This week was very full of activity, but I was too lazy to write about any of it. But now I'm back, and I've written. Tuesday was the last night of Fasching/Fastnacht/Karneval in Germany, which is the Christian celebration leading up to Lent. Germans treat the last night of Karneval as a huge celebration, with people dressing up in costumes and going to big public celebrations. Apparently kids even go door-to-door getting candy, so the whole night is very similar to how we treat Halloween. Zach and I planned our dinner near Marienplatz so that we could walk through to see the celebrations. It was wild. Marienplatz was packed with people shoulder-to-shoulder and people were just standing around drinking beer in costumes (seemed as though live music had just ended). The one very odd thing, though, was the prevalence of full-body animal onesie costumes. It was almost like a Furry convention. We ended up going to a new (for us) restaurant called Weisses Bräuhaus, which is right next to Marienplatz. It was extremely busy, as expected, and full of more people in costumes, as expected. The food was not very good at all, and neither was the beer. So that was pretty disappointing, but the costumes, music, and people singing were enjoyable.
The next day was Ash Wednesday (Aschermittwoch). Zach and I had a late review to get approval to test our engine (we passed), but I was still able to make it out in time to get to church at Theatirenkircke at 19:30. The church was very big inside, with lots of ornate decorations and architecture, but there were probably less than 50 people at the mass. Everything was in German, of course, so I didn't understand much of what they were saying, but I was able to pick up a few words like "Jesus Christus," "Mein Gott," and "Gesundheit." I did know what was going on, since it was the same format as any other Catholic mass, but it was difficult to even think the prayers in English when everyone else around me was speaking German. I did totally nail the Our Father though! One thing that was distinctly different, and maybe it was just this particular church, was how the congregation went up to receive ashes and communion. Instead of filing out of the pews row-by-row, everyone went up as one large group to the altar. Along the entire front of the altar is a long kneeler where everyone kneels, the priest goes from one side to the other giving ashes/communion, and then more people fill in on the kneeler until everyone has had their turn. Overall, pretty cool experience, even though the homily and readings were meaningless.
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Interior of Theatinerkirche
(Not my photo.) |
Thursday was a wild day. Work was pretty busy because we got a lot of hardware delivered, so there was a lot more work than there has been. On our way back to the hotel after work, we turned onto the hotel's street and immediately saw that the street was full of police and news vans. A police officer stopped us, but let us through when we informed him we were staying at the hotel. He told us the only place we could park was at the hotel's parking garage, so we headed that way. As we turned into the garage's entrance, another police officer stopped us, asked for our IDs and then made us get out of the car to search it. We had absolutely no idea what was going on and were a little uneasy because it was unclear whether something bad had happened. Once the officers cleared us to enter the garage, I decided to ask them why they had stopped us, and they told us that there was some big international Security Conference going on in Munich, and lots of politicians were staying at the hotel. Once inside the hotel, we were amazed at how full it was with TV cameras and people in suits. It was crazy. I'm so glad the hotel warned us that this would be going on.
We successfully made it out of the hotel once again for dinner, and headed south, past Sendlinger Tor to a Greek restaurant called Thalassa. The reviews online were great, and we totally agreed! We both got plates that had an assortment of Greek foods that were all very delicious. Mine had souvlaki, souzouki (meatball), gyro meat, a lamb chop, rice, tzatziki, and a salad. It was a lot of meat, but it was all so amazing! I was stuffed, but once I got back to the hotel I felt like I wanted more.
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| My Greek dinner at Thalassa. |
Today at work, we were sitting in our office when one of the MTU Test Engineers came in, a little excited, and said, "Your pet arrived from Florida! It's a baby alligator!" We were both a little confused, until we realized she was talking about a lizard that had made its way into one of the shipments we had just received from Florida. It was alive, but moving and breathing very slowly. Everyone in the department was very excited and kept referring to it as a baby alligator. It was really funny, especially when we saw Melanie (the one who told us about it) carrying it around in a box showing it off. I told them they should kill it so it doesn't invade their local populations, but I think they all thought I was joking. Oh well. I tried, local lizards. I tried.
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| Our pet baby alligator from Florida. |
Tonight, we made it back to the hotel without police checkpoints (unexpected) and then headed into the city to get some souvenirs and dinner. Since Zach is leaving Monday, we wanted to get one last dinner a Der Pschorr. By the way, it's not actually pronounced Derpy Score, it's Der Peeshore. We had a very huge meal, starting with a cheese plate, middleing with the beef medallions, and ending with the apple pie/fritters dessert I've raved about before. Such an awesome meal and a great way to end the work week.
