My mom and I at Marienplatz
OK!! No need to panic. Due to popular demand and also to this need I have developed to write I am finally back. As predicted, I did not have a chance to update the blog during the last 2 weeks that my family was here visiting and vacationing. As German as I can sometimes be, I had prepared a full agenda which kept us doing some sort of activity every day of their visit and which did not really include any stops at an internet cafe. And even tough I started writing this post the first week they were here, with the hopes of having access to the internet at any one of the hotels we stayed; it is not until now that I can post it.
It didn’t take much to convince myself to continue going to the Oktoberfest a couple of more times during its first week. Not knowing when or if I will ever be back in Munich during Oktoberfest and having had a blast there the first weekend was all it took. I lucked out because once again we were able to go into one of the tents. We tried going into a couple new tents but they were closed because they had too much people inside or the lines to go in were too long and were not moving. We decided to try once again the Hofbrau tent and were able to go inside after standing in line for about 20-30 minutes (not too bad, considering I have waited longer to go into a bar in Miami during the years I still waited in line to go into bars). Once inside, even though we did not find a table, we were still able to order a beer, strike some conversations with the others who like us were just standing around, get treated to a beer by some German guy, and discover that my German and Italian speaking skills improve exponentially as I drink beer and that I become totally fluent in both languages at around the 1.5 Liter level of beer consumption (ja ja ja ja!!!): “Io sono in Monaco di Baviera (that is how you say Munich in Italian) per cinque messi per imparare il Tedesco”.
That whole week the city continued to be inundated with tourists and locals who filled up the streets, shops, suburban trains, subways, trams, buses and the restaurants and cafés near the city center. 2 of those tourists were my mom and my brother who arrived here on Saturday morning (September 29th). Thank God they had a good flight and an uneventful arrival into Munich: no delays, no missing luggage and no problems finding me at the airport…especially because I look just the way I looked when I left Miami 5 months ago: I haven’t gained any weight (one of the most frequent questions I get asked, and a valid one considering I gained about 10-12 pounds when I was here for 3 months back in 1990), I haven’t dyed my hair blue (at least not yet), I haven’t had any part of my body tattooed, and I haven’t fallen victim of the Gothic, punk or skinhead “fashion statements”. The only small problem they brought with their arrival is what I called “the plague”. My mom arrived just having had a cold and my brother caught it as soon as he set his feet in Germany. And yes, you can guess what happened next: I caught a cold as well!!!.
After picking them up at the airport we went home so they could rest and sleep a couple of hours. Actually, I only allowed them to take a 2-hour nap in trying to keep them awake the rest of the day to help them get synchronized with the European time and minimize the effect of the jet-lag. After waking them up and preparing them a delicious home cooked meal we headed to the infamous Marienplatz in the afternoon: every tourist’s first stop in Munich. We walked a little bit around the downtown and then I took them to experience their first cultural shock of the trip: Oktoberfest (including the craziness of getting into the metro to get to it). There I also introduced them to one of the most basic Bavarian foods: a sausage with bread and mustard.
After picking them up at the airport we went home so they could rest and sleep a couple of hours. Actually, I only allowed them to take a 2-hour nap in trying to keep them awake the rest of the day to help them get synchronized with the European time and minimize the effect of the jet-lag. After waking them up and preparing them a delicious home cooked meal we headed to the infamous Marienplatz in the afternoon: every tourist’s first stop in Munich. We walked a little bit around the downtown and then I took them to experience their first cultural shock of the trip: Oktoberfest (including the craziness of getting into the metro to get to it). There I also introduced them to one of the most basic Bavarian foods: a sausage with bread and mustard.
Juan enjoying a "Bratwurst" at the Oktoberfest
Somewhere around 9 o’clock at night we were able to get inside the tent where the school had a table reserved. My school friends where there, drinking beer, since 5 o’clock in the afternoon so when we arrived everyone was pretty drunk and excited to see me and my family. Not to be out of sync we ordered ourselves a maβ (a 1 liter beer) and stayed there a couple of hours talking to the people in our table and toasting every time the band played and sang the “Ein prostsi en prostsie der Gemütlichkeit…” I got to introduce my family to my teachers, the school owners, and my school friends while they also got to enjoy the festivities: the beer, the food, the music, and the people wearing their traditional Bavarian clothing. We all had a great time and my family left wanting to go back to “The Wiesn” the following day.
On Sunday morning I woke up earlier than my guests to still catch the bakery around the corner open and get different types of delicious German breads for breakfast. I wanted them to have fresh baked bread but it so happens that all the supermarkets here are closed on Sundays and the bakeries open only until 11 AM. After having ourselves a little carbohydrate overdose we went out on the tour I had prepared for the day: Nymphemburg Schloss and the English Garden. That day we did not stay out until very late because we were all tired: especially them with the jet-lag and with how much I made them walked; something that we are not really used to doing in Miami. My brother used to complaint that I had set a goal of making them walk someway or another at least 10KM per day.
On Sunday morning I woke up earlier than my guests to still catch the bakery around the corner open and get different types of delicious German breads for breakfast. I wanted them to have fresh baked bread but it so happens that all the supermarkets here are closed on Sundays and the bakeries open only until 11 AM. After having ourselves a little carbohydrate overdose we went out on the tour I had prepared for the day: Nymphemburg Schloss and the English Garden. That day we did not stay out until very late because we were all tired: especially them with the jet-lag and with how much I made them walked; something that we are not really used to doing in Miami. My brother used to complaint that I had set a goal of making them walk someway or another at least 10KM per day.
Nymphemburgh Schloss
Upon my request my dear mother brought me “Areparina” (a flour mixture for making arepas) and a parrilla (something that we use in Colombia to cook the arepas on the stove). So on Monday morning we enjoyed a delicious and much awaited (by me) Colombian breakfast with arepas, white cheese (one that I found here that is very similar to the one we eat) and café con leche. The right meal to give us the energy we needed to pack our suitcases, make our way to the main train station and take the four and half hour train ride to Vienna. We left to the capital city of Austria around 3 o’clock that afternoon and so began a week where we had the chance to visit 2 gorgeous cities (Vienna and Prague), experience spectacular views, learn a lot of history, and enjoy some old family fun together.
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