Ducks

Here's Chris feeding some ducks at the lake near our house in Munich. He doesn't seem to realise that one duck is getting most of the food!

Doh! Ok, here are the cows!

I am aware that Chris is not a cow! Here are the cows. That was Chris, I was hoping that previous video would win me stacks of money when I sent it in to Funniest Home Videos, but no luck - he didn't fall over. Almost though...

Cows, complete with Moooo!

Cows walking.

Here is a little video of the cows on their walk down through the town from the mountain.

Tor fur FC Bayern München!!

Right at the beginning of this video you can see goal number 3 for Bayer Munich (in red) by Luca Toni and then the German celebratory music that I love starts, the crowd cheering and clapping along. Sorry for the shaking video, I am not too good at it with my camera. You can have a look around the stadium though and see the roof.

Then the announcer (A) comes on and says:

A: "Es ist neunundsechsig minuten" (It's the sixty-ninth minute), something something,

A: "Tor fur FC Bayern München!" (Goal for FC Bayern Munich) replayed on the big screen with the crowd singing along to the music. Play resumes.

A: "something, something, scored by player number 9: LUCA -"

Crowd: "TONI!"

A: "LUCA-"

Crowd: "TONI!"

A: "L-L-L-L-LUCA-"

Crowd: "TONI!"

A: "The score is FC Bayern -"

Crowd: "Drei!" (three)

A: "Energie Cottbus -" (the other team)

Crowd: "Null! (nil)

A: "Danke!" (thankyou)

Crowd: "Bitte!" (you're welcome.)

For every goal the Munich scored the announcer and crowd went on like this with the question and answer! I suppose it doesn't seem as funny as when you are there though, but we were loving it!

Going to the football in Germany is not the booze-fest that it is in Australia. The stands were full of people but I saw about 5 people, with beers the whole night. Not the entire crowd like you do in Australia. The atmosphere is great too, and the chants are so much better than the regular Aussie one of "Team name, clap, clap, clap! Team name, clap, clap, clap!" I had a good time, and there were no drunken louts at all!

Life in Munich

We've been living in Munich for a month now and it is a fun place to be. I love riding around on my bike, we both bought second hand bikes - cheaper than renting them, or catching the train. Bike paths are everywhere and I really enjoy ringing my bell furiously (German style) when a pedestrian dares to walk on the bike path and I can see them. They spring off - unless they are tourists!
We have rented a few cars to see places around Munich too, and Chris loves driving German style, which is at about 200km/h. The autobahns work that they are usually about 3 or 4 lanes and the left is the faster, the one next to that is a bit slower, the one next to that is slower again, and the right lane is the slowest and is mainly for trucks and caravans. The rule is that you can NEVER overtake anyone on the right, you have to go to the faster lanes to overtake and then move back to the right. This way the roads work very well and there are never fools driving along slowly in the fast lane like they do all the time in Australia. If someone is driving a bit too slow in the far left (fastest) lane and someone faster comes along then that person simply tailgates them - like 2 meters away! - until they move over. Germans are quite fond of tailgating and they all drive menacingly close to one another. There is no 3 second rule here! I am not particularly fond of the autobahns as I really don't like hearing the roar of a car driving past you at 250km/h at regular intervals. Germans are total speed freaks, although apparently very safe and law abiding ones.

Last night we went to the football to see Bayern Munich play Energie Cottbus, at Alliance Arena. The stadium was built for last years World Cup and it is pretty cool, with seating for almost 70,000 people. In the day time it is just white but at night lights turn it into different colours. Last night it was red, as you can see above. Last night it was about 5C and raining (yes, a perfect night to sit outside), but luckily most of the stadium is enclosed so we were completely dry. Only the field got rained on and the first 3 rows of seats. The game was pretty good and I made a little video of what happens when Munich scored, which I will add in a minute. It is really funny, at least we thought so!

Germans are sport loving people we have found out and will embrace any kind of wild and crazy sport. Take surfing for example, or 'surfen' as it is called. Sure there is no beach around, but after heavy rain the Iser river, next to our house gets higher and there is a wave that lots of 'surfers' go to surf. Yep, the water must be freezing since the outside air temperature is not above 10C when I took these photos.

See!

When a surfer falls off their board they are swept down river, as you can see.

White water rafting in the river is also popular. Everyone takes it in turns, once one person is swept away the next person jumps in and has a turn.

This is a little town that we drove through called Dinklesbuhl. It was really cute and all the buildings are old fashioned without any neon signs or anything. This town is on the 'Romantisch road' north of Munich and many of the towns are like this.

Near Dinklesbuhl we saw a sign for the town of Rain, which seemed very fitting with the lovely (not) weather we've been having.

On another day we drove into Austria (it's about an hour away) and saw this lake with amazing clear water.

So clear you could easily see big fish swimming around in it.

In a town near the lake I also saw this sign for what seems to be a construction company. I don't know if I'd go with a company with a name that sounds very like Schmozzle. That would be just asking for trouble!

This photo is from our trip to Berchtesgaden. We bought gumboots (I just love mine, they are so cute!) and we for a walk around the gorgeous lake.

The leaves are turning orange now and the autumn is very pretty.

Chris loves stomping about in his gumboots and I have to confess that I was hoping he would fall over here and provide me with some great photos! Hee hee!

Before you saw Germans surfing, but below is the most popular 'sport' of all, Nordic Walking! Everywhere, and I do mean EVERYWHERE, there are people walking around with sticks. They are not special hiking sticks, but just aluminium sticks with rubber on the ends, and people walk on flat paths not up mountains with them. Around Munich you can see groups of people 'learning' to go Nordic Walking, although I can't figure out what it is that they are actually learning! In my next update I promise to include lots of people in the pursuit of Nordic Walking and you can see what I mean.

Some cows we met after our forest walk in Berchtesgaden. They were very friendly.

This one liked liking my gumboots. I can't blame him, they are pretty.

This is at Schloss . This is really the perfect sized castle for me to live in I think! Not too big, not too small!

In the grounds.

Some more cows.

Below, brace yourself, is the same Iser river that people were surfing in before, although now the water has gone down and it is warm weather. Now that the weather has changed different people come to the river, including those with a penchant for sunbathing and skinny dipping. This guy walked past these 2 poor people, stripped off his barely-there undies and jumping into the river for a dip!

We ride on the bridge over the river every day when we go to the city and there is always something interesting going on. I thought I had seen it all with the surfing, but now I know that I was wrong!

Now that it is the end of summer the cows all over Austria and Germany are brought down from the mountains where they have spent the summer eating grass, and live in the valleys where it is warmer. When the cows are brought down there is a festival in the town and the cows are dressed up with flowers and headdresses like the ones below. I made a little video of this too. You can hear the cow bells ringing.

On our last trip out of Munich we went to Triberg in the Black Forest (Schwartzwald). Here is Chris sitting on the bridge in front of the water fall.

There are lots of squirrels in the forest and they are quite tame. They come up to you looking for nuts. They are so quick though it is hard to take a photo - they never stop jumping and running around.

The view of Triberg from up in the mountains on a walk we went on.

Chris swinging on a swing. Fun!

Oktoberfest is on now and in my next post there will be lots of photos of it! You will love my dirndle and Chris's lederhosen! We are super trendy!

A visit from Bubu

Two days after we got back to Munich Chris's mum, Bubu, came to visit us! She decided to visit us for just over a week and then go on to see Paris with her sister and then see her mum in Poland.


It was Chris's birthday too, so for his birthday treat he was taken trampolining. Bubu had never been on a trampoline before, this was her first time. She was much improved after 5 minutes. I think there are plenty of photos of C and I on the trampoline so this post is dedicated to Bubu.

Whooops!

Booiiing!

Yee-hah!!

Look out!

Bubu had a great time!

On another day we drove to Neuschwanstein Castle to have a look. It was pretty rainy and cold, but we had a good time.

Regular readers of this blog with know that where ever we have gone for the past 3 months there has been a heat wave (or close to). When we arrived back in Munich from Turkey it was a lovely 28C and sunny. Strangely, as soon as Bubu arrived the weather turned cold and rainy, and it got worse by the day. It was about 9-13C (Max) most of the time Bubu was with us. Luckily she brought us some winter clothes from home or we would have frozen!

For another day out with Bubu we drove to Salzburg in Austria and went on the Sound of Music tour. As many people know my Dad is one of the biggest Sound of Music fans in the entire world and I know that he would have just loved going on this tour. They even played us some songs from the soundtrack on the way home. Here is the bus we travelled on.

The house the family lived in.

The gazebo, now in a park.

The church Maria and the Captain got married in.

Inside the church.

The trees the children were in.

The steps from the song Do-ra-me - Dad's favourite song.

Sorry Dad, I made you a movie with my camera out the window of the bus with the song 'My Favourite Things' playing in the background, but I seem to have accidentally deleted it. I just know you would have loved it!

This tour was really pretty fun, even though we aren't really hard core fans. It was definately something different.

As the weather turned colder and colder we stuck to activities that kept us inside, and that meant driving places. One day we drove down to the border of Germany and Austria and found this lake that was an amazing blue/green colour even though it was overcast. There was snow on the mountains behind Chris and Bubu.

After the lake, we decided to drive closer to Austria - and the snow.

In the towns on the border it had just snowed or was snowing! In September! It was so pretty though. It was about 1-2C here.

Just like a postcard.

Chris and Bubu played in the snow!

A winter wonderland (actually I think it is still technically summer!)

Bubu is in Paris now, and we are alone again.