Dublin - IREland

IRE - 1. Violent or unrestrained anger 2. A strong feeling of displeasure or hostility

We had quite an experience in Dublin, IREland last weekend. I tagged along with Michael to go see his friends from college, Adrian and Beth Calcaneo. Beth and Adrian had a close encounter with some of this anger and hostility, but were lucky enough to miss the worst of it.

This was only my second time being in a car where the driver is on the right hand side. It was so strange sitting in the back seat observing the traffic.

They even help out the tourists by reminding them to look left for traffic when crossing the street.

We started off our weekend in Dublin by going to Jameson. We toured the old Jameson distillery that has now been turned in to a museum. We volunteered to be a part of the taste test at the end of the tour. We had a scotch, Jameson, and Jack Daniels to test. I definitely enjoyed the Jameson the most and scotch the least. After the taste test we had our choice of Jameson drinks from around the world; Cranberry/Jameson, Apple Juice/Jameson, GingerAle/Jameson, and Coke/Jameson. I think the Cranberry and Jameson may be my new drink.

Our day continued with consuming local favorites in Dublin. I had the best fish and chips that I have ever eaten. The fish was smoked and then fried. Delicious. In the afternoon we headed over to the Guinness Brewery. I was not a big fan of Guinness, but this changed my mind.

Beth guessed a trivia question correctly and was selected to start the next brew of Guinness. She got to wear a fancy lab coat and push a button that started the next brew.

At the end of the Guinness tour, you finally get your fresh glass of Guinness. We had a great view of Dublin from the top of the tower.

Our bartender made the clover leaf on our beers!

Anyone else notice something wrong with this picture? I guess after a tour of Jameson and Guinness you may think that gravity goes up!

Ever get frustrated that your mixed drink has too much or too little alcohol? Most of the bars had their bottles hooked up to these funnels that poured the perfect sized shots. Their bottles even had the labels switched so you could read them when they were hooked up to these shot pourers.

The Blue Goose! Christoph´s car in the U.S. was named the blue goose.

There were bachelorette parties everywhere in Dublin. This was the most normal looking one we found.

Believe it or not, there is more to Dublin than the drinking and eating. Below are a few pictures of some of the sightseeing that we did, but check out the links at the end for more pictures.

Dublin had several very pretty churches that we were able to see. Albums below have more pictures.

The city of Dublin wasn't the prettiest city I had ever seen, but the flowers on all of the buildings were impressive.

There were bright colored doors everywhere in Dublin.

Beth at the river. Adrian´s camera can take great panoramas.

Michael and I at the river in Dublin.

This narrow alley used to be where people carried in all of the goods off of the ships that came in to the Dublin port.

Check out the links below for more pictures of the weekend.

My Photos -

Dublin

Michael´s Photos - http://picasaweb.google.com/msfoss/DublinIrelandJul25272008

I do not think I would go back to Dublin, but I will definitely go back to Ireland to see the rest of the country.

My favorite places in Munich

Check out the map below to see some of the places I frequent most in Munich. You can zoom in to see more detail and click on the marker to see more information on the location. The information bubbles that appear may be too big for your screen so just click and drag the map in order to see the entire message. I found the link to the Larger Map to work best. Happy virtual traveling in Munich!


View Larger Map

Kocherlball

The Kocherlball tradition goes back to the year 1880. It is also known as the Dotschen. Until a police prohibition in 1904, thousands of Munich's soldiers, housemaids, cooks, hausdiener and house personnel met in the English Garden on Sunday mornings to eat, drink, and dance. They met so early because they had to return to their work again later in the morning. The tradition of these old Munich residents was revived again in the 1980's. Once a year in July, thousands of people return to the English Garden to continue the traditional celebration.

Check out this link for more pictures and history on the event. http://www.ganz-muenchen.de/gastro/biergarten/chinaturm/kocherlball.html



On Saturday Celine and I bought our first dirndls, Bavarian dress. The more traditional dresses are longer, but we both found shorter dresses that suited us just fine. After much debate, we found the perfect dirndls!

Celine and I met at 5AM on Sunday morning. When we got to the English Garden it was almost full already.

The sun began to rise already around 6AM.

Celine packed us a delicious breakfast. In the beer gardens you are allowed to bring in your own food, but you have to buy your drinks there. Weisswurst is the traditional meat to eat at breakfast. Before refrigeration they used to make the Weisswurst fresh everyday so you had to eat it by noon before it spoiled. The tradition stuck.

It rained, again.



This guy and his wife were two of the best dancers. Here he is teaching another young couple how to do one of the traditional dances.

After I had a rather awkward dance with a stranger, Celine and I watched the rest of the dancing from the side.

Celine with a drink in hand.

I am all set for Oktoberfest now!

A rainy weekend in Munich

Rain and more rain...

It has rained for the last two weekends. My coworkers are convinced that I brought the rain with me because it was great weather before I came.

The kids in the city couldn't seem to get enough of the water. We had to cancel our rafting trip for the weekend, but we found plenty of other sights to see in the city.

Christopher Street Days (Gay Pride Celebration) was going on this weekend so we had to fight our way through the parade in order to find Maggie, our weekend tour guide. At least it was sunny for a few hours!

BMW World and BMW Museum

New BMW owners can come to BMW World to have lunch, get their picture taken, and pick up their car that is on display to everyone else there.

My 2nd favorite car. You would think this would be great for parallel parking, right? Nope. The door is the front of the car so you have to leave plenty of room to swing the entire thing open in order to get out.

Now this is my kind of car! Just a concept car at the moment though.

All of the different models and colors of BMW since 1970 were on display.

Clay model that they use to design the new cars.

A really old, fancy car? Sorry to all of you car lovers, you are going to have to come to the museum yourself rather than relying on my memory of what I saw there.

It was still raining on Sunday so Maggie arranged for one of her friends that is studying Art History to give us a tour of the Neue Pinakothek. The art museum had a good variety of paintings. Below are some of our favorites.

Van Gogh´s Sunflowers

I was impressed with this painting and how thick the paint was. (Mel, I even remembered this as a part of my art lessons from you in Chicago)

The German´s were not too impressed with mine and Michael´s pronunciation of his name. Apparently Van should not be said just like the vehicle van.

German pronunciation - Von Gogh (with the Gogh being a long O sound but said really quickly)
Dutch pronunciation - Von Gogchhhh (Gogh is way deep in the back of your throat)

This painting by Giovanni Segantini was one of my favorites. This doesn't do the picture justice, but in person the grass in the bottom is multi-colored with tons of detail through out.

What do you think is happening in this picture? Our group had a great debate over it.

1. The man is admitting he had an affair, but saying that it is over now. ~Maggie
2. The man has just come home from a long day of work is looking for his wife to console him. ~Michael
3. The man is telling his wife that he just lost his job. ~Maggie´s friend, the Art History Major
4. The woman does not believe what the man is telling her. The man is begging her to believe him. ~Christa

Turns out Michael and Maggie´s friend were both right. The painting is by Max Slevogt and called The Day´s Work Done.

Thanks for being a great tour guide this weekend Maggie!

Michael and I had a great weekend in Munich. I can´t wait for our next weekend trips together.

Deloitte Consulting Summer Outting

Last Friday afternoon we had a Summer Outing at a nearby lake. The afternoon was all about team events.

Event 1 : Swing from a rope and land in rubber circles with out falling or moving your feet. ehh, there were better events.

Event 2 : Flying Bridge. People on the ground pulled on ropes that moved the boards that were suspended about 20 feet in the air. one of our teammates had to walk across the boards. I stayed on the ground for this one.

Event 3 : Raft Building. This is the second time since I have moved here that I have built a raft. Our team clearly lost, but we had little Henry!

Event 4 : Golfing in the Woods. We were all given 6 irons and basically played miniature golf in the woods. Very, very strange.

The rest of the night we spent playing foosball, which the Germans call Kicker. I may not have done well at golf, but foosball is my game. Thank goodness for all of the practice at home when I was younger! I don't think they expected an American to be able to play so well. Just keep me away from an actual soccer ball.

Once again, another great event to meet more people at Deloitte.

Deutschland Football

The German soccer team made it to the Championship game of the Euro Cup. Maggie, a Deloitte HCAS practitioner and new best friend in Munich, took me to see the game at the Olympic Stadium.

We arrived at the stadium 3 hours before the game started. We spent all 3 hours cheering, singing, and drinking.

Everyone was dressed in black, red, and yellow from head to toe. I had a gold shirt so I was close.

They let 50,000 people enter the stadium to watch the game on two large screens.

Me, Sabine, and Maggie. Stephan and Sabine took this event as an opportunity to introduce the Caipirinha drink to me. Rum, brown sugar, and ice. Now that is one heck of a drink.

Game is about to start!

I think Jan took the loss the hardest.

What a great cultural immersion event! Even though we lost it was such a great experience to be cheering for our country. In the US most of us cheer for our university or professional team in our state. We rarely have the opportunity to cheer for our country.