Culture... And nature

Trip to Munich
So I have been talking about our stay in Munich for a couple of weeks now... And we are in Munich, but not in the city centre. We're actually staying in a village (really, a suburb) called Planegg, which I just love (the name and the village). The next "village" across is called Graefelfing, which sounds to me like an ancient elfin name. Surely, there's a character by that name in LOTR*??

Anyway, it's about 25 minutes into Munich by train and we've been pretty slack about getting ourselves into town... But as foreshadowed in my last post, there was a €1 euro museum day on Sunday, which was not to be missed!! Full disclosure - we actually went into Munich on both Saturday and Sunday of the past weekend.

Saturday was just nuts in the city. There are about 1.3 million people living in Munich (compared to 4 mill in Melbourne) and they were ALL in Munich's city centre on Saturday. Shopping, walking, visiting beer halls, hanging out in the sun... The place was packed!! We had no real purpose, except to track down a laundry bag for Phil, so we spent much of the day wandering fairly aimlessly.

Amongst all the shoppers, there were musicians dotted around the city - one guy was playing a full sized piano - accordionists and the now-ubiquitous silver sprayed statues. There was also a very strange performance, apparently advertising for an Easter egg hunt. It comprised a bunch of teens in rabbit masks dancing around like a kind of like a really disorganised flash mob:



Culture or Modern Museums of Munich

On Sunday, we hit the town with purpose! At 2.30pm, granted, but with purpose!! Most things are closed on Sundays - retail stores, supermarkets - it's like Melbourne in the late-80s! But not the museums. Our goal was to take advantage of two museums' €1 euro entry. So we went first to the very new and shiny Museum Brandhorst - a modern art museum and then to the Pinakothek der Moderne. The Brandhorst didn't allow photography indoors, but it was very nice inside - all natural wood and light. They had a dark pop art exhibition with lots of Andy Warhol and others. Here's the building from the outside:



Then we headed to the Pinakothek der Moderne, where photography is allowed, so I took some pics. They had awesome stuff - a couple of floors devoted to design and architecture, a huge middle floor for modern art (ie painting and sculpture) and a top level for jewellery. I loved some of the designs:



This was part of the computer exhibition - ancient laptop, anyone?



I really want this plate so I can fill it with soup and watch the hippo swim!!


This was part of the jewellery design collection - it's actually soap on a rope!



This took up a whole room and just looked cool... not entirely sure what it was.

Just as we were leaving the second museum, we passed a woman outside the gallery, walking her two adorable dogs. She passed by us in her wheelchair... and I noticed that one of the dogs also had his back legs in a wheelchair of his own. I was instantly moved. Despite the day spent amongst priceless art works, this momentary glimpse touched my humanity the most.

[Just to lighten the now-serious mood, I don't think the hippo bowl was priceless... but they had Picasso and sh$t...]

Nature

Today we decided to wander down to Pasing - a suburb about half way to the city centre which is a bit of a hub and has a shopping arcade. It's a beautiful walk along the river and through a couple of parks. It was really quite windy this morning, but forecast for 13 degrees, so we weren't too worried. The first quarter hour was pretty windy but ok.

And then as we started to walk along the river, we noticed a lot of debris - branches littering the paths. The river was running so fast, the ducks were body surfing... it was adorable! A couple of smaller trees on the banks of the river had fallen or snapped. I spotted this in a tree and thought - haha, the wind is so strong it's lifted someone's tennis racquet right out of their house and mangled it in a tree:




Then about two hundred metres down the path, I heard Phil say 'oh Shiiitt' and I turned and saw this:



Oh shit, indeed

We saw more and more uprooted trees and struggled to keep upright, so we eventually pulled the plug on the river walk and headed onto the main road which felt a bit safer, although I was genuinely fearful of flying patio furniture!

We made it to Pasing, but had to admit defeat for the trip home and take the bus, which was probably a good idea because it was pelting with rain, half the streets were closed and we heard near-constant sirens on the way home... The rest of the week is not looking much better with snow - yes, snow - forecast for the next few days.

Phil's birthday or Footloose

Speaking of the rest of the week, it's Phil's birthday on Friday. This Friday. As in Good Friday. It's actually the trifecta this year because it's not only Phil's birthday and Good Friday but it's also the first night of Passover!

And because we're in Bavaria - the ultra conservative, Catholic part of Germany, NOTHING is open. Nada. And, to add insult to injury, dancing is banned on Good Friday in Bavaria. In 2015. Seriously, dancing is banned. We're literally** living inside the plot of Footloose.

So the options for birthday celebrations outside the house are looking sparse... There is a Dark Easter death metal music festival on over Easter, but sadly (a) it's on Sunday and (b) we just listened to a few of the death metal bands on YouTube and couldn't get past the first 14 seconds. So it's looking like we might need to accept our fate, buy a bottle of champers and rent some movies on iTunes***.

But not all is lost, we are headed back to the Rattlesnake with Niko, Phil's stepbrother tomorrow night to see a British country rock guitarist (Albert Lee for those who are following) - should be really awesome!! And we've got a brunch with both stepbrothers and friends on Sunday morning. Good times :)




* Or Lord of the Rings to those not in the know...
**not literally
***definitely NOT illegally download the entire series of Better Call Saul...

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Location:Josef-Danzer-Straße,Planegg,Germany