Ah, home again! Well, British home, that is. I've missed my American home all week, and the feeling was especially strong on Christmas day-- all I wanted was to be with my mommy! Nevertheless, the past seven days have been quite an adventure, and I will tell all now:
The arrival.
Okay, so I hate flying-- if you've ever heard me complain about it, you'd know this much. Planes are stuffy and cramped; airports are havens of sickness, suspicion and stress; the food is bland and overpriced; the bathrooms are unspeakable-- there is nothing good about flying. This was only a 2 hour flight from the East Midlands airport, and as far as flights go, this one went very smoothly. There was little stress on my part-- we found our gate OK, took our airsickness pills, and arrived in Munich right on schedule. Munich has two large terminals-- one for Lufthansa Air, and the other for everything else. We were in the "everything else" category, so we walked to terminal 2 to meet Sonja, whose flight would arrive an hour after ours.
We were immediately plunged into the spirit of German Christmas when we walked outside into the courtyard between terminals 1 and 2-- a Bavarian Wintermarkt (also called Christkindlmarkt or Weihnachtenmarkt) had been set up, and engulfed us on all sides. Everywhere you looked, there were large wooden booths displaying both foodstuff and gift items-- clothing (gloves, hats), blankets made of sheepskin, sausages, apfelstrudel (apple strudel), crepes, and all manner of other baubles, woodcarvings, and miscellaneous kitsch. I went for the apfelstrudel, Jana went for the crepe, and then we went into terminal 2 to wait for Jana's roommate.
When she appeared, her mother and sister emerged from the crowd, and we all finally met. Sonja's sister had brought with her a bag of authentic Bavarian pretzels (bretzels) and we were almost never without one the rest of the week. Speaking of food, Bavarian food is to DIE for-- there is so much meat in the diet, I decided to put my vegetarianism on hold so I could try all the different cultural meals (which I will be describing in detail throughout the rest of this post, I assure you!) Anyway, Sonja lives about 2 hours north of Munich, deep in the Bavarian forest in a village called Altrandsberg. That day I learned the word "ausfahrt" which means a road exit. (Aufgang means exit on foot). We must have seen the word a dozen times as we sped down the freeway on our journey.
The Bavarian forest is known for its mystery and charm, but best of all for its stories. The Grimm brothers tracked through the very woodland that surrounded us on all sides, collecting fairy tales from the townsfolk all those years ago. As we passed through expanses of evergreen forests, which covered the rolling hills on all sides, sprinkled in a dusting of snow, it was not hard to imagine big bad wolves and hungry old witches concealed deep within the wood. The land was thick with darkness and magic just beyond the cozy little villages that dotted the hillside.
Bavarian villages are designed similarly to English villages-- with tight-knit communities of households and shops, and church spires looming over it all protectively. Although similar in design, the features could not look more different: instead of skinny brick houses all in a row such as you would find in England, Bavarian houses are very tall and wide, with little in the way of mismatched roofs or flowery bits like overhangs. They are simply-designed, like dollhouses, made of solid wood with small windows that all emanate warmth with their inviting twinkling lights. The houses are well-spaced from each other, but not so much that they look isolated. The churches do not have crosses on top of the steeple, but rather onion-shaped domes-- the hallmark feature of a German town. There are lots of steep hills, and bridges big and small that cross chilly rivers, and from every angle you can see the forest stretching across the vast landscape.
We drove by many such towns on our way south to Altrandsberg, speeding down the autobahn (which, by the way, is the German word for "freeway" and is just as impressive as any interstate). Altransdburg itself is unique because it has a large castle on the highest hill, brightly lit at night so that it stands out amidst the forest darkness. The castle houses the local church, a kindergarten, and an impressive little museum. We arrived at Sonja's house-- actually, estate!-- at last, and were greeted enthusiastically by her father, who, as you may recall, has a love for the English language and everything that goes with it-- including the British Isles and America. He is an English teacher at the primary school ten minutes up the road, and he has a thirst for knowledge of the language as no other-- he must have asked me and Jana a hundred time what certain sayings meant, or if he was saying a word or phrase correctly.
Sonja's dad made us something to eat-- white sausages and pretzels! Sonja had also asked her sister to make her favorite meal, so the sausages were a kind of appetizer to a delicious warm stew of hot, gooey dumplings, vegetables and gravy, and slices of tender, savory pork roast. Mmmm is your mouth watering just thinking of it?
The next morning, we got up early to visit Sonja's dad at his school. He'd told the children that we would be there, so they prepared questions for us. When we met them, we were pleasantly surprised-- their English was superb! Many of them were shy, but those who spoke had perfectly clear accents, and they were all very curious about the two Americans who had trekked so far to visit them! Sonja's dad had a map of the USA at the head of the class, so Jana was able to point out where we were from exactly.
There were questions and answers on both of our parts. The kids were very excited to tell us all about themselves, and the boys all have a love for European football, and the girls love jazz dance-- "jazz" was the only word we couldn't understand right off the bat, because the Germans are used to a somewhat harsh pronunciation, so the English "J" comes out as "ch" and they called it "chess" dance... similarly, Sonja's cat was called "Chonny" though he was named after Jon Bon Jovi. The visit ended with the kids singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed (ret-nosed) Reindeer for us in English, after which they sang a traditional Bavarian Christmas song, which was very cute.
That afternoon we went to a scenic little Christkindlmarkt, where Jana and I were introduced to real mulled wine, called gluhwein in Bayern (Bavaria). In England-- and maybe we've only had bad mulled wine-- it tastes like regular red wine with some spices added to it. In Bavaria, the wine is made with the spices, and there is such a good blend of cinnamon and alcohol that you can't separate the flavors, and it tastes like hot cider with a good kick. There are many special alcoholic beverages around Christmas-time here-- hot alcoholic drinks with various fruit mixes such as berries or oranges, and the non-alcoholic kinderpunsch, which is fancy spiced cider. And of courses, sausages abound. I favored a stick of coconuty, truffley chocolate, and if you know German chocolate, you'd know it was divine.
That night, we attended a Christmas performance at the elementary school where Sonja's dad works, where each class put on a show of some kind. This was actually very entertaining-- one class turned off all the lights and shined UV rays onto specially-painted costumes made to look like Christmassy things, so it looked like there were bright white Christmas trees and stars all floating around on the stage without any humans attached, bobbing about to the music. Other classes performed skits and songs in German. The English class put on a delightful little sketch in English, and many of them had whole paragraphs of lines. Again, their accents were very impressive-- some of them sounded just like English children. Jana burst out into uncontrollable, albeit mostly silent, laughter during a few of the performances-- once when the kids were dressed as UV-glowing snowmen, another time when a very frightened but cute little boy forgot his lines, and another time when the kids all petered out during a song they didn't know the words to.
Some of the teachers, such as Sonja's dad, placed a lot of importance on the kids performance-- but the best parts were the mistakes! Kids are supposed to make mistakes, and it's the cutest and funniest when they personalities come out-- when they must do some improv to cover up when things don't go quite as planned...
The next day, we went to Neuschwanstein Castle! That is about a three hour drive further south, right on the border of the Alps! You would not believe how beautiful that area is-- Jana and I went with Sonja, her sister, and her sister's fiance. Sonja's sister speaks decent English because she is also a teacher-- but her fiance claims he cannot speak English unless he's been drinking, which is entirely true. He wouldn't admit he was shy to speak it, but it was still impressive he could talk to us at all, considering he did not have regular practice. Anyway, German was spoken the majority of the time, but I didn't mind-- it just added to the mood of the whole place.
We zigzagged through picturesque towns, and I admit I fell asleep for a good part of the journey. But when the tall, craggy, sharp, snow-covered Alps emerged over the horizon, dominating the scenery, I couldn't help but burst out with a shout of "The hills are aliiiiive with the sound of muuuuusiiiiic!" which my German pals-- get this-- have NEVER seen! We told them all about the movie and how it's a classic-- I will have to remind Sonja to watch it!
On our way to the castle, the fiance pulled over on the side of the road to let us get out and take some pictures from afar. You will be able to see all the pictures soon, of course, so you'll see how breathtaking a fairytale castle perched in the foothills of the Alps can be-- indescribable, really. But when we got back into the car to continue onward, the wheels had gotten stuck in the snow. Sonja told me and Jana later that the fiance had been boasting about his driving expertise very soon before the incident, so this was amusing for her and her sister, who had to endure it, and put a damper on his gloating for a while.
The funny thing about being surrounded by people you can't understand, is you miss a lot of funny or important pieces of communication. You don't know when someone is being annoying, or confusing, or even drunk in some cases because you don't know what slurred German sounds like. People get embarrassingly quiet, or unusually tense seemingly for no reason. A lot of it had to be explained to me and Jana later by a very patient Sonja, and Sonja's dad was always willing to offer a translation of the mundane or pleasant bits, followed by long strings of language that just blew on past. This is what happened for a lot of our Neuschwanstein visit, but it was such a great place that Jana and I ignored the fact that we were completely oblivious of the minds of our comrades.
BUT-- I will leave the description of the castle, and details of the rest of the trip, for part two of this entry! I have been writing for a VERY long time now and must take a well-needed break. In the meantime, I will try to get those pictures up on facebook!
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