After a thoroughly enriching and exciting time in Spain, I was very happy to be in Metz! Though being back to freezing temperatures wasn't the best thing coming from the warm sunny days of Spain, but at least it was home. The local Boulangerie and the Ca Va's and Saluts, it felt good!
A regular week of school, mostly filled with all of us exchanging stories from our travels, passed by rather quickly. Little did I know, that the weekend I was expecting to be a calm and relaxing one, would turn into another great experience in another great city.
As I woke up on Friday afternoon, I had already missed the opportunity to go to Munich with a bunch of people that left early in the morning. After the initial short lived disappointment, I was indeed happy to be staying back. I thought I would catch up!
Soon I found myself running out the door, with 10 euros in my pocket, a banana in another pocket, and a hurriedly packed backpack on my shoulders; I was going to Munich! Now I know you're probably thinking, so what's the big deal, you were just a little rushed that's all. Well here's the deal; For those of you who may or may not know, I had been pick pocketed in Barcelona a mere 6 days ago, losing all my id's, credit cards, money everything. When I barged out that door, I literally left with 10 euros, a passport and a Eurorail pass. To make matters better(worse), I had no clue where the others were staying, so hopes off borrowing money from them were contingent on finding them.
Alright now that the picture has been painted, lets talk about the journey and the city as such. Having been on the TGV's, then the AVE's in Spain, I didn't think it could better. The ICE's or the fast trains of Germany actually did exactly that! They went a step further. Beautiful, fast and comfortable trains zipping through German towns and cities. My train ride to Munich was uneventful as such, but I did manage to read a good amount of the book, 'A child called 'it'!'
After about a couple of train changes standing on cold windy platforms, 6 hours and 2 naps later, I got off at Munchen HBF(Munich Central Station). Now Germany to me drew a blank in my mind. For some reason, I had no idea what to expect. Expect for a few basic things I knew about the country I really felt dumb getting off at the station. The thing I realized at once was that Germans unlike French and the Spanish, neither hesitate in speaking English nor our offended if you approach them not speaking their native tongue. Quite the contrary to the French I would say.
The train station was very impressive, and for some reason had a wide array of food stalls. People might have just come from outside to eat at the station. Looking around, I knew my first task was to find my friends, so at once I decided to start looking around. After having talked to someone on the phone I had found out a cheap hostel close by. After searching through a good 5-6 hostels and calling another 4, my luck hadn't struck. I was stuck. After a little help from an Aussie behind the desk at a youth hostel, he agreed to take my girlfriend's credit card details to book a night there. So that was it I thought, I had 10 Euros to do whatever I could and get back too. I roamed the streets, cold, yet excited at the prospect of discovering my first German city. I had heard they called it the Beer capital of the world; Oh was I in for a pleasant pleasant surprise!
I awoke early the next morning to find it snowing outside. Considering I had just been in the most gorgeous weather just a week ago, I wasn't really looking forward to this. Nonetheless, with an enormous appetite to discover the city and with an even bigger thirst to taste the Beer, I walked into the snow with one of the Free tours. The tour assembled at a place called the Marianplatz, where other tour leaders also joined, and all the different groups were to go from here. As I was standing in this regal square, I am tapped from behind and to it is none other than my friends. After telling them how I had tried to locate them the previous night, and how I was saving every penny to survive the day, we split up into different groups heading for different tours. They were on the Third Rite tour, which talked about the rise and fall off the Socialist Nationalism in Germany. I was but obviously on the free city tour. We decided we would meet at the Square again at 2.
The 3 or so hours with the guide Sonja(An American Masters student in Germany) were one of the most entertaining, informative and useful I have ever spent in an unknown city. From the funniest drinking stories off the Hofbrauhaus and the Beer revolutions of Munich, to the rise of Hitler and the strides Germany has made to educate its youth about its past; dark or not, we talked about it all. We started off at the Glockenspiel. A famous site in Munich, the Glockenspiel is a mechanical display on a massive clock in the Marianplatz, that is actually quite anticlimactic. At 11, 12 and 5 every day, there is a loud noise, and then two mechanical scenes are enacted on the tower. It wasn't the most exciting thing, but it was however entertaining to see the hoards of people gathered to see it go off. The snow had picked up by now, and there was a constant fall. It was getting colder, but our guide was just getting in the groove. We made past alleys and lanes, talking about the history and culture of the city, while almost always ending up with a beer story. It sounded like the Bavarian's were very serious about their beer. A very interesting fact about Munich is that though it does look like an oldish city, it was actually almost completely destroyed in the world wars. What was very interesting was that the people knew this and took pictures of the building beforehand and were able to rebuild them. The churches had very interesting myth's and legends surrounding them. One allegedly was ordered to be built by the devil while the other had a story of a man who dropped a beer glass from atop one of the towers while affixing the cross, and it did not break. The more we walked and saw, the more stories Sonja pulled out. But every now and then, she would talk about serious stuff. She moved the crowd. She made us feel, what Munich and Germany went through, after the first world war, with hyper inflation and the country in heavy debt. She invoked in us an inquisitive feeling towards Hitler and his doings! And she damn sure made us realize how important Beer was to the people of Munich!
Mid way through our tour, we stopped at a local beer garden, named Augustinar. Allegedly the last pope's favorite beer is from here! Heck if the pope loves this beer, God loves the beer! As our guide told us more and more about beer norms like as to how you need to look into the other person's eyes while doing a cheers to how you hold the glass, I saw a my first half liter in Germany being brought to me. Beautiful color, an amazing frothy head and an absolutely magnificent taste! As I gulped my beer, I was content! Oh I love beer!
As we moved on, the beer helping keep warm a little, as the snow fell and fell, completely engulfing everything and everyone. I sight that was close to perfect! I have never seen this much snow in my life. If it was not for my numb toes and fingers, I would have thought it was heaven. We walked past the Hofbrauhaus, the world renowned beer garden of Germany. More a 'touristy' attraction than a true Bavarian beer garden, the sheer amount of tables, people and beer indoors said otherwise! Walking further, we were shown something very interesting. Munich unlike cities like Berlin, believed in paying their respects to the Martyrs and lost lives through subtle honorary mementos like a golden strip on the ground in one of the alleys. The conversations were a mix of important moments in Munich history to interesting knick knacks about everything Beer. One of my favorites was the story that went with the Maples. Now Maples are these tall poles which are found in every german town, village city etc. They showcase the regions traditions and attractions. Since centuries there has been a tradition where people from other regions would come and steal the maple and not return it until they were given a party. One of the best such incident happened in 1995 at the Munich airport. Now the Munich Airport had it's own maple, showcasing to the tourists some of the traditions of the city. One day in 1995, the airport securities arrived to find their beloved Maple gone. Now this was very unsettling as something as huge as a maple was stolen from under the nose of the Airport security! Any guesses as to who took it?... It was the local Munich police, and they actually got a party from the Airport officials. True story! I think it was at this point I realized that I loved these people! They loved their beer more than anything else, and I loved them for that! As we stood next to the town hall building with the snow falling in front of us, I joined in as Sonja used my favorite quote to end the tour. "Life is Like a book and those who don't travel, read only the first few pages."
Still cold but warm from the emotions our guide had evoked in us, I arrived back at the Marianplatz, the decided place to meet my friends. Unfortunately our tour had gotten really late and to my horror, I lost my friends again. At this point I hadn't eaten anything and all my money was over. The next hour or so, I thought of all possibilities. I didn't even have enough money to get a reservation on a train home. As I sat in my hostel, running through all my options, I decided to go to my friend's hostel and wait! 10 min, 20 min, 30 min, they came! They actually came back, and I wasn't going to leave them this time. As we exchanged stories, the first thing I did was borrow some money and eat something. As I was feeling rich now, I decided even to get a haircut, which I got from an Iraqi man. Night rolled by soon, and I was supposed to take a train at 10:30 but I knew I had to have a big glass of beer and have some sort of sausage! I just couldn't go without! We picked up a pork sausage in a bun from a roadside vendor, savoring every bite of it, I wanted a beer to cleanse the taste! What better place to end it than the Hofbrauhaus! Table after table, full of people, drinking copious amounts of beer, served by girls in absolutely adorable Bavarian outfits and obscenely big glasses. We saw our liter glasses of beer come in and I couldn't help but salivate! As I mentioned earlier I have started LOVING beer. There was nothing that came to mind at that moment. A pure liter of unadulterated, purely delicious beer and Me! I drank it all! I felt like a man!
I told myself I was going back as I boarded the night train home!
Burp!!! I dozed off to sleep!
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