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| 18th January 04 (Crazy Munich Weekend) |
| Gotta love those Romanians Sorry guys, no new photos this time 19th January 2004 Well the weekend that has just passed will have to go down as one of the more interesting experiences of this great big adventure that I'm on. It's experiences like these that remind me why I chose the uncertainty of travel over an office job back home. Armed with my snowboard and enough supplies to last me 36 hours, I jumped on a train last Friday night to see what might just unravel in Munich (or Muenchen to the locals), I wasn't to be disappointed. One thing I've learnt while living in this part of the world is that unexpected will always happen in Munich. Mind you I was lucky to get there at all, cutting it fine getting to the Hauptbahnhof (train station) I was left with little choice but to jump on my bike and I almost took out a few padestrians as I flew down the footbath at full speed with a 5 foot 4 long snowboard bag sticking out behind me. German trains always leave on time so if you're not there on the dot then forget about it, and I've carefully synced my watch with the Hauptbahnhof clock to ensure I don't get caught out. A little short on breath I made it safely onto the train and the first thing I did was sink into my chair and crack open the bottle of Paulaner beer I had in my |
| supplies. The distance from Augsburg to Munich isn't measured in kms but bottles of beer and I had two ice cold ones on hand for the trip. I'd only made loose plans for the weekend, starting out with a meal with some friends and business contacts on Friday night. During my time here I've had some contact with two guys, Peter and Thomas, who have started up their own software business in Munich called Augmented Solutions, and who were kind enough to offer me a job. I didn't take up the offer but we've stayed in touch and decided to catch up for a schnitzel and a meal before I left. We were also joined by Eugene from Kenya, Asit from India, and Michi, a local. I'd decided that I wanted to try a new German dish after eating my fair share of SchwineAxe'n, Schnitzels, and Leberkase so I opted for another dish starting with Leber (liver). The thing about all the other Leber dishes I've tried since I've been over here is that you never actually realise that you're eating liver. That wasn't the case for this dish. I told Thomas that there appeared to be something oozing from the inside of my liver and he suggested it might be the schanpps that German pigs are brought up on (no, that's not literal folks). The next morning, after crashing at Michi's apartment (thanks Michi!), we joined another friend, Carlos from Portugal, for an afternoon of snowboarding. We were joined by one of Carlos' friends, another Portugese, and also a character who would come to define my experience in Munich. I never actually caught his name because he instantly became simply the "Romanian" to me. He had in fact become a German citizen since his upbringing in Romania but there was no mistaking his Eastern European background. So the Romanian was kind enough to offer to drive the 4 of us to a favourite ski field of his an hour and a half south of Munich, across the border into Austria. It turned out his decision to drive was an act of entrepernurial genius that would have Christopher Skase look like an amatuer (that one's for the Aussies out there). Once up on the chairlift I learned from him that he was in fact bankrupt after running a failed business for the past 2 years, and he now had the German tax department banging down his door asking for the tax bill to be payed. Faced with a parking fine he couldn't pay he decided to drive us up to the slopes and charge us 10 Euro each, making a tidy profit to cover the ticket. I wasn't concerned in the slightest because he's know how meant that we ended up paying 3 Euro each for the lift passes (5 Aus$s) as compared to the 17 Euro price at the ticket booth. We managed this by ambushing the carpark on arrival at the ski field and within 5 minutes we had managed to come up with 6 lift passes from people leaving, one more than we needed and Michi managed to sell the extra one at a profit. I learnt on another chairlift ride with the Romanian that he had a strict criterea not to go out with girls over 24 which I was pretty impressed with seeing he was 39 himself. I think the critera was complicated by the fact his girlfriend was having her 25th birthday that day. Once up on the mountain we were blessed by deep powder and relatively good weather. Michi and I tried our luck in the back country and almost got completely stuck on a near vertical drop off before having a 20 minute walk back to civilisation. As always the scenery was awesome with huge mountains forming the backdrop for the day. Unfortunately on this occasion I didn't have my camera so I can't share the scenery with you. Believe me, I was spewing that I didn't have my camera handy. I little exhausted and bruised the 5 of us regrouped in the carpark, once the lifts shut, for some selami and turnip on Turkish bread before reloading 4 snowboards and a pair of skis onto the roof and returning home. I learnt the finer details of cracking 'Mushy' jokes in German on the way home in the car (if you don't know what Mushy is then use your imagination, one favourite was "Ich mag deine mushy" and "Kann ick schmeche deine mushy bitte?"). After heading back to Michi's apartment to get changed we returned to the Romanian's apartment for some drinks. Now I've been in a few apartments in my travels but this one would have to be one of the coolest. Painted in fire red with orange streaks exploding across the roof it looked very cool. The artwork was impressive, reflecting a certain obsession with the female form but done really tastefully. One piece of artwork featured a full size sketch of a woman's naked outline while another showed a sketch of a naked woman with a river of blood flowing from between her legs into the bottom of the sketch. I know what you're thinking, sounds bizarre, but it fitted perfectly with the rest of the apartment. I asked the Romanian about the sketches and he told me that it was his work. I asked him about the meaning of the sketch with the blood and he said it means whatever you want it to mean. I said it reminded me of a Southpark quote when Mr Garrison says that he doesn't trust "something that bleeds for 5 days and doesn't die". I think he was amused. We were joined by 4 Romanian girls, a Violin weilding Russian girl who was going out with the Romanian, Asit from India, a couple of Germans, and Carlos from Portugal giving the evening a distinctively international feel. The Romanian girls cooked up a brilliant curry dinner and we sat around on the flloor of the living room, some 12 of us, eating this beautiful meal while sipping champagne they had served up for us. Poor old Carlos couldn't handle the curry and you could almost see the steam shooting out of his ears. I think his plight wasn't helped by the fact he was sitting next to an Indian who kept making comments about it tasting quite mild. After dinner the Russian girl gave us an amazing performance on the violin, it turns out the Romanian had hunted her down in a Russian school for performing arts. She was a little shy about it and packed it in after some commotion over Carlos leaving his fly undone which she misinterpreted as people laughing at her playing. After that the Romanian pulled out his guitar, it took very little prompting from me, and played some Cat Stevens songs that brought back a lot of memories of my travels through New Zealand because the Kiwis were obsessed with Cat Stevens. The whole night was brillaint and I got to hear some crazy stories from the Romainian, many of which are too long to go into detail here. The stories included almost having his car turned over by a mob of angry Yugoslaves at the border of Yugoslavia during the war there in the 90s. He managed to escape by pretending the glue samples he had in the back of his car was medicine he was taking into the war zone. I also managed to practice quite a bit of my German since the Russian girl could hardly speak a word of English and I spoke German with some of the Romanians, managing to make myself understood. After we left the apartment Carlos, Michi, and I headed to Munich's main nightclub district, the Ostbahnhof, for some late night partying. We left at about 6am so I decided to grab my gear from Michi's apartment and catch the first train back to Augsburg. On the train ride home I had a frightening experience with a 100kg cigerette weilding, neck rubbing (not my neck, her's) german girl trying to hit onto me. She only got more excited when I reluctantly told her I was from Australia (the one time when I didn't want that line to work). I'm glad to say though I made it safe home and collapsed onto my bed back in my nice warm apartment at 8am. So I now have only two weeks left in Germany and I'm making some final preperations for Dublin. I'm glad to say that the search for a room in a share house has come up positive. I'm now just preparing myself for the shock of the cost of the place. I spoke with a nice Irish lady on the phone about the room for rent and she told me she had just returned from Australia. She was kind enough to tell me that Dublin is frighteningly expensive compared to Australia. Oh boy, this is going to be fun�.. Till next time, Ned. |