Every ten years, a little town in Southern Germany puts on a play. They started this tradition in the 1600s after the plague wiped out much of their population. The townspeople made a vow to put on a passion play every ten years in the hope that God would stop the deaths in their village. Legend has it that after the first play was performed, no one else died, and they have continued to put on the play every ten years except for a very few exceptions. Nowadays, this play brings a lot of attention to the little village of Oberammergau, and it attracts tourists like me for one of the performances during the summer. I barely remembered this village, but when my mom and I went through Germany 5 years ago, we stopped there. My mother remembered about the play and that it was supposed to take place this year, and suggested that I go. I was very indecisive about it at first, but in the end I went.
The day I left, there was a delay on my flight. It didn’t hurt me that much, it just meant that I did not have as much time in Munich as I thought I would. When we were landing in Munich, the sun was setting and it was obvious that it had been a rainy day. We flew by one of the brightest rainbows that I have ever seen. It was a magnificent sight to see, and I regretted that I didn’t have my camera nearby to take a photo. After we landed, I went directly to my hotel, and more or less collapsed. One of the things I noticed immediately in Germany was that I was not dressed appropriately for the weather. I hadn’t even thought about it being chilly in Germany since it was only an hour’s flight away. But, on the train to the hotel, it was obvious that I stuck out from the dark jackets and scarves as I was wearing a white skirt and short sleeve shirt.
I slept in the next day, and then made my way to the city center so I could walk a little bit through Munich on my way to the train station. The center was, of course, one of the places my mom and I went to 5 years ago, and I remember there being a protest their the first time about the war, but this time the protest was even larger and it was to inform people about veganism.
At the train station, I bought my ticket, but when it printed out of the machine it was just one piece of paper with my destination on it. I was confused, thinking it had assigned me a specific train and time, but on further investigation it seemed that I had to look up how to get to the city on my own. Before leaving, I ate a pretzel sandwich, which I think was a pretzel with cream cheese and green onion. The onion wasn’t very strong, and this was my first pretzel of the trip, but not my last! I got on my train, changed at a town called Murnau, and then I rode another 45 minutes through the Bavarian alps and farmland to Oberammergau.
Oberammergau seemed to be a very pedestrian-oriented city. I had looked up how to walk to the train station to my hostel by roads, but once I arrived in the city I found that there was a foot path that followed along the river directly to the hostel. It was a beautiful walk. I checked into my room, and made my bed. This was my first real hostel experience: 6 beds, mixed dorm, no one I knew. I was also rather worried that I would get midgets as my roommates, but I kept telling myself that there must be some sort of restriction about that. See, there was some sort of soccer tournament going on for kids in town, and it seemed that several of the teams were staying at the hostel. So, the mix I saw in the hostel were the people going to the play, and the soccer-playing kids.
After getting settled and reading a few flyers about the city and passion play, I walked into the village to orient myself a little. The first thing that I noticed was that nearly very building had a mural of some sort on it, and the majority of them were religious. I walked through a few shops, but resisted any temptation. I ended up at the city’s museum, where I had a free entry with my play ticket. The majority of the museum was dedicated to the woodcarving of the region, and there was also a section about the history of the play. They had old costumes and props used in the play in previous years. After the museum, I went back to the hostel, where I had free supper due to the play as well. It was spaghetti, and while I was eating it, it was all right, but later on I regretted it. Part of the package for the play was that all meals were free from where we were staying, which in nicer accommodation might have actually been worth it, but in a hostel, it was not, for me anyway. I wanted to eat ‘German’ food, so I decided the next day I would avoid the temptation of free food. While at the hostel, I also checked for my roommates, but they were not yet there.
I left again, and read for a while on a bench by the river. It was so peaceful there, just listening to the water running, and I found the little village to be serene and calm. After I finished my book, I continued walking and found a hiking path. I was nowhere near dressed for it, but I went for a short walk anyway. Along the way, I found some very woodsy slugs, and a field with three horses.
My last event for the day was to go to a light show at the church. Basically, there was a show where lights were shined on certain sculptures while the story of Jesus was told, along with music as well. It was all in German, but I got the gist of what was going on. It was definitely a unique way to appreciate all of the artifacts in the church. Afterwards, I went back to my room, which was still empty of people, but there was evidence of habitation, most notably smelly, sweaty clothes and shoes on my bed. Now, I haven’t stayed in many hostels, and this was my first one without sharing a room with friends, but I’m pretty sure it’s commonly known that if a bed is made, that means it’s taken. Moreover, I had left my towel on the bed to show signs of possession, but I guess all of that was just looked over. After removing the foreign objects from my bed, and leaving a note of explanation if the perpetrator returned, I went to take a shower. When I got back, no one was back, and I got ready for bed. A few minutes later, a girl named Mica walked in, and she was in the bunk above me. She was kind, and it was okay to have her as a roommate for a couple of nights. We went to sleep, and a bit past midnight, three British guys stumbled into the room. One of them came over and looked at me stupidly, and I explained that I moved his stuff, and that I had made the bed earlier. The next day he told me that he thought someone who worked there had made the bed and he didn’t realize it was someone else’s… oh well. The three guys smelled awful, and I didn’t notice any evidence that any of them bathed in the two days there, and they smelled as though they hadn’t bathed in weeks. I couldn’t sleep that first night since I kept getting a whiff of their stench, and it was too cold to keep the window open.
Somehow, I made it through the night, and headed straight out the next day. I walked along the river a bit, and let the sound of nature soothe me. I had seen something about a ski lift, so I went in search of it to see if there was a view of the valley. I had seen postcards of people in enclosed lifts, but once I arrived at the ski lift I knew about, it was a true ski lift, open air, feet hanging in the air, the whole shebang. When I got on, the man working told me that there was a bar just as I was taking off, and it took me a moment to notice the waist bar above my head. At first the lift was shaking back and forth quite a bit, and I found it to be pretty frightening, but I survived. I was also, again, wearing the wrong clothes for such an adventure: everyone else was in full-on hiking gear, and I was wearing a dress and sandals. It didn’t matter, though, I was just going up for the view and to come back down, and they were all going to hike further up the mountain. After grabbing a coffee at the top, and playing on the swing, I went back down the mountain.
I made it back into town around lunchtime, and went in search of German food. I finally came across a restaurant that looked decent, and I sat down and ordered German macaroni and cheese. I was rather hungry due to the disappointing dinner the night before, and the spatzel hit the spot. It was delicious! After I was finished, I ordered the ‘Eis Caffe,’ thinking that it was iced coffee. It was actually a real dessert, with coffee, ice cream, and whipped cream.
After that yummy meal, I wondered through some more shops in town, and ended up buying too much, but not as much as I would have liked. They had cute knick knacks everywhere, and if I had anyway to carry one home, I would have bought some watering jugs shaped like animals!
I got to the play about half an hour early, and was glad to find that my seat was on the end of a row. I suppose it made sense, but my roommates were sitting right next to me during the play, and the guys still reeked. I just tried to breathe in from the opposite direction from where they were sitting the entire time :-).
The play itself was very well done. Over half of the 5000 people that live there participate with the play in some way. The last time it was put on, nearly 500,000 people came to see the play throughout the summer. The play itself had a particular structure: The narrator would explain a scene, the choir would sing a religious song while a living portrait was shown, and then the act from the passion play started. At times, they had hundreds of people on the stage. The crowds in the play were made up of men, women, and children. The first half it was a bit disorienting since I was trying to read the English script during the play, and then I found that if I tried to read it all while the choir was singing, I could get through most of it and be able to pay more attention to the play. The play if 5 hours long, so they had a 2 and a half hour break halfway through. During the break I ate another pretzel, and apple strudel, and I tried to read the rest of the play so I could just pay attention for the rest of the play. This turned out to be a good idea since the second half started as it was getting dark outside, so I wouldn’t have had the light to read the script during the play anyway.
After the play was over, I went back to the hostel to sleep, and this night I sprayed my pillow with perfume to block out the smell of my roommates, which was a very good idea. I packed my bag so I could just grab it and go to the restroom to change in the morning, and not have to come back to the room, but all of my roommates got up at 6 am (2 hours earlier than my alarm), and I didn’t have to deal with them other than pretending to sleep while they were packing their bags. When I got up, I took my time. There had been lightning and thunder through the night, and it was obvious that it had rained. There were still clouds laying lower into the valley. I walked to the church to go to the English mass, and I was thinking it would be a rather full service and I could just hang out in the back. Au contraire, I was one of 4 people there. I’m not catholic, so I had no idea when to sit, stand, kneel, etc. On top of all that, the microphone wasn’t working well, so the priest had insisted that we all come up to the pulpit and listen to the sermon from there. I’m glad I went to the service, even if I was a bit uncomfortable with it, and I was glad when it was over after 20 minutes. But, I did learn that the first passion play took place where the cemetery is being the church, so it turned into an educational experience as well. When I left the church, it had started to rain, and I walked in the direction of the train station. Along the way, I heard a cat, and went over to pet it for a few minutes. It was very friendly, and obviously well cared for. There were several cats waiting outside of the store where that first cat was, and I think that the storeowner probably feeds them. After a few minutes I left the cats, found the train, and I was on my way back to my last week in Cannes, for a while at least.
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