White Out

Munich is the land of white.

And I mean this in a non racial way (although it does mostly apply).

What I really mean, is their specialties.

White beer. White sausage.

To say they are only Munich specialties, is a little misleading.  They are really the traditional food and drink of Bavaria, which is a region in the south of Germany.  Bavarians consider themselves different from the rest of Germany, and the rest of Germany agrees.  I guess you could perhaps compare it to the Midwest and the South in the states.  We stereotype the South to be less intelligent, they stereotype us as the cold northerners.

Something like that.

Munich is also the location of the world famous Oktoberfest.  While Oktoberfest is months away, I still came at a lucky weekend were I got to experience a few different festivals.

My host(s) were Julian.  I say maybe plural because they are both on couch surfing, but only one Julian technically invited me.  Ah yes, they are both named Julian.  For confusion's sake my host will be refereed to simply as Julian, and his roommate will be little Julian (he was a smidge shorter).

When I arrived in Munich, I checked my bag into a locker at the station, and went to meet the Julians and company at a beer tasting festival.  This was my first stroke of luck to come during a beer tasting, which was rather uncommon there.  In Bavaria, they make only Weissbier, meaning white beer (pronounced vice-beer).  Legally Weissbier, or wheat beer, must be made a particular way, with only certain ingredients.  Its more or less been made the exact same way for quite a long time.

At this tasting, you got four tickets for four glasses of more or less whatever you wanted to try.  They had a version of our Kentucky Bourbon Barrel that I really enjoyed, as well as another that roasted the malt prior to brewing.  It wasn't easy to find my usual preferred dark beer.  To say these lighter colored beers were light though, would be seriously false.  Don't let the color fool you.

We spent quite a few hours at the tasting, then it was back to the station to grab my bag and on to the Julians' flat. 

By this time in the trip, I had gotten used to stairs, but Julian lived on the fifth floor.  He offered to carry my backpack on the way up.  This is the one time I didn't refuse.

Throughout my time in Munich, every time we returned to the flat, my heart sank a little, knowing I had five flights of stairs before I could sit down.

That night we went to a club/pub where an electronic German rock group was playing.  I never caught their name, but the singer reminded me of Cassandra from Wayne's World.  It was tolerable to listen to but not necessarily enjoyable.

When the band stopped, Julian and company decided to invite the party back to their apartment. 

I mostly stayed quiet, as the more people drink, the more they forget I need to be spoken to in English.  I mostly just watched a group of guys test their way through the Julians' whiskey collection.  They had over ten different types of whiskey on a shelf, and each guy that wanted to try some gave a little money for a glass to taste.  I thought that was sort of neat.

The next day, Julian took me around Munich.  The main square of Munich, Marienplatz, has a very large "cuckoo"clock that has a merry-go-round of human figures at 11am every day.  The technical term is glockenspiel, and there are actually two merry-go-rounds that tell two different stories.  One being the marriage of a duke, the other being a traditional dance that supposedly eradicated the plague from the city.  The traditional dance, Schäfflerstanz , can still be seen performed every seven years at Fasching festival.  We didn't make it in time to watch the glockenspiel, Julian said it was mostly disappointing anyways.

We then visited the Frauenkirche cathedral.  It sports the famous two towers with bronze domes that have become one of the symbols of Munich.  Within the church, about
five meters from the front entrance, is the devil's footprint, otherwise known as Teufelsschritt.

Supposedly the devil came to see the ridiculous church without any windows.  See, when you first walk into the church, due to the architecture, you cannot see the windows until you move about a foot post the devil's footprint.  The devil then saw the light and was either burnt a bit or stomped his foot in anger, depends on whom you ask.  The origin of the footprint may be unknown, but what is known is that the devil wears approximately a US womens size 10.

We rounded out the old town and headed to the Deutches Museum, the worlds largest science and technology museum.  They had every thing from planes, to automobiles, to space gadgets, to ceramics, to musical instruments, to windmills, to steel lathes, to even a live reproduction of Tesla's experiment.  We spent about three hours there, and I could have spent another two more at least. 

That night, Julian and I convinced little Julian to procrastinate on his paper due the next day, and join us to the Oktoberfest grounds.  There happened to be a festival that weekend, something like our county fairs without the livestock.  The Julian's referred to it as the "poor man's" Oktoberfest, as it was held in the very same location.

There they convinced me to ride the ferris wheel at sunset to get a good view of the city.  To me, ferris wheels are among the more terrifying carnival rides.  It turned out to be worth it for the beautiful view however.  From up top, they could also describe to me how it would look during Oktoberfest.

During Oktoberfest, about five to six million people flock to the city for 16 days of unrivaled beer drinking.  There are typically 14 large biergartens, which are enormous tents packed full of picnic tables with kitchens and of course barrels upon barrels of beer.  Not to mention 20 smaller biergartens.  They only serve Weissbier, and they only serve it by the liter.

There happened to be one small (the Julians seemed to think it was small) biergarten at the festival, so we checked it out.

What an experience.

There were people everywhere, crammed into these picnic tables, drinking liters of beer, eating half chickens.  A good portion of the people were in their traditional lederhosen or bar maid like dresses.  At Oktoberfest, pretty much everyone dresses up (most men own at least one nice pair of lederhosen.  There was a live band playing traditional Bavarian music, with the occasional Queen or AC/DC tossed in.  Some people stood on the benches the whole time, but when the song was good enough, most of the tent was dancing on their tables.  About ever fourth song they'd play the short jingle Prost!, prost being the equivalent to cheers.

What blew my minds the most, was the waitresses.  Not big bosomed, blonde braided young German women.  These were forty-something beasts of women capable of carrying ten to twelve liters of beer at one time.  I'm talking arms bigger than my legs.  I DARE someone to try to drink and ditch.  I would say you might get a mug over the head, but they'd thought of that already. 

All mugs have a "safety"feature.  If you try to beat someone over the head with one, it will break off at the handle, as to prevent there from being a second blow.

I wonder how many Oktoberfests and concussions they went through before introducing that design.

Injuries are commonplace at Oktoberfest, not a complete surprise there.  Mostly in the form of falling off tables or stumbling into something solid.  Apparently nurses and doctors can make six months worth of wages in just those 16 days.

After one liter of beer, I was ready to go to bed.  Just the one beer got me warm and fuzzy, I could only imagine a day full of one after another.  Julian said it was easy to spot the first timers.

The next day before I left for Nuremberg, I had one thing left to try.

The white sausage.

Julian and I walked to the butcher shop, grabbed four little white sausage links and two pretzels.  The white sausages are made fresh from pork, and are to be eaten the same day they are made.  To cook them, all you do is boil them for 15 mins or so.  Then, you cut the casing lengthwise and pop out the sausage.  Serve with sweet mustard and Weissbier.  If your a hardcore traditionalist, you'll have the beer at breakfast, because you're supposed to eat the sausages before noon, as they are at their freshest. 

I said goodbye to Julian (little Julian had left me a farewell note before he left early that morning), and I hopped on a train for Nuremberg.

Prost Munich
Tegs