Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Radio and germany

I'm on Radio 5 Live tomorrow afternoon between 3 and 4 (Simon Mayo show) if you're interested. It's a book review panel, I'm still finishing off the final book tonight. It has been a bit of a slog!

Got back from Germany sunday morning. Liked it a lot there. Very quaint old squares and cobbly small streets and hidden back streets in Munich. Nice place to be.

For various reasons didn't really go to Christmas Markets ... well, went to the big modern one at Tollwood which was a bit rubbish to be honest. Modern and Kristingle markt (or whatever they're called) don't go. It even had a flippin' dance tent! It's on the site of the Oktoberfest. DO NOT GO if you're ever in Munich. It may be big but it's a bit crap on the whole.

Also, Munich on saturday night ... we just couldn't find a place to eat! We set out at 6:30pm and were turned away from more restaurants than I can remember. A pre-christmas party season thing we'd not thought of ... we should have prebooked it seems. At around 8pm we found a little local restaurant down a back street which was quite cute ... we got the last table.

Went to a beer keller ... HUGE! Massive! What a massive huge place. Bought Pretsels (braitsels?) from a side bar thing ... proper bready pretsels that I'd never had before. And a huge beer glass of dark beer ... a stein are they called?

Forgive my spellings ... I seriously can't be arsed to spellcheck my blog. Blindies don't see things written down because there is a huge lack of braille media ... hence my spelling has seriously dwindled since I lost my sight.

It was very cold but it didn't really snow ... except at the Tollwood xmas market. Effing cold, I bought a hat.

There were loads and loads of huge statues of lions dotted around the city ... all of different colours. I assume it was part of an art exhibition.

More another time probably ... Germany is cool. Damon must learn German.

7 comments:

Katie said...

Glad you enjoyed most of your time in Germany Damon! The beer must have been good, and the squares and streets sound nice too.

I will take a listen to Simon Mayo's show tommorrow on the "Listen again" feature as I will be in college.

Good to see you back and don't worry about your spelling, Us sighties have trouble with it too! Love the "effing" part here on your blog and when you swear about things, it's funny!

Katie said...

Oh, and don't forget to check out my blog, Ouch has won a virtual award in a category from me!

BloggingMone said...

Good to hear you are back and enjoyed yourself. Yep...come on...learn German! If several million people speak it, it can't be that difficult, can it? Das machst du mit links! (You'll do that with your left hand = it's a piece of cake)
This coloured lion thing is getting a bit of a nuisance in bigger cities. Berlin's symbol is a bear, so they have coloured bears everywhere, the lion is a symbol of Bavaria, so they have lions in Munich and in Hamburg we have got the coloured Hummel-man (Man carrying buckets with water). They are designed and painted by artists or celebrities and then go to an auction to raise money for charity. Which is OK if people would then carry away their purchases and put them on display in their gardens. But they leave them in the streets and just put a lable on it to let everyone know, who was generous enough to buy it.

BloggingMone said...

oh...and good luck for the radio show!! Hope the book is a good one.

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear you had a good time, Damon.

Germans, unlike the French, are very good and helpful with foreigners who at least try to speak their language so it's worth acquiring a few words. Bier is a useful one, I've found. Bitte and Danke (please and thank you) are also appreciated.

Katie said...

I am listening to your radio slot now! It's great but can't believe Simon Mayo's comment saying "What's Ouch all about!" Duh!

How mad was that!

Damon said...

Katie, just back from a beering session it seems. Simon was giving me an opportunity to tell Radio 5 Live listeners what Ouch was about. This was a good thing, not a bad thing.