Iberian Week, Episode 1: Mallorca!!

Since I've just returned from my second (albeit extremely short) trip to the Iberian peninsula, and I *still* haven't really posted about my first trip, I'm declaring this to be Iberian Week on Grossen Pandas! To kick it off, I'm going to take a trip back in time (ok, last month) and tell you about the lovely island of Mallorca.

To set the stage: Amie and I decided we wanted to take a trip for Valentine's Day, just for fun. We originally thought Paris, but Paris gets really expensive really quickly, and also Amie wanted sun. After a bit of research, we found a super-cheap trip to Mallorca, and our trip was ON! Judith, however, was very concerned, and explained that Mallorca is like "spring break for unemployed Germans" and that the men in Mallorca only want one thing: sex. Despite these warnings, we soldiered on, and I think we are the better for it. :)

Day 1: Arrival, and The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly on...Us.
Our flight from Munich to Mallorca left at 6 am, which meant that we arrived in Mallorca around 9 am. Our hotel room wasn't ready, so we decided to stash our luggage in the hotel's storage room and go exploring. Walking around our hotel's neighborhood, I was thrilled to find evidence everywhere that I'd actually made it to Spain, land of the language I've been studying since I was just a wee panda:

In Spain, even the parking markers are Spanish!

Our hotel was right on the Mediterranean, and we could see evidence that during the high season, Mallorca probably gets a bit Jersey Shore, as Judith had warned us. There were all kinds of bars/casinos/souvenir stands/German restaurants, all boarded up to weather out the end of winter. The craziest one was a giant fake Bavarian castle, clearly designed to make the unemployed Germans feel at home.

After checking out the neighborhood a bit, we decided to catch the bus into downtown Palma de Mallorca. As we walked to the bus stop, it started POURING. Seriously POURING. We were completely drenched, and we hid under the awning of a boarded-up restaurant for shelter until the bus came. It was kind of miserable:

(Picture taken on a sunny day to commemorate the Great Mallorcan Drenching of 2011)

Finally the bus came, and we got on it...going the wrong direction. It was annoying, but at least we were out of the rain! About an hour and a half later, the bus completed its loop and we ended up in downtown Palma. We warmed up with some coffee/tea at Cappuccino, which although it is a chain, seems to be Mallorcan-based and came highly recommended in all the travel guides I read. It was very nice, very relaxing, and I got to have pa amb tomaquet for real in Catalonia!! (Those of you who watched the World Cup final with me will remember my obsession!) We walked around the downtown a little more, checking things out and making plans for what to see tomorrow. Then we headed back to our hotel, where we were finally able to check in. We ended up with most amazing view and the biggest balcony on our floor! We were exhausted from traveling and being cold/wet, so we decided the afternoon was for napping. Before I crawled into bed, I took a few shots of the view from our room:

Left side (that tiny white building is Purobeach nightclub, boarded up for off-season)

 Center (I know I posted this already, but LOOK AT THAT VIEW!!)

Right side (that's someone's apartment right next door...how cool would it be to live right there??)

Then, we napped. A lot. We got up just in time to eat dinner at the hotel restaurant and go to bed again...we had no energy to figure out transportation into Palma or another restaurant to eat at. Exciting times in Mallorca! But, I definitely had a plan for Day 2...

Oh hi.

Don't worry, dear friends of grossen pandas (all 5 or so of you)...I haven't forgotten you! See, I've been busy having adventures, so there would be exciting things to tell you all! That's how this blog works, after all. So, sorry about my absence, but here's what's happened in the past month, in a nutshell. I'll be expanding on some of these things, but here's just a bit to get you started/caught up:

1) Amie and I went bowling with some German friends. It all started out innocently enough, with us drinking tiny shots that looked like they were made for elves, and tasted like pure sugar:

Then, the bowling started. At first it was pretty much exactly like American bowling. Then we noticed this man dressed like a wedding DJ and wearing a microphone headset prowling around. He started speaking a whole bunch of German, which prompted our friend Michaela to run up to the lane and lay down on her stomach. At the DJ's next mysterious German signal, all German members of our party (except for the photographer) ran and jumped on top of her:

This happened on every lane. The DJ gave one final signal, and Michaela (and all the other bottom-of-the-pile people) had to roll the ball down the lane. When everyone returned to our chairs, I asked one of the German girls what that was all about. She replied, "Oh, you don't have this in the United States?" I assured her we did not, to which she said, "This is what we call fun bowling!" And fun it was...you can tell by the fact that Soeren's eyes seem to have rolled back into his head from all the fun he's having.

2) We ventured out of Munich for the first time on our own, going to the small town of Starnberg to check out their lake, the Starnberger See. My guidebook mentioned that King Ludwig II drowned in the Starnberger See under mysterious circumstances, and that one could walk from the train station to the memorial in the nearby town of Berg in about an hour. Lonely Planet are a bunch of liars. We walked a total of 10 kilometers (5 there, 5 back) to see that wooden cross. It was cold, but apfelstrudel on the way back helped to soothe the pain. I'm posting these pictures because we walked 10k to get them:

The chapel in front of the memorial

The memorial, at long last.

3) We went to a German Super Bowl party!! This was a lot of fun, and a much more elaborate affair than most American Super Bowl parties (at least the ones I've been to). The celebration started at 6 pm with an American-style BBQ, which turned out to be pretty authentic. Someone even managed to find cheese slices (like the Kraft kind) to melt on the hamburgers. The only thing that was a little off was the mysteriously named "American hamburger sauce," but upon further inspection it appeared to be all the condiments usually found on a hamburger just mixed together in one bottle. Makes sense if you don't want to invest in the whole separate ketchup/mustard/mayonnaise/relish panoply. Anyway, Amie and I contributed taco dip and guacamole as traditional American Super Bowl party foods, and we hung out and ate and drank beer/rum and Cokes until about 11 pm. At that point, we headed to a movie theater, where we would be watching the game as a private party:

Check out us and our creepy glowing eyes in the theater...too much trouble to sit and correct all of them! 

At about 4 am Munich time, we experienced the sweet sensation of VICTORY!!

We headed home around 6 am, crossing paths on the subway with the BMW plant workers on their way to another work day of making fine automobiles. It was a super fun Super Bowl marathon!

4) Then Amie and I jetted off to Mallorca! It was SO AWESOME to speak Spanish again, and it was the very first time I've ever been in a place that speaks Catalan as well! We also ate some ridiculously awesome meals and saw some gorgeous things. (And Mike, I got lots of free things!) The Mediterranean Sea was *right there* outside our hotel room:

The view from our balcony

5) Peter and Judith (my host professor and his wife) took me on a stalking trip to see FC Bayern's public training. When we arrived, the team bus was just pulling up to drop the players off from the previous night's Champions League match in Milan. I discovered that I would make a terrible celebrity stalker, as I was like, "Shouldn't we let them get off the bus in peace?" Peter told me the answer was no, and tried to push me in the path of some of the players. Thankfully I didn't trip anyone, and recovered enough to get a couple stalkery photos:

I also got this photo of the coach shaking the hand of a very devoted fan who proceeded to run along the length of the training pitch (outside the fence, of course) for the entire two-hour plus training session. Maybe out of solidarity with the players?

6) And then, the capstone experience: Peter and Judith somehow managed to get the four of us tickets to an FC Bayern match, which is no easy feat. So, I got to go to my first live football/soccer match. It was ridiculously cold and my team lost, but it was SO EXCITING to be there. 

Amie and I went to the match!

A little match action.

And there ends the nutshell, my friends. Like I said, I've got lots to say about these things, so keep your eyes peeled for some more details on the above! As an added bonus, I'm going to attempt my first video post soon! Amie wisely and surreptitiously memorialized our experience with cutting-edge Munich theater, which deserves a post all its own.

Tomorrow I'm heading out to Schloss Neuschwanstein, a castle built by Ludwig II (of the memorial cross) and which inspired the Cinderella Castle at Disneyworld. I'll do my best to bring back some dreamy castle pictures for y'all.

Hope all is well in your world, wherever that might be!

xoxo

kate

My alma mater!

(except it doesn't exist...)

Lindy, do you remember when we looked for random Wisconsin sweatshirts in Ireland? Guess we just had the wrong European country. :)

Living like a baller...

(also note the amount of wine glasses on the table)

When she learned of my interest in FC Bayern Munich, Judith promised to take me to several places around Munich frequented by the players. The first of such places was H'ugo's (yes, it's spelled with two apostrophes, why, ???), where we had a GEDS program party/reunion. All of the German students who visited Chapel Hill last fall were there, plus Peter and Judith, and of course Amie and me. The German students told us that H'ugo's is a very "in" restaurant in Munich, and that it's where all the rich men hang out. Judith told me it's a favorite of these guys:

Franck Ribery (left), Luca Toni (right)

(I believe both photos are from Bild)

So, needless to say, this was a totally baller place. Sadly, we did not see Mr. Ribery nor Mr. Toni (who is even more sadly no longer with FC Bayern). However, I did eat the BEST PIZZA OF MY LIFE. I am not even kidding. It's in the picture above--just a plain thin crust, cheese pizza with very lightly seasoned crushed tomatoes as sauce, but with white truffles shaved over the top. I've never really understood what the big deal was about truffles until now, but OMG. The flavor of the truffles somehow mixed perfectly with the mozzarella, so you couldn't even really tell where the deliciousness was coming from, but you also didn't really care, because it was that good. In "Eat, Pray, Love," there's a part in which Elizabeth Gilbert says she's having a relationship with a pizza she's eating in Naples. When I read it at first, I was like, ha ha, that's cute. Now I understand. You can see me with my soulmate in the above photo.

In addition to the truffle pizza, my friend Christina got a ridiculously good smoked salmon and balsamic dressing pizza, and there was so much other good food I can't even describe it all. (Case in point: when we were having problems deciding on appetizers to share as a group, Peter promptly ordered every appetizer on the menu.) There was also aperitifs and LOTS of wine and digestifs after dinner. The female servers started dancing on tables. There were hot reggaeton beats and flashing lights. It was a party, ballers or no ballers.

Seeing all of the German girls again was fabulous. (I'd hung out with Michaela since I'd arrived, but hadn't seen Christina, Andrea, or Kathrin since Chapel Hill.) We made some plans for after their exams, like hiking in the Alps (which apparently have amazing food shacks hidden all up in there) and visiting Neuschwanstein. Plus, Christina and I decided we'd come back to H'ugo's to watch El Clasico in April, 'cause she's a Real Madrid fan (and as you all know, I'm a Barcelona girl). Truffle pizza, wine, and a grudge match? Yes, please!

FYI to Mike and any other visitors to Munich (Jenny? Thomas?): you're eating here. And you're having the truffle pizza. As Peter would say, "it's a MUST."

xoxo

Especially for Mike...

Cocktail palms, drag reindeer, and early intervention: a weekend in Munich

No, silly, no one did an early intervention on me!! Although maybe they should have. Anyway, for the work part of this weekend, I attended a two-day block seminar on early intervention, conducted by our own esteemed colleague Peter. It made for some long days, but I also learned some pretty interesting stuff, especially about German laws regarding prenatal interventions for fetuses/babies that show signs of having disabilities.

Nerd time over! Following the seminar, Amie and I decided to head out to Karlsplatz, where there is an outdoor skating rink for the holidays. We knew that they would be taking the rink down at the end of the weekend, so we wanted to make sure we got our skating in! Oddly enough, I got carded when we paid for our ice rink admission, because apparently you get a free glass of prosecco. Awesome! Another cool thing about the rink is that they have these little ski-bears to help people stay on their feet if they're new skaters. I didn't need a bear for skating purposes, but I *did* need to get my picture taken with the FC Bayern Munich bear!!

As we skated around, Amie and I noticed that the people at the rink were almost all men. All of a sudden the free prosecco made sense:

It was HoliGay on ice!! We were so lucky that we just happened to skate that night, because otherwise there was no free prosecco (although since it's Munich, there was a two-level bar built on to the side of the ice rink), and we would never have made our new friends:

Yes, friends, that is a DRAG REINDEER. I think the other creature is a drag giraffe? We were never sure.

On Saturday, we spent the whole day at the block seminar, but then met up with my friend Michaela, one of the German students who visited UNC during the fall semester. We also got to meet Michaela's very nice boyfriend and three of her other friends. Michaela and her boyfriend had a lot of studying to do on Sunday, so we decided to go out for cocktails instead of going to a club. After seriously trying about five bars to find one at which all seven of us could sit down, we ended up at Drugstore, then moved on to Peaches. There I learned the following:

Fact #1: Everyone will order a pastel drink, even the men. They're all just cocktails, none of this "girly drink" nonsense.
Fact #2: If you order correctly, your pastel drink will come with one of these:

Little cocktail sparklies!!! I was so ridiculously excited by these that everyone gave me their sparklies, although I lost more than half of them on the subway home. Oops! Guess that just means more cocktails needed to replenish my collection! Anyway, apparently they're called "cocktail palms," and just about any cocktail bar in Munich will stick them in your drink.
Fact #3: David Hasselhoff music really *is* played in German bars (although there was a debate at our table whether or not Germans actually like him). This debate was not resolved.
Fact #4: Germans think Americans are really awesome bowlers. We're supposed to meet up with Michaela and her friends again to go bowling next weekend, so I feel like their world view will soon be shattered.

So. much. fun.
(And see, Mike, I did take my camera out of the box!)

Until I figure out my camera, I give you water poetry

From the bottle of water I drank yesterday:

Blütenkinder unter sich.

Die Mango lud die Orangenblüten zum gemeinsamen Sitzstriek ein.

Worum es ging? 

Natürlich um mehr Wasser für alle!

Thanks to our friend Google translate, here we go!!

Flower children among themselves.

The Mango invited the orange blossoms to a common sit-in.

What was it about? 

Of course, more water for all!

**I promise I'll have something better for you soon. And it just might involve a German drag queen dressed as a reindeer.**

xoxo

k