Week 5: Cavalluna, Auer Dult and the Marionette Theater!

A few weeks ago we were on the U-bahn and saw a commercial for a live horse show (like a theater production, but with horses) called Cavalluna Kids. We surprised the girls with tickets and a backstage tour in which we got to meet all the horses in the show. It turns out only about 30% of the tour was in the stable and the rest involved the guide giving what we assume were fascinating tidbits about the show and it’s actors, though it was in german so we couldn’t understand a word of it.  

We did get to meet these special friends, who were absolute STARS in the show. The show itself was a storyline about a horse academy (again, didn’t get much of that part!) with interspersed dressage, jumping and rodeo. We all loved it! 

On Sunday we headed over to the Auer Dult festival in the neighborhood south of us (the “Au”). The Auer Dult has been held three times a year for over 100 years, though the very first Dult was actually held in 1310. The word “Dult” originally meant church festival, but now it means something more like “fair.”  It’s filled with shopping, food, and rides for kids. Apparently it’s the largest ceramic market in the country and we took the opportunity to buy a beautiful butter crock. 

We were all happy to get back into the “regular” routine after the girls’ two week break from school. 

Update: Room-sharing took a turn for the worse this week. Poor Eden really needs a LOT of sleep (like me!) and Hadley has been waking her up every morning. Today she took Eden’s reading light, turned it on, and shouted, “Expecto patronum!!” at her (a Harry Potter spell if you didn’t know). Eden was NOT pleased. Earlier this week Hadley’s response to waking Eden up was, “but I was singing a really nice song about juggling at the circus!” That kid! 

At some point I’ll give a longer update about the work of it all (the reason we’re here!), but for now I’ll say that it’s all going very well. The Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) has two locations, each of which have regular rotating art exhibits. When I was here in December, they had both Matisse and Picasso on exhibit (I know!!!) and now it’s two local artists. The current exhibit at my office is by Frederich Scheuer and features over 50 paintings. The odd part is that I’m usually the only person in my office to enjoy them. 

Thursday was Germany’s Labor Day so the girls did not have school. Stores and restaurants were closed, but the biergartens were open (and very, very crowded). We went to the Hirschau biergarten in the Englisch Garden, along with the rest of Munich. It took 40 minutes to stand in line to get our food and drinks. There was a band playing all the American classics (at the moment this picture was taken, they were singing “do the mashed potato…”). Sidenote: I’ve heard exclusively American music (mostly from 20+ years ago) while here. I was at a cafe recently and the woman told me she didn’t speak English, but later I heard her enthusiastically singing along to “Total eclipse of the heart.” 

It was so warm (almost 80 degrees) that Eden decided to dip her toes into the Isar River on our way back to the bus stop.

The girls are a little sick of each other so we decided to divide and conquer on Saturday and give them each one on one time with us. Eden needed new shoes so we headed downtown and got tea and waffles, visited the Harry Potter store, taste-tested and bought some really fancy chocolate and got her new kicks.  We met Jake and Hadley at the Munchner Marionettentheater for a delightful show called “Haunted in the Toy Store.” It’s the oldest puppet theater in any german-speaking country (built in 1900) and was quite impressive. I’d say Jake and I understood about 25% of the script (helpful that the pace of the speech was directed at kids) and the girls seemed to understand enough of the storyline to enjoy the show.

Always with the poses!!

We followed this up by a delicious dinner at a specialty schnitzel restaurant downtown. The girls are becoming restaurant champs- Jake and I were able to drink our aperol spritz’ and chat without interruption! 

Cultural Observations

Brick and Mortar Specialty Shops: We’ve noticed far fewer one-stop shops in Munich and instead, many, many specialty shops. When we first got here, I asked at the department store if they had children’s shoes and she looked at me oddly responding that I’d need to go to a children’s shoe store for that. I’ve seen all kinds of very specific shops- a non-clothing maternity store filled with compression socks, birthing balls, a doppler (that’s just what i saw from the window), watch stores, an aquarium store, a praline store, etc. It’s not that we *don’t* have specialty stores in the US, just not nearly as many. My impression is also that online shopping isn’t as popular here. Featured pic combining cultural observations: a dog off-leash in a specialty store.  

Brot: Germans sure do love their brot (bread) and not just brezelyn (pretzels). I read that there are 3,000 different types of bread made in Germany- more than any other country in the world. We’ve been fully partaking in this aspect of the culture and gotten our daily bread from the backerei most days- rolls, baguettes, loaves, you name it! There is a much smaller selection of pre-packaged sliced breads in the grocery store since everyone just buys fresh. Hence why we needed to buy a butter crock!

Sundays: It’s a nationwide law that (almost) everything is closed on Sundays: Grocery stores, most restaurants, shops, etc.  You know what’s not closed? The bakeries (although they are only allowed to be open for 4 hours). It doesn’t seem like an issue for the grocery store closed on Sunday, but since we can only buy one bag’s worth of groceries at at time, it can be a little tricky to plan ahead. We’re learning to embrace the family time and low key nature of Sundays. 

Thanks for reading! Next up: Fruhlingsfest (the “little sister” of Oktoberfest).