That's "Merry Christmas" in German.
My school put on a Christmas performance where all the grades performed something. Grade 1 sang a variation of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer and I didn't get a chance to see third grade sing Santa Claus is coming to town. They were really cute.
As soon as I was done with school on the 18 I went off to Munich with my friend Chelsea. We were there from the 19 to the 23. It was really really fun. I was amazed at the amount of good English that was spoken. Chelsea and I went wandering around to find all the amazing Christmas Markets that were around Munich. We did a free walking tour put on by this company called New Europe in Spanish because there were less people in the tour given in Spanish than then tour given in English.
Apart from the myriad of Christmas Markets that we stumbled upon, I particularly liked the Viktualien Markt. It is basically a HUGE open air produce and cheese and wine and meat market that operates year around everyday except Sunday. Essentially a really awesome farmer's market, but with out the super local stuff. A lot of what they had was imported, esp the fruits. There was also this interesting obsession with tropical fruit and in particular with pineapple. The only real problem we had was that is was absolutely freezing. I don't now if it was Temperature wise a lot colder than Madrid but it sure felt like it.
of course, one cannot go to Munich and not go into a Hofbrauhuas to see what it is like and sample the food and drink. We went to the largest most touristy one 4 times. Once, we went twice in one day. Because I was in Germany I felt like I needed to get the full experience and taste the beer (however they have a marvelous mix that is beer and lemonade, in Spain this is known as a clara). Those beer tankers are HUGE. The large amt of beer combined with the large amt of food they serve makes everyone round and jolly. I can see why the Germans are large people;-) Pork and beer and sausage with sauerkraut accompanied by a gigantic pretzel are the foods of choice in the HB. One of the more special types of pork you can get is what they translate to roast pig knuckle. However I have yet to figure out which knuckle it is and I suspect that it is the knee because it is quite large. But very very delicious. Even though the HB is scorned by some people because of how it caters to tourists I'm glad we went because it has quite the atmosphere. The ceiling has paintings of food (bread and pretzels and sausage) and there is a band in lederhosen and really cool hats playing what sounded an awful lot like John Phillip Sousa marches. (and i probably just committed a huge cultural faux pas by comparing traditional Munich tunes that inspire camaraderie to Sousa...) The fact that the HB wanted to lure tourists did not, to me, have a big impact on how they operated. There are obviously the regulars because they have their personal tankards locked up in their own personal cages and they are removed when the regular comes for a visit. The prices are not outrageous and the food is food that is found in other places as well. Also, apparently the Hofbrauhaus was also one of the gathering places for Hilter when he was trying to organize his followers.
What I also found very interesting about Munich is how its history is so linked to WWII. Almost every single landmark and important building in Munich had been bombed and destroyed during the war so almost all the buildings are in a sense replicas. Which is something that I find so strange. I guess that looking at a building that is fairly new and hearing about how 'old' is it is rather disconcerting. Our guide told us that the only things that were not replicas were the clock tower and the Government building tower because the bombers would use them as visual aid in identifying another target.
We took two day trips from Munich. One was to see the concentration camp in Dachau and the other was to a Monastery/brewery/distillery called Andechs in the town of Herrshing. Talking with my friends about our visit to Dachau, we all decided that visiting in winter added a different dimension to how we saw the memorial site. If we had visited in summer or when the weather was better it would have seemed like some sort of horrible disconnection because I think it is harder to grasp what the prisoners went through when the sun is shinning and the weather is beautiful. WE were freezing our butts off and we were dressed for the cold. We could hardly imagine being there in prisoner's garb standing hours on end for roll call during the dead of winter. Being so cold also led us to go through the Museum that was at the memorial site. It is HUGE and very interesting because it covers the entire history of the camp up until the point where it became a memorial site. After the museum we went through some of the barracks that they had then to some large memorial sites that had been erected on the grounds and then to where the had the crematoriums. I´m not usually very squeamish, but being by actual ovens where they burned people was very disturbing.
The other day trip to the Monastery/brewery/distillery was fun because it was nice to get out of the city. Chelsea and I decided that Herrshing is a quaint German village that would be great to visit during the summer because they have a lake and all sorts of cute little places. What was also nice was to take the train because you got to ride through some pretty cool countryside. When we got to the village we learned that we had to wait a half hour for the bus to take us up the hill to Andechs so we wandered into a ´bio´store where everything is organic/vegan/vegetarian/gluten, lactose, etc free. I bought some applesauce to take back with me because applesauce here is very expensive and ended up with a free mini bottle of organic wine from...wait for it-Spain! How random. Herrshing/Andechs ended up being a good place for free things because I ended up with a free cotton tote bag from the gift shop. Once we got up the hill we walked around the church building and almost everything else was closed. After the church we went for lunch in their cafeteria where the food is served cafeteria style with trays and servers behind the counter. I ended up getting an entire large pig knuckle and large pretzel (you can see my meal in the shutterfly album) that was amazing and good and HUGE. Chelsea and I liked this place because there were seemingly not a lot of tourists. There was no way that the amount of people inside eating matched the tiny amount of people outside looking at things. We shared a table with an older German couple who must have been wondering what I was up to with my gigantic meal. Although it was a tourist attraction, this place felt very local. I suppose that's one of the nice things about travelling in winter to cold places.
We missed going to the ´Disney´castles where you can take a horse drawn carriage up the hill and Olympic park and the BMW museum. We actually didn´t go to any museums, so I would need to go back. Munich is apparently one of the safest places in Europe to be, but also apparently the most expensive city in Germany. Their public transportation system is very interesting because nobody ever checks whether you paid or not. You can get onto a bus and not show your ticket. On several occasions we were unsure if we were even supposed to pay. For the train you validate you ticket once when you get it and then its good all day, but you validate with a machine and then nobody ever asks to see it and there is nobody ever around to check it again. A very strange system. Going to Munich was a lot of fun and I would really like to go back, especially during a warmer season.
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