Hanging with the Kellers and Signs of Spring

So this is what winter is supposed to be like in Germany. Last year we saw a few snow flakes that never accumulated, this year is a bit different. Our first snow was coming home from London after Christmas. That actually melted away after a week, a few days passed and then it snowed again. The snow piled up in our front garden has finally melted away after about six weeks. We had about a ten day stretch when there was some fresh snow each day. The season seems to be changing finally. This week we have had some days close to 60 degrees even if the night time temps are still dropping below freezing. There are early signs of spring with new growth out of the previously snow covered ground and even a few early flowers. Along with spring comes many things in Germany.

First of all the spring classical season has started. A few days ago Bernhard and Madelon attended a concert at the Cuvilliés Theatre at The Residenz in Munich. The Residenz is the massive palace in the middle of Munich that used to be the royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs. We have been there several times but never to a live concert at the cozy opera house. Before the concert we stopped off at a sushi restaurant near the theater. It was good fresh sushi even if the presentation and service was not the best. This was a Monday night so it was not exactly a hopping scene.

We got the tickets several months ago and booked it this far out to get the middle box seats. The picture above was taken in August of 2013 on our first visit to Munich. After dinner we arrived early enough to get a few pictures. Random people were walking into our box, up to the front to get a view of the whole house. They did not seem to be concerned if we wanted them there or not. Most of them would take a look and move on with one couple lingering a little too long. We told Bernhard and Madelon that this would never happen in venues like this in Dallas. The ticket people would keep people from getting to the box, much less letting them wander around. Get to your own seats people!!

The concert was nice and lasted about two hours with an intermission. It was a nice evening out.

Nuremberg Revisited:

One Sunday morning we got up and drove to Nuremberg with the Kellers. The Ferguson Four was here in November for the huge Christmas market along with a guided tour of the city. There were a couple of sites that we missed out on the first time and the Kellers had not been there before. That sounds like cause enough to make a day trip.
It was a rainy day so Madelon found an English guided tour of the Nuremberg underground. This city has a massive complex of underground tunnels. Originally they were used to store beer and were later converted to air raid shelters during the second world war.

In Germany, at least Bavaria, in the end it all comes back to beer. The tour was no exception as we concluded at the Hausbrauerei Altstadthof brewery. We even got to sample some of the whisky after the tour, bonus!!
We did get a chance to walk around the city center again. This time around on a rainy Sunday morning it was very empty, much different from our Christmas market day. We got to go inside the big cathedral and walked up the hill to the imperial castle area. We actually ended up at the same Spanish tapas restaurant the we ate at the first time. Bernhard and Madelon lived in Barcelona for a while and loved it, so they were excited about tapas in Nuremberg. After lunch we left the city center to check out a few places that were missed last time. The first was the Saint Johannis Friedhof cemetery.

It is a very large cemetery with a church just outside of the city center. It dates back to the early 1400's. While there we discovered that the famous German renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. There were signs pointing to his grave but we never actually found it. It was interesting that as old as this place is there were several graves recently added. The pictures of this place in the spring in summer are beautiful, on this day for our trip it was not so much. The dreary weather and the mostly dead flowers did add to the overall ambiance and made it part of the experience. I was glad we made the short stop.

The Ferguson group did see the former Nazi rally grounds last time but we missed the Zeppelinfeld area on the other side of a small lake. Many of the pictures that we saw at the Dokumentationszentrum museum at the rally grounds showed the Zeppelin field area with over 200,000 soldiers lined up listening to Hitler.

The central podium is still here unlike the rally ground area where it was torn down. Once again I was glad that we made the journey back over here to see it. We had a quick drive home to end our day trip.

This week Cindy had to go on another work trip. This time it was to Greenock Scotland for a three day trip. She is flying back tonight. Where is Greenock you say? From Munich she has to fly through Heathrow to get to Glasgow.

This is Katherine texting her a picture saying good night.

Here are a couple of pictures that she sent me. The first is from the hotel and the other is from the TI office.

It does not look like the Ferguson Four are going to make it to Scotland before our time is done in Germany. That is okay, I want to go there when my golf game is in peak form some day. Guy trip maybe? Anyone with me?

One more spring tradition in Bavaria has started. It is stark beer season again. Stark beer is the very heavy high alcohol content beer only produced during the lent time of year. It was originally produced for the monks to have a lot of calories during this time when they fasted. Now it is a reason to make beer as strong as wine and have a festival. With the 1 liter mugs a single beer has more alcohol than a bottle of wine. These crazy Germans and their beer, might as well join in I guess.