When we'd wandered in the night before, we'd indignantly promised the guy at the front desk to expect us for breakfast at 7am.
I woke up around 1pm. I learned later that no one from our group had kept our promise. In the lobby, I came across Harrison and another friend we'd made the night before as I attempted to salvage the rest of my day by ripping information about interesting tourist attractions out of their brochures. A family friend had recommended Hofbrauhaus, so I was interested in the brewery tour that left in the evening (it was one that I would still be able to make it to on time!), but I was hoping that some of my friends from the night before might join me.
Harrison wasn't sure, but when we heard that the girls we'd met the night before were signed up, he agreed and we headed to the tourist office to register. The girls said that they would meet us there, but as the meeting time came and went we wondered if they had changed their minds or if something had happened. We met the rest of the tour group at Marienplatz which consisted of two British ex-pats, Joe (Qatar) and Gareth (Dubai); two Swiss, Maxim and Alexis; four Americans, Margot (living in Germany with her husband), David and Sarah (Maryland), Kristin (California); and three Aussies, Jason, Kiera and Kate. We learned from Connie, our tour guide, that Marienplatz is the old marketplace and that is home to two town halls which is quite particular to the city. The older one looks newer, but was built during the height of the Bavarian state in the 13th century, and the other was built in a Gothic Revival style in the later 1800s after Germany had become a country.
The group became fast friends over the course of beers at the Augustiner, Pauliner, and Hofbrauhaus breweries. We learned that in Munich, there are 6 breweries remaining of the original breweries. Some of them have been bought out by larger brewing corporations like Heineken, but they must conform to the Bavarian purity laws in order to serve beer in Munich. It is expensive to have a brewery in Munich because only Munich breweries may serve their beer at Oktoberfest. All of these breweries were originally run by monasteries, and the monks needed the beer because they were only allowed to drink during times of fasting. Over time, the monasteries lost financial support and began to sell their beer to support themselves, and then the breweries were made public property when the country was laicized, and then sold off to private owners, except for the Hofbrauhaus which continues to be public possession.
Connie told us that unlike other overly touristy attractions in other countries, the Hofbrauhaus and the breweries in Munich are frequented by locals as much as by tourists. She left us to decide for ourselves how we wanted the rest of the evening to progress and we decided as a group to eat dinner at the Hofbrauhaus. I was lucky that Kristin was vegetarian also and we ordered spaetzle on Julien's recommendation and another dish. Spaetzle is basically cheesy pasta with deep friend onions on top. It was amazing and I was not sad at all that I did not get to try the other specialty, pork knuckle.
Not wanting the night and new friendships to end there, we collectively made our way to anywhere that we might celebrate David's birthday. We settled on Das Labor - an interesting laboratory themed bar somewhere in Munich. Harrison left to try to find our lost friends from the previous night. The bartender taught me how to say happy birthday in German (Alles guter zum Geburtsdag). Some people took shots out of tubes (I was hoping to wake up before noon the next day and did not participate). The other ladies decided they wanted to track down Harrison so we returned to Jaeger's and Tyler convinced everyone to follow him to a club nearby. This nearby club told us politely that sometimes it's a yes, and sometimes it's a no, and tonight it was a no. The Brits, Swiss and I (sort-of) secretly suspected that the bouncers had been turned off by the loud crowd of Americans, but we didn't say anything and the short walk to that bar turned into a 2-hour trek around Munich looking for another bar.
At around the 2-hour mark, Joe, Gareth and I decided to stop at a perfectly nice looking watering hole that the group had passed, and Alexis and Maxim joined us as they caught up to the group. It was a blast. Alexis and Maxim took turns teaching me typically Swiss phrases in French. In my phone, I have written "tcheu c't'equip". Maybe this will make sense to the Swiss. I forget what context it should be used in, but when I Googled it, it turned up loads of incomprehensible results, soo... it must be right!
I had a choice at that point to try to find my way back to the hostel on my own, or to take up my new friends on their offer to push their beds together in their hotel room and put me up for the night. We went to McDonald's where I was super stoked to learn they have a veggie burger on the menu, and then I crashed with them.
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