VISITING AUTHOR/EDITOR ARTICLE

JANUARY  2009

Our Trip to Germany

By Bob Walter

Forwarded From Trenton Donauschwaben

Kim and I had the great opportunity of traveling to Germany with the German Hungarian Schuhplattler dance Group. They had won 1st Place in the North American competition in 2007 and were invited to perform in Munich.

The first day we arrived in Munich and had lunch at the famous Hofbrauhaus, where we enjoyed our first Mass of good German beer and did some shopping. That same evening, we boarded another plane and flew to Vienna for a couple of days.  We took a bus tour and then did some major walking.  We enjoyed the Audio tour of the palace Schon Brun and had dinner in Grunzing (The wine region) where we had a family style feast and fresh local wine.

On Friday we visited St. Stephen’s Cathedral and took a small elevator up to the bell tower and took some nice photos of the city. Friday night, we flew back to Munich and checked into hotel Monaco. The hotel had nice rooms, but the elevator only held three people. We went to dinner at the Augustiner Brauhaus a few blocks from our hotel, and of course had some more beer.

On the way back to the hotel I had a barber cut UGH in the back of my HAIR my way of showing support for the dancers competing the next day. Our hotel did not have a bar and although I knew it would be an early night because of the competition. We still had a lot of ironing to do. I purchased the case of 16 ounce loose cans and brought it back to the hotel for everyone.

Saturday we went in taxis to Heide Volm for the Schuhplattler competition at 9 AM. The hall was full when we arrived. I think we might have even been last to arrive. Our dance group did not perform until around two o’clock, but the rest of us started drinking at around 9:30 AM.  There were 16 groups competing and United German Hungarian’s placed sixth. They were the only group from North America. We went back to the hotel around 7 PM and I passed out for a couple of hours,  Maybe it was the beer. When I woke up at 10 I found a note from Kim that said everyone was at the bar around the corner. I ventured out to meet up with the group and to find some more beer and food. There was a table full of older gentlemen sitting near us and we sang some old German songs with them. The bar maid had to keep turning down the music that was playing in the bar.

On Sunday, we hopped on a train to go to Ulm to visit the Donauschwaben museum. We arrived in Ulm at 12 o’clock and walked to the old section and had lunch and more beer in a restaurant right next to the Donau River. After lunch we walked along the Donau to the Donauschwaben memorial and found some commemorative plaques on the wall, one from each area of the Donau.

Then we had a guided tour of the Donauschwaben Museum, which had many photos and artifacts dating back a couple hundred years.  Later, we walked to a church, which is said to have the tallest steeple in the world. This church took over 500 years to build and was built entirely out of stone. I’m sure one of you know the name of this church. We had another hearty meal and lots of “Ein Prosit” at a small restaurant along a creek.

We made our way back to Munich by train, and a few of us had some beers in a bar car of the train. Kim’s side note, these few had so many beers that they almost missed the stop and came running through the train trying to get back to us, shouting “Entschuldigung, Entschuldigung, Bitte Entschuldigung”.  It was actually hysterical to see.

Back to Bob’s story!

Sunday morning, we ventured out to do some Dirndl shopping at a store that a local man told us about a few of the ladies in the group bought a dirndl and Kim bought two.  NO,  Bob bought Kim 2 on top of the one Bob bought in Munich for Kim.

Thank you Bob!!!!!!

I found a vest and two shirts at another store and a really cool pair of boots. At one o’clock we were on a train headed to Garmisch in the south. We arrived at our Gasthaus on St Ludwigsstrasse at around four o’clock to check in and had a beer at tables right out on the street. Later we had reservations at another Gasthaus down the street because ours was closed on Mondays.

Tuesday we chose to go to the top of the Zugspitze (the tallest mountain in Germany), and we got lucky with the great clear day and took some wonderful pictures. Tuesday night we had dinner in our own Gasthaus and the food was great.

On Wednesday some of us traveled to Mittenwald and went to the violin museum there and did some more shopping. We had lunch at a street café because it was so nice out no jackets were even needed, that’s how warm it was. We headed back to Garmisch for our last dinner in Germany.  Of course, we had some more beer and shots at another Gasthaus after dinner.

On Thursday we started our long trip home. One train to Munich and another to the airport then the wonderful security checkpoints. It was a great trip, with wonderful planners, Great accommodations,  lots of Trains, totally great food, and more beer than Kim could have imagined drinking.

Heide Volm    http://www.heidevolm.de/

Slide Show from Gauverband Nordamerika

http://www.gauverband.com/cms/index.php?set_albumName=BayerischeLoewe2008&option=com_gallery&Itemid=43&include=slideshow.php

Heide Volm Gasthaus