The friend with whom we were staying lived not far from a town at the end of the Subway line—and on the train line between Munich and Augsburg, between the city and the alps. From his deck on a clear day you can see the Zugspitze, one of the highest and most famous peaks, and the other mountains ranging above the green plain dotted with small hamlets and villages. It was beautiful and peaceful. His parents had built the house themselves, and it was heated by a magnificent tile-covered wood-oven.
Many of the American stereotypes of Germans relate to the Bavarians or possibly even the Austrians—the Oktoberfest, the beer, sausage, Lederhosen, etc. Bavaria, as one of the richest (if not the richest) Länder in Germany, is admired for its school and university system; two of Munich’s universities were recently awarded an elite distinction—where Freiburg ended, much to its dismay, a close fourth behind Karlsruhe; the university now distinguishes itself as the almost-elite ALU. Ethnically—though I use the word liberally—the former Kingdom of Bavaria is divided into the Bavarians, the Franks, and the Schwaben; these are something between cultural groups and former principalities; they have their own flags, dialects, regions, and apparently culture. In any case, for such ‘foreigners’ as my boyfriend (he’s from Münster, in the north-west of Germany) and myself (I took my passport, just in case), understanding the loudspeaker announcements in the train was a bit of a trick, not to mention our friend’s parents, who speak in dialect and wear, upon proper occasion of town celebrations or birthdays, Tracht (traditional costumes). They gave extra effort to speak clearly or in High German as much as possible and all in all it worked out well—but it is like hearing a different language. The words are different but similar—not just differences in rhythm, like Scottish or Kenyan English. In any case, they made us feel quite welcome and were wonderfully friendly.
As a poor student in a university town, I found it a luxury to be somewhere with a living room, somewhere with couches and terraces and seating for fifteen. It was lovely to have a big family breakfast—though I had no chance of doing justice to the spread presented to us, although I did my best to the Stachelbeerentorte (gooseberry torte). As someone who spent the last few weeks either working or writing a paper, it was a wonderful change of pace to just….relax and take it easy.
Saturday we spent in Munich with F. as tour guide, with the aid of a small map, short descriptions, much enthusiasm and the occasional downpour we stumped around the old town, viewing the Residenz, the Frauenkirche (the famous twin towers, seen on every picture), multiple churches and squares, the university, and the market.
The Viktualienmarkt, as it is known, is a gigantic marketplace where all manner of edibles and specialities are sold. There are entire stands just for honies or wines or vegetables, with butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers equally represented. Partly composed of tents, partly of permanent buildings, it is possible to buy all manner of interesting—and disgusting—things to eat. During one hailstorm we took shelter under the awning of a butcher’s shop—particularly fine view, in my opinion—which displayed a range of wares that would do my 10th-grade biology class justice. There you could purchase just about any animal part you wanted, including entire feet, heads, udders, tongues, and more things I won’t name or describe. We stood in front of the window and joked about these delicacies—who would want a head? What do you use it for, decoration?—to which the woman standing next to us replied that heads and feet could be used in many fine dishes, soups, sauces, etc., from the days when nothing was wasted. She explained how one could prepare a sauce using the head, and sent her grandkid into the shop. The child, full of enthusiasm—morbid fascination?—returned with…a severed pig’s head. Vegetarianism was starting to look good to at least one of my companions.
After our extensive tour and lunch at an Italian place we headed off to the English gardens, a huge green area stretching for almost 5 k in the city center. There is even a wave pool where you can try body surfing, separate equestrian and bike paths, formal gardens and “English” gardens, referring to the more natural style of artificial gardens (compared to French formal gardens).
We were treated to a Bavarian dinner of Würstchen (sausages), Sauerkraut (pickled cabbage), and Schupfnudeln (pan-fried potato noodles, sort of like Gnocci). Of the two of us non-Bavarians, M. was the one who had never had Sauerkraut before, and despite his best efforts he didn’t manage to decimate his sausages.
We learned that the town, of which our friend’s father was mayor, had undergone tremendous demographical changes after the 2nd world war. In 500 years the town’s population had only doubled, and by the 1940s was only at about 3,000—and to imagine that this town housed and eventually incorporated about 2,500 refugees is a statement of their friendliness and willingness to incorporate others which is not reflected in, for instance, towns in the Black Forest (stories of not-so-recent newcomers to towns in the Schwarzwald tell of newcomers who aren’t really taken in by the locals even after 10 or 15 years).
Our evening entertainment consisted of going to the movies to watch Schwere Jungs (Heavy Boys), a story of the German 1950-something bobsled team at that year’s Oslo Olympic games. It’s based on a true story about team members from the towns of Garnisch-Paternkirche, which are visible from our friend’s balcony. The Bavarian dialect was spoken in the movie, making comprehension occasionally challenging, but it was a great movie and quite funny.
Sunday morning we went running, in and among the pines, along the creek and through the fields. The landscape is beautiful, rural, and a half hour from Munich. The run was lovely, the weather perfect, and aside from a slight altercation with a dog, everything was wonderful.
Instead of rushing off into town, we went for a walk around the Starnbergersee, Lake Starnberg, a beautiful diversion for a sunny day. I can only imagine how it would be to spend a summer afternoon swimming and sunning or just lying on the grass.
We should have spent Saturday’s rainy morning in the museum and enjoyed the Sunday sunshine with a city tour, but as we aren’t psychic and didn’t watch the only-sometimes-accurate weather forecast we had to do it the other way around. So we went to the Pinothek Moderne museum, with a lovely exhibition of modern art, with quite a few from the Blaue Reiter group (Franz Marck, Wassily Kadinsky, etc.) as well as quite a few Max Beckmann paintings. There was also a really interesting exhibition on architecture in literature—with small models and illustrations of literary architectural masterpieces or curiosities, such as Pippi Longstockings’ house or Rapunzel’s tower. There was also a design and a graphic exhibition, though our attendance in the latter cases was somewhat cursory at best.
We didn’t have time for lunch so we bought bread and climbed into the backseat of a VW bus, which would take us back home. As a sort of organised hitchhiking, carpool websites provide contacts for people who are driving somewhere with free places. For a contribution they take on passengers; thus it was that we were riding in this bus with people we didn’t know.
The route from Munich to Freiburg can go one of two ways—once through Switzerland, once along Lake Constance. We took the latter way, and were witness to the most spectacular sunset I have seen in a very long time just as we were driving along the shore. A fantastic end to a wonderful trip.
(picture not from me: http://www.bodanrueckgemeinden.de/Sonnenuntergang1280x1024.JPG )
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2 comments:
and the stories continue. Oh, the memories. Sounds wonderful, of course, the more so as you (sort of) spoke the language. That a country the size of Montana can have so much regional cultural speaks to its long history, and the isolating mountains nearby. I look forward to more stories, and being part of some of them. mom
I enjoy your observations and travelogues, and hope you continue those thru your life.As you may know, Samuel Pepys, one of my father's favorites, was one of the first diarists, who made comments about life around him and his reaction to it. More recently, I've been off-and-on again reading "the Education of Henry Adams" and "Letters of Henry Adams 1858-1891", just the period of my Great-grandfather after the civil war. Adams' volumes were noted on account of their depiction of social life during those times, and as a grandson and great-grandson of presidents he could nove in privledged circles.
My father in the 1930' drifted into the diarist rather than the observer mode, and while his diary entries were inetresting, especially if you read between the lines, they were not especially instructive about the times. Somewhere here, though, I have his diary of the years 1940-1945, and as it contains brief but illumating descriptions of his life in wartime New York and meeting my mother and my birth, I'm naturally interested in the picture it paints, howeven many lines trere are to read between.
Keeping some kind of a diary as you do about general things you are doing will be fascinating in future years, when you look back and remind yourself of events. I still occasionally pull out the Logbook of the Long Gone, our sailboat of 1980, where I kept fairly detailed but technical descriptions of every port we visited, every gallon we put in the tank, and every challenge we surmounted (and those we didn't, as well). There are some entries, enter the morning after the night before, where I may have been less than perfectly lucid, but at least I can remember being less than lucid, and if I was staying in port that day, lucidity was not necessarily the paramount achievment.
So, a question is, if this is all onlne somewhere, how do you archive it for posterity?
JagMkix
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