And now a walk in the Black Forest

I went to München last week, to meet up with Wiggy (and Rache). That was excellent. München seems like a nice place, and I'll prolly go back there, even if it's only for Oktoberfest. The night we were there we went to a traditional beer hall.

When you walk in the door, a few things strike you straight away:
a) it's packed
b) it's smokey
c) the people that work there all wear that ridiculous lederhosen - heh heh!
d) there is a band there.

Now, this ain't your normal, average pub band. No sirree bob. This is a true-black-red-and-yellow German "band". I say "band", because although they were playing "music" (I *suppose* you call it music), I personally don't find it very musical, and thus they don't qualify to be a band, in the true sense of the word. I think the nicest thing I could say about traditional German "music", is that it's a group of people, trying to make some sort of semblance of coordinated noise.

That's when I noticed the fifth major thing - everyone was actually enjoying the music, and clapping, and cheering and whistling after every song. Very odd.

The music was fucking crap, as you may have gathered. I wasn't too enthused to be listening to it, to be honest. We found a table (amazingly enough), ordered our meals from the surly waiter (I don't think it helped that Wiggy ordered by holding up two fingers, then jabbing one of said finger at the menu, trying to converse in English with an old cantankerous man who obviously didn't speak English), and ordered a beer each. These beers are the magical maases everyone talks about (sometimes incorrectly referred to as a stein) - a fucking huge glass, with a fucking huge handle, and for some unknown reason, a fucking big head on it. Why do they make it a quarter head???? I just don't geddit. The meal we had was quite nice, and the beer was even nicer.

A magical thing happens after 2 steins of beer. I never would have thought it was possible, but what was the world's worst music I had ever heard had been magically (and inexplicably) transformed into the absolute best music ever. It rocked! Consider buying a CD of this music. Don't ever, ever play it when you're sober though, because it won't get 20 seconds into Track 1 before you have smashed it into tiny pieces. However, after downing a six pack, give it a whirl - and it'll get the party going. Absolute bollocks when you're sober, but it just doesn't get any better when you're pissed. (Note: It may have helped that we actually WERE in Germany, and were in a PROPER beer hall, and we WEREN'T at 77 York St, Sandy Bay, Tas, with some blokes watching rubbish on cable tv, slowly polishing off a carton of Boag's draught. So be warned.)

Anyway, after the Hoftbrauhaus, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe across the street. (Of course we did. Where else do you go in München once you've been to a beer hall?). After that we went home, and I slept on Wiggy's hotel room floor, cos he's a bastard and wouldn't let me sleep in the bed. It would have been so much warmer, cosier and comfier with three people in a double bed Wigs! But, it didn't really matter much, cos I was well oiled by the time I got home. So, to sum up the night, many maases were consumed and a lot of shit was talked.

The next day we wandered around München, and like I said, it was quite nice. You know, old buildings, a boring Glockenspiel, some nice gardens - shit like that. They left, to catch the bus to Austria, and I left to visit the Museum of Strange Museums.

But first, I had to visit Maccas, to use their delightful toilet facilities. München beer isn't too kind on the Aussie intestinal tract and colon, and boy did that Maccas loo cop a pounding. Most of the dunnies have an attendant, and you should have seen her spring into action when I finally exited (my best work sometimes takes a while). She grabbed the nearest can of air freshener, drew a deep breath in, and ventured from whence I had just left, liberally spraying a protective barrier of air freshener in front of her. She finally emerged a full minute later, amidst a veritable fog of air freshener (I think it was Apple Mountain Stream or some such). She sent a scowl in my direction, something along the lines of "How dare you foul my beautiful, clean toilets with your pungent aftermath of last night's excesses!" and deposited the NOW EMPTY air freshener can in the bin. She wasn't finished though, not long by a long shot (the same had happened to me about 15 minutes earlier - I thought I had finally finished, but no, not by a long shot) - she grabbed a SECOND CAN of air freshener, and proceded to empty it's contents into the disaster zone, somewhat akin to a crazed gunman emptying his M-16s contents into a crowd of Viet Cong, back in Nam (or something like that, anyway). So, if you ever go to München, and find a malodourous Maccas toilet, well - that was me. Apologies.

Where was I? Oh yes - the museum of strange museums. I only thought I'd go there because Lonely Planet, and some dude on some travel website, talked it up. Lonely Planet said something about it being ridiculously funny and mentioned "a bargain at twice the price". The other bloke said there was apparently a "really hilarious" stuffed rabbit with fangs trying to mount a rooster. Sounds "crazy as a coconut!". Yeah, well, it was fucken crap.

It had:
1) the world's first pedal car museum. Fucken hooray. I think there's a damn good reason it's the world's first, you morons.
2) the world's first chamber pot museum. See above.
3) the world's first bourdalou museum. Ditto. I didn't even know what a bourdalou was, and now that I do, I wish I didn't. My life is in no way enriched by knowing what a bourdalou is.
4) the museum of scent. Fair enough, I geddit. You can smell all these wicked scents from times past right? Ermmm, no - it's a museum of perfume bottles. Jesus. I can't believe I paid money for this crap.
5) padlock museum. Well, I think this speaks for itself. Although there may be scope for some interesting history of the padlock, or whatever, this was just a few cases of rusty, old padlocks. It's hard to put this exhibition's sheer ludicrousy into words.
6) Sisi museum (in memory of Empress Elisabeth of Austria). Well, some people may have actually been interested by this, but I really, really, wasn't. I couldn't care less about Sisi.
7) the world's first easter bunny museum. Well technically they are incorrect. There was an easter bunny museum open recently. It was only open over Easter (of course), and was held at Olinda Grove. There were many Easter bunnies there that weekend, I'm sure (boom boom).

So, Mr. Lonely Planet Author - it wasn't a bargain at twice the price. In fact, if they had paid me a euro for every minute I was there, it still wouldn't be a bargain. It sucked arse. And as for the fanged rabbit fucking a rooster? I don't consider myself a world expert on hilarity, but I feel safe in declaring it "not hilarious".

I went and played indoor soccer in the Black Forests (cue "and now, A Walk in the Black Forest"), and although they were rabbits, it was good fun, and there was actually a bit of aggro. Normally, it's just a bunch of blokes who turn up for a friendly kick - but this time (cue "den den deeerrn" music), a RIVAL VILLAGE turned up. So we played them, and it got a bit aggro, some pushing and shoving and hacking and swearing in German. I think. And it was good fun, a good, decent, aggro game of indoor soccer - just like Moonah eh? Before the game of indoor, I did actually go for a walk in the black forest. And it was fairly nice, I suppose.

Every now and then I get the group emails that get sent around the office, and naturally they are in German. I don't really understand much German, so I have to get it translated. To do this, I use the AltaVista Babelfish website (http://babelfish.altavista.com/). It is always amusing to read the translation Babelfish comes up with. Here are a few:

"On the occasion of my birthday I would like to load today around 15:30 to coffee & cake. " Yes, let's all load coffee and cake today!

We have icecreams in the kitchen, and you had to write your name on a bit of paper for each icecream you had eaten. This has now changed (see message below). Oh, and ice = icecream.
"In the kitchen are immediately no more ice signs, but it hangs a list. On this list are all coworkers and also all ice sorts. I.e. one takes oneself as before also an ice and makes then only a line into the list. The whole is then accounted for like used at the end of the monthly. Thus the " Eiskaertchenauschneiden " remains being able to do us saved and we the lines directly into a Exel list to transfer. I.e. we do not have to count also more; -) "

"To all coworkers in the house. I have completely forget you Mr. So-and-so) by Robert Bosch Hungary to present! It receives a straight briefing from C of better ones. It will be today and on coming Monday still in our house. "
Yo! All coworkers in da house! Whoooo-eeee! Slap da bass, rap da place, yeah!

I still have no Porsche. I thought I would be driving Porsches, and playing
computer games, and eating Snacky Cakes and drinking beer all day?? What's going on????