just back from a 8 hour journey from munich to eindhoven. wasnt exactly a fantastic experience travelling on ice, the german express train cos we were allocated a smoking carriage initially and the smell was just unbearable! it was nothing less than torturous, so after enduring for 45 mins, we decided to find some empty seats. we managed to find one at the train cafe, yes they have some sort of restaurant on the train that serves beer and food. strangely the waitresses on board didnt chase us away cos we didnt buy anything, but they chased some other passengers away, germans i presume. maybe they dont know how to speak english!! or feel that their english is too lousy to convey what they want to say to us! haha..anyway i dont care..we had the seats to ourselves the entire journey. btw on our way there it was even more ridiculous, we actually had the exact same seats as another couple! a double booking! what a flaw in their system! i was damn pissed off, luckily we managed to find empty seats.........
the ICE on the right, colours a little similar to the mrt eh.....
but it's 3 times faster! haha..
anyway we attended this really good free munich walk tour this morning. it was very enlightening, i feel i know so much more about munich after that! after you've learn about the history, that's when you can truly appreciate the city..appreciate i'm walking down the street that the nazis marched decades ago, standing on the spot that hilter's bodyguards took 11 gun shots for him..blah blah..
that's the very humourous tour guide in red! his name is dave!
1. oktoberfest which is held in munich began as a form of celebration for the marriage between king ludwig and his wife, theresia. it was basically just a month long of drinking and partying. everyone had so much fun that they decided to do it every year, until now. it used to be held in the month of oct, as the name suggests, but now it has been brought forward to the 3rd week of sept because of climate changes. this festival attracts many tourists, particularly the aussies. when these aussies tend to get drunk and lose their passports, wallets etc, and it became just a major problem every year that the australia decided to set up a temporary embassy in munich every year just during the period of the oktoberfest! the only aussie embassy in germany is in berlin. they drank 6 million litres of beer at oktoberfest every year!
me and the bavarian lion, drinking beeerrrrr!
2. most buildings are built in a dome shape, functional in the sense that it can drain off water. however the opera house in munich is built in such a way that is entirely opposite: it curves in, an anti-dome, collecting water so that in the case of a fire, they can turn on a tap and water will just flow from the roof to put out the fire. 12 yrs after it was built, finally a fire broke loose!!! the moment they've all been waiting for!! however....this happened in the month of jan, and there was only ice on the roof...-_-...so how now brown cow?? all liquids were frozen...what other choices do they have in abundance which is in the form of liquid..? BEER!!! so the people formed a human chain from the opera house to the city's brewery, hofbrauhaus (which wasnt far), and passed barrels of beer along to put out the fire, and it worked. like..WOW.
the opera house..looking pretty much ordinary
marienplatz, munich's busiest district, especially for shopping!
3. apparently germany has the highest beer consumption in the world..on national level, a german drinks 0.5 litres of beer every day. in munich, it's 3 times that of the national level, they drink on average 1.5 litres of beer every day. that's a lot if you think about it.....i'm not sure i even drink that much water everyday haha.
consumes 10 thousands litres of beer every day!
4. the crime rate in munich is very low and the police are basically bored people with nothing much to do. so when you do get caught committing a crime, there are simply no excuses. a man was fined 30 euros for putting one of his foot on the train seat. haha. from observation, germans are very law abiding people! in the subway stations, you dont need to scan a card or insert any ticket to enter. it's all down to your own integrity to buy tickets, and conductors supposedly do appear on trains to check but so far i have never encountered any. germans DO buy the tickets..unlike us, singaporeans...if this is the situation in singapore, i think there'll be chaos. we already have aunties going up buses pretending they have tapped their ez link cards when they didnt.
park your dog here!! erm...
6. berlin and munich have very different ways of coping with their ugly past. after WWII, much of germany's buildings were destroyed. berlin recovered the city by erecting new, modern looking buildings. huge, open memorials for the jews. lots of glass symbolising transparency. they are open, and they make a big show to let everyone know that they are open about their guilt. however munich coped with the past in a very different way. buildings were reconstructed as how they looked like before the war, as a matter of fact, close attention was paid to small details. there is hardly any memorials around..and there arent much clues that the war has even existed before. i'm not sure, but i guess they probably cope with it by coming to terms with the past..and moving on. dont they always say that hardest person to forgive is always yourself..?
a small plaque to commemorate the 6 munich police who were killed during the first clash between the nazis' party and the state police
anyway like my bf says, the new generation of germans has no links or whatsoever with whatever that happened during WWII, and i dont think cruelty is heritable. in conclusion, i do quite like germany, or rather munich, since i've only been there. it feels much like singapore...modern, efficient, everything runs like a clockwork. clean, organised, and very safe! definitely not something you would conclude from paris or italy!
a panoramic picture of munich from the top of the clock tower!
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