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nightshopping..
..deserves a bustling night? Last Friday, Munich reluctantly crawled out of its small town shell and had its first long night of shopping – stores were allowed to remain opened until midnight. Oh My! I hadn’t gone night shopping since my days in the sunshine state. It made sense in Florida to shop in the evening – it beat the blistering daytime heat and the crowd hysterics. However this evening in Munich proved just the opposite.
For some reason the whole event just had to coincide with a poorly planned night of cultural fanfare. This has to do with Munich having a hard time getting out this old fogey attitude about open hours for businesses. Already 10 out of the 16 states in Germany are cool with doing away with the opening hour rules. But Bavaria is bull-headed against the change. Integrating a streetfest into the whole schabang was the compromise.
Sure it was nice to see street performances like a jazz trio or Flamenco music and dancing. However I think it just distracted from the purpose of the evening. Shopping. One can see impromptu performances with more magic on any given beautiful evening in the city center. And whoever organized the “Nachtschwärmer” performance in the Karstadt near Karl’s Tor needed his head examined. Why did it take place inside the store and not in the cool open air in front of the store? If you weren’t in the first two rows near the tiny ’stage’ or looking from the five floors above you could only bob your head to the drums and see an occasional foot from the aerialist act. The whole show wasn’t even conducive to shopping because it stopped up the escalators and aisles with on-lookers.
Still it was a wonder to see a brightly lit Hugendubel or Sport-Scheck busy with people looking at books or trying out the latest rock-climbing gear. 
There were people carrying shopping bags but the majority of us were just browsing and awed that we could be in the stores after dark and still we are months away from the winter solstice.
In order to fully participate in the spirit of the evening I did by something after normal shopping hours. I bought a banana. Just because. I waited in line with the other night owls and actually felt a little bad as the middle-aged cashier looked down at his watch with a sigh and then at the long line of customers. As much as it’s fun to shop at night, I question if it is all that necessary. I didn’t even need the banana I could have waited until the morning. I’m pretty well adjusted to the 9am to 8pm Monday thru Saturday constraints. But if its good for business, I’ll be there with my curlers on.
Going to the Flohmarkt
I’ve been trying to get a video produced of last Saturday’s adventure. I won’t say just what yet but I dropped a hint here about a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, my dinosaur for a computer took 17 hours alone to compile the video clips into an .avi file and in the end, it forgot to add the sound. So I’ll have to wait to use Alex’s computer to finish the job and send the video to google and publish my post. Very frustrating.
But to counteract this bit of disappointment, we received our balcony furniture and now have our very own piece of outdoor heaven. We were going to have a long balcony-breakfast today but instead I was invited to the Riem Flohmarkt, Bavaria’s largest open area flea market, with Mandy, Fabian and Muffin. I scored 3 espresso machiato cups with matching plates and six stemmed glass desert bowls. But I’m really excited about the great bierkrugs with pewter lids. I’ve been meaning to get some for home and maybe send some to my friends back in the States (just say the word) but they have always been too expensive, 25 to 50+ Euros a pop. At the flea market, there are bierkrugs on practically every table so the prices are around 2 to 4 Euros a piece. Each is slightly imperfect but to me that just ensures that they will be used to keep the beer frothy cold and the bugs/pollen out. It’s just so sad when they are put in some souvenir display to collect dust.
Regensburger for a week
This post is written in the Regensburg apartment. I had to walk to the Donau Einkaufszentrum to start a year contract with O2 for a UMTS/Router. It’s pretty cool because we don’t have a phone or tv hookup here so basically I’m connect to the internet with my cell phone for as many hours as I want for 10 Euro per month. But the draw back is that it is slower and I have to watch the downloading/uploading. I had to give the clerk my entire German life’s background, my passport, my student ID, all three addresses. But it worked! We’ll see if I screwed up when Alex gets home to proof my German shopping skills.
So far I’m preferring where we live in Munich better than here in terms of getting household chores done. In Munich, everything is closer or transportation is 3 to 7 minutes away. The dry cleaners are closer, faster, and less expensive and there are more choices for grocery stores and restaurants are in minutes reach. But other than that, Regensburg is not as hectic, I love the Regensburg city center and more importantly Alex is in arms length :wub:
Eventually I’ll have to write about this Regensburg apartment. It’s furnished with relics that should be placed in a museum of 1970s lost artifacts. The toilet room is hysterical if not scary. Read more
What’s it Like Cooking and Shopping?
Regen, Regen, geh weg!
Yep, the nice rain that everyone craves for in Tampa, well, its here. Nice, slow…wet. And freakn’ cold. My jeans were wet as I told the zwischen test, to test my German knowledge so far. We (students) are half way through the kurs material, Yippee. I matched highest grades earned in the entire class on all the parts so far (Grammar, Reading, Listening) but I only passed 70-80% of the material. The written portion will be returned to us tomorrow. We had to write a short letter to a friend back home and answer 5 questions within the letter, z.B. How is the language course? I didn’t know either of the verbs in one of the questions: unternommen? anyone?
I am eating a big lunch now. On the weekdays, I cook. It’s much, much cheaper. However, since I have become a little more familiar with asking for things, I have been tempted to sneak into a nice Bavarian Restaurant for some Bierand Schweinshaxen auf Sauerkraut.
No, no, no…there is a nice Supermarket (funny that’s what they are called but it is smaller than a Walgreens). called, ALDI, that has very inexpensive and fresh fruits and vegetables. Also, 750mL of good (that is, some where outside of Germany) wine for only 2 Euro! Pepsi and Coke are more expensive than Bier and Wein! Weirdos. I am having corn on the cob (btw, very sweet & yummy), a salad, and a small Paprika Steak (made with pork). Big for me, but I wasn’t satisfied with the test results today so I am planning to study without stomach interruptions.
I have lived here for a month already. Wow! I am starting to miss friends and family (hi Mom!) from back home. Most of the people I met from school are temporarily staying in Munich. I like to listen to their accents. But hopefully as the summer wanes I will meet actual students living or studying here in Muenchen.
-Heza
