Holiday 2011 Day 1

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This beautiful journey started out with a flight to the city of the most famous drinking party in the world: Munich.

After speaking with a friend about his trip through eastern Europe, I had decided that I wanted to set up my holiday around that region too. I had a lot of miles saved up but there weren't any cheap flights to eastern Europe. I came up with the idea of flying to Munich when I discovered my friends, Chris and Stephanie, would be living there right about the time I was planning on taking a holiday. Plan set.

I threw out the idea to the world and a few people bounced around the notion of joining. In the end, only Aaron committed. Two more friends, David and Traci, planned their first ever trip to Europe and worked in a meet-up in Munich.

My flight plan took me through a layover in Frankfurt before landing in Munich in mid-afternoon. Aaron arrived a few hours before me and met with David and Traci to go shopping. I took the train from the airport and met them at the main train station in the center. They were bleary eyed from the hours they spent going through the shops, looking for lederhosen and dirndl. David and Traci had a rental car so they dropped us off at Chris and Stephanie's where Aaron and I were staying. We agreed to meet at 8pm at Jodlerwirt for dinner.

Jodlerwirt sits in a small alley just behind the rathous. Aaron and I had discovered the tiny little place two years previous upon recommendation of a friend. The first floor is generally empty because all the energy is on the second floor. Fortunately, I had planned ahead and booked a table so it was there waiting for us. Chris and Stephanie invited some friends to fill the table. Aaron and I had donned our lederhosen and Stephanie her dirndl. David and Traci eventually showed up as well. Anyway, the energy on the second floor is due to the one-man-band serenading a maximum of about thirty people crammed into the small room. We ordered plenty of Ayinger and plenty of food. Later we even ordered some Schnapps. After a wild discussion about the amount of the bill and the amount that we paid, we finally left.

Most of our crowd dispersed except for David, Traci, and I. We stopped off at the Augustiner near Marienplatz to check out the action. We took a seat and discovered that our table was not being served anymore since it was almost closing time. We moved to another table near some loud and energetic Brits and were able to order a mass each. As we began to drink, one of the Brits came over to us and introduced himself and his wife, who was dancing with an older Swiss gentleman. He told they'd been married for only four months but were just living life as it came to them. He also introduced us to the table of Swiss beside us and then asked us if we had any traditionaly drinking songs where we came from. We didn't get a chance to answer because the table of Brits began singing the chorus to Bruce Channel's "Hey! Baby" and carried on for ten minutes straight. We got into it as well, but could not keep up with them.

The first Brit we met left for the bathroom and didn't come back for awhile. In the meanwhile, we chatted with his wife and the Swiss at the next table. When he finally returned, he saw us talking with the Swiss and he exclaimed very loudly and cheerfully, "Chicago and Switzerland, together at last!! I never could have dreamed it!!!" He then went on to tell us about a brush with some unruly Italians after coming out of the bathroom. Finally, the night had reached an end and we headed home. David and Traci to their hostel and I to Chris and Stephanie's where I found a place on the floor waiting for me.

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Comments

[Traci]

wrong
david and i did not show up in our lederhosen and dirndl. and do i see capitalization in this blog post?

[wettsten]

right. i had forgotten that point. edited! and yes, i do use capitalization in my blog posts. there are people reading this who don't me and my typical writing methods so i have to ease them in.