Girls Go Wild in Munich (no, not really)

I spent the weekend in Munich with three girlfriends.  It was a somewhat unusual girls' weekend in that three of the girls are in their thirties ... and one of the girls is one, my delightful god-daughter Milly.

What are the sights of Munich?  I couldn't really say.  Apart from the pilgrimage to remember Sophie Scholl, mostly we wandered and ate and ate and wandered - oh, and took naps, as when they were needed.  (See if you can spot the napper in the photo below.)

I did like the Munich habit of lining up seats outside cafes to face the sun.  One place had wooden deck chairs arranged in rows, all facing the beautiful golden Theatinerkirche.

The effect (especially with the red blankets people draped around themselves) was a bit like being on an ocean liner.

I discovered a new aperitif: Aperol spritz - Aperol (a little like Campari but not quite so herbal) with sparkling wine and water.

We discovered that it's verboten to feed the ducks in the Englischer Garten.  (There was a classic moment of English - German cultural division when Milly tried but was gently admonished by the police.  That said, the police were on horses, the excitement of which which made up for any sting.)

And we all remembered how good German breakfasts are (my friend Wiebke's favourite cafe is Cafe Schwabing.  Tell them she sent you.)

And ... that was the kind of weekend it was.  Simple pleasures, shared with good friends.

Sophie Scholl

In Munich at the weekend I made sure to pay my respects to Sophie Scholl (the sign below reads 'Scholl-Siblings Place'.)

Being a capricious, not to say precocious, young lady, I marched into my Leaving Cert German oral and talked to the examiner about Sophie Scholl.  The phrase that specifically sticks in my memory is 'sie ist hingerichtet worden' - German for 'she was executed'.  (No, I haven't had cause to use it since.)  So who was Sophie Scholl, why was she executed and why was I, aged 18, preoccupied with these things?

As a student at Munich University in the early 1940s, Sophie became a member of the White Rose, an anti-Nazi student group.  They clandestinely distributed leaflets urging Germans to passively resist the Nazis.  The group was caught distributing the sixth of these leaflets - Sophie herself flinging some from the top of a staircase in the university (I can see this so clearly in my mind's eye: the leaflets fluttering down, beautiful and liberating and terrifying, all at the same time.) For this crime Sophie, her brother and other members of the group were beheaded.  She was just 21 when she died.  


Her last words, to her cellmate - 


"Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?"


At 18, Sophie Scholl was my heroine.  You can draw a direct line from her to the Lady Travellers who feature in these pages: all possessors of a crusading spirit.

View from the Black Cab

When newly arrived in London, whether as a tourist or a young Lady Traveller embarking on one's first Real Job, the temptation is to take the underground everywhere.  The advantage being that the stops are very clear and you don't have to struggle to navigate yourself around the mean streets.  A little experience teaches you that overground is much more interesting: I always felt (and feel) London is like a beautifully put-together shop window.  Always interesting things to catch your eye, no matter where you look.

Back in the day, I learned how the pieces of London fit together by walking everywhere.  A very rare treat was to take a black cab somewhere.  Yesterday though (and being slightly more solvent now than then), I indulged by getting a taxi from Chelsea to Tower Bridge.  It was a beautiful spring day and so I took some photos.

Borough Market

Yesterday my friend Fan and I (plus her lovely baby girl) paid a visit to Borough Market. Tucked under the railway arches at London Bridge, the market has grown from a small farmer's market to a sprawling foodie's paradise.

I used to work nearby, and Fan lived nearby, so this was a nostalgic treat for both of us.

First stop: Monmouth Coffee, where baby made friends and helped secure seats.

Then we went around the corner to Neal's Yard Dairy for a nose-clearing inhale of strong cheeses. We resisted the urge to buy all around us, coming away with just a loaf of bread.

We took a tour of the market, me making sure to stick my head into the glorious Brindisa shop because I love their displays so.

And then - well then we decided it would be pure foolishness not to have lunch at Tapas Brindisa since we were nearby. So we did.

It's A Sign!

Actually several.  I became quite obsessive about taking photographs of signs in Hong Kong.  What do they say?  No idea - but they're purty!  Fingers crossed that they represent good omens and a sunny weekend.

St Patrick's Day Parade

Or as it now seems to be officially called, the St Patrick's Day Festival Parade.

This year I was seized with an urge to attend the parade on St Patrick's Day.  I hadn't been for 20 odd years and the last time I went it consisted of some bands, some majorettes shipped from overseas and some random Americans.  (Being American was so glamorous in our eyes that it seemed obvious that any American tourist should be eligible to march in the parade.)  I also remember it being very cold and not being able to see much over people's heads.

So what's changed?  Well, the parade now consists of lots of street-theatre style floats paying tribute to Celtic mythology (and also, confusingly, this year there was a Science theme so you got Vikings explaining where electricity comes from...), plus bands, majorettes, dancers and my Cousin John playing a drum in a boiler suit.  (I said to my friend, 'hey, that guy looks like my Cousin John', then got home and spoke to John's sister and discovered that it was, in fact, he.  Ireland is ridiculously small.)

You'll note that I still had to peer over people's heads.

I was glad I went, though obviously what I should have brought was my own ladder (excellent example of Dublin ingenuity):



However, when I went home and watched Flight of the Doves I realised that in my heart of hearts, the parade I was hoping for looks something like this:

Good Hope

Since we were staying in Kowloon (the tip of the Chinese peninsula that practically touches Hong Kong island) we decided to explore the streets of Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok.  Just a few minutes up Nathan Road takes you from Gucci and Cartier to the narrow, smelly and chaotic streets where you can buy paper votives for the dead, designer handbags of dubious origin and souvenirs at a fraction of the price you'd pay in Hong Kong airport.

We pushed our way up to the Ladies' Market, then, exhausted, decided we needed to eat.  I persuaded my sister that we should go to Good Hope noodle, for no other reason than it was in the guidebook.  (I have great faith in guidebooks.)  I think we both had some doubts when we saw the interior (slightly grubby, the decor was the shabby end of shabby chic) but decided that since it was jammed full of locals it must be ok.  

Warned by our previous experience, we did rinse the chopsticks in boiling water but the noodles, when they arrived, were really good.  And we've lived to tell the tale so it seems that the tip was worth following, after all.

 (Ró looking slightly nervous...)