31 March 2002:
Tegelbergbahn
Michael:
This morning we rode to the
Tegelbergbahn, which is a cable car
(or gondola) that takes you from the base (at 830m above sea level) to the top
of Tegelberg (1720m above sea level). It only takes a few minutes to travel
to the top. On the way up, there are fantastic views of Neuschwanstein
and Hohenswangau in the background.
There is a restaurant perched on the edge of the cliff where we had
some traditional Bavarian Leberkäse (which translates to liver cheese
but contains neither liver nor cheese). We watched as a petrified
tourist jumped off the cliff with just an instructor and a parasail.
We took a nice shortcut back to Hopfen am See, returned the
bikes and got back on the train to Munich.
We arrived in Munich around 5pm and met our friend Tobias. He came down to
Munich to see us. We went for dinner in a restaurant north of Munich and
once again it was a typically high-fat traditional Bavarian food. It
tastes great but it can't possibly be good to eat this stuff all the
time.
30 March 2002:
Cycling, Castles and Queuing...
Michael:
This morning our pram had arrived. Unfortunately the front axle had
been bent in transport. I was able bend it straight enough so we could
use it until we could deal with it properly.
We hired a couple bikes and rode to Füssen. The main shopping street
was full of people enjoying the perfect weather. After a delicious ice
cream we rode to Hohenschwangau. Two impressive castles stand on
opposite sides of the valley. Scloss Hohenschwangau is the older one
and was originally built in the 12th century. It was ruined by Napoleon
and restored by Crown Prince Maximilian in 1832-1837. You can walk
around the outside freely but if you want to see the inside, you need
to take a tour. The tour was quite rushed and they didn't explain very
much about the history so if you visit these castles, I recommend that
you read as much as you can beforehand.
It's possible to take a horse drawn carriage from Hohenschwangau to
Neuschwanstein but you better start queueing as soon as you see the
queue. We decided to look around for a
while and check back later to see if the queue had died down a bit, but when
we got back the queue was twice as long so we took the bus instead.
Neuschwanstein is the newer and more spectaular of the two castles. It was built
between 1869 and 1886 by Ludwig II (born
in 1845 and the son of Maximilian) who became King of Bavaria when he was 18. It is very
impressive from the outside, but it isn't until you are inside that you
realise how amazing this castle is. The craftsmanship is incredible. For
example, the woodwork in Ludwig II's bedroom took 14 carpenters
4 1/2 years to complete. Only one third of the
castle was actually completed before Ludwig II died under mysterious
circumstances, only a couple of days after being certified insane. The
project to build Neuschwanstein almost bankrupted Bavaria and
ironically is now one of it's main tourist attractions. It was used by
Disney as the inspiration for Cinderella's castle, which probably
explains why there are so many American tourists visiting the area.
By the time we finished the tour of Neuschwanstein, Elina was really
tired and it was starting to rub off on us too, so we rode back to Hopfen
am See. We took the "scenic way" home (which really isn't that difficult
around here).
29 March 2002:
Mämmi, BMW's, beer and lederhosen...
Michael:
This morning we got up really early, had some mämmi for breakfast. Mämmi
is a traditional Finnish Easter food. It's a dark brown, sloppy,
slightly sticky rye based "porridge" which definitely tastes better than
it looks.
Then we finished getting ready to go to the airport. When we arrived
at the airport we discovered that we were not the only ones that thought
that it might be nice to go somewhere over the Easter weekend. The
airport was packed and the queues were long an slow. Even when we
finally reached the front of the ticketing queue to collect our tickets
there were some problems issuing them. Eventually we checked our pram
in and ran to the gate and boarded the plane.
Two and a half hours later we landed in Munich in the south of Germany.
Not surprisingly our pram didn't make it onto our flight. Fortunately
they had a pram that they let us borrow until they could deliver ours.
We caught the train into the center of Munich. With the Lonely Planet in
hand, we headed down Neuhauser Strasse which led us into the heart of Altstadt
(Munich's Old Town). Michaelskirche (St. Michael's church) was quite
impressive. Elina rediscoved the joys of singing as loud as she can
whenever we enter a church. This time she was repeating "happy!" which
echoed beautifully through cavernous hall and ruptured the silence
of the Good Friday gathering.
We had lunch at a restaurant called Hundskugel (Dog's Ball). It's the oldest
restaurant in Munich and has operated since 1440. Elke had Wiesswurst
which is a veal sausage speckled with parsley. It is one of Munich's
favourite foods and unlike Bavarian beers it is quite uncommon in the
rest of Germany. Elina stuffed her face full of pretzels. These were
the large and soft, bread-like type (not the Parker's "Original" small
crispy ones). Elina made it though a few pretzel's without choking and
falling on the floor (even the George W can't manage that). I had a
plate full of various sausages, fried potatoes and sauerkraut. I ate the
sausages and potatoes and passed the kraut over to Elke who devoured it
like usual.
After lunch we wandered around Altstadt and visited Frauenkirche
(1468-88) which is a late gothic twin towered church with distinctive
oxidised copper onion domes.
We were starting to get tired, so rather than walk around sightseeing
for the sake of it, we decided to take a train down to
Füssen which is
south of Munich and almost on the Austrian border. It's about
2 hours by train from Munich to Füssen and Elina slept most of the way.
When we arrived in Füssen, we were amazed at how impressive the Alps are.
It's incredible how suddenly the rolling hills turn into jagged icy
peaks. We stayed in a little lake-side village called
Hopfen am See about 5km north of Füssen. It snowed last weekend
for the first time since December so the Alps were white
with fresh snow.
25 March 2002:
Emilia is "nice"
Elina:
Since my best friend Emilia started going to childcare I haven't seen
too much of her. Mamma and I went around to her house this afternoon to
catch up on gossip. Emilia says that everything is really "nice", which
is weird because she usually speaks Finnish with me but now she uses
some English words (like "nice") when there isn't really an equivalent
Finnish word. Usually I just make up a really versatile word and use
it for everything. Mamma and Däddä can't always figure out what I mean
but it's kind of fun watching them madly pointing at everything trying
to guess...
23 March 2002:
Humppa!
Michael:
Since it was Pasi's birthday (and he's getting really old) we went to see a band called
Eläkeläiset (which is Finnish for
pensioners). Well the band members are not really pensioners, but they are
very drunk and
they replace the lyrics of famous songs with a pensioner's perspective on
life which revolves around humppa. The songs have a strong humppa
feel so it can be quite difficult to identify the original song (even
Midnight Oil songs are "humppafied"). Just in case humppa hasn't made it
to your part of the world yet, it is a very energetic Finnish version
of the fox-trot, which originally became popular in the 1930s. Now it
seems to be popular with quite a young crowd, some of which even dressed as
pensioners. It was an interesting experience being in a drunk crowd
which was going nuts as the even drunker band replaced more and more words with
"humppa!". One really fat guy was so impressed by all the humppa that he
got up on the stage and danced around completely naked (at least he didn't
join the crowd surfers). By the end, I think I'd had just about enough
humppa to last until I'm a pensioner.
16 March 2002:
McSquish the Fish
Elina:
Today mamma and I went swimming with
Casper and his
mum and dad. Can you believe some people here actually swim in a hole in
the ice? Luckily we found a heated indoor pool so we didn't have to
freeze.
First we went in the big pool and it was a bit scary, so
we went to little one instead. It was really cool. We splished and then
we splashed and then we splished some more. I piffed myself around and
got some water up my nose. *cough* and *splutter*. I was wearing some
floaties (not quite the same as the ones you usually find in my drinks :)
and a really cool "jet pack". It was heaps of fun but when my lips
started going blue mamma said we had to get out. We went into the sauna
to warm up. After that Casper kept saying "koti" which is Finnish for
"home" so that's where we went.
14 March 2002:
They've built a ski-jump in the city
Michael:
We've been watching our web cam page
and noticed that over the last few days they have been constructing
something in Kauppatori (the Helsinki south harbour market square).
Today it looks like they are actually building a ski jump in the market
square! [Update (18/03/2002): It was apparently for a snowboarding
competition on the weekend.]
10 March 2002:
Hi from Meeri
Michael:
Today we visited my dad's aunt Meeri. We had some coffee, cake and
korvapuusti's which Elke baked in the morning. Elke and I exercised our
Finnish and Meeri exercised her English. Elina exercised her curiosity
and got into just about every cupboard. Meeri said to give her greetings
to everyone.
Pa won first prize!
Pa (Elke's dad) won first prize in a drawing competition. He drew his idea of paradise.
3 March 2002:
Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix in Melbourne
Michael:
We set the alarm for 4:50am this morning so we could watch the
Melbourne F1 GP. Nearly slept through it, but got up just in time to see
the start... what a mess. Fortunately Kimi Räikkönen and Mark Webber
made it through the first corner pile up without too many problems. We
can't believe how many times David Coulthard went off the track before
his car gave up on him.
Lap 50 of 58: Webber is going very well for his first GP.
Hopefully he keeps it pointing in the right direction and the Minardi
hangs together to the end.
Lap 54 of 58: Salo in 6th is catching Webber. Webber seems to be having
some problems with understeer. The gap was 12 seconds a few laps ago,
now it is down to 2.4 seconds.
Lap 56 of 58: Salo spins while trying to pass Webber but stays on the track.
This should give Webber some breathing space.
Michael Schumacher wins, two Finns in the top 6 and Mark Webber finishes his
first F1 GP with two points!
Here are the results:
- M. Schumacher (Ferrari)
- Montoya (Williams)
- Räikkönen (McLaren)
- Irvine (Jaguar)
- Webber (Minardi)
- Salo (Toyota)
- Yoong (Minardi)
- de la Rosa (Jaguar)
Time to get some sleep before Elina wakes up...
1 March 2002:
Elina's first hair cut
Michael:
This morning Elke gave Elina's hair a little trim around the back.
Nothing too radical, just a bit of a tidy up. It looks better, but we'll
have to wait until next time to finish it off.
|
MEE Journal
