Mozart in Munich #2: What's the Wurst That Could Happen?

Excuse the pun.

On the way out, while waiting to hand in my key, the woman at the desk suddenly turned from the Mancunian guests she was checking in and barraged me with a stream of German that, once I processed it, was roughly equivalent to, “I forgot to tell you, when you arrived, that breakfast will be along the corridor on the left, in a room on the last right, and is served from seven to ten.” Maybe she didn’t think I was that stupid after all.

I found my way up to Heiliggeistkirche in good time. I, being obsessive in my organization, had found a photo of Heiliggeistkirche on the internet (and not the one in Heidelberg either – first hurdle), which featured prominently a hedge with a bicycle stand. I sent Danny this picture, and expressed every confidence that we might rendezvous there. Being also extremely incompetent, however, naturally the hedge was on the other side of a biergarten, having been brought to Heiliggeistkirche by the magic of the telephoto lens. At the very moment Danny was discovering this, I was circling Heiliggeistkirche looking for foliage. We did meet, though! Turns out I had consistently typed Heilsgeistkirche (a small but significant detail), but luckily Danny has a perfectly functional brain of his own, and was happy to use it in the absence of mine.

The Heiliggeistkirche confusion occurred as the name – which means the Church of the Holy Spirit in German – kept coming out of my mouth as “Heilsgeschichtekirche”, though I knew that was wrong. “Heilsgeschichte” in biblical studies means “Salvation history”, and is a way of approaching books like Chronicles. I could go on, but I would be even more boring than usual. I explained all the to-ing and fro-ing involved in my getting the name right (gerund! Love them) to Alissa on the bus to London, and somehow we decided it made an excellent exclamation, in the vein of Alissa's“Holy Geschichte, Batman”, which is funny if you’re a biblical scholar. Actually, it’s pretty hilarious, though when you dissolve into giggles over it, normal people tend to look at you funny.

Right, so having met Danny, we decided we were both hungry, so before we went very far we found a beer garden and settled in. Wurst abounded, mine with bread, Danny’s with sauerkraut (how German), and beer flowed. Well, Danny had one, and so did a lot of other people, so it counts. It was a good chance to catch up with the life of a foreign language student, especially as it was nearly two months since I dropped Danny and Jeremiah at the airport to go to France.

There was an organ concert at Frauenkirche, and being generally enthusiastic about culture, we went along. On the way, I had my first sighting of Marienplatz, complete with a – probably foreign and mission-trip-related – group of people, in garishly coloured outfits, brandishing large placards in German and English that read “Jesus Loves You”. Love the sentiment, not sure about the design choices – electric green and sunshine yellow. Yikes. They were wearing T-shirts that read, “Will I See You In Heaven?” to which we had definite, if distinct reactions. Danny’s was more about theological questioning, whereas mine was, “Well, I’m planning to be there; I don’t know about you.” I should probably be kept away from well-meaning people.

We reached Frauenkirche, where Danny was able to show off his language skills at the ticket desk (it’s nice to travel with an interpreter). We discovered that being too obliging isn’t necessarily helpful when trying to decide where to sit, but quickly realised that it doesn’t really matter at an organ concert. It was a great performance(details to follow), and we both particularly liked the Elgar. There was a more modern piece called “Kreuzweg” which I found really interesting, especially to trace the theme of the way of the cross through the music.

After the concert we went wandering, back through Marienplatz and all around the centre. I saw so many things! Here’s me approaching Feldherrnhalle, and the building itself, based on a similar structure in Florence – though I’m almost positive that it’s bigger than the real one!

We passed the Residenz, the former palace of the king of Bavaria:

And the opera house!

The garden of the Residenz was all green and shady, what I had come to really appreciate in a park, though as the sun was setting it didn’t matter all that much. We wandered around and happened upon a salsa dancing event of some sort, which provided a few minutes’ entertainment.

Then we continued into the southern end of the English Garden, a cool green place (okay, yes, now that the sun had gone down), and stopped at a bridge over what looked a bit like a large puddle, but had been a raging torrent when Danny was last there – the heavy rain before his arrival and the heatwave before mine clearly having a dramatic effect. Looks pretty, anyway, and who doesn’t love a park by streetlamp? There were these odd newty-type things that I need to remember to look up.

Turning around, we passed the American consulate, or rather the security cordon around it – the consulate itself appeared to be several days’ hike away. Poor Danny had already had to go in there. As it was getting late (not to mention dark) and Danny had homework, we walked back towards my hotel, then round it a couple of times before I found the door (which, of course, we had passed before I realised where we were). As a result of this, Danny suggested that I should perhaps not leave the hotel again until he picked me up in the morning. I think he was joking. He’s had a couple of kind of unfortunate encounters with my sense of direction lately.

I had yet another shower and found an episode of Buffy on the TV – Season Six dubbed into German. I love Buffy in any language, and was amused by the voice they had given Tom Lenk, but I didn’t get very far before giving up, defeated by a combination of Deutsch-fatigue and regular fatigue. Slept.

Read on: Mozart in Munich #3: Sparkly, Pretty Things