends luggage (the reason for which was obviously due to my baggage curse - although my bag arrived with no delay), so our first night just involved getting to our hotel and sleeping rather than drinking any beer (we would make up for that later in the trip). Our hotel for the first part of the trip was the very pleasant Kings's Hotel "First Class" (only the best for us!), located close to the main train station, and also opposite from the aptly named boobs table dancing club.
Our first day mainly revolved around waiting for my girlfriends bag to arrive (which due to reasons beyond anyone's comprehension took far longer to get from Munich airport to the hotel than should be physically possible). However, we still managed to get out and about and see a lot of sights. The first use of our travel guide was to find a good place for brunch - we ended up at a place near the university district - I ordered the "Ham and Eggs" from the menu, but my girlfriend was more adventurous and went for "2 Ei im Glas", which with my very basic grasp of German was able to translate as "2 Eggs in a glass", but we were still a bit confused as to what it would be like. The service wasn't the most lighting fast that it could have been, but I eventually got my food, and echoing our baggage arrival my girlfriend had to wait quite a while longer for hers - which was indeed 2 eggs in a glass (an ice cream dish by the looks of it). Despite the wait the food was good and the place was very nice.
Following this we explore a bit before checking back at the hotel for the bag situation. We walked through towards the university and into the Englischer Garten, to the Chinesischer Turm and then checked to see if there was anyone doing any surfing (there an artificial wave at one point on the stream that runs through the garden, which from last years trip I found out that people surf on) - there was only one surfer and he seemed to be struggling to stay on his board for more than a second or two. We then headed back to the hotel via the Hofgarten and Residenz - during which time I tried to act as tour guide by part-remembering information a real tour guide has told us during my last visit.
The bag had not arrived! So we went out again to meet up with some friends (nursing hangovers from the excesses from the Hofbräuhaus from the night before) also out for the wedding and then go to the Deutsches Museum - this is one of the worlds largest science museums, so naturally I wanted to go. It is a massive museum, with far too much to see in one afternoon visit. Our first plan was to try and see a massively scaled version of a cell that they have, but I managed (unintentionally) to get us waylaid in the physics section. I was very impressed with the displays they had (a large number of which, although not all, had English explanations below the German versions) especially the detail and quite technical information that they gave - this definitely wasn't a dumbed down museum, and probably wouldn't really be the kind of place to take small children, but I thought it was great. We did eventually find the cell, then went on to see the astronomy exhibits and just before closing managed to see an Enigma machine.
Again on returning to the hotel the bag had still not arrived, so pre-going out for the evening we had to head to the clothes shops. Given that we'd already been on our feet all day, and hadn't eaten since brunch, this was quite an arduous task (going to the shops is arduous enough for me at the best of times). We were then able to head out for dinner and drinks. We met up with the others at the Augustiner bräuhaus for dinner and had a couple of half litre of their Helles beer, and despite their overindulgences the night before our friends decided that it would be a good idea to go back to the Hofbräuhaus (who's other famous patrons included Hitler) - so that my girlfriend and I could see it of course (although I did go there last year). The Hofbräuhaus is very impressive and must be one of the largest pubs in the world, even so it was packed (on a Thursday night) as we had to sit outside in the internal courtyard. We decided that it wouldn't be right not to have a couple of litre Maß's and play some drinking games. We made it home somewhat worse for wear, but did find that the bag had finally arrived.
I'll try and soon write more about the trip (maybe just updating this post or in subsequent posts), but I'll leave it for now - you'll have to wait for the exciting stories of how not to get a train to Plattling, the joys of an Anglo-Bavarian wedding, and how we managed to complete collection of drinking at the four of the big Munich breweries.
[The blog title is a hilarious play on words based on the German place Mönchengladbach, which to be honest prior to looking it up on wikipedia I had incorrectly assumed was part of Munich, but is in fact quite far from Bavaria in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia - the title was too good to pass up though, so it stays as it is.]
I've now written up some more of the trip:
Part 2: The Wedding
My girlfriend and I arrived in Munich a couple of days before the wedding (which was actually taking place in the brides home village of Auerbach) to have a bit of a holiday - as our guide we'd bought this book to give us the low-down on things to do whilst there. Our plane arrived in Munich quite late, and unfortunately without my girlfriends luggage (the reason for which was obviously due to my baggage curse - although my bag arrived with no delay), so our first night just involved getting to our hotel and sleeping rather than drinking any beer (we would make up for that later in the trip). Our hotel for the first part of the trip was the very pleasant Kings's Hotel "First Class" (only the best for us!), located close to the main train station, and also opposite from the aptly named boobs table dancing club.
Our first day mainly revolved around waiting for my girlfriends bag to arrive (which due to reasons beyond anyone's comprehension took far longer to get from Munich airport to the hotel than should be physically possible). However, we still managed to get out and about and see a lot of sights. The first use of our travel guide was to find a good place for brunch - we ended up at a place near the university district - I ordered the "Ham and Eggs" from the menu, but my girlfriend was more adventurous and went for "2 Ei im Glas", which with my very basic grasp of German was able to translate as "2 Eggs in a glass", but we were still a bit confused as to what it would be like. The service wasn't the most lighting fast that it could have been, but I eventually got my food, and echoing our baggage arrival my girlfriend had to wait quite a while longer for hers - which was indeed 2 eggs in a glass (an ice cream dish by the looks of it). Despite the wait the food was good and the place was very nice.
Following this we explore a bit before checking back at the hotel for the bag situation. We walked through towards the university and into the Englischer Garten, to the Chinesischer Turm and then checked to see if there was anyone doing any surfing (there an artificial wave at one point on the stream that runs through the garden, which from last years trip I found out that people surf on) - there was only one surfer and he seemed to be struggling to stay on his board for more than a second or two. We then headed back to the hotel via the Hofgarten and Residenz - during which time I tried to act as tour guide by part-remembering information a real tour guide has told us during my last visit.
The bag had not arrived! So we went out again to meet up with some friends (nursing hangovers from the excesses from the Hofbräuhaus from the night before) also out for the wedding and then go to the Deutsches Museum - this is one of the worlds largest science museums, so naturally I wanted to go. It is a massive museum, with far too much to see in one afternoon visit. Our first plan was to try and see a massively scaled version of a cell that they have, but I managed (unintentionally) to get us waylaid in the physics section. I was very impressed with the displays they had (a large number of which, although not all, had English explanations below the German versions) especially the detail and quite technical information that they gave - this definitely wasn't a dumbed down museum, and probably wouldn't really be the kind of place to take small children, but I thought it was great. We did eventually find the cell, then went on to see the astronomy exhibits and just before closing managed to see an Enigma machine.
Again on returning to the hotel the bag had still not arrived, so pre-going out for the evening we had to head to the clothes shops. Given that we'd already been on our feet all day, and hadn't eaten since brunch, this was quite an arduous task (going to the shops is arduous enough for me at the best of times). We were then able to head out for dinner and drinks. We met up with the others at the Augustiner bräuhaus for dinner and had a couple of half litre of their Helles beer, and despite their overindulgences the night before our friends decided that it would be a good idea to go back to the Hofbräuhaus (who's other famous patrons included Hitler) - so that my girlfriend and I could see it of course (although I did go there last year). The Hofbräuhaus is very impressive and must be one of the largest pubs in the world, even so it was packed (on a Thursday night) as we had to sit outside in the internal courtyard. We decided that it wouldn't be right not to have a couple of litre Maß's and play some drinking games. We made it home somewhat worse for wear, but did find that the bag had finally arrived.
I'll try and soon write more about the trip (maybe just updating this post or in subsequent posts), but I'll leave it for now - you'll have to wait for the exciting stories of how not to get a train to Plattling, the joys of an Anglo-Bavarian wedding, and how we managed to complete collection of drinking at the four of the big Munich breweries.
[The blog title is a hilarious play on words based on the German place Mönchengladbach, which to be honest prior to looking it up on wikipedia I had incorrectly assumed was part of Munich, but is in fact quite far from Bavaria in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia - the title was too good to pass up though, so it stays as it is.]
I've now written up some more of the trip:
Part 2: The Wedding
Friday, September 12, 2008
Conflicting information
Tomorrow I'm planning on taking a trip to Hamburg seeing as I've not been out of Hannover during my 3 months here in Germany. I wanted to see what there was to do in Hamburg, so googled "tourist information Hamburg" and on the first page of results was the Visit Sweden site! I don't know how they've managed to get their site such a high rating on a search for information about a city in an entirely different country! Anyway that site didn't really help me decide what I'm going to do, so I might just go on this bus tour instead.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Ain't talkin' 'bout dub
Getting to see an English language film shown in it's original form without it being dubbed into German is apparently quite a rare thing in Hannover (I suppose for the obvious reason that it's in Germany and generally people are statistically more likely to speak and understand German.) So when a film is being shown in English here it can be a big event for those that can understand it and prefer to see the unadulterated version of the film - you get to hear the actual actors who were paid to star in the film rather than their, not-necessarily similar sounding, German counterparts. I'm giving this set up to lead into a cinema outing that a group of about 25 or more of us (who work at the AEI) went on on Friday evening. Someone had heard that the new Will Smith movie Hancock was being shown (for one showing only) in English, so despite it not being at the top of many people's lists of films to see (I'd heard only bad reviews) we all jumped at the chance of going. Having now watched the film I have to say that I quite enjoyed it. It wasn't great, but it was a decent action movie with good effects and a story that had its funny moments and didn't drag. The film is probably saved by only being about one and a half hours long and if they'd tried to keep it up for longer it would have started grating, although the shortness did mean a lot of stuff had to be left unexplained. I also enjoyed the fact that I could buy a beer in a big multiplex cinema and take it into the screen with me, but that's not really to do with the film.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Shooting up the place
Today sees the start of the world largest Schützenfest, or German markmens festival, in Hannover. The main thing I've noticed for this is a large fun fair in town, but apparently (according to wikipedia) there's going to be of order 5000 marksmens trying to become Schützenkönig by shooting at, amoung other things, wooden eagles! In addition to this there're beer tents (obviously) and a very long parade. It runs all week, so I should have some more to say about it when I go along to some of the events.
Monday, June 30, 2008
The horn of loss
Last night a few of us went to the football stadium in Hannover, outside which they'd erected a big screen, to watch the Euro2008 final between Germany and Spain. There was a pretty big crowd of people there (you could hear the general crowd hum from several hundred metres away), a lot of German flags being waved and also painted on peoples faces, and a reasonable, but not that excessive, amount of noise being made. For the first half of the match the crowd were fairly subdued, with one or two groups of people occasionally trying half-heartedly to start a chant of "Super, super Deutchland". In terms of the football the German's got off to a fast paced start in the first 10 minutes, but that was about it from them as Spain took over the match and scored towards the end of the half. The crowd picked up a bit in the second half (maybe created by the DJ during half time trying to gee the fans up a bit with some tunes) despite being a goal down. There was a bit more of a buzz in the air, and hope that Germany could pull it back. However it didn't translate to the match as Spain continued to dominate and quickly closed down any German plays when they were on the ball. Spain were the deserved winners in the end, but surprisingly it didn't put that much of a dampener on the German fan's spirits around Hannover. In fact they seemed more animated and rowdy now that the game was over and they'd lost. On the streets every car was going by with people leaning out the window's waving German flags and beeping their horns. It's quite different to how a similar event (if we ever make a final that is) would be back in England, which would have involved a properly ludicrous level of chanting, singing, shouts of support/abuse/derision during the match, but then a very sober silence when we lost as everyone headed home faces held in hands.
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