Weekend in Bavaria
September 22nd to 24th, 2000
In Munich, in september, there is Oktoberfest, as
contradictory as it may seems. We also say "beer fest".
During 3 weekend, the six main breweries of the city build huge
tents where happy fellows can drink in huge bocks of 1 liter. Of
course, at this time of the year, tousists are a plague.
Eva
My exchange program, at EPF, have a French-German
counterpart. So we often had germans in our classes. I became
good friend with some, Eva is among them. At the end of school,
she went back to Munich and invited me to go see here. I hoped
that more people from the program would be there, but only Eva
was in Munich
Getting there
I took the KLM flight gettign there at 7h15pm.
From the airport, I took a taxi to her place, at the student
using, which is a big complex with many buildings. Of course the
numbers on the buildings are not ordered. I had to find building
4, I saw almost all numbers until I get in front of 41. I finally
called Eva with the driver's phone and she came to pick me up. Of
course, number 40 was a the other end of the place. Logically.
The building itself is an old military barrack.
Rooms are paired but the neighbour was not there. Actually this
is not her room but belongs to one of her friend who let her use
it so she can find her own place.
When I got there, she served me a typically
bavarian meal : roasted pork in vinegar gelatine. It's not bad,
but I tought it tasted vinegar too much. Which cancelled my
endless appetite for roasted pork. I guess the sandwich served in
the plane helped too.
Locals
Eva wanted to go at her favorite bar. We first
got her sleeping bag at her firend's place, where I found out
that germans also have lockers inthe basement, then we got to a
small bar (called X) that the average tourist couldn't have found
with a local help. I tried my first munich beers. I start softly
with Lowenbrau then a white beer not bad at all, which I won't
name since I don't remember the name.
First tour of town
Saturday morning, Eva had to sign the
contract for her new flat so I was left to myself. After washing
in common shower, I left for downtown. I baught a streifenkarte,
which work like the Dutch strippenkaart, which is a sign that
dutch and german are not so different... I even been able to
understand german words because of the dutch words I know.
A got out of the metro at Hauptbanhopf and I seek
the center. Two drink Irish guys (10am) looking for a bar or a
pharmacy, not sure, asked me. They saw my guiness shirt and took
me for a fellow Irish. We set a virtual rendezvous under a tent
and left.
It's a nice town, but there was too many
tourists. But it's was a nice party atmosphere and many locals
were wearing the traditional dress. Water-in-the-basement leather
pants and leather suspenders. With a white shirt, long socks and
brown shoes. Girls were wearing long dresses, often green, with
an apron... very cute. Apparently, people still wear it for
feats, sundays, weddings... often
I turned around in town for a while, until I see
a Bavaro-Peruvian parade... strange mix. There was latinos but
also german girls with pigtails walking in spanish robe and other
strange individuales in a dragon dress with Bolivar written in
the back
I went back at Eva's place and her cousin joined
us to go to Oktoberfest
Drunken crowd
Once in the plac eof the fest, I realized the
immensity of the thing. An enourmous crowd in a big luna park. We
had to cross it to reach the tents. We chose a door and waited.
After waiting for almost an hour we decided to go to another
door. We waited an hour again and nobody entered... it was
"overfull" it was 3 pm so we left for a beer garden
Beer gardens are rows of picnic tables with a big
guy holding a big bock. he big guy don't always wear the
previously described dress. And the size of the guy is not
compulsory. The size of the beer is. Also, we can eat.
One of the goals of the trip was to find one of
these big bocks, also called Maß Stafneufblblblbl whick means
somethign like Big Bock. I holds 1 liter and the glass is heavy.
Since I'm a genius, I didn't bring a bag. I drank the liter and
ate a Kartoffelsalad, a meal I like very much since I can
pronunce it. I hid the bock in my raincoat with subtility and
walk with it under my arm. Of course, germans are not (too) dumb,
they know that these bocks are seeked so we pay a 2DM deposit,
for something worth at least 10 but it lighten my conscience (and
I have one more memory : the deposit token). It's not too hard to
lighten it since if I had bought one, I would have a big
OKTOBERFEST 2000 picture, which sucks. On mine it's written
Lowenbrau. Authenticity is important.
We looked for a restaurent and I took a meal of
patatoes, sauerkraut, ham since the others were eating pork roast
with strange patatoes, drinking Augustiner.
Chiemsee
I saw Munich, I had to see something
else of Bavaria. First, the world famous german highways without
speed limit. Unfortunately there was fog so the electronic
billboards were setting the limit to 120 for a part of the trip.
We didn't have a speed limit for like 15 minutes, disappointing.
We then got ourself in a trafic jam, and the
speed limit boards were now displaying 60, incredible speed that
we couldn't reach. We managed to get out of the accident (6 cars)
and continued toward Austria. We didn't get there, we stopped at
Chiemsee, a lake nearby. On the lake there's an Island which
contains a castle. Actually there is 2 island : Herreninsel and
Dameninsel. You guessed : men's and women's island. Men have a
castle, women have a covent. We just had time to see the caste so
we took the boat and got there.
The castle was buildt by Ludwig II of bavaria,
also called the crazy king. I loved art more than politics and
built beautiful castles, like the one that inspired Walt Disney.
Chiemsee is a replica of Versailles but the poor king didn't have
enough money to finish it. He only built the central section but
the gallery of glasses is longer than the one in Versailles.
Also, only 20 romms have been completed, on 78. The most
impressive is that big stair that has never been finished, it's
just red brick everywhere.
For the moral of the story, it's at this time
that Bavaria lost most of its autonomy to become part of Germany.
So if you're a king, better have some interest in politics (I
hope that every kings who are reading this will remember that)
Way home
The time of my plane (8pm) was getting close and
we were far from the airport. We took small countryside roads and
I could discover other characteristics of Bavarie. Like may
masts. Big White and blue totems with crowns of flowers.
Apparently people have fun stealing the mast of the neighbouring
villages.
We got to the airport in time and I said goodbye
to Eva, promising to come back (Maybe for a ski weekend in Alps)
Theplane left in time for once and I shaked hand with the taxi
driver at 21h41, when the plane was supposed to land at 21h40,
not bad.