One of the best weekends ever
9 May 2004 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
karohemdI'm back from Germany and have had a wonderul time showing ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
robinbloke the sights, sounds and tastes of Nuremberg and surroundings.
A big kudos goes to Robin for his attempts to speak German whenever possible. I did my best to expand his (until now) basically non-existent vocabulary.
The weather yesterday was much better than on Friday so we actually saw something of the countryside. Now for the details of the Saturday:
We picked up a selection of rolls at a baker's and a selection of cold meats/sausage (Aufschnitt) at a butcher's and then took the Underground to the airport to pick up our hire car (black VW Polo, with almost purple instrument illumination).
Off we went driving north of the city towards Bamberg, took a detour to visit my favourite brewery (not open for tour or shopping, though) where we had lunch (venison ragout) at the attached inn.
The journey took us further around the countryside past and over hills (UK people would call them mountains) with the occasional castle on them, through quaint little villages, often with old timber framed houses. Whee! Rural road driving, how I missed you. Shame I had an unfamiliar car or I would have had even more fun.
The next destination was Bamberg where we parked at a convenient P+R and took the bus into city centre. Unlike Nürnberg which was almost completely reduced to rubble in WWII, Bamberg's inner city is still as it was hundreds of years ago, with old, wonderfully restored patricians' houses and other buildings, towering above all the mighty Dom (cathedral) which unfortunately had already closed when we got there. Wandered around, had our sausage rolls (Brotzeit) by the river, popped into the Schlenkerla (a local specialty brewery/inn who produce a unique dark beer made from smoked malt), and went to another Italian ice cafe to kill time until the next bus back. For some strange reason, all the pubs that looked interesting only opened at 8, hence the ice cafe.
Wandered around the fairground near the car park a bit, got changed and then the nightlife started.
Found Zapfendorf without any problems, just the location of the club was a bit hidden. I knew the name of the inn the club is attached to but missed it first time we went past. If you don't know about it, you wouldn't think that one of the best Goth/Industrial clubs is in a village in the middle of the Frankonian countryside. From the outside you would assume it's a Bauerndisco (which it used to be in my time in the area) but inside it's cool. Up two flights of stairs are two rooms. The bigger one with seating, tall tables and a bar around a rectangular dancefloor with a superb light show, the other room with more seating (rustic wooden tables and chairs), a bar and a tiny dancefloor.
When we got in 9:15ish, it was almost empty (as to be expected in Germany), the two DJs in the main room mixed obscure ambient/structured Noise stuff and the smaller room started with Dark and Ethereal Ambient.
We had managed to get into a special night which went away a bit from the usual Electro/Noise/Industrial and had loads of structured, ambient and experimental Noise and live mixes thereof in the first three hours. Compared to this, my Noise set at the last Octaine was commercial... From about 1am, more and more well known tracks were played (e.g. Suicide Commando - Mein Herz, deine Liebe, KiEw - DCDisk, [:sitd:] - Snuff Machinery and P•A•L - Gelöbnis). There was not a single track I'd consider overplayed. The DJs seemed to like :wumpscut:, though and played four tracks (Our Fatal Longing, Your Last Salute [Laittog remix], War and Achtung! [Der Blutharsch remix]).
On top of that, the set was extremely well mixed, these guys know their craft. I was in absolute heaven. ;o)
Now for the strange bit. As we've already discovered the night before, there seem to be no cybers in that area, despite of the concept of the night. The closest were the bloke in full PVC and the girl with a couple of blue synthdreads in her long black ponytail. The rest were either more or less trad, a bit punk, a bit fetish or just combats/tshirt look. Stranger even was the dancing. Now, I never got into the goth scene properly before I went to the UK so I actually didn't know this. Everybody apart from Robin and myself danced the old Goth two-step, no matter what the music, even the harshest Powernoise, most of them facing the same way on the dancefloor and often in perfect sync. As Robin said, it looked like line dancing...
Went up to the DJs after to thank them and they were completely surprised. Looks like people usually don't do it. Had a nice bit of chat, anyway and they were over the top that someone liked the obscure stuff they did at the beginning for fun. ;o)
The drive back was relaxed and easy and I guess we were finally in our beds at 5.
This morning we were appropriately late but we had to check out by 12 so forced ourselves down to breakfast. Some shopping later, we gave back the car at the aiport and killed the last two hours with reading. Flight back was exactly on time and uneventful and the M11 was free so we were back in Cambridge a bit after 6.
A very good weekend, much fun, good music, good beer, my old city, familiar and new sights, all accompanied by a good mate. I need to do this again at one point, maybe in the latter half of the year.
robinbloke the sights, sounds and tastes of Nuremberg and surroundings.A big kudos goes to Robin for his attempts to speak German whenever possible. I did my best to expand his (until now) basically non-existent vocabulary.
The weather yesterday was much better than on Friday so we actually saw something of the countryside. Now for the details of the Saturday:
We picked up a selection of rolls at a baker's and a selection of cold meats/sausage (Aufschnitt) at a butcher's and then took the Underground to the airport to pick up our hire car (black VW Polo, with almost purple instrument illumination).
Off we went driving north of the city towards Bamberg, took a detour to visit my favourite brewery (not open for tour or shopping, though) where we had lunch (venison ragout) at the attached inn.
The journey took us further around the countryside past and over hills (UK people would call them mountains) with the occasional castle on them, through quaint little villages, often with old timber framed houses. Whee! Rural road driving, how I missed you. Shame I had an unfamiliar car or I would have had even more fun.
The next destination was Bamberg where we parked at a convenient P+R and took the bus into city centre. Unlike Nürnberg which was almost completely reduced to rubble in WWII, Bamberg's inner city is still as it was hundreds of years ago, with old, wonderfully restored patricians' houses and other buildings, towering above all the mighty Dom (cathedral) which unfortunately had already closed when we got there. Wandered around, had our sausage rolls (Brotzeit) by the river, popped into the Schlenkerla (a local specialty brewery/inn who produce a unique dark beer made from smoked malt), and went to another Italian ice cafe to kill time until the next bus back. For some strange reason, all the pubs that looked interesting only opened at 8, hence the ice cafe.
Wandered around the fairground near the car park a bit, got changed and then the nightlife started.
Found Zapfendorf without any problems, just the location of the club was a bit hidden. I knew the name of the inn the club is attached to but missed it first time we went past. If you don't know about it, you wouldn't think that one of the best Goth/Industrial clubs is in a village in the middle of the Frankonian countryside. From the outside you would assume it's a Bauerndisco (which it used to be in my time in the area) but inside it's cool. Up two flights of stairs are two rooms. The bigger one with seating, tall tables and a bar around a rectangular dancefloor with a superb light show, the other room with more seating (rustic wooden tables and chairs), a bar and a tiny dancefloor.
When we got in 9:15ish, it was almost empty (as to be expected in Germany), the two DJs in the main room mixed obscure ambient/structured Noise stuff and the smaller room started with Dark and Ethereal Ambient.
We had managed to get into a special night which went away a bit from the usual Electro/Noise/Industrial and had loads of structured, ambient and experimental Noise and live mixes thereof in the first three hours. Compared to this, my Noise set at the last Octaine was commercial... From about 1am, more and more well known tracks were played (e.g. Suicide Commando - Mein Herz, deine Liebe, KiEw - DCDisk, [:sitd:] - Snuff Machinery and P•A•L - Gelöbnis). There was not a single track I'd consider overplayed. The DJs seemed to like :wumpscut:, though and played four tracks (Our Fatal Longing, Your Last Salute [Laittog remix], War and Achtung! [Der Blutharsch remix]).
On top of that, the set was extremely well mixed, these guys know their craft. I was in absolute heaven. ;o)
Now for the strange bit. As we've already discovered the night before, there seem to be no cybers in that area, despite of the concept of the night. The closest were the bloke in full PVC and the girl with a couple of blue synthdreads in her long black ponytail. The rest were either more or less trad, a bit punk, a bit fetish or just combats/tshirt look. Stranger even was the dancing. Now, I never got into the goth scene properly before I went to the UK so I actually didn't know this. Everybody apart from Robin and myself danced the old Goth two-step, no matter what the music, even the harshest Powernoise, most of them facing the same way on the dancefloor and often in perfect sync. As Robin said, it looked like line dancing...
Went up to the DJs after to thank them and they were completely surprised. Looks like people usually don't do it. Had a nice bit of chat, anyway and they were over the top that someone liked the obscure stuff they did at the beginning for fun. ;o)
The drive back was relaxed and easy and I guess we were finally in our beds at 5.
This morning we were appropriately late but we had to check out by 12 so forced ourselves down to breakfast. Some shopping later, we gave back the car at the aiport and killed the last two hours with reading. Flight back was exactly on time and uneventful and the M11 was free so we were back in Cambridge a bit after 6.
A very good weekend, much fun, good music, good beer, my old city, familiar and new sights, all accompanied by a good mate. I need to do this again at one point, maybe in the latter half of the year.
