Advertisement
Published: July 19th 2011
I made an early start of it this morning since I wanted to spend the day in Munich. It was a decent train ride (7 hour round trip) and I wanted to have as much time as I could there. Upon getting off the train in Munich I stumbled upon a mini art gallery that was set up in the middle of the main area of the station. It detailed things happening in the world through artist photographs. It was a very moving exhibit with some extremely graphic photographs. Some of the photographs included a man setting himself on fire and jumping off the Chain Bridge in Budapest, a 6 photograph sequence detailing the final years of a woman’s life who was diagnosed with AIDS, photos from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and some happy photos like old Asian women putting on a wrestling show in full on typical house dresses (it’s amazing to see a 60 something little woman flying through the air to land a kick on another woman of equal age and they are in dresses!). After spending about 30 minutes looking through the exhibit I then was on a mission to find the
Brasil and Gay Pride?
See barely a cloud in the sky! Who knew it would rain!tourist information booth. I got a map and then set out to see what I could do with my time in Munich.
I wanted to see the main area with the Festhaus, the Markets, the Beer Garden next to the markets, and if I had time then I would go out to Dachau and maybe the BMW headquarters. It was a tall order and I seriously doubted I would be able to get it all in so I started with the main street with the Festhaus.
I got there and they had an outdoor stage set up with music as well (this seems to be a reoccurring thing in Germany, I love it!) with a bunch of vendors set up all down the street. I looked up at the Festhaus and I thought it looked eerily familiar; I got the feeling that I had been here before. That’s when I remembered Busch Gardens!
There is a theme park close to my parents’ house called Busch Gardens and the entire park is separated into countries. One of the countries is Germany and there they have a Festhaus of their own along with other German decorations, and whoever did
the research on what to decorate the park like was spot on! It was cool to see the real thing, but it was pretty neat to feel like I had been here before.
As I was walking along the main drag this man that was dressed like Sherlock Holmes got in my way as he was looking at the Festhaus, so I went around him. He then proceeded to walk on again and get in my path again, so I politely changed my direction. Upon him getting in my way a third time I heard a bunch of people at the local café start to laugh and then I realized he was a street performer and I was his next victim! I laughed and kind of bowed my head and ran ahead so he could no longer get in my way, haha!
I then headed on to the markets, but as I got there I had a wake- up call. . its Sunday. As it turns out Sunday is when a lot of things are closed in Germany, including the Markets. Sadly I didn’t get to see them, only the skeletons of the vendors’ booths. Luckily, the beer garden
was open and in full swing!
There wasn’t a line when I went up to the counter, and I had no clue what beer garden etiquette was (plus zero English on the signs) so I waited until someone went up to the counter then I would just do what they did, which worked out perfectly (although I got a half liter beer, but I saw other people with 1 liter steins for their beer, where do you get those?! They were massive!) I was just sitting down and enjoying myself amongst the 70 or so other people, when a cute German guy came over and asked if he could sit at my table, of course I said!
It turns out his name was Tim and he was actually from Uzbekistan, his parents now live in Russia, he lives in Germany, and is moving to Munich! (Try to keep all of that straight!) We had a great time chatting (I actually misunderstood and thought he was living in Vienna and I told him I had been there and he gave me a weird look. It turns out he was living in a small town in Germany that sounded like
Vienna and that was what the weird look was for). He is a software designer and just got a new job in Munich and keeps a website that depicts German cartoons and then translates them into English to help people learn German and have fun! If you want to check it out its http://en.funnygerman.com .
I asked him how to get one of the GINORMOUS steins and he shook his head and said it’s not a good experience (but it looks so cool!). He said your nose gets in your beer when you try to drink it and its difficult to hold and he said the glasses we had were much better (oh well). I also asked him what was going on in front of the Festhaus, and as it turned out it was a Gay and Lesbian celebration! No wonder it’s a good party going on!
We had a lovely time chatting, but it was time for him to go home and me to continue on with my short time in Munich. Sadly after we parted ways it started to rain (I literally looked at my rain jacket this morning and saw there wasn’t a cloud in
the sky and decided against bringing it, will I ever learn my lesson?!) With the compounding factors of that things were closed, I didn’t have much time, and it was raining I decided to head on back to Frankfurt.
Upon walking back by the Festhaus the Lesbian and Gay celebration was in full swing and there were about 10 cross dressers up on stage, and let me tell you that German drag queens are ugly! I stopped for a few minute and watched them (ugly but entertaining!), but I was getting soaked so I just continued onto the train station.
After returning to Frankfurt I went up to my room and got everything ready since I was leaving the hostel and meeting Derrick at the airport the next morning!
B
Advertisement
Tot: 0.142s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 10; qc: 29; dbt: 0.1182s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
