I am at Munich airport, and I am ready to go home. I did not get much sleep last night with all the firework-hubbub and noises outside. There is no prohibition on buying and shooting off fireworks in Munich, and boy, do the citizens go at it ! I also had to allow extra time for the train to the airport. The train would not be late, of course. But I could have read the on-line timetable wrong, or the New Years Day schedule could have been different from the usual Tuesday one. But not to worry, at Ostbahnhof station the signs confirmed that the S8 Flughafen train scheduled for 6.24 am, as I expected..
It’s 6 am on New Years Day and the ‘Young and the Restless’ are evidently done partying for the night and heading home, waiting for the train.The new BMW X1 on display at the airport would make a nice New Years present (for myself) – no?A ‘Special Edition’ Joe Camel outside the smoking booth in Terminal 2.
The ‘mint’ on my hotel room pillow. (The ladder would be for a successful 2013?)
Fireworks as seen from my hotel window. This is in the eastern suburbs of Munich. The pop-pop-pop sounds outside went on for several hours !
I kicked 2012 out the door and welcomed 2013 with a pils (German pilsner beer) and dinner in the hotel restaurant – and called it good. It’s only 11 pm but I have already heard and seen plenty of fireworks in the distance from the hotel room window. : )
Glückliches Neues Jahr ! Happy New Year ! Voorspoedige Nuwe Jaar !
Here are today’s highlights. I did get to see some modern architecture ! I am pondering if I should go out at all tonight – to brave the Germans ringing in 2013 in the streets – but I probably will. I leave for the States and for Seattle in the morning.
I felt I had to stop at Odeonsplatz to take a day-time picture of Field Commander Hall, and here it is.The Theatine Church right next to it also looks a lot sharper in day time.This is the Olympic Tower as seen from across the man-made Olympic lake in front of the Olympic Stadium and the Tower.1972 Olympic Stadium had a unique construction and form for its time, one that has been used for many other structures since. The inside areas of the Stadium are not open, for the most part. Also, the fence stopped me from getting closer for this view.‘Dach Lawinen’ (roof avalanches), said one warning sign that I saw. But there is no snow on the roof at this time, so no problem there.
Here is the ‘tornado’ building of BMW Welt (BMW World)’s showroom and shrine to the Ultimate Driving Machine. It opened in 2007.I have now walked around the the front of the building. It was closed for the New Years weekend .. but BMW did put out some crumbs (bottom right) for the clamoring BMW Motor Machine fans that would otherwise have nothing at all to look at.These shiny buildings belong to BMW as well. The bowl is BMW Museum and the towers are BMW’s world headquarter offices.More mundane (square) offices and working area in the BMW World complex.I am now heading back on U3 to Marianplatz. This is the inside of the station.This is Munich Freiheit station also on the U3 route. The pillars are blue, but the blue is enhanced by LEDs shining from above. My camera actually added the pink.Aww.. is this the way to treat a little Mini ? (Well, it’s actually a real, full-size Mini ! ). Giant mural display ad in the BMW World complex.This is also in Munich Freiheit station, my reflection in the polished ceiling panels.The Galeria Kaufhaus homeware display sported this WMF brand egg holder for ardent FC Bayern fans (Munich based soccer club). Check out the little hammer for breaking the egg shell !
One more view of the Olympic Stadium, this space is called ‘Olympic Hall’.
So .. what to do if you arrive on a wintry Sunday when most of the restaurants, shops and museums are geschlossen (closed)? Well, the trains still run and so you go where you can ogle some old architecture. (Hopefully today, Monday, I will get to see some newer architecture!). Marienplatz (Mary’s Square) is ground zero for the city center and that is where the New City Hall (neues Rathaus) on the north side is found .. ‘new’ being a very relative term here.
This is 11 am on Sunday morning, and I am watching the Glockenspiel in the main tower of the City Hall building. There is a upper and lower carousel with marionettes that go around and around .. and at the end two knights with lances ‘charge’ each other and one is mortally wounded !The main gate is a work of art (well, the whole building is a work of art).Cool restaurant facade off Marienplatz .. I like the ‘tulip’ style light fixtures that blend into the building’s face.Montgelas Memorial (artist Katrin Sander, 2005) at Promenadeplatz square in the old city. Maximilian Josef Garnerin/ Count von Montgelas (1759–1838) was a Bavarian statesman.The Bayarischer Hof hotel off the Promenadeplatz square.I don’t know the name of this charming old department store off Marienplatz .. will find out and add its name in here.Always great to find a mirror for a self portrait ! I just hopped off the train behind me, at the Marienplatz U-bahn station.I’m not sure how this sign works ! It’s possible that some signals are for cars and others for trams or buses. Most crossings have buttons for pedestrians. I ALWAYS wait for the green ‘robot’ light and never jaywalk in a strange city.The ‘Kings Court’ hotel near Karlsplatz station. It was just refreshing to see a somewhat modern design after all the old buildings.Orleans Street runs by Ostbahnhof where my Marriott hotel is. Even here in the outskirts of the city there are plenty of taverns and bars for quaffing a great German beer.U-bahn entrance to Marienplatz stationThe Christmas markets are quiet now, but this friendly fella was outside a restaurant that still hosted an outside area with beer drinkers, making use of all of 2012’s merry-making !These beautiful Christmas market lights were still up, around Karlsplatz .. lucky for me.Christmas store display nearbyFeldherrhalle (Commander’s Hall) at Odeonsplatz. It gets dark at 4.30pm already! I had to use the ISO 1600 setting on my camera to boost the light for the picture dramatically. Theatine Church at OdeonplatzHere is the Neues Rathaus (New City Hall) at night. The building on the right is a department store. There is also an Apple store close by (sacrilege!).
These two old gentlemen waiting for the train are sporting traditional Bavarian outfits (at least I think it is, even though it is not lederhosen that they are wearing).
This is the S Bahn (suburban train) that took me from the airport to Ostbahnhof in the east of the city where my Marriott Courtyard hotel is.
I arrived in Munich early Sunday morning. It is 32 F (0 C) outside, quite a change from the very muggy Johannesburg thunderstorm air we had when we boarded. The customs clearance and baggage claim process in Munich took all of 15 mins – amazing, might have been the quickest ever for me.
This cool green refrigerator was right there at the baggage carousel, as a marketing/ advertising placement by the manufacturer.This sure looks like Tintin’s rocket in Destination Moon. This is just outside Terminal 2 on the way to the train station.
Our South African Airbus A330-200 after we arrived from the terminal shuttle bus. I guess two engines suffice because we did not really fly over water. But the seats were very comfortable and the service was excellent.Welcome in Munich, says the sign (obviously) .. the buildings are all from around Marienplatz, the old city town square.
I am back at Oliver Tambo International airport, to make my way back to Seattle .. but I will spend two nights in an extended stop-over in Munich before making the final leg of the flight home.
There was a thunderstorm here at Oliver Tambo airport in Johannesburg, but the sky seem to be all clear now with beautiful pinks and blues.Bead work art from the Out of Africa airport store.I am sure these masks are ‘imports’ from central and west Africa. We don’t really have these in South Africa.Hmm. How many monkeys on the sofa? And will there be one more if I sit on it? These are a classic, carved giraffes also from the Out of Africa store.It’s 10 h 35 mins to Munich (the map should say Johannesburg to Munich, of course. A little glitch with the route map on the SAA web site).
This is the exit gate at Oliver Tambo International airport in Johannesburg’s parking garage. I am sure my American readers will appreciate the spiked barrier and the ‘wait for the green robot’ instruction. (Don’t expect a green robot cross in front of the car. ‘Wait for the green robot’ is South African for ‘Wait for the green traffic light’. And I love those mean spikes that will puncture your car’s tires if you do not comply .. as if the boom is not enough!).
These cute baby Springboks (mascot of the national rugby football team) are for sale at the airport store.
The heat gave way to a cool rainy day in the Western Cape. I am at Cape Town international airport -heading north to Johannesburg on South African Airways* to visit a friend for a day or two.
*The national carrier is in financial trouble, but the South African government announced in October that it would provide US$ 600 million of financing over the next two years.
The view from the lounge at the airport. The lime green plane is from low-cost airline Kulula Air. The orange ones are from competitor Mango Airlines, started in 2006 as a subsidiary of South African Airways.
Check out my – lion – you did recognize it as a lion, right? : ) made from classic South African beaded artwork. It is my favorite Christmas present.
That’s what we call the day after Christmas Day in South Africa, too (after the British). The origins of the name Boxing Day seem uncertain. It is possibly derived from ‘Christmas box’ (present) and the cleaning up of debris, wrapping paper, and other remains of Christmas Day eating and drinking. So the year we called 2012 is running out – and so is my time on this trip to South Africa.
Royal apricots, that is. These are the last apricots of the season from the Montagu district, brought to us here in Stellenbosch by a family member. Apricot trees are of the species Prunus armeniaca, which means they are a type of prune, and that they are believed to originate from Armenia (although I see some web sources say China).
The little royal apricots smiling up at me (and blushing?) from where we stored them in the coolness of the fridge to make them last just a little longer.Wikipedia says Turkey is far and away the country with the largest apricot production. (The dot in the east of the USA is a little misleading since almost all apricots in the USA are produced in California). In Turkey they have a saying ‘the only thing better than this is an apricot in Damascus’, meaning ‘it doesn’t get any better than this’.
Giant strawberry on the Mooiberge farm office building.[Picture added 12/27] I stopped for a few pictures at the Mooiberge farm on Wednesday 12/26. Here is a strawberry field with lots of ‘scare crows’.The main entrance to the Mooiberge farm stall is on the right. There is a restaurant as well now. on the left.A ‘Men-In-Black’ insect sci-fi creature lounging against the tree.
One cannot miss the giant strawberries from the Mooiberge Farm Stall on the way from Stellenbosch to The Strand on the R44 road. They are in season here, and tourists can wander through the fields and pick them on Saturdays and Sundays, and pay by the kilogram. I hope they go and check now and again if there’s still some left! Meanwhile, CNN reported just today about strawberry plants in the southern town of Qaqoortoq in Greenland. With the warming of the climate there, they are being tested there to see whether they will survive the harsh winter, and they seem to survive so far. So quite possibly the Greenlanders will have strawberries of their own !
‘Happy End of the World’ ! .. come and celebrate with us, says this poster from a bar here in Stellenbosch.The Mayan glyphic symbol for one baktun (144 000 days).
The Mayan creation story holds that three unsuccessful worlds were created by the gods, each running for a cycle of 5,125 yrs (13 baktuns). Man was created in the fourth world that started around 3113 BC, and the fourth cycle ends 2012.12.21. (Today! Gasp!). Actually, it’s just the start of a new cycle, say many Mayan scholars. So just as the world did not come to an end on 12.31.1999, it probably will not come to an end today (but as of this writing, it is still Dec 21 west of me, so we’re not completely out of the woods yet! ).
The cover of the South African published book ‘Die Mooiste Sprokies van Grimm’ (‘The Fairest Fairy Tales of Grimm’).
The brothers Grimm’s fairy tales were first published in 1812, so this year marks their 200th anniversary.
I have had my eye on a South African publisher’s ‘Die Mooiste Sprokies van Grimm (2010)’ (The Fairest Fairy Tales of Grimm’) with illustrations by artist Piet Grobler for a while now, and today I finally purchased it.
This is my favorite picture in the whole book. Yes, that is Red Riding Hood. And check out the wolf’s long hairy ears, his sly eyes, his toe in the water, with the predator fish about to gobble up the innocent little one. The perfect undercurrent for what is about to transpire in the fairy tale !
May I present her majesty ‘Queen Victoria’ (Vicky), the blue Burmese cat? She was an addition made some 11 months ago (as a kitten) to my brother’s household in Australia. Queen Victoria treats her subjects with the disdain that they deserve : ). She is currently accommodated in a cat hotel with assurances of the caretaker that she will be given special attention.
P.S. [Picture and information from Wikipedia] Queen Victoria’s reign of 63 years and seven months (1837 – 1901) is longer than that of any other British monarch and the longest of any female monarch in history, and known as the Victorian era.
And here is the feline Queen Victoria’s ‘yes? can I help you?’ stare (or is it just that she is looking into the bright sunlight?).
Australia’s currency is the 5th most traded in the world (behind the US dollar, the Euro, the yen and the pound sterling). My brother brought back some Australian bank notes from his stay there. Hey, what’s that? I want it! I said when he opened his wallet, and promptly traded with him for South African rand. The surprising thing to me was that all the notes are in polymer, and have been like that for a long time, since about 1992. There were issues initially with colors fading and ink coming off, but those have all been resolved. The polymer bank notes last longer (than paper), are much harder to tear, more resistant to folding and soiling and are waterproof (and also washing machine proof). They are easy to process with teller machines or vending machines, and at the end of their life can be shredded and recycled. (Not bad. But even with all that, I wonder if Americans will ever bite and take to polymer money. We still refuse to let go of the paper dollar bill and make it into a coin).
Queen Elizabeth II on the front of the Aus $5 bill. Those are eucalyptus leaves (but where is the koala? I want a koala bear on there!).The building on the back looks like something out of Star Wars, but it is only Parliament House in the capital city of Canberra.On the Aus $10 note appears Andrew Barton (Banjo) Paterson (1864-1941) – author, journalist, composer, clerk, poet – who wrote about Australian life. I love the windmill in the see-through pane in the lower right corner.This is Mary Gilmore (1865 – 1962), a prominent Australian socialist poet and journalist.The Aus $50 note. From Wikipedia : David Unaipon (born David Ngunaitponi) (1872 – 1967) is a widely known indigenous Australian of the Ngarrindjeri people, a preacher, inventor and writer. He broke many indigenous Australian stereotypes.
Edith Cowan (née Brown) (1861 – 1932) was an Australian politician, social campaigner and the first woman elected to an Australian parliament. The five stars in the pane are the Southern cross, the smallest of the 88 modern constellations, and known to every good boy scout in South Africa and Australia.
I see a 100°F/ 38°C for Friday in the weather forecast here! .. so best to lie low in the shade of a house or a tree, right? And drink lots of water, juice and iced tea.
Weather forecast in Celsius.Weather forecast in Fahrenheit.
The ‘Whispers of Summer’ juice blend is one of my favorites.I love this turquoise can of iced tea with the red letters ‘Bos’ (‘Bush’) and the lion that makes me think of Louis the Lowveld Lion.And here is Louis the Lowveld (‘Low Lands’)Lion, created in 1974 by cartoonist Wim Bosman. (Bilharzia is a tiny parasitic worm. I think that’s a hippopotamus that surprises the baboon).
Sunday was another beautiful blue-sky day here in the Western Cape. My brothers and I went to lunch with our cousin at the wine estate of Vergelegen (Dutch for ‘far away’). A little bit of history : in 1700, Dutchman and Cape colony Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel was granted the property of Vergelegen. He set out to build a main house and others in a style under the Renaissance influence of wealthy estates and palaces in Europe at the time. However, his lavish spending on the property and other actions trying to establish a monopoly in the trade of wine and meat for himself caused a revolt under the free ‘burghers’ (independent farmers), and led to his recall and return to the Netherlands in 1707. The estate was sold several times after that, most recently to the mining company Anglo-American in 1987. At that time wine was no longer produced, but within ten years the estate was recognized as producing some of South Africa’s finest wines.
This is the ‘library’. It used to be a wine cellar, but is now lined with book cases and books, and there is a very old pool table inside on the lower level.
Vergelegen (‘far away’) wine estate is marked ‘A’ on the map. It is on the outskirts of Somerset West, a short drive from Cape Town and Stellenbosch.This is a scene of the surrounding landscape depicted in an old painting from inside one of the buildings (I did not note the artist). It still looks like this to this day.This is the herb garden with its neatly-trimmed hedges in the foreground. The ‘Stables’ restaurant building where we had lunch is on the left and the reception/ wine tasting building on the right.The 2012 Sauvignon Blanc was a little ‘young’ but crisp and citrussy. They had none left of earlier vintages!Here is the main house, viewed from within the large octagonal walled garden in front of it.Some – not all – of the lunch party. That’s me on the left, two of my brothers to the right of me, and my cousin and her husband.These camphor trees are from China and Japan and were planted between 1700 and 1706 on the Vergelegen estate. They were declared National Monuments in 1942.The window frames, clapboards and outdoor furniture pieces are well-maintained and in great shape.
(Late post). South African President Jacob Zuma is facing a challenge for leadership of his party (the African National Congress) at the ANC conference that is currently underway. He has come under fire for his leadership as President – or the lack thereof – in the face of challenges such as the slowing economy, joblessness and spiraling corruption and waste in the South African government. The picture from the Financial Mail is from an event in November at his home in Nkandla, a village in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Mr Zuma will nonetheless probably be re-elected ANC party leader, virtually assuring him of another term as the country’s president from 2014, due to the ANC’s overwhelming political dominance.
P.S. The internet problem here has been solved. (Yay!). The visitors here at the family residence with all their wi-fi devices gobbled up all of the monthly data allotment from the internet service provider in one week (of course).
[Front page of the Financial Mail magazine] Can South Africa endure seven more years of Zuma? asks the Financial Mail magazine. Mr Zuma is wearing a traditional Zulu warrior leopard skin jacket and brandishing an assegai (a light spear for close combat).
I’m making this post from my cell phone. The Internet has been down here the last two days. aargh. It’s a DSL connection. The ISP says it’s the phone company, and we have already established that the addition of two iPads, two iPhones and two notebook computers to the wifi router is actually NOT the problem!
