Munich is so much more...

...than that super creepy sex scene in Spielberg's epic of the same name.

Last weekend I went down to Germany's golden city with my friend Courtney because Erik was working down there. It was so fun, and was the most beautiful stop on my April 2008 tour of Gross Germania.

Munich looks more like an Italian city than anything else. Although we bombed 80 % of it, the reconstruction efforts (led by Americans, dirt off our collective shoulders) were spectacular. Most buildings look like they were part of the original beer-brewing Monks' designs, and the city squares are clean and always protected my big golden lions. Because Munich was/is Bavaria's capital and home to its royal family, the city is dotted with gorgeous gardens and palaces. From the Residenz to the Nymphenberg Castle, the city oozes charm.

It also oozes beer.

This too was a highlight of the trip. Beer, beer everywhere and many drops to drink. The Biergarten is the greatest cultural contribution Munich has given the world, and I could not believe the amount of people at the Chinesiche Turm in the Englischer Garten on a Saturday's dusk (The Garden is bigger than Central Park and three times the size of Hyde). It was a party. Throw in a couple of Butterbreze (pretzels sliced like bagels and spread with melted butter in the middle) and you've got the happiest place on earth.

We took a really great Mike's Bike Tour, ate Weiswurst at the Hofbrohaus, saw the monument to Hans and Sophie Scholl, sat on the beaches of the Isar river, shopped the food markets, walked the grounds of the castle and saw the awesome exhibits at the Moderne Pinakothek , Munich's newest art museum. We stayed at a great youth hostel, and although it was crowded with hyper Italian teens*, it was pretty snazzy as hostels go.

Check for pictures later tonight, when I figure out how to download them.

* I'm in the process of developing a theory on Italian teens. I think they go through hyper adolescence: They are the most loud, the most outrageously dressed, the most curiously coiffed, and the most flirtatious of any teen group in the world. Note, this theory is largely being based on my one stay at the youth hostel, but seriously, I've never seen such teens. And the girls! There may have been a handful of super beautiful girls in my high school at 15, but most of us were (still am) awkward-looking. Not Italian girls! They all look like 28 year-old Art Gallery personnel.

The neurotic city

Last week Erik and I joined Flash Video, our neighborhood rental place. It is possibly the most ghetto rental spot in all of the 'Furt. It operates out of a corner in an abandoned office building, and when you walk in you see the owner's senile father sitting in a lawn chair, laughing and watching a dubbed version of "The Kingdom," or "Cheaper By the Dozen 2." The owner only comes out after a few tense minutes. He's like the Wizard when he pops out from behind an old- fashioned counter and says "Guten Abend!" which I hear as, "Well that's a horse of a different color!" Needless to say, I've never ventured to Flash Video alone.

But, alas, we need to rent movies sometimes, so we go. Besides Grandad, Flash's most distinguishing feature is its absolute chaos. DVDs are arranged in no order, and you can find "Raising Helen" in New Releases (that movie came out in like, 2004) next to "The Birds." Sometimes kids movies are mixed in with adult features and there is whole wall of super-duper-ultra-violent PS2 games.

We rented "American Gangster" last night and as Erik was paying I looked at the titles and noted how poorly some translated into German. My favorite was a copy of "Annie Hall," which was renamed "Die Stadtneurotiker." Or the Neurotic City. Germans take everything, including Woody Allen, way too literally.

But Rose is not real...

Earlier this week I went with Henly to the train station. I wanted to purchase my ticket for Munich, and I needed Henly in case the German got fancy and I accidentally ought myself a ticket to Moscow.

The ticket purchasing was going well. Our "consultant" was your typical Deutsche Bahn worker: He had a noticeable lazy eye. When he asked for my identification, I whipped out my MN driver's license and he smiled and asked us:

"Minnesota, aber nicht St. Olaf, oder?" Which means, "Minnesota, but not St. Olaf, right?"

To which we replied:

"Doch! Ja, St. Olaf!" Which means, "No, you're wrong, yes St. Olaf!"

And then he said what every Oles fears the most, that is, not a comment on our wonderful choir, but the inevitable reminder of our sitcom past:

"Ich mag Golden Girls." Which means, "I like the Golden Girls."

I didn't even know of the GG St. Olaf connection until I was well into my freshman year. Apparently, the Rose character (Betty White? Not the slutty Blanche lady, this show was not on my Nick at Nite roundup) was a farm girl from Iowa and went to St. Olaf. And not surprisingly, GG was popular in Germany, popular enough that our DB consultant told us he even googled St. Olaf to make sure it was real. He found our school website, but then solemnly reminded us that Rose didn't actually attend.

"Ja... wir wissen." Which means, "Yeah... we know."

Where's the shrapnel?

In Switzerland they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
-Orson Welles

So. I'm in the middle of my April travels across Germania, i.e. Central Europe, and just finished a three-day stint in the heart of Switzerland: Bern.

Here's what you need to know about Bern:
-It's language is German, but it's used in a crazy sing-songy way that makes all speakers sound like Medieval toddlers.
-The city is obsessed with brown bears, and houses two in a city zoo/monument called the Bärengraben.
-Movies shown here are are shown in OV (original version) but subtitled in both French and German... and in the middle of all movies there is an intermission! And not a nice paused intermission; just a regular slash job in the center reel.
- They have gourmet samples at their grocery stores on Saturday. We're talking silver ware, porcelain cups, etc., a far cry from a Dixie cup of Shasta and a toothpick skewered piece of cheddar cheese.

...And that's about it. Because Switzerland has so proudly been a peacefully state for over 600 years, there isn't a ton of passion, strife, or turmoil in its history, and cities like Bern show this permanent calm. None of the gorgeous middle ages sandstone was pockmarked with shrapnel and there were no monuments marking deportations, annexations, or general aggravations. It was nice.

But like most things that are nice and clean, Bern was a little boring. On Friday Erik and I celebrated his birthday with a tradition Swiss meal of Roesti (a pot of hashbrowns, vegetables, etc, baked with cheese on top) and then walked along the river Aar. On Saturday, we window shopped among the Brunnen (public fountains) of Bern, and found my new all-time favorite grocery chain: Vatter's (father's). See picture for sample info. Then we saw two films "Lars and the Real Girl" and "Once." I love capitalizing on OV movies.

On Sunday we went to the art museum of Bern and then to the famous bar pits. The weather was a balmy 65 degrees and it was the first time in months that we could eat outside. From there we caught one of the hourly shows of the Zytglogge, the famous cuckoo clock in the town center, before catching our train back north. We got back into the 'Furt on Sunday night and I looked at the ugly parts of my city with a new appreciation. At least we got some character.

Pictures!

Holy Crap, I have to get disciplined about updating photos. Get ready for your eyeballs to explode... I'll go chronologically, beginning with my family's trip to the 'Furt.

From top: The beautiful Roemerburg in the heart of the 'Furt. Emily and Joe doing Down Dog to combat jet lag. Jen yucking it up with some Riesling.

Berlin Baby

So this weekend took a group of Oles and assorted others to Berlin to watch Katie Henly run in Germany's largest half-marathon. It was the time of my life (that gets punny later in the blog entry.)

So Katie, John Morrow (living in France) and our token Brtish friend Catherine (diversity!) piled into a taxi cab-yellow rental car and left the 'Furt on Friday afternoon. We made it about 35 mins. before we realized we were going the wrong way, and once we found the right Autobahn, we were caught in some crazy Friday traffic. But! We ended up making friends on the Autobahn. Perhaps Germans feel friendly cameraderie when they are protected in their wagens, but there was plenty of window-down direction sharing going on on the A7. At one point some blonde chicks even asked us if we were going to Hamburg. They were looking to party.

The drive to Berlin should take 5 hours, but it took us 8. I only threatened to kill people once.

Once we got to the big B, things started rocking. We went to Zapatas for drinks and Da Da for fallafels at midnight and did some necessary drinking at the Siblerfisch bar. On Saturday, Katie gave us a professional tour of Berlin, reliving her summer career as a tour guide for the New Berlin outfit. She was spectacular: Surprising us with tidbits, pointing out where Katarina Witt lived in the DDR times, even making a 'fall of the Wall' story moving by mentioning that ''Dirty Dancing'' was playing on Nov. 9, 1989. We saw ecverything on our 4 hour tour, including Hitler's bunker, the memorial to Europe's murdered Jews, and the hotel where Michael Jackson hung his baby out of the window. I was so unprepared for how everchanging the landscape in Berlin was/is. I had last been there four years ago and it looked like a completley different city, although some things (the TV tower, the punky squats, the prostitutes wearing fanny packs) remained blissfully unchanged.

On Sunday was the big run and it was so much fun!!! We made signs, we yelled loud American things, we got stares from Germans on the route.... but it didn't matter! Katie did not die and in fact finished well within her goal time. It was inpiring.

Mad Men

This blog doesn't generally veer into pop culture territory, which is a pity. This is mostly because I feel pretty removed from pop culture -- especially movies here -- and besides my weekly session at comingsoon.net to watch movie trailers, and my near-religious devotion to Germany's Next Top Model, I remain entertainment-free. I usually hate people like me, people who claim to ''not care'' about movies or those who say they ''don't really watch TV.'' Those people seem pretentious and are usually not very funny. They also don't read nearly as many books as they claim to.

So, I was really late to the party with Mad Men, the stylish drama about ad execs (''Madison Ave. Men'') in 1960. After reading about how the show, in its first season, won the Golden Globe, I decided to watch some episodes illegally... they were amazing. No other show has such sharp writing, inspired set design, or a light-handed touch with nostaligia... I'm officially obsessed.

Other than discovering MM, I'm getting back to normal this week after having two weeks of DNA visitors. Erik and I miss our familes but we've kept busy planning our April travels. This weekend, I head to Berlin to watch Henly run in a (half) MARATHON, next weekend is Bern for E's birthday, and two weeks after that is München!

I am conquering Germania.