Meet the Parents

It has been two months since that sweaty, overpacked flight from Gatwick, which ended with my arrival in Germany. Two months of discovering Munich and overcoming challenges, one gramatically incorrect conversation after another. It was at this point that my parents decided to visit.

It had been sectioned off in the diary for some time, their visit highlighted in green neon spanning a long weekend in October. In the week preceding the flat had been transformed from its normal dustbowl state into a sparkling, shiny apartment with miracle o’ miracles, an empty laundry basket. For one elated, OCD evening the flat was immaculate and I moved around gingerly, not brushing my hair or touching my skin for fear of my own body detritus spoiling the perfection.

Philippe stared on, bemused as I ran different iterations of the itinerary past him whilst shoving the fourth load of laundry in the washing machine.

“I’m sure they’ll enjoy themselves no matter what they do,” he said, ever the voice of reason. “Why are you getting so worked up?”

I was not yet sure of the answer but for some reason the visit had to be perfect, which is probably why it was doomed to start in chaos.

It was the damn laundry’s fault. Unused to such an abundance of clean clothes, my folding skills were too slow for the task, which meant that I left the flat late. Munich public transport then compounded the error by scheduling a full medley of engineering works that hindered me from getting to the airport. Feeling like I was in a giant German version of the Crystal Maze I ran panicked between the platforms whilst simultaneously trying to decode tannoy announcements in obscure Bavarian dialect. It was a sad moment of epiphany when I realised that I lacked the physical, mental and problem-solving skills needed to succeed in the Crystal Maze. There went another childhood aspiration of mine. In the end I resorted to following a group of people with suitcases onto a train and then simply praying we were going to the airport.

Somehow my idiot idea worked and I met my parents a mere hour later than expected. Tired and burdened by suitcases carrying, of course, more laundry of mine, they kindly accepted my apologies before following me onto the Munich Rail Network for the slowest train ride back to the city centre. Waiting at one of the many stops, I felt the anxiety beginning to rise. The visit was not going as expected. It was meant to be better than this, smoother, more prompt. Munich had to up its game.

Maybe there is something in Oprah’s “Secret” propaganda because thereafter Munich dazzled. Under high summer blue skies the city’s monuments stood to attention. The Theatine Church near Odeonsplatz, which the week before had looked brown under dismal clouds, turned buttercup yellow in the sunshine. Its honey-coloured coating resembled flawlessly iced birthday cake; good enough to take a take a chunk out of and eat.

Leaving their coats at the hotel, my parents relished the 24°C heat as they strolled through the Englischer Garten. With such temperatures this city break acted as a bonus summer holiday for them and I benefited from their enjoyment, sharing in vast orders of roast meat and beer as they sampled Bavarian cuisine. It was a welcome return to childhood with the incredible luxury of always having the bill footed by someone else.

However, not all the dynamics of childhood remained. For the first time I was the one leading the holiday and I was the one, who was familiar with the transport system (well, most of the time). My parents looked to me for advice as to which places to visit and where was best to eat and in that respect, I was the authority. It was a strange realisation to come to. In some ways, our roles had reversed.

And I think that partly explains the self-imposed pressure to make their visit a success. They were looking to me for direction and I wanted to meet this requirement. However, with only two months experience in the city this was not an easy task. Furthermore, was I not still questioning whether I myself, was managing in Munich? Were the short interactions at the shops not still slightly awkward, especially when my orders for cake were mysteriously converted to bread rolls due to something crucial being lost in translation? Could I demonstrate to both my parents and myself that the massive upheaval of the move had been worth it?

Ending as it began, we rushed to make the airport bus in time. I ran on ahead and stalled the driver as my parents puffed up the road behind. They joined just in time to hear me ordering their tickets, now fluent enough in German to navigate the conversation and logistics. When I kissed them goodbye, their faces beamed with pride and amazement.

It turns out I am not doing too badly after all.

Is it cos I is brown?

This is the third time it has happened now.

It was a familiar scene - I was waiting for the green man at the traffic lights, my arms weighted by that old favourite of mine, over-filled plastic bags, when my suffering biceps gave out. Putting the bags on the pavement I had barely ten seconds of respite before the signal changed and I had to resume my burden. I was so fixated on suppressing a groan that I was unaware that my bags were committing a sin. As I straightened up my bags touched those of another woman also waiting at the crossing. This accidental trespass was to prompt one of the more unpleasant encounters I have had in Munich.

As a Brit the automatic response to any social faux pas is to apologise. You bump into someone, you say sorry. Someone bumps into you, you say sorry. Living in the UK can often seem like a Monty Python skit of people constantly apologising for minute wrongs regardless of whether they were the perpetrator or the victim. So naturally my first response when the woman at the crossing in Munich started scowling and cursing at me, was to apologise.

She, however, did not stop.

As we both crossed the road (no longer next to each other, I had learnt from my mistake and was giving her a wide berth), the woman continued to rail against me. Even though my German skills are still in their infancy the content of her speech was perfectly clear, even if I did not understand the words. This woman did not like me.

And this was not the first time this had happened. I now call it “Attack of the 70-year-old German woman,” as it invariably turns out to be a person from that demographic involved in the altercation. On the first two occasions these verbal tirades against me were entirely unprovoked as I was carrying no delinquent shopping at the time. Each time an older woman had seen me on the street and suddenly started raging, one time even with what at best was a Tourette-like tic, at worst a swipe with her handbag.

Shopping bags aside, the relatively unprovoked nature of these spats has made me question the reason for the hostility and maybe rightly, maybe wrongly, I wonder whether it is to do with my outward appearance, namely my skin colour.

In the predominantly white West, I am other. Not only do I have to tick this box on diversity monitoring forms, but my brown skin signals that my “origins” probably don’t date back to 10th century Croydon. That said, I was born and raised in the U.K. and have the same cultural exposure as any other child in my primary school class. My roots are steeped in those particularly British traditions of royalty, the BBC and tea but a honeying tint of melanin is enough for people to put me into the “other” category and in some cases possibly class me as foe.

I may be misinterpreting the situation entirely. It could be that the three older women simply hated my pink autumn coat (it is looking a bit shabby these days) and were being uncommonly vocal in their disapproval. However, looking at the current trend in Bavaria, I have my suspicions that the women’s reactions were more related to race than couture. With an influx of refugees to Germany over the past few years, Bavaria, the southern-most Bundesland, has received greater numbers of people who could be classed as “other” and as a result has seen an unfortunate rise in far-right sentiment. Anti-immigrant policies have been a major political talking point in the run-up to next week’s Bavarian state election and most worryingly, the far-right group, AfD, has seen an up-swing in popularity. With my brown skin and faded coat, I wonder whether these women took me for being a refugee and thus a target for their hostility.

Safe to say these three encounters coloured my experience of Munich somewhat. I was already feeling the outsider given the language barrier, however, with this new possibly racially-related phenomenon, I felt ever more alien. I became hyper-vigilant and developed a Pavlovian flinch, tucking my elbows and shopping in, whenever I saw a older woman. For all my years of waiting at pedestrian crossings and walking down streets, I had never behaved like this.

Despite the Brexit vote and its isolationist associations, I found myself longing for Britain. I particularly missed my previous home of Brighton, which is the English town least likely to care about a person’s skin or coat colour. I doubted that I would find such an all-embracing attitude amongst the right-wing populists of Germany.

But yet again, Munich proved me wrong.

On the public holiday of October 3rd, German Reunification Day, I found myself swept up into a 20 000-strong crowd of Münchners protesting the anti-immigrant policies lately touted by Bavarian politicians. In the same place that SS recruits would swear oaths to Hitler during the Second World War, Munich residents now flew rainbow flags and hoisted signs saying “Racism is not an Alternative!”

This last week before the Bavarian elections is a crucial time for Munich but regardless of the outcome, I can wait at the traffic lights a little easier knowing that not everyone in Munich is turning a blind eye to the rise of the right.

Oktoberfest

‘Tis the season.

Whilst I am sure that this December Munich will display many fine examples of that famed institution, the German Christmas Market, the city has the market cornered on Oktoberfest. It was, after all, the Munich wedding of Bavarian King Ludwig I and Princess Therese back in 1810 that kick started the now world-famous, annual event. Yes, there may be Oktoberfest celebrations from Brazil to Canada but Munich has the original bragging rights.

For the past week the trains have been even more punctual than usual (if that were actually possible) and Munich has been heaving with extra traffic. Having arrived here in the summer months I was used to joining the throngs at selfie-central Marienplatz but Oktoberfest puts those numbers to shame. With the city swelling with over six million visitors during these two weeks every tourist attraction is jam-packed and none more so than the heart of the festivities itself: Theresienwiese.

Most other times of the year Theresienwiesen remains undeveloped and a visit will reveal nothing more than an expanse of barren land, incongruous with the stacked streets of the surrounding city. Come Oktoberfest, however, this flat of land spawns numerous wooden structures, which have the rather underwhelming name of “Zelten” (tents). Instead of the conventional image of a tent e.g. that hateful two-man contraption lugged around on D of E expeditions, picture instead a Monopoly hotel that has undergone a Honey-I-blew-up-the-kids metamorphosis. For reference, some of the larger tents have multiple levels and can hold upwards of 6000 people. After super-super-sizing, the tent’s ceiling is then decorated with billowing drapes under which a brass band is plumped to provide a medley of oom pa pa songs. Tent seems to have a different meaning in German and a very different measurement.

Amongst these gigantic buildings the fair then infiltrates. Everyone knows the phenomenon of the traveling circus, whereby every once in a while a vacant lot outside town is suddenly filled with the neon glow of amusement rides. For two days the evening commute has a brash highlight when driving past the carnival and then just like that, it is gone, off to another town and another empty field. Oktoberfest is similar but again, on an altogether different scale. Rides that rival those of the most established amusement parks suddenly appear between the giant beer tents, electric colossi whose pinnacles disappear from view due to the elevation. In blaring lights they scream “High Energy” and “Predator” whilst frenzied German pop music blares at the bases of their towers. They adhere to the unspoken rules of Oktoberfest: be big, loud and a bit wobbly.

Add to this scene a few hundred fairground stalls boasting the usual selection of oversized cuddly toys, dubious competitions and Bavarian-themed fast food and then finally this enormous installation is ready for the first few million visitors, of which I was one.

I had prepared for Oktoberfest as best I could, which meant braiding my hair and buying the traditional Bavarian dress for women, the dirndl. Despite the hefty price tag I knew that I had to have a dirndl as the preceding weeks had seen the stores of Munich filled with gorgeous examples of the pinafore dresses. Even more inspiring than the static mannequin displays was seeing it actually worn. I could not help but stare at every dirndl-clad woman that stepped on the subway, admiring the flared skirts and beautiful fabrics. I marvelled at sheer prettiness of the outfit. After years of suppression childhood desires for “über-girly” dresses resurfaced and now I wanted petticoats and puffed sleeves and most of all, to twirl.

Completing this Bavarian vision were the men in their lederhosen. Leather shorts and knee-high socks are not usually high on the list of attractive clothing combinations but given the context they are the definition of smart. Anything other than dirndl and lederhosen in the beer halls looks out of place and like a poor effort. Wearing the traditional dress gave me a sense of belonging that I doubt I would have had otherwise and it was with some relish that I sat down at the wooden bench, the skirts of my dirndl brushing against the lederhosen of an established Münchner and ordered my beer in fledgling German.

I was unable to finish my litre of beer (like the tents, the beer also only comes in immense measures), but plenty of others managed to, which is where Oktoberfest begins to fall apart. Despite the many efforts of the police and festival staff, an event that has its focus on alcohol consumption has the potential for abuse. Of the six million visitors, a significant number come to indulge in the fortified beer and get more than a little smashed as a result. This leads to the usual uninhibited behaviour of the drunk but on a gargantuan scale. It being my first Oktoberfest, I made the mistake of walking down the main aisle of the Paulaner tent at 6 p.m. on a weekday. Given that the tents open at 10 a.m. each morning that meant some people were eight hours ahead in their alcohol consumption (and believe me, some people do drink for that whole time). I bumped through the burping, braying crush of people and counted myself lucky that it was only beer that I had spilled on me, a few hours later I have no doubt it would have been vomit.

Within the first week a violent death has already occurred and the streets nearest Theresienwiesen are filled with the rubbish of festival-goers. As with the tents, rides and beer, the impact of Oktoberfest is enormous. Despite that, however, it still is an orgy of fairground fun and the child in me revels in the bright lights and spectacle. With the laundry cycle nearly done, I’m hoping the beer stains have washed out of my dirndl because tomorrow I’ll be back at Oktoberfest.

Super Size Me

It’s not only the beer that is super sized but also the brez’n

The Beer Tents

Blue and white, the colours of Bavaria are the go to colours

Bavaria looks down

The gigantic statue of Bavaria looks down on her (drunken) subjects

Fall of Ages

It was almost indiscernible but the Englischer Garten gave it away. Munich was changing. Midday still turned tourists and locals alike into sticky skinned creatures trying to avoid physical contact on the U-bahn but on occasion the temperature in the late evenings had dipped such that a shawl or heaven forbid, a cardigan was called for. Nonetheless, during the dog days of summer, it was impossible to believe that seasons could turn as they have been doing for the past few millenia. The fallacy was revealed, however, during a Sunday afternoon jog through the Englischer Garten's woods.

Leaves were falling.

At first I did a double take, worried that some blight had affected the stretch of horse chestnuts, which were strewing their leaves in front of my 11 minute mile. Instead of the disfiguration of the Shakespearean-sounding blotch and bleeding canker, the brown markings seemed to be the normal stigmata of decidual drop. Autumn was coming.

I panicked. There was still so much to do! Season-induced FOMO pushed up my heart rate and I raced back home faster than my personal best, in order to plan my last week of summer holiday in Munich. Museums could wait until the rainy weekends of the winter months, I needed to make full use of Munich, the sunshine and the outdoors. One name intersected the Venn diagram beautifully - Schloss Nymphenburg. Where better to spend the dying days of August than the summer residence of Bavaria's historic Wittelsbach line?

With its own tram stop a mere 25 minutes from the city centre, I found myself at the palace unexpectedly quickly. There was a mere five kilometers between the country estate, Schloss Nymphenburg and the main royal residence in Munich (whose name incidentally adheres to the stereotype of German efficiency by being called the Residenz). For all its physical proximity though, approaching Schloss Nymphenburg from the tree-lined canal one could be mistaken for thinking the tram had travelled much further, to a different country perhaps or even a different era altogether.

Such pomp and grandeur is rarely seen these days. For one thing cities do not have the space to construct wide edifices, for the most part we build up, not along. With the palace seeming to stretch across the horizon, I struggled to sweep the entirety of the facade into the obligatory panorama shot. Instead I chopped the length of French Baroque architecture into a series of disjointed snaps, thereby losing the full impact of its grandeur and symmetry in the name of amateur photography. Even on the small digital viewfinder of my camera though, the sumptuous design shone through. The immaculate white buildings gleamed off the display, the contrast heightened by the rosy triangular rooves of the pavilions. Nymphenburg was more idealized than my childhood imaginings of the perfect dollhouse. However, this was no dollhouse, this was someone's 490 acre palace.

Or had been.

As I began the tour of the main building, my initial awe at the frescoes and furnishings wore off to something I did not expect to feel amongst such opulence. I felt pity. Nymphenburg was impressive but it was also empty. For all its grand history, the great rooms were uninhabited, devoid of its former royal occupants and their associated events. Even on a sunny August afternoon the inner chambers had only a few lethargic tourists circulating, attention split between the last possessions of a royal dynasty and the prospect of ice cream after the tour.

Navigating my way around the floorplan I hastily took in the features of the former royal apartments. Here was a room in which the Queen Consort of Bavaria once received guests and there was the room that the Swan King, Ludwig II, was born in. Bereft of the full furnishings of those times, the momentous events seemed abstract concepts to me. I contented myself by looking at the pretty wallpaper instead.

Finishing my tour of the main building, I decided to fulfill my cultural duty and postpone my walk through the manicured gardens until after a walk through the Marstallmuseum, a side wing of the palace filled with royal equipage. I saw it more as an obligation rather than a pleasure, seeing as I had little interest in carriages but as soon as I stepped into the dim passages of the museum I was forced to change my view. Here objects from fairytales were made manifest. Stretching down the entire length of the converted stables were giant baubles of splendour and gold. There was so much gold.

I have never seen a royal carriage before, shunning the crowds of UK royal pageants in favour of a viewing the spectacle with a cup of tea in front of the telly. Even if I had gone to Harry and Megan's procession through Windsor earlier this year I doubt their carriage could match the outrageous gilt of the Wittelsbachs. It was glittering, insane indulgence of a like not seen since the days of European absolute monarchism.

And those days were over.

Now all that remains of Holy Roman Emperor Charles Albert's Coronation are a few incredible relics scattered in museums and private collections, which when pieced together can only allude to the grandeur of the occasion in 1741. Every night the Schloss Nymphenburg closes to visitors and its prestigious rooms are empty. It is a mausoleum to Bavarian history.

As I walked through the Nymphenburg gardens on my way back to the tram I noticed that the leaves here too had begun to drop.

It seemed only fitting.

The Eye of the Beholder

Now that the last suitcase is unpacked I can say that I have finally settled in Germany. In doing so I have run out of excuses as to why I cannot keep on top of my correspondence, thus begins the embarrassing task of texting and calling all the many well-wishers that I have left hanging for the last two months. With the exception of a few “new phone, who dis” memes, my friends are forgiving and after the catch-up about birthdays, weddings and babies that I have at best only thumbs upped on Facebook, they ask me what Munich is like.

How to answer that?

The very existence of this blog is an attempt to describe the many facets of living in Munich. To distill it into a few sentences seems to be beyond my writing capabilities but my long-suffering friends deserve more than a catch-all adjective like “nice.” This is why my go-to answer always surprises me.

“Munich is beautiful,” I reply.

It really is. To say anything else first would be to miss the obvious. No matter which direction I start running in, my wheezy steps will inevitably take me past the pretty. Through the criss-crossing streets of the Altstadt I jog past breath-taking facades of grand buildings, each haphazard turn leading me on to another architectural treat. On warmer days I will head north through the riverside parks accompanied on one side by the changing personalities of the River Isar, which at times is calm, at other times churning. Even though I stay on the shady side (direct sunlight + exercise + short stature turns my appearance into that of an oompa loompa) looking across the monument-studded bridges to the heart of the city, I can see domes and spires emerging to give Munich a very specific and very beautiful skyline. Thus far, every area of the city has been nothing less than impressive.

Which is why a visit to the NS-Dokumentationszentrum proved so sobering. Situated in the midst of Munich’s cultural district and also on the former site of Hitler’s pre-war headquarters, the museum details Munich’s key role in the rise of the Nazi Party, as well as the effect of the war years on the town and its populace. From outside the white cube of the building looks extraordinary in comparison to the classical aesthetic of the surrounding area, however, it conforms to Munich standards in the fact that it is also quite beautiful.

On a rainy Saturday afternoon I started my visit as recommended at the top of the museum and wound my way down through four floors, the exhibit unfolding in horror and intensity as it ticked through the years: 1918, 1923, 1938, 1942 and on. Moodily lit from beneath, I could not escape the claustrophobic feeling that comes from a display conducted entirely in those three notorious colours: red, white and black. Here was Munich but not beautiful as I knew it. Places that I had taken oblivious selfies next to had dark histories underlying them. My favorite statues for instance, the lions of Feldherrnhalle, so reminiscent of those in Trafalgar Square, were shown in one photo flanking Hitler during his address to a crowd of thousands in 1934.

Following the display round to the last of its apple peel trail, the museum ended with projected photo reels of Munich after the war. The city was unrecognisable. In place of the domes and spires that I thought so characteristic on my runs, jagged spikes silhouetted the horizon instead. The intricate edifices of Marienplatz were reduced to nothing but an expanse of rubble. All that I aesthetically admired of the city today was a replica albeit a good one, as the join lines of post-war restoration were almost invisible to the eye.

More unsettling, however, was the sinister imprint of Munich’s wartime history on the places that I had come to love. I could not claim to be wholly naive to that though. Just last week a historic echo became an actual call as the far-right party, the AfD, staged a demonstration on the streets of Munich.

So now the answer is a little less instantaneous, when I get asked what Munich is like. Yes, it is still beautiful, but perhaps a more appropriate description would be that it is complicated.

Hang the laundry

I was supposed to be being sensible.

I was meant to use my afternoon off to write this very blog and if not that, then there were two week's worth of dirty laundry waiting to be washed. It would have been sensible to capitalise on the re-emergent sun and finally rid my clothes of that sour damp smell, which had been the result of trying to air-dry the last batch during wet weather.  Instead, at 6 p.m. that Wednesday 5th September I ignored my to-do list and somehow found myself surrounded by a few thousand German young adults, all of us waiting in the open air for two of Germany's most famous rappers to take the stage.

Let me make this clear, rap is not at the top of my playlist. My tastes veer more to the Hubba Bubba side of bubblegum pop, by way of example, my favourite musical memory is seeing pre-vengeful Taylor Swift on her "Red" tour. So how did I go from the sugary Taytay of yesteryear to the heavy, shout-out-loud choruses of German hip-hop? As with the whole Munich experience, it started with Philippe.

His briefing came out of the blue, rather like the gig itself. Whilst I was hurrying out of work, ready to enjoy my free afternoon, social media was afire with the news that Casper and Marteria were completing their hat-trick of free performances with another pop-up concert in Munich. The names meant very little to me but a great deal to Philippe, who despite being hard at work somehow managed to find out about the event. It was to little avail, however, as work deadlines and other inconveniences of grown-upping meant that he could not attend. Completely misinterpreting the situation I offered to go in his place instead of offering sympathy, which looking back is probably why Philippe had texted in the first place.

This is how I found myself later that day at the open-air venue of Backstage Gelände. In an oversized playground I broiled under direct sunlight, whilst hemmed in on four sides by chicken wire fencing and a crowd of what can only be described as Munich's tallest teenagers. Despite their backwards baseball caps and Liam Gallagher glasses, the crowd's 90s revival fashion did not seem dated, rather, in the boozy, sunny environment this group of young adults oozed a confidence that made what they wore and what they did, en vogue. In a city as staid as Munich this was their stomping ground, a gritty expanse of tarmac pocketed in the midst of yellow DHL buildings and other urban sprawl. Waiting for their musical idols, uninhibited by beer and a background beat of bass, this was their territory and it suited them.

In the middle of the throng clutching my oversized work bag and surrounded by teenagers speaking in inscrutable Bavarian, I felt incredibly out of place. I had no idea who Casper and Marteria were and I was too old and too short for this. There was washing to be done! However, there was no possibility of escape given the sheer masses that had crammed in during the intervening period. Like it or not, there was no way out until the the concert was over.

Checking my watch I cursed Casper and Marteria's 15 minute delay and resigned myself to playing interminable sweaty sardines with the youth of Munich. I was just about to check my legs for varicose veins when the generic dance music changed and twangy trumpets emanated from the speakers. The crowd recognising the riff, began to holler and to this commotion Casper and Marteria, jumped onto the makeshift platform at the back of the pen and started to sing.

As I said, I am not usually one for rap music but this was different. Hearing a 2000-strong crowd sing out "We are Champion," raised a catchy chorus into something anthemic. Songs that would ordinarily sound tinny on Spotify were elevated by hundreds of converse trainers stamping to amplify the bass. Radiating excitement, energy and adoration for their heroes, the crowd turned Casper and Marteria's music into a phenomenon.

And the duo responded in kind. Bantering between songs, the affable pair made light-hearted jokes, which starkly contrasted with their rasping verses. With frequent mentions of the recent events in Chemnitz the two urged their followers to practise tolerance, even going so far as to start a chant of Nazis Raus! Nazis Raus! (Nazis out! Nazis out!) The only drawback to this was that many people bellowed the words with an accompanying raised right arm, which was unfortunate given the context and the country.

A strong civic message seems at odds with much modern US rap and Casper and Marteria's sentiment caught me off guard. In fact, the very nature of rap with its quasi-shouting and gruff tones seems contrary to kindness and conviviality but then again, seeing a crowd of 2000 plus teenagers sing "schieß hoch zu den Sternen hinauf!" (shoot high to the stars) makes you realise that there may be no better form of music to unify thousands of different voices. More nuanced than a battle cry and yet more hearty than a pop song, rap is the perfect medium to bind and bolster a crowd. And why not use that power for good? Why not follow the lead of two well-meaning and rightfully popular rap stars and blast out a chorus as anti-venom to fascism, racism and generalised hate of the other?

I may not have known all the words, I may not even have known the language, but by the end of the concert, I too was singing.

Himmi reviews Madam Chutney, Munich

You know it's something special when Asian ladies dress up for dinner.

In my experience that amount of bling: heavy gold necklace, sparkly-spangly earrings and the double-bracelet whammy, are usually reserved for the really big events. A small Indian restaurant in the residential homegeneity of Munich's Schwabing-Freimann district was not the place I expected to find Asian-wedding level jewellery. But find it I did, which meant the family occupying the large table at the back of Madam Chutney were either celebrating something special (which judging by the winter colours of the rest of the party was not the case) or the matriarch thought the restaurant worthy of the family jewels.

My expectations of the food rose.

For judging by the outside of the restaurant, my expectations were modest. Madam Chutney inhabited one room of a single-storey building, its windows fogged up against the drizzle of a September Saturday afternoon. Opening the door to the restaurant I was confronted by three packed tables with its occupants steaming off their rainy trips. It was like walking into someone's front room directly from the street and I almost apologised for barging in. In the confined premises, their was no question of having a table to ourselves. There were a set number of seats and like the children's game of musical chairs, when they were all taken you had to sit out. Having arrived early in the restaurant's business hours our party of four nestled at a corner of one of the tables. Later-comers would not be so lucky.

The smell was promising. In the muggy environment, the aroma of spices became concentrated and like all the best experiences, it reminded me of happy times past. In this case I flashed back to the meal preparations for the religious events of my childhood. These communal dos would often involve days of cooking on my mother's part and for a whole week the kitchen would become a spiced sauna from vats of delicious, bubbling curries. My positive associations were justified when the proprietress and sole waiter brought out glasses of scented, sweet chai. This was the real stuff; this was the stuff of home.

Our starters continued in that tradition with a selection of sour and spicy dishes. Whilst it was hard to differentiate between the puffed rice and potatoes of the bhel puri (the moist air must have softened their respective textures), the dilli ki paapri chaat stayed crisp, despite its discs of fried wheat dough being submerged under chutney-swirled yoghurt. The highlight for me, however, was the fried railway samosas - two plump, generous triangles filled with curried potatoes and a flash of fiery chilli that left my German companions desperately ordering more mango lassi.

As you can imagine, the mango lassi was sublime. Served in the now dated trend of Mason jars, the lassi rose above its pop culture container. The drink was fragrant and identifiably fresh, its creamy volume underscored by a note of cardamom, the unifying flavour of all dishes and drinks at Madam Chutney. It proved to be a necessary filler, however, as our group made the mistake of ordering mains after (not with) the starters, thus further burdening a stretched staff with our late request.

By this time more groups had started to fill the remaining floorspace in Madam Chutney, the rain forcing them to wait inside. Feeling rather intimidated by the side-eye of these hungry customers, we snuffled down our kathi rolls when they came, slightly cooled and slightly delayed from a overloaded kitchen. Making up for the damp egg paratha was the beautifully flavoured meat. I enjoyed a wodge of lamb sheekh, whilst also nabbing a bite of my partner's malai chicken tikka, both of which were herby and subtly sour.

Wanting us to have the full experience our table's lead ignored the increasingly fed-up people waiting and ordered a final round of paan ice cream. With the requisite delay, a bowl of ash coloured ice cream arrived at our table, soused in red syrup. Whilst not to everyone's taste the subtle flavours of betel leaves, rosewater and of course, cardamom, made for a memorable finale. Downing the last remnants of chai, we paid up and exited post haste as the next group of people eagerly took our seats.

Madam Chutney certainly offered the authentic Asian-subcontinent experience with delicious food and a busy, if not slightly chaotic atmosphere. At least on a popular Saturday afternoon it goes against the German ideals of efficiency in having limited seating space and one member of staff to serve all the tables, but if you are prepared to wait, you will be rewarded with some truly yummy fare.

Despite its shortcomings, I can see why you might want to dress up for dinner.

Queen of the Road

Munich is hot.

I peel myself off the pleather subway seat, transferring another layer of yick to the decades of skin cells that form its topmost beige layer, and pick up my bags. All hail the bag lady of the U3 Munich Underground line to Fürstenried West. I have done this journey many a time now and am familiar with the escalators and platforms that take me from where I have been (my initial flat located on the distant outskirts of Munich) to where I want to go (my new apartment near the city centre). It is a long, tortuous journey with multiple connections and no air-conditioning, which in this sustained stint of 30°C summer days makes for a hot and bothered Himmi by the end of it.

Yet again I am moving my life. The two suitcases that I initially came over with seem to have spawned, breeding contents that fill many of those old favourites - plastic bags. In these bags condiments kindly donated by my hello-goodbye flatmates of the last month are wedged in between folds of newly purchased linen. Everything smells faintly of garam masala. I cart it all, the bags symmetrically swinging from my arms, as beleaguered and forlorn as a donkey climbing the Grand Canyon.

And still it does not make an impact on the flat. My new, bright and beautiful attic apartment has the basic furniture needed to exist but it is bereft of any personality other than the anodyne air of IKEA. Despite moving all I currently have into the flat, it still bears no imprint of me and thus does not feel like home. So many of previous abodes quickly became a nest, feathered by frequent top-ups of stuff from the repository I left at my poor parents' house. But here I am, 665 miles away from Surrey, with very little else apart from some clothes and a few precious photos to actually call my own.

It has been this way for a while now. The transitory nature of medical rotations in the UK meant that every few years, I'd either move to a new town to be closer to the new hospital I had been stationed at or face a longer commute. Packing up my belongings in an old kit bag (well, my Peugeot 108) and relocating was nothing new. Most people begin to tire of nomadic living after a while and for me that usually corresponds with reaching the penultimate floor of the block in which your flat is located (in this case that is the fourth floor and as you guessed, there is no lift).

As I wheeze up that final flight, I realise that this is the off-shoot of setting up a new life abroad. Limited by Easyjet luggage allowance and shipping costs I cannot easily populate the apartment with cosy bric-a-brac from home, thus, there are two options available to me: either I try minimalist living or I buy things anew and lug them up five floors using nothing but puny muscles, determination and swearwords. I begin a targeted tour of homeware shops in Munich.

In the summer heat I visit every Butlers, Galeria Kaufhof and Oxfam within Munich's Inner Ring. Desperate and sweating inordinately I even travel to the end of the U1 line and through the calm cemetery of the Westfriedhof to reach what appears to be the biggest thrift store in Munich, the Kaufhaus Diakonia. This is a modern day German equivalent of Ali Baba uncovering the secrets of the cave but instead of gold coins, the majority of items here seems to be beer steins. I wander through the other aisles of relinquished knick-knacks and furniture and marvel at the sheer variety of things people can fill their homes with.

The ridiculous part is that Philippe and I already have most of the items I am looking for, in duplicate in our respective parents homes. I think fondly of a serving bowl boxed up in my parents' loft that would solve our current dinner issues (salad is currently mixed in a tupperware lunch box) and Philippe has the exact bookcase that could turn a spartan sitting room into a more homely space. What is the point of buying all these things in Munich only to have to cart them back to the next place when we move on? Then we will have serving bowls and bookshelves in triplicate and I'm pretty sure my parents will draw the line at that.

But needs must. Either I forgo a truly comfortable domestic experience in Munich and return to student days of drinking wine from mugs, or I go out and purchase new wine glasses. It is definitely not the biggest problem in the world, for one thing the measures seem to be more generous in a mug, but it is an issue I am facing. With my hand forced, I change my affiliation from materialism to minimalism.

Just don't comment on the salad when you come round for dinner.

Ethan Hunt saves the day

Three weeks in and it hit.

Munich continued in its stunning summer form, the trees still impossibly lush despite the third week of good weather, but something was wrong. I stared out of the bus windows on my way in to town that morning, observing the sights that were now hallmarks of my morning commute: the giant dressmaker's mannequin sculpture of Effnerplatz, the lichenified stonework of Max-Joseph Brücke and then the plunge through the Englischer Garten.

I was unmoved.

Flash back to three weeks previously when this very same journey had me texting my family rapturous blurry photos with captions like "look! The squirrels are red here!" Now, however, I looked on it all with a dispassionate eye, worse, I looked on it with displeasure. Objectively I knew the city was beautiful, no one who walks down Ludwigstrasse from the heavyset majesty of Odeonsplatz to the beckoning arches of the Siegestor can deny otherwise, but knowing and feeling are different. I didn't feel anymore, I knew.

I called home, desperate for a diagnosis. How could Munich have lost its shine after just three weeks? Was I doomed to walk the earth moving from city to city every fortnight to keep my interest piqued?

"Do you think you might be a little homesick?" came the obvious answer.

Homesickness. I rolled the concept round in my head, looking at it from a variety of angles. I was in a different country surrounded by a foreign language and everything was new. Even on the flight to Germany I was aware that I was doing something extreme, which entailed a wholesale upheaval to my life. Now I was facing the day-to-day reality of placing myself in this situation: living abroad was tough.

Well, duh.

The thing is I couldn't envisage all the challenges of living in another country throughout the buildup to the move. As I previously explained, the logistical planning of emigration took up a great deal of attention, which eclipsed the touchy-feely considerations of how I might actually deal with living somewhere new and altogether different. After three weeks of fumbled interactions with Münchners and a number of near misses with right-hand drive cyclists, I realised how tiring it was to drop yourself into a different country. Every conversation meant stepping my brain up into GCSE German exam mode as well as trying to remember the appropriate adjectival ending for bathroom in four different grammatical cases. Official documentation was inscrutable and I kept postponing my grocery shop after continually being caught out by the modest shop opening hours in Germany. I felt ignorant, alien and hungry. Little wonder that Munich's city break shine had worn off with the practicalities of living rather than holidaying abroad.

I was homesick not so much for any particular place or thing (although what I wouldn't give for a proper cup of Twining's Earl Grey), but rather I was homesick for ease. Home was somewhere I could sit down in a restaurant and have no issue understanding the waiter's recommendations. It was somewhere I knew the nuances of the public transport system and could legitimately complain about it. Home entailed an automatic familiarity with the customs, history and insider jokes that come from living in a particular land for a long period of time. It had been so easy.

Aching for something undemanding, I suggested to Philippe that we go to the cinema to see the latest Mission Impossible. Never had I more craved the hyperbolic, fluffy fare of an Hollywood blockbuster. Ignoring the serene summer's day, Philippe and I plunged into the darkness of the movie theatre in the hope that wilted popcorn and Tom Cruise would prove to be the cure for my homesickness. I could not wait to be immersed in the improbable, familiar world of an American action movie.

And then Ethan Hunt started speaking German.

After the shock wore off from seeing Tom Cruise uttering statements in a well-dubbed German baritone, I realised that I was going to go without a two-hour trip back home. There were no subtitles and like Ethan, I was going to have to sink or swim with regards to following the plot. I settled back in my seat and tried to keep up.

And the strange thing is, I did. Maybe it was the engrossing nature of cinema or perhaps it was a marked improvement in my German after three weeks of immersion, but for the most part I understood the exaggerated speeches and threads of the story. Of course, I was a little confused as to the translation of 'plutonium core extraction timer device' and how it actually functioned but then Hunt & Co. seemed to have a problem with that too. I emerged from the cinema picking apart plot-holes, something that is one of the main delights of going to the movies back in the UK and here I was in Munich doing exactly the same thing. It was fun, it was automatic and it had the familiarity of home.

It wasn't easy yet, but it certainly wasn't impossible.

---

Images from the morning commute

The Rat Race

'Earlier,' he said. 'We need to be there earlier.'

Philippe had the dilated pupils of an animal that has its leg caught in a trap. I half expected him to start gnawing at a limb such was his expression of panic.

I scrolled the numbers back on my phone alarm whilst he looked on.

'No, earlier!' he said. 'You don't understand.'

Maybe I didn't understand but I had certainly heard his tale of woe. Philippe, my partner, landed in Munich a few months ago and as such has been through the five stages of German registration bureaucracy, which has the same progression as those of the Kübler-Ross model of grief. From the way he tells it, Philippe had been through all but the last stage (acceptance) during his trips to the Munich Kreisverwaltungsreferat, the administrative building at which all new city residents must register.

The Kreisverwaltungsreferat (or KVR as it is unaffectionately known) is exactly what you would expect of an governmental institution in the Vaterland. As we lurched out from the subway, bleary-eyed as a result of the earlier-than-early start, KVR loomed above us with its uninspired 60s facade partly shrouded in scaffolding. Ugly buildings don't usually phase me, I grew up in Croydon after all, but KVR was something else altogether. For underneath the blocky architecture, filling the steps in a disorganised mass, a crowd of 100+ people teemed.

And I was about to join them.

'What is this?' I whispered to Philippe, as we shuffled to the back of the crowd. An infant squirming in its pram looked up at me bewildered as I filled the gap next to it. I gazed bewildered back, both of us suddenly finding ourselves in Stage 1 - shock and denial.

'This is nothing,' Philippe muttered, his teeth gritted in anger (already far ahead of me on Stage 2).

Sure enough more people were joining the crowd, packing us in like the terracotta army but much less orderly.

'I can't remember where "K" is,' grimaced Philippe.

I looked at him fearful. Was it too much for him? Had KVR made him lose his mind?

'What?'

'Your surname, it begins with a "K"' he said.

I nodded at him, placing a comforting hand on his arm.

'Each letter has a different kiosk for registration. We need to head to the kiosk as soon as possible to get a ticket to be seen.'

'Okaaaaay,' I said, stretching the syllables out in my incomprehension.

'The longer we leave it the more people are in front in the queue and the longer it takes to be seen. Every second counts!' he exclaimed. 'Just you wait and see.'

Slightly scared now, I spent the remaining time in suspenseful silence, slowly being compressed into pâté by the force of the ever-expanding crowd.

7.30 a.m. and all hell broke lose.

They must have opened the doors to the building because all of a sudden the crowd surged forward taking Philippe, the pram and I with it. With nothing to be seen other than the 360 degrees of faces and bodies in my immediate vicinity I felt Philippe's hand begin to slip out of mine and had a momentary insight into the horror of crush disasters. Pressing en masse, the swell of a few hundred pre-registration Munich residents broke against a set of double doors and in we squished, cheek-against-cheek, calf-against-buggy, staggering into the desolate corridors of the KVR.

And then everyone started running.

I have never seen anything like it. Within moments the multi-headed mass dissolved into a frenzy of faces pinballing through the halls of the KVR.

'I'll go look at the board,' said Philippe, striding ahead, too dignified to join the sprinting hordes.

I hurried after him, bumping into panicked figures along the way.

'What's the matter?' I asked, stricken to see my usually composed partner, swearing under his breath whilst looking at the floorplan.

'Your letter isn't listed.'

I surveyed the board and sure enough, next to "K" someone had crudely obscured the previously listed kiosk with a stretch of duct tape.

What were we supposed to do now? Surely they couldn't just ignore people with surnames beginning with "K," I asked, bargaining my way into Stage 3.

'This is KVR,' said Philippe, his face darkening further. 'They can do anything they want.'

Philippe's worst fears had come true and long lines had formed already. We walked past them, our inquiries as to whether this was the right queue for "K" met with the shrugs of hopelessness. Similarly when we were asked by other lost souls, we shrugged ourselves.

The queue crawled forward and as we came within hearing range of the desk, we were able to tune into the melodrama of KVR counter interactions. I was fully absorbed in a Mexican standoff between a KVR employee and a resident brandishing an incorrectly signed property rental agreement, when Philippe started muttering again.

'This isn't a processing desk, this is an information desk. We have to move. Now.'

Philippe went into Jason Bourne mode, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the line. Round we scurried, traversing the grey corridors of KVR like rats let loose in a psychologist's maze, only our behaviour was much less rational. Occasionally we would encounter another lost murine with whom we would share a look of mutual self-pity before twitching our whiskers and moving on. 

In the end it didn't matter which queue we joined because KVR, as evidenced by the rat-race chaos of the first few minutes, was a free-for-all. It turned out people with surnames beginning with the letter "K" could be processed at any kiosk, something we found out 30 minutes later when we finally came face-to-face with a KVR employee. 

With the standard issue expression of boredom she gave us a deli-counter ticket with the number 38 stamped on it. Whether waiting for cheese, sausages or governmental bureaucracy, the frustration at the slowly ascending numbers is the same. 

So our long watch began. 

As is only natural I descended into Stage 4, depression, as the red LED display stayed resolutely fixed on number 11. Philippe with his experience, however, seemed to ascend to a transcendental plane, closing his eyes and falling silent, expelling only an occasional deep sigh. Stuck on a slightly less elevated level, I counted the tiles on the ceiling.

During this time I began to see one of the issues of trying to set up a life abroad.  The sticky trappings of bureaucracy and the deli-counter wait may be universal but what makes the grey corridors of KVR different from the aesthetically similar ones of Brighton and Hove County Council is the sensation of being in an unfamiliar country with unknown rules.  Without Philippe's prior experience I can only imagine how much more lost I would have felt.  In a way, his disgruntlement was the ultimate in reassurance. Here was someone who had been there, done that and knew what to despair of.

In the end we made it out of KVR, fleeing with registration documents and tales to bore blog readers with. Having survived trial by KVR, I pushed through to the stage 5, acceptance and hope. I was acclimatizing to German customs. That was until Philippe with an appropriately German touch of Schadenfreude, reminded me that we would have to go through the whole thing again when we moved in a few weeks.

Back to Stage 1 then.

Ticket to Ride (and Easyjet don't care)

I have been packing for ten days.

To be more specific, I have been packing then unpacking then packing again for the last ten days, boxing up all my worldly possessions and redistributing them across three different cities, not all in the same country. Brighton - Guildford - Munich, those have been the triumvirate of destinations in my life over the past few days. 

Now as I sit here on the plane, my one-way ticket LGW - MUC stored on my phone rather than romantically clutched in my hand, I realise that in the last week and a half this is probably the longest period I have stayed still (other than for the requisite eight hours of sleep I need each night that restores just enough humanity to allow me to rejoin the species each morning).

There is a crick in my neck and earlier as I was loading my luggage onto the conveyor belt something popped in my lower back. Don't worry though, these are not ailments. No, these aches and pains are the trophies of moving. In this case it is something slightly more exaggerated than dumping your stuff at your parents’ house between jobs (although don’t get me wrong, that was the Guildford part and took up pretty much five of the last ten days).

Welcome to moving upgraded.

This is emigrating.

For at least the next year I shall be living in Germany, propelled into this extraordinary change by wanderlust, adrenaline and love. This heady combination has over the past few months caused me to pack up a much beloved flat in the seaside English town of Brighton, decant most of my detritus at my horrified parents' home in Guildford and finally siphon off a few choice garments and photos to start a new life with in Munich.

Of course, I was largely distracted during the whole process, trying to courier contracts from afar and sort out exactly which direct debits I needed to cancel from a long list of phantom payees. Such is the all-consuming nature of emigration that the bureaucracy and organisation of moving country takes up so much attention that you almost miss the enormity of it. Which is just as well really, as it is only as I sit here in seat 19D, flight EZY8985, that I begin to grasp what it is to move country and your whole life as you knew it.

It's kinda crazy.

Nothing exemplifies this more than trying to start a new existence with one piece of checked-in luggage and one carry-on (and believe me Easyjet insists on one and only one carry-on). Too cheap to upgrade to speedy boarding as I'd rather save my cents for Oktoberfest beer rather than boarding privileges, I had to be creative. It started with the age-old Asian grandma trick of wearing as much as physically possible. Whereas my grandmas used to bundle up to stave off the cold on the long haul, air-conned flight from Sri Lanka to icy England, I did it purely to maximise my Munich autumn wardrobe. Of course wearing a coat, scarf, jumper and boots on the hottest day of the year in the UK raised suspicions. Hardly surprising I was taken aside at the Gatwick security and strip-searched (literally) and asked for an explanation as to why I was wearing two bras. There is no short answer to this. 

Having been returned my undergarments, which had to be taken off to be individually examined with a handheld metal detector, I made it three metres from the melee of airport security before I spied another way to expand my luggage allowance. Within the sleek white galleyways of duty-free I approached the MAC stand desperate not so much for new provocatively named makeup but rather for the coveted plastic bag stamped with "duty-free" on it. Knowing that Easyjet allows one extra duty-free bag in addition to a carry-on suitcase I had no qualms in asking the bemused assistant for a large carrier bag for my two lipsticks. Forget the UK 5p plastic bag charge, the £28.60 I spent in partial effort to get a poly bag could be one of the most nonsensical things I have ever done. As my payment went through I realised for that sum I could have simply purchased another piece of checked luggage.

Still smarting from this realisation I decanted some contents from my suitcase into the precious plastic bag whilst other passengers glided by, ridiculously unencumbered. Some of them, I spotted, had the smallest of purses as their carry-ons, practically skipping with the ease of travel. I, on the other hand, stumbled behind these carefree jetsetting gazelles, classlessly fishing my passport from a plastic bag and trailing scarves from my pocket like a really shabby and overheated clown.

This is not the way I like to travel, I hasten to add, but this is what happens when you (well I) emigrate. It is messy, extreme and overwhelming. What else do you expect from upending a whole life to try something completely different on another landmass? But for all the hassle and lopsided lugging of carry-on baggage, I am finally here, buckled in for one and a half hours of enforced rest, which ironically correlates with the actual process of emigration.

That gives me one and a half hours to regroup and repack my hard-earnt plastic bag.

What then? 

And then the adventure really begins.