Munich the city of Beer & Pork!

Random summer days in the park

Well I've been back from Munich for about a week ... & I think I've filled in most of the blank spots now. Firstly I have to take my hat off to those cheeky Bavarians, I thought the Commonwealth was full of drinkers but the Bavarians are in a whole different league plus if Oktoberfest happened anywhere in Eng, Oz or Kiwi land there would have to be equal amounts of coppers to punters as I've noticed as a mob we are an angry bunch of beer swillers. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
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I received my leaving present from ‘Cancer Research UK’ the other day...I think it's appropriate
So we flew out of Stansted on Tuesday evening, unfortunately by the time the plane took off I had been relieved of my deodorant by customs officials - I'm guessing they had heard of the time Kelvin & I had discovered what you can do with an aerosol can & a lighter when we were kids & promptly went through every can of deodorant, fly spray or oven cleaner we could get our hands on in one afternoon - fun times. This meant over the next 3 nights I would have 8 showers as every time I remembered I needed to buy a can of 'Kiwi Shower' it was after hours or I was in no state to attempt finding a chemist.So we got to the backpackers where I was staying by about 10 & I had my first pint of the best amber nectar I've ever tasted. It’s called Augustiner and I'm going to be keeping an eye out for it here in London but I'm fairly sure like Guinness, Fosters & a host of others it will taste completely different when drunk elsewhere. -Side note: English brewed Fosters doesn’t taste like the monkey p!## it tastes like in Australia and NZ...but of cause no self respecting antipodean would be seen dead drinking it. After a couple of pints Tim & Mar turned up, which was 'interesting' for all concerned but not as bad as I had dreaded & by the end of the week we even got to have a few forced laughs. Everyone shot off at about 1:30 as we were planning to meet up at 9 the next day, but the bar was between me & my bed so I decided it would be prudent to have a solo pint & see if I could meet some fellow travellers. The bar was a bit of a sausage sizzle so instead of trying my famous... no wait... infamous 'tiddly charm' I decided to have a chat to a few geezers sitting at a table...who turned out to be from Cork! - I've noticed I only ever meet Corkians randomly in pubs...I think I'm going to like Cork. - Top lads! After a few rounds we exchanged email addresses so I could look them up when I get there next year as unfortunately they were flying out that morning & I finally managed to get to bed at about 4:30.
A quick four hour kip & I was up & atom & donning my wonderfully cheep Lederhosen, ready to meet the crew for what was to be my biggest professional drinking day since Spring Carnival 2003 with Nick & that crazy Scottish Fella ( 4 Pints an hour hurt!).
After brekky & a quick look around we went to find a table in the Andechser 'tent' at about 10:30 as we had heard it was nigh on impossible to get one after 11, they were right as we couldn't get one & were only saved from being broken up on separate tables by a waitress (Called henceforth our Beer fest Angel) who found us a table with a couple of young lads (The legal drinking age in Germany is 16) & what turned out to be some fully dodgy German death-metalers. The next few hours fade into a bit of a blur but I'm sure I had a great time (Hopefully not at anyone’s expense) until I realised that after a couple of rounds my wallet was too light & I needed to get a top up, so out of the "Tent" I staggered only to find it was extremely bright for 5pm, intense staring at my watch revealed the truth that it was actually only 1pm...Bugger this is going to get interesting. It took me bloody ages to find the ATM which was a blessing in disguise as it gave me time to sober up -a little- & realise that people weren't lying when they said Bavarian beer was A LOT stronger that your average beer. A few more hours of 'controlled' drinking & at about 4ish I said good bye to the crew as chatting up this cute American whilst being Capitan Seventh Wheel is just poor form...It turns out I was a bit slow as by the time I got back to where I had left her she was nowhere to be seen -Hiding?
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But no problem, I've never worried that much about making friends & the next few hours I had a complete ball including teaching some random German boys 'Uma Rabbiti' & telling them it was a Kiwi drinking song & arm wrestling some Aussie guy but alas no fuerlines. By around 6ish I was spent & ready for the 10min walk back to the hostel - 1 1/2 hours & several requests for directions later I made it back to the hostel. Yet another shower & I needed to find someone to have dinner with (I'm in Munich & had the biggest craving for Chinese?? Go figure) I had no luck in the Hostel & was about to give up & see if any lads wanted to join me when I met Claire from Adelaide. She works in HR which is normally a natural match for IT lads. (I have a theory that it has to do with going to Uni whilst we have no idea what we want to do - Girls gravitate to a BA & we head towards computers then we all meet up in corporate service with the normally not so pretty people in finance) Unfortunately, Claire & I it weren't to be, even worse we didn't discover this until after we had ordered...The bill couldn't come fast enough.
The next day I was woken by topless Brazilian girls - Up until that time I had though I was in a same sex dorm...Nice way to wake up. - & went off to meet X & Holly to travel up to Neuschwanstein Castle - Em's & Scott were going to go to Dachau (The prototype for the Nazi concentration camp) but with only full 2 days of holiday we wanted something a bit more uplifting...the idea for Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle would doA 2 hour train ride, a wee bus trip to Hohenschwangau and a rather intense march up the hill to King Ludwig II's castle A little too intense after about 10 litres of beer the previous day (Still no one to blame for that but myself) The castle is amazing and I have to take my hat off to the crazy old bugger for wasting his peasants money in such a classy way and also thankful that said peasants didn't respect his final wishes that it be torn down when he died & that no foreigner see the inside of it.
I must say several times this trip the so called German efficiency was left wanting as the bus was quite late - And in true bus fashion 2 showed up at the same time - so not for the last time we had to run for the train or wait an hour for the next one.
Home, another shower and met up with the other 2 couples for a tour of the real Munich -I thought I had seen most of it the night before- and a spot to eat. Munich is really beautiful with Tim & Mar taking us through the old city gates, past the twin city halls, down a few plazas to have dinner at 'Hofbräuhaus am Platzl', the famous beer hall where the Nazis used to start thier rallies. You can see where they have painted the Baverian flag over where the swastikas used to be on the ceiling. I made a poor attempt on finishing the Schweinshaxe (knuckle of pork) whist watching a brown shirt, opps I mean bouncer biff a guy out of the place for throwing a glass...but the cool bit was that they dragged him over to the people he nearly hit, made him apologise and THEN threw him out.
After dinner we strolled down the Residenzstraße past the Munich Residenz where in the 30s-40s you had to Nazi salute or get shot & where now you get arrested if you salute.
The morning should have been a casual morning involving a light brekky and a casual stroll to the airport. Luckily for us Emily had the bright idea of having breakfast at the airport & since the ever efficient German’s were striking but not telling anyone, we made it to the plane with about 30sec spare and very hungry.
Home & straight through customs with was a surprise as I've only got a few more weeks lift in my Visa and out to The Roadhouse for Emily & Scott's final night.Sunday & Pam, Holly, X & I made Canadian Thanksgiving dinner complete with homemade pumpkin pie.What a kick arse week!
We went to the B Boy Championships at Brixton academy on Sunday night. A wicked night of Popping (Think Doctor Roboto), Locking (Fresher Jazz dancing without the leaps) & Break Dancing, but the thing that blew everyone’s mind came about halfway through the night when they announced the Beat Boxing finalists. Out on the stage comes this dude about 16-18 & a kid about 10, the older guy went first & pulled the house down with a wicked set including beats & vocals at the same time. I was feeling sorry for the wee lad standing to the side wearing a disgruntled slump on his shoulders...That was until he took the stage with a D'n'B rumble to put Fabric to shame, followed by a prepubescent tenor WHIST beatboxing. I looked around 1/2 way thought his set & not one jaw was off the ground.