Day 3 and we finally see a bit of Munich

We wake up on Saturday morning and after counting heads, realize we're still down a man from last night. He didn't make it back and again, since he was a "man" doing "man things" no one seemed too worried.

Today we didn't have reservations at a tent at the fest which really gave us some freedom to explore some of the city. Five of us left pretty early to head downtown into the old part of the city. Everyone is moving just a bit slower this morning. No one is really hungover as much as it's just a bit of left over beer sloshing around in the brain that if leaving us all a bit slow. We hop on the subway and head into the historic area. When we come out of the subway, we are in the middle of some sort of fest. There is a stage set up with lots of news trucks and people cheering/singing/dancing along. It seemed as though some sort of German pop icon was on stage. This all might have been more fun if we could have understood what they were saying. None of us had picked up enough German to pick up on this. All of this was taking place Marienplatz which is the main square. The first building we saw was the New Town Hall which was built between 1867 and 1908. Now the structure is incredible, but I have to say, upon first look, it looks like a sand castle when you drizzle the wet sand on top of your structure. I know everyone understands this. We were all a bit hungry so we headed to the outdoor market. The stalls at the market had everything from fresh veggies, fruit, smoothies, plants, crafts, coffee and of course, sausage, sausage, sausage. Oh, and there was beer. Now it was about 11:30 am and two of the people in the group decided to get beer. They were really getting into the German mode. We saw hundreds of Germans drinking while we were walking around. I of course, had another sausage meal. It was great!

From here, we split up. Three of us were off to meet Mike's Bike Tour under the Old Town Hall which I kept referring to as the clock tower. I had heard about this bike tour from a couple of people and decided that this was a must do. Besides, I wanted to see a lot of the city in a short amount of time. This was a 4 hour tour with a promise of beer and yes, we were riding bikes. This guy, Mike, moved to Munich in the 90s and started this tour company. He was quite funny and was commanding a group of about 200 people. Since it was Oktoberfest, the group was quite large. This didn't really bother me. And the other two with me were unphased as well. Mike passed the MC duties to one of his employees - Frankie. Frankis is about 5'6", completely hungover, drinking coffee and sounding like an ash tray from the night before. With his first inappropriate joke, the three of us were like, we need to be in his group. He's asking where people are from and most of us are hungover and not answering to loudly...but then he says, any Canadian's in the group and one girl was like Whooooooooooooo HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Everyone was taken aback and he made some extremely inapprioprately joke. It was great. I love Canadian's but this was just funny. After he gave us a few bits of historical info on the main square, we were off and walking. Literally...this is what he says, ok, so stay on this sidewalk, head towards that light, make a left and then keep going. So here goes the group of 200 or so and we're somewhere in the middle. About half way there, we're like, is someone leading this group....are we actually going the right direction. Before we realize it, we've made it to the Mike's Bike Tour store front and they are starting to divide the group into three small groups. Frankie had said that if you're easily offened, his group was not the one for you. We were like, we need to be in his group! I mean, there's only one way to see Munich and that's with as much humor as possible.

Now with all the people and our brains moving at best at half speed...we were a little slow to figure out how to get with Frankie. So after some serious confusion we decide to ask him. Literally, the other girl walks up to him and says, "how do we get with you?" He looks at her, then me and without missing a beats asks, "are you single?" Immediately we just start laughing. She wasn't even trying to say something silly and yet it was! And there we were, in the inappropriate group and loving it. We were taken with about 35 other people over towards a group of bikes. We were instructed to pick a bike that spoke to us since we would be spending such intimate time with it over the next several hours. I immediately eyed and orange beach cruizer that just happened to be the one I almost bought 2 years ago. It's an Electra bike that's bright orange with white flowers on it. Oh it spoke to me. I practically knocked people out of the way to get to it! And we shared a beautiful friendship throughout the day! The other two were moved more slowly to get to their bikes. The best part was, all we kept joking about was how one of us was going to fall down. All three of us have been separated from the group and in general, have been known to fall down during other activities over the years. We weren't working with the best odds and then we were throwing in drinking on top of it. Well, we were not the first ones to fall down. This girl fell off her bike before we even left the sidewalk. Classic! We were cheering because at least we were accomplished enough to move off the sidewalk. We went from one site to another sometimes riding the bike, sometimes walking it through the crowded squares. We went to the historic Hofbrauhaus (but we did not get to drink here...yet), the opera house, the square with some guy sitting high on this monument with a bunch of lions around him. This is when Frankie tells of that we have tasks while we're riding around town. We all have bells on our bikes and we're told to ring them and roar whenever we see a lion (seriously, there is a lion every ten meters in this town!) and we are to ring the bell and scream mullet every time we see one. For those of you that may be confused...mullet as in the hair cute - business in the front, party in the rear. Well, Frankie did not realize that we had a guy from West Virginia in our group and apparently he's a mullet spotting professional. Before we left the square he screamed mullet so loud that the guy walking by with the mullet was startled. It was great! Mr West Virginia was a keeper!

We continued on biking and I have to say, it's tough to bike when you are giggling so hard. We are cracking each other up. The girl and I are staying close, but the boy with us is hanging towards the back. We keep screaming for him, since he's a known wonderer we don't want to loss him while we're sober. That would just be poor form. Our next stop was Theatinerkirche which is a church built in 1663. This a great church. It had a calming effect when you walked in. Outside, the building was this beautiful yellow and when you go inside, almost the entire church was white. It had areas, highlights, that were jet black. And a few paitings but really, the rest was white. It really was quite stunning. From here were back on to the bikes. We arrive back to see that several of the bikes had fallen over like dominos. The girl with us begins to laugh thinking it was her bike that started the cascade, but really, it was the bike next to her and it ended with the bike just before mine. See, that relationship with my bike is so there! Next we headed into a park area called Hofgarten which holds the temple of Diana. This is a beautiful dome structure and "street musicians" have to audition to play in the center. As we approach, there is a man playing a chello. He is Frankie's favorite. I pause for a few moments to listen and the echo the dome creates in magnificent. It was moving in a way that I've never experienced. I was saddened that I didn't have more time to settle in and listen. We continued to walk through the garden and then met up with the group again over by the entrance to the huge park called Englischer Garten. Before we entered the garden, Frankie told us about a group of students and one teacher during WWII that were basically protesters. I really wish that I could remember more of this story, but I don't. I do know that they were killed by the government. After the war, at some point, a memorial was built which is a large marble block. People are encouraged to place a rock on top of the slab and every Tuesday, the slab is cleared off. There must have been rocks stacked up two feet on this thing. It was such a moving expression of memory for those that fought for what was right. As we listened to Frankie you could see passer byers picking up rocks and setting them on top of the mound. Only one word - awesome.

From here we entered the park. This is a huge park and has some great areas and paths to it. Some areas are more forest, some areas are wide open...it was great. There's also a narrow river/creek that runs through the entire park. Now, this park is also known for its nude sun bathers. Perhaps because we don't have that in the US, it was a big deal among the group. I think the boys were a bit disappointed when they realized that the park had mostly male nude sunbathers. Sorry fellas! The best part was when we stopped for a bit of info...while Frankie is telling us about the park, my girlfriend taps me on the shoulder and points...I follow her finger to this guy, mid to late 40s, standing by the river bank in the shade, butt naked with his hands on his hips looking at us like we're the weird ones. It was classic. You gotta love a guy that just lets it all hang out there with no care in the world!

The bike trip continued through the park past more naked men and one naked woman and out of nowhere I hear "MULLET!" It was Mr West Virginia. I was laughing so hard I could barely pedal. I had completely forgottan about our project to spot them and he's on the watch for the whole group. We pulled up by the beer garden and I'm still laughing. He finally comes into sight and I said, "you are cracking me up." He goes, "Frankie didn't realize he had a red neck in the group that takes mullets very seriously." I was dying. Literally, this guy was a trip! Now, we've finally come to the drinking part of this trip. We're at the second largest beer garden in Munich - Chinesischer Turm - which seats 7,000 people. Now, it's about 2:30 pm which makes this the latest I've had a beer in a couple of days. We were hungry, but the line for food was way too long. So we drank our lunch. And let me tell you, it was good! We each had one large beer and then had a smaller Hefeweizen after that. After sitting for about 90 mins, we were up and back on the bike. Now, yes, we all learned how to ride a bike as kids, but our parents did not teach us how to ride with a beer buzz. The trip back to the starting point was going to be much more of a challenge. The park is not empty either. We're bobbing and weaving through people and trying to watch out for dogs and kids running about. It was crazy. The boy with us finally admits that he's been lagging behind us girls so that he can watch when one of us falls. Classic! The first part of the trip is going pretty good. We stop at a point in the river where they have made man made waves for people to surf on. See the photo...I almost went in for a swim...and this would not have been the first time in my life I fell into water while on a bike trip. The rest of the bike trip went by pretty quick. We ended up having to get into the street at one point. We were approaching a stop light and I was talking (shocking I know) instead of paying attention...all my girlfriend heard was me eeekking behind her...and then I just missed her. She was braced for impact though. :-)

Finally, we make it safely back to the start near the bike shop office. I have to hit the little girls room like it's no body's business so I hussle off to the nearest bar which just so happens to be Hofbrauhaus. Sweet! We then meet back up to pay for our excellant biking adventure and it's back off to the bar. I mean, naturally after our bike trip, we should treat ourselves to a beer. We find a table upstairs in the outdoor garden area and pick up two other girls from the US on the way. The five of us order the Dunkel beer and I get a huge pretzel. Again, I learned something from day one...must eat something while drinking. I stop and take a photo with a large man in lederhosen, we had another beer, we got pretty toasty and then decided to leave and try to meet up with some of the others from the group. At some point we found out that our lost man in the group had returned! Hooray! We're all accounted for again! We hop back on the subway to meet up with five of the others. They are trying to find a bar that supposedly plays college football. Being that we are quite hammered at this point and we still find everything funny, we come out of the subway station totally lost. We asked three different groups of people to try and find this bar...we walked about 6 blocks in the wrong way...we finally found our way to a different bar where the group had ended up because the college football bar was closed. This bar was really cool. We sat outside, ordered dinner, more beer and giggled, giggled, giggled. It's great to be with friends and just find everything and anything funny! We moved inside and had another beer and then finally headed home. Moving in a group with most of the people being pretty hammered is always fun! We made it to the subway with out incident and home all in one piece. It was rather impressive! Once back at the condo, I was not only feeling hammered, but also very tired. The entire group except one other girl decided to go to the bar down the street. I threw in the towel, put on my pj's and stayed in. I was alseep by 11 pm and very happy about it.

One more day to go...and the best story is yet to come!

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