Munich - its Stein o'clock!

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After a longer than ideal boys club hiatus, September saw us head to Munich to try and recreate some of the fun and mayhem than happened last time we hit Germany when we visited Berlin. After a few too many drinks on the Thursday night before we left, it was a slightly subdued start to the trip, as a little bit of exploring was done as well as a lot of napping! Hostels.com had done us proud and the Wombats City hostel was one of the best we'd stayed at, with a free beer for every night you stayed and a cheap happy hour. Their recommendations for a good restaurant were a little further off the mark though with the must-see area of restaurants and bars they directed us to appearing completely dead, and we ended up eating in a weird giant exhibition hall thing with a strange purple roof...

Anyway, we headed onto the main area that we'd been recommended for bars, and unfortunately there didn't seem to be all that many of them to choose from either, which then meant that every single one of them was completely rammed full of people! We did a crawl round a few of these before jumping in taxis and heading onto a club a bit earlier than expected. Later in the night we moved on from there and tried in vain to get into Munich's Pacha (we were obviously pretty boozy and desperate) and the desperation became even more evident when we gave up, got into a taxi and told the driver to find us a club that was open. The taxi man obviously sensed an easy kill and took us to a "Sauna Club". I think it was pretty obvious to all of us even in our drunken states that a sauna club probably wasn't quite the night we were looking for. However, a brave individual had to make sure of this and that brave individual was me. I rang on the doorbell (yes...doorbell!) and my first clue was that a dominatrix answered the door and asked me to come in, my second clue was topless teenager leading a rotund middle aged German clad in just a towel through a door in the background! These two clues were enough to let me know that we didn't have the inclination or the money in our wallets to sample the sauna club experience!

The taxi man doubled his taking by then driving us all the way back into town, and we got back to the hostel and chatted with some randoms in reception until the early hours.

As the number of boys clubs has grown, so my expectations of seeing the city have declined according. Gent and I being the culture vultures had set us the "tough" task of visiting the main church in Munich and climbing the tower to experience the views. Amazingly, we managed to achieve this and even have time to head over to the Englishgarten (main park in Munich) to grab our first steins (one litre mugs of beer) of the trip. In between we had watched some urban surfing where one of the rivers flowing through the park creates a natural wave which local surfers of varying abilities try to surf with equally varying success!!

Back at the Wombats happy hour we were forming plans for the evening. We'd met a chap from Brighton who had been to quite a few Oktoberfests and was on a post business trip long weekend. The six of us decided to head to a traditional German beer hall (i.e. we headed out of town and went to one which was choc full of locals and we were some of the only tourists). This was definitely a highlight of the trip we were seated at long benches in a rowdy atmosphere with a slightly anything goes edge to it. I was able to order a hearty meal of Bratwurst washed down by a mighty stein, the banter flowed and we even managed to pick up a completely hammered local who couldn't even speak yet tried desperately to make conversation!!

We'd met up with the 3 students that we'd chatted rubbish with in the early hours the previous night and from there the 8 of us jumped into taxis to head to a different area we'd been recommended for bars. After the first one we were unimpressed and as it was already pushing on to 1 a.m. given our hefty boozing at the beer hall we had soon whistled up taxis to take us back to the club from the previous night (seemingly the only one in the city that people recommended!).

This night the vibe seemed better (or were we just drunker...?). Whatever the answer the spirits were flowing and the inevitable boys club versus locals dance off got started up with Matich and Shaun taking starring roles against a seemingly seven foot tall German guy who gave us all sweaty man hugs afterwards!! It was all a bit much for Gent, he of limited boys club training was having a little snooze in the corner of the club, and as 4a.m rolled round and the club began to empty I got him into a taxi and home, while Matich, Shaun and Nug stumbled onwards returning late/early enough to sample the hostel breakfast!

Gent and I's "early" night meant we were able to head out and have some brunch long before the rest of boys club surfaced. As a group, we headed out and hired pushbikes to explore the city and generally cover more ground and probably annoy more locals! We headed around the city taking in the arts museums (outside of them only - obviously!), before cycling back to the Englishgarten and being able to strike out to the main lake at the far end of the park, which we hadn't been able to reach previously. The afternoon Sun was shining and we were able to enjoy some more steins next to the lake before hiring a pedalo to enjoy the lake at closer quarters.

Gent and I played the "adults" sitting in the back supervising while Shaun, Nug and Matich were the "kids" let loose on the pedalling and the steering. With Shaun in charge of steering this inevitably led to multiple crashes into trees, an island and pretty much anything else that was solid. Removing ourselves from being beached on the island comically involved several Austin Powers style manouevers, reversing, then going forward and beaching again!!

It was a surprisingly relaxing and active way to finish up our boys club trip, and it was a shame to have to give up the bikes and sit down for our final meal of the trip. As a tribute to the beigemeister himself, Daniel Moss, who couldn't be there in Munich with us, we all ordered the blandest meal we could from the menu - each one of us searching for as little flavour as possible!! The kormas, hawaiian pizzas and penne pasta were a suitably underwhelming tribute to Mossikins and a comical way to finish up a fun three days in Munich. It was a different kind of boys club, it had never hit the crazy highs of some of our previous visits - say to Berlin, but the leafy surrounding and top notch beer and food had provided plenty of banter, good memories and a feeling that Munich had done us proud and we'd recommend it to anyone.

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Photos

Boys club with Steins
Our final beers before heading home

View of Munich
Our ambitious Saturday got us to the top of the church spire to view the city.

River surfer
One of the more successful attempts to surf on the river in Englischgarten