Ain’t No Party Like A Tollwood Party

On January 7, 2013May 30, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Inside Germany9 Comments

I rang in the new year with Hanley and Esther at the awesome 2012 Tollwood Silvester Party. Hanley wrote about it in her own blog, so if you read both of us, this will seem like a bit of a repeat.

The Tollwood Winter Festival takes place at Theresienwiese, a 420,000 square meter (4,500,000 sq ft) space in the city of Munich. This is the same space that holds the world famous Oktoberfest each year. Tollwood is also a summer festival with a tremendous amount of live music- the 2013 Sommerfestival lineup so far includes ZZ Top and the Pet Shop Boys. I’ll probably wind up there at some point.

The Winterfestival wraps up with a giant Silvester party on December 31st. There are four giant tents with bands and DJs. There’s another tent that is nothing but various types of food. The various tents are on the outer edges of a vast open space where people can congregate to view fireworks. We’ll get to that. This is the view in from the front gate.

When I say tent here, I’m not talking about the little things you use to go camping, I’m talking about things that are larger than the building my apartment is in. This is inside the tent for the first band we watched, the Stimulators. You can see the roof of the tent sloping up behind the giant sphere- these things were huge.

We also saw a pretty nifty band called Jamaram in one of the other tents. They’re a pretty large group.

I hadn’t heard of them before this outing, but a few of their songs were catchy enough to remain stuck in my head for several days afterward. “Oh My Gosh,” for example-

We spent the last hour in a tent watching Rockomotion, a classic rock cover band. Pretty much everything they played was recognizable. They even did Hip To Be Square, and the last song they played right before midnight was The Time Warp. If you search for Rockomotion on Youtube, you’ll see lots of clips of them doing well known songs.

The band stopped a few minutes before midnight to allow everyone time to get out of the tents and into the big central open area, and then there were fireworks. Lots of fireworks. The Theresienwiese is in the center of an access road called Bavariaring, and there were fireworks visible for 360 degrees- all along the Bavariaring. The fireworks went on for more than twenty-five minutes. Some of it was official Tollwood fireworks, to be sure, but some of it was just the German people setting off their own fireworks. This was my second New Year’s Eve in Germany, and I realize now that the Germans are kind of insane when it comes to fireworks. They use a lot of them, they don’t much care where they’re pointed, and they don’t seem to worry about their own safety.

It sure makes for a hell of a show, though. Imagine twenty-five uninterrupted minutes of fireworks at the quantity and frequency of what you can see in the video below. (The video is only three seconds long because I thought my phone was set to still pictures, not video.) The Tollwood party was great fun, even if I did get the flu while I was there. Where did the rest of you ring in the new year?

Maybe Falkor should have been a Luck Pig.

On December 31, 2012July 25, 2014 By StevenIn Life In Germany8 Comments

I was walking past the bakery late last week, and I noticed a tray of little marzipan piggies with signs that said “Viel Glück!” which translates to “Good Luck!” Sensing the possibility to learn something fascinating and new, I immediately e-mailed this picture to my German Authority, Jenny, with the following missive: “Please explain to me the tradition of the good luck pigs?”

The reason for the little Angry Bird combatant snacks is that Germans regard pigs as lucky. Around the end of the year, the Glücksschweinchen (lucky piglet) turns up in various snack foods, often with a four leaf clover or a horse shoe, which are also considered to be lucky. Sometimes a ladybug, also considered good luck, is present as a red foil wrapped chocolatey treat.

Similarly, but not as sugary, chimney sweeps are said to be repositories of good luck, and on New Year’s Day you should do your best to shake hands with your friendly neighborhood sweep. I wonder if the City worker guys who sweep up trash at the bus stop in the morning would count.

There are a slew of other superstitions and traditions- far, far too many to recount here. As we go into New Year’s Eve, I’ll leave you with one more German superstition to bear in mind- Never toast with water. It’s considered a wish for harm to befall the people you are toasting. Stick to ringing in the new year with fine Bavarian beer. It’s just better for all concerned.

Happy new year, everyone! Alles Gute im Neuen Jahr!

Christkindlmarkt Time

On December 24, 2012January 23, 2025 By StevenIn Life In Germany7 Comments

It’s that time of year again. For the month of December, right up until Christmas Eve, the Christkindlmarkt or Christmas Market is open in cities and towns all over Germany and Austria.

Also called Weihnachtsmarkt, the Chrstmas Market is typically held during the four weeks of Advent leading up to Christmas. Nearby Nuremberg has one of the most famous Christmas Markets in the world, although I haven’t been to that one. Perhaps next year. According to The Internets, the Nuremberg and Dresden markets draw about two million people each year; the Stuttgart market attracts more than three million visitors while the Dortmund market can claim to be one of the biggest Christmas markets in Germany with more than three and a half million visitors each year.

Yes, the Christkindlmarkt is a pretty big deal around these parts.

There are three types of stalls in a typical Christmas Market:

The first type is for buying things. There are carved wooden nutcrackers, jewelry, and clothing to be found. I didn’t take many pictures of the crafts themselves, but I thought this candle was pretty.

The second type is food- candied and toasted almonds are a staple item. So is Lebkuchen, a soft form of gingerbread. Chocolate is everywhere.

My favorites tend to be the savory, rather than the sweet. The first item here is a simple Regensburger Bratwurst – it contains pickles, sweet mustard, and a dash of horseradish, served on a semmel, or bread roll. Sehr lecker! The second photo is a half-meter bratwurst. The third is a kind of swirly potato thing that has the consistency of a giant french fry and the flavor of BBQ potato chips.

There are stalls for purchasing crafts, food stalls, and the ever-present Glühwein vendors. I’ve mentioned Glühwein on this blog before; it’s hot mulled wine that turns up during this time of year. There’s a regular red wine flavor, and there are often various fruit flavors mixed. I like Apfel (apple) and Blaubeere (blueberry) Glühwein.

Every Christmas Market has different mugs for their Glühwein. When you get your drink, you pay a Pfand for deposit. Some people collect the mugs instead of returning them to get their Pfand back. The mugs are generally very colorful, and they say a bit about where you got them, so they make excellent souvenirs.

This year, I had the chance to see the Christkindlmarkt in nearby Munich with fellow blogger Hanley. Truth be told, I like the Regensburg market better- the Munich Christkindlmarkt is spread out so that you have to walk for several blocks in each direction to see the entire thing. It’s also significantly more crowded, as cities tend to be.

There’s one more thing- even if you’re just passing through a town and don’t plan on leaving the Bahnhof, you can usually get a taste of that town’s Christkindlmarkt tradition. In Regensburg, they set up a Glühwein stand right in front of the Hauptbahnhof each year. The Glühwein is a little bit rougher there, but it’s still Glühwein. Served in plastic cups. Yeah.

Halloween In Germany

On November 1, 2012November 1, 2012 By StevenIn Life In Germany6 Comments

Halloween isn’t really a traditional German celebration, but it has become more popular in recent years, especially with children. Most people seem to think this is partially from seeing it depicted in American television and movies, and I suspect that’s a big factor. Here, costumes are more commonly seen around Fasching.

German youngsters only go trick-or-treating (“Süßes oder Saures!”) in certain areas. Yesterday, I saw only three children running around with pillowcases, and that might not have been for candy- they might have just been running around with pillowcases.

I did find that there are a few traditions that are similar to Halloween’s origins in Europe, without being exactly Halloween.

In the regions of Bavaria and Austria in Southern Germany, Catholics celebrate the entire period between October 30 and November 8 as Seleenwoche or All Souls’ Week.
November 1st is Allerheiligen, or All Saints’ Day. Catholics attend church services in honor of the saints, the martyrs and those who have died for the Catholic faith. People may also visit their family’s graves to beautify them with wreaths and small lanterns. Sometimes a mass is said at the gravesite and the grave sprinkled with holy water.
In some areas, November 2 is observed as All Souls’ Day. Catholics attend a special Requiem masses, where they remember those who may be close to them that have died. Prayers for the dead are said and votive candles are lit to honor their memory.
In Austria, there’s an entire pumpkin (Kürbis) festival in late October, Kürbisfest.
Jack O’Lantern decorations have become more common in Austria and Germany in late October.

Meanwhile, those of us who grew up with Halloween look for places to observe the holiday, and most of those places turn out to be bars and pubs.

Last night, I visited two in particular. Murphy’s Law, the better of Regensburg’s two Irish pubs, was having a Halloween event. The Piratenhöhle (Pirate’s Cave) was having a Zombie Halloween party.

In both locations, I saw lots of vampires, zombies, and pirates. There were a few people dressed as Warcraft characters, one amazing Peter Jackson styled Orc, and more people with random fake bloodstains than I can shake a stick at.

My costume was not as well known as I expected- roughly 90% of the Germans I ran into had no idea what I was dressed as. Amusingly enough, only Americans and Canadians call him Waldo. In the rest of the world, he’s Walter or Wally. I also learned last night that I can walk around the Altstadt in powder blue pants, and nobody will bat an eye. Oh, Germany, you make me laugh.

A few people I passed exclaimed “Hab dich gefunden!” (Found you!) as I walked past, so that was gratifying. And kind of hilarious.

Doc Holiday or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Urlaub*

On June 19, 2012November 15, 2014 By StevenIn International Travel - Europe4 Comments

By the end of July, I’ll have been to Prague, Barcelona, Amsterdam, London, and Edinburgh, all within a four month span. In September I’m visiting Berlin again, and possibly Vienna. I’m also planning on trying to spend two weeks back in the US much later in the year.

I was talking about my copious travel plans with a friend back in the US, and their next question was “How? How do you have that much time off?”

The answer to that question is very simple- Europeans just have more vacation than Americans. Whenever this topic comes up with friends and family, I say more or less the following: Americans may talk a good game about having a proper work-life balance, but Europeans actually do it.

My benefits at Mr. Company** changed significantly when I moved to Germany. I am officially “localized” here, which means that my US benefits ceased and I was brought into the same package of benefits that our European office uses. This means that my 401k got a giant pause button, for example, and my health insurance switched over to a German health insurance plan. It also means that my available vacation time increased quite a bit.

Germany mandates that employees have four working weeks off, minimum. Plus public holidays. For a five day work week, that’s twenty days off plus the holidays, and some employers give more time off than the mandated minimum. In other words, I have significantly more time away from the office here than I did in the US, despite working consistently longer hours.

I keep a list of things that will suck when I leave Germany to return to the US, and having my vacation time revert back to US levels is definitely on that list.

This weekend on Real Time, Bill Maher did a New Rule about this very topic- I’ve included part of the video below. He mentions in the clip that 138 countries mandate the amount of vacation that employees receive. The US is not one of them. Study after study has shown that people who take their vacations come back more focused and more productive, with lower instances of burnout.

And you know what? It’s all completely true. I’ve taken the time off now, and I’m a believer.

Here’s Bill Maher to preach the gospel:

*Urlaub is the German word for vacation or holiday.

**Any reference to my employer on this blog will be said as “Mr. Company.” The opinions expressed in this blog may or may not reflect the views of Mr. Company. Probably they don’t, because Mr. Company is a multinational corporation and is not, strictly speaking, a sentient entity.

Whimsy. Tacos. The DMV.

Tag: holidays