I'm not sure whether to be grateful or ungrateful. After a delayed flight due to a computer issue, I arrived in Munich. Because of the enthusiasm and how much I heard about the Hofbrauhaus, I went there first because I did not want to miss it.
After a series of trains and buses, I made it to the biergarten. This place was stuffed with beer drinkers and a Bavarian band of sorts. I'm not even sure if they were Bavarian, as about 2/3 of what they sang was English.
Anyhow, when in Rome, so I ordered a Hofbrau original and a Bavarian sampler with a big German pretzel. The beer came in a mug bigger than any water bottle I've seen (other than Dan's).
Although my better judgment told me not to finish it because I have a lot of traveling to do, my frugal side said, "waste not, want not." The beer was pretty good, at the upbeat atmosphere of singing, shouting, and swaying back and forth added to the mood.
The sampler included a mild radish, which I would normally not eat. It also had this really awful horseradish sauce, from which I dipped my pretzel. After a while, I got quite dizzy amidst all the singing. Suddenly, the horseradish stuff tasted good, and I believe I sang "Take me home, country roads" with some of the locals at my table, even though I was not at T3800.
I don't remember too much or how much I had. I only know that I finished everything. I signed my credit card bill. Man, I hope the bill was correct. I found my way to probably the most popular part of the Hofbrauhaus: the restroom. I recall this lady asking for money. I was sober enough to know that she was probably making bank from all the happy-go-lucky people here.
I remembered to take a few pictures and return to the streets to continue my Munchen tour. I stammered across a few streets.
Then I made my way to Hopfgarten. I was so disillusioned.
I hopped, jumped, and moped around. Then, I did something I never thought I would ever do. (To find out what I did, e-mail me for instructions on accessing that page.)
I then checked my backpack to ensure everything was still there before journeying to my next country. I found something interesting added to my bag, though.
Because Munchen was my gateway city for my return home, I did stop by again. As usual, I was gambling with time. My flight was scheduled to depart at 11:15am, and I was at the airport at 8:00am. Because of my "fun experience" at Hofbrauhaus, I wanted to get a couple of those gargantuan beer steins as a souvenir.
Before I came to Germany, I didn't know a single word in that language. At this point, I was able to make out, from the signs and brochures, that it would take an hour by U-Bahn (train) to get to Haupbahnhof, the closest station to Hofbrauhaus. I'm not even sure if they place was open yet. The train was going to depart in 2 minutes, and it would be a while for the next one, so I gambled and hopped on.
I got to the station at 9:15 and calculated that I had 20 minutes to buy the souvenir. Hmm... I've been to so many German subway stations that it took me a while to get my bearings. After circling the station once, I figured out where to go, and I walked fast.
It took me 8 minutes to get to Hofbrauhaus, but it was closed. Fortunately, the door was not locked, so I went in. Though I didn't know what the guy inside was saying, I figured that he was trying to tell me the place was closed.
"Flute happen!" I shouted. He gave me a puzzled look. "Flug haven? Flu pappin? Flughafen?" I continued. I knew the German spelling of the word airport, but I had trouble pronouncing it. I tried my French, German, English, Chinese, Italian, and even a combination of accents, before he finally realized that I was trying to say I had a plane to catch. He then nodded in understanding and made a "and then what?" gesture with his arms.
I grabbed two steins and showed them 16 Euros. I assumed he went to check with "the acting manager" (a chef), who communicated that the souvenir shop would have newer ones for sales. Nope, I want these authentic, event-clanged ones. A new one does not bear the scars an authentic one would have gone through, and I wanted my souvenir to remind me of "what really happened." That's why I didn't buy the convenient and fancy designed ones at the airport.
Now that I finally got what I came for, I stormed out of the Hofbrauhaus with a huge beer stein in each hand. Right away, this German lady outside pointed and laughed at me. Although I couldn't translate what she said, I pretty much figured out what she meant based on her tone and inflection. I guess I did look pretty funny: a bewildered Asian man running out of a beer hall with a huge stein in each hand.
Because I spent 10 minutes at the Hofbrauhaus, there was no way I could walk back to the train station in time. I boarded a taxi and practiced my pronunciation skills again... "Hof and hof, half and half, hof bawn hot, Chipotle,..." When I finally pronounced "Haufbahnhof," the driver quickly took me to the station where I boarded the train just in time.
One thing I didn't account for was the security check. My plane was already boarding, but the line was extra slow because this was the "flights to the U.S. terminal" which had extra security. Colonel Sanders took his time examining each and every single thing in my backpack, from toothpaste to insect repellant. At first I told him he could throw away whatever he couldn't figure out (big mistake), because now he had even more questions. As soon as he cleared everything out of my bag and lay them on the table, I swept everything back in with one swoop of my arm, grabbed my shoes, and ran barefoot to the gate for another... just-in-time departure.