Deutschland Diary, Pt. 8: Hills...music...
Yesterday started with a very different sort of Bavarian adventure--a trip to the Munich Walmart. An odd experience, really. Some things were so familiar. Others were not. Like these shoes for example.
Yes, they say "32th." And no, the "32th" was not added on at some mall shoe repair shoppette like the Burberry hi-tops from hell. These were shoes manufactured to say "32th." Now, shoes that say "thirty-second" hardly make sense. But "thirty-twoth"? Thirty-twoth what?
According to Susie, this kind of inexplicable writing on clothes is not unusual, although always greatly amusing. We also saw a t-shirt with a long paragraph of shiny text including such statements as "You deside" and "Most likely to success."
It's like everyone is walking around wearing Daniel lyrics.
Speaking of our favorite pickle-crashing friend, the Munich Walmart is full of Dack. At least it was. Until I bought it all up. I was prepared to explain to the checkout girl that I was buying a cartload of Dack to take to the orphans, but like Walmart clerks everywhere, she didn't really seem to care.
After our Walmart trip, we went to the other extreme of German culture by driving down to Oberammergau. It's a very quaint Bavarian town up in the mountains. In addition to the big Passion Play it puts on every 10 years, it's known for "Lüftlmalerei," the painted murals decorating the outside of houses in this region. They're incredible. Like this one:
and this one:
Part of the reason we drove over an hour through the mountains was to get what Susie promised was "the best ice cream in Germany" at this little shop:
It was very good.
The weather was not.
It was "scheißwetter," or "shitty weather."
When we left Munich it was cold and rainy, and the higher in the mountains we went, the more we saw snow and fog. We were driving back through time from spring to winter.
I don't mind bad weather that much, but I was frustrated that I was driving through the bleeping Alps and couldn't even see them. This was the view (or non-view) of the Alps from the car:
Last year when I was here, the Alps were equally evasive. We went up to the Olympic park then and climbed a big hill where I was told I could see the Alps in the distance. All I saw was haze. Later that week, Susie and I went to Salzburg (having grown up on a steady diet of The Sound of Music, this was a must). Our train went right through the Alps, but again my view was at best hazy.
So this year I was really hoping to actually see the mountains. But no. Even though I was up in the mountains, they were being coy with me, just showing enough for me to know they were there, but revealing nothing (reminds one of Clay, no?).
But I was enjoying the town. We went into a little shop and bought some of the local woodcarving. And when we come out a mere 20 minutes later, low and behold, the clouds had lifted. Alps!
I was so excited. I couldn't stop taking pictures.
On the drive home, I kept trying to take more pictures through the dirty windshield, so Susie pulled over and let me run out to a busy intersection to take one more parting shot.
I was happy. I could finally see what Julie Andrews was singing about. And I could picture Daniel running through a field, arms spread out, singing "The hills are alive..."
We came home to find that Ziggy had discovered an even better way to spend a day of scheißwetter.
Smart guy, that Ziggy.