I never ate Brussels Sprouts growing up; they were just never a thing that my Mom cooked. It may well be that the first time I ever had them was ten years ago at Porteño in Sydney. (They were were charred and tossed with bacon and they were the most delicious thing I’d ever had.) But apparently Brussels sprouts really were a lot more bitter 20+ years ago, before scientists figured out how to get high yields from less bitter heritage varieties. Huh. So if you think you don’t like them, you should give them another try.
Recently I was very honoured to be invited by some of my friends in the DACH (aka Germany, Austria, Switzerland) tech community to be the keynote speaker for AWS Community Day 2022. This was going to be their first time back in person after two years of virtual events, and I was very excited to finally meet some of them in person. Rodd was going to accompany me, of course, and he had planned out some fun touristy things for us to do as well.
We caught the Tuesday morning train from Munich. It was about a 4.5hr trip, including a short transfer in Leipzig. I mostly used the time to finish off my slides for the keynote!
On Tuesday night, the local AWS Dresden group were having a pre-Community Day meetup so we went along. Here’s my buddy Mohamed presenting about a couple serverless apps he built, as well as Martin from Groundfog sharing how they built a personalised web experience for visitors.
Wednesday was the big event, so we headed over early in the morning to the conference venue to help set up. My friends Linda (from Vienna) and Markus (from Munich) were going to be kicking things off in the morning.
Markus insisted that I wear the AWS dress. 😂 He was also going to be introducing me on stage.
Eventually everything was ready and the hosts kicked off the morning. I was very excited to see them launch the Förderverein AWS Community DACH, which brings together all the different AWS groups into a single association. (Bonus points for the pun in the logo – in German, “Dach” means “roof”.)
Markus gave me a very humorous intro in which he’d scraped some dubious photos from my social media accounts, but thankfully he ended with the nicest one. ❤️
My talk started out quite personal, talking about how isolated I felt in the first ten years of my career. It wasn’t until I started going to meetups and hackathons that I finally felt like I belonged. At that point, it turned into a big soppy love letter to the folks in the room, who were my first friends when we moved to Germany. I ended by talking about how much AWS values the external community, and some of our plans to support them even more in the future.
One last photo of me with Markus and Linda, who I’m going to really really miss. 😢
We spent the rest of the day at the conference, going to sessions and meeting sponsors and attendees. It was a small but passionate crowd, and everyone was so excited to get back together in person. Thank you to the organisers for inviting me!
We were pretty tired that night but of course had to take advantage of the hotel sauna…
I worked from the hotel the next day, but Rodd got me out into the sunshine for a quick walk and lunch in the city.
We were very amused to see that there is actually an Australian restaurant in Dresden! The Snook was dubious, but hey, they serve kangaroo goulash soup. 😂
We walked up to Brühl’s Terrace, a large elevated terrace overlooking the Elbe. It was a beautiful day.
Here we are with the Hofkirche (Dresden Cathedral), the most important Catholic church in the city.
We also found the Lego store, which had a “Selfie Point.” Okay, then.
Our hotel was very close to the famous Frauenkirche in Dresden. This Lutheran church was destroyed during the firebombing of the city in 1945 and left in ruins as a war memorial for 50 years. It was only rebuilt after German reunification and was completed in 2005. The darker stones you can see were salvaged from the original church and were able to be reused in the reconstruction.
We went inside to take a look as well. It was all soft pastels, trompe l’oeil, and extravagant carvings. Very pretty! The story of how they rebuilt it is truly amazing.
That night we had booked a special dinner at Genuss-Atelier, a local Michelin-starred restaurant. It was described as “rustic vaults” and it felt very cozy.
One of the coolest things was that the tables had built in drawers with all the cutlery you’d need, so the waiters didn’t need to keep bringing fresh sets. I’ve never seen that before.
We went with the six-course “Surprise” menu, and since it’s all seasonal and not printed, I tried to keep notes on my phone about what we had. We started with a couple small bites: pickled herring with potato chip, and felafel with yogurt.
The Snook enjoyed the little bread rolls and butter. (He may have also been drafting a post for We Want Plates.)
Our first proper course was beef tartar with sour cream and chives.
Next was a vegetarian course – turnip cabbage (aka kohlrabi), celery, and yuzu.
Next was the fish course – “eagle fish” (which we think is also called a “meagre“) with radicchio, celery, and capers.
For the meat course, we had lamb with pumpkin and polenta, and of course we opted for the extra shaved black truffle!
Everything was delicious and beautifully prepared. We were also having matched wines with each course, all of them from the local area. Rodd was amused when the waiter excitedly told him how one of them was matured in oak, which is something of a novelty in the region. (It’s very common in Australia!) Needless to say, we were having a wonderful evening.
And we finished with TWO desserts! First was “blueberry, butter cookie, and vanilla.”
And lastly, “banana, coconut, mango sorbet.” Yum!
Highly recommend Genuss-Atelier if you are ever in the Dresden area!
When we got our apartment in Munich, one of the features we were most excited about was its proximity to the Theresienwiese. (We were literally a 5 minute walk to the Bavaria statue.) The Theresienwiese is the big showgrounds (historically it was a meadow) where Oktoberfest happens every year… except, of course, it didn’t happen in 2020 or 2021 because of Covid. This was a major blow to the city, both in terms of the economy and civic pride.
People, there was no way I was leaving Munich without getting to experience Oktoberfest. After our small taste at Frühlingfest in April 2022, we were so excited for it to finally happen in September. Strap in – this is going to be a long post with a lot of photos and videos!
One thing that surprised me was how early they started setting up. In May I was riding my bike across the Wiese and saw the new Pschorr Bräurosl starting to take shape. We found out later that this was because it was a new, larger design than it had been previously, and they needed to set up early so it could go through security tests and approvals.
It also doesn’t look like much of a tent, does it? They’re more like barns than tents.
By the start of July, the rest of the tents were going up as well. The Pschorr Bräurosl now had a roof and the walls were going up. The Schützen Festzelt was also taking shape, as well as the famous Paulaner and Löwenbräu pillars.
A month later in August, things were still further along. I was surprised by the Nymphenburg Sekt tent; I hadn’t realised there were tents for drinks other than beer. (“Sekt” is sparkling wine.)
The last thing to go up were the fair rides in early September. By this point most of the Wiese had been fenced off as the final touches were put in place.
And then I had to head off to Bangkok for a work trip… I landed back in Munich on the morning of Saturday, September 17 – the very first day of Oktoberfest. I caught the train home from the airport and was delighted to see loads of folks in Tracht on the train and in the stations. Many of them were carrying large boards, which I later found out were the trays serving staff use to carry food.
A few hours later I was at home when a large BOOM rattled the house. I realised it was the traditional 12 o’clock opening gun salute and ran to the window to get a video.
We didn’t plan on going to Oktoberfest on the first day, instead frantically cleaning the house ahead of the arrival of our guests the next. Around 5pm I heard drumming and watched as a drum corps marched past behind the house in the pouring rain. In full lederhosen, no less! That’s dedication.
The next afternoon we headed back to the airport to welcome my mom, step-dad, and brother. Eventually we managed to collect them and get them back onto the train home.
The Garbericks were pretty jet-lagged, but we herded them out of the house and down to the nearby Wirtshaus am Bavariapark for dinner. That’s where Joe discovered a new affinity for Schnitzel. 😃
Me and my gorgeous Mom. ❤️
We dedicated the next day to sightseeing. Our first stop was the Olympia-Schimmhalle so Joey (who swims competitively for Ball State) could get in his workout. Interestingly, they had up a sign that due to the war in Ukraine (and the need for Germany to conserve energy) the temperature in the pool would be cooler than normal. Joey didn’t mind.
We walked them all around the Olympiapark, including stopping by the 1972 Olympic Massacre Memorial. The 50th anniversary had recently been commemorated, so there were wreaths for each of the murdered athletes. It was very moving.
We then went into the city to show them the highlights of the Altstadt. We finally went into the Frauenkirche, the symbol of Munich.
Of course I had to take Mom to a local quilting shop! She bought a fabric panel covered in scenes from Munich.
We walked all over, trying to take advantage of the sunshine to help them get over the jetlag. In the afternoon we stopped for a little rest in the Residenz Hofgarten.
The next day was Tuesday, and it was finally time to head to Oktoberfest! Rodd and I got dressed up in our Tracht, and Mom braided my hair for me. It was cold and rainy so I wore boots and a cardigan with my dirndl.
We headed down early to the nearest entrance at the Bavaria statue. A kind person offered to take a group photo of the five of us! ❤️
It was Joey’s 21st birthday, so we’d all chipped in the day before to gift him an outfit from Trachten Rausch. He got a belted lederhosen with a beautiful collarless shirt and knitted socks.
Mom’s wearing my other dirndl. Don’t we look cute?
Pretty quickly, Joe and Joey decided that they needed appropriately Bavarian hats. We stopped at a stall where a very nice guy helped sort them out.
The day was really cool and damp, and it was constantly threatening to rain. Little did we know it would be like this almost every day for the next two weeks.
We walked up and down the aisles checking out the tents. The Schottenhamel Festzelt is the one where – right as that gun salute had happened on Saturday – the first Oktoberfest keg was tapped by the lord mayor of Munich.
Right after this it started to rain, so we decided to make the Armbrustschützenzelt (“Crossbowman’s tent”) our first stop of the day. It was very pretty with its green and white striped ceiling, and it wasn’t very full yet so we easily got a table. It apparently hosts the German crossbow championship (in a side tent) every year.
It had just gone noon, so it was definitely time to get on the beers. Here you can see Joe and Joey modeling their new hats.
The Garbericks were definitely feeling the Gemütlichkeit.
Never underestimate the ability of a 21-year-old to suck down beer. Joey finished his first liter in under 20 minutes!
We also introduced them to “Ein Prosit,” the short little drinking song you hear every 10-20 minutes at Oktoberfest. Here is me singing it very, very off-key. 😂
I was very proud to have remembered to bring my Deckel, a lid for a beer stein. It’s much more useful in the summertime to keep wasps and bees out of your beer in the biergarten. We got a pair of them engraved a few months earlier.
We were finally at Oktoberfest! It was really happening!!
The rain stopped so we headed back out for more exploration. We saw the Paulaner bierwagen and stopped for photos. The wagon is just for show though; pretty much all the beer at Oktoberfest is served from modern kegs. (The only brewery that still does the wooden ones is Augustiner.)
We were getting a bit peckish so stopped off at Cafe Kaiserschmarrn for cake. This tent is run by Rischart, a famous bakery chain in Munich. It looked like a giant gingerbread house!
The nearby Münchner Knödelei (“Munich Dumping House”) had a very cute photo stand-in that Rodd and I couldn’t resist…
We were getting a bit tired and the Americans all needed a nap, so we headed back to the house to recharge. Along the way we spotted the Löwenbrau bierwagen as well.
After a nap, we headed back in the evening to explore the Oide Wiesn. This is a fenced off area that is meant to be more like the historical Oktoberfest, and you have to pay a couple euros to get in. We went first to the Museum tent, where a traditional band was playing.
I really loved the exhibit of all the old Oktoberfest posters. Those ones from the 60s and 70s were so cool! The 2022 design is also available on a commemorative beer mug, which I bought later that evening.
We also checked out the Historische Kegelbahn (“Historic bowling alley”) with wooden balls and pulley-system for restoring the pins.
Time for another beer tent! We went to the Festzelt Tradition, a 5000-seater in the Oide Wiesn that features traditional brass music and dancing. We got a table and ordered some food for Brotzeit. (You’ll notice that we changed into warmer clothes, because the weather was so chilly and damp.)
In the Oide Wiesn tents, the beers are served out of ceramic beer steins rather than glass, and I believe it all comes from barrels as well.
We were absolutely delighted when a group of folk dancers took over the central stage! This was the highlight of the day, seeing them do the Schuhplattler dancing, stomping and slapping their knees and thighs.
The men were later joined by women, who twirled twirled twirled in their beautiful dirndls.
We left the Oide Wiesn in the evening and headed back out to the midway, doing a final lap to buy souvenirs and check out the modern tents. The Löwenbräu tent looked to be pretty popular! My favourite part is the big animatronic lion over the entrance, who throws back a beer and periodically roars.
There are plenty of smaller tents too. We stopped to get some Käsespätzle at Feisingers Kas und Weinstubn (“Cheese and wine parlour”), which was packed with happy Bavarians singing pop music.
Mom really liked her Käsespätzle!
We couldn’t resist the opportunity to finally see inside the Pschorr Bräurosl, after seeing it being built over so many months.
It was PACKED! Definitely not getting a table in here. So many young people, standing room only, up on their seats dancing to rock music. We did a lap and then got the hell out.
And that was it for our first day at Oktoberfest! Time to go home and sleep it all off….
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… ❤️
With the four-day Easter weekend looming, we were trying to decide on a city to visit. “There’s a sleeper train to Amsterdam!” the Snook offered. That settled it. Amsterdam had long been on our list of cities to visit (I have a bucket list goal of hitting every one mentioned in Paul Kelly’s ode to Aussies in Europe), and I’ve always wanted to ride in a sleeper train. Time to visit the Netherlands!
The train – and I am not kidding – is the NightJet NJ420 from Innsbruck to Amsterdam. It has normal carriage cars, and then a couple in the middle that are the sleepers (“Schlafwagens”).
We were greeted by a porter who led us down a very narrow hallway to our cabin.
It was about 10:30pm when we boarded the train in Munich, so the porter had already set it up for sleeping. There were two bunks, but theoretically there’s a third one that can fold down if needed.
Can you tell how excited I am? The first thing we needed to do was select our options for breakfast in the morning and give the bits of paper to the porter.
There is a tiny sink crammed into the corner where you could clean your teeth, but the bathroom was a shared one down the carriage. (Unfortunately there was a problem with the water on this journey, so the sink wasn’t working.)
The train pulled out of Munich, and we kicked off our shoes to relax a bit. There was a bag on each bunk with slippers, a bottle of water, a snack, and some sparkling wine. The Snook had also cleverly brought a couple mini bottles of Schnapps…
Prost! We eventually decided it was time to go to sleep. I claimed the bottom bunk so the Snook clambered up the ladder to his berth.
In terms of sleeping comfort, the bunks were just long enough that I could stretch out (I’m 5’10”, 178cm) but anybody taller would be a little cramped. The mattresses weren’t super thick, but for me the bigger issue was the pillows were very, very thin. Still, I did eventually fall asleep. The train does make a few stops during the night and the carriages aren’t soundproof, but I had my headphones playing white noise and it didn’t bother me. The biggest challenge was that since we were lying perpendicular to the train’s movement, whenever it would brake or accelerate you’d feel it. (That’s why the upper bunk has a net, to keep the Snook from rolling right out onto the floor!) Still, the sleeper was nicer than I expected and I definitely got more sleep than I ever have on a long haul flight.
In the morning we opened the window to find ourselves rolling through the Dutch countryside. The porter came by to help us fold up the beds and fold down a table for our breakfast.
We pulled into Amsterdam at 10:30am, blinking in the sunlight and still wearing yesterday’s clothes. Time to find our hotel…
We had left the booking until pretty late so the only place we could get a room was the fancy Marriott W. It wasn’t too far so we had a 15min walk through Amsterdam to get there. It’s actually two buildings across the street from each other, and we were in the “Exchange” building. Reception is up at the roof level, and there’s a pretty spectacular view from the terrace.
The building on the right there is the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, and the brick one on the left is the Magna Plaza, formerly the main post office of Amsterdam and now a shopping mall.
That’s the view up Raadhuisstraat, which crosses several canals. You can see the Westerkerk church spire in the distance.
Our room wasn’t ready yet so we made our plans to explore the city. We decided to skip the museums and cannabis cafes on this trip, instead spending as much time as possible outside in the glorious Spring weather.
The Royal Palace from ground level. It was originally built as the Town Hall of Amsterdam but was converted into a palace in the 19th century. It’s where Queen Beatrix was announced to the Dutch people in 1980.
Here’s the Snook in Dam Square, one of the most well-known spots in the city. That’s the National Monument in the distance.
This is the Beurs van Berlage building, which the Snook really liked. I think it was the clock.
This is the Oude Kerk (“Old Church”), Amsterdam’s oldest building. Rembrandt was a frequent visitor to the Oude Kerk and his children were all christened here.
Canal!! This is the view from the Oudekerksbrug (“Old Church Bridge”).
I was entranced by the canals of Amsterdam. There are more than 100km of them (62mi), with 1500 bridges in the city.
You know what else I was entranced by? CHEESE.
This is actually the Amstel river as seen from the Blauwbrug (“Blue Bridge”). There are a LOT of houseboats in Amsterdam. There were also a lot of river cruises going up and down the river and canals too.
We walked up the Kalverstraat, Amsterdam’s main shopping street. (Fun trivia: it’s the most expensive property on Dutch Monopoly!) There was a queue out the door at Van Holland Stroopwafels, and we made a mental note to come back later for treats.
The LEGO Store had a massive working windmill in the window!
More canal action! Everybody was out enjoying the Easter weekend Spring weather.
Get ready – you’re going to see a lot of tulips! There were blooming planters all over the city.
After lunch, we headed back to our hotel for a nap and shower. Then it was time to go out and meet my Amazonian colleague Anshu!
Anshu moved from Melbourne last year, so he volunteered to show us around Amsterdam. The first place he took us was Wynand Fockink, a distillery tasting room straight out of the 17th century.
We stood in the crowd and waited our turn to get to the front. They had more than 50 different liqueurs, including jenever (the Dutch precursor to gin). The attendant explained all about jenever to us and gave us a taste, and then we picked out a couple brandies to try. (I went with cherry; the Snook with sloe.) The tiny glasses are filled right up to the brim, and you’re meant to bow down to slurp the first sip out of them. Fun!
Our next stop was a Dutch craft beer bar called the Arendsnest, along one of the canals. We sat outside and enjoyed some excellent brews as the sun got lower in the sky.
Our final stop of the night was Bierfabriek Amsterdam, a brewery and restaurant right in the city. It was crowded by they found us a table tucked in the corner. Their specialty is “rustic slow roasted French farm chicken,” and who could resist that?
We said our goodbyes to Anshu and headed back to the hotel to rest up ahead of a very big Easter Sunday…
