A Happy New Year to all of you. May 2006 bring you and you families Peace, Success, Love and most of all Health.

Here is the other mix I was talking about earlier. It’s a bit faster than the YIN and it has a nice house blend. It starts slowly and gets up to speed. Just the right thing for your New Years Party ;-)

New Years 05/06 YANGMIX - mixed by two-zero Dec 2005
[http://www.moscow-blog.com/tunez/NewYears_0506_YANGMIX.mp3]

Oh Oh. Snow seems to follow me since weeks. Wherever I go I see the white and it comes in masses. Hey don’t get me wrong, I like it ;-) Just came back to Moscow. The windows of the plane where a bit foggy, so I didn’t see anything from the outside, but my girlfriend Sonia warned me via mobile phone already, while we were still taxing. When I got outside I was very surprised about the snow. But for Russians it seems to be the usual thing. Apart from that I couldn’t get a taxi it was quite normal. The airport was crowded with people coming back for the New Years. The most funny thing were the people in front of me at immigration. Most of them were sun taint, in T-Shirts and some of them even in flip-flops, while it was – 10 C outside. It took me a while to find out that they came from Egypt with a charter plane. Welcome back home.

Yeah, that’s probably what every Foreigner expects about a Russian Winter. But its not the usual thing here as well. Still, the crew and the plane seemed to handle the conditions quiet well.

Yes, I know this title is a bit miss-leading, but I wrote another article about this last summer and this time I haven’t gotten a chance to go for a club-tour through the city. After all Christmas is when we are with our families. When I was in Munich, I stayed with my sister Jeannette her husband Paul and my nephew Leon. I cooked a dinner for them that night and Paul had the idea to go for some night sledding right after. So we put on some warm close (unfortunately not warm enough, since I got sick after) and went to some nearby hill in Schwabing (near Scheidplatz). It was quiet late when we arrived, but the city lights reflected on the snow, well it was more ice than snow. The snow from the past week has melted down and on top we had a bit of fresh snow. Even though the grass came out we had a blast. The ice was hard, but fast and Paul swears it has never been that fast before. On the daytime the hill is crowded with people, but at night its empty, as you can see.

We had some serious fun going down the hill, although it was hard to get back up after with all that ice on the ground. You did one step up and drifted 3 steps down right after. It was truly exhausting, but just the right thing to do that night and after all that Christmas food we had in the past days. After a while of sledding the Police came by to check us out It’s the usual thing in Munich and Bavaria. The police is everywhere. I expected them to give us a headache, but they just sat in their car, looked at us and moved on slowly. I guess -10 C was just to cold to get out of their car for some idiots that go sledding at midnight ;-)

We had fun. The only thing missing was some Glühwein, the traditional hot wine with oranges and spices inside.

Radio Tower and the BMW building (and HQ)

Hello, can you see me?

Leon and Paul getting ready for a run

Schwabing at Night from Ludwigshöhe. Leon and Paul are down at the bottom already. I’m next.

The raceteam is family ;-)

Here we go. Got up early this morning to drive to Munich. It has been snowing and driving was partly not so much fun, but I had some good tunes and it gave me an opportunity to think a bit. I love driving alone. While I am cruising I let my mind wander and I have time to think about business or anything else. Yes, I know. Thinking of business in the days of Christmas is probably not alright, but it seems my clients don’t take a break either. I am receiving calls and emails like never before and one of my business rules is that I am available for my clients at any time. So I just received a call from an agency I work with. There’s a problem with one of our sites and it needs to get fixed quickly. My coders in Russia work and its solved shortly after. Same day in the evening I am chatting with a US client, who is actually on vacation in the Dominican Republic. Its early morning for him and he has some questions. Seems like he had a free mind to think as well and I am there for him to discuss his ideas. I think that’s what customer service is all about, but on the other hand its getting me increasingly stressed, the more clients I take on.

The Munich Dome, called Frauenkirche. In the portal of the church you’ll find the footprint of the devil, which apparently was pissed about the fact that the church was completed and stamped so hard into the ground of the portal, that he left his footprint forever. When I was a kid, I was always very impressed and scared about this footprint.

Anyways, I’m back in Munich. This is where I was born and where some (half) of my family roots are. I am proud to be from Munich. Germans have this inner conflict about their heritage after world war 2 and we are usually afraid of saying we are German. When you live in a foreign country you learn a lot about yourself and your culture. You see, how it differs from the other cultures. For me its easy now. I just say I am proud of being Bavarian. That’s not only Lederhosen, Hofbräuhaus and Oktoberfest, nope that is about the Bavarian way. Bavarian people are hard headed, in the beginning unfriendly and they seem a bit countryside, but that is all a show. Once you get behind the hard sides, you’ll find the soft spot. The friendly and southern temperament. Indeed, we are different than the rest of Germany and I guess that’s in general why they don’t like us and we don’t like them. Well, its not a big deal, more of a show, but in general there are these feelings between the North and the South.

Munich’s main square: Marienplatz. The building is the city hall with its famous Glockenspiel, which is playing daily at 11 AM and at Noon as well as at 5 PM (only from March until October)

It is said, that the Bavarians refused to sign the new German constitution after WW2, which would make them a part of the Federal Republic. The Bavarians wanted their own country, like Austria or Switzerland. Some of them even wanted (and still want) the monarchy back. The Americans, which were controlling Bavaria after the war, put pressure on the Bavarians. They would eventually sign, but only after long negotiations and after they would receive a special status, similar to be a country inside of a country. Until the East came to Germany, Bavaria was the only “Freistaat”, which meant it could have its own laws, parliament, minister president, senate (which was abolished in 2000) and even its own anthem. Only Sachsen became another “Freistaat”, when the East German states joined the Republic.

So this is my home. At least that’s how it feels and as much as I travel the world I am always happy to come back, meet my family, my friends and get my dose of Bavarian culture. It seems some of the Russian Oligarchs like it as well. Many of them have houses in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and often I see the Russian private jets standing at Munich aiport. I understand them. I think especially the area in front of the Bavarian Alps is just beautiful and there are many opportunities to conduct some business in Munich, which is just laying in the centre of Europe these days. And if you get tired of mountains and you need some Southern flavour, you just jump on your plane or your car and you are in Italy in no time. Verona with its famous Opera festivals or Venice are just a one hour flight or about 4 hours with the car.

306 steps to climb into the tower of Munichs oldest parish church. You’ll get rewarded with a great view on top of Munich’s center.

It was actually my nephew Leons idea to climb St. Peter

Freaking expensive, but on Munichs Viktualien Market you can get anything you need for cooking or even some nice souvenirs.

Some of the 3 most known Munich landmarks. The dome (left), the radio tower in the olympic complex (from 1972) and the city hall.

“Alter Peter”, Old Peter, as Munich people like to call one of their oldest church.

Links

More info about Munich in English:
http://www.muenchen.de/home/60093/Homepage.html

A smaller version of the same site in Russian:
http://www.muenchen.de/int/ru

Bavarian Panorama Cams:
http://bayern.touristcam.de/

The History of Bavaria:
http://www.datenmatrix.de/projekte/hdbg/geschichte-bayerns/index_extern.shtml (Unfortunately the language versions don’t work that well.)

See what the Wikipedia has to say about Bavaria:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavaria

Hey there. Merry Christmas to you. I have been travelling to Germany for a few days to see my family. Flew Sibir again and had a terrible journey on Friday. Everything that could go wrong went wrong and it seems to be a miracle I finally made it to Munich and later to Bamberg that day.

Today we had lunch together at a very old castle in the city of Bamberg, where I grew up. I am originally from Munich (born in Schwabing), but moved to Bamberg when I was a child and lived there until I turned 18. Some of my family still lives there and some is in Munich where I am heading back to tomorrow morning. Enjoy the photos I took of Germany, a German Christmas and the city of Bamberg in Franconia.

Sibir Tupolev Tu-154 - Its not my favorite airplane

Sibir Tupolev Tu-154 Cabine

Handwritten No Smoking signs in airplanes freighten me

Well, my rental car made up for it. Volvo X90 AWD

Our Christmas. Its not typical German, but every year the same. Which I like. Guess that’s German. My uncle Wulf and my Grandma

We never had as many gifts as this year.

Label Boy. What did you get for Christmas. Uhm, some mountain stuff.

My Mom, her boyfriend, my grandma, Wulf and his daughter Michaela and of course me. The Bamberg family. We are having fondue here. As every year. Meat and Cheese.

Micha and our dog Max

It even snows in Bamberg/Germany for Christmas this year. This was taken up at the castle “Altenburg”

I like the trees up there.

Altenburgs Rittersaal, where we had lunch.

Micha is from Lafayette Louisiana and enjoys the cold, the snow and her first German Christmas.

View South West from Altenburg

The city where I grew up. Bamberg/Germany. Its said to be one of the most beautiful cities in Germany.

The Dome.