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Free Oktoberfest Singalong lessons
Word is from Bayern 3 this monstrosity of a song will be the next hit at this year’s Oktoberfest. If you don’t want to look like a ninny standing on the Bierbank with the WTF look, I suggest you start with daily views of this video until the beer guzzling begins. It even has some Bayerisch text to follow along. Whee!
Why am I dressed like this?
Weekend No. 33: We, along with two other Karate mates from Alex’s club, drove like maniacs to Sauters in Austria to get our extreme white water on. We took two tours in one day and it’s Monday and I’m still beat. What a treat it was to get a paddle in the water. How I miss my kayak.
The first run was on Imster Schlucht. I was the only girl on the raft and so I felt it was my job to squeal at the appropriate moments. That’s tough work when the water smells like it just came out of a waste water treatment plant, which it had.
This tour has some lazy parts so we entertained ourselves by either jumping in the chilly 8 °C river or making attempts to traverse the edge of the boat without falling in the water. This is not so easy when the guys are bouncing up and down.
My favorite group on our boat were the ‘Langweilig!’ dudes from Regensburg who had no qualms about getting intimate after pulling up a buddy back on the raft. I also want to make a public apology to the innocent woman sunbathing herself on the water’s edge. Like I said the boat was teaming with testosterone and there was no stopping the soak-fest she had to endure.
Everything we learned in good fun on the Imster Schlucht we needed in all seriousness for Ötztaler Ache, which is wild and fast. We dropped the boat in an eddie and with a “und vorwarts!” we were in Category IV madness. I wasn’t the only girl this time but apparently she didn’t get the memo that mandatory female whoohoo’s were a must. She finally caught on after she popped me accidentally on the helmet with her paddle and I didn’t retaliate. We were best friends for the remainder of the journey and squealing in perfect unison.
The profi guides on both tours were der absolut Hammer in terms of good humor, reading the river and giving clear directions. They gave just the right amount of motivation so the group wouldn’t kack things ab and force us to perform a dangerous rescue mission.
There are plenty of river touring groups in that part near the Inn river. We used Natur Pur. To get an idea, here’s a fancy video of the group we toured with:
stoic charcoal
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From our apartment in Sendling, Dachau is only 25 minutes away by car. Even though these cities are so close in proximity, Dachau is an astoundingly much older city than Munich. Where as Munich just celebrated its 850th birthday last year, Dachau reached its 1200th in 2005.
We learned that the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site was a former powder and ammunition factory during World War I. The war ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed and so did the production of ammunition. This made things very bad for workers in Dachau during the 1920s.
How bad? Dachau had the highest unemployment in all of Germany, double the national average. Just as it started to worsen, a new political movement was breaking out in Munich, which led to the formation of the “German Worker’s Party”. The leaders of Dachau abandoned the idea to attract private industry to stimulate their economy and instead chose to convince the Bavarian government to use the old powder and ammunition site for a civilian labor and military camp.* Things unfold from there that were later labeled as “morally corrupt”.
tour
We walked the grounds as a group of 20 some English speakers for two and a half hours. Our guide took us through the history of the camp. I imagined a cauldron of unforeseeable circumstances bubbling in a pit fire beneath tattered shelves barely supporting fragile vials of catalysts.
Reactions were mixed among the group. Most were stoic. Those who seemed in different degrees detached stood out for me the most: With playful disregard, a young man snaps a shot with an extended arm opposite to a goofy smile and a backdrop of barrack outlines. A young college student asks the cognizant German guide if anyone has ever “puked” after walking through Barrack X, to which the puzzled guide responded, has ever what? A new retiree concludes at the end of the tour that all of this resulted from one evil, mad man.
[lg_slideshow folder="2009/08/dachau"]
Is this what it means to be human?
Thinking of all the uniqueness and wonder humans bring to the world, it is hard to image that we are capable of doing this to ourselves. Decades later, we are able to glimpse at our inner beast from almost all angles and still we resort to simplifications. Our collective guilt, our frailties are too much to bear. Can we evolve away from this side of ourselves? Or can we educate ourselves adequately to prevent this from happening again? So far from recent history we have proven we cannot.
Tally-Ho! Expat Bloggers to Munich
Me Oh My! I’m so forgetful these days now that we’re basking in this splendidly hot weather. Now that I have my head temporarily out of the cloudless sky- it’s promotion time!
For what? The expat blogger in Germany meetup! Hopefully it stays this beautiful for the first weekend in September. Between the 4th – 6th, expat bloggers will hanging in Munich (i.e. Biergartening it, biking it, touring it, you name it) and relaxing in the comfort of English speaking compadres. The Munich crew: Zurika, Headbang, Honeypiehorse, Jeweled Concrete, and myself are really looking forward to hosting this year’s meetup.
Despite the fact that I’m feeling the pressure of eminent exams in about a month, I’m looking forward to seeing some familiar faces (Regensblog and AmiExpat) and new faces (No Apathy Allowed and TQE) in my awesome host city. If you haven’t already done so, bloggers from Germany are warmly welcome to sign up at the forum and join in on the fun.
