Enormous Schnitzel

At my Einweihungsfeier Laurent mentioned having eaten at a restaurant where they do the most enormous schnitzels. He showed us a photo of one heard nothing all week from Alex but Schnitzel, Schnitzel, Schnitzel, Schnitzel…

So Friday night I gave in and with Laurent, Marcia and Etienne, we went to eat Schnitzel. They were big, very big. I was unable to finish mine which will give you an impression for just how big it was because for a small person I eat a lot. They cost 9.40 and come with chips or fried potatoes, a small bowl of salad and a wedge of lemon. Great grub. However, someone wasn’t satisfied with just one and ordered a second. Practically unheard of. The waitress’s face when Alex asked (jokingly) for a third was classic; an almost successful attempt to look neither amazed nor scared. So if you want big, good Wiener Schnitzel at a reasonable price I can recommend it.

Einweihungsfeier and Philou 27.04-3.05

Right, I am now going to do something to address the enormous backlog of this weblog. I have an empty flat, an Elgar cello concerto playing in the background and a glass of red wine at my side, perfect writing environment.

Friday was Labour Day, 1^st May and so a public holiday. Lovely. And I made good use of it. Most of last week was spent preparing for the party. Wednesday we finally went shopping for food. We were planning for around 40 guests in our little flat. I’m not sure how many people actually came in the end. A lot.nBy the end of the shopping Philipp (new flatmate) and I were totally drained and fed up. We had gone to Metro (cash and carry) as Philipp has a car and we wanted to buy in bulk, ie 6 crates of Augustiner Helles (he’s a real Muenchner, no Lidl or Aldi crap for him) and food. We bought a lot of food. Thursday I carried on buying food after work, buying the little things we had forgotten, or rather the not so little things. Luckily Alex was there to help me heave it all home as I’m not sure I’d have managed on my own. I’m recounting all this boring stuff to give you an impression of how labour intensive a good party is

We spent all day Friday getting ready. Philipp had organised to borrow trestle tables and benches from a friend so that we had somewhere to sit while eating. I was very impressed as I had assumed people would just stand around eating And we cooked. We made two sorts of pasta salad, a gnocci salad, tomato salad, had crisps (including twiglets, more on that later), dips, cooked brezel, Philipp made Odbatzer (Bavarian cheese dip thing, delicious). We were going to make pizza but never got round to it, although we had the dough all ready. I hope someone at the party took a good photo of all the food because by the time I got round to it I was photographing empty bowls.

Mid-afternoon Alex and I realised we hadn’t actually been outside all day and that it was beautiful weather outside, so we decided to have a stroll in the park. Then, because the meadows looked so inviting we decided to lie down in the flowers. HUGE mistake in so many ways. The flowers in question turned out to be dandelions, which have a tendency to shed pollen over EVERYTHING. So we had nice yellow trousers and shoes, ah well, nature. Then we had to make friends with the swarm of flies around us. Flies are usually ignorable, but not when they draw blood. Alex looked like a vampire had bitten him and the marks still aren’t gone. I thought that I had got off lightly, only to discover the mosquito bites later on… Summer really is here.

People started piling into the flat at around 8 and the buffet was opened. Lots of interesting alcohols were brought (and drunk) and some people brought cake. Etienne and Drudru vied for the title of Lieblingsalex by bringing me cakes, delicious apple ring and chocolate fondant muffins respectively…mmmm…

As Philipp had invited around 25 and I around 20, we decided that name tags were the way to go. Some people got more into the swing of it than others. As we had several Alex’s they decided to helpfully name themselves Alex 1 and 2, then Paul decided not so helpfully to call himself Alex 3. In much the same vein Pierre-O was Pierre-Olivier 5, though I never did meet the other 4…

Much fun was made of my twiglets, which I had brought out because I love them and wanted to see how many got eaten. Most of them did in fact, despite Alex 1 unhelpfully calling them ‘roots’. Then I brought out the vodka jelly. I had brought a packetof jelly from the UK because I remembered a conversation I had had with Philippe in Kolpinghaus when he told me how disturbed he was by the concept of jelly, so I made him some. I felt that as he had flown from Paris for the weekend just to come to my party it was the least I could do, I’m nice like that. There was a distinct cultural divide. The Anglophones and anyone who had spent time in an Anglophone country recognised it and gamely slurped it down. The latins however, (francophone and Italian) were less appreciative, generally looking like they were going to be sick. Alex 3 was so badly affected by it that he apparently had a sort of fit and sneezed it out his nose, making Alex 1 laugh so much that he started crying and fell off his chair. I consider that a success.

I had warned the neighbours earlier on in the day that there were going to be festivities and had planned to move the party on elsewhere around midnight. Midnight came and went and nobody was leaving and no neighbours knocked on the door. So we stayed where we were…until the last stragglers left at around 4.

I didn’t see very much of Saturday. After getting up late it was time to clear up the mess. And then nap time. We were meant to be meeting Philippe, Laurent, Vittoria etc at a Biergarten but just as we were about to leave the heavens opened. So I summoned everyone and when it stopped raining we went to the Englischer Garten to play football. Or rather they played and I attempted to nap, for a while before being rather rudely awakened by a football to the head.

We all ate at mine again as I still had a load of pizza dough to get rid of. We made pizzas, potato wedges and pasta. The making of the pizzas was fun and some very interesting variations on the classic pizza were created.

After much prevarication and indecision we went for cocktails at the Hard Rock Café, not something I’ll be doing again. They didn’t have the cocktail I wanted, they took aaages, the drinks were expensive, there was a Mancunian stag do or something being rowdy in the corner, the drinks weren’t that great and then they practically threw us out the door at 1am.

So we went onto a club whose name I can’t pronounce even when sober, Zrwrk, I think. Or maybe the doorman was really drunk…

Anyway, it made a change, being a mix of salsa, funk, 30s music and reggae. The 2 highlights of the evening were the table football in the corner of the club, worth 8euros alone, and a dancey version of Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt. We were flagging somewhat and dozing off around 3:30 but that piece got us all up on our feet again. The thing was that we couldn’t really leave because Philippe’s flight was at 7 and so he had to get the Sbahn to the airport at 5 anyway so we stayed with him to say goodbye. This meant getting in at 6am, and getting up at 3:30 pm… Didn’t see much of Sunday either, but did go for a nice meal at a Mexican restaurant. Going out as a group like that was great and to be honest, it felt like just another weekend, rather than a special visit. As term had only just started and Alex had only recently come back it just felt like we were all getting together for a standard Saturday night out of drinks and dancing after being apart for a while. Unfortunately, not the case. Ah well, change happens.

I live in Schwabing!

I have a new home

Contact me if you need my new address

I’m rubbish at goodbye

I am sitting listening to Paper Planes as I write, surrounded by the detritus of my packing. There is nothing left in any of the cupboards or on the shelves, everything has been condensed into various suitcases, shoeboxes and bags. What is left over are the odds and ends that you need at the last minute and can’t quite pack away yet. I now have to clean a bit and then move out tomorrow night after work. Thank goodness I have access to a car to move. Otherwise… screwed (pardon my French) is probably the word of choice.

 

I have been saying goodbye far too much this week, some of the goodbyes are only very short, others for a month or so and for others it is the end of an era. Alex left on Thursday morning for the US for a month (Miami, New York…jealous…), others have gone home for the Easter holidays and Philippe left this afternoon forever. Philippe is the saddest as he really isn’t coming back unless it’s for a visit.

 

I have had an extremely busy week. Monday night I ate with my future flatmates to finally sign the contract. We ate at this great Thai place called Nam Nam in the Theresienstrasse, which is really kitsch . http://www.nam-nam.eu/ Had a very yummy prawn and chilli salad, although there was meant to be papaya in there which I certainly couldn’t find. It was such a relief to have it signed and sorted!

 

As we had a really big pitch at work for a new client on Wednesday morning I spent until 11pm preparing for it on Tuesday night and talking to myself in the mirror. Even though my part was really very small, I didn’t want to screw up and as it was my first ever pitch (and in German) I wanted to make extra sure nothing went wrong. The pitch went well…now we just need to hear back about the result!

 

I had Wednesday night reserved as party night, and even though it was a week night (makes no difference to the others but it does to me!) I wanted to do something special. I had my pitch that morning and most of my Erasmus friends had their last exams on Wednesday. In addition to this, Alex was flying off the next morning and Philippe was coming back from his trip to Bath before leaving for good. The plan was therefore a big farewell party. I set it up but due to work/flat logistics had no time to organise and so it was a rather spontaneous affair which nonetheless worked out very well! I ended up eating with the boys at Klinikum Großhadern, and also ended up doing the cooking. As I am an incorrigible fiddler at the best of times this isn’t a problem at all and I’d rather be stirring something than watching someone stir. We made the dish which is apparently traditional among the Franzosen of Klinikum, basically rice bolognese. We had arranged to meet everyone else at the News Bar but as per usual we were late arriving, especially as Alex and I took a detour to have a nosey round Alexandre Druart’s new flat as Alex wasn’t going to be there for the housewarming party at the weekend. Veeery nice flat.

 

We eventually made it to the News Bar http://www.newsbarmunich.de/ where I had the largest slice of Cheesecake I have ever eaten, and I didn’t manage to finish it. No one was in the mood for a club so we headed further into Schwabing to near Giselastrasse to the Green Room http://www.greenroom-bar.de/index2.html which is a shisha bar. I may have mentioned one or two (or ten) times that my new flat was nearby… The bar was perfectly nice and the shisha was apparently good but the cushions were a little too comfy as I actually fell asleep. Actually falling asleep tends to be a pretty good sign that it is home time so I was in bed by one.

However, Philippe, one of the main reasons for getting together on Wednesday never arrived. He wasn’t even in the country, having missed his flight from Stansted due to an accident on the motorway.

 

Thursday night a several of us (myself, Philippe (in rather bad shape), Laurent, Dora and another friend of Etienne’s Philipp) went to eat at Etienne’s. This turned out to be a brilliant idea as I came home to find the whole of my shared bedroom filled with boxes as my roommate was packing to move out the next day. I couldn’t get to my desk, my fridge, the shelves, or my bed. Then her boyfriend and a friend of his came in and the room was far too full. I escaped as quickly as I could to Studentenstadt. I’m getting to know the various Wohnheims around Munich quite well. It was a really nice, chilled evening, with spag bol and conversation.  

 

On Friday night Vittoria, Philippe and I had planned one last Kolpinhaus night out. Some of the boys were already at the Starkbierfest and we planned to eat and join them later of, however, (as usual) things worked out rather differently. Philippe and I ate together (Vittoria having a dinner date elsewhere) and then Laurent and Etienne arrived. That would have been the point to leave for the Starkbierfest but instead we lazed around in my room swapping stories and drinking Vodkabull (except for me as I hate the stuff and moreover, it’s still Lent). We were also waiting for Vittoria who took 90 minutes to arrive rather than the 15 promised by text. By the time she arrived Paul and Pierre-Olivier had finished at the Starkbierfest and had made their unsteady way to the centre of town.

 

Once we had everyone assembled, and had picked up Jessie, a German girl who lives in Kolpinhaus, we headed out to try to find a club. We spectacularly failed in this, 5 times, before eventually ending up at Max und Moritz http://www.maxundmoritz.tv/ . The first two clubs were clubs that we didn’t know but Laurent wanted to try out. One was crap, and the other didn’t exist. We also tried Pacha, 089 and Rote Sonne before giving in to M&M. My initial reservation was the evening description as a “Jagd” evening, ie, everyone on the pull and had no inclination to be leched over by drunken Bavarians that evening. However, I had underestimated the power of going dancing with a group of boys.

 

The only time I had been to Max und Moritz before was on the 11.11 for the Fasching party. Needless to say, the music was a little different this evening, one room was electro, the other a “bunte Mischung” of all sorts, from Jacko to Pet shop boys. We spent most of the night in the ‘cheesier’ room dancing and singing our hearts out until about 5:30, whereupon we made the compulsory trip to the Stachus McD for 1Euro cheeseburgers for the boys. Vittoria was leaving at 11am to go home for a couple of weeks before moving into her new WG and needed to leave things in my room, so she didn’t go to bed and I got woken up at 8:30.

 

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to sleep all day as I had certain things to get done before going out again that evening. But, after unsuccessfully trying to buy a bike, I did have a little nap…which turned into a 3hour nap and meant that I had to tell people NOT to come over for dinner as I had only just woken up…a little embarrassing. This didn’t matter though because we were more than adequately fed at Alex Druart’s housewarming party. The food was delicious and there was a lot of it. The people were also really nice and it was generally a really nice (and extremely civilised) housewarming party. They even had proper wine glasses! Alex’s housemate had made quiches, dips and nibbles, Alex had made crepes and chocolate brownies with fondant centres…mmm… As I said, very good food for a house party. Unfortunately this has set the bar rather high for my own housewarming party… However, I have about a month to prepare as I won’t be holding it until everyone is back from holiday, and as Alex doesn’t get back until the 27^th April, it looks like I’ll be having it the first May weekend. How can I top homemade quiches..?

 

I must admit that we were a bit crap. We were all completely exhausted from the previous evening and the week. There was a footie match on TV, France vs Lithuania and as a collective the Francophones gathered round to watch rather than mingle. Poor show. I must admit though that for a bit I did succumb (not to the football but rather) to the idea of stretching out on the bed and not talking to new people. Coup de barre enorme…  After the hostess (who is lovely) commented on this, I felt guilty enough to go and chat and met some cool people. I wonder if I shall see them again…

 

We left around midnight as Philippe, who is not at all a healthy specimen at the moment, needed to go home. I was doing ok by that point but thought that bed was probably a good idea. In the end it took us an hour to get back to Kolpinghaus due to works on the line etc and then we stayed up until 3am exchanging photos and music (I now have the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, yay!) so it wasn’t really an early night.

 

Today I have been packing, attempting to condense my life into something approximately portable. We shall see tomorrow how successful I have been. Laurent came to Kolpinghaus for lunch as we attempted to get rid of all our leftovers as he was going back to Belgium for a bit. I therefore made a very creative meal for the 3 of us from everything that remained.

 

Then, in the rain (cos that’s how good a friend I am), I helped Philippe carry his stuff to the train station to catch his train to Strasbourg. He seemed to have considerably less than me…not quite sure what I have gathered over my time here but it already seems loads and I’m going to be here a good while longer…

 

So that was my final goodbye of the week. I shall miss my Kolpinghaus buddy. I can’t wait to move out tomorrow.                            

 

 

   

 

 

 

Slumdogs, Flats and Banks

This week was a bit of a roller coaster in terms of my stress levels. Work was really busy, meaning for most of the week I didn’t have a lunch break, which doesn’t help me concentrate more. At the beginning of the week everyone had refused me. Then, Wednesday night I had 2 flat offers, and now I really hoping to sign a contract tomorrow night. I visited a flat for the second time and managed to charm the occupant into accepting me as the 3rd future flatmate.

Thursday night (despite being knackered), I was determined to go swing dancing again. I had offered to cook for everyone and then to go dancing afterwards. Everyone meant 2 dancing pairs, myself and Alex and Vittoria and Philippe. However, I was very busy at work and didn’t manage to go shopping at all. Luckily, my knights in shining armour (Alex and Philippe) rescued me and helped me with the shopping and cooking. The schedule was tight. Shopping at 18:00, eating at 19:00 in time for swing at 20:00. Of course this all went to pot. We met and went shopping but didn’t end up eating till much later. Fine, we’ll just to the dancing afterwards. Then, as we are eating pudding Laurent joins us, and some other friends of Philippe’s. We don’t actually end up leaving Kolpinghaus until 11:30. After wandering around for a while we ended up at Die Bank, a cool bar, where I promptly fell asleep and left after 45 minutes. http://www.die-bank.com/. Seemed like a nice bar, I was just too tired.

Friday night, I went with Alex to see Slumdog Millionaire, that was the deal, if I was going to see Watchmen (which we haven’t managed to do yet), he was going to see Slumdog Millionaire. I thought it deserved the Oscars.

I thought that it was visually stunning, brilliant soundtrack, excellent acting, gripping story, funny, poignant, horrifying in places but realistic, and…just great. I came out with a big smile but with some unsettling images in my mind. The film that it reminded me the most of was City of God

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a decent trailer with subtitles so in the end I’ve just embedded the original version of the trailer as the US voiceover guy irritated me intensely. I think City of God is a better film. I loved Slumdog, the colours, the story, everything and I like the whimsy of the idea of D: it is written and I thought it was charming…but I think City of God is better.

The rest of the weekend was spent being pretty lazy, although I went for 2 runs, so not too lazy. I had a proper cheese binge though which was lovely. Alex and I bought about 7 different varieties of cheeses, Brie, Camembert, Conté (we think), Edamer, Gorgonzola, a really good sheep’s cheese and something else and managed to eat nearly all of it, I have some of the rest to get me through the week. Mmmm…cheese…. Hopefully my future flatmate will send through the contract soon so I can sign it and get it back to her tomorrow and then start working out how the hell I’m going to move everything…

Swing, Starkbier and the Irish

This week I visited 3 apartments. We’ll see what becomes of them. I also worked, did sport and saw friends, the usual.

 

Thursday night I met up with Birgit who I haven’t seen in absolutely ages to go to the Swing night at Cord (http://www.cord.tv/). I had arranged to go with Philippe as a dancing partner but when I rang him an hour beforehand to check he was still up for going it turned out he was on a train coming back from skiing. He had completely forgotten me. In this end this didn’t matter, and actually worked out really well as it meant that we were able to have a nice chat and then have a little boogie on the dance floor. It’s a really nice club, if pretty small. There is a different theme every night and Thursday is Swing. There is a class from 20:00-20:45 for 3euro and then free dancing. If you go before 21:00 it’s free. When we were there they had a live 12-piece swing band playing, which was great. The highpoint of the night for me was a swing version of Bon Jovi’s “It’s my life”, weirdly effective. 

 

The weekend, however, was a little more unusual, and very busy. For the last month or so Alex had been going on about a DJ called SebastiAn who he’s mad about and I said I’d go with him to erste liga (http://www.ersteliga.com/ ) where he was playing. Or was meant to be playing at least. It was a nice club and we had fun but there was a distinct lack of SebastiAn. We asked but no one seemed particularly disturbed by his absence. The dance floor was pretty cool as it was a proper lit-up 80s style dance floor. But it got VERY full and as it was a Raucherclub there was also the constant danger of fag burns, not great. We had a good night out despite this, leaving at around 5.

 

Saturday, I had planned to see my friend Will who I know from Uni, who is currently living in Essen working in an opera house there. He wasn’t staying with me (in my Doppelzimmer…) and was meant to be staying with another friend of his who at the last minute said that she was too ill to be able to either put him up for the night or see him at all. Will was therefore left at a bit of a loose end. He wanted to look round some museums and then maybe meet up. I suggested the Starkbierfest. I had planned to go to see Watchmen at the Mathäser in English with Alex but it turned out I had invented a showing time (as you do) and instead as it was such a beautiful day we went for a walk along the Isar before lining our stomachs and heading over to the Nockherberg.

 

http://www.nockherberg.com/

 

The Starkbierfest is much like the Oktoberfest, same sort of beer intake, same atmosphere, same people dancing on benches, same music, same ENORMOUS Brezl. However, there is one crucial difference, the Starkbier is STRONG, does what it says on the tin I guess… was really quite merry after just one Maß. Really fun night out with everyone and Will seemed to enjoy himself.

 

That wasn’t such a late night. Lots of people went onto a club but as I had only had about 4 hours sleep the previous night and knew the next day was going to be pretty big, I didn’t go with. So I headed home with Spongebob, the balloon a certain person bought me to irritate me…

 

Sunday was devoted to a long lie in and a lazy morning and then a late lunch with Philippe, Ana and Alex at our Stammrestaurant, the Chinese buffet on the corner.

 

It was drizzling slightly (which I thought made the day even more fitting) when we headed to the St Patrick’s Day. Although Paddy’s day is actually on the 17^th, the Munich Irish community celebrated it on Sunday 15^th.

 

http://www.stpatricksday.de/

 

It was a lot of fun. There was a live band and dancing on the stage. At one point there was a Bolivian dancing troupe, which I found interesting, as I’m not sure exactly what link they had with St Patrick’s Day. After all the dance troupes it was our turn to show off our moves in a big Caileigh (sp?), involving much swinging around, shouting and singing. Much fun.

 

After this finished at around 6, we headed over to Killian’s Irish pub to finish off the evening properly, in a pub! It was absolutely jam packed, the overflow was in the Australian bar where we eventually managed to find a place and eat the best chips I’ve found in Munich so far.

WGs Galore

This week I visited a total of 5 apartments, 3 of which were yesterday afternoon. Of that 5, 4 were WGs and one was a flat for two for Victoria and I. We are simultaneously searching together and separately. Each of the flats will get back to me over the next week or so so we shall see… I have 2 more lined up for next week but today I’m taking a break, day of rest and all that.

That took up a lot of time this week, as did work. Alex came back from his 2 week sejour in France on Sunday so I ventured down to Klinikum Großhadern where I had never been before, it being far too far to bother. It was nice to have someone else cook for me . A couple of my friends live down there and it is really in the middle of nowhere. People live there and get on the U6 to get into town if they want to actually do anything. There is also a cemetery cunningly disguised as a park, slightly disconcerting when you come across the first graves…

As I said, yesterday was spent rushing around in the snow looking at flats, charming the occupants and trying not to seem too desperate. I am also in the process of compiling the 268 photos and 52 video clips I have of Fasching into something resembling a short, watchable video.  When I assembled it all it was 22 minutes long. It’s now down to 13 but it still needs cutting…

After intense photo editing and intense flathunting I went to celebrate Caro’s birthday in the Trinkhalle. Caro is a colleague of mine and I and a couple of others went along, never one to pass up the opportunity of a cocktail, she is also lovely, which is of course the more important reason for going . However, due to my current no alcohol thing it was strictly virgin cocktails for me.

I really liked the Trinkhalle. It’s near Frauenhoferstrasse and pretty small. The seating is intimate and by the time I turned up at 10pm it was packed. There seemed to only be one menu in the whole place but that is not a problem because you can either give the waiter the order of your favourite cocktail or he will make one up for you. I told him, no alcohol and sweet and he made me a drink. It was green, so I assumed apple, I took a sip and was surprised. It was delicious, everyone agreed, but there was a hint of basil, unexpected in a cocktail. I then noticed a basil leaf and a slice of mango perched on top. He had given me a mango and basil cocktail. It was lovely but I would never have thought of it. I was smitten. 

The link is only available in German I think.

http://www.muenchen.de/verticals/GastroGuide/Gastro-Highlights/205170/trinkhalle.html

Post cocktails someone mentioned going to Bergwolf, apparently a bit of a legend in Munich, the best currywurst in town. I’m not the world’s biggest currywurst fan but it was good, and packed.

http://www.munichx.de/essen/restaurant_kurzinfo.php?name=Bergwolf&strasse=Fraunhoferstr.&hnr=17

This is the review:

Ein Muss für jeden, der in dieser Gegend am Abend oder nachts unterwegs ist. Man bekommt auch noch zu später Stunde eine der besten Currywürste Deutschlands (Dönninghaus) in drei Schärfestufen. Wiener, Pommes und Bier gibt’s natürlich auch zum Mitnehmen. Doch dann verpasst man das urig gemischte Publikum und die gesellige Stimmung im winzigen Kult-Imbiss im U-Bahn-Eingang!

(Summary: Classic post club/bar food)

Spot on

Today I’m playing catch-up with blog entries, emails etc. I’ve been for a run and now I’m going to try to finish my video so I can upload it. Karaoke at the Irish pub later .