New Year Piccies

We spent New Year's at a friend of a friend of a friend's houseparty. With Hilly and Trist.

It was pretty good. They were mostly Ernst & Young people.... most of them from Melbourne, and all in black.... very nice people, and it was almost like being back at home!

However, after we welcomed in the New Year.. I had the most awful chills and aches, so we had to go, and I was tucked up in bed by 2am, 1 Jan 2007! Oh well, at least 2007 can only get better, right?

Christmas in Munich, part 2

I am so crap at this.... Started out with the best intentions of creating a blog and then updating it once a week... It's now mid-Jan and I've only just posted the latter half of Matt's and my trip to Munich!

So, without further ado-

... Before we left for Munich, we'd been warned by people that the Bavarians celebrated on Christmas Eve, instead of on Christmas Day. As festivities consisted mainly of getting together as a family at home, we would have to prepare for a city-wide shutdown, in terms of restaurants and shops.

As a result- on of the first things that we did when we got to our hotel, was to check with our concierge as to which restaurants were open over Christmas Eve and Christmas. We were assured that most restaurants and beer halls would be open on Christmas Day, but that Christmas Eve would be limited, in terms of choice.

We woke up to a frosty but clear day on Christmas Eve. Decided to waste some time in the bed room, watching the silly MTV cartoons, before tumbling out into the cold. We hopped onto the U-Bahn, heading into Marienplatz. We'd seen it the night before, when checking out the Christmas Markets. The morning after was a different scene- the plaza was empty, except for a few people taking down the last of their stalls.

We walked round and took a few photos of the glockenspiel, which was on our way to lunch at Haxnbauer, a wellknown German beerhall. The place was mostly empty, when we got there. We got ushered to a table and both had a large serving of the Weisbeer. It was easy deciding what we were going to have- Haxnbauer's known for its pork knuckles, roasted in a beech charcoal rotisserie (the suckling pig was only available during dinner). The rotisserie's located almost against the front window, very tempting...

Matt had the pork knuckle with sauerkraut and mash whilst I ordered the veal knuckle with Kartoffelkloesse; German potato dumplings.


Matt's (on the left, apologies for poor photo quality) was the better of our meals. Crunchy crackling, yummy herb-infused juicy pork, and sauerkraut to cut through the meat. We avoided the mash as it felt like wallpaper paste, in the mouth.

My veal was almost boring, by comparison. I mean, the meat was fine, but I think that some sauerkraut would have been a welcome addition in cutting through the sheer amount of meat on my plate. The dumplings were quite gross. Cricket ball like- in terms of texture and taste. Not to say that all dumplings are that way- just the ones on my plate. Yuck.

We heaved our full bellies out, after lunch. We'd booked a table for dinner at the hotel restaurant but that was a few hours way. Matt suggested we head to the concentration camp over in Dachau (a few suburbs away) and we hopped onto a train. It took about 45 mins, but when we got out at Dachau and looked to board the bus to take us to the camp, we got told by the bus driver that it wasn't open today. It WOULD be open the day after, though, on Christmas Day, if we decided to come back then.

Back to the train station we went. And it was such a cold wait! Got back, headed back to the hotel and had a nap, before heading down for dinner.

The restaurant was nearly full. Lovely Christmas tree in the middle, along with some guy with a bouffy mullet, an earring in his left ear, singing George Michael's "Last Christmas". Veeerry eighties.

Food was good- French-style cuisine and it had vegetables! Had salt preserved duck and raw fennel salad for a starter, then we both chose the grilled venison steak sauced with jus for mains- tender, yummy meat. Then, there were deserts, coffee and we went off to the bar for more cocktails. Not a bad way to celebrate.

Christmas Day and still no snow. We grabbed a quick bite from one of the shops in the main train station, and headed straight to Dachau. This time, we were lucky and caught the bus to the concentration camp, along with a couple of other tourists.

We got to the camp, got some audioguides, but really, it was so cold that we prefered to NOT use the audioguides, just so we could keep our hands in our coat pockets! We went into the museum and managed to catch the last documentary of the day in English. It covered the rise of the Nazi political party, the start of the concentration camps and the parties of people that were sent there. It was horrific, made up of actual Nazi film footage- people being herded like cattle off the trains and into the camps. Emanciated frames, the utter lack of hope in people's faces... cartloads and rooms filled with bodies.

It was a relief to get back outside. It had started to snow, and the sun had fully disappeared. We wandered around the camp... went into the remaining bunkhouses... and spent some more time in the museum. I have to admit, Christmas or not, I would not normally choose to go into a concentration camp. After Dachau, I'd prefer never to visit another concentration camp again, and I definitely came away thankful for all my blessings.

We got back from dark and dreary Dachau, and stepped into the brightness, warmth and noise that was the Hoffbrauhaus (HBH). One of the oldest brewhouses in Munich, it's a huge hall, filled with heavy wood tables and benches, packed to the brim with tourists from all over the world. The oompah band were taking a break, and we plonked ourselves on nearest table and ordered a 'mas' of beer each.

Well, I thought that I'd start slow and order a half beer and half lemonade. Well... I didn't realise till later that it was a half LIGHT beer and half lemonade. Way too sweet. Matt had to help finish that off for me. I then ordered another mas of normal beer. Much better, and I finished that all by myself.

We ordered some snacks... I had a liver dumpling in clear beef broth. Tasty, but I think I like my liver flash fried and with bacon... Matt got a plate full of cream cheese mixed through with finely chopped radish and spring onion, to spread on bread.

The band started up again. Loud and uplifting. Most of the people in the HBH were swaying to the music, some were singing, and there was even the drunk man dancing in front of the band, doffing his hat at women, on their way to and from the bathroom. Thankfully, he had left, by the time I needed to go to the ladies!

We had a couple of mas of beer, then decided to have dinner elsewhere. After wandering through Munich's little backstreets, we found a little bistro/beerhall which the guidebooks had recommended for the great food. Walked in and it was nearly empty, but they were still serving food so we sat down and perused the menu.

It was so weird, the menu was split into English and German, but they didn't seem to be straight translations of each other. The English part had your basic sausages and sauerkraut, pork knuckle, and the German part... well, we couldn't quite tell what it was.. so I pointed to a German word and the waitress said that was suckling pig... and that was met with very enthusiastic nodding by me. Matt ordered a serve of sausages and kraut.. Oh. So very, very yummy! I didn't take photos, but take my word for it. Melt-in-the-mouth, indeed! Matt's sausages were good, too.

Anyway... we left Munich the next morning, had a great, quick, flight home and made sure that dinner that night consisted mainly of greens! Ah... veggies. Anyway, vegetal cravings aside, we thoroughly enjoyed our trip- the city was beautiful, the beer taps flowed, we had some nice meals and saw some interesting things. I would definitely like to go back... though when the weather turns warmer!