Bavaria is an interesting place.
An ex-girlfriend of mine spent a summer there. Despite her blonde hair, big tits, deep scorn for families that used more than one sharp knife in their kitchen, insistence that referring to plugs and sockets as male and female connectors was clear evidence of the ruinous, insidious influence of a sexist, patriarchal society, and her well established habit of spreading her legs to attract love and devotion, despite all this, she was really quite intelligent.
She also possessed an enviable competency in German, so she spent most of her time in and around Munich trying to learn how to speak Bavarian.
This was my first hint that Bavaria was a special place.
I visited Bavaria myself. I was doing the post-university backpack through Europe thing. A good friend of mine could fly standby anywhere in the world for about $80 (one advantage of your dad working for a major airline) and decided to drop out of the sky in Frankfurt to join me in my travels. According to our plan, Bavaria was just the beginning of our trek through Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands.
We didn't spend all of our time in the beer tents during Oktoberfest, strolling past drunk tourists rolling and groaning in their own puke, and being shoved onto U-Bahn trains by police. We also strolled through Munich, sampling the sites and tastes, enjoying the fine weather and very friendly folks. Day trips through the area left me wishing we had more time to stay and explore.
I miss Bavaria, but probably not nearly as much as my Bavarian coworker. His parents and siblings still live there.
I enjoy talking with my Bavarian coworker. In fact, I like to interrogate all my coworkers in our small office to get their perspective on their native lands and their place in the world. I work with a lot of folks from northern and southern India, and we have an ever-expanding office in Bangalore. I've just about had it up to here with Indian culture, history, politics, food, language, current events, dress, and holidays. When we hired a Bulgarian Jew, I learned how much it has sucked to be a Jew in Bulgaria for the past 1800 years, with a special focus on the last 50 or 60. He told me of his town's rabbi, also the head of the local secret police, who made a nice packet for himself selling papers to families certifying their Jewish status and allowing them to emigrate to Israel. I also learned that, yes, he and his wife make their own Bulgarian buttermilk every week.
So my Bavarian coworker gives me his perspective on subjects like the bifurcation of identities between Germany and Bavaria. I've been told by multiple Bavarians "There's Germany, and then there's Bavaria." It reminds me a bit of Canada and the Québécois, only the Bavarians are less persistently stupid about asserting their pseudo-nationality.
I also managed to secure a copy of his mom's cookbook. It's in idiomatic German with all metric measurements, so it requires multiple levels of translation, but some of the recipes I've thumbed through make my mouth water.
What else do we know about Bavaria?
I've mentioned beer. Pretzels? I love those damned pretzels. BMWs? The Ultimate Driving Machine for folks with a very narrow idea of what a "driving machine" can be. Neuschwanstein and wacky Ludwig? "[Ludwig's] extravagance, homosexuality and near or actual insanity worried the Bavarian government". Hrm.
Oh, I shouldn't forget this.
Courtesy the crap-mongers of Starcrest of California, we have a flying Bavarian replete with lederhosen, beer mug, and titanic brush on his head.
The catchy subhead for this listing is "If you're a polka fan, this CD is a lesson in history!" Imagine an entire CD packed full of pola and proto-polka treasures like "Mir Ham's vom Sauerkraut" and "Grashüpfer Polka".
Maybe that subhead should read: "If you're a polka fan, kill yourself now. Please."
In fact, I'm harboring an irrational hope that there's somebody out of frame in the CD cover, standing with a shotgun shouldered, having just shouted "Pull!"
Pakeha