James' in the UK

First thing next morning we were off to catch a train to Munich, over the border in Germany, but not before a last minute scramble in the train station to find a Swiss Army knife! So after running for the train we settled into the scenic trip which wound round a couple lakes and passed into Austria.

We got into Munich soon after lunch and spend the afternoon looking around the city trying to keep warm. As we had got there on a Sunday afternoon everything was closed so it was a quite walk.

During the day on New Years Eve we decided to pop over the border into Austria and spend the day in Salzburg. Salzburg is a very classy beautiful city, helped by the fact that it was snowing while we were there. The buildings looked all the more pretty and Austrian with snow on them and we had a great afternoon wandering around the narrow cobbled streets taking in the architecture, window shopping and market stalls.

Shopping in Salzburg

We walked up to the fortress which looks over Salzburg thinking that it would give us a good view over the city. When we got to the highest point it started snowing again so we got to see the city being sprinkled with even more white powder.

Church

Salzburg Fortress

We cut our last lap around the city and jumped on a train back to Munich to prepare for a night out. The forecast for New Years Eve was -7 with lots of snow so we made sure we were wearing lots of layers.

Munich probably didn't leave a huge impression on me, there are a few phrases that could sum up our time there – f#@k*ing cold, churches, beer halls, bratwurst, coffee and yummy treats, legal fireworks and Italian architecture. Like Interlaken we felt the main tourist season was in Summer but I don't think this made a big difference to us.

Most of the phrases above actually describe our New Year Eve out in Munich. First stop was a beer hall for beers and some tea. I think my meal consisted of my weight in pork, very yummy but way too much of it. As the evening wore on the beer keep flowing and the Germans got more raucous and we were feeling very full of pork so we went for a walk. This was when we first found our fireworks. It seemed all the residents of Munich spent New Years Eve in the central square letting off fireworks. Now as you can imagine the square was quite crowded so people were basically letting off fireworks in the middle of the crowd. There were children holding rockets until they launched into nearby revellers, adults encouraging children to hold onto rockets until they launched, people throwing firecrackers every where imaginable and more and more people streaming into the square with their packs of fireworks. As the evening went on some got more and more game while the bulk of the crowd receded to protect their eyesight and limbs. We had a drink and watched for awhile but eventually went back to the protection of another beer hall and then our hotel room.

Snack of choice in Bavaria - Chocolate coated prezels, chocolate coated croissants and apple studel

In early December we went to Germany for a weekend to find some Christmas markets. Basically a lot of towns and cities have market stalls in December, crammed into any streets and town squares that can fit them. It really seemed like the locals just loved celebrating Christmas, people in the streets everywhere were wearing santa hats and there where decorations everywhere.

The stalls sell lots of hand crafted toys, decorations and the like. They also sell lots of yummy food, which we managed to experience a lot of. We could wander around for hours trying some food from here and there because it was all pretty cheap. The highlights of the food were bratwurst with mustard, warm nuts coated in sugar and cinnamon (served in a paper cone, perfect for wandering around in the cold air), grilled shinken (ham) and fruit covered in chocolate. The drink to have was Gluhwein, a spicy red wine served warm. The taste took some getting used to but it certainly warmed you up from the inside.

Wooden Decorations

Although many of the stalls seems to be selling cheap crap, some had some really amazing stuff. We spent ages walking around the stalls (had to make way for the next round of food some how) looking at all the bits and pieces. The markets smelt wonderful, lots food cooking smells as well as the wine and the spice stalls overflowing with cinnamon sticks and vanilla pods.

Market Stall

We flew into Dortmund which has the distinction of having the biggest Christmas tree in the Christmas market business, and it was huge! It stood in the middle of a bunch of market stalls and was 45m tall. It was actually made up of hundreds of average sized trees arranged into a bit tree shape and decorated with lights – quite impressive.

Dortmund Christmas Tree

Christmas Markets

It wasn't just the tree that were big around these parts, the bratwurst was to! You could buy a half a meter of bratwurst from some stalls, but no matter how long the wurst was, it was always served in the same little dinner roll. In fact any food - wursts, grilled shinken, fish - were served in the little dinner rolls. I swear they must go through thousands of those things.

Another distinctive thing about Dortmund is the flying rhinos. Everywhere in the city there are fibre glass flying rhinos, each one decorated in a different theme. Some where for businesses, some sporting teams, some just christmas-ey. We didn't really know what it was all about but after a couple days it just because normal to see a flying rhino on the street.

Some of the best know Christmas markets are in Cologne which was not to far away on the train. We spend a day there and wandered through endless rows of stalls and ate more market food. Cologne is mostly know for it's Cathedral (which we went inside) and one of the market areas was almost in the shadow of the Cathedral. Another of the markets were on the grounds of a chocolate museum. We didn't go into the museum but that place had a cracker of a museum shop!

The last market we went to was my favourite in Cologne. It was a bit less busy than the others and had some of the most beautiful Christmas decorations and toys. We were walking around as it was getting dark so we saw the stalls and the big carousel all lit up with their Christmas lights.

Christmas Decorations

Before heading home on the train we walked around and got a good view of the cathedral. We found a spot to set up the camera and got some good photos of it in the fading light.

Cologne Cathedral

On our last day in Dortmund we just had time to have our last round of market food, buy the last of our presents, buy the last of the yummy nuts and head for the airport. By the time we got back home we were stuffed full of food and our bags were stuffed full of presents to send back home. And the nuts didn't even make it onto the plane.

Food of choice in Germany: Might be quicker to list what we didn't eat......warm sugar and cinnamon coated nuts, bratwurst, metwurt, grilled shinken, chocolate coated fruit

On a bit of a whim I organised to fly to Germany for a music festival - Rock am Ring. The line up was really good but I only found out about it a couple weeks before it was on. So after some last minute ticket buying (after it was actually sold out) we were ready to go. The logistics of taking camping gear plus clothes plus bedding with us on the cheap airline with the small baggage allowance were a bit tricky but we managed to get there and back some how. The festival was on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but most of the bands I wanted to see were on Friday and Saturday so we organised to fly back on Sunday, ready for work Monday morning.

It was held at Nurbergring, which is actually a race track that runs in and around the village of Nurberg. In German terms this is a quite remote location so the first challenge was to get there. We flew into Cologne airport and jumped in a hired van organised by the girl who I'd bought the tickets from. The others in the van were a group of 8 english people, most of them brummies. Never travel with brummies. They were soooo hopeless, we had to stop in the airport every 30 seconds for them to smoke, they lost their travel documents within the first 20 minutes and couldn't follow signs to save themselves. We eventually found the van and hit the road.

At times we were a bit 'what the hell are we doing' but we eventually got to the festival traffic congestion and knew we were in the right place. We found a camping spot - in the dark, put up the borrowed tent that we'd never seen before (which ironically had construction aided by colour coding) - in the dark, familiarised ourselves with the already rank toilets - in the dark, and tried to sleep to the sound of German death metal and drinking songs.

We got up in the morning starving hungry. We had a map of the camp grounds and the festival site but as we arrived in the dark we had absolutely no idea what camp ground we were in. So we wandered around aimlessly until we had our bearings and some overpriced breakfast. As we walked around we realised what it was really like camping 80,000 or so people - very feral.

Friday - unfortunately it was raining most of Friday, but it was at this point that the race track element to the site came into its own. Other than the mosh pit, in front of the 2 main stages, and really most of the site, was sealed so no mud! Other than being cold and wet we had a good day.

The Cribs

I wasn't really hanging out to see The Cribs but we got in a bit early and they were on so we watched most of their set. Our first impression was 'wow, they sound so English' but we got over that and listened to their music. I can't say the Cribs really rocked my world but they put together an honourable set for so early in day.

The Cat Empire

I had seen The Cat Empire live before so I already knew they were fantastic live and impossible not to like. Thinking about it now when I last saw them I lined up for 3 hours in the rain so there seemed to be some similarities. Anyway it seemed like this just wasn't the Melbourne lads day, there seemed to be a few technical problems with some instruments/sound equipment which isn't good when you have 9 or so people on stage. At one stage the keyboard player - who is a genius - walked off stage and cracked the shits at a stage hand. They did eventually get the crowd going but I'd say it wasn't a highlight of their live performances.

Gogol Bordello

Gogol Bordello was our 'band that you stumble upon who turn out to be a cracker' for this festival. I had no idea what kind of music they played but I had heard whispers that they were a good festival band so decided to check them out. It is really hard to describe Gogol Bordello, they describe themselves as gypsy punk (think punk with piano accordian) but that doesn't really give an indication of the performance you get from them. When we got to the stage the lead singer was wearing some football shorts, bike shorts, a hip scarf and no shirt. There were already a couple items of clothing on the stage and he gradually added to that tally. He was very energetic, throwing himself around the stage, running around the mosh pit and at one stage putting a metal bucket over the mic and playing drums on it - all while singing songs like 'Think Locally, F@*k Globally' and 'Start Wearing Purple'. When we first heard the music we were like 'is this serious or crap' but it was very endearing and we were hooked by the end.

Razorlight

Adrian was more of a fan of Razorlight than myself so we were mostly here for his benefit. The lead singer (who we still swear is also in McFly) was quite obviously drunk or drugged or both. It was raining but he came out in dark glasses and we were like 'do you really need them, take them off' but when he did we were like 'god boy put them back on'. Anywho the performance was pretty good and I enjoyed it more than I was expecting to.

Muse

Muse was a band that I was looking forward to, and while I did enjoy some of their better moments, overall I was dissappointed. They sounded exactly like their recorded work and the songs just had no emotion or enthusiasm. It also confirmed what I had already suspected about their music - that 97% of it sounds all the same. It was much to polished and over produced but you couldn't say you didn't get the sound you were expecting.

There were a couple more bands I wanted to see Friday night but my stomach was feeling a bit iffy and not able to handle the half our lines ups for the toilets.

Saturday - the sun came out so this was a much better day - you could sit on the ground and didn't need to wear a jacket all day. Although inside the site had been cleaned which was quite good, outside the grounds things were starting to get very disgusting. We did find a service station which sold a few essentials so we actually got to have a decent breakfast, albeit while sitting on a rock on the side of the road.

The Fratellis

The Fratellis were very good and I thoroughly enjoyed their set. The german crowd were obviously only familiar with a couple of their songs so they had this weird kind of mumbling nodding thing going until those couple songs were played. I on the other hand was going off (alone) and was one of the few people singing to 'Whistle to the Choir'. One of the highlights of the festival.

Wolfmother

When these guys came on stage I had to laugh, they had a chick on stage doing an introduction for each band (in German of course) and it cracked me up to hear her announce 'Volfmother'.
Having not really heard any Wolfmother since moving to England, hearing them on stage just reminded me how they sound soooooo 70's and pretty cool. The crowd loved them and they do seem to fit very well into the german rock scene. As a result of seeing them live I think I like Wolfmother more that I used to. Previous to this I just couldn't take them seriously cause they sounded just to much like a Led Zepplin/Deep Purple cover band but I think I've moved beyond that now.

Kaiser Chiefs

Now I am not actually a Kaiser Chiefs fan and in general I think they are a mob of twats, but I have to say they put on a pretty good performance. After watching many bands phaffing about with too many guitar changes, over complicated lighting and backdrops, on stage tanties and other such pretentious crap, is was good to see a band that just got on stage and simply rocked. They looked like they were having fun on stage and their music was all the better for it. This was another band that the german crowd were vaguely familiar with. Again we had the weird mumble/nod thing for most of the song, then one line would get the I-don't-speak-english-but-I-can-belt-out-this-one-line-with-weird-pronunciation-and-phrasing treatment. I think we almost got as much entertainment from the crowd as the band themselves.

The Smashing Pumpkins

Wow! The Pumpkins were back and were sounding fantastic. When they first come out on stage you would have thought they had never left it - well you could if you squinted when you looked at D'Arcy and James Billy was in fine form and sounded fantastic. They played all the songs that you wanted to here, plus a couple new ones. To be honest the new songs didn't sound like they were breaking much new ground which will please some fans and not others. After they finished we both agreed that some how they had lost some of the melancholy tone that had been their thang years ago, they genuinly seemed happy to be there and performing and there was a posative buzz. Again this will have a mixed reception but I personally liked it. Definately the best set of the festival.

In general the festival was very cool. To be honest I think it could have had 3 stages (plus the tent) so you could wander around between stages more and the crowd could spread out a bit. Sometimes it just got a bit to crowded as you would expect with 80,000 people, 2 stages and a limited capacity tent.

The germans are very good at organising events like this and they know how to have a good time. We found that they had an abnormal fascination with Spongebob Squarepants, which at it's height involved a drunken Spongebob song that went for about half an hour. Overall the music and the vibe of the festival was friendly and fun, but I must admit the helicopter in/helicopter out action with the bands was a detractor from the vibe but that is probably just cause I'm used to Australian festivals. It all got way to feral but that is just what happens when you get so many drunk people camping and festivalling together. I saw waaay to many drunk german men peeing against fences - and I'm not talking solid fences, but wire fences that you could walk close to the other side.

I've really only got one other thing to say about Rock am Ring:

Helga!!!

Food of choice in Germany: Strudel