Lions of Munich

This weekend I spent an excellent weekend with Daniel (remember him from branding?). He had invited me for Christmas with his family in Munich.

The travel down was via DB, the German Train System. I spent about 6 hours travelling, shuttling across Deutchland on a variety of different trains, finally arriving to see Daniel's familiar grin welcoming me to his city.

His family speak pretty good English, so we got along fine. We spent alot of time talking about Daniel in Montana, and then switching back to various topics, including music, war, Australia, wine and life in general.

Harriet his Mom, and his Dad Armin are both Judges in the "Palace of Judges". They showed me around where they worked, pointing out various patches of history, particulary the missing buildings tha were destroyed during the last world war. It seems very clear that Germans are proud of their heritage and want to be remembered more than just Hitler, and are very reluctant to want to go to war again.



















I saw a great part of the city from the seat of a bicycle, keeping up with Daniel on his single gear "girl's bike", while I rode his Dad's more modern version. We later ran around the river section of Munich, enjoying the quietness of after Christmas, trunching through half melted snow and swan droppings. Christmas itself was both familiar and totally different. We went to hear Daniel sing in the choir at the local church where I was introduced to several neighbors and friends against the toiling clamor of the bells, ringing for us to worship. I was suprised to see lots of young folk who had at one time or other ventured off on an exchange of their own, from countries such as Australia, France and Iowa.

The service was familiar, in that it involved hyms, a Christmas tree and a message. I could only tell you that it was about Gott (God) and involved Christmas. The language was sometimes a barrier, but mostly people were very polite in explaining the words to me. I was happy sometimes to just blend into the woodwork at times, and let people forget that I was English speaking, and to absorb the German language through osmosis.

The rest of the trip was equally fun and great. To cut along story short I went with the family to a Hungarian Operette courtesy of the great Ponkie, renound movie critic; had caviar and potato salad and sausages for Christmas Dinner; received lots of chocolate and cookies, and drank buckets of good wine. I got them a smoked Alaskan salmon and some Aussie wine for Christmas.

All in all, I value the memories and look forward to building more as our paths cross in the future. Thankyou Armin, Harriet, Lion, Daniel, Marie, and Lawrence, and Ponkie too. You enriched my memories of Germany and renewed my spirit with your friendship and kindness.

Oz