München

I hit the ground running in Munich. First things first, Andy and I split a couple of sausages upon my arrival at the train station. With my eight hour meat-fast finally over, we went on to bigger and better things, tasting through several of Germany’s finest brews back at Andy’s flat. Not to underdo the evening, we met up later with a few of Andy’s friends and colleagues at a smoky, crowded bar, complete with attitude-ridden servers. _EnglishAndy showed up just in time for the second round and, living up to my English stereotypes, made it his mission to keep each of our pints optimistically half-full. It wouldn’t have been so bad had we called it a night at a reasonable hour, but of course we crawled from pub to pub, prioritizing morning headaches over good night’s sleeps.

We had a huge day ahead of us, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that we overslept, waking only as _GermanAndi was waiting at our door. It was the classic late-for-school moment, and we played the parts, fumbling in our respective hazes, packing painkillers for the excursion. We piled into Andi’s beautifully-restored 1971 Alfa Romeo coupe, and met with his girlfriend for a typical Bavarian breakfast, complete with spongy floating sausages and pretzels. Breakfast was good. The rest, however, was a picturesque dream of a day.

We took the Alfa to an old-timers’ rally and spent some time gawking at the remarkable rides—some weird, some cute, and some downright sexy. Andy and I ventured into the fairgrounds, taking a look at a rather typical Bavarian carnival—rides that make you puke, food that makes you balloon. We stepped into a mini-me version of the huge beer tents that line the grounds for Oktoberfest. Fish on a stick (not that processed thing we call a fish stick back home—a real trout grilled on a stick), ham hocks, and crispy pork roulades—the foodstuffs of Atkins dieters. And of course their antitheses: liter-sized mugs of beer. Still full from breakfast, I still had to try some of the local spaetzle-and-cheese (beats the Kraft version), and another version prepared with ham and kraut (needed a little more ‘stuff’ mixed in).

After finding Andi, we were on the road, doing a grand tour of Munich’s surroundings. He showed us some of his favorite (for their fun-to-drive windy country road feel) shortcuts that he’s been known to push to the limit (his dad works for BMW and he has a friend who tests their prototypes). Part of me is disappointed I didn’t take notes as to the names of the places we visited, but the rest of me does/didn’t feel it necessary in the least. Regardless, we motored by just-blooming trees and fields aglow with yellow rapeseed flowers (their harvested oil is used as a sustainable energy source). Everything about the day was wonderful, down to the perfect weather.

It was great to see some of the things you just don’t see anywhere else. On the lakeshore, by a grassy patch brimming with sunbathers, we visited a biergarten alive with clientele who obviously know how to relish a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Not to be taken as a culture of beer-drinking idiots, there are lots of popular alternatives to straight beer—you can drink a thirst-quenching mix of sparkling water and apple juice (any juice, really), or, if you still want a lighter bit of EtOH, that can be had as a sweet mix of hefeweizen (an unfiltered wheat beer) and lemonade.

As it was Sunday, Andi and Andy thought it would be nice to visit a beautiful old Monastery with a beautiful baroquely (my spell-checker says that’s a word) decked-out church. The main draw of this hilltop Monastery, at least on this afternoon, is its (drum roll) biergarten. We sampled the beers and gorged ourselves on cured meat and cheese products (stemming from another cultural tradition here that’s best translated as bread time). The monks also make schnapps, of which we sampled four, in the form of nips that Andy (Andi was driving) and I took turns emptying. Full and buzzing, we finally headed home.