a bum in munich

Most of my time in Munich was spent wandering around, opting again to live the local unemployed life rather than the usual guidebook recommendations. Outfitted with Andy’s bike (too big even for him, a few inches taller than me), I made use of the city’s myriad bicycle lanes. I must have been a sight, peddling furiously and coasting in thirty-second intervals, unable to peddle while seated. In fact, coming to a stop meant either finding a lamppost to lean on or hopping off the seat while maneuvering the bike to an angle so that I didn’t damage that fun area where my legs come together. Still, it beat walking.

The English Garden (a park bigger than New York’s Central Park) was great: full of sunbathers even on a weekday afternoon, dotted with biergartens where, besides a pint of hefeweizen, the smallest pour you could get is a liter (the 17 year-olds at an adjacent table were outdrinking me with theirs). There’s even a section of river running where with an artificial wave for surfing practice. Then there are all of the community gardens throughout Germany—I love them. Not only are they much larger than the dinky plots I’m familiar with on the east coast of the US, but most are accessorized with glorified shacks, a grill, and beers kept cold in a fridge. In case you opt out of the fridge option, there’s usually a biergarten within a few hundred meters. My favorite more-or-less natural beauty site, though, was that of the Nymphenburg castle (more of a palace, really). The surrounding hundreds of acres of gardens were nothing short of enchanting. I was only able to peer through the locked fence of the botanical garden; actually visiting it may have made me cry. As if mocking our highly urbanized way of life in the big cities back home, there were a few apartments just beside the botanical garden—of course they had their personal ‘secret’ garden plots hidden behind a wooden fence. I strolled about the area, cursing to myself in awe, asking out loud whom I’d have to kill to live out here.

Beer and food were obvious priorities—Andy and I went through lots of pints at his place (I didn’t take notes, but it was hard to go wrong with anything). I made it a point to cook at least a couple of times. Germans love white asparagus (spargel), and it’s reflected in their spring markets. One night we just grilled (salad on the side, thank you), and another night I went a little further, with four different salads, a roasted organic chicken (€10/kg!?!), and fresh hollandaise to accompany a pile of white asparagus I prepared. All in Yanni and _GermanAndi’s beautiful house, in a great kitchen, on the patio of their fragrant garden.

I managed to squeeze in a daytrip to Salzburg, where I finally let loose the tourist in me—visiting museums, riding funiculars, and even snapping a picture of baby Mozart in a cradle in his mummified house (it was too cheesy to skip). The views from the old fortress were amazing. Here, on a fortune based on salt (a basis, in turn, for the town’s name), an empire would withstand Roman conquest in large part due to its strategic perch on a steep hill overlooking town. I even managed to enjoy a great meal at an otherwise touristy-looking restaurant by the funicular. On my way back to the station, I bought a beer to drink on the train ride back to Munich (more for the novelty of it than anything else), but was really just too stuffed from lunch—so much for novelties.

My last act in Munich was to be a fancy meal out. I asked my newly acquired German friends, and after much deliberation, the conclusion was that I should head for Tantris. So I peddled coasted peddled coasted my way to the restaurant, anticipating my first truly fancy meal since I was in Morocco (at ten times the price, of course). I don’t even have to admit (those who know me probably know this regardless) that I was very afraid of a letdown. I ate a brilliant seven course lunch, forcing myself to think in dollars rather than euros so as not to jolt the food back out of my belly. I subsequently beached myself on a grassy patch amongst the hordes at the English Garden. There I pondered the meaning of life before heading home to pack and mentally prepare for the transition to speaking yet another (not so) foreign language.