B is for Black Forest, Blizzards, Bavaria, and Beer

After saying goodbye to MC&NC in Strasbourg, Drew and I got on the bus to head to our next adventure in the Black Forest in Germany! One of my good friends here in Lyon is from a small town outside of Villingen, and she had invited us to stay at her house for a few days over the break. Drew and I had already been talking about going to Munich for New Year's Eve, so it worked out perfectly that we would stay with her for a few days on the way.

Black Forest
We met Laura in Freiburg, one of the bigger cities in the Black Forest and just across the French-German border from Colmar. Despite some pretty miserable weather, we took a little tour of Freiburg's cute downtown, admiring the lights and taking care not to step in the water troughs that line the streets. A legend goes that if you accidentally step in one of them, then you will marry a Freiburger! (No offense to Freiburgers, of course. I'm sure they are lovely people!)

From there, we drove about an hour to Laura's house, gaining elevation along the way. By the time we arrived, all of the rain had long turned to snow and there were several inches of it on the ground. If we had that much snow in DC everything would have been shut down, but in the Black Forest it was a mere nuisance. Here's a shot of the snow before we left a day or two later!

Settling in, we had a cozy Saturday night eating dinner and chatting. Over a meal of venison, red cabbage, and serviettenknödel (a type of bread dumpling), Laura and her father told us all about the area -- its history, politics, and customs. In particular, they taught us about the Villingen Carnival celebrations (called Fasnacht), which date back to the end of the 14th century but are largely unknown outside of the Black Forest.

Briefly, the celebration, which leads up to Lent, marks the end of winter and the start of spring (although it kicks off at the beginning of January, so maybe it's just wishful thinking!). A story with several characters -- most notably one named Narro -- goes along with the celebration, and during two days of parades, people in the town dress up as the characters in elaborate costumes rich with meaning. The distinctive masks, which allow the participants to walk through the crowds and the parades anonymously, are important because one of the traditions is that the people dressed as Narro tell people without masks what they know about them very frankly. Historically, this was a chance for the non-privileged class to go around and share their thoughts without fear of reprisal. (Laura assured us that it's not mean at all; it's supposed to be funny.)

Two of the characteristic masks. There are only a small handful of people in Villingen who make these masks, and since they only produce a few each year, they are irreplaceable family heirlooms.

The next morning after breakfast, we bundled up in our warmest clothes and went out to do some cross-country skiing! I'd wanted to go cross-country skiing for several years, so I was really excited to finally try it! It took me a little while to get the hang of the motion, but after a couple of hours I was moving around the tracks at a respectable pace. Everyone always says that cross-country skiing is a great full-body workout, and I definitely understand why. It was exhausting! Luckily, I could always use the beautiful scenery as an excuse for a break!

 

Warming up before skiing round #2!

"Schwarzwald" is the German word for Black Forest!

For those of you who don't already know, Drew is a huge ice hockey fan. So, when it came up at some point that Villingen's sister town, Schwennigen (they are actually administered as a single city, Villingen-Schwennigen, but, as Laura and her father stressed, they are very different historically and culturally), has its own ice hockey team, Drew's ears pricked up. On the way home from cross-country skiing, we decided to check the ice hockey schedule in the off-chance that there was a game that night, and it turned out that one was starting about 45 minutes later! We hurried home, showered and changed in record time, and regrouped to head to the game, snagging a prime parking space and making it past the ticket booth just after the scheduled start time. Once in the stands, we congratulated ourselves on our quick turnaround.

After a few minutes I decided to get in line for a beer, with a request from Drew for a dark beer. When I finally made it to the front of the line, I asked for the darker of the two options, a bottled beer called Qowaz that they poured into a cup, and then climbed back into the stands. I handed the cup to Drew, pleased with myself for ordering something on my own in German. That's when Laura shared the bad news that the start of the game had been delayed for 2-3 hours because the opposing team was snarled in a huge traffic jam caused by the closure of a key tunnel nearby. Womp womp. We reluctantly decided it was too long to wait since we had plans with Laura's mom that evening, but as I had already purchased the beer, we decided to stick around long enough to finish it. Unfortunately, it turned out that the "beer" I had ordered was actually a beer and cola mix. It was terrible. Undrinkable, in fact. Thankfully, I got a few euros back when I returned the cup (we found this "deposit" system in Switzerland and France too), and Laura was able to sweet-talk the arena into refunding our tickets for the game!

Our attempted hockey game + German beer combo foiled, we had a fantastic evening nonetheless. Laura's mother met us when we got back home and instructed us to dress VERY warmly because we were going to see a famous waterfall. After about a half hour ride, we parked at the base of Triberg, a pretty little town decked out in lights for the holidays. We strolled up the hill running through the town, admiring windows lined with cuckoo clocks of all shapes and sizes, until we reached a ticket booth beside a particularly festive-looking area. Laura's mother surprised us by buying our tickets for us, and we strolled through the gates into a total winter fairyland! Pathways twinkling with lights and trees heavy with freshly-fallen snow guided our way around the park until we reached Triberg Waterfalls, the highest in Germany.

Laura, her mom, and me in Triberg!

So many twinkly lights!

We made it to the falls just before 8pm, where something exciting clearly was about to begin, given the throng of people waiting expectantly by the site. Laura had mentioned fireworks at 9pm, so I thought maybe she had mistaken the time. But it turned out there were actually two shows. There was in fact a fireworks show later that evening, but first there was a fire show over the falls! Drew took a short video of it towards the end, but you should definitely also watch this longer one (the first 10 minutes) I found on YouTube to get the full effect! It was awesome and so...German. I can't imagine anything like it in the States!

Our feet numb and our faces frozen into perma-grins, we continued past the waterfall to an area filled with food stands and places to buy hot drinks, a stage with live music, and areas to stand and chat. We each picked what we wanted for dinner and then hung out for a bit, warming our hands by the bonfires and enjoying the general atmosphere before the fireworks show began. People living in the Black Forest don't let the cold stop them from having fun!

The next morning, we had another great breakfast -- brunch, really -- of breads, rolls, different spreads, cheese, and some pretty gorgeous lattes before heading into Villingen to take a little tour of the town. Meeting up with Laura's mother again, we went to a cute cafe/restaurant where we ordered black forest cake as, uh, dessert after brunch. Black Forest Cake in the Black Forest....how could we not?! Laura had warned us that the slices of cake at this particular place were always huge, but we weren't prepared for what arrived on the plate!

Breakfast!

The slices of cake were enormous!

After doing our best to finish the cake (a legend in the Black Forest says that if you don't finish your cake, it will rain the next day!), we went for a walk around Villingen. It didn't take long to see everything since the town is fairly small, but it totally came to life as Laura and her mother pointed out their favorite sites and told us lots of stories.

By early afternoon, armed with our luggage and our very own cuckoo clock and a video about the Black Forest (gifts from Laura's mom!) it was already time to say goodbye to the Black Forest and head to Stuttgart. Laura had helped us arrange to rent an apartment in Munich, but since we needed to pick up the keys from her friend in Stuttgart, we stayed there for a night with Laura's brother before continuing to Munich the following morning.

Our very own cuckoo clock!

Dinner at Carls Brauhaus in Stuttgart!

Munich
We arrived in Munich in the afternoon and found the apartment without any trouble. It was too late in the day to do any serious sightseeing, but we walked around the old town for a bit before grabbing dinner at a traditional Bavarian restaurant that Laura's friend had recommended called Wirtshaus zur Brez'n. 

Town Hall

The next morning (New Year's Eve) we started out at a bakery across the street from our apartment. Drew had his first-ever krapfen, which is a German/Austrian jelly doughnut. They hold a special place in my heart because I remember eating them when my family lived in Austria when I was little. While he tried not to get too much powdered sugar on his jacket, I rejoiced in finding a croissant with the same pistachio marzipan filling as is in mozartkugel, a typical chocolate from Salzburg that I love.

Happy with our breakfast decisions, we decided to start the day in the English Garden, a huge park in the middle of the city. It was gorgeous covered in snow! We walked by the big lake in the middle, saw the Chinese Tower and a small Greek temple on top of a hill where lots of families were sledding, and stopped for a few minutes to watch some surfers in the river. Yep, you read that right. Surfers. In below-freezing weather. We couldn't believe it!

English Garden winter wonderland!

Chinese Tower

Monopteros Greek Temple

People surf in the English Garden year-round!

Leaving the English Garden, we walked by the Residenz (the old palace where some of the Bavarian monarchs lived) and in the adjoining Hofgarten (the Residenz gardens), strolled through Viktualienmarkt (an open-air market), and peeked inside Peterskirche and Frauenkirche, the two main cathedrals in the center city. We also stopped for lunch at an Indian restaurant in Altstadt. It was the first time I'd had Indian food since leaving the States and I'd been craving it for weeks. It didn't compare to Haandi in Falls Church, but it totally hit the spot!

In a slight planning fail on our part, it turned out that most things in Munich were closed on both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, including Nymphenburg Castle and the Deutsches Museum, which we had really wanted to see. But we made the best of it and enjoyed walking around, taking in the expansive plazas and the festive atmosphere.

By mid-afternoon or so we had seen what we could from the outside, so we decided to start a little beer hall tour to kill some time before midnight. We started at Augustiner Bierhaus, where we plopped ourselves down at a communal table along with some friendly-looking people. We ended up talking with a really nice couple who were both teachers. They told us all about their experiences teaching in different places around the world, including their current posts in Saudi Arabia. After they left, a few older women joined our table (people are constantly rotating in and out at the beer halls), and it turned out that one of them had lived in Alexandria, VA about 40 years prior. Her English was still quite good, so we chatted with her for quite a while before moving on to our next stop.

 

We had spotted Hofbrauhaus, the most famous beer hall in Munich, while wandering earlier in the day, so we decided to head back over there. Despite having over 1,300 seats inside, we couldn't find a single place to sit! We did two laps and hung around a bit, hoping two people would leave, but to no avail. Other people had clearly had the same idea to camp out somewhere until midnight!

As only beer halls remained open at that point, all of them were getting very crowded. Luckily, we were able to snag two seats at Schneider Weisse Brauhaus nearby. Over beers and some food, we spent a couple of hours chatting mainly with a very friendly middle-aged couple from Northern Spain and with an older German gentleman who expounded on the virtues of Ireland and assured us that Schneider Weisse was the best bierhaus in Munich. (Of course, the people we talked to at Augustiner Bierhaus said the same thing about that one...everyone has their favorite!) There was also an older German couple at our table who didn't speak much English but were pounding back beers. One of the funniest moments was when, just seconds after ribbing Drew for ordering a glass of water, the husband drunkenly knocked over his glass and spilled beer on himself...twice.

We stayed at the beer hall until it was just about time to see the fireworks. After chatting with people over the course of the day and hearing several opinions about where the best vantage point would be, we decided to stick around Altstadt to see the fireworks. To be honest, I was nervous to stay downtown since we had read that Munich is pretty crazy for New Year's Eve. Unlike in the States -- or in Virginia, at least -- where serious fireworks are generally banned from purchase and the local or State government generally organizes the show, in Munich it seemed that anyone could buy fireworks (BIG ONES) and set them off wherever they want!

With that in mind, we found spot under an overhang where it seemed safe to watch the revelry.

Munich New Year's 2015. This is not my photo - it's from the The Telegraph but I wanted to show you what I meant about fireworks going off everywhere!

Although it was pretty cool to be in Munich for New Year's and it was fun to see the fireworks downtown, I can confidently say that once was enough. (I'm going to go ahead and cross New Year's Eve in Time's Square off the list of things I want to do in my life, too.) The most nerve-wracking part, actually, was getting home safely afterwards because people were still setting off the odd firework without paying much attention to which direction they were facing. We felt like we were in an obstacle course, dodging stray fireworks and debris on our way to the metro and waiting for our bus!

Having gone to sleep close to 3am on New Year's Eve, we slept in on New Year's Day. Not too late, though, because I didn't want to miss our last chance to see the glockenspiel show on the Town Hall building at noon. Drew indulged my need to see as much as possible, and we made it downtown with a little extra time to spare. Since we had a few minutes, we decided to try to find Asam's Church because it was listed as the #1 attraction in Munich on TripAdvisor. It turned out to be a church in a rococo style, which I know is supposed to be over-the-top. But this was way too much -- it was garish! Laughing, we questioned who voted it as the top sight in the city!

Still giggling, we hoofed it back to Marienplatz to see the glockenspiel show. It was cute, but I'm not sure it was worth the boyfriend points Drew earned by waking up to see it.

New Town Hall during the day! The Glockenspiel is in the center under the clock.

Although most places were still closed, the famous Pinakothek was open on New Year's Day, so we walked over there to get our art fix for a few hours. The Pinakothek is actually made up of several museums, so we decided to start with the Pinakothek der Modern (20th century art) and then moved on to the Neue Pinakothek (19th century art). I would have liked to go to the Alte Pinakothek (pre-19th century art), but it was getting late in the afternoon and we really wanted to go to Olympiapark, which was the site of the 1972 summer Olympics, before it got too dark to see anything.

Pinakothek der Modern

We made it to Olympiapark just after the sun had set, but we climbed up the big hill in the center and caught some beautiful glimpses of the city at dusk. There were still plenty of people in the park and lots of kids playing and sledding (using traditional alpine sleds like the one my family brought back from Vienna!), so the atmosphere was very lively and friendly.

By the time we made it back to the apartment, we were ready to eat dinner. We found a little Italian restaurant a few blocks away, and we happily shared some soup, a salad, and a pizza. The funny thing was that in the restaurant, I kept responding in French or German when the waiter asked something in Italian, but then once we got back to Lyon the next day, I kept saying "grazie" instead of "merci." Total language confusion!

Exhausted from the night before, we called it an early night before leaving mid-morning the next day to catch our train back to Lyon. After an epic jaunt through Switzerland, Alsace, and Southern Germany, it was so nice to make it back home. We spent a relaxing weekend in Lyon, running along the Rhone and cooking dinner with fresh produce from the market.

It was tough to say goodbye to Drew again at the train station, but thankfully these four weeks have gone by quickly (if uneventfully), and I get to see him today! I have a week off before my second semester starts, so we are spending the weekend in Edinburgh and then I'll join him for a week in London. Can't wait!

Much love to everyone from France. I'd love to hear what you've been up to!

Jess