Removing Twitter/Tweetbot from my Home Screen has definitely reduced how often I open it. I don’t start the day by doomscrolling. I do miss all of you a bit, but this feels good.
Meanwhile, we caught up on Better Call Saul. My heart. 💔 That is the most beautiful show, even when it’s showing something tragic and terrible. Give Vince and his team and all the actors all the awards.
@paultook Right now I’d say it’s as good. It benefits from our knowledge of BB, but not in a gimmicky fanservice way. I appreciate that.
@paultook Except it raises as many questions as it answers!!
I’ve removed Twitter (well, Tweetbot because official Twitter sucks) from my phone Home Screen and laptop bookmarks in an effort to begin the weaning process. I’ll probably end up using it just for work stuff. It’s probably a good thing ultimately, but I still resent it.
RT @awsdevelopers: 👩💻 Did you know you can attend the summits across Europe without leaving home? Build On X is a new series streamed live…
@gordon_j Just not a fan of that person and don’t wish to support anything he’s a part of.
I suppose at least Guy-Who-Killed-Google-Reader is no longer #1 on my personal list of People Who Ruined the Internet. 😠
RT @AWSCloudANZ: Want to deploy fraud detection models without previous #MachineLearning experience? Join #LearnwithAWSExperts on 27 April…
Join us at https://t.co/Vp850qwkkl in 10 minutes for the next episode of She Builds Tech Skills EMEA! Today we’re talking about machine learning and the recent PyData Berlin conference… https://t.co/J5DmpKnW8f
A few weeks ago I was riding my bike across the Theresienwiese when I noticed yet another fair being set up at the far end. I pootled over to get a closer look.
I didn’t have to wonder long before I figured out what event was coming up…
Frühlingsfest! Aka Munich’s Spring Festival. How exciting. It opened a few days after we got back from Amsterdam, so we went over in the evening to check it out.
It was mostly your basic midway amusement park with rides, games, and food stalls.
However, it also had two of the big festival beer tents! (By comparison, Oktoberfest has fourteen.) The Augustiner Festhalle was super popular with a large crowd waiting to get in.
I was delighted to see how many young people were wearing their Tracht. Tracht refers to the traditional folk costumes worn in German-speaking regions (mostly in Bavaria, Tyrol, and Austria). For men it’s mainly lederhosen, and for women it’s dirndls.
While I was marvelling at the outfits, something caught my eye in the distance. “Does that… say… Beer Carousel????”
Indeed it did. “Bierkarussell.” An honest-to-goodness rotating beer carousel. We knew we were going to have to try it out, but we needed to line our stomachs first.
How about a half-meter bratwurst? Perfect. Okay, now back to the beer.
The Bierkarussell looks like a traditional carousel, except there are no horses and there’s a circular bar in the middle. The patrons stand around the edges and it rotates very slowly around and around. We went for the full “Maß” (1 liter) of Helles (lager).
The rotating was making me a bit dizzy, so eventually we stepped off and found a spot on the side to stand and drink our beers. A very happy drunk Bavarian guy toasted us every time he came past. It was hilarious.
The very next day I spotted an email from the local Democrats Abroad Munich chapter inviting us to join them in the Hippodrom tent for Bavarian-American Friendship Day. I immediately reserved two seats. Of course, if we were going to party in a festival tent, we were going to need our own Tracht…
I had previously waffled on whether to buy Tracht. It’s an actual folk costume, and I wondered whether it would be cultural appropriation. (Neither of us have German ancestry.) I asked a couple locals though, who said that it was absolutely fine. The only rule they mentioned was to NOT buy the crappy shiny Halloween costume versions they sell in the cheap shops near the Hauptbahnhof to the tourists. Instead we went to Trachten Rausch, not far from where we live. They were pretty busy with folks buying outfits for Frühlingfest, but within minutes we each had a guy pulling stuff off the racks for us to try on. I got a pink dindl with an apron and blouse, and the Snook got lederhosen, a checked shirt, and knit socks. (Each outfit ran us around €200.)
And then it was time for the big day! We got dressed up and made our way to the Hippodrom. Holy moly – it was overwhelming. A band was playing and thousands of people were eating dinner and gulping down giant steins of beer.
We found the Democrats Abroad tables pretty quickly. It turns out that many of the tables at the front of the room were for various American expat groups.
The tent was so big they had a screen so people in the back could see the stage. (As you can see, not everybody was wearing Tracht.)
Karena took a photo of the Snook and me in all our Tracht glory…
We settled in and pretty soon we flagged down a server for some beers. PROST! 🍻
The band were mostly playing classic pub rock covers (in English), but I’m not sure if that was special because of the day. Maybe normally it’s all Schlager? At any rate, they were awesome. We learned very quickly that every 20 minutes or so the singer would yell “Die Krüge hoch” and everyone would raise their glasses and sing a little drinking song…
It’s called “Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit,” and it means “a toast to well-being.” It’s followed by a count to three and then “DRINK!”
With all that beer, it was time for some food.
The Snook went for the roast pork with dumpings, while I went with meatballs and sauerkraut. I find it frankly astonishing that they manage to have table service in such a huge place. And there’s no credit cards – it’s all cash. (Note to self: Write an Ocean’s 11-style heist movie where a daring band of criminals knocks over multiple Oktoberfest tents in one night!)
We each had a second Maß of beer, and that’s when everybody started to really cut loose. People were up on the benches dancing and singing along to the band. My phone is full of videos of us acting like idiots and belting out Neil Diamond and ABBA songs. As I’m sure YouTube would flag those as copyright violation, instead you get a photo of the Snook and a couple dudes’ bums. 😂
Here we are at the end of the night. Yeah, that was a good time!
Thanks to the Democrats Abroad for hosting us! Now we’re just counting down the days until Oktoberfest and we can break out the Tracht again… ❤️
It’s @awsdevelopers She Builds Tech Skills EMEA time again! Tomorrow join us to hear about the most interesting sessions from PyData Berlin and learn about AWS’s Machine Learning University. Sign up here to get a reminder before the stream: https://t.co/jFy9xTlYFo @awsdevelopers https://t.co/7BVdlWoo6V
RT @ScottyFromMktg: Just sent a text to congratulate President Macron on his victory in the French election – he replied “nouveau tel, qui…
RT @094459: If you are coming along to the AWS London Summit, why not unwind afterwards with a great bunch of fellow attendees. With nibble…
Last year I found out about the Böögg, this tradition in Zürich where they light a giant snowman on fire and see how long it takes his head (packed with fireworks to explode). And guess what? It’s happening right now and you can watch online!! https://t.co/F53t3JxsEm https://t.co/1CahD8V6pP
Ugh. First Elon, and now the Böögg is over 30 minutes and truly wrecking the bell curve. These are signs of the End Times, I’m sure. https://t.co/nlSwVA1cRK
Finally! His head blew up at pretty much 38:00. Those last few minutes… were haunting. https://t.co/nK6x3HbIPy
RT @rapscallison: It’s Shakespeare’s birthday today, which means it’s time for my yearly tradition of explaining why the “Marlowe wrote the…
Thank you @GunnarGrosch for alerting me that the annual Swedish moose migration Spring livestream has started! No moose yet, but the icy landscape is very soothing and peaceful. 🦌 https://t.co/1WOtXY6cJa
RT @MNateShyamalan: in the 90’s, computers would scream every time you went online. that was foreshadowing
Blog post! I finally documented our final trip of 2021 to AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas and then visiting family in the US. We also ate some pretty amazing food… https://t.co/plAvQheHLz https://t.co/3FI64GjVUw
@AU_JohnDw20 @GunnarGrosch I managed to install the app on my TV via the Play Store so I’ve been watching for several hours now! Gunnar said it’ll probably take a few days before the first one appears.
@AU_JohnDw20 @GunnarGrosch MOOOOOSE I SAW IT I SAW IT!! (They haven’t incremented the count yet.) https://t.co/Af6qktdUOh
RT @LauraJHyatt: If you watch one technical talk this week, watch @edjgeek “I didn’t know Amazon API Gateway did that” talk https://t.co/9X…
It was the 11th annual Bavarian-American Friendship Day, and we joined the Democrats Abroad (and a bunch of other Yanks) in the Hippodrom Festival Tent. It was crazy fun. The US Consul General came to our table to say hello! 🇺🇸🇩🇪 #fruehlingsfest #lederhosen #dirndl https://t.co/3nbOjBqrnc
@lynnlangit I don’t want to brag, but I looked amazing. ❤️ https://t.co/c20dhzc1AN
I love that my teammates send me stuff like this now. 😂 Thanks @JavierInchausti! 🧶 https://t.co/XHNld3JcxR
@JavierInchausti WAIT, that’s the wrong Javier! I SWEAR I tagged @supercoco9 !! Clearly, I know too many awesome Javiers. 🙂
@EssermikeMe Oh god, my Dad used to watch that show. It was called The Fall Guy, I think!
Frühlingsfest has begun! And they have a BEER CAROUSEL. We had half-meter sausages for dinner. There were a LOT of beardy dudes in Lederhosen. #springinmunich 🍻🎠 https://t.co/ZwEjFJ2qGj
