With nearly eight thousand words behind me, I wanted to run through a few items that didn't fit anywhere, and give my overall impression of Bavaria and surrounding nations.
Carnival
Despite New Orleans' plight after Katrina, there is no monopoly on frenzied party prior to Lent.
In a country as Christian as Germany, confetti still peppered space between stones in Munich's altstadt.
As for Wunsiedel, when the carnival season rages, we saw our share of teens dressed for the occasion (they can drink beer at 16, so it's all fare game). Wunsiedel sat in Franconia, a culturally distinct and deeply religious region swallowed up by Bavaria, so when midnight hits and Tuesday rolls into Ash Wednesday, the celebration ceases.
Yet there were no surging drunken mobs or OU Halloween-grade incidents with the police. It was almost placid, minus the parade float with a giant boot kicking the rear end of a Bavarian state minister-president Edmund Stoiber in effigy (this was in the Tuesday morning paper; we only saw the remains of the carnival parades on public squares and altstadts).
Die Hunde waren wunderbar
German dogs are by far the best behaved on the planet. Commands given in that tongue are harsh, and every time one drifted from its owner, a swift verbal reminder brought the dog back on course.
They trotted into bars and restaurants with their owners and rarely walked on leashes.
Sometimes a muzzle will intrude beneath the table, though with a word, it will withdraw just as quickly as the owner warns their pet.
Actually, among the few tethered dogs I saw, one leash stuck further than all others – it was folded up and the shepherd mix carried it in his/her mouth as it followed its owner through Munich's altstadt.
Whenever I get a dog, it will learn commands in German.
How could the once and future hound ignore a curt “Achtung!” after nosing through the garbage for chicken bones?
The German keyboard blues
The programs are all the same, and figuring out how to check English-language web pages from German versions of the search engines was simple.
But the typing took a few minutes to grow familiar.
I typed the key where “y” normally sits and found it missing. The keyboard took a quick primer at Dietmar's house or the Internet cafes where I swept away massive volumes of irrelevant work e-mails.
The @ symbol so vital to e-mail appeared only with a string of simultaneously-tapped keys.
And since the German language includes a few extra alphabet options, they too make their mark - a,o and u with umlauts all have their own keys, as does the long “s” that to Americans looks like a distorted capital B. Control+Alt+E will get you the symbol for the Euro.
I never typed comfortably as to where my falling fingers landed.
Walk on
The big conclusion I've drawn is while my linguistic skills needed improvement, my sensibilities are much more European than I ever imagined.
I like walking everywhere, past churches conceived by kings and bishops who died centuries before Columbus' fleet dropped anchor in the Caribbean. And we walked a lot – I'd estimate we covered 5-7 miles a day, possibly more in Munich. My legs were constantly sore and my feet blistered by the second day in Munich. However, there was a lot of sausage to burn off.
Drivers respect pedestrians, and I would not be alone in biking down congested streets. Many larger Munich boulevard reserve a portion of sidewalk for their bike commuters, and no one cares where you hail from so long as you meet or exceed the pack speed – or stay our of their way.
Germans don't like bullshit and phonies. If that means they come off as cold on the introduction, so be it. At least they're real, and not seething beneath a friendly veneer. Most of the people we encountered couldn't have been friendlier – I could have, by relearning more of their language. At most stops, the Germans did not scoff at the effort; it isn't as if I was in France. They appreciated that I tried to navigate their language, even if my raft was filled with holes.
The social end is similar to the States, yet drastically more comfortable. Strolling into the corner tavern for a few to wind down the night is past-time familiar to many here, but in Germany, it's a rich tradition, with patrons occupying the same tables for bull sessions or card games over decades. There were no frat boy types gulping down shots on their short, rough path to middle age.
The Thalgau Josephs had their fun, but it was not harassment; there was no punishment for failing their German language litmus test but a little mockery. I wouldn't mind brushing up on mein Deutsch and taking another shot; I don't think they'd mind.
After waking up to clanging in the belfries, I want to stop on the town square to chat with neighbors and friends.
That speaks to why I live in an older (chuckle away) area of Columbus, where I can accomplish most business on foot, and almost always run into a familiar face in the grocery or tavern.
So what does all this adds up to? Better odds of an annual trip to the Germanic countries.
(For now, an ending – with the wanderlust for a second round)
Showing posts with label munich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label munich. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Crawling through the last day
Apparently I ate breakfast Sunday morning, but had to take someone else's word for it.
I wasn't in the midst of a hangover (I avoided them the entire trip, a record owed entirely to the quality of beer imbibed), but I heard Mitzy and Hannah say they were going, and followed them down.
Just don't ask me what I ate, or why I didn't sit with them; all I remember is being hindered by exhaustion; I could have been walking through water – that I might have remembered.
Back in the room, I alternately watched TV and read Raymond Carver's Cathedral, then slept a little more.
Our final day in Munich was looking abridged compared to the rest of the week, though none of us minded. The breakneck pace finally paralyzed us, though not enough for us to squander the entire day at Hotel Alfa # 244.
We chose the Alte Pinothek, the art museum with the oldest works, and set out in the blustery afternoon, the first time we crossed weather close to what we left behind in Columbus. The FunSavers were used up, so the beautiful Konigplatsz (King's Place) which we passed is resigned to hazy memory.
The museum only cost 1 Euro on Sunday, so we found our first bargain on my last day – if it took more, I was ready. And with what I spent in the museum gift shop, they did well enough.
I saw my first Da Vinci (“Maria und Kinder,” of course) as well as three Raphaels. Nothing rivaled “The School of Athens” or “The Last Supper,” but knowing the great works helps to appreciate the style and technique in the smaller ones.
Among the oldest paintings were the gilded New Testament trilogy from Medieval master Giotto: a Last Supper, Crucifixion and Christ in Hell. They're not the viscerally detailed paintings of the Renaissance and after, but they hold up well for their time of creation.
As I glanced at the Albrecht Durer pieces, the goofy Monty Python ditty about him stuck in my head. Luckily, the haunting qualities of Durer's “Self Portrait” dislodged its nonsensical verse. Looking almost Christ-like and posed simply, the image does not fade from the mind rapidly. His panels of the Four Apostles are also striking.
The biggest stars were Reubens and Rembrandt, for wholly different reasons. Rembrandt builds power in his painting with the clash between illumination and darkness; a Crucifixion scene jumps away from its frame because of the blackness encroaching on the highlighted image. He only shows the focus and everything else is insignificant.
Reubens is almost gruesome by comparison – from his scenes of crodiles and lions ambushing humans to his massive Last Judgment and an over-the-top Massacre of the Children of Bethlehem, the bloody and sinew stood out in the gallery devoted to him.
Though it was a great excursion for a low-key afternoon, there were way too many “Die Beweinung Christi” and “Madonna und Kinder.”
We took our last march down the main avenue of Munich's altstadt and found the Augustiner Bräustüberl and its attached beer hall, where I sampled its Maximator Doublebock from one of the few major Munich brewers owned by Germans (and impossible to find outside of Bavaria, let alone in the States). I couldn't skip out at one more shot at the freshest doublebock I'd ever sample. It went down smoothly with the skillet dish I ordered, a mound of lentils and ravioli broken up by sausage.
I bought a ceramic half-liter mug from the manager to commemorate my only visit to a bier hall in Munich – even if we stayed on the restaurant side of things.
With that last gut-buster on the books, it was back to the hotel to gather my vacation wares for the morning commute back to the airport, and then home.
(Last look: The random, The reflections)
I wasn't in the midst of a hangover (I avoided them the entire trip, a record owed entirely to the quality of beer imbibed), but I heard Mitzy and Hannah say they were going, and followed them down.
Just don't ask me what I ate, or why I didn't sit with them; all I remember is being hindered by exhaustion; I could have been walking through water – that I might have remembered.
Back in the room, I alternately watched TV and read Raymond Carver's Cathedral, then slept a little more.
Our final day in Munich was looking abridged compared to the rest of the week, though none of us minded. The breakneck pace finally paralyzed us, though not enough for us to squander the entire day at Hotel Alfa # 244.
We chose the Alte Pinothek, the art museum with the oldest works, and set out in the blustery afternoon, the first time we crossed weather close to what we left behind in Columbus. The FunSavers were used up, so the beautiful Konigplatsz (King's Place) which we passed is resigned to hazy memory.
The museum only cost 1 Euro on Sunday, so we found our first bargain on my last day – if it took more, I was ready. And with what I spent in the museum gift shop, they did well enough.
I saw my first Da Vinci (“Maria und Kinder,” of course) as well as three Raphaels. Nothing rivaled “The School of Athens” or “The Last Supper,” but knowing the great works helps to appreciate the style and technique in the smaller ones.
Among the oldest paintings were the gilded New Testament trilogy from Medieval master Giotto: a Last Supper, Crucifixion and Christ in Hell. They're not the viscerally detailed paintings of the Renaissance and after, but they hold up well for their time of creation.
As I glanced at the Albrecht Durer pieces, the goofy Monty Python ditty about him stuck in my head. Luckily, the haunting qualities of Durer's “Self Portrait” dislodged its nonsensical verse. Looking almost Christ-like and posed simply, the image does not fade from the mind rapidly. His panels of the Four Apostles are also striking.
The biggest stars were Reubens and Rembrandt, for wholly different reasons. Rembrandt builds power in his painting with the clash between illumination and darkness; a Crucifixion scene jumps away from its frame because of the blackness encroaching on the highlighted image. He only shows the focus and everything else is insignificant.
Reubens is almost gruesome by comparison – from his scenes of crodiles and lions ambushing humans to his massive Last Judgment and an over-the-top Massacre of the Children of Bethlehem, the bloody and sinew stood out in the gallery devoted to him.
Though it was a great excursion for a low-key afternoon, there were way too many “Die Beweinung Christi” and “Madonna und Kinder.”
We took our last march down the main avenue of Munich's altstadt and found the Augustiner Bräustüberl and its attached beer hall, where I sampled its Maximator Doublebock from one of the few major Munich brewers owned by Germans (and impossible to find outside of Bavaria, let alone in the States). I couldn't skip out at one more shot at the freshest doublebock I'd ever sample. It went down smoothly with the skillet dish I ordered, a mound of lentils and ravioli broken up by sausage.
I bought a ceramic half-liter mug from the manager to commemorate my only visit to a bier hall in Munich – even if we stayed on the restaurant side of things.
With that last gut-buster on the books, it was back to the hotel to gather my vacation wares for the morning commute back to the airport, and then home.
(Last look: The random, The reflections)
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Two wheels and overloaded senses (Saturday in Munich)
Staring up at the Neues Rathaus from the crowded Marienplatz, awaiting the glockenspiel's chimes and story, I basked in the sun and fortune of a 45-degree February day.
Then someone frantically shoved a hand in my back pocket.
Though I wore a money belt beneath my shirt the entire trip, I instinctively sprung toward my assailant - to try to prevent him fleeing with my free bicycle map of Munch, apparently.
Until I saw he wore a Winking Lizard World Tour of Beers T-shirt.
Chris spotted me in the crowd and knew (I thought they departed for soccer, but they decided it could wait for the figures to dance high above Munich). Revenge will wait, but it will come.
I had just tested my bicycle with a quick buzz through the neighborhoods surrounding the old city, and walked it up to the Marienplatz to find a good viewing point for the noon spin.
While waiting for the bike rental guy to give me appropriate wheels, I spoke with an Chicago aerospace engineer taking his last day in Munich to tour the city under this own power. He told me just to go, and to enjoy the Englischer Garten, the largest public park in continental Europe and a cycling paradise with miles of paths.
You can only get so lost in a German city where the tallest spires are the churches you passed on foot the previous evening; so long as I could orient
So, juiced on the adrenaline rush provided by Chris' fake pick-pocket attempt, I rolled past the Odeonsplatz, a square modeled on those of ancient Rome with the Theatinerkirche, another large church piercing the skyline with its muted gold towers and dome.
In an English-style garden without shade
Quickly falling in with cyclists more seasoned on Munich's streets, it took no time at all to find hit the massive green blob on the map.
I was a rapid student of cycling through crowded European parks, weaving through the swell of people the park produced as I neared its attractions.
The major paths allowed walkers and bikers, with many offshoots marked just for pedestrians. A rare path was marked only for horse riders, and I only saw one user, a man riding a steed flanked by a pack of dogs.
Usually I stuck with the Eisbach, the man-made river that winds through the Englischer Garten and fans out into lake of varying size.
That route covered the main sites – the Monopteros, a small Greek-looking temple atop one of the park's few hills; the Chinesischer Turm, a pagoda with a sprawling beer garden attached; plus the all the nature I could soak up. That last one tapped the imagination frequently, since the warm weather could not hide its true season with the garden's acres of bare trees.
When I finally stopped aside one of the smaller lakes, 15 second elapsed before an Italian greyhound tattooed my pants with his pawprints. He dragged a stick twice as long as him over for me to toss while the woman who owned him smoked under a nearby pavilion. Three tosses, and they both were done, off to parts unknown.
Speaking of parts unknown, I strayed pretty far by 3 p.m., well off the central city map the rental guy gave me, and miles from the hotel, so I rode until the Isar River blocked my path, and turned back.
No ocean, no problem
I just traced the Isar south till familiar street names filled the signs, then headed back toward the central city. I was down the handful of photos on my FunSaver, and too many gorgeous – and anonymous buildings stood along my path.
Along the way, a mass of chattering people crowded against a small bridge; below them, on a standing wave in the Eisbach, a crew of wetsuit-clad Germans took to surfboards and road that surging wave for a few brief seconds before succumbing to the artificial river.
Even in the suits, they must have been cold – clear, sunny day receded into moody clouds drive by cutting, Arctic wind. Maybe the cheers drove them, as the crowd spilled over into the trees and shrubs on the Eisbach's banks.
Without food since breakfast, my meandering had purpose, but only directed me through the heavily-traipsed tourist rows with overpriced restaurants and stores hawking garish steins meant for the mantle, not lager.
I passed the infamous Hofbrauhaus, probably Munich's best known beer hall, which Dietmar remembered a friendly warning from Dietmar, and pedaled on as pain crept up my legs.
The needle finds “E”
I found a courtyard cafe with similar ambiance to the Parisian cafe in Amelie; I wish it's food and lager never found their way to my table, since the skunky golden lager called Schweiger and a ham sandwich were a poor man's lunch at a tourist rate.
But my legs were scorched, my mind exhausted, and a few hours of German television sounded fine.
In my typical masochistic way, I kept walking, going back through the altstadt in late afternoon, when the crowds reached their peak and walking fast required me to almost run when zipping through walls of pedestrians pushing toward the attractions.
On a different route back, I found the old botanical gardens, a little park overwhelmed by a fountain of Neptune surging from the ocean; it was less dramatic in winter, with no water to fill out the sea god's ascent. The garden ground was filled with small purple flower, a welcome contrast to the grays and browns everywhere else.
Night was not for the faint, even if that was the only thing I couldn't do. I was irritable from all the exercise, the lack of sleep and the news that the law closed almost every store in Bavaria on Sundays, killing most of my souvenir shopping. We ate at an American restaurant (the tortellini with sausage was pretty blah) and cramps fired down my calves, quads and hamstrings.
In a hunt for a new place for a nightcap, we crossed the train station and checked out the city blocks opposite from our hotel.
“Wrong side of the tracks” was no cliché, as all manners of tawdry hotels, strip clubs and nude revues greeted naïve tourists, who wasted little time in killing our curiosity.
We tried the streets north of the hotel, found the Spaten Brewery and glass windows displaying its brew kettles, but no bar. Better luck surfaced closer to the train station when we decided on a little bar with decent beer and no bullshit.
As a peace offering, I paid the full tab at our evening bar excursion, where Paulaner hefeweizen half-liters disappeared like water in August.
Next chapter: (A final gasp, a final gulp and a heap of art)
Then someone frantically shoved a hand in my back pocket.
Though I wore a money belt beneath my shirt the entire trip, I instinctively sprung toward my assailant - to try to prevent him fleeing with my free bicycle map of Munch, apparently.
Until I saw he wore a Winking Lizard World Tour of Beers T-shirt.
Chris spotted me in the crowd and knew (I thought they departed for soccer, but they decided it could wait for the figures to dance high above Munich). Revenge will wait, but it will come.
I had just tested my bicycle with a quick buzz through the neighborhoods surrounding the old city, and walked it up to the Marienplatz to find a good viewing point for the noon spin.
While waiting for the bike rental guy to give me appropriate wheels, I spoke with an Chicago aerospace engineer taking his last day in Munich to tour the city under this own power. He told me just to go, and to enjoy the Englischer Garten, the largest public park in continental Europe and a cycling paradise with miles of paths.
You can only get so lost in a German city where the tallest spires are the churches you passed on foot the previous evening; so long as I could orient
So, juiced on the adrenaline rush provided by Chris' fake pick-pocket attempt, I rolled past the Odeonsplatz, a square modeled on those of ancient Rome with the Theatinerkirche, another large church piercing the skyline with its muted gold towers and dome.
In an English-style garden without shade
Quickly falling in with cyclists more seasoned on Munich's streets, it took no time at all to find hit the massive green blob on the map.
I was a rapid student of cycling through crowded European parks, weaving through the swell of people the park produced as I neared its attractions.
The major paths allowed walkers and bikers, with many offshoots marked just for pedestrians. A rare path was marked only for horse riders, and I only saw one user, a man riding a steed flanked by a pack of dogs.
Usually I stuck with the Eisbach, the man-made river that winds through the Englischer Garten and fans out into lake of varying size.
That route covered the main sites – the Monopteros, a small Greek-looking temple atop one of the park's few hills; the Chinesischer Turm, a pagoda with a sprawling beer garden attached; plus the all the nature I could soak up. That last one tapped the imagination frequently, since the warm weather could not hide its true season with the garden's acres of bare trees.
When I finally stopped aside one of the smaller lakes, 15 second elapsed before an Italian greyhound tattooed my pants with his pawprints. He dragged a stick twice as long as him over for me to toss while the woman who owned him smoked under a nearby pavilion. Three tosses, and they both were done, off to parts unknown.
Speaking of parts unknown, I strayed pretty far by 3 p.m., well off the central city map the rental guy gave me, and miles from the hotel, so I rode until the Isar River blocked my path, and turned back.
No ocean, no problem
I just traced the Isar south till familiar street names filled the signs, then headed back toward the central city. I was down the handful of photos on my FunSaver, and too many gorgeous – and anonymous buildings stood along my path.
Along the way, a mass of chattering people crowded against a small bridge; below them, on a standing wave in the Eisbach, a crew of wetsuit-clad Germans took to surfboards and road that surging wave for a few brief seconds before succumbing to the artificial river.
Even in the suits, they must have been cold – clear, sunny day receded into moody clouds drive by cutting, Arctic wind. Maybe the cheers drove them, as the crowd spilled over into the trees and shrubs on the Eisbach's banks.
Without food since breakfast, my meandering had purpose, but only directed me through the heavily-traipsed tourist rows with overpriced restaurants and stores hawking garish steins meant for the mantle, not lager.
I passed the infamous Hofbrauhaus, probably Munich's best known beer hall, which Dietmar remembered a friendly warning from Dietmar, and pedaled on as pain crept up my legs.
The needle finds “E”
I found a courtyard cafe with similar ambiance to the Parisian cafe in Amelie; I wish it's food and lager never found their way to my table, since the skunky golden lager called Schweiger and a ham sandwich were a poor man's lunch at a tourist rate.
But my legs were scorched, my mind exhausted, and a few hours of German television sounded fine.
In my typical masochistic way, I kept walking, going back through the altstadt in late afternoon, when the crowds reached their peak and walking fast required me to almost run when zipping through walls of pedestrians pushing toward the attractions.
On a different route back, I found the old botanical gardens, a little park overwhelmed by a fountain of Neptune surging from the ocean; it was less dramatic in winter, with no water to fill out the sea god's ascent. The garden ground was filled with small purple flower, a welcome contrast to the grays and browns everywhere else.
Night was not for the faint, even if that was the only thing I couldn't do. I was irritable from all the exercise, the lack of sleep and the news that the law closed almost every store in Bavaria on Sundays, killing most of my souvenir shopping. We ate at an American restaurant (the tortellini with sausage was pretty blah) and cramps fired down my calves, quads and hamstrings.
In a hunt for a new place for a nightcap, we crossed the train station and checked out the city blocks opposite from our hotel.
“Wrong side of the tracks” was no cliché, as all manners of tawdry hotels, strip clubs and nude revues greeted naïve tourists, who wasted little time in killing our curiosity.
We tried the streets north of the hotel, found the Spaten Brewery and glass windows displaying its brew kettles, but no bar. Better luck surfaced closer to the train station when we decided on a little bar with decent beer and no bullshit.
As a peace offering, I paid the full tab at our evening bar excursion, where Paulaner hefeweizen half-liters disappeared like water in August.
Next chapter: (A final gasp, a final gulp and a heap of art)
Friday, March 09, 2007
At the gates of Munich, the endgame began
Munich was only sad for one reason: Our arrival meant the end of the European gallivanting, and only days before my flight to Philly clicked onto the departure board.
But before we could enjoy any of it, we needed lodging for three nights.
On Mitzy's orders, we fanned out into the city blocks around the Hauptbahnhof, Munich's central train stations, asking hotels about available rooms. Everything came in at $200 a night, if the hotel had any rooms open.
On my third stop I hit the Hotel Alfa, finding a room for four at 145 Euro per night; we grabbed, it unloaded the car, then Chris and I took off for Schweig, navigating the 25 miles with relative ease, and taking a larger look at Munich on the way.
The S-Bahn ran from the airport to the secondary train stations, and once we figured out which train to ride (I failed to realize the countdowns on the marquees were for the train's departure, not its arrival), we ended up at the Ostbahnhof (the east train station) with not a clue how to return to the Hauptbahnhof without a healthy wander amid the streetcars, bicycles and taxis swarming outside.Of course, we found it, and exited the train station just a block from Hotel Alfa.
Then, it was time for Munich.
Mitzy and Hannah explored the city while we deposited the car, so they took us through the wide vistas of the altstadt, which at first I had a hard time reconciling with.
Given that rubble populated Munich after World War II and it needed the Olympic games to vault to world-class city status, the old architecture worked unnaturally with vanilla shopping mall decor. A McDonald's awkwardly fills ground floor space at the altstadt's gates.
Just off Marienplatz, with the spiky rathaus (ironically, the German word for city hall) and its two-story glockenspiel waiting for the morning hours, we found a restaurant not too weighed down by tourism. The doublebock was smooth, poured from a high-tech taps, and the ox meat was heavenly. The meal actually started with a communal salad with beans and fresh greens swimming in oily dressing; it never stood a chance, and lasted only minutes.
Soccer was the topic of the evening, as Bayern Munich, the biggest and best Bavarian team, was playing the following afternoon and Hannah, Chris and Mitzy were itching to catch a game. I stayed quiet about it, but soccer has never been my thing. I enjoy it live, but not to where I want to squander one of my last afternoons in Germany with 70,000 soccer maniacs.
I gently told them that I was on the fence, though with our Friday on the stones in old Munich, I'd already hopped to the other side.
More than anything, I noticed the bicycles. Everywhere. Gears spun and bells rang; I wouldn't be in the stands watching soccer tomorrow.
(Up next: Behind the handlebars and February surfers)
But before we could enjoy any of it, we needed lodging for three nights.
On Mitzy's orders, we fanned out into the city blocks around the Hauptbahnhof, Munich's central train stations, asking hotels about available rooms. Everything came in at $200 a night, if the hotel had any rooms open.
On my third stop I hit the Hotel Alfa, finding a room for four at 145 Euro per night; we grabbed, it unloaded the car, then Chris and I took off for Schweig, navigating the 25 miles with relative ease, and taking a larger look at Munich on the way.
The S-Bahn ran from the airport to the secondary train stations, and once we figured out which train to ride (I failed to realize the countdowns on the marquees were for the train's departure, not its arrival), we ended up at the Ostbahnhof (the east train station) with not a clue how to return to the Hauptbahnhof without a healthy wander amid the streetcars, bicycles and taxis swarming outside.Of course, we found it, and exited the train station just a block from Hotel Alfa.
Then, it was time for Munich.
Mitzy and Hannah explored the city while we deposited the car, so they took us through the wide vistas of the altstadt, which at first I had a hard time reconciling with.
Given that rubble populated Munich after World War II and it needed the Olympic games to vault to world-class city status, the old architecture worked unnaturally with vanilla shopping mall decor. A McDonald's awkwardly fills ground floor space at the altstadt's gates.
Just off Marienplatz, with the spiky rathaus (ironically, the German word for city hall) and its two-story glockenspiel waiting for the morning hours, we found a restaurant not too weighed down by tourism. The doublebock was smooth, poured from a high-tech taps, and the ox meat was heavenly. The meal actually started with a communal salad with beans and fresh greens swimming in oily dressing; it never stood a chance, and lasted only minutes.
Soccer was the topic of the evening, as Bayern Munich, the biggest and best Bavarian team, was playing the following afternoon and Hannah, Chris and Mitzy were itching to catch a game. I stayed quiet about it, but soccer has never been my thing. I enjoy it live, but not to where I want to squander one of my last afternoons in Germany with 70,000 soccer maniacs.
I gently told them that I was on the fence, though with our Friday on the stones in old Munich, I'd already hopped to the other side.
More than anything, I noticed the bicycles. Everywhere. Gears spun and bells rang; I wouldn't be in the stands watching soccer tomorrow.
(Up next: Behind the handlebars and February surfers)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)