Munich – Beer, sausages & castles….

A few days ago, I came back from a German course in Munich, Germany. Before leaving for Munich I had already heard a lot of interesting things about the city and Bavaria: beer, sausages, dream-castles, and festivals… And it was true!

My classes started at 2.30 pm, how wonderful! Being a bit tired from the long journey, I was happy to be able to sleep until 10 am. Finally I arrived at school at around 2 pm after a little sight-seeing tour through the city center, since the school is in the very heart of Munich.

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Beaches (and lots MORE!) in Berlin

My friends advised me to go to Berlin for my German course. “It is the most amazing city in Germany”, they told me. And it is true: Berlin is just fantastic!

You can find everything here! Wonderful streets with colourful shops, flea markets, cafes, museums, great architecture, important historical places, all kind of exhibitions and arts.

Maybe it’s a kind of laboratory for creating new crazy things. Once I went with my friends from school to an exhibition of sounds called “Listen to listening”. There we found some works of the Austrian composer Peter Ablinger who lives currently in Berlin. Out of a piano he created a machine which can imitate the human voice. Yeah, it is astonishing! And he also recorded the sound of different trees… Yes, the sound of TREES! I listened to them and even if you find it difficult to believe, every tree has a different sound or language… or whatever you want to call it!

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Lindau – where on earth is that?

When I decided to improve my German last year, I wanted to do it somewhere with a friendly atmosphere, in a place where I have a lot of leisure possibilities and in a region or city which I hadn’t yet been to.

So, I noticed this school in Lindau, Bavaria, and I suddenly started to really look forward to going there and seeing what it was like!

On my trip from Oslo to Munich I started to read up on the beautiful countryside of the south of Germany and I couldn’t wait to see all that in real.

Throughout my stay in Lindau, which is situated at Lake Constance and just on the border to Austria and a few kilometres away from Switzerland, I lived in the school’s own student residence There I had a nice room, I shared the kitchen with other students from the school, so it was really easy to socialize and get integrated in my ‘new world’. In just 8 weeks I made a lot of friends and I don’t know how I’m going to be able to visit them all!

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My Munich-tastic time in Germany!

Before I arrived in Munich I had heard great things about the city. I had heard countless tales of its beautiful architecture, about it being a fabulous bustling hub containing every traditional image of Germany you ever had. I heard friends brag about the amazing countryside of Bavaria, the beautiful fairytale-like castles, and breathtaking scenery across mountains and lush green forests galore. And above all, naturally, I had heard about the beer and the sausages! Although I have to say that being neither a massive beer nor sausage fan, it was these most famous of all German things that probably excited me least! 😉

But the truth is, despite all these great things awaiting me in Munich, when I arrived at the airport, all my anticipation, curiosity and excitement was overwhelmed by the butterflies flying around in my stomach! I didn’t speak a word of German and here I was, in the middle of Bavaria, about to plonk myself in the home of a kindly German family and somehow take a bus and find my German language school and find someway to ask for a glass of water, let alone finding something to eat… I found myself thinking “How exactly did I get myself into this?!?”

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Sausages and so much more in Munich!

My short visit to Munich is rapidly coming to an end and so I reflect on my fortnights experiences in this big yet small city. I did not have many expectations before I came… well except that I would probably eat sausages and drink beer!

Of course it did not disappoint in this respect. I sampled many different beers and tried an assortment of sausages (and I fear my sausage count is close to 100 in a fortnight). The renowned Munich ‘weiss wurst’ with ‘suess senf’ is a must for any visitor. If possible, this first experience should be shared with a local so that they can demonstrate the eating ritual. Definitely worth a try!

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Soccer in Berlin: Hertha BSC 1 – 0 Hannover 96

Saturday November 10th ended up being a pretty special day for me here in Berlin. Not only did Berlin experience its first snow of the winter (if you can really class early November as winter!), but the school managed to get us reduced prices for the football game at the Olympic Stadium. The local team, Hertha BSC played (and beat) Hannover 96! The atmosphere was great. It was a bit cold, but nobody really noticed.

As a group we met up at the underground station at Zoologischer Garten and took the tube directly to the stadium. Extra trains were laid on, so even though they were pretty packed with boisterous, high-spirited Hertha fans, we had no problems getting to the stadium. Football in Germany is as much as religion as it is in England (where I’m from) and there’s that same goose bumps feeing as you join the masses heading for the stadium.

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Munich Oktoberfest – “O’zapft is!”

The famous “Oktoberfest“ is one of the most popular beer festivals all over the world with some six million people attending every year.

Our teachers told us that we should attend the opening ceremony. The Oktoberfest staff and the breweries move through the city with splendidly decorated horses and coaches and traditional dresses. The area where the festival takes place is called the “Theresienwiese”, or “Wiesn” for short.

The festival starts as soon as the first keg of beer is tapped by the Mayor of Munich who then declares: “O’zapft is!”. This is Bavarian and means “It is tapped!”

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Lindau: the small island with everything you could want!

If you don´t just want to learn German, but you also want to discover a new region, I personally recommend to you to go to Lindau. Lindau is a small island in the very south of Bavaria, just a walk away from Austria and Switzerland!

I came here to improve my German, but have been amazed by the beauty of the scenery here. You can find everything you want here: mountains, lakes, beautiful landscape etc. What’s more, the big cities like Munich and Stuttgart are just 2 or 3 hours away by train.

Although Lindau is not a capital city, the cultural life is really intense! There’s theatre galore, casinos and museums.

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Hamburg: my classmates made the local news!

Class finished at 1 pm on 1st August and the weather was very nice. We decided (since it was the end of the week and legal in Germany) to buy a beer and sit in the town centre – overlooking the Binenalster.

I left to go pick up some keys from a friend and whilst I was gone the local news team took my seat and interviewed my German course classmates on the weather in Hamburg. Normally summers in Hamburg are beautiful. Today was no exception but the last week has been a little less than perfect. Hear what my friend has to say 27 seconds (51 if counting down) into the video below. Next to him is another guy from my class who started this week.

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A postcard from Hamburg

Here is a short postcard describing my time here in Hamburg. Using the German that I have learnt in a week and a half I think I have got a typical day for me covered nicely 🙂 I would also like to apologise for those reading this with an advanced level of German but hopefully you are still a little impressed!

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