Rainy England

I’m in Oxford at the moment. Tonight is the Oriel Ball and I’m killing time while waiting for people to arrive. When I woke up this morning it was tipping down, not a great start to the ball day. Now the rain has stopped and it is just muggy but this means that everything underfood is going to be a mite soggy. Yesterday it was a beautiful day in London so this is somewhat disappointing, especially after the heat of France but it’s better than the apparent monsoon occuring in Munich at the moment.

I left France on Wednesday, leaving a sweltering Bergerac and arriving in a surprisingly warm Bristol. I then had to get the bus to the train station from the airport and met up with Andy, who is currently studying in Bristol, for a drink between my bus journey and my train journey onwards to Oxford. This break was actually a well-earned respite from hours of travelling.  It was nice to see him and gossip about common friends and catch up on each other’s lives. I haven’t really spoken to him in years so it was a lot to cram into 2 hours but I didn’t want to get to Oxford too late because after a certain time there are no more buses and a walk from the train station to Cowley is about an hour and I didn’t really fancy it.

In the end I got to Hannah’s at about 22:30 and we sat up gossiping and watching West Wing. In the morning on Saturday I got up early and made my way to London by Oxford Express to see Katie who was amazed I had got up so early after being up so late. We had a lovely chilled day. It was very hot and we were both quite tired so we took it easy. We had tea, and cake and a ploughman’s lunch and spent the afternoon lying in St James’ park in the sun and drifting round the shops. Relaaaax.

Hannah does Munich (the end)

02.01.09

It was sad to see her go but we’d had a lot of fun and she had work on Monday so it was time to call it a day. So I decided to go shopping and spent my Christmas money in the January sales (3 tops, skirt, shoes, belt). It was a good day.

01.01.09

The first day of the New Year was mainly spent sleeping. In order to make up for the lack of tour guidyness on my part I took Hannah round that afternoon to see the important bits of the city. As Hannah hadn’t actually drunk any beer by that point it seemed the obligatory thing to do in Munich before she left and so off to Augustiner we went. However, it wasn’t a late night as we had to get Hannah onto a plane first thing the next morning.

Hannah does Munich (New Year’s Eve!)

Today we decided to take it easy (for a change) because we wanted to be fully fit for the James Bond party that evening. After breakfast and more Green Wing we went for a walk round the Englischer Garten in the cold, stopping off in a café for a hot milk and to discuss the dressing up possibilities.

After a late lunch we relaxed with some more Green Wing and then spent the rest of the day getting ready, as the occasion required. In the end we decided on a decidedly sexy Miss Moneypenny look for Hannah and an attempt at a kind of Pussy Galore, 60s Bond girl for me. Basically, I just wanted to wear my pretty silk dress, which is a bit 60s.

Not really knowing what to expect from the party, we were very impressed. It was in a soon-to-be-renovated apartment in a large, high room which had a balcony for our DJ. They had set up a bar and had a cocktail menu prepared and everything. There was a cold buffet and behind the bar they had old James Bond films projected onto the wall. At the beginning of the evening there was a Bond test. We won! This was mainly due to Hannah’s freaky Bond knowledge and for the privilege we were allowed to choose the tune at midnight. It was a lot of fun and a good way to get people mingle. Most of the guys were in DJs (ALWAYS a good look) and the girls in evening dresses, but there was one original guy who came in a Hawaiian shirt and hat.

At midnight we all went outside and set off fireworks on the bridges over the Isar. Rather than a big firework display there were fireworks going off all around us making it much more impressive and enduring than a single display.

After midnight we were treated to chilli con carne to warm us up again after the freezing outside temperatures. Subzero and silk dresses do not mix well. In the end we danced the night away until about 4 when things started to wind down and we decided to walk home.

Hannah does Munich (BMW and Sauna 30.12)

The original plan was to get up early and go off somewhere outside of Munich for the day but I woke up too late so we had a relaxing morning having breakfast in bed and watching Green Wing. Neither of us had watched the series for years, not since we first followed it devoutly in 2^nd year of Uni. We only ever watch it together because everyone else finds it too warped/surreal/bizarre, but it makes us laugh, a lot and we are suckers for a good love story, and because we love Mac. After dragging ourselves out of bed we decided to go to BMW Welt. I hadn’t been there and it seemed like a nice idea. It was brilliant! I can thoroughly recommend it, even if you’re not too into cars, which I’m not. But it’s free and they’ve got loads of hands-on stuff you can play with, including an area where you can design your own BMW. Hannah and I designed our perfect car and now we both REALLY want a BMW, which is the whole point of the place I guess, great marketing! We also got to play racing games (and annoy the 10 year old boys by hogging the consoles), look cool on the motorbikes, pretend to wind a sail (I was a weakling, surprise, surprise) and make fuel. Even the loos are brilliant. But the high point was definitely the marble run. This was a huge, complex metal affair with lots of different runs in a huge sphere. You could race marbles as well as make them run obstacle courses. It would have kept Hannah entertained all day.

We decided not to go into the BMW museum itself because we had already spent many hours looking at car-related things and the prospect of 7 exhibitions on more cars was a bit overwhelming. So instead we wandered round the Olympiapark and up the hill to have a view over the city. It was a beautiful clear, frosty day but the weather was wrong for a view as it was also slightly hazy. The weather had been so cold that the lake was mostly frozen over so we had fun in a very childlike manner poking at the ice and breaking bits off.

That evening, in order to warm up a bit we went to the Volksbad sauna. Tuesday is women only and it’s open until 11pm so we went for a relaxing evening. It’s REALLY nice in there. It’s all art deco style and has 2 pools with different temperatures. Then, in the sauna area there is a steam room, a traditional sauna and a series of warm rooms which go from 45 degrees to 80. Next time I’m going to take my flipflops because we couldn’t go into the warm rooms as the floors burned. There is a cold plunge pool and a torture instrument-like cold power shower which spurts horizontal sprays of cold water all up your body. I was too much of a wimp for that and just went through the cold plunge pool. Finally, there was a warm pool where you could just flob out, exhausted from all the sweating and plunging. There were lots of women in 2s and 3s and a fair few with books who had clearly just come for a relaxing evening on their own. I can really recommend this too!

Hannah does Munich (Arrival) 29.12.08

Hannah arrived around mid-afternoon and after some technical errors with mobiles (mostly mine) I met her at the train station. As I had a rotten cold and she was recovering from a bug we had a calm afternoon, eating a late lunch and wandering round Munich. My roommate and neighbours were still away so we were able to have a bit of a film evening without feeling bad.