Eierpunsch, Nachos, and Swing

Marty and I being the only two people we knew in Germany without Christmas plans, we decided to band together in Munich. We both had off from work starting on the 24th so he came into town the night of the 23rd and we spent the evening gallivanting in Tollwood. Tollwood is a twice yearly festival in Munich, once in the summer and once in the winter. I still haven't been to the Summer rendition, but the Winter one contains most of what you'd expect from a winter festival in Germany, a big Christmasmarket selling a lot of stuff you probably don't need, in addition to tasty tasty Eierpunsch.

We wandered every square inch of the festival looking at all of the food options and calculating the best thing to eat. It wasn't long after we made our choice (which I forget what it was actually called... or what it really was... except that it was wrapped and pretty good) we 'accidentally' stumbled across an entire tent dedicated to food... we felt dumb. But it was a fun night.

I think this is my favorite conversation from the night:

Marty: What are Reibekuchen?
Shane: Kind of like latkes.
Marty: Huh?
Shane: Latkes... oh right, you're not Jewish.

We also got accosted by two girls with boats made of paper. I wouldn't want to call them origami because... well that's offensive to origami, but the two girls asked us which one we thought was more beautiful (with some awesome Bayrisch undertones to their accent). Marty made a choice (to which the losing girl replied "do you find that" pointing to the boat "or that" pointing to the girl holding the boat "prettier?") and all I said was the one on the left seemed faster... but they didn't really like that answer.

The next day, the 24th, is the day most Germans actually celebrate Christmas and so with the exception of a few grocery stores in the morning, the entire city basically shuts down, leaving Marty and I to our own devices. We got through the day watching lots of Entourage and making an awesome Nachos Christmas Eve Dinner. It was a very festive Christmas Eve Dinner, let me tell you. Witness! Yes those are red and green peppers thrown into the mix.

Christmas day we got together with a few of the other Americans I know in Munich who were also (clearly) not with their or anyone else's family for Christmas. We had a really nice dinner, watched National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, and then played with dolls. No really. Mom and Dad would be so proud! Those of us from the Christmas dinner that still had the will to move went to a neat little club in Munich (which was previously unknown to me) which was having swing night. I've never really been a swing night before... but do people that frequent swing nights meet and practice these dances? Everyone was dancing in sync for every song that was played over several hours. I was impressed and intimidated. More the latter.

The following day we hopped a train to Berlin and had a low key night out with our Berlin Fulbright friends before catching a train the next morning to Krakow, the topic of the next post!

The Plan

Last time I wrote was just before a two week break from work. I spent those two weeks almost entirely away from Munich traveling with friends, seeing the sights, drinking the local brews, and snapping an ass ton of pictures. To force myself to write about that I'm at the moment combining it with another new initiative of mine: forcing myself to check out new cafes, bars, restaurants, etc. in Munich with the help of Qype. What's Qype? Basically the European version of Yelp. It suffices to know it's a really good way to find the good parts of a city. Lately I've been focusing on cafes with free internet. So I decided while checking out these internet equipped cafes I may as well be productive, hence trying to write in this thing some more.

So at the moment I'm sitting in Kopfeck, a really good vegetarian cafe/bar/restaurant in the Isarvorstadt district of Munich, about to outline my writing plan. Mainly because I figure if I 'publish' a plan I'll be more likely to follow it. So expect (or give me shit for not producing) four separate stories about the following:

• My Christmas Adventures with Marty
• My Krakow Adventures with Marty, Ashlan, and Halley
• My New Years Adventures with Marty, Ashlan, Halley, Chris, Marco, and others
• My Hamburg Adventures with Marty, Ashlan, Chris, and Marco

See a common pattern there?

Now, let's just see if I can keep myself disciplined.

-Shane

I'm Fulbrighting in Bavaria, it's near Germany.

I was having this discussion last week about how sometimes I don't feel like I'm living in Germany. All of my friends from my language course are. But I'm doing my Fulbright in Bavaria.

Bavaria is often compared to Texas in the US, both my the people here and the people visiting. It's not that there are really any similarities with the people themselves, but more their status in the rest of the country. There's this sense that I've gathered from the few people I've met from Texas which is that Texas is the true America, the other 49 states are lacking on this intangible quality which makes us... well... not Texas.

The difference here is that Bavarians are more of the idea that they are NOT German, but rather Bavarian. There's a Bavarian movie where someone gets asked, in English, where they are from and they respond "We're from Bavaria, it's near Germany." And that's the Bavarian attitude in a nutshell.

But the difference between Bavaria and the rest of the country isn't just in attitude, there are cultural and language differences too. For example, usually when Americans think of a stereotypical German they're actually thinking of a Bavarian. Lederhosen, Dirndl, that silly hat with a feather in it... those are all typical Bavarian things (just like most foreigners think I own cowboy hats and guns). Every region has their own style of traditional dress (in fact every district in Munich has its own style, and I've been told there was once a day where you could tell where someone lived by what kind of Lederhosen they wore), what one normally thinks of as Lederhosen is usually somehow the Bavarian style.What I still find amazing though is that Bavaria is the only region I know of where people still wear their traditional dress for normal occasions... like going out on the town for a night. Other regions have their dress and it appears for festivals once in a while but, at least to my knowledge, it is very rare to be in a state capital at 4 in the morning and see someone leaving a bar in Lederhosen. That's pretty commonplace in Munich.

And Bayrisch is called a dialect but in reality it's more of a separate language. When Ben and Marty came to visit I had to translate menus for them. And they both speak German quite well, but there are just some stark differences. Hähnchen is Hendl, Brötchen is Semmel, you greet people with Grüß Gott or Servus instead of Guten Tag, you start meals with An Guadn instead of Guten Appetit... and those are just the superficial differences. There are postcards that have the same phrase written in English, Standard German, and then Bayrisch and it's pretty weird. "Ich liebe dich" comes out as "I' mog di" in Bayrisch. Native Germans have trouble with this stuff too, not just learners.

I really do love Bayern but I often have trouble justifying it to, well, anyone. Especially non-Bavarian Germans. If you tell a Bavarian you love Bavaria they just accept it, as though you just informed them that water was wet. But the rest of Germany sort of despises Bavaria. I once met a guy from Berlin that had been living in Munich and hating it. And it was interesting because he had spent time in the South in the US and loved it there. So we had this disagreement, where I loved Bavaria for basically the same reasons he loved the South, the regionalism, the cultural pride, the contrast to the rest of the country, but he really didn't like Bavaria and I had no love of the South.

I went to the Nuremberg Christmas Markets a little bit ago and now the real deal is coming up. I'll be spending that in Munich with some friends and then heading out to gallivant around for a couple weeks. I hope this finds you well and you have a wonderful holiday, preferably with snow.

Frohe Weihnachten und einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr from the land of Oktoberfest, Haxe, Weisswurst, and Weissbier,
Shane