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Published: April 12th 2012
The Righteous Brothers
Dan, Frank & Roel in front of the Allianz ArenaWell for the first time since I arrived in Europe seven days ago I've sobered up enough to update you all on what I've been up to this past week - though unfortunately my recollection of the week is neither complete nor entirely accurate...
The trip from Australia to Europe was uneventful enough, until a delayed landing at Heathrow (saturday 9th May) led to a desperate scramble in which I had to clear customs, retrieve my backpack, wait for fifteen minutes for a train to take me from Terminal 4 to Heathrow Central, wait for a further fifteen minutes for another train to take me from Heathrow Central to Terminal 5, then check in for my flight to Switzerland and clear customs again!!! So despite being supposed to have a three hour stopover in all, I only ended up making it to Terminal 5 forty minutes before my flight was due to take-off - at which point I was informed that check-in for that flight had already closed! However after pleading with the man at the check-in counter I was belatedly allowed through, although I was warned that my baggage might not be joining me on the flight!
So
'I'd like a bottle from the top shelf please'
The futuristic 'wine cellar' at the airport bar after having to sprint from the security gates to the departure gate (which I did in my socks since I didn't even have time to put my shoes back on after passing security!) I finally made it to the boarding desk where my English mates Dan and Frank were waiting for me, just as boarding for our flight was about to close! However it came as no surprise when, after arriving in Zürich two hours later, my backpack was nowhere to be found on the baggage claim conveyor belt! Thankfully the lady at the lost-and-found desk was very helpful, and was able to assure me that my backpack would arrive on the next flight from Heathrow two hours later. So after letting our Dutch mate Roel know that we would be late getting to Bern, the three of us soon found ourselves a nice bar nearby in which to pass the next couple of hours while waiting for my backpack to arrive from London!
To my relief my backpack did indeed arrive safe and sound, and we were soon on a train from Zurich to Bern, where we then spent the next twenty minutes walking around in the rain
Stylin' it
Throwing shapes in Roel's orange pin-striped shirt trying to find our hostel for the weekend! Meanwhile we had been unable to get in touch with Roel, who it turned out had been wandering around aimlessly after spending the afternoon getting completely wasted with a group of Finnish ice-hockey fans in town for the world championships! Eventually we managed to track the idiot down though, and after sitting down for a nice meal at a local pizzeria we proceeded to get thoroughly inebriated - at which point it was decided that we should find a strip-club so Roel could buy me a 'birthday present'... and though I recall very little from the rest of the night, I take comfort in the knowledge that I was in no fit state to engage in any sort of activity for which I might have cause to feel regret the next day!
Waking the next morning feeling like death, we made an inspired decision to take breakfast at a nearby street-side restaurant where the 'Speck Rosti' (grated fried potato with bacon and eggs) was unanimously agreed to be the greatest breakfast that any of us had ever tasted! After then walking around in circles trying to find a shop that would
Greatest breakfast ever
Speck Rösti - a party in your mouth sell beer on a sunday, we eventually happened upon the perfect place - 'World of Beers' - which we left fifteen minutes and 150 Swiss francs later with five shopping bags full of beer! So despite the weather being less than perfect we headed down to the Marzili Pools beside the Aare River, where we sang and drank the afternoon away before embarking on a mission that had inspired me to choose Bern as the sight of my birthday celebrations in the first place - a swift one kilometre float down the river itself!
Unfortunately for the two Englishmen (Roel had already backed out by saying that someone needed to stay behind and watch our belongings!) the water temperature was a chilly 12 degrees - a fact that was certainly not lost on either Dan or Frank, who spent a good fifteen minutes at the water's edge trying to summon the testicular fortitude to dive in! Only with the assurance that they would be able to get out less than a hundred metres downstream if it was too cold were they eventually coerced into doing the deed, and so it was that all three of us threw ourselves into
Broken men
Frank and Dan after doing the deed in the Aare River the near-freezing water amid much debate and soul-searching! Of course the Poms were immediately flailing madly and scrambling their way back toward the riverbank for an early exit; but I'm pleased to report that nothing could have been further from the truth for yours truly, who toughed it out all the way to the bitter end five minutes later!
Monday saw a change of venue as we took the train from Bern all the way to Munich five-and-a-half hours away in the south of Germany. Thankfully, to counter the inevitable boredom of the long train journey, I had the perfect solution - two litres of duty-free whiskey! And with a lovely old fellow wheeling the drinks cart past our seats every hour or so we were able to replenish our supplies of coke at regular intervals; which allowed Dan, Roel and myself (Frank had perhaps wisely decided to stick to Heineken!) to polish off a litre-and-a-half of the sweet nectar by the time we arrived in Munich at five-thirty that afternoon! And it is at this point that the story gets decidedly sketchy, as I have to rely on less-than-credible eyewitness accounts to make up for my own, shall
Back where they belong
Dan and Frank in happier times we say, 'forgetfulness'...
Apparently when we arrived in Munich I managed to lead us down the wrong street from the train station, which meant it took us about half-an-hour (not including a quick beer stop at a little bar) to make it to our hostel - despite the fact that our hostel was only a couple of hundred hundred metres from the station and I had stayed there last year! After checking in (which I have no recollection of doing whatsoever) we somehow managed to find an Irish/Australian bar in which to watch some football; and even more miraculously managed to make it home again (which I do have a faint recollection of)! Unfortunately, somehow we had ended up having to share two double-bunk beds in a twelve-bed dorm; and even worse was the fact that I had scored the top bunk with Frank, who snored like a maniac! Thankfully I was too pissed to even notice until I woke up the next morning, at which point I was less than impressed!
The next day got off to a very slow start sometime around noon, when we dragged our sorry arses out of bed and tried to fill
The more, the merrier
The English lads with a group of random girls in Munich in the blank spaces in each other's memories. With the weather still overcast and Roel missing in action (he had wandered off for a look around the city and was uncontactable due to the fact that he had somehow keyed in the wrong pin code on his phone three times in a row the night before, causing it to automatically lock itself!), the rest of us went to the Augustiner Keller, which is a local bar with a large beer garden recommended to me by a Munich local who I met in Perth.
The rest of the afternoon was spent downing one-litre glasses of Augustiner beer and chatting to a couple of zany German bicycle polo players (yes, apparently there is such a thing as bicycle polo!) who kept us entertained for hours! Having finally found the Big Dutch Machine (Roel) back at the hostel, we then spent the evening in the hostel bar, where a most amusing battle of wits ensued between the two Poms (Dan and Frank) and a feisty Irish bartender - which after about a dozen Jager bombs each I think it's fair to say the Irishman won hands down!
Wednesday brought a continuation
Village idiots
Me, Dan and the crazy bicycle polo players at the Augustiner Keller of the cloudy weather we had by now come to expect, as the four of us went for a walk to the Hofgarten (Royal Gardens) in search of a decent cup of tea for the two Englishmen - which it was hoped would settle their stomachs. Unfortunately though - and not for the first time or the last time this week - they were left bitterly disappointed! After watching a rather comical student protest rally wind it's way slowly towards the main square, we joined in a guided bicycle tour of Munich - which I had done when I was previously in Munich nine months ago. This time though with just the four of us and four Americans doing the tour, there was a far greater emphasis on beer drinking as opposed to history, as we ended up spending most our time at the Chinese Tower beer garden in the English Garden - in fact the tour even ran overtime after we all agreed to wait there for the other guides to come and join us after they had finished for the day!
Upon returning our bicycles to the shop, we ventured into a little Cuban bar just down
the street which the tour guides had recommended, before leading the Americans (two of whom were identical twins - which totally freaked me out) to the Augustiner Beirhall for a late night 'mas' - which is what they call the one-litre stein glasses of beer. After only one glass the wife of one of the twins who had also come on the tour (they had met on the internet, would you believe?) was passed out face-down on the table, while the 'quiet guy' of the group had found his voice and decided to share his theories on everything from politics (he had voted for George Bush both times - need I say more?!?) to how easy it would be for Dan to get laid in rural Florida with his Britsh accent! Unfortunately the dickhead couldn't take a hint and followed us back to the hostel bar, where he was immediately palmed off onto some poor, sympathetic German!
Despite more poor weather on thursday Dan, Frank and I had decided to check out the world-famous Munich Zoo (okay, I made up the part about it being world-famous), which led to the farcical situation of the three of us trying to
Even big kids get scared
Frank and Dan looking terrified on a suspension bridge at Munich Zoo figure out the Munich underground public transport system! Eventually a couple of hours later we had managed to find our way there, where the highlights were many and varied!
And as if getting to the zoo hadn't been enough of a debacle, worse was to come when the four of us decided to return to the Irish bar we had allegedly been to on monday night to watch another game of football - despite my having no recollection of that night and the other three idiots having no sense of direction! After walking around in circles for about an hour, Ruud Van Nistelrooy (Roel, for the uninitiated) finally did the right thing and asked for directions, and was told the nearest Irish bar was near the main square in the centre of town - about twenty minutes walk away! Thankfully the gentleman he spoke to must have been a football fan, as twenty minutes later we found ourselves at the bar just in time for the start of the second half!
Friday brought the undisputed highlight of our week (not including the two dinners we had at Pizza Hut) - a trip out to the Allianz Arena for
Mecca for football fans
The one-and-only Allianz Arena a guided tour (in English thankfully!) Now for the uninitiated, the Allianz Arena is a state-of-the-art football stadium that was built in time for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, and which now hosts both of Munich's local football teams - Bayern Munich and 1860 Munich. More importantly, in addition to having a capacity of over 60,000 the stadium is famous throughout the footballing world for the fact that it can be lit up at night in either team's colours (red for Bayern Munich and blue for 1860 Munich; or even white for the German national team).
Both on game nights and for half-an-hour on non-game nights the entire outer shell of the stadium glows either red or blue! Unfortunately we didn't get to see this spectacle as the stadium was out of town and we were only there in the afternoon, but nevertheless the guided tour and indeed the stadium itself was most impressive, and certainly had us itching to run out onto the field and have a kick around (for which we would have no doubt been arrested)!
Having ticked off the Allianz Arena, there was one more must-see tourist attraction for us to visit in
Mecca for beer drinkers
The one-and-only München Hofbräuhaus Munich - the Hofbrauhaus! For those that don't know, Hofbrauhaus translates to 'Royal Brewhouse' - which should give you a pretty good idea of what we spent the rest of the afternoon doing! After downing about four or five litres of beer each, and having been thoroughly entertained by the drunken chanting and singing of a rowdy contingent of visiting Macedonians, we once again made our way back to the Irish/Australian bar to watch the English football; after which once again our memories were left a little 'hazy'!
Saturday finally brought our week of drunken debauchery to an end, as first Roel took a train back to the Netherlands in the morning (despite getting packed and saying his goodbyes before realizing it was only 7:30am and not 9:30am as he had thought!), after which the Englishmen and I decided it would be fitting to end the week by - you guessed it - heading back to the Irish/Australian bar one last time to watch Manchester United wrap up the English Premier League title against their fierce rivals Arsenal. Afterwards Dan even paid for a return ticket to the airport for me to accompany the lads, in what was a
Cause for celebration
Me, Dan and Frank after finally finding the Irish/Australian bar (again) clear reflection of his lack of directional sense and continued inability to decipher the Munich public transport system!
And so having finally seen the sun come out on the way back from the airport (a few hours too late for the other boys, who hadn't seen the sun all week - and probably won't for the next month!), booked my hostel for the next three nights, and gotten a decent night's sleep in the absence of any unwelcome bedfellows (no offence, Frank!), I have a seven-hour train ride bound for Venice to look forward to - only this time I won't be having anything to drink along the way...!
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