I’ve been postponing blogging about this past Saturday night because there was simply so much to say. After getting back from Berchtesgarten (the small city below Kehlstein), we took a quick trip back to the apartment to get ready to go out. Sarah had received a call from coworkers & we agreed to meet them at a bar in Lehing — the quarter where Sarah works.
We met Sarah’s colleagues right outside the U-Bahn station in Lehing. Christian & Mathias are two students from Universitaet Hamburg who are interning at Sarah’s company. Both are in their early to mid-20s and German through & through (Christian less so — he has an American mother, claims Philadelphia as a home town, and speaks perfect American English down to the curses). Neils & Henni (Hendrik) were somewhat older, likely late 20s to early thirties. We ended up going to a local bar, Nage & Sauge, from the U-Bahn station. Nage & Sauge was what I consider a trendy student bar. Johnny Depp’s Cry Baby was playing on a projector screen, there as indie pop pumping from the jukebox, and the clientile consisted mostly of the young & well off. I like the bar a lot though, as did everyone else. They had a thermometor attached to the urinal so you received an LCD readout detailing the temperature of your piss. How cool! They also serve my new favorite liquor-based drink. It’s essentially Jaegermeister (a different brand, in truth) mixed with herbs. It’s excellent.
We ended up leaving Nage & Sauge around 11:30 though because Sarah wanted to go to a club. And Sarah usually gets her way. We started out by taking a taxi to Karlsplatz (Stachus), which is actually quite near work. The club we were trying to get into was a little too high class for us though, and we weren’t admitted. I wasn’t really surprised, to be honest. We were seven guys & one girl, and most of us weren’t dressed to go out. Doug & I were both wearing jeans, tennis shoes & a t-shirt. We looked more prepared to chop lumber than go clubbing. Even though most of us didn’t care, Sarah was pissed! She actually went up to the doorman & cursed him out for not letting us in.
From Karlsplatz we took another taxi over to Ostbahnhof, which is a little outside of downtown Munich. There, in an area which can best be described as converted industrial buildings, are more than 50 clubs packed into an area no more than an acre or two in size. It’s actually a great place, although it’s somewhat seedy & the clubgoers are mostly in their teens. In addition to a multitude of clubs, there are Imbisses (Sandwich shops w/ hot-dogs & Doener Kebap) all over the place. It’s perfect — once you’re drunk, you’re only a step or two away from food.
Unfortunately we were turned down again at the first club we tried. Again, the problem was that we had too many guys in our group, so we decided to split up & try another club. We went to Boomerang, and Henni, Christian, Mathias & I all ended up getting in. We found out later that the rest of our group ended up getting turned away and going home. Boomerang was a lot of fun — it was a younger group, of course, but it was packed, the music was loud, and there was plenty of room at the bar to watch people dancing. Everyone was having fun & people were up on the stage dancing. After leaving Boomerang, we went to Americanos, which was actually a “smoking club” (Munich has strict no-smoking laws, even in bars, so you have smoking clubs which also serve alcohol). I didn’t really enjoy my time there, since it was wall-to-wall people & smoky. We ended up leaving after only a couple minutes & sharing a taxi back to Sendlinger Tor. I had hoped to wait a bit for the U-Bahn there and avoid having to take a taxi home, but I found out that I still had another hour until the U-Bahn began running again. To make things worse, the station was closed, so I didn’t even have a place to sit & wait. I was forced to pay to take another taxi home.
I finally got back to my apartment around 4am and found Doug asleep on my floor. He told me in the morning that John had made him share a taxi home with them & so he just curled up on the spare mattress and went to sleep. It was an enjoyable night, but the Taxis made it far too expensive for my taste.
Tag: beer
Kehlstein (Eagle's Nest)
I had originally thought that Doug, John, Sarah & I would go to Nuremburg today. We’d been talking about it all week and were going to buy tickets early Friday morning. I suspect that Sarah changed her mind though, meaning everyone else changed their mind, and we ended up going to Eagle’s Nest instead.
Eagle’s Nest or Kehlstein is Hitler’s bunker in the south of Bavaria, straddling the German-Austrian border. I was fine with going, since it had been on my list of things to do, anyway. We left the apartment around 8:00am and caught the 8:48 train toward Salzburg. The train there was packed & we could only find seats in first class, which we had to give up once they began checking tickets. It cleared out quickly, though, and we were able to sit at least for the last leg of the trip. In total, it takes nearly three hours to get to Kehlstein using a combination of trains and buses and the ride there isn’t particularly pretty. Luckily, travel within Bavaria is extraordinarly cheap (27 Euros for up to 5 people anywhere in Bavaria).
If you ever have the opportunity to visit Kehlstein, I have one major suggestion — go with a tour group. For some reason, the company that currently runs Kehlstein only allows registered tour groups to visit the actual house. The poor saps, who like us, pay 15 Euros to simply take a bus and elevator up to the house, aren’t even allowed to see the inside of the house except for the portion which currently houses a restaurant. I was already a little pissed that Hitler’s secret bunker cost money to visit, and this didn’t make me much happier. The view from the top is quite pretty, though — you can see for miles when the sky is clear & it’s nice to grab a beer in Hitler’s old home.
Even for a somewhat overcast day, the Eagle’s Nest was very crowded. Every bus was full & there were people all over the top of the mountain. Certainly, some of them came because of the EuroCup which is taking place in nearby Salzburg. We saw several Greek, Russian, and Swedish jerseys at the top of the mountain.
On the way back, John, Sarah & Doug grabbed a couple beers at the Kiosk & started drinking on the train. I was already falling asleep, so I decided to stick to Coke. Lame, I know. I knew that we were meeting Sarah’s coworkers later that night, anyway, so I decided I was safe enough waiting a couple hours — at least until after dinner.
Munich Street-life Festival
Munich has several festivals throughout the year, the best known of which is Oktoberfest. However, as John & Sarah are quick to point out, Oktoberfest never truly ends — it just is given different names. This past Sunday was the second day of Munich’s Street-life festival. We started the day by going to Munich’s Egyptian musuem, which is worth noting only for its small, but interesting, collection of artifacts.
The street-life festival itself was quite enjoyable. There are thousands of vendors & hundreds of thousands of people congregating in the Schwabing neighborhood of Munich. Musicians play on stages, vendors sell specialty foods, bars set up outside seating areas, and different companies show off their goods. It’s like a fair & trade show rolled into one event. They even had a beach volleyball pit & a skating park. We ended up wandering around for several hours before going to the Hauptbahnhof to buy a couple beers. Beer at the actual street-life festival was extraoridnarly expensive — 3.50 for a bottle with a 2 Euro deposit. By the time we got our beer, we were just in time to grab a seat for the first game of the evening. We ended up hanging out at the bar for the entire night watching both football games. Watching Germany beat Poland with the German fans at our side was especially fun.
The night itself was fairly uneventful. We played Asshole & some other drinking games and Sarah got pretty drunk. We also had to be fairly sneaky, since we were trying to drink our own beer, rather than pay ridiculous prices. This resulted in embarassing moments, such as when the waitress picked up the beer bottles we’d tried to kick underneat the table. The funniest moment of the night, though, came when John tapped the top of Doug’s beer bottle, causing beer to pour everywhere over the table. Both Doug & I ended up getting soaked.
Under 30-Somethings
Doug, Lisha, and I went to one of the many ToyTown meetups that take place in Munich. Before I start, though, I’d be remiss if I didn’t describe just what ToyTown is. Simply, ToyTown is an online community for English speaking expats living in Germany. There are thousands of members, and the community is quite active, with meetups planned every night in almost every part of the country.
Last night’s meetup was specifically tailored to younger expats and was held at the Ysenegger bar in the Neuhausen neighborhood of Munich. Doug, Lisha, and I arrived around 8:45 and were surprised to find the bar to be quite crowded. In fact, we couldn’t find the ToyTown group until one of the regulars rescued us. The event was actually quite fun — there was a multitude of nationalites — English, Turkish, Indian, Romanian, South African, Australian, and of course American. There was even a girl from University of Illinois, which made me happy, having been born in Urbana. We all had a great time & ended up staying for several hours. The only part I didn’t care for was that the one Englishman was rather rude. He kept calling the waitress “Gorgeous” and was generally just a cad.
The highlight came as we were leaving, though. Caitlain, the Illinois representative, introduced Doug & me to a WVU Alum (2006). In the brief time we spoke with each other, I found out that Danielle is a theater grad, is a magician currently working as an Au-pair, and is one of two WVU grads in Munich. We’ll certainly meet up later to go out drinking.
Tomorrow is Salzburg, for which I’m grateful. It’s been a long work week.
Joseph Schaeffer 