Post- Parent Blues

Munich life hasn't been normal for a very long time now. Welcome visits from family and Hannah have left me with no free time and the time has just flown. For the past 2 weekends Ma and Pa Thorpe have been in Munich and were joined my Matty for the second weekend, which was (obviously) greeted with a great deal of hostility from the landlord, as he was to be staying at mine for the first night.

Weekend 1 - Sightseeing & Shopping

The boobs of the Frauenkirchen

To quote a massively overused phrase my parents' visit was a tale of 2 halves. The first weekend was filled with glorious sunshine giving us a great opportunity to get out in the city and visit many of the attraction which I haven't yet managed to see (or haven't wanted to pay for)! This included a trip up to the top of the Rathaus, with it's panoramic views which allowed me to pick out every landmark and give a brief history of my very brief knowledge of Munich! This was followed by a trip inside the recently christened 'boob church' or Frauenkirchen to you or I (my parents are quite childish). Saturday saw us sampling the shops of Munich, as my football boots which had been with me the for best part of 6 years finally gave up the ghost and fell apart - somewhat conveniently. With the sun beating down in felt a shame to take the U-Bahn around town so instead we ended up walking everywhere. By the time we made it to the alte Pinakothek my Mum and I were well and truly done for and in no way up for walking round a gallery. Instead, we parted ways with Dad and found ourselves a comfy, sunny spot against the Pinakothek and had a little snooze. For what it's worth the Pinakothek is apparently very impressive inside too.

To say I ate well would be an understatement. My mum's '2 meals a day' holiday meal meant that by dinner time my Dad and I were ravenous and ready to try the many delicacies of Bavaria. From Würsts, to Wienerschnitzel via Spätzle, we ate everything - washing it all down with a few Weißbier. Monday came all too quickly and after a delicious greek meal (also huge) the rents parted ways and headed off to Garmisch to take rural Bavaria before returning the next weekend.

Weekend 2 - The Young Pretender Arrives

After weeks of mithering Mum and Dad were able to convince Matt that a free holiday to Munich wasn't a bad thing. The objective was simple - I was to pick Matty up from the S Bahn stop near work and 'look after him' until the whole fam were together the next day. Everything ran incredibly smoothly (lucky, as Matt's phone had run out of battery) and after a quick dinner and change we headed out to meet my friends at a bar for a few drinks. As I had taken the day off work tomorrow there was no need to keep tabs on my drinks and a couple soon turned in rather a lot. Big mention must go to Marcus, who was able to keep up with us AND get up for work at 7am the next morning. Friday was filled mainly with sleeping but we did manage to take in BMW Welt before heading to football and then meeting up with the parents at the hostel.

The second weekend was mainly overshadowed by our trip to Dachau concentration camp on the Saturday. The temperature had dropped considerably since the last weekend and was hovering around zero - with rumours of snow. After a 45 minute walk from the station to the 'KZ Gedenkstätte' we purchased our audio tours and headed into the camp.

It's difficult to get a feel for the magnitude of the atrocities that happened here but the tour and museum paints a pretty gruesome picture which made me wonder how anybody could live in the area now, knowing what happened there less than a century ago. A short video showed us images of piles of bodies and gave us first person accounts of people held at the camp but still I couldn't grasp the terror of the place. We walked through where the prisoners used to stay, through the roll call yard and to the crematorium. This is where it finally hit me. Standing in a room with 2 furnaces which you know have burnt countless human corpses is hard to deal with but as I walked through to the 'waiting room', a windowless room where the bodies were piled up, I felt a terror creep over me and I just had to get out of there. I felt dirty afterwards and had a sour taste in my mouth. My Mum was equally as horror struck and we left the camp soon after.

On the corner of Manchester Platz

Sunday was a relaxed day as 'the boys' visited Manchester Platz - a memorial to the tragic air disaster involving members of the Manchester United team back in 1958.

The snow was enticing us outside but the bitter cold was doing its best to keep us inside. We managed a quick trip around the englischer Garten before the fam collected their bags and headed to the airport.

The train ride back from the airport found me wishing myself back to England, to a warm, rural Pub with a blazing fire and Northerners. It's a feeling that's stuck with me for the past two days and one that I hope will pass soon otherwise it's going to be bloody hard for me to return to Munich after a Christmas back home.

No, I'm not dead.

I can only give my sincerest apologies for my complete lack of updates in the past few weeks. No, I have not been in the Amazon rainforest and no I have not been stranded in the mountains with no means of contact. I have in fact, just been incredibly busy. Boring I know. Just to show how sorry I am, here is a photo of me trying to recreate the pose of a red statue of an asian man. I hope that helps.


Anyhoo, so what has been keeping me busy for the past few weeks? In short, EVERYTHING. The three people who were fired from work have now left meaning there is half the staff with double the workload. On Mondays I'm lucky if I have a day shorter the 10 hours. Not including lunch break. This has been quite good though, as I feel I'm slowly beginning to work up more responsibility in the firm. I am now in charge of the dailz running of the business, which would be relatively straightforward had people not started finding mistakes in every report that were they before I even started! Sod's law really, as I'm having to build some reports from scratch again. On top of this we are trying to introduce our biggest and most important report yet (I won't bore you with the details) but this has hit many stumbling blocks meaning even longer hours. I barely have time to even attempt to make friends at work!

Outside of work I have also been extremely pushed for time. I've had uni work to complete, a shop to do, a haircut to get amongst various visits and social activities! This has also been good though, because it's left me very little time to think about how much I dislike where I'm currently living. I've decided that I owe it to myself to try and find somewhere else to live, with young people ONLY. If I don't I think I would probably feel like I'd wasted one of the most valuable experiences of my life. I'm not prepared to do that just yet.

In other news, I've finally joined a football team - Munich Irish Rovers! As you can probably tell, it's not a native German team so I won't actually be able to practice my German at any point but they seem to be like a nice bunch of lads which I feel is much more important. They train twice a week with matches on Sundays and boy do they work you hard. My first training session happened to be 'fitness night' and I can honestly say I've never been worked so hard in my life. I could barely walk for the next four days! I've just got back from training tonight actually, where I scored the greatest goal of my career to the awe of my teammates. I hope there's plenty more where that came from! The only downside is that it's about 40 minutes away from where I live  so it takes up an entire evening when I go but one lad lives relatively close to where I do and drives his softtop BMW training each week. I think we're gonna become good friends.

My german friend count is depressingly still at zero but I think (hope) that I am making inroads on a few fronts. I've decided to use a music website to see who else is going to the same gigs I've got lined up in the next month or so and then try to talk to them. This has yielded 2 potential results! All I've got to do is build it up to the point where it won't be too awkward to ask if they want to go for a drink somewhere. It's probably a slow burner but it's a start.

Last weekend my parents were in town and we spent a great weekend together. Matty flies out tomorrow and Ma and Pa return to Munich on Friday so I will give a full report of their visit once they've flown back to England. I also saw The Vaccines at BMW Welt last Saturday - I wrote a review of it for my cousin's website here http://thegoodreview.co.uk/2012/10/the-vaccines-bmw-world-munich/

So that's my life up-to-date! Once I get into the middle of November things should begin to settle down again and I should be able to update more frequently and move my life forward. Everything is just too hectic at the moment to do that! I leave you now to go and collapse into bed, before this all starts over again tomorrow.

Hannah's Trip across the border

Friday was not a very productive day. I was well aware of the fact that an hour after I clocked off for the weekend I would be standing at Hauptbahnhof waiting for Hannah to arrive on her 5 1/2 hour train from Verona. Ten minutes later than expected, the presumably italian train rolled into the station (german trains are too ruthlessly efficient to run late). A quick bag drop off and we were back in town for a stroll and meal on what was an unusually mild Munich night.

Having balked at the prices of relatively standard looking restaurants in the posh district, we headed to Marienplatz and found JUST what we were looking for - an over-the-top, typically german eaterie. As we walked in and up the stairs we were greeted by the sounds of an Accordion and a hearty rendition of "Ein Prosit". After we placed our orders (Wiener Schnitzel and Schweinehaxe) we were able to sit back and enjoy our surroundings. Songs were sung, dances were danced and beers were clinked - it was like being at Oktoberfest all over again! Well fed (and well tired!) we took the U-Bahn back to Michaelibad and collapsed into bed.

A lazy morning was had on Sunday before I showed Hannah the sights. Munich was on fine form this weekend, with the sun beaming down and the city buzzing with activity. Ander Art Festival was taking place in Odeonsplatz and we were able to sit in the sunshine, drink a Radler (beer and lemonade, Hannah's still not convinced on beer) and listen to some live music from Sadie Walker, which two not-so-young ladies seemed to be loving, as they were throwing shapes that i'd never attempt even in my most drunk state!

 

 A quick stop off at the ridiculous Michael Jackson memorial which has to be seen to believe and we were off to Oktoberfest. What with it being the last weekend of a festival that brought in 6.9 million visitors last year we weren't very hopeful about getting in anywhere. We weren't wrong.

Having decided on the Nymphenburg Zelt (the queue was the shortest) we stood and watched the bouncer hand-pick members of the queue who were allowed in. Obviously we were seething at first and thought the guy was a sexist pervert, but this was until we realised he was only letting people in who were wearing Lederhosen and Dirndls! A quick flash of my dashing outfit and we were in. We soaked up the atmosphere as much as we could before deciding we'd prefer a drink elsewhere and closer to home.

With over 2000 tonnes of sand, Beach 38 was something Hannah needed to experience. We sat and enjoyed the warmth for a while, wondering why such a exciting bar was so empty on a saturday night.

Sunday was a day of reckoning. An early rise was followed by a stress-filled few hours full of hope, dispair, and utter bewilderment. All our toil and trouble paid off though as we finally managed to guarantee ourselves 2 tickets to the biggest show of next year - Glastonbury!

Nothing else happened on Sunday.

Hannah's train back to Verona was at 7:30am which meant an obscenely early wake up call. Not cool. We got to the train station with plenty of time and thought we'd be able to say a heartfelt goodbye. Unfortunately a stony-hearted station mistress had decided this wasn't to be, nothing more than a quick hug and a kiss and Hannah was back on her way home.
A thoroughly enjoyable weekend all round and one which I hope can be repeated again when I travel to Verona at the start of November!

Only in Germany

Went to the local park yesterday to read my book. I was greeted by this old fella going nuts to some music!

What a terrible day

Wow. Today started with a hastily scheduled meeting for everybody who works in Business Intelligence, Finance, Marketing and IT. This meeting was to discuss the future aims of the company and how they could improve their standing in the 4th quarter after a poor 3rd quarter. It began with an in depth overview of the new action plan which can be summarised into 2 point - increase gross margin, reduce costs. It soon dawned on us why we were in this meeting - we were the costs that were going to be cut. We were told to go back to our departments and work for the rest of the day as if nothing had happened, and that we would be called for later in the day for individual meetings where we would find out if we still had a job or not.

Naturally this was met with utter bewilderment and the day dragged by very slowly with very few of the primary functions of the company running smoothly. I for one felt I was a prime candidate for the chop - I was merely an intern, had only recently started and didn't have a great deal of responsibility. The time came when our department were to be called in for our make or break meetings. Silence fell across the room.

First up was Bastian, the man who I had been shadowing and supporting since my very first day and who provided integral analysis to the entire company. Ten minutes past before he returned. With tears in his eyes he picked up his jacket and left. He'd been fired. This partially calmed me, as I thought I may be in line to inherit his job and that I might be safe.

Next up was Luc a new recruit from Holland whose birthday it was today. He has integrated into the company very quickly and had lots of important tasks regarding the highest people in the company. This did not save him. Another relatively new recruit, Jonathon, was also fired, but he seemed the least bothered of any of them, claiming he already has other jobs in the pipeline. At this point it was 3 out of 3 that had been fired. It didn't look good.

Our boss, who was also sitting in on the meetings, came into the office to call the next 'victim' forward. However, the bad news stopped here, and the remaining 4 people in the department would still have a job come tomorrow. In the space of an hour our department was practically halved in size and for those remaining, the responsibilities doubled.

Huge cutbacks were happening in all departments to the point where the entire Marketing department no longer exists. From a firm of around 800 this morning we are now down to somewhere in the region of 500-600.

The boss called it a day and we all finished early. To say I was relieved would be an understatement and I now look forward to playing an integral role with many responsibilities in what is a very exciting start up company.

Phew!

Oktoberfest

As many of you may know, yesterday was the beginning of Oktoberfest, one of the biggest drink festivals the world over. What many of you may not have known is the ridiculous time you need to get there on opening day to secure a table. Giving ourselves a semi lie-in we made our way to Theresienwiese at half past 8. The site was already a hive of activity, with thousands of people wandering round in Lederhosen and Dirndl. Even at this hour there were people who had gone too hard too soon and were having to be propped up by friends - an ominous sign.

After a short queue we managed to get into the Hofbräuhaus tent, the largest on the site, and met up with our friend Izzy and her friend Katie. These two had been particularly eager and had arrived at 7. They were still only able to get a standing table. So there we were at 9am in an enormous tent waiting for it all to kick off. Beer was not to be served until 12pm when the mayor was to take part in the time-honoured tradition of tapping the first keg of beer. As his cries of 'O' zapft!' rang out, the room erupted and the party began.

Our small group was intended to be a lot larger but events conspired somewhat unfortunately. Katie's 3 friends from Erlangen were supposed to get the train down with her at 5am that morning but had overslept and had to shell out for new tickets. When they finally arrived on site at around 9 30 they were desperate to get in and meet up with us. However, the wooden decking surrounding the tent was particularly slippy and one of them fell quite badly, breaking his arm and needing to be taken to hospital. He's being kept there until thursday as he needs a plate put in his arm. Not a great start. Our other friend Hattie had overslept so only got to the tent at 9 45, by which point the queues were huge and they'd stopped letting people in. After 2 and a half hours waiting she was about to call it a day when we overheard a few people who had sneaked in the back way. 10 minutes later and she was in, sipping on her first stein of Oktoberfest beer.

Songs were sung, beers were drunk friends were made but seeing as how we'd been there since 9am a few of us were ready to leave around 5pm. It had already been a long day. Izzy, Katie and I headed off towards Odeonsplatz to Vappiano's, a restaurant we'd been highly recommended but which was bloody hard to find. At this point I'd've been happy with a Maccies but we persevered and boy was it worth it. Still slightly drunk, the diavolo pizza that i had was to die for and it filled me up good and proper. By this point is was 9pm and definitely time to head home, I jumped on the U-Bahn and made my way back to Michaelibad, safe in the knowledge that I'd enjoyed my time at Oktoberfest without making a fool of myself or breaking my arm. That's got to be a good thing right?

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