Once Upon a Time in Bavaria...

Ok so I don’t remember what all occurred between my last post and my trip to Munich. In any case, it was probably uneventful. Now, Brace yourselves, this is going to be a long post.

So here’s the scoop on Munich:

My first impression of the Munich Airport: Panic. How was I going to spot Emily when EVERYONE at the airport was white? This is a problem that hasn’t presented itself in 3 months. After an quick search she was still nowhere to be found and I called her from a pay phone and she was still on the train to come pick me up so I gave her a tip that has to do with my second impression: I was the only person not wearing dark colors: I had on a bright purple shirt and a hot pink sweatshirt. Emily was able to find me immediately upon arrival.

We took the train back to downtown Munich, about an hour long, chatting, and catching up. We dropped my stuff off at her apartment then I put on a bunch more warm clothes and we went to go meet Carl, Emily’s husband, at a nearby Beer Hall called Lowenbrau.

Lowenbrau

Carl had some sort of meat with gravy and berry dish that included something called (well, it sounded to me like) a canoodle. The name is a little more fun than the taste, in my opinion. Emily and I split a dish that is essentially mac and cheese with a twist. Our waitress was a happy, friendly, middle aged woman that kept trying to get me to talk in German (All I knew upon arrival to this country is the word for Cheers in German, taught my me by my AUC friend Max). I just smiled and was a little blown away by all her cleavage which was very startling coming straight from a Muslim country.  Quite the cultural difference J

Friday I woke up late- around 10. It was easy to sleep late at Emily and Carl’s due to the quietness of the area- In my room in Cairo it’s hard to sleep past 8:30 on a week day because there is a children’s school right across the street who, at 8, start the day with children singing along to another child, singing on a microphone. It is quite a nice thing to wake up to. Anyway, Carl went off to work and Emily and I did some sit-ups listening to the BBC Arabic channel podcast and after we had oatmeal with apples and dates in it. Yummy!

Next, Emily took me on what has been informally deemed “the Bob tour.” This is the tour of the landmarks of downtown Munich. We went into some churches and cathedrals, including one that supposedly has the devil’s footprint in it.

Footprint of the Devil

Munich: dervived from something that means "The Monk's Place"

Overlooking Munich

We ducked into Starbucks to get a holiday hot chocolate and warm up. We watched the Glockenspiel, did some window shopping, climbed up a church tower to get an all-encompassing view of Munich, then had lunch in “Viktualienmakt,” a charming little area with vendors of delicious vegetables, meats, cheeses, etc. We went to a little soup restaurant where Emily got a pumpkin cream soup and I got a carrot- ginger-coconut soup. Very creative!

Soup!

Viktualienmakt

Next, we stopped at a charming stand that sells “Gleuwine” (pronounced Glue Vine, not very appetizing sounding). This beverage is warm, mulled, spiced wine. It is very delicious and is a good way to warm up. 

We looked at the may pole, and Emily told me a bit about some traditions associated with may poles in Germany.

1. When a guy likes a girl, he will make a maypole for her and decorate it with things that hint at who he is. If she likes him, she will dance around the maypole, but if she does not, she will leave a case of beer next to the may pole, as kind of a consolation prize.

2. Town may poles are made of the highest tree in the area. Other towns or factions can steal the may poles and will not give it back until the town that the may pole has been stolen from throws them a party. This is a great tradition and I think Emily said that recently the Munich airport had their may pole stolen and it turns out the police stole it from them, so the airport had to throw the police a party. Ha!

Anyway, later we went for a tour of the Residence, which was the palace of the Bavarian royalty. This palace was very cool but dark and a lot of it had to be reconstructed due to bombing damage during WWII.

The Residence banquet room

We did a bit more window shopping then went back to Emily and Carl’s apartment to change and have some tea before we went to Emily’s German teacher Barbara’s for dinner. Carl met us there, and Barbara’s cousin Andrea was also there. After dinner we went to a Cuban club for a bit called Bueno Vista, where Emily got carded. This was very amusing as Emily is 5 years older than me and the drinking age in Germany is 18. We left after a little while though because Emily and I were going to have an early morning.

Saturday we woke up with the sun.

Sunrise

Our destination was Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany. It took us a while to get there by train and then we got lost in the town for about 2 hours before we found the train that takes us to the top of the mountain. We took a cable car down, after having coffee and some pasta in a charming little restaurant at the top of the mountain, bedecked in fake pine boughs and red ribbons. It was very festive in preparations for Christmas.

Zugspitze
 

Lunch!

Back at the base of the mountain, we took a walk around a lake called Eibsee, see meaning lake in German.

Eibsee

We got back all cold and Carl had made a delicious soup for dinner and we had a great time eating and talking.

Sunday Emily and I went to meet her friend Gigi for church then we went for brunch. We then walked through the English Garden (Englischer Garten) which is Munich’s Central Park. It was fairly warm on Sunday and may people were out playing “football,” walking, playing with their children, and also at a beer garden (Of course!). there was one set up in an area that is going to be a small Christmas stall area, complete with a wooden pagoda. I forgot my camera so there are no pictures.

Emily went to Munich’s Egyptian Museum which was fun to see and was a good review. It was only about 3 rooms though.

We went back home and made dinner- a pumpkin risotto and fancy chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Carl’s brother, Tom, came over for dinner. He’s the same year in school as I am and is studying abroad this year in Munich which he seems to really be enjoying. We played a game then went to bed.

The next morning Emily and I decided to go see some castles. We took the train to Fussen, got tickets for castle tours then had hot chocolate and split a Bretzel (Pretzel). I spilled crumbs all over and like to think I was like Gretel the rest of the day leaving crumbs in my wake as I walked through the woods of Bavaria. Emily walked through the woods- we had a lot of time before our first castle tour and the moss, mist, freshly cut trees, and pine needles really made it less hard to believe in fairies and fairy tales. Eventually we made our way to the first castle, named Hohenschwangau- this dainty castle was very imaginative and beautiful. If I ever live in a castle (highly unlikely), I want it to be this one. Emily too.

After the tour, we walked back to the town and split a quick lunch of Weisswurst (white sausage, a common German breakfast. Max told me I needed to have some when I went there and was waving a can of it in my face 2 weeks ago), soup, and a beer.

Castle Hohenschwangau

Eating Weisswurst

Next, we climbed up to the second castle, named Neuschwanstein. This castle was very romantic and fantastic, the king who had it built even had a cave passage connected to his bedroom that had a beautiful room off of it that was like a 4 season porch essentially where he could have tea and look out on the kingdom. There were no bad views from this castle, it was in an ideal location. Emily and I learned of a mystery attached to the King of Neuschwanstien  (you can ask me about it sometime if you like) and we pondered it all the way down the mountain. We had a heck of a time getting back to Munich due to some sort of train fiasco but Carl was back at the apartment waiting for us at 10 with some falafels and beer.

Tuesday Emily and I went to Dachau, a concentration camp located on the outskirts of Munich. This was a very sobering experience and was important but hard to see.

We went to Augustiner Bier Stubl for lunch, a famous beer hall. Apparently this is Pope Benedict’s favorite beer and he has it shipped into the Vatican. After lunch, Emily and I went downtown and got advent calendars and apples to make an apple pie. Later that night, we watched Captain Abu Raed, a movie that takes place in Jordan.

The next day, Emily and I went to 3 bookstores looking for books in English about the Ludwig II conspiracy (the mystery) until we found one. We did a little more Christmas shopping for her family then had lunch again in the “Viktualienmakt”. Emily and I wanted to get a coffee at a café and read our books so we went on the prowl. We ended up in one filled with people at least 50 years older than us J

Cafe Wiener

We got vegetables after to make a soup for dinner then went to the Deutsches Museum, similar to the museum of Science and Industry. We only went for an hour because the last hour is free at the museum but it was very cool, I could have definitely spent a whole day if not more there. We went back to Emily and Carl’s apartment, made dinner, talked, went to bed, and here I am, back in Cairo.

Parking, Baking, and Painting

Hello Friends.  Tuesday afternoon and evening was grand. Clare and I went to Al-Azhar park near Khan el Khalili to draw and paint and watch the sunset. This was really fun as we were pretty much the only non-Egyptians in the park, which is the greenest area I have been in since coming to Cairo. It was fun to see all the families and couples. Clare and I saw a woman in full veil with a purse bedazzled with Barbie’s face and cuffed jeans with sperrys on sticking out from beneath her robe, which we both enjoyed. Then we went to go paint (me) and color with pencils (Clare) the sunset. We drew much attention from kids and people our own age who came over and gave me some good practice with my colloquial Arabic. You guys probably think that all I ever do in Egypt is take pictures of the sunset so sorry if you are sick of sunset pictures but here you go.

Couples watching the sunset

Sunset over Cairo

Awesome mosque that I should know the name of/go to

After the sunset, we went into Khan el-Khalili because I wanted to go shopping for things to bring to my cousin Emily and her husband Carl, who I am going to visit in less than a week (!).  We had a great time bargaining and meeting people. We got to go shopping for spices, which was wonderful, I had been longing for an excuse to go into spice shops since day one.

Wednesday was uneventful, we watched a movie in my colloquial Arabic class about a belly dancer named Zuzu and then in my next class, my Anthropology one, we started watching a movie called The Battle of Algiers. This was really interesting and I hope we get to finish watching it sometime. I guess it is a good movie to understand the problems with defining acts as terrorism or as a nationalistic revolt or something. I’m describing it horribly but it’s an interesting movie and you should all watch it. If you want.

Thursday after school, Clare, Meg, Max and I took the bus to Maadi to make thanksgiving pies for our friends at Max’s apartment. We made two apple pies and two walnut pies (we wanted pecan but oddly enough they don’t have pecans in Egypt). We had a great time talking, laughing, playing cards, etc. Most of us slept over at Max’s and then we got to make breakfast for everyone in the morning and clean up the house after we got the kitchen all dirty.

Max, Meg, Mary, Jessie, Kirsten, and Brent

Apple Pie!

Meg made some Peanut butter cookes :)

Morning bathtub chat

Saturday was pretty basic, mostly just homework and studying and being cold. Saturday night however was Turkish Culture Night and we had tons of Turkish food and there was a Turkish artist which was pretty cool. He did this type of art where he has a tray of water that he swirls around paint on the surface and then lays a piece of paper over it and it soaks up the design. It was pretty cool. 

Turkish man doing his art

pretty

Deserts and Dancing

Hello! I hope everyone had a good Halloween and welcome to November! It has been an eventful couple of days, definitely. Thursday night the girls for the group I usually hang out with all went to a Halloween party on a yacht on the nile that our friends Omar and Gary had arranged. This was such a fun time and we all dressed as pirates. Unfortunately, a bunch of other people had the same idea but we all still looked fairly uniform in our Ali Baba pants. 

The Girls

The next morning, Clare, Ryne, Kirsten and I headed out on a weekend trip to the Black and White desert through AUC. We rode on a bus for four hours and then met up with our fleet of Land Cruisers and their drivers. Our driver (I was in a car with Kirsten, Clare, and another RA named Mahmoud) was named Ahmed and let me tell you, he was a pro driver.

Girls in the Back

Ahmed the driver

We had lunch in this really cool “springs” area where there was a little stream running through the building and everywhere outside was desert. Next we piled in the Land Cruisers and drove for a while through the Black Desert and into the White Desert. The Black desert, according to Ahmed the driver, is black due to a volcano that eruped approximately 17,000 years before present and the ash is what has turned the rocks on the surface of the sand so dark. The White Desert was underwater and that is why it looks the way it does I guess. Anyway, the White Desert is beautiful with all sorts of strange formations of rock- yet the rock there is the softest, most lovely stone that when you touch it, it feels like you have just rubbed baby power on your skin. At least I think so. We first saw the huge great big formations before driving to our campsite.

The White Desert

En route to the campsite, we watched the sun go down which was beautiful but strange, as the landscape of the white desert already gives off a sort of un-earthly, foreign vibe. 

Sunset over the White Desert

Some of the formations looked like giant eggs from which could emerge either dinosaurs or aliens. It was pretty strange, but cool. Our campsite was actually in the midst of such strange formations. When we got there, the drivers all pitched together and parked the Land Cruisers in kind of a half-rectangle (the long way) and lined the inner part of it with a wall of pretty cloth with designs on it that are very typical to Egypt. Then they prepared a delicious dinner for us of rice, potatoes, chicken, and chopped up tomatoes and cucumbers. We listened to some of the drivers play traditional instruments and sing for a little bit after then Clare, Kirsten and I put some tiny mattresses together and had all our warm clothes on and huddled together under opened sleeping bags but were still kind of cold.  It is easy to underestimate the chilliness of a desert night. We fell asleep under the stars and woke up with the light of dawn with the moon still above us.

A cold Morning

Camp

We had a little breakfast then packed up camp. We headed back through the White Desert and ended up at the Crystal Mountain- a little rock formation that had it been underwater 20 years longer (according to Ahmed the driver), all the crystals inside would have been diamonds. Next we went to The Black Mountain (creative name, huh?) in the Black Desert and climbed to the top and got a sweeping view of the Black Desert- very interesting.

The Black Desert

After this hike, we returned to the place where we swapped from the bus to the Land Cruisers and did the opposite. We got lunch then started the long drive back. We were 20 minutes form Zamalek when our bus broke down- something with the fan belt. We waited for an hour for them to fix it and when they didn’t, we took a cab back to the dorm where we showered, had dinner, and went to bed.

Sunday was normal class, however, after school Clare and I rode in Max’s car to his apartment in Maadi so he could change and so we could assess his kitchen situation for future cooking endeavors. After that we took the Metro to Zamalek and went to Church at St. Joe’s- we thought mass was going to be in Italian but it was in French, which was an interesting twist. Then we went to Alex-Top, the favorite Koshary spot on Zamalek.

Monday was pretty basic and at night we went to a Halloween party at Tim’s apartment. This was a ton of fun- some costumes were as follows: A tourist (Clare), Billie Mays (Ryne), Notre Dame Students (Carly and Mary), A Doorman (David), A lion/cat (Hannah), And I was Alan from the Hangover.

We had a grand time.

Clare and I

This morning (Tuesday) I went to campus in order to meet with my Arabic teacher (who didn’t show up, sad to say) , but ran into someone I hadn't seen in over 10 years, Merrit Kennedy, childhood friend who I knew in Jerusalem. It was fun to see her and we reminisced for a while before agreeing to get together perhaps this coming weekend.