Munchen on pretzels

Munich is behind us.

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS NO PICTURES.

Complaints may be sent to Life magazine and The Saturday Evening Post.

One of the things that I remember from each of my travels is that someplace becomes the rest stop.  Munich was ours.  There were not major events, no catastrophes, no wild experiences.  We saw the center of the city, split up for an afternoon, ate and drank in a beer hall, saw a museum and went to the park.  We did walk through the big beer hall, the one that Hitler hung out in.  It was loud, crowded and hot.  I can imagine it being the breeding ground for dangerous ideas.  The one we ate at was less hot less crowded and less, now a tourist trap.  We shared a plate of some kind of pork patty with chanterelles in a cream sauce.  Unfortunately, the mushrooms were over cooked.  It is chanterelle season in Nova Scotia and I know from experience that the simpler the preparation, the better.  We also share dessert: apple fritters with vanilla ice cream, a bit of chocolate sauce and whipped cream.  That was fabulous.

The park, the English Garden, was nice.  They had diverted a couple of rivers into it.  People gathered at the banks of the rivers to picnic swim float with the current and sun bathe the way urban people will in their parks. Some were naked, but only men and mostly my age, so it was hardly worth noting.

We heard a klezmer trio with a clarinet that was inspired.  The bass and the accordion were less than. There were other street musicians.  Overall, the atmosphere was friendly and festive.

I'll just come out and say it: German culture seems to prize systems.  There's a system for everything and the assumption is that the system is obvious.  For instance, I didn't realize that the sidewalks on many of the major streets were half stone and half asphalt until a bike rider snapped at me to move.  Bike lanes going in the direction of the traffic, but no signs.  And if the system is overloaded, there seems no backup, as we saw during our great train disaster to Fussen.  There are bike racks everywhere and about three times as many bikes as the racks can handle.  The end result is chaos.

I can't muster up a tone of sarcasm about Munich, however.  Nothing I think comes off as anything but mean spirited.  That's another legacy of WWII; after sausage jokes, what can I say that doesn't sound like payback?

The beer was gutt!