"Do You Have The Sack With You?"

"Do you have the Sack with you?"

I spoke: "the Sack, that is here;

because apples, nut and almond core

eat pious children gladly."

"Do you have the rod also with you?"

I spoke: "the rod, it is here;

but for the children, only the bad,

those it meets them right, upon their part."

(translated excerpt of 'Farmhand Ruprecht' by Theodore Storm)

My last day in Rome was pretty laid back; all I really did was wander around trying to hit a few of the lesser sights I hadn't gotten to yet, but mostly wound up back in my favorite spots, which were The Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. I did sit down and do the whole three-course Italian Meal thing... that was awesome. I sweated, alot.
I've opened my Rome Gallery on smugmug; please remember that I was photodepressed... there's only so much you can do that hasn't been done before in that city.
That night I caught my train, slept really well, and woke up about an hour outside of Munich, in a town called Kufstein. I'd been to Kufstein before, and there's a great German castle on a small hill right by the train station, and when I first opened my eyes and looked out the window, the Kufstein Castle was my first sight of Bavaria in three years...

honestly, it felt like I was home. And then at almost every train station between there and Munich, I had a memory or a story from that town that just got me even more choked up... It felt really, really good to  get off the train in Munich and walk through the Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station)... itself an area of many memories. I got there at 8:30am, and wasn't supposed to meet my friends there until 10:00am or so, but I was really happy to just hang out and get a cappucino at one of the kiosks there and smell that good Bavarian air. Granted, Munich is a big city more than 100 kilometers away from the mountains, but I swear you can still smell that fresh Alpen air from any part of town.
And then 10:00 rolled around, and the first person I saw was Nimmer, of course. Then Scott, and Jeff Rydell, and lastly Matt. It was good to see them all. Well, without getting too technical, we checked into the youth hostel right next to the Hauptbahnhof, and spent the rest of the afternoon catching up... we did the traditional Munich walking tour: Bacon Cheeseburger at the Irish Pub off the Marienplatz, a walk through the Dalmyers' shop, and of course Nimmer had to pay his respects at the German war memorial. Then that evening, we killed many hours and many brain cells at the Hofbrauhaus.
I Love Munich!
Next morning we got up and trained it down to Berchtesgaden... talk about fresh mountain air... if it's refreshing in Munich, then it knocks you over and tries to give your lungs an enema in Berchtesgaden! We checked into the Hotel Bavaria. Here's the view from my room balcony:

I love German Guesthouses... they're all very clean, very solidly built, (all of the furniture in them is made of thickly cut, solid wood. Probably hand carved.) and remind one of Little Red Riding Hood's Grandmother's house in the woods. The comforters on the beds are soft, thick, and garnished with a flower and chocolate... or so I'm told as apparently a certain roomate helped himself to mine before I got there. Well, no use opening up old wounds.
I don't have much new to say about Krampus fest itself... for a description of what the Krampus festivities are all about and this year's pictures, go here. I haven't made the fest since I came in December '03, but this was probably my 5th or 6th Krampus fest, (and here are some even better Krampus pictures from the ghosts of Krampus past) and it was, of course, as fun as any of them. One thing I got to see for the first time was the opening ceremony. There was some sort of evil anti-santa who the real St. Nick brought into town that I'd never seen at Krampus before... he was kind of creepy. I think he might have supposed to have been the chief Krampus demon, the Berchtesgaden version of Knecht Ruprecht, but really I'm not very sure what he was all about. I got pictures... they'll be up sooner or later.
Long story short, we all got hurt real bad. Nimmer got it the worst, I'm afraid... it wouldn't be polite to describe exactly where he took the worst shot known to any man, but let's just say that it's now apparently a blueish color and he's walking with a decidedly leftish limp, and that the title of this post doesn't only refer to the Krampus poem I quoted initially. Another friend of ours who had moved to working in Garmisch-Partenkirchen when Chiemsee closed showed up, which we were all very happy about. Greg, who some of you may recall was with us on Nimmer's Great Northern Europe Tour 2003, got beat down into the pavement... hard. Scott took a pretty good swipe to the eye, and Matt got it in the throat, and of course we all took the more normal lashes to the backs of our knees... I have a few bruises, I am proud to say. However I actually didn't get it too badly... Scott had picked up a bottle of Jagermeister earlier in the day, (It's good for numbing the pain) and I happened to be holding it for no particular reason at one point when a running, howling, lashing pack of very large demons descended on us. One of them headed straight at me, whip raised, and I thought for sure that I was finally going to get what's coming to me. As he got about a foot away from me, lash still poised to do me a world of much-deserved hurt, he stared at me for a full five seconds, not moving while I stood there frozen in awe, as one would stare at a 50 foot tidal wave of lava about to crash on your head, or a shark with a laser cannon tied to it's fin who was deciding whether to shoot you or not, when he reached out and grabbed the Jagermeister bottle and took a healthy swig. After whetting his thirst, he handed it back to me, growled his thanks, and took off in another direction. This actually happened several times, each time with me getting more and more angry because, while my friends were all coming back with grand tales of the pain that was levelled on them, all I had was a measly story about thirsty demons who apparently were not threatened by me at all. Quite an ego-bruising, I assure you. The demonic word must have got passed around that I was a Demon-juice provider, because even after I'd got rid of the bottle as though it was a plague, they left me alone. It all turned out mostly okay... later on in the night the Krampus devils must have had enough of their elixir that they forgot that I'd apparently been called off-limits, and I managed to get a few of those long awaited punishments.
I bought a Krampus mask! So did Scott. They had them for sale in a wood-carving shop in the middle of the old part of Berchtesgaden, where the festival actually goes down. It's the first time I was really there during the day, and so in past years had never noticed the opportunity to have my very own Krampus mask... I am very excited. It was really cool too, because when the Wood-Carver realized as we were looking at the few masks which he had on display in his shop window that we were serious customers who by the look on our faces would rather die in a wood-chipper than leave without a Krampus mask, he took us down to his basement where he had a more varied selection. I'm having it shipped home in a few weeks, and one day it will be hung on my wall proudly, and very intimidatingly. Perhaps I will use it to teach the local children the joys, and terror, of the true spirit of Christmas.
Now we're all back in Munich, and tomorrow morning, Nimmer, Matt, Scott and I are flying to Cairo. We're going to spend about four days there before heading back here again to go our separate ways. It's getting rather clichéd of me to say that I will be telling you all about it, so I'll try to avoid that from now on.
In the meantime, here's a picture of my mask. It's the one in the middle, and Scott bought the one on the lower right.

 

Comments

[Chiemsee Sarah]

Aww, here I am trying to get some work done and y'all are off playing with the Demons. I swear I can still hear thoee bells in my sleep. Say hi to the boys for me. Any time anyone wants to head to Phoenix...

[TF]

Dude, pagan rituals look like a heck of a lot of fun...

[messiestobjects]

Hey Sarah! Will say hi to all.
TF, not to be a stickler, but actually it's a very (Bavarian) Christian tradition... St. Nick has a friend named Knecht Ruprecht who owed him a favor, so every year he lends him his demons to determine who's been naughty or nice and if naughty to then beat the living tar out of them... um, I can see how it's easily confused as a pagan holiday. Right. And yes, it is a hell of alot of fun.