Fruhlingsfestfun

Fruhlingsfest is back! And amid all the beer-swilling, song-singing, and tracht-wearing, I have discovered a new skill. I'm pretty good at those shooting games. 

Here are some toys I've won

And here's Gordo with the clownfish I won - on it's way to Mischka!

Earworm - Payphone by Maroon5

When I first heard this, I didn't think it was that great but now it's stuck in my head like crazy. 

Also, those words, so true :P

ANZACS!

A funny thing about living overseas - I think I've become more *Aussie*. By this, I mean I care more about things that I didn't really think too much about before. Things like finding out what's the score in the Boxing Day Test and eating more vegemite and meat pies than I usually would. I'm not sure when was the last time I ate Anzac cookies. Definitely not in the last two years but I had a real craving to make some to celebrate the thorough defeat of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps under the command of the British Empire at the hands of the Turks at Gallipoli ;)


The recipe I used was ripped from the Women's Weekly

#Combine 1 cup of plain flour, 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 cup of rolled oats, and 1 cup of dessicated coconut

Melt 125g of butter in a pan, add 2tb golden syrup, 1 tb warm water, and 1tsp bicarb/baking soda. While still warm, mix into the dry ingredients

Spoon mixture onto an oven tray lined with baking paper and bake in a (pre-heated) oven at 160C for 12-15 mins or until golden brown.

Cool slightly on try and eat to heart's delight!

I'm happy to report that after they cooled, the cookies were a delightful mix of hard and chewiness. I took them to work where they were happily devoured by the reason why Aussies got killed at Gallipoli - The Germans!  


As a side note, the Germans think it's funny we *celebrate* Anzac Day. The comment was made that celebrating a day when your troops got massacred by the enemy when trying to invade their land...that'd be like them celebrating the Battle of Stalingrad or basically any day in the calendar!

Also, this was the golden syrup I bought specifically to use for this recipe. Now I need to think of other ways to eat it. Hmmmm 

Crimes against Fashion

I had forgotten this atrocity but I remember being absolutely gobsmacked that someone would consider these attractive footwear.

Well, anyone other than Hermes or Captain America. 

Quote of the day

This past weekend I went to Ikea with Hero Thomas because both of us needed stuff and Ikea is rarely open on Sundays (wooh! There needs to be more Sunday trading in Munich, dagnabbit!). 


Anyway, on our search for him to get a new, larger frypan, he spotted one that suited his purposes and upon realising that he'd used the same type before, exclaimed, "Oh, I've had a lot of good experiences with Skanka!" 

Well done Ikea!

Time to invest in plastic plants

So it turns out my tulips did in fact die over the late Winter. At some point I noticed that the shoots hadn't seemed to grow in height despite other tulips around here being in full bloom. I poked them and the green shoot fell over exposing a rotting mush under the soil level. :'( The ROSE bush on my balcony also somehow managed to die. I consider this a real achievement as Dan recommended roses as almost unkillable. 


Maybe I should just invest in a dog. I hear they're REALLY difficult to kill. 

Things I love about living in Europe.

I could/should probably make this a regular topic, but I'm just gonna say that one of the best things about living in Europe (and probably Munich in particular) is not having to wake up at 5:30am to watch the Champions League. 


Also, I get to watch it with people. This is particularly important when celebrating goals or complaining about referee decisions. *thumbs up*

Movie review - Battleship

Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) gets himself into quite a bit of trouble with the law after a drunken stunt in the pursuit of blonde hottie, Samantha (Brooklyn Decker - aka Mrs. Andy Roddick). Fed up with his ways, older brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgaard) declares that Alex will join him in the Navy! A few years later, each brother is in control of a destroyer, and Alex is working up the nerve to ask Sam's dad (Liam Neeson) for her hand in marriage except Dad is an Admiral who is none too impressed with the younger Hopper's problems with authority. Anyway, navies from various countries congregate in Hawaii to take part in war games....when aliens invade Earth after stupid humans transmitted a signal in the direction of their planet a few years earlier.


Does this sound like a stupid move? Well it was. Now, I love me a good stupid movie that doesn't take itself too seriously but I think this movie may have been too stupid, even for me! It's not often I say out loud in a cinema "This movie is shit" (I believe the last time was during Real Steel) but I did say it during Battleship. Based on the eponymous board game, it has an absolute bare bones plot (and I use that term loosely) just to lead up to the moment when a guy looking at a screen can call out letter/number coordinates with the aim of bombing a ship - exactly like the game! 


In fact, I can imagine a room full of scriptwriters scratching their heads wondering how they were going to put themselves in a situation where a character has to look at a screen and say the golden lines *E-15....I-24...G-9...* etc and so forth.In that respect, I suppose they did it right. Also, it's strange - it's like in the second half of the movie, the scriptwriters also decided to give up any pretense to being serious (quite a bit of it existed in the first half) and decided to shoot straight for the ridiculous. Especially the Dad's Army bit. I actually got the giggles part way through which made the rest of the cinema laugh as well. Actually, I pride myself on that!


On the other hand...the CGI is pretty good and Japan manages to save the world and you can't say that's a common occurrence in Hollywood CGI blockbusters. That's pretty much worth a point or two on it's own. And the people I went to watch it with seemed to enjoy it. 


I....I really don't know if this review is a recommendation or a fail!!!! Better stick to the initial gut reaction
2+2/10 (2 bonus points for Japan!)

Homeland

Something else I managed to achieve over Easter was watching the entire first season of Homeland. Starring Claire Danes as CIA agent Carrie Mathison and my favourite spunky ginger, Damian Lewis, as Marine Sargent Brody who has been held hostage in Iraq for 8 years and whom Carrie believes to have been turned to become a terrorist, THIS SHOW ROCKED MY SOCKS!!!


Seriously, this show is so tense - has Brody been turned or could his actions just be the result of post-traumatic stress disorder (not completely unexpected!)? Is what Carrie seeing real or is she paranoid due to missing the signs of 9-11 ten years earlier?! I don't really know what more I could say to describe the plot without massively spoiling the series. But it took me on a whole rollercoaster of emotions and I ended up being majorly sleep deprived over the break as I tried to devour as many episodes as possible without falling asleep during any episodes! In fact, I'm going to say it....BETTER THAN GAME OF THRONES!!!!


Clear your schedule and watch this, people. It's worth it!

Easter Tourism, ja! - Part 3

H said the last time he was in Deutschland was 10 years ago and he didn't get to go to Neuschwanstein so he wanted to hit that this time around. I warned him that I'd been told that the castle is undergoing restoration and is partially covered in scaffolding. He said he was willing to run that risk and so we boarded a train to Fuessen and then a bus to Schwangau to see THE castle of Germany!

The further away from the city we got, the more snow we saw.

Okay, as much as I hate the snow (and I do), when you see it like this and there are great whopping mountains to boot, it IS really impressive.

 This Chinese restaurant in Schwangau looks like a snow lodge!

To my absolute amusement and H's horror, the side of the castle facing Schwangau is COMPLETELY covered in scaffolding. Apparently it's supposed to be finished in 2013 so visitors might want to keep this in mind. 

It looks like this from the village. I couldn't stop laughing. 

If you are going to New Swan Rock (heh), I highly recommend booking a ticket. We intended to do this but found out bookings close 3pm the day before your visit and so had to wait in the queue. It moves pretty fast but by the time we made it to the kasse at around quarter to 1, the earliest tour we could get was at 4PM!!! Also, standing in the queue was kinda hazardous due snow falling from various overhanging ledges. 

So having about 3 hours to kill in Schwangau, we decided to have a poke around the super-cute village! There are actually two castles in Schwangau - the other is the Schloss Hohenschwangaul. Unlike Neuschwanstein, this was actually inhabited by people - it was built by Ludwig's dad and one of his childhood homes. 

Although dwarfed by Neuschwanstein, Hohenschwangau is also quite impressive

Some of the decorations

There was a lot of ice and snow up there meaning I had twice as many things to avoid - the ice and various snowballs being lobbed at me. 

The view from Hohenschwangau

It's all so pretty! I can't handle it!!!

Alpine lake

You can take a horse-drawn carriage to the castle from the ticket booth, but don't. It's seriously like a 10minute walk. This is the path coming down from the castle. 

Village maypole!

I think walking around, taking photos, and piffing and dodging snowballs took about an hour so after a lunch of bratwurst and currywurst (H's comment - this is amazing!) we decided to walk up to the castle. Another note to visitors, in addition to a horse-drawn carriage, there is usually a shuttlebus that runs from Schwangau up to the castle. This bus does not run there there is snow and ice because the road is quite steep. Also, the map says the walk takes about 50 minutes. It doesn't - I reckon even for dodging the other walkers and stopping for photos, it took about 30 mins. 

It looks like Disneyland!

The view of the fields from the forecourt

Kekeke

Entrance to the castle courtyard

Pooey had said that the best view of the castle comes from the Marienbruecke across the valley. The path from the castle to the bridge was actually blocked off by the scaffolding surrounding the castle, I'm guessing due to risks of falling masonry :( This didn't seem to stop many people from climbing the gate that had variations of *Verboten!* and *No Trespassing* from climbing the fence and going for the bridge but I was too chicken. 

So we settled with looking at the bridge from the courtyard. This pic is a Where's Wally version of looking at the bridge :P Dammit, we could see people on the bridge as well!

The tour itself was kinda underwhelming. We couldn't really hear the guide but it's the only way to get inside the castle to have a look around. I reckon we could have taken one of the earlier non-English tours but...oh well. But the exit from the tour took us back to where the gate blocking the Marienbruecke was...and after looking at each other, we decided to engage in an act of civil disobedience by climbing it (keep in mind there was a CLIFF on the other side!) and making our way up the verboten path! Eventually, we made it to a second gate with the same old *Achtung! Verboten!* as a pair of small Asian girls climbed over it. They instructed us that, yes, this was the only path was the bridge. So we climbed that as well! This path was actually quite icy and I fully understood why it was blocked off in an attempt to stop foolhardy tourists from venturing up there. Alas, it was all in vain. 

But we were rewarded by this wonderful view!

Two (out of many) naughty tourists!

The view from the bridge of the waterfall and valley below...hmmm...

Naturally the walk back down was kinda tricky for me and my gammy leg so similar to the time he forced me to go bush walking, I ended up having to hang off H's back for a few sections to stop me from pokkai'ing on the ice. 

But on the walk down, we got this magnificent view of Hohenschwangau again!

For people who actually want to know how to get to Neuschwanstein, I recommend reading Pooey's entry on her visit. I know I figured out how to get there by reading her entry! And I'd like to reiterate her advice of "Follow the Asians!", just not me :P

Easter Tourism, ja! - Part 2

Remember how I said how cold it was when we were walking about the Altstadt and Englischergartens? Well it SNOWED the following day! WTF,, it's supposed to be Spring! Last week we had 20C temperatures!!! H was amazed at how soft and fluffy the snow was, exclaiming "Oooh!" while I was going, "Ugh!"

This is an action shot. The ball landed about a foot in front of H and I had to spend the rest of the morning dodging his revenge attacks. 

After talking with those two girls in the Hofbrauhaus, we changed our original plan of going to the BMW museum to going to Dachau. All visitors to Germany should go visit at least one Concentration Camp and get some perspective. Compared to my previous visit, these were *perfect* visiting conditions - it was cold, grey, and all-round unpleasant.

The Jourhouse - the entrance to the camp proper and site of the Arbeit Macht Frei sign. There were a bunch of schoolkids posing with the sign and taking pics...yes, something to put on FB. 

The Museum and former Assembly yard

The camp was used to house ethnic German refugees after the War. Because they redecorated, most of the buildings were demolished when it became a memorial. This makes the camp seem oddly larger and emptier than it actually is/was.

The camp was divided into two parts - the camp proper and the crematoria/execution grounds. However, unlike Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau itself was not an extermination camp.

The guard tower, fence, and ditch separating the camp from the outside world

Path through the execution grounds

For some reason, this girl was taking heaps of pictures of where the poison would come in the gas chamber

Thoroughly depressed and utterly freezing after our visit, we decided to head back into the city to get more tourist photos and warming food.

Pensive at the Karlstor at Stachus.

Frauenkirche!

The Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall), which at 150 years old is about 90 years older than the Old Town Hall which was rebuilt after the war

Our delightful dinner of Goulash and Easter Lamb with potatoes and asparagus (Spargel season is back!) was at the Augustiner am Dom near the Frauenkirche. I was actually really happy with my lamb and it's given me a hankering for eating baby sheep with buttery asparagus!

Next! Visiting Neuschwanstein!

Easter Tourism, ja! - Part 1

For Easter this year,  rather than than exploring close by foreign locales such as Prague (still on the list!), I ended up staying in Munich. Why? Firstly, to save money. Secondly, H was taking he opportunity to start his own European travelling adventures and crash. And why not if you know someone who can provide free accom and guide you around the city with bonus German menu translations?! And you know, I usually end up taking everyone to the same old places but it's always nice seeing the city through fresh eyes again.


So to kick off the tourist trail, H said he wanted to go to a bierhall so off we went to the Hofbrauhaus!

The downstairs hall! There was a Bayern Muenchen game on that day so it was packed full and we had to go upstairs for essen und trinken

My 1L Radler and H's 500ml Weissbier.

Proving that I can drink a mass! *note! Only children and small Asians hold their bier with two hands! But at the same time, why are children drinking 1L of bier?!

H's sausage and sauerkraut

I didn't feel like eating meat so I got schwammerl

We got to chatting with these two girls who were sharing our table. I can't remember their names but they were a Canadian and an American based out of Ireland

H mostly wanted to have a look around the Altstadt and gawp at old things so we trotted off down Sendlingerstr. towards the Tor.

Slight detour into the Asamkirche to check out the Baroque interior 

H's words upon seeing the Sendlinger Tor, "Wow, it's so old!"

Back up north to Residenzstr and the Residenz...

Where we found this fountain and we epically failed at helping another tourist taking a photo

Into the Theatinerkirche to get out of the rain! 

Anyway, you can probably tell that it was really cold. We ducked off to the Univiertel where we looked at shops and got some heisse schokolade to warm up and decide where to go next in the rain. H wanted to see a biergarten so we headed off to the Chinesischer Turm - which was actually closed because of the rain, but you get the gist of it - and then climbed the Monopteros to get the view of the city.

Look how green it is!!!

Oh look, the sun came out eventually

Eventually defeat was conceded and we retreated permanently indoors while I cried about the weather.