Frauenkirchen and the devil's footprint

Frauenkirchen, a magnificent church was built by in only 20 years (1468-1488) and have a lot of stories about why that is so. One such story goes thus -

It is said that this church was built by the devil himself. 

One day while the church was being built, the devil had come to Munich to meet his friends and have a beer or two (of course the story that I was told by the local however factious had to have beer in it.) When the devil passed by the church, it was not yet complete and the devil being the devil decided to raze the church to the ground. When he went inside one of the entrances, he realised that there were not many windows. The place when fully built would be dark and damp. He thought that when the worshipers would come to this place, due to less light and dampness would fall sick and eventually die early. The devil thought that such a place would surely be a tribute to himself. He went to the architect and offered him a deal. The devil asked that if the architect did not add any more windows to the church then in return he would offer riches and fame to the architect. The devil would also help the architect to build the church in the span of just 20 years. The architect took the deal and built the church.

20 years later when the devil returned and entered the church, he saw that there was plenty of light and the church contained a lot of tall windows. He was angry and went to the architect. The devil now wanted to take the architect's soul as he had broken the deal.

The architect though stopped the devil and said 'I did not break the deal. Your condition was that I should not add any more windows to the church and I did not'. 

You see 20 years prior the devil had entered the church from the entrance where the architect's ingenuity had placed the columns in such a way that it hid all the windows except the one above the altar. Now when the church was built, the devil entered the church from another entrance and did not see the same columns hiding the windows. 

The devil was himself duped by a mere human. He was so angry that he stomped his foot in the church and till today you can see his footprint in the church.

The other story is that the footprint inside the church is that of the architect. Instead of signing his work at a corner, he put his footprint as a signature. But you decide which story you find more interesting.

Hofbräuhaus - the famous tavern in Munich

This is the world's most celebrated beer hall, and has a very interesting history and yet again stories surrounding it.

During the early periods after the house opened, men (women were not allowed in) used to drink inside the house and had to go out to relieve themselves, a natural after effect of consuming large quantities of the golden liquid. One can still see a narrow gutter running outside the house which was perhaps being used. There were however a few problems with this solution of urinating outside, you could lose your seat inside the house and may as well your beer. To counter this problem they engineered a better solution, a gutter inside the house running right beneath the tables. All one had to do was to relieve oneself freely as and when pressure was felt, wearing the lederhosen was ideal (or perhaps invented) just for this reason. 

This solution however had a bigger disadvantage- one of splash-back which means all your mates and other people sitting around you would be soon feeling wet around their legs, which presumably was not ideal. Someone invented an idea to circumvent the splash-back problem- a stick that you use to wave around under the table just before letting yourself go so that your mates have enough warning to lift their legs up when they feel the knock of the stick on their sheens. Not the best German engineering, and it was not before someone, an old man a regular himself found another idea which could solve both the problems of splash back and getting hit on your legs the whole day. It was a novel idea indeed which he announced excitedly one day out of the blue by standing on one of the tables. The idea was that of a twirling stick that you could use to pee which would help the liquid down its way to the gutter in a more controlled manner avoiding any splash back whatsoever. 

There is another tradition which perhaps started here more out of necessity. It is that of the last bell also known as the wash. The first bell meant more as a soft warning to get your final drinks and prep to leave. The second bell was a warning because that meant you had only a minute to leave before they flood the floor to wash down all the waste out of gutters. It was meant to cleanse the place before it started all again the next day. 

Mariensaule- how it came to be...

I was told of this very nice story by one of the tour guides that I would love to share about  Mariensaule or Mary's column in Marienplatz, Munich.

The 30 years war lasted from 1608 to 1638, where the Swedish forces raped and pillaged various towns and cities. 

The locals were afraid for their lives and decided to build a wall around the city to defend themselves. However, before the wall was completed, the Swedish forces had already arrived at their doorstep. When they reached Munich, the forces, like several other people, fell in love with the city and did not want to destroy it. In exchange of not destroying the city, they asked the locals to give them 300,000 coins. Now the locals gave up a lot of their treasures but still could come up with only about 100000 coins. They went to the Swedish forces and requested that with this amount that they had collected, they would like to offer the forces their liquid gold - beer. The Swedes took their offer and left Munich without spilling a single drop of blood.

The locals decided to celebrate the victory by having a celebration at Marienplatz. Now the elector Maxmilian 1 had left Munich city when the Swedes had arrived. After hearing of their return, the elector rode back to the city with all his forces. The locals, though we're very angry that he had left the city in its hour of need and refused to let him celebrate with them. Max, though, was a clever man - he said to the locals 'I had gone with my forces to the highest of the mountain in the Bavarian Alps, so that I could be close to the heavens. And here I prayed to the God to save the city'. The locals, gullible that they were, believed him and in order to honour him, asked that his golden statue be placed at the Marienplatz. However there was no money left anymore to make the statue. Again came Max to the rescue, and he said that 'we should thank the one person who saved us all, and that is not me but Mary. Instead of erecting my statue, we should have a golden statue of Mary'. This statue of Mary was already with Max and he erected  column in Marienplatz and placed the statue in top of it.

Munich Oktoberfest - stories that I heard in my travels..

Writing my first blog about Munich, I thought of starting with what every local loves to talk about - beer.

Munich is almost synonymous with Oktoberfest and during my visit to Munich City, I learned a lot of interesting stuff regarding this festival.

In 1810, when King Ludwig married princess Therese, as a gift for the bride the king bought a meadow for his bride. But women, as is the case, will never be impressed by a piece of land and the king had to improvise mentioning that this land would be named after the queen. When this too failed to impress the would be queen, the king declared that as part of the wedding celebrations he would throw a huge party for everyone. And it was a glorious celebration with drinking and dancing.
The next year, when it was time after the harvest, the people of Munich remembered this celebration and instead of having a smaller celebration went to the King requesting that he throw the same party as last year and thus the tradition of Oktoberfest began.

People from all around the world visit Munich during this time to enjoy the beer. But Americans and Aussies beware - 1 litre of Augustiner beer is equivalent to 9 bottled beers. So when the Aussies come to Oktoberfest, the Munich locals joke about the fact that they can't hold their beer. 

There are some quite interesting statistics about the Aussies that I was told about in my visit to the city. It is rumoured that when an Aussie comes to the Octoberfest, he is told to always keep track of 2 things - their passports and their children. Some of the statistics say that among the so many people of different nationalities that lose their passports during the fest, Aussies always make it to the top of the leaderboard. And 2 years back, out of 38 children in the lost and found booth, 27 of them were Aussies.

There is a funny story around why Aussies lose their passports, and it goes this way - it is believed that every year there is a competition among the the Bavarian towns. Each town appoint a woman leader, and during this fest whoever collects the maximum number of Aussie passports wins a big barrel of beer. Last year someone collected over 280 Aussie passports. How they managed to achieve this is a very good question 😉

Now in Germany, it is illegal to travel anywhere without an identification document. Unfortunately the closest Australian embassy that can provide replacement passports is a 7 hr train ride to Berlin. But Aussies, God bless them, are always the cheerful lot, and during the festival, they have a temporary embassy opened up within the UK embassy in Munich.
 That is quite awesome.

My pains of moving house in London

Moving houses is always a pain whether you are based in India or abroad. While in Bangalore, I had avoided that pain by extending my contract till I finally left Bangalore. But here in London, I was not so lucky.

I was staying in a one bedroom apartment in London, however since the house was located at the top of a typical English house, my room roofs were all slanted. Again this house was good enough when I was staying alone, but now that my husband was finally going to join me in London, I had to start looking for another house. And so started my search ...

I was supposed to work out of London for a period of 6 weeks, right bang at the time when I was supposed to be searching for a new house and shifting. At that time, my husband was also not based in London, so we had a span of 4 days (2 weekends) when we had to see the houses and finalise one. Yes, there are a couple of good websites that you can use when you are searching for houses but there is no guarantee that the houses listed on the website are available. Sometimes they are just not updated. Also, it is very difficult to get a house which is within your budget, your timelines, and within the locality that you want. As a final move, I had to go to property agencies to give them my criteria and view their property listings.

And thus started my calls to register myself in their agencies and give them my criteria for the house. At first there was nothing that would suit me, not because I am choosy, trust me, I am not. The houses that I saw were just not good for the rent that I would pay. Ok, so most of the houses that I saw was via StreetsAhead and some might say that is the reason why I could not get anything properly. But again, atleast they were polite enough and interested to show me the properties, unlike some of the agencies that I called and who just said you are registered and will call back after some days or forgot completely. The agency with whom I had my existing house were just not interested in showing me alternate properties – I guess this is how it works here. If you are leaving us, it does not matter if we have any other houses, we just won’t show it to you!!

Finally after much search (ok not that much, we were under time pressure though) we found a house that we liked and which was within our budget as well. We had a couple of misgivings that we had identified and that we wanted to put in the contract as ‘to be fixed’. The Townends (from whom we took the house) made a show that yes they talked to the owner and the owner is ok with the changes/conditions that we had for the agreement. With this reassurance, we paid the holding fees and were told that we would get a mail from them for the receipt as well as some time later get a call for them for the next steps. Now this agency charges the maximum administration fees – 350£ - for what !! – well for preparing a 20 page agreement document. Ha ha !!!

As the days passed by and my previous tenancy term was coming to an end, I started getting flustered. The agency had still not contacted me with any further steps. I called them up to check where they were and they gave me an answer that ‘they deal with check-ins and check-outs in the next 48 hour basis’. Obviously I had contacted them 2 weeks advance and they were least bothered with me. But a tleast as a courtesy they could have kept me abreast of what was happening. As a result, I got different phone calls from different agents in Townends – one mentioning that the date that I had specified for move in is not feasible since the previous tenant would not have moved out by then, and the other saying that it is not the case. Now, considering that this agency is so huge and has so many branches, I believe there should be some kind of processes that they follow – may be not CMMI level processes but some processes nevertheless. It is ridiculous that they were not on the same page of when the check out was going to happen. Furthermore, the only reason why we had said ok to the house was because we had given the holding deposit for a specific check in date. And so it continued till 3 working days before the check-in. I received the agreement papers at 5 pm along with notes mentioning I had to pay the remaining charges (rent, deposit, etc) 3 working days before the check-in date. Now, who was joking !!! Guess they forget that the banks don’t operate on our whims and fancies and if something is needed on time, it has to start properly from all ends. We paid the money on the same date, ok made the bank payment, god knows when it reached the agency. Now for the conditions that we had mentioned when we paid the holding deposit – these were not mentioned in the agreement because the owner was not ok with them. Did we have a choice to go ahead with some other house, no of-course we did not, because nobody would give us a ready to move in house in 3 days. We had to accept the agreement as it was.

We thought thank god the circus is over and finally we will get the keys. And lo and behold, Saturday comes and we get a call from the agent saying that they had not received the payment and hence they cannot give the keys – Reason – the headoffice which keeps the payment records is closed on Saturday and they cannot confirm if the payment was made.. Now whose fault is that ? The tenants’ – who dispite all odds made the payment on time as soon as the agreement was signed, or the agency – to whom we paid 350£ just to ensure that we get a good service and who kept on giving excuses till the last moment and could not confirm anything to us. Again after lot of frantic attempts, we understood that the previous tenant is going to leave before us, and we are going to get the keys on time and they were ok with the payment receipt that we had from the bank. Thus ended my grievances with the agency when we finally got the keys to the house and started shifting.

                Now if you ask me – did I get my money’s worth? Is the 20 page agreement enough for me when the basics that I ask are not provided? There were two main things that I had asked for when I paid the holding amount – time of the check in and conditions to be added in the agreement – Both of which were not full-filled. This is the kind of service that I received for my money.

Is it better if you search for the house on your own – without agents? There is a risk here as well – if the owner is good, you would be happy, if not then you would be in deep trouble.

If you go ahead with agents – well that I can tell with my experience with Bairstow eves as well as Townends – they are just sales people, who once you have committed, do not bother with you , just telling you to keep on moving from one call to another trying to find the right person who can answer your queries.

Outing @ London Eye - tips

London eye - on a bright sunny day providing a spectacular view of the whole of London. We talk about London and this is the iconic landmark that comes to our mind - located on the banks of Thames, overlooking the Big Ben and Houses of Parliament.
I have been twice on London eye and still everytime I look at it I marvel at the amazing design and its  architectural ingenuity. London eye, initially known as Millennium eye, was inaugurated in 2000 and is the most visited tourist attractions in UK.Go on the weekends, and you have a long queue to ride the wheel. London eye takes half an hour to complete one full rotation. So before you plan the trip to this attraction, ensure that you have accommodated sufficient time for the queue and actual ride.
London eye timings differ during the summer(till 9.30 pm) and winter seasons(till 8.30 pm), however the views are spectacular whichever season you pick. During the winter season, try going on London eye, closer to the christmas and you would be spell bound by the lights shining on the banks of the Thames.
London eye also offers something called as a Cupid's capsule - which is a perfect romantic place if you want to pop the question or just want to enjoy a romantic drink atop London.

London eye ticket offers a 4D experience of the views, this is located near to the ticket counter -If you have time, you should view this short film.
There are different kinds of tickets available -

1. Standard ticket - If you are already at London eye and based on the queue you can decide to take this ticket. This is for immediate boarding (obviously you would still have to wait in the queue)
2. Flexi standard ticket - If you planned a complete day out in London and are not sure when you would visit London eye, then this is the ticket for you.
3. Flexi fast track - This would give you priority boarding. There is a seperate queue for this and is much faster.

There are also various offers available online.

1. London Eye's official site provides around 10% discount on the tickets if purchased online.
2. Combination tickets are also available that would allow you to combine two or three attractions in one ticket and pay a cheaper price for the same. Please remember that the combination tickets would need to be converted to London eye tickets before boarding the London Eye. 
3. Sometimes, a 2 for 1 offer is also available from Days out Guide

I believe for anyone visiting London, this would be an amazing experience.

A tale of two brains - Mark Gungor

Ever wonder why women think differently than the men? Why women can always remember that small mistake that men have done and keep pestering men when all they want to do is sit at a place quietly.
This is a video that all men will love - though this still does not answer the age old question every male has - what is in the female's mind? 
If nothing else, it is definitely a good laugh -