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| Little Möppi, sometime in late winter/early spring of 1956 |
If my stopover in Madrid had allowed me to reconnect with someone whom I have known for 50 years, getting off the plane in Munich meant going back even further in time. Sabine and I met back in 1973 during an English-language course in Bournemouth, on the southern British coast. A simple exchanging of postal addresses after I had loaned her a couple of quid to buy a handbag she'd coveted after depleting her funds lead to a lifelong friendship that's now well into its sixth decade. Over all these years we have gone through more relationship stages than one can imagine, having lived on three different continents (if one wants to count in her two-and-a-half years in Australia), sometimes not hearing from the other until a stray Christmas letter or a birthday card landed in the mailbox after a two-year hiatus. What has endured is a rare type of friendship that one doesn't encounter often.
Coming directly from Madrid, I arrived late in the early evening on Thursday, and over a super-yummy homecooked meal of black pudding and potatoes with a good helping of
Sauerkraut (I know, some people may think that's just not fit for human consumption, but if you were to try it—not knowing what it is, of course—you'd lick your lips too!), Sabine and I caught up with each other's lives. Friday was one of those rare
sunny winter days in Freising; with its location in the boggy moor region north-east of Munich proper, Freising is often foggy (also affecting the Munich airport, which is just 15 minutes from Sabine's flat), one of this 1,300-year-old town's very few flaws. We took a beater-bike ride, went to the Neustift street market to buy
Weißwurst, and enjoyed the sunshine.
My initial plan for celebrating my 70th birthday had been to dine out at the Weihenstephan
Brӓustüberl and celebrate with a Vitus fresh off the tap and gorge myself with a traditional grilled pig knuckle. But we had made an ad-hoc decision to leave on Saturday morning for Oberammergau where the weather was supposed to be much nicer over the weekend than in Freising, and thus we went to the
Brӓustüberl on Friday night, the night before my birthday. Really, after 70 years, who counts?
Ah, the pig knuckle,
Haxn as the locals prefer to call it! It comes with the local potato dumpling (the
Knödel) and a white-cabbage side salad. The perfectly grilled meat is topped with a delicious brown gravy. The crisp skin is reminiscent of the best Mexican
chicharron and the thick layer of fat underneath put it into the category of "Non Heart-Healthy Food Choices—To Be Avoided At All Costs!" We opted for the double-death whammy of sharing an
Obatzda, a mixture of brie and camembert that one eats with a slice of hearty bread or a pretzel. (Incidentally, Weihenstephan is not only the oldest brewery in the world, dating back to 1040, but it also is the purported birthplace of
Obatzda.) Add to all that two half-liter goblets of Vitus, a rare wheat bock, and surviving the kind of night that follows every senseless debauchery became quite the battle.
Verklemmt, in the non-emotional sense, is the best word I can think of to describe how I felt, but it certainly was all worth it.
Saturday morning started with a birthday surprise, consisting of Happy BD flags, candles, and seven muffins, each one denoting a decade. Small strips of paper chronicled the theme of each of these chapters (such as, move from Berlin to Schleiden; finishing high school and continuing the university life in the US; living the good life with Judy; segueing from racing to officiating) all illustrated with whimsical drawings by my favorite landscape architect in the world. Thank you, Sabine!
After a proper Bavarian breakfast of
Weißwurst, a
Bretzn, and more Vitus (at least for me since Sabine was going to be the chauffeur) we packed a change of clothes, hiking shoes, and a toothbrush kit into the Skoda and headed south-westward, direction Oberammergau, located close to Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the northern fringes of the Alps. Overnight fog that had settled over Freising dissipated for good once we had left Munich behind us, and the mountains rose gloriously from the flat Voralpenland.
Before checking into the hotel
Antonia in Oberammergau we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for an easy hike around the monastery in Ettal, just a few miles shy of our final destination. It's almost incomprehensible how a structure such as the
Kloster Ettal could be built in such a remote location, 800 years ago. Where did the workers (carpenters, stone masons, painters, etc.) come from? Where did they live over the course of the many years it took to build this colossus? How could the local peasants feed them? So many questions, and no answers unless one reads up on the subject, I assume. Well, we enjoyed our (cold) walk and then had a refreshment in the cloister's brewery.
For my
real birthday dinner, we went to yet another brewhouse, the
Maxbrӓu. We had checked in at the
Antonia (the kind inn-keeper had presented me with a split of champagne and some chocolates) and then walked through the small village to the nearby
Maxbrӓu. In the summertime, Oberammergau (world-renowned for its passion plays that take place every ten years) is teeming with tourists, but in mid-January only few people come here as the snow no longer is reliable and other towns are closer to the slopes. We had a wonderful dinner in the upscale restaurant, with two exquisite meals. While Sabine had ordered
Böfflamott (a beef roast that has been marinated for days to achieve insane tenderness), I had opted for the breast of duck—both dinners were outstanding, and we enjoyed the fine fare.
The walk back to the hotel was rather chilly, maybe more so since I felt a cold coming on. Unfortunately, on Sunday morning my throat was scratchy and the nose started to do its runny thing. Nevertheless, after an excellent breakfast we embarked on what turned out to be a six-mile hike in and around Oberammergau. The paths were mostly clear of snow and ice, and the vistas were breathtaking. It was so heart-warming to walk in the sun, through the forests with views of the Alps on the other side of the wide valley. The diversity of what I see continues to awe me.
We ended up at the
Romanshütte, a small Alpine hut-like restaurant where hikers like to stop for coffee and cake or a beer and
Obatzda. The inside was closed, but nobody minded since the small terrace was flooded with warm sunlight and everybody just scooted a little closer to let new arrivals share this prime spot above the Ammer valley. The sounds of the low conversations, the clinking of the coffee cups, and the soft afternoon glow were as old-world as it comes. What a great day!
But Sunday wasn't done yet. On the way back to Freising we stopped over to visit Gerhard and Corinna, two good friends of Sabine's whom I had met several times before. For two hours we sat together over wine, cold cuts, olives, and drinks before we headed onward to our last stop of this wonderful birthday weekend: the jazz club
Unterfahrt in Munich, where we had made reservations to listen in on the Sunday jam session. I think we made it back to Sabine's place a few minutes before midnight.
Since then, we have traveled by train to Cologne, have attended yesterday's court hearing about my stripped German citizenship, and are now heading back to Freising for this trip's last night in Europe. In Cologne we stayed with my cousin Paddy and his family, which is always a special treat for me. Since the times when he was a law student I often bunked out with him and met his then-future wife, Clio, shortly after she had arrived from Brazil. Just as with Howard's children, I have seen Mauricio and Moreno grow from babies and toddlers to teenagers who are on the cusp of impending manhood—both of them smart, polite, good-looking fellas who will make their parents proud.
Our court hearing did not appear to go as well as we had hoped. It is a complex case that started during the days of COVID when my passport was confiscated by the general consulate in Houston when I went there for what was supposed to be a routine renewal. It took several years to finally get this court date, and the judge seemed in some ways sympathetic and acknowledged that the German state made numerous mistakes, but she also kept reiterating that those mistakes are unfortunate facts and can't be reversed. Her verdict will arrive in a few weeks or so, but we're not very hopeful. Once we know the argumentation we will need to decide whether to continue the fight to reverse what was done. As I said, it's all very complex and certainly beyond the scope of these musings.
We had been informed of this court hearing just a few weeks ago, and I had tried to see the unexpected date that exactly fit into my predetermined travel plans as a good omen. Well, we'll see about that. At least I got to see the gang and we had a great time going to my favorite
Döner restaurant in the world, the
Oruç Döner in the Kyffhӓuser Strasse where Paddy and I had hung out decades ago. If you go to Cologne, don't miss it!
I am putting the finishing touches on this blog post while the train hurtles back toward Bavaria. Looking out of the window I see frost-covered trees and bushes glistening in the weak light from the still-low winter sun. This time tomorrow, I will be on the way to Doha, where I'll have a stopover for a few hours before an overnight flight to Kuala Lumpur and onward to Singapore. After two initial European stops in familiar locales the true adventure will start!
Jürgen
The walk back to the hotel was rather chilly, maybe more so since I felt a cold coming on. Unfortunately, on Sunday morning my throat was scratchy and the nose started to do its runny thing. Nevertheless, after an excellent breakfast we embarked on what turned out to be a six-mile hike in and around Oberammergau. The paths were mostly clear of snow and ice, and the vistas were breathtaking. It was so heart-warming to walk in the sun, through the forests with views of the Alps on the other side of the wide valley. The diversity of what I see continues to awe me.
We ended up at the Romanshütte, a small Alpine hut-like restaurant where hikers like to stop for coffee and cake or a beer and Obatzda. The inside was closed, but nobody minded since the small terrace was flooded with warm sunlight and everybody just scooted a little closer to let new arrivals share this prime spot above the Ammer valley. The sounds of the low conversations, the clinking of the coffee cups, and the soft afternoon glow were as old-world as it comes. What a great day!
