Oktoberfest
Trip Start
Apr 06, 2003
1
50
69
Trip End
Ongoing
Munich,
Germany
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
We hope you are all having a great holiday season. Our holidays have been fun. It began with Festivus drinks with some friends from work. A Festivus for the Rest of us! We spent X-mas eve at our friends Tiffany and Karel's house for fondue. It was really yummy. On X-mas, our Aussie friends Bruce and Ange invited us and our other Aussie friends Tom and Meeghan over to have a nice dinner. We even had a few presents under the tree! After dinner, we met my friend from LA, Scott, and his g-friend Elena, who lives in A'dam that we have become friends with, to watch the Laker game. For Boxing Day, what the Dutch call X-mas II (a legal holiday), we went to see Oceans' 12. The theater was packed. I didn't like the movie much but hope it will inspire some of you to come and visit A'dam - we live right down the street/canal from where they filmed.
We spent last weekend in Ghent Belgium celebrating my belated b-day. It was a very nice weekend. We took the train 3 hours on Sat. morning and spent the night. It was a very mellow couple days with great beer, nice dinner, and the usually relaxing walk around the small Belgian town to see whatever amazing church and sites this town had to offer.
Next up for us is a visit from our friends from Boston, Gabrielle and Ben. They are coming later this week and will spend a few days seeing some of the Netherlands before getting back to A'dam for New Years Eve! The Dutch celebrate NYE by setting off fireworks all over town. This is not an organized event but rather random drunks with explosives. I've heard it is insane here, and almost dangerous. Some friends have told us about how the drunk Dutch accidentally launch their fireworks down the street instead of skyward when the champaign bottle they are using to set the fireworks off with fall over by mistake. Maybe we'll watch the fireworks from the apartment windows =) Should be fun though!
In other news, Joey has finally bought his flight to come and visit. We're thrilled to have him coming since he said he'd be visiting us every year and this is his first trip in the nearly 2 years we've been here! We are going to spend a week in Vienna, Budapest, and some small towns in Hungary with him. Should be an awesome trip!
Anyways, here is our trip to Munich and Oktoberfest with Justin, my college/Chicago roomie, and his wife Erin back in September. But before that, here's some info on things happening in and around town...
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LASALLE BANK FIRE
For those of who didn't hear, there was a big fire at my bank in Chicago earlier this month. It was a pretty big deal but I am happy to report that nobody was seriously hurt (everyone is now out of the hospital) and the bank moved on seamlessly. The bank's disaster plan worked perfectly and the majority of the people are now back in the building. But 2 things - first, my father-in-law was really funny the next day when he told me that he saw a bank spokesperson on WGN say that the building has 3000 employees and '1 who is on a 3-year vacation in A'dam'...I thought that was hilarious! Second, I joked with some American colleagues that if the fire had happened to the building in A'dam that, unlike in the US where most people reported to disaster recovery locations throughout Chicago the next day, the Dutch likely would've taken 3 months of stress-leave!
MY B-DAY
To celebrate my b-day, I celebrated the way the Dutch do - by buying these small individual cakes for each of my colleagues (costing about EUR 15). It's kinda like when you're in elementary school and you bring in cupcakes from all of your classmates. In the morning, you walk around from person to person, asking them to fill in the order sheet of what treat they want. Like clockwork, each person stands up, shakes your hand, and says congratulations - which I felt bad taking since my mom actually did all of the hard stuff on my b-day. You cannot just bring in the cakes that you want for them because they are supposed to pick the one they want, which really just means I am buying their breakfast. I still haven't been able to find one I really like but so far, I like an éclair-like pastry filled with whipped cream and topped with chocolate. The cakes are to be served around 11:00 so that the cheap Dutch can plan how much to spend on lunch instead of buying a normal lunch and then being too full to eat their entire free treat. It's a very interesting routine all around!
SMOKING BOOTH AT WORK
I don't think I've told you about this yet but the building just became smoke-free about 2 years ago. In fact, when I came out to interview for this job, one of the very senior people I met with smoked right in my face during the entire time we were together. It was really annoying but since I wanted to work here, I chose not to ask him to stop. I did employ my tactic though and farted in his office. Now, all employees have to smoke in these smoke booths that are located in many of the building corridors. They look like bus stop booths and are really funny to when they are packed with up to 10 overgrown Dutchies sucking down their nicotine-sticks. Unfortunately, the booths don't work too well and the building still reeks.
BIKE PARKING AT WORK
There is also underground bike parking in the office. It is pretty funny and very Dutch. There's nothing to say about this other than the fact that the bank actually has this. Soooo Dutch!
BATHROOMS AT WORK
I don't quite understand why this is but the ladies that clean the bathrooms at work do so during the day and have no regard for whether they are occupied or not. I'll tell you, there is no stranger feeling than standing at the urinal and seeing a woman walk in and start cleaning. She doesn't say sorry and wait a moment for me to finish, she just gets the mop out and gets to work. Maybe the whole 9-5 thing makes it hard since nobody wants to work later than 5PM in this country this is a bit ridiculous. So to get even, I don't flush!
DINNER AT A RESTAURANT
Julie and I went out to dinner with our friend Liz the other night. We went into a local Italian restaurant but there were no open tables. Knowing that dinners last hours here and the waitresses never push their customers in hope of turning tables since they get paid good wages and don't rely on tips the way they do in the US, I asked the waitress if she would mind asking one of the couples taking a 4-person table to move to one of the available 2-person tables. The Dutch all love to spread out and take huge tables to put their coats on the spare chairs despite the fact that there is someone hoping to use it. It's pretty annoying. In the end, the waitress wouldn't even ask the other restaurant patron to hang her coat and move to a smaller table so we just moved on. ANNOYING!
KLM IN THE A'DAM CANALS
The other night, there was a KLM plane in the A'dam canals. One of the aerospace museums in a small town near A'dam got a plane donated to it. The problem is there is no way to get it there...other than by canal. So last week, a huge airplane was transported by boat along the A'dam canals. There's really not much of a story here but some of the pics are pretty awesome - take a look here... http://www.schlijper.nl/archive/2004/12/17.html
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FRIDAY
Following Rosh Hashanah services at the 17th-century Portuguese Synagogue (see the Sept. 26 t-pod for more info on the service), I came home to pick up Julie and the luggage. We were trying a new strategy. Usually we rent a car in town and drive out to the ringroad highway, battling 'city' traffic the whole way. We decided we would try renting a car at the airport since the airport is easy to get to and is already on the highway. Would a 20-minute walk to the train station, a 10-minute wait for the next train, and a 7-minute ride to the airport be better than a 20-minute walk to the local car rental place and then a 40-minute driving adventure through A'dam? The other reason we thought we'd rent a car at the airport was we often get home from our trips in the late afternoon/early evening. We are typically too late to drop the car at the rental place as everything closes at 5:00 on the dot in A'dam and most things aren't even open on Sundays. This means we need to park the car in town, which costs us about EUR 20 in meter fees. So since the airport rental place is open until 11 PM, we thought we could always drop off the car when we got back to A'dam and save the parking costs as well! Plus, by renting at the airport, I could get American Airlines miles =) So this was the challenge - would renting the car at the airport be a better option?
About an hour after we left the apartment, we were in the car pulling out of the Budget Rental garage. Deciding to leave around noon was paying dividends as we were cruising along, making good time. We made it to the German boarder and then hit the open road. The autobahn is highly efficient - everyone drives in the right lane until you are about 3 feet from the bumper in front of you, at which time you put on your left blinker and switch lanes. Once you have passed the car by about 3 feet, you switch back to the right lane. Even if you are going to be passing another car in 10 seconds, you pass one at a time. Well, apparently someone miscalculated their passing maneuver because out of nowhere, bam, a wall of traffic. We literally didn't move for an hour. The highway is only 2 lane so even though it wasn't a bad accident, there was nowhere to move the damaged cars and nowhere for the rest of us to pass. So we waited patiently for the mess to be cleaned up. As we eventually made our way to the site of the accident, there were some locals who had walked over to the highway to see what all the excitement was about. Must be a pretty boring town!
Finally we made it back to the open road but now we were battling rush-hour traffic from the relatively large cities of Koln and Dusseldorf. This was starting to get frustrating! Damn, another car accident. Some road construction forced the 4-lane highway into 1-lane of highway going in each direction! Our 4 ½-hour drive was now at about 5 hours and we were still about an hour from our destination! This sucks!
Luckily German radio rocks! In general, we love German radio because it reminds us of karaoke - the best part of karaoke (other than seeing your friends make asses of themselves) is getting to hear those random songs you haven't heard in about 10 years...well, that's German radio! On the drive, we heard such classics as "We Are the World" and "Theme to Greatest American Hero".
Finally, we made it to Bad Homburg, the place we would be sleeping for the night, after 6 hours on the road - 2 hours later than expected. Bad Homburg is a suburb of Frankfurt. We decided we would stay in this town because it has a spa, which we thought would be a nice little treat following this big drive. Unfortunately, the traffic got us to town just after the tourist office (and accommodation booking service) closed. We drove around a bit, looking for some small hotels to get a room for the night. We were told practically all the rooms in town were sold out because there was a big auto show in Frankfurt. We found one hotel with a room for a few hundred EUR - we took a pass on that. So we'll have to go back to Bad Homburg another time.
We got back in the car and continued heading south. Problem was we weren't sure where to go - there was no way we were going to be able to make it another 4 hours to Munich. We got out our travel guides and looked for something about an hour away. We decided we would drive to the town of Wurzburg. But we were starting to get hungry. I wasn't in the mood for the long search for something edible since we are not huge fans of German food being that everything is pork - luckily, Julie amazingly remembered that there was a Burger King just up the road. Did she memorize where all the German Burger Kings are?
We got to Wurzburg after another 90 KMs of driving. It seemed like a very cute town. There was a carnival in town and people seemed to be having a nice time. There was a beautifully illuminated palace overlooking the Main River and a baroque church. We drove to one of the recommended hotels in the travel guide. It was full. We drove to another. It was also full. We asked if there were any rooms in town that they knew of. Amazingly, there was a convention in town and again, there were no rooms available. Can you believe this? Somehow I had turned into Chris - we were on one of those 'reds'. The man at the hotel recommended a town just 7 KMs away. He guaranteed there would be available rooms there. I was exhausted, so we were ready to go.
We got to the town and went to the first place we saw (Hotel Birtshaus Spundloch). Julie ran in, came out a few moments later, and told me there was availability. Wooo-hooo! It was about EUR 20 more than I wanted to spend (EUR 80) but you know what, who cares! We had a bed! I left Julie with the bags while I went around the block to drop off the car. When I got to the room, I was thrilled to see there was a huge bathtub. Julie was psyched to see a canopy bed. The room was very nice. But I deserved a beer so we went downstairs to get a beverage. Afterwards, we relaxed - Julie in the canopy bed, me in the huge bathtub!
We were in the car at 1:00 and finally made it to the hotel at 10:30 after driving 600 KMs, the longest 4 hr. drive ever!
SATURDAY
We both had a great night sleep but neither of us really even knew the name of the town we were at. For the record, we were in the town of Veitshochheim. Following the best breakfast ever, complete with pretzel roll things, hard-boiled eggs, really good stinky cheese, fresh fruit, and a huge yogurt selection. It was yummy.
After breakfast, we headed out into town to see the gem of a town we had stumbled upon. Veitshochheim was a really cute town of roughly 10,000, founded in 1763. We entered through a gate and surprisingly found an amazing white palace with yellow trim. It was built from 1680-82 as a summer residence. It has a beautiful rococo garden, complete with gazebos, terraces, and lakes. There are about 200 sandstone sculptures throughout the huge manicured gardens. The lake was really pretty, with some feathered friends gliding along the water and a really elaborate fountain in the middle. Some of the statues were really cool - there was one of a little man playing a dragon saxophone, another of a dragon with cool eyes (El Dragon), and lastly, a pair that guarded the entrance gate that reminded me of the guards of the city of Oz. We had a very nice walk around and even met a woman there who seemed to be surprised to see 2 Americans in her tiny little town - I love when that happens! It was really quite a wonderful surprise.
We next walked through town and noticed that the Germans have the tidiest garbage piles in the world - they neatly stack and tie their garbage together. We stumbled onto another special surprise - there were a few signs directing tourists to a synagogue built between 1727-30. At first we walked past it, not recognizing it since it just looked like a typical storefront. Finally, we entered through the door into what looked like a small gallery. There was nobody inside of the room but the door was not locked. There were tons of backpacks lining the floor. Many schools and youth groups visit Jewish-related places as part of their education curriculum...this one was so committed to spreading the message, it was doing so on a Saturday.
We went into the backyard where there were 2 buildings. The first was a museum, which told a mostly small-town non-Jewish audience a bit about the religion. This was interesting to see, especially since the Germans really seem to be interested in learning about the Jews given their recent history with them. The museum also told a bit about the history of Jews in that town - in 1644 (over 100 years before the town was officially founded), there were 2 Jewish families in Veitshochheim; in 1843, there were between 128 and 160 people; in 1900, there were 55 people; in 1942, there were 7 people; and in 1944, there were no Jews left in town. There was some discussion of what happened during Kristalnacht (Nov. 9 and 10, 1938 when the Nazis destroyed and burned all the Jewish religious artifacts they could find) but since the displays were only in German, I'm not really sure what it said but I can certainly guess what happened.
We left the museum and walked into the 3rd building of the complex, a small but beautiful 1-room synagogue with a woman's section upstairs. There was a woman speaking to the class in German about the building, history, and the Jewish religion. I'm not sure exactly what she was saying and didn't want to interrupt but we gathered from photos and some displays that the synagogue and accompanying mikvah (ritual bath) were destroyed during Kristalnacht. It was reconstructed in 1986, meaning the rubble sat as a reminder of what happened for just less than 50 years. The room had seats for about 50 people and had a bima in the center of the room. Above the ark were the 2 tablets of the 10 Commandments. They were obviously the originals because only part of the tablets were there, still bearing the cracks they suffered that night in 1938. It was really special to be able to sit there, especially knowing that the Germans were doing all they could - through reconstructing sites like these and educating their youth - to ensure that at least in Germany 'Never Again'.
As we continued to walk around town, we joked that the town reminded us of the town the Griswalds went to in Germany when they thought they were staying with their long-lost relatives - "my wife and I are looking for sex". We found a small family brewery that made a beer called Pabst. We wanted to go inside and take a look but it looked closed so we didn't bother. Too bad, that would've been cool.
After spending a few hours tooling around town, we were very happy with how things had worked out as the town was great and the B&B was very nice with a delish breakfast but it was time to head out. So we grabbed the car and continued heading south towards Munich.
As we drove, we passed a landscape reminiscent of the drive from Chicago to Madison - farm fields, occasional gentle rolling hills, and in general, nothing! Although the whole ride smelled like pretzels, so that was good! One annoying thing about driving in Germany, all of the radio stations break to a traffic report at the same time. We thought we had this solved when we threw a CD in the player but the car actually turns the CD off and the traffic report on. It's pretty annoying but at least it lets you know that another hour has passed.
Since we cruised along at between 150 and 180 KM/hr. (roughly 96 - 115 MPH), we made it to Munich in real good time. However, we couldn't find the hotel. Eventually, after weaving around for about 30 minutes, we stumbled upon the train station, which meant we were close to the hotel (Mercure Hotel for EUR 122/night).
It was now around 2:00 so we dropped off our bags and headed into town. I had been to Munich before and loved it - in fact, when I backpacked in '97, Munich was my favorite place in Europe and I don't remember doing anything other than visiting the world-famous beerhalls!
We walked straight to the Marienplatz (square) and pedestrian shopping street. Munich was completely bombed out during the war and those in charge of the reconstruction smartly decided to rebuild everything the way it was. We walked up the street, following the Rick Steves' walking tour. We passed a cool city gate, lots of outdoor terraces, and tons of ornate buildings. At the end of the shopping street is the New Town Hall, built between 1867 and 1906. The New Town Hall has a clock, called the Glockenspiel, which is 100 years old and twice a day features a handful of moving characters that joust, telling the story of how the Bavarians beat their enemies.
We continued walking around town for a bit and made our way to the Residenz (palace). We weren't sure if we should go in or not since we were starting to get hungry. We walked around trying to find something small and quick to eat but had a tough time finding something. It was kinda late and we had plans to meet Janet and Dirk, friends from A'dam who coincidentally would be in Munich the same weekend, at the hotel around 6:00, just a few hours later, so we didn't want to have a big sit-down meal. The problem was we weren't able to find anything but big sit-down restaurants. We found a perfect soup shop but unfortunately, it was closing. We kept walking around and finally we found a quick sandwich and pretzel. We decided we would go to the Residenz another time - which is a good thing since the place was huge (but we'll get to that later).
We went back to the hotel to relax for about an hour and then met Janet and Dirk. We walked about 10 minutes over to the Oktoberfest grounds. The place was intense! It was like a huge state fair, complete with carnival rides, games with lame stuffed animals, food stands including sausages and fried things, and of course, those world-famous beer-tents. This was the 171st event, celebrating the royal wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig - who later to become King Ludwig I - and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen on October 12, 1810. The citizens were invited to attend the wedding, which strangely didn't even serve beer. Because the people loved the Crown Prince and Princess so much, they decided to commemorate their wedding anniversary by holding horse races on the same grounds every year. Eventually, they began holding an agricultural show as part of the event as well. This continued to develop into a bigger and bigger party, eventually including beer-tents in 1896. Now, around 6 million visitors drink around 5 million liters if beer and consume over 400,000 pork sausages and 800,000 chickens over the 16-day annual celebration. This is one huge ass party!
We walked around and just took it in. We first went to the Hacker-Pschorr tent. It was packed. Everyone was having a blast. People were singing and dancing. They were standing on the tables and swinging their liter-sized beer glasses side to side. The tents holds about 5,000 with the largest one holding 10,000 - and they are all jam-packed. We were expecting the place to be overrun with drunken Americans but to our surprise, the majority of the people were wearing traditional lader hosen and appeared to be locals. Maybe it's because it was the first weekend, but maybe not. Who knows? We walked around looking for a seat but were having a tough time finding one. We figured we would just hang outside but unfortunately, you have to be sitting in order to get a beer. Now we really needed to find a seat. Somehow Dirk was able to convince one of the beer-wenches to sell us a few beers - it must be his ability to speak German.
We had a couple of the big beers (called mass) and then grabbed some food. I had fish and fries. They were yummy. It was now getting close to 9:00 so we went back to the hotel so that we could meet my college/Chicago roomie Justin and his wife Erin. They had flown to Frankfurt from Chicago that morning and drove straight to Munich. I'm sure they were exhausted but they pushed through. Beer stopped being served at Oktoberfest at 10:30 so we decided we would just head into town a find a beerhall. We went to Weisses Brauhaus. The 6 of us sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful evening and a few more beverages. After a few hours, they closed but we were still not ready for bed. So we headed a few blocks over and went into the most famous of all the beerhalls, the Hofbrauhaus. Unfortunately, we were a bit too late as they too were closing. But I think we got the idea - the oomph bands, burley beer-wenches, oversized pretzels and beers, tourists linking arms with strangers. But the night was ending.
We walked back to our hotel, stopping on the way back for a slice of drunk pizza, and then fell asleep fighting against a spinning room.
SUNDAY
We woke up and met Justin and Erin in the hotel lobby. Janet and Dirk decided to sleep in a bit so it was just the 4 of us. We went to a local souvenir shop to buy some Oktoberfest things. I bought a cool shirt and Julie told the man she was looking for a kid's shirt (in case you never noticed, she's little). Having communication problems, he made some weird comment about 'ladies guns' in tight t-shirts. What a sicko, that's my wife man.
In the first weekend of Oktoberfest, there are a few ceremonial events. So we next headed outside to find the Oktoberfest Costume and Rifleman's Parade, a 2-hour procession with about 7000 'performers'. The 7-KM parade through city center includes varied regional costumes, 'troops' in historical uniform, marching bands, riflemen, decorated horses, oxen, cows, goats, decorated wagons of the 8 Munich breweries carrying barrels of brew, and floats displaying local traditions. Other than the impressive parade, my 2 highlights of the morning were (1) watching those marching try to avoid the horse shit that had been left in the middle of the parade route by those before them and (2) the rather inviting advertisement that lined the parade route for 'Falco, the Musical' (oooh, rock me Amadeus!)...I swear, this really is a play. Seriously though, the parade was pretty impressive and a fun way to wake up from a long night of drinking.
After about an hour of parade-watching, we all agreed that we had gotten the idea and were ready to do something else. We stopped at tourist info to get some ideas for later but for now, we were hungry so we headed back toward the main shopping street of Marienplazt and ducked inside the small courtyard restaurant of Ratskeller Munchen (http://www.ratskeller.com/). The courtyard was really cozy and you barely even knew that there was a city of 1.3 million just beyond the buildings. The weather was beautiful so we grabbed a table outside and a few beers while we looked over the menu. We all went with typical German grub - I had spaetzle noodles with cheese and potato pancakes, Julie had goulash with beef and potatoes, Erin had a salad and shared some of Justin's, who ordered a huge plate of sausages (EUR 70 total)! It was all very good!
We finished lunch just in time to get to the meeting point at 2:30 for Mike's Bike Tour (4 hours plus bike rental for EUR 22). When I was in Munich in '97, I went on the tour and suggested to Julie, Justin, and Erin that we join the tour. We met Randall, our Australian guide, at the 15th-century Old Town Hall with about another 100 tourists. We split up into groups of about 20, grabbed our Harleys, and headed out on our tour. In case you haven't been on Mike's Bike Tour before, if you go to Munich, give it a shot. They are a lot of fun and balance humor with history when guiding you around this huge spread out city. We rode around and saw the outside of practically ever site in town. We also heard a lot about the troubled history of this town.
I will try to summarize some of the things we learned while pedaling around...
** Munich was founded when Prince Henry the Lion ordered that a bridge be built crossing the Isar River in order to control the salt route leading from the Alps 70 KMs away.
** Munchen (the German name) means 'near the monks' because monks had settled the area about 100 years before Henry arrived.
** The Hofbrauhaus was built in 1589 as the royal brewery and opened to the public in 1888; Hitler organized the first Nazi gathering there in 1919 - there are still blue swastikas painted on the ceiling.
** I talked to Randall a bit about anti-semitism in Europe; he thinks Germans and Europe in general have been anti-semetic for a long time and pointed out that the Brits could've bombed out the train tracks leading to Auschwitz in any of the 80 air raids it ran but they never did...as a sidenote, I have since heard that while the Brits could've bombed out the train tracks, it probably wouldn't have had any affect on the trains to Auschwitz since there were backup lines.
** The symbol of Munich is the lion; Randall asked us to roar whenever any of us saw a lion...if you think 20 tourists riding bikes around Munich is ridiculous, what would you think if they all started roaring - I roared loud and often!
** Randall also asked us to let him know when we saw the other symbol of Munich - the mullet - by screaming "mullet!"
** The English Garden is huge, Munich's version of Central Park, with one of the largest beer gardens in the world, with raging rapids that allow Munich's beach boys a chance to surf, and even a spot for nude sunbathers.
** The tour was basically exclusively Americans and Australians.
** There were 5 musicians who played beautiful classical music somewhere along the ride; we listened to them for a while; they were great.
** I almost ran over 2 woman in the park while trying to take a pic of Julie riding her bike.
** We also rode past the 19th-century neo-classical National Theater, the 112-room enormous Residenz of the Wittelsbachs, the 20-meter tall 19th-century monument called the Hall of the Field Marshall with its impressive lions, the beautiful yellow Temple of Diana, and the new glass structure of the Bavarian State Chancellory.
The tour was great, even the 2nd time. It took about 4 hours but only covered about 4 KMs, with a 30-minute break for a beer in the English Garden slowing down the progress. We returned the bikes and jumped in a cab to go back to the hotel. The cab driver was really interesting. We asked him how Oktoberfest was going so far. He told us that he usually doesn't go to the festival because it is usually a busy time for him as a cabbie. However, he said this festival wasn't going too well so far. He said many of the tourists were staying home (ie. the Americans are afraid to travel). He told us about how he remembers watching the events of 9-11 unfold and how everyone was just completely shocked! He said the organizers of Oktoberfest considered canceling the festival since they weren't sure it was appropriate to celebrate just weeks after such an event. As he continued talking, he told us about how his father would tell him all about America as he was growing up, including telling him about where he was when JFK was killed. It was amazing to hear this. When was the last time I paid much attention to developments in another country? This showed me that despite the differences in politics, Europeans really do like Americans. I don't know if any of this makes sense but it was really an interesting cab ride.
After dropping off a few things at the hotel, we walked over to the Oktoberfest grounds. Since Justin and Erin hadn't gone there the night before, this was their first sight of it and I think they were as shocked as we were. Julie and Erin looked around while Justin and I looked for an ATM - my card had expired so Justin had to lend me some cashola.
We met up with the ladies and, upon the recommendation of our new cabbie friend, we headed to the Augustiner beer-tent. I went upstairs and found a spot with a view of the craziness below. It was awesome! We could see everything. We ordered a couple chickens which the carnivores said were awesome. I had pretzels and cheese. And of course, we had a few beers. The huge liter-size beers cost EUR 7 and after just one of those, trust me, you are feeling toasty! Once we were feeling German, we were ready to go downstairs and dance on the benches and tables like the rest of the locals. We found a spot near some new friends, who constantly hugged us and made us feel very welcome. We threw our arms around their shoulders and swayed with them as we all belted out those famous German classic lyrics like "country road take me home" and "it's up to you, New York, New York".
We started talking to a guy who was about 20 - I don't really remember how old he was but he was definitely younger than 21. He was telling us that he had the option of either going into the army or becoming a civil servant - he wisely chose to become a civil servant. He was really nice. He was there with his parents and some other relatives. We talked about a bunch of things but again, the beer was flowing by then so I don't really remember much, but we had a really good time with him.
I also had another interesting conversation during the night. While in the toilet, I was using a temporary urinal that had a short wall. The wall was so short that as you looked straight ahead and relieved yourself, you stared right at someone else who was doing the same. So as I was making a tinkle, this German guy started talking to me in German. I said to him that I didn't speak German. He wanted to know where I was from so I told him the US. He wanted to know what I was going to do in Munich, as if he was challenging me and telling me that I shouldn't be at Oktoberfest. When I told him that we had gone on a 4-hour bike ride and would be going to the Residenz (palace) the next day, he seemed to feel I was worthy and could continue to enjoy my time at Oktoberfest. I guess I was kinda drunk but it is pretty annoying that I felt like I had to justify my time to this fuck. What if I came to Munich just to drink, was that not allowed?!?!?
Anyways, after a few hours, the tent stopped serving beer, which means the place cleared out quickly! As we made our way out of the grounds, we passed the Hacker-Pschorr tent (the place we drank the night before). Apparently, Hacker-Pschorr is the big gay hang-out because there were lots of boys running around. Without getting too un-PC we discussed how far German society had gone as we saw lots of unbuttoned lader hosen and recalled that just 60 years ago, these men would never have been so comfortable in public. It was refreshing to see in the new Germany but at one point, we were completely engulfed in it that we wondered when we arrived at Cocktoberfest?!?! Also trying to make light of the situation, we came up with a slogan for Hacker-Pschorr beer - "it's so strong in alcohol, it'll make you kiss your friends!".
As we continued to make our way home, Justine and I got distracted by one of the rides. It was a toboggan where you ride a steep-angled fast-moving walkway up to a spiral slide that you ride down on a carpet. We watched from the ground for a while, laughing hysterically with the huge crowd that formed as drunk after drunk whipped out trying to ride the moving walkway up. Basically, you stand still and just jump onto this walkway. Without doubt, everyone falls. The funny part is watching people hop around on one foot as they try and recapture their balance. The only ones able to conquer the moving walkway were the young kids, every single time. It reminded me of those times I would be sitting on the snow after whipping out from a snowboarding fall and seeing some little punk just careening down the hill, spraying snow in my face as he carved up the mountain. So after watching for some time, Justin and I decided it was time to step up and show all these Germans who the real men are. Let's just say it didn't go so well...I ended up hopping the entire time until the rides' staff jumped up to catch me before I killed myself and Justin rode up on his back with his legs straight up in the air! It was hilarious. The ride down was pretty lame though.
This was another awesome - and drunk - night!!!
MONDAY
We bid farewell to Justin and Erin for a few days as they would be heading off to Austria and a few other places in Germany before meeting us back in A'dam at the end of the week and we were heading to another town in Germany on our way home. But before we did that, we spent a bit more time in Munich.
We checked out of the hotel, loaded the car but left it in the underground parking lot, and made our way again towards Marienplatz. As we approached the New Town Hall, we noticed that there was a huge crowd gathering to watch the 11:00 Glockenspiel show. This is one of the lamest things around, but basically, this is what goes on from 11:00-11:10...
*** The upper part depicts the wedding of Renata von Lothringen and Wilhelm V, founder of the Hofbrauhaus, in 1568 and supposedly claimed the lives of 521 oxen; 18 figures dance around Wilhelm and his bride, including 2 jousting knights; the 2 knights approach each other and miss but they continue along the path and at the 2nd approach, the Bavarian (wearing white and blue) knocks the Austrian (wearing red and white) backwards - it's very exciting!
*** The lower part shows the famous Cooper's Dance, which was performed for the first time by barrel makers at the end of the plague in 1517.
*** Once the simultaneous acts described above finish, the 43-bell carillon chimes for 2 to 3 minutes, followed by a roster which crows 3 times and flaps its wings. Excitement!
Following the Glockenspiel performance, we went to the Viktualien Markt, with a maypole in the center which is decorated with signs showing off many of the local crafts and delicacies sold there. Munich's 8 breweries take turns serving at the market, advertising which one is being served with a sign on the maypole. Julie and I picked up some snacks for the road (mushrooms with balsamic vinegar and cherries).
It was now time to finally check out the Residenz. This place was awesome and I am glad we didn't try to see it on Saturday in an hour. As it was, we spent about 2 hours in the palace, listening to every word of the thorough audio guide before realizing that we were only halfway through. We ended up skimming through the last half in about 30 minutes. The palace was the home of the Wittelsbachs, rulers of Bavaria for more than 700 years. It evolved from the 14th-century to the 19th-century. The palace was amazing for all the reasons why palaces are amazing but in my opinion, there are a handful of things really awesome about the Residenz - (1) the artificial Grotto, made of tiny Bavarian freshwater shells in the 1550s; (2) the 69-meter long Antiquarium (not a huge fish tank) was a huge banquet hall filled with the busts of emperors and amazing allegorical scenes painted on the ceiling and could accommodate 200 diners; (3) the Gallery, built about 200 years before the Antiquarium in the 1740s, was used to usher all guests waiting to meet the Duke past the 121 family portraits covering 738 years of the Wittelsbach's connection to Charlemagne and Ludwig IV; (4) an amazingly endless supply of gorgeous porcelain and china; and (5) the 1200-piece awesome treasury with a thousand year's worth of jewels, crowns, and knick-knacks, some of which even pre-date Munich by 200 years. In the end, the Residenz is pretty remarkable and really had a few special things which set it apart from the usual elegance of a normal palace.
Before leaving the Residence, we bought an awesome book on castles in Germany. Each page of the 100+-page book has color pics and info on some of the castles in Germany, organized by region. It is a really great book and will help in planning future roadtrips!
We finished our stay in Munich with a small lunch back at the Viktualien Markt with a fish sandwich for me and a Subway sandwich for Julie. It was now time to get the car from the hotel parking lot (only EUR 23 for 2 days of parking) and head back north on our way home.
It was 3:00 and getting out of Munich proved to be just as difficult as getting into it. We drove for about 30 minutes, following signs which directed us onto highways, just to get off the highway in a few moments and follow more street signs to another highway. I was completely turned around, having no clue which way was up but just stayed the course and continued to follow signs north toward Frankfurt.
After about 3 hours, we made it to Rothenburg, the town we will be staying for the night. Rothenburg was the second-largest free imperial city in the Middle Ages with a population of 6000. It is a well-preserved walled city that saw its heyday from 1150 to 1400 when it was the crossing path of 2 major trading routes - the Taskent-Paris and Hamburg-Venice. It is on a hill overlooking the Tauber River and is a wonderful place to spend a day or so. So I pulled over and Julie ran into the Gasthof Goldener Greifen (EUR 82 per night), one of the hotels recommended by Rick Steves. It was a really cute place with tons of character and a perfect location right off the main town square. It is over 600 years old and is the former Mayor's house.
So we dropped our bags inside, parked our car in the back, and walked around town for a bit. There were lots of really cute shops with tons of little knick-knacks. We went into Kathe Wohlfahrt, a Christmas shop with over 50,000 Christmas decorations ranging from lights, tree bulbs, nut-crackers, angles, ribbons, etc. It was very impressive!
We next stopped into one of the many sweet shops to buy a schneeballe, a typical German treat that we like which is basically a bunch of graham crackers smashed together into a ball and covered in chocolate. Yummy! With our bellies full, we walked along town looking at all the beautiful buildings. The oldest building in town has a foundation from 918. The rest of the building is much older...from 1515!
It was getting close to 8:00 so we went back to the main square as we wanted to take the Night Watchman Walking Tour. As we sat at the square, we wondered if we were in the right place and how we would know exactly where and when the tour was. All of a sudden, a tall and skinny man wearing a dark brown robe and carrying some sort of axe-like weapon and a lantern emerged from one of the small streets. He yelled out that he was the Night Watchman (http://www.nightwatchman.de/) and asked those wanted to take the tour to begin to congregate. It seemed like basically every person in town began to encircle this man. It was truly amazing! He had come up with a wonderful idea and had marketed it perfectly. As we waited to begin the tour, people took pics with him. It was really funny, like he was a celebrity.
He began the tour in perfect English. For the next hour (EUR 4 per person), he walked us all over town and told us the history of the town, described his job as night watchman, and in general, entertained us with his high energy and sharp sense of humor. It was an amazing tour and Rothenburg at night is beautiful.
Here is a bit of what he shared:
*** While the only people lower in the social hierarchy than the night watchman was the gravedigger and the executioner, he was trusted to ensure the safety of all the town's residents and keep foes from entering town during night.
*** The night watchman carried a weapon called a hellebarde and a horn which was blown to warn the citizens of fire, the worst thing that could happen to a town.
*** There were 6 night watchman patrolling the streets up to the 1920s.
*** Rothenburg was given the status of a "Free Imperial City" in 1274 which gave the town special privileges.
*** About 5500 people lived within the walls with 14000 more who lived in the 170 villages in the territory of about 150 square miles.
*** Being located on the trading route meant that many of the traders had to spend time (and money) in Rothenburg.
*** Every citizen was required by law to store grain to last the family a whole year in the event enemies sieged the town.
*** The food was stored on the highest floor of the buildings where it was dry and away from the dirty, wet streets and the rats.
*** Salt was needed to preserve meat, making it very valuable and expensive - thus making it a second form of currency and referred to as "white gold".
*** Because the town was wealthy, the rulers of the empire liked to come and visit - when the king came to town, it was a big (and expensive) honor for the city because when he traveled, he didn't travel alone.
*** Nobility and their entourage expected the best wine and food (and of course other gifts like gold and money) and the visit would last at least a week and the guests never paid for a thing.
*** If the visit when well, the king would often give the town some more rights like the ability to print money, have a court, or create an independent city government.
*** People emptied their chamber pots directly onto the street below - in the summertime, it stunk so bad that the rich people often left town and headed to the countryside.
*** The city walls are 4.2 KMs and 6 meters tall and have towers ever 150 meters.
*** All of the citizens had to help in guarding the town's walls.
*** When nightfall came, the town's bells would ring calling everyone back into town so that, an hour later, the gates could be closed making it impossible for anyone to get in.
*** In the event that a townsperson needed to get in after the city gates were closed, they could do so through the manhole or the 'eye of the needle' after paying a large fine - with the gatekeeper at the other side with weapons ready, the citizen would have to answer questions and if the guard trusted the answers, they opened the small door so that only that one individual could crawl in.
*** If the gatekeeper made a mistake and let an enemy in, it usually meant a lot of damage and deaths.
*** Hot oil and tar were poured on attackers from atop the city walls.
*** In October 1631, during the Thirty Years War between the Catholics and the Protestants (Rothenburg), one of the Rothenburg citizens made a foolish mistake when he accidentally blew up one of the city gates and all the town's gunpowder - the town was taken shortly thereafter and stripped of its riches.
*** The Black Plague hit Rothenburg in 1634.
*** Through the Black Plague and the Thirty Years War, the town was never burned or destroyed...but its citizens were exhausted!
*** In 1945, a German general and his troops left battered Nurnberg for Rothenburg and gave the orders to the people of Rothenburg that the city should be defended - 2 days later, on March 31, 16 Allied planes bombed the town and killed 39 people and destroyed 306 houses, 6 public buildings, 9 of the wall's towers, and more than 2000 feet of the city wall.
*** Deputy Secretary of State General John McCloy was familiar with Rothenburg's beauty and sent word to the local US commander, General Jacob Devers, not to further destroy the town if they would promise not to allow the Nazis to use it as a base for further resistance - the war was practically over so on April 17, the German troops surrendered and the US occupied the town and raised the Stars and Stripes...General John McCloy was awarded the "Honorable Protectorate of Rothenburg" by the townspeople in November 1948.
*** Because of this, and of course the huge amount of tourist dollars that pump into the town, Americans are absolutely loved in Rothenburg!
After the tour, we grabbed dinner at Reichs-Kuchenmeister. I had mushroom soup - which, although the menu made no mention of it, was LOADED with ham - and trout while Julie has salad and veal with fries (EUR 38 total).
With that, we ended another really enjoyable night!
TUESDAY
In the morning, we had our usual breakfast and then went outside to spend some more time walking around town. It was drizzling but that didn't stop us from walking along the city walls. We looked down onto the Tauber River below and the beautiful Autumn-colored trees. The walls are quite impressive and the town was beautiful from this perspective. Along the walk, there is a segment of the wall that has the names of many past visitors to Rothenburg who have donated to the town to keep it a wonderful tourist spot.
We continued walking around town, now at street-level, and stopped at the main square. One of the buildings on the main square had measuring units displayed on the wall. Apparently, many of the towns had their own measuring units (ie. they didn't have a uniform unit like a foot yet) so to keep the markets honest, the measuring units were displayed for both the buyers and sellers to see. I thought that was kinda interesting.
We also spent some time looking at the Councilor's Tavern, where back in the day, the town's government drank. This is a building with, guess what, a glockenspiel (clock). When the clock strikes, it shows the Meistertrunk story. Basically, in 1631, the Catholics took the town and was about to destroy it when the mayor asked if they would spare the city if he could drink his entire 3-liter wine in 1 gulp...the Catholics said OK and the mayor succeeded, saving the town and sleeping for the next 3 days! In actuality, this never happened and the city was ransacked numerous times during the Thirty Years War...but it makes for a good story and a nice glockenspiel.
We were just about ready to leave but thought maybe we would look into buying a cuckoo clock. We found a really nice place and the man put on the hard-sell. He made lots of great offers and almost got us to bite but when push came to shove, as awesome as it would be to own one, spending EUR 300 for a clock that would be fun for the first month before the annoying bird that crowed every hour would get a bit old. So we didn't buy a clock.
But with this, we got in the car and started north along the Romantic Road. Rothenburg is one of the towns on the Romantic Road, a series of picturesque villages, farmhouses, onion-domed churches, Baroque palaces, and walled cities which stretches from Munich to Frankfurt. We drove for a bit but honestly, the Romantic Road was not nearly as nice as the Fairy Tale Road we drove along last T-Giving from Frankfurt north. I think the Romantic Road is more popular because King Ludwig's Neuschwanstein Castle (which we saw with Bruce and Ange in March '04) is amazing and Rothenburg is amazing, but other than that, we thought the Romantic Road was somewhat lacking of special places in comparison to the Fairy Tale Road which seemed to have less 5-star attractions but practically every town was a nice stop. Plus, the actually drive seemed a bit nicer with more forest as compared to the Romantic Road with its roadside warehouses and car dealerships. Anyways, we like the Fairy Tale Road better but think the towns along the Romantic Road have done a much better job of marketing.
So after driving along the Romantic Road for 70 KMs, it was now time to head onto the highway and make some good time back to A'dam. We stopped after a bit for some of our favorite German food - McD's. And more awesome music - 'Behind Blue Eyes' by Fred Durst about 10 times, Genesis, and that annoying Anastacia song.
We were cruising along when some crazy German driver got onto the highway and, despite moving over a lane to make room for him, he went straight to the left lane. I was going 160 KMs per hour and had to slam on the brakes. What an ass! Anyways, we continued moving along and then, fuck, we were at the Dutch border which means we were leaving the speed limit-free autobahn for the 120 KM per hour Dutch highway! So despite going just above the speed limit, it felt like we were barely moving. Easily the worst part of driving in German is when you get back to the Netherlands and have to obey a speed limit again!
We finally made it back to A'dam at around 8:00. We had driven 570 KMs in the day and 8925 KMs (roughly 5550 miles) in total. We filled up the car with gas one last time - making it roughly EUR 250 in gas in total - and dropped the car at the airport. We then jumped on the train, got off in town, and walked home, making it home by 9:00. With it only talking an hour to get back home and being able to drop off the car at the airport and not having to pay for parking in A'dam, renting at the airport is the better option.
What a great trip!
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