A Few Days in Munich

I've been neglecting the blog for the last few days, so now is a good time to get back on track. The first few days in Munich have been a blur, so hopefully writing out some of the things I've done will help to clear it up a bit. I will get deeper into the differences between Berlin and Munich in a later post and reserve this post for ramblings about what we've done over the last few days.
On Thursday we arrived in Munich and after wandering around the city we stumbled upon a classic "Stube" called Schneider-Weißbrauhaus where I had my first weißbier (which I wrote about a couple posts ago) as well as a couple of the best sausages I've ever had in my life. The atmosphere in this restaurant was entirely different from any restaurant we went to in Berlin. The waitresses wore dirndls, the woodwork just seemed "German," and nearly everybody in the restaurant was drinking a beer. This was a place where I felt very comfortable and happy. After I devoured my sausages and washed them down with my weißbier we moved on to another stube called Hacker-Pschorr where we all had another beer. This stube also had the feel of a typical Bavarian tavern, albeit with a slightly more modern feel. The night left me with a warm feeling inside, which was not just from the beers and sausages, but rather from the feeling of experiencing some authentic german culture.

The next day we leisurely woke up and went into the Altstadt (the old section of the city) where I got some homemade glühwein, which is the ultimate cold weather drink. We then decided to do some outdoor ice skating, which coincidently turned out to be the ultimate outdoor activity. As if we had somehow planned it, snow started to fall almost as soon as we started ice skating. If that isn't the epitome of the perfect way to spend an afternoon in Germany, then your crazy. That night we had dinner at one of the premier restaurants in Munich, Augustiner Braustuben. Now, this is not premier in the sense that you have to dress up and talk in low voices at the table. Nope, not at all. Augustiner typifies the German Bier Hall; big communal tables, waitresses clad in dirndls, and most importantly, beer served in one liter glasses. So we spent a raucous evening drinking beer and eating copious amounts of traditional German food.

On Saturday, we went on a walking tour of Munich and saw some of the main sights that are worth seeing in the city. More importantly, though, were the funny and interesting stories that the tour guide told us. One story involved the devil's footprint in a gothic style cathedral. The legend goes that people did not believe a cathedral of such magnificence could not have been constructed in such a short amount of time (20 years) so the architect must have had a contract with the devil. Apparently, the contract required the architect to build the cathedral without windows because, according to the devil's thinking, people would not worship in a place without light. However, the architect was clever and constructed the columns in a way that they hid the tall stained glass windows. When the devil went into the cathedral to make sure the architect had fulfilled his contract he could not see any windows but there was natural light inside, which caused him to stomp his foot in disgust/confusion, and created what will forever be known as the "devil's footprint."

Sunday (today) has been relaxing and exciting all at once. I woke up slowly and went into the city with Lindsey and our friend Mallory who was visiting from the Netherlands. We went back to Schneider-Weißbrauhaus and I had a Weißbeer and two Weißwürste (white sausages), otherwise known as the perfect food combo. The effervescent, crisp sweetness of the Weißbeer complemented the subtle richness of the Weißwürste in a way that brought both the beer and the sausages to a transcendent level of taste. To make the moment even better, a old style German band started playing while we were eating. After lunch we all went to the Englischer Garten, which is one of the biggest inner-city parks in Europe and is bigger than Central Park in New York. The main attraction, for me at least, of the park was the man made wave, which a few guys were surfing on. Yeah, you read that right, I watched surfing in Munich, in January. Awesome. After the park, Lindsey and I went to an art Museum, which was only one euro because it is Sunday, and the German government recognizes the value of subsidizing art and culture. It was an expansive art museum but was not difficult to see the entire thing in a couple of hours. My favorite part of the museum was the room which displayed early 17th century paintings by two Flemish painters of life in taverns. The paintings depicted rowdy farmers drinking beer, well-dressed merchants drinking in a civilized manner, and showed how a tavern may have looked during that time period in a Flemish country. It was interesting to see the difference in the paintings between the two artists. One artist, Adriaen Brouwer, seemed to always depicted alcohol in a negative light. The drunk farmers in his paintings were almost always fighting or getting in trouble somehow. He had a painting which showed a monk drinking as part of a group of down and out drunks (pictured below). I found this fascinating because my thesis last semester was on monastic brewing and I found that part of what caused the downfall of monastic brewing was the idea that it went against the religious ideal of rejecting worldly goods. It seems as if Adriaen Brouwer put that sentiment into his painting. He may have also been protesting against that lavish lifestyle of Catholic monks, which would make sense considering his paintings were done in the midst of the thirty-years war. Regardless, these paintings show how important beer has been in peoples lives, whether it be for good or bad, and it has become clear over the last couple weeks that beer and culture are inextricably linked to each other.