Running towards Munich

We had a 6 hour bus ride to Munich, which neither of us were particularly looking forward to, so that we could fly out of Munich the next day.  Lauren was in super-early mode, so we checked out of the Airbnb and walked to the bus station very early.  The plan was to take the morning train to Munich, sleep on the bus, and power through Munich for a day.  

We get to the bus station a good 45 minutes early for the 9:15 bus, get our snacks for the trip, and wait for the bus.  5 minutes before the bus arrives and they announce that the bus will be 5 minutes late.  The German kid next to me shrugs and say ok.  5 minutes after that they announce that the bus will be AT LEAST two hours late.  

Fuck.

We go to the lady and she says that the bus is coming from Zagreb, Croatia and is stuck at the border.  Much like In America, border  control is getting stricter with all that is going on with refugees from the Middle East.  

We figured that we couldn't trust that that bus would really be only two hours late, and that if we had any chance of seeing Germany we needed another option.  The German boy was upset because the 10:30 bus was going to cost 60€ when our bus cost 20.  I just didn't think that bus would ever get there at all.  So we walk quickly to the train station, conveniently located a couple of steps from the bus station, to see if there is a train.

I am a control freak.  But when it comes to transportation, Lauren usually seems to take over. Quickly. And she's usually really good at it.

So she asks if there's ANY trains going to Munich, or anywhere close.  The woman says Salzburg, and Lauren basically almost buys it.  I feel totally rushed, and the control freak in me starts to get that tightening in my chest.  I said "can we look at a MAP FIRST?" and the lady says, wait, there's one to Munich, it's 7 hours, and leaves in  5 minutes.  Lauren asks how much. She says €92. For both? No, each. I roll my eyes.  That's a lot of money, and I'm thinking maybe we should just fly or something.  Lauren says "we're doing it," and I nod knowing it's probably the right move and I just need to let lauren take over.  The woman, in her stoic, dry accent looks at us, without any facial expression, and simply says "run. Down the stairs."

We run.  And I mean, we FUCKING RUN.  This fucking train is on the other side of the tracks, the stairs are at the at the far end of the platform, and the track is back where we started running on the other side.  Everyone is looking at us like we're crazy and I am NOT a runner and I don't think we're gonna make it.  We run up the stairs and the doors are closed and one of the train guys open the door and help up up.  We're panting and huffing and not even laughing about it.  I can't believe the woman even sold us this ticket.  We get in a 2nd class 6-seat car, next to a young man and we're fucking dying.  Lauren then says "fuck, are we even on the right train?!?"  

Hours early, and we're still running.  Unbelievable.

The train takes an idyllic path through the Austrian countryside, and it's just beautiful.  The train was much more pleasant than the bus would have been, we rationalize, even though it was 5 times the price and an hour longer.  Sometimes you just have to make the best of a crazy situation, and luckily we have jobs and the means to shell out an extra $100 we weren’t planning on.  We spent the first half of the ride with the man next to us trying really hard to make conversation with us in some Slavic language we didn't understand.  He’s  He was so nice, helping us with our bags and trying to be friendly and helpful with our arrival time in Salzburg.  In fact, all that we understood was the word “Salzburg” and that he worked construction, as evidenced by the video he for no reason whatsoever he showed us of him riding around in the claw of a giant excavation device.

We got kicked out of that car by the passenger who reserved it in Salzburg and was invited into the car of a loquacious, super friendly guy who spoke heavily accented but otherwise perfect English.  We talked about German, Austrian, and american education systems, he gave us tips on what to do in Munich, and He joked with us about our president.  He did his best Alec Baldwin impersonation of an impersonation of Trump.  Then he described to us the float in the Cologne carnaval.  He said “you must have seen it:  the one where where president trump had lady liberty by the hair and he was taking her from behind."  Neither I nor lauren are easily surprised by foul language or innuendo, but both of our eyes popped out of our heads.  He looked confused.  I Said "my, you really do have an excellent grasp of the English language!"  He still looked confused and said "but that's what he was doing!"  My kind of dude.

We finally roll into Munich station west and as soon as we see it,  I realize there’s probably more than one Munich station and we dont know which one we should get off at to be closest to the hotel.  Lauren is on full on "let's just get the hell off this train" mode and we get off and she orders an Uber before we really have the chance to figure out where we're going.  I've learned that when Lauren's on a transportation mission, there's just no stopping her.  Lauren can't find where we're supposed to stand in the station. She cancels it and runs up to the taxi driver and tells me to get in.  I decide for the rest of our time here, Lauren's in charge.  It’s either give in, or manage the tightness in my chest I feel when I don’t know where I am or what the plan is or have any control in the decision-making.  Did I mention I am a control freak?

The taxi driver is Bulgarian and seems really pleased with my choices of cities this summer (I’m going to Bulgaria), and equally pleased when I tell him I know where his hometown is. 

The boutique-style hotel is centrally located and we're greeted by very warm staff.  We're on the fifth floor of the back building, and lauren starts waking up the stairs.  I tell you, when she's on a mission, she's got animal instincts.  Never mind the fact that there's of course an elevator... we're booking it.  I'm not even annoyed... when you start your day racing for a train, ending it by walking up a half dozen steps only seems appropriate at this point.

Even though its a little after 4pm, the room hasnt been cleaned.  We leave our bags there anyway. We really just want to see the city.  The staff is, as I suspected, horrified, and changes our rooms.  I ask if they can move our bags for us; we're very late already.  Of course, no problem, and please accept these for your troubles: 10€ in Uber coupons.  

Lauren says what are we going to do with Uber coupons?  I don't fucking know, but that's nice anyway.  You can probably use it home, I say.  Upon closer inspection, we make out that they're drink coupons for the hotel bar, because right, it's Germany, and Uber isn't a car service, it's a German fucking word.  Drinks at the hotel bar are much more exciting than a free cab ride.

We crowdsourced things to do and the overwhelming response was an underwhelming "get a beer at the store and drink it in the English garden."  Munich isn't the most exciting of cities, it seems, and this seems to be, one of the running themes of this trip.  We get to the underground metro and lauren makes the executive decision of getting the day pass.  I'm already doing the math in my head as to whether or not it's worth it, and by the time I've started calculating, I've also decided Lauren's in charge and I'm going with it. 

We wind up in the center of town, in the middle of a pedestrian shopping mall surrounded by monuments. We don't know what, because we've done no research and we don't even care... we just want to look for cute shoes.  We crowd-sourced some ideas before we left, and all of them suggested some variation of “get beer” and “take it to the park.”  Our German train friend suggested seeing a surfer on a stationary wave in a park somewhere.  Still… beer+park.  

But wait... it's Good Friday, and EVERY STORE including international big box stores are closed.  So beer+park seemed to be our only choice anyway.  All that hustling to get to a town that’s essentially closed.  And we're in the super fancy part of town with no little bodega places to get either beer or water.  Only a Starbucks with a very long line, and I wasn’t having it.

Everything was closed save THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PASTRY STORE IVE EVER SEEN called Maelu.  Lauren and I make a bee line toward it, like an oasis in the desert, and order a pair of incredibly gorgeous pastries: lemon meringue on a sable base for her; lavender cream on a brownie for me.  And the English garden was right there after all... so if you change "beer" to "decadent pastry" then we basically did what we were supposed to do there.

I had made a reservation for a traditional Bavarian Beer garden that night, so we took a walk in that direction and accidentally happened upon the second location recommended to us: a river with a small pebble beach where people like to to sit with a beer.  I wasn’t in a beer mood, more a coffee mood, and Lauren points out some fancy cafe on the river, and suggests we go there to look at the river.  

Except it doesn't overlook the river.  Upon walking in, we see a cash register and a guy hanging out in it in his swim trunks.  I guess it's a pool house.  No clue about anything in this town.  We walk into the cafe, and it's hot and humid as balls, and with the exception of one table, is full of very stuffy looking and smartly dressed older people.  It felt like a sauna.  And then I realize... it’s a sauna.  We're in a old-school style spa, and this was their fancy post-spa meal.  We're underdressed (I’m wearing all black looking like the character Dieter from the old SNL sketches) but we don't look like slobs and after waiting for the waiter to finally get her shit together I was hot as fuck and really wanted that goddamn beer I hadn't even anticipated drinking yet.  So we drank our traditional local half liter of beer and wandered towards dinner.

The beer hall - Augustiner -  was amazing.  You're seated at communal tables and it's packed and loud as hell and the waiters look like they’re in complete chaos and the bread baskets are filled to the brim with traditional German pretzels, which I think they call bagels.  There are enormous pork knuckles on display (they're ham hocks the size of your head) and even though I'm still not hungry from my pastry snack (did I mention I also had a phyllo borek pastry for lunch and a sour cherry cake for breakfast?!!) it's time to eat, and that's all there is to do in this town right now.  

The restaurant has all the traditional Bavarian shit: a lot of meat, "dumplings" that are essentially larger, more bread-like matzoh balls, sauerbraten, etc, and lauren and I decided to share the "traditional meat platter."  One of the difficult things about going to another country is that you often presume the size of a meal based on the price.  It was only about €15.  I figured we'd start with that, and if we wanted something else after, we could.  

It took us a good hour and a half to make it through this dish.  1/4 roast chicken, two types of sausage, a hunk of roast pork, 1/4 pork knuckle, a couple of "dumplings" all sitting in a pool of dark, delicious, pork gravy that got thicker the longer you waited, kind of like ramen broth.  This, paired with an entire German pretzel which was a meal in and of itself, was not light fare.  A couple of half-liter beers later, and a couple of shots of schnapps which I've been ordering for lauren on the sly, we're full as fuck and not as drunk as you'd think we'd be.  I can't decide whether the beer is less alcoholic than ours, or if it's the pounds of pork fat in our bellies, or if we've drank so much over this week that we've significantly raised our tolerance.  

I go to the bathroom and Lauren's already ordered the Uber (the taxi) to get back to the hotel even though we have day passes for the train.  She says "I like seeing things from cabs, don't be weird about it!" I laugh and follow her, as I've committed to doing all day.

We get back to the hotel and the front desk has about 5 people working, all under the age of 30, and the front area has been turned into a cocktail lounge.  We cash in our “Uber” coupons and the sweet guy tells us that we'll get two more beers from it.  Beer is really cheap in Munich. We think about leaving the hotel lounge, except the guy tells us it's pretty dead out tonight,  and there are fines imposed on bars for being too loud because it's an important religious holiday, so we decided to stay.  Besides, we have our own little window nook to ourselves and it's comfortable.  Beer turns into tequila shots, we're the only ones left, they're playing Germany and American hip hop and r&b, and soon these guys, transplants from Poland and Hungary, stop charging us because we're the only ones in there and two out of three of them just quit this job anyway.

A crazed but awesome day.  This is our last stop on this journey, and I’m sad to be leaving but happy to go home to America, where even the enormous helpings of food we’re served there will seem like a diet compared to this. 

Potsdam and my damn green beer

It's our last day in Berlin.  As much as I've decided Berlin seems like a really nice place to live and hang out, I'm still not in love.  That's fine.  I don't need to be in love.  I can just like it.  Maybe part of the reason is that if I eat anything else in a cream sauce or a stick of butter in it, I think I'm going to explode.  I reached my foodie breaking point, and that's one of my top three pleasures in traveling.  I've also hit my booze breaking point, having woken up with a nice little hangover after not even being really drunk last night.   I blame the schnapps.

But you know how it is when you drink too much or eat too much: your reaction is "Thats it, I'm never eating or drinking again."  But the coffee is weak, the beer is almost as cheap as water and you feel like less of a schmuck ordering one at a café when you need a place to sit after walking around so much.  So the cycle continues.

I hear Potsdam is worth a visit.  It's the main city of brandenberg, the next region outside of Berlin.  But because it's so close, you can get a three-zone ticket for only about 2 euro more that covers all transportation within Berlin and Potsdam.  I'm not so into the idea, even.  More castles, and regal buildings and a big park, and it's cute, yadda yadda, but I think I'm actually done with castles after Latvia.  I need a break from being tourist, but the hotel room is hot, and what am I going to do, sit on my ass all day?  I wanted to go back to the fancy French mall we stopped into yesterday to check out again the Spanish mallorquín sandals with LADY AFRICAN DANCERS PAINTED ON THEM which I was in love with, but then justin reminded me that maybe I don't want to be that asshole white chick wearing African ladies... On her feet.

He's right.  I am not going to be a cultural appropriator on this trip.  Even though I was in love with those sandals.  The only way to stop me from going back to that store was a trip to Potsdam.

Well, Potsdam was goddamn lovely. And it turned out to be a beautiful day.  Old, beautiful buildings.  A windmill. A farmers market that was hardly populated and a picnic on a bench.  a UNESCO heritage site Alexandrowka of a gorgeous log cabins compound that was a gift from the German chancellor to the Russian aristocracy back in the day. A row of pristine Dutch style homes. And a walk through sans souci park, which may have been one of the prettiest I've ever seen.  Stadium seated gates, and in each pair of gates was a nook filled with green vines.  As far as the eye could see.  And the at the top, the sans souci palace.  A shade of yellow invoking the feel of Tuscany, covered with naked lady stone carvings seemingly washing themselves with grape vines.  Spectacularly beautiful.  And very few tourists, so you get to actually SEE the thing, unobstructed from throngs of people.

Justin had to make sure to go home early, about 4pm, to get his stuff to work with Heather.  I decided to check Wannsee, a little town that I could see the sea from riding down to Potsdam on the train station.  I'd look at the sea, walk around, go home.  It was only 4, the sun doesn't set until 9:30, and the weather turned out out to be spectacular.  I didn't have a map or a guide book or a plan, really, I wouldn't stray too far.

I waked around the sea a little bit.  It had a walking path, and every couple of meters there was a strategically placed bench with the grass carved out so you could look at the sea.  I decided not to sit there, because as serene as it was, i was alone, and as safe as I've felt in Germany, I didn't want to risk it.

I walk some more and stumble into an AMAZING beer garden.  My first beer garden!  A ton of tables, chairs, umbrellas, and benches, and perched up a hill so you could see the sea peeking out from under all of the green.

Everyone is speaking German.  This is the first menu I've encountered that had nothing in English.  So like a complete moron, I go to the guy and say, "it's my last day in Germany,  I'm supposed to drink green beer."  Heather told me that Berlin makes a special green beer.  I feel like a tourist idiot, ordering green beer and asking for it in english, But he says ok and pours some green soda or syrup of some kind into glass that is shaped more like a flat-bottomed glass cereal bowl, and without judgement, points out the name on the glass and reads it to me.  "Berliner kindle weisse" he says, and tells me I can get a straw over there.

A straw?  For beer?  What did I just do?  I have a green beer in a bowl and no one else does and upon further inspection I notice that on the logo there's a little kid jumping out of the beer stein.

I ordered a fucking children's beer.  Like, I think they give it to children.  Like a Shirley temple, BUT WITH BEER.  It tastes like light beer mixed with midori.  Like apple flavored airheads with bubbles in it.  Not bad, but not beer.  I now feel like a total moron.  Fuck it.  Shake it off.  Drink your kiddie beer with pride as you sit here in this beer garden by yourself, reading your iPad.

(Took me a day to learn that it's not a kid beer, it's more of a shandy.  They put the syrup in the beer to offset the sourness of the particular brand.  But it's important to note that I drink that shit with panache even when I thought it was for kids.)

You know what's great?  Being alone in a beer garden.  I found so much peace there.  It finally felt some sun on my face and the air was clean and cool and I was reading my boring ass educational theory book and not one person tried to talk to me or fuck with me. Maybe I didn't look so cute that day.  Maybe it was the green beer.  But I think it's just normal for Germans to not talk to people they don't know.  All that time on public transportation in Berlin and everyone is silent.  It's spectacular.

I wanted to eat at the beer garden too, but I wasn't hungry.  So I took the train to the next stop, got off, peeked around.  It was the university of Potsdam.  Then I took it another stop and walked around.  A tiny suburb of Potsdam called *NAME*.  A cute Rathaus (town hall?), cafés, a yoga studio.  You could peek into the studio from the outside.  German is such a harsh sounding language.  How anyone is able to relax doing yoga with someone talking to in German... I don't even understand the point.

It got late enough for dinner, so I hop back on the train to the beer garden.  I don't speak German, but I do know food, so I was able to figure out what most things were from the listing.  Currywurst.  Salat.  Pommes.  Weisswurst.  Bretzel.  I know these things.

You take a tray and order what you like.  I just wanted a couple of weisswurt (hoping that I remembered correctly that the meat was veal and not some kind of liver, a mistake I made many years ago in Switzerland), a pretzel and some mustard.

But I'm watching everyone order before me.  A couple of people ordered a baked potato slathered completely with the largest scoop of white sauce I'd ever seen.  Nasty.  Currywurst with fries.  No thanks.  But then the guy right before me orders some roast meat with a vat of mayonnaise-drenched potato salad on the side, with a piece of bread, presumably to soak up the mayo for a greater mayo experience.  But that meat looked amazing.  I said to the server, "what did HE just get?"  It's pork.  "Ok I only want pork, mustard, and a pretzel."  No problem.  He pauses at the potato salad station, like he can't understand why I wouldn't want potato salad.  He puts the scoop back and apologizes.  No bread?  No.  Just the pretzel.  And a normal grown up beer this time.

The pretzel was the size of a dinner plate, soft, fluffy on the inside, chewy on the outside,  buttery and salty.  Our pretzels in New York are DISGUSTING compared to this.  Dry and dense, even if you get it fresh.  The pork was delicious, like pernil but smoked first.  Mi gente dominicano, cuiden-Se.  The Germans are riding your coat tails.  Watch the fuck out.  He included a mix of dark and white meat, and a large hunk of whatever they call chicharrón in German.  A lot of meat.  Including the beer, €10.  I told myself to not eat all of it, but it was inevitable that that was going to happen anyway.  You can't stop fate.  So I just ate my meat, drank my beer, practically made love to that pretzel dipping it in spicy mustard, and smiled as I watched the sunset, enjoying German conversation and laughter all around me.

I don't know when I became this person who liked to do things alone.  Often, I prefer it.  Maybe it was in my late 20's.  I'm not sure.  But I'm so glad that that's the person I am.  To be not just able to eat alone, drink alone, walk alone, but to embrace it.

What a perfect, gorgeous, phenomenal day.

Now I feel like there's so much more to see and do before I leave Berlin tomorrow.  Now I'm in love.  Now I don't want to go.