Germany Doesn't Suck

Meet-Up Saturday

Saturday’s first activity was breakfast at the Café Richart – a place I had a bit of trouble finding because I managed to misread the map that Team Munich had made for us, but it didn’t matter because I enjoyed my stroll through the market. Upon arrival, I found that I was one of the last to do so, so I joined Cliff and the Zurikas at their table and ordered a coke. Breakfast was included with the price I had paid for my room and I had already eaten and had several cups of tea, so I wasn’t hungry, but I wished I had waited after seeing how delicious theirs looked.

A bit later our tour guide arrived. Team Munich had arranged for us to have a guided tour of Munich. Our guide was a woman in her 50s or so and took us to see the major sights of her adopted home city (I can’t recall where she was from, but think she said she had lived in Munich for 21 years). It was explained to us that tour guides from the service they found in Munich are volunteers (of course we did tip her at the end). We all agreed that she did a very good job of providing us with tons of info and were very satisfied with the tour that had been given.

From there, we walked through a park and watched people surfing on a river. I have no idea about how this first started, but it was quite entertaining and something uniquely Munich. While I was taking video, a very attractive lady about 10 years younger than me smiled at me and said ‘Hi.’ This confused me because I didn’t recognize her – I didn’t even know whether to speak English or German to her. Seeing my confusion, she said, ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ and my brain started racing to see if anyone came to mind. “No,’ I replied. The answer was, ‘I’m Michelle.’ ‘Right! Sorry about that!’ I said, trying to hide my embarrassment. The final Munich blogger had arrived.

I’ve always loved Michelle’s blog and had a lot of fun getting to know her at the Dresden Meet-Up and was glad that she was able to attend the Munich one even if it was just for one day. I introduced her to some of the other bloggers and she and I did a lot of catching up on the stroll through the park after the group left the area of the surfers.

Our next destination was the beer garden near the Chinese Tower for our lunch stop. Feeling in a Bavarian mood, I decided too have a mass (1 litre beer – as did a majority of the others – a bratwurst (from Thuringen) and bratkartoffel. As well as being thicker and longer than the ones in my region, it was also quite tasty.

Seating was random and I was sitting across from The Regensbloggers and Jentry, and next to Mr Jentry and Cousin-in-law-of-Jentry. Quite frankly, until she posted that she would be attending I didn’t even know that Jentry existed (and I didn’t have time before the Meet-Up to read hers), so I knew absolutely nothing about her. Great! More new people to get to know.

After lunch, we had free time. Some went back to their hotels for ‘disco naps’ (a phrase I learned (and like) from Team Munich shortly before the Meet-Up), others went shopping and I was determined to see the castle that was near my hotel. However, the sky had clouded over and it looked like we were in for some rain, so I wasn’t sure (because I didn’t feel like getting wet). And then I remembered that a qualifying round of the World Cup started at 16:00, so that idea came to mind too while I was on the bus from the park to the subway. I decided to make the decision when I got closer to my hotel. If it was raining, I was either going to find a pub and watch football (soccer) or take a nap. If it was sunnyish, I was going to the castle. Luckily, it was sunny and I couldn’t justify anything other than visiting the castle and also strolling around its grounds. I wasn’t disappointed.

Afterwards, I did go back to my hotel to sit down for a bit, take my shoes off and rest, but that only lasted for 15 minutes. Then it was off to dinner.

The closest subway stop to the restaurant was the Municher Freiheit stop, but I would have had to change trains and it probably would have taken about 25 minutes. So, I asked the receptionist if there was a bus that went there, and it turned out that there was. So I took it instead and was there in 16 minutes.

After arriving, I saw a very long table and Marty at the end of it (I was a few minutes early), so we sat down and waited for the others to arrive. Others started pouring shortly after we had sat down and taking their seats, so I ended up sitting across from Cliff, Papascott and The Snookers and between Mr Zurika and Mr Mausi (with Mausi next to him). .

The restaurant chosen served Ethiopian cuisine and the interior was exactly like the one I had dinner in four years ago in Cologne, so I ordered the exact same thing – chicken and a hard boiled egg in their spicy sauce. All the meals were served in pairs (two on each end of a big plate) and I shared with Papascott. That was one difference to the restaurant in Cologne, and another was lack of silverware. We ate with our hands and extra bread instead, which turned out to be tricky for me at first so I watched the others and followed their ideas. Needless to say, that the enjoying each other’s company part continued too.

The thing about the restaurant, other than having to wait forever to pay, was that it was small and didn’t have good ventilation, so it became quite hot inside and we decided to move on to our next event just before 21:00.

The next event might need a bit of explanation after I mention the title: The Queer Expedition.

It started in Dresden when Adam (That Queer Expatriate) decided to go dancing at a gay club after dinner the Dresden Meet-Up and Ian decided to go with him. Last year in Bremen, Adam decided to find another gay bar to go to after dinner, so we decided to go with him. Unfortunately, my time was limited to a few minutes after the waiter spilled my beer on my lap and also got Papascott a bit too.

However, by that time the Queer Expedition had become a Whiney Expat Blogger in Germany tradition, so Adam and Marty had scoped out a place that they thought would be suitable and also less crowded and loud then the previous year, so we went. We lost four members of our crew who headed to see parts of Munich at night, but the rest of us went. After taking the subway a few stops down and walking quite a way, we ended up at our destination: A bar that was decorated to look like one in the 1930s (or perhaps it was that old and had just never been redecorated). When we walked in, the lady working walked over to us and just about fainted – she had twenty new patrons and there was only one other person in the bar.

Being that I had stopped to take a few photos, I was trailing the group and ended up being the last one to enter the bar, so I took a seat at the last table in the row, and was joined by MsG and the Jentry Entourage and, as with all Meet-Ups, more great conversation ensued. Laughing, chatting, discussing things, etc. Lots of fun.

After a few changes of people, I was alone with Husband and Cousin-in-Law, but the conversation didn’t lapses (or change to German).

Eventually Adam flounced over and took his place on the couch with CiL. You’ll have to read his blog for more details, but let’s just say that he literally scared the hiccups out of CiL (actually, twice that evening – so much so that after the second time CiL said that he’d never have the hiccups again). There was the Michelle incident too when Adam, while Michelle was sitting on his lap, had various questions about….ummmm…..let’s just say anatomy (one of the questions was: ‘What do you do with these things [pointing at her boobs]’?)

Adam is amazing, and I mean that in a good way. He walks into a room and owns it. Says what he wants without a care in the world what others think. It’s good fun just to watch him go and wonder what he’ll do next.

I left with Michelle and the Jentry Entourage to catch a subway back to my hotel before the subway closed for the evening. We parted ways there and I took the U1 – which arrived two minutes after I got there – and was back to my stop in 7 minutes.

Another great Meet-Up day.