OK, I’m getting sick of trains. This is our third inter-city train and, though it is much more comfortable than a bus, is still a long time in a confined space, one with a dining car that I cannot partake of (only meat fare available). However, I have my video games to entertain me, so I am pretty well distracted. I should have napped, but by the time I thought to, it was too close to our arrival for me to risk it (Irina was off in the dining car and I was paranoid about missing our stop and ending up in some other country). When we arrived at Munich Hauptbahnhof, I was exhausted and famished, but could only find fruit to eat at the train station (little did I know that Max Pett was nearby – Irina’s smartphone wasn’t working at the time).
We took a taxi to Steffi’s house where we were staying, which turned out to be a huge apartment complex a ways off from downtown where our taxi driver nearly got lost and had to drive onto the curb to avoid incoming cars. We found her unit finally and she came down to help us with our bags, which was key as she was on the 6th floor with no elevator.
Finally, we were there, at my friend’s place, which was, in a way, the point of the trip – I had really wanted to come visit Steffi in her hometown (I had visited her in London twice, where she lived in tiny flats) – she’d been inviting me to visit Germany for a decade.
Her place was a fabulous mess, both more and less than I’d imagined. Every room had stacks of shoeboxes, on the floor and in the nooks and crannies – definitely hundreds, seemingly thousands of them. She had a walk-in closet, chock full of clothing on hangers, with shelves above stacked to the ceiling with boxes of shoes, wigs and costume accessories. The bathroom had a full-size mannequin, an enormous bathtub hosting a large plant and clothes on drying rack, with cremes, powders and makeup covering most available flat surfaces. The bedroom was like some courtesan’s boudoir, with tall ceilings, fabric-strewn walls, giant armoirs and smaller, but still sizable dressers bursting with clothing, a small desk covered with fancy accessories and oddities, the bed a canopied loft above several of the aforementioned dressers. Past the small and crowded foyer was a gigantic open space, hosting the kitchen, a large open work space, with fabrics laid out and a hanging hoop skirt, a gorgeous wall mirror, some fabulous furniture, various oddities and, of course shoes. In the middle, above it all, is a loft space, the size of a small room, which contained a bed, obscured from view by a virtual wall of hatboxes.
After we had the tour, I started looking for food, but there wasn’t much I could eat, until she opened the fridge and showed us what she was planning to make for dinner later that weekend, which consisted of a huge pile of spargel and a few other vegetables. I borrowed some of the non-spargel veggies (broccoli + a few other things) to make myself a late dinner, which was lovely. We hung out chatting for the early part of the evening and when we noticed it was close to midnight, realized we should get ready – we were going out to Black Opera for some more gothic clubbing. We didn’t end up getting there until close to 2am, but there were plenty of people still there. We had a few drinks in the lounge and met Nosferatu (with shaved head, large pointy ears and at least 4 fangs), and some of Steffi’s English-speaking friends who were all very nice. Irina and I had fun chatting with people and dancing to the mostly old-school gothic rock. We didn’t get home until around 5am, not to bed until later.
The next day, Irina and I slept well past noon and Steffi showed no signs of getting up, so we got ourselves ready and followed Steffi’s instructions to catch a bus to the train into the center of town. We had an excellent brunch at Max Pett (sometime after 4pm), but then had to make plans for dinner as we weren’t sure where I could eat and how late places would be up. We called Vegelangelo, which had looked promising online, and the owner/chef said she could accommodate a vegan, but not any later than 8:30pm, so we planned to eat again in fairly short order. We texted Stephanie to invite her to join us, but she declined. So we tried to see some of the Munich town center, which was a very lovely, but also very touristy. We saw a lot of what appeared to be costumed bachelorette parties (such as one group with the bride-to-be in prison garb and all her friends dressed as police) in Marienplatz and we also saw classical musicians playing on the street, who sounded quite good. Most things we approached were closing or had just closed, such as museum and palace, but it was nice to walk around and see all the wonderful buildings and some interesting shops. We did, however, encounter a pop-up library and one open church (Theatinekirche), which was gorgeous inside.
When we got to Vegelangelo, I was pleasantly surprised by the decor which was like a fancy antique shop inside. Since I knew it was a one-woman show, I had expected something more modest. I thought this would be perfect for Irina who likes fancy atmosphere with wine and such, but somehow between salad and entree, we had our first full-blown fight of the trip. I won’t go into details here (don’t worry, we resolved it later when tempers had cooled), but it seems our many travels and the previous night’s poor sleeping conditions (smokey air since we’d forgotten to open a window and unfamiliar loft bedding) had taken their toll. The argument was set aside when we made a plan to stay at a hotel on Sunday night, which would give us a better sleep experience and avoid the long commute into the town center on Monday. We finished our dinner and figured out the public transportation home. After a few trains, while waiting for our bus, some youngster vomited all over the pavement, splattering Irina’s shoes, which did not really help things.
When we arrived back at Steffi’s flat, sometime around 10pm, she was just starting to wake up for the evening, like the vampire bat she is. We chatted for a while, until fairly late. When we mentioned our plan to get a hotel, Steffi got a sad puppy-dog face and asked what she did wrong and we reassured her that it was nothing and let her convince us to stay until Monday (with plan for us to keep our bags at Central Station during the day, until our evening flight). I believe Irina and I got to bed by 2am, determined to get into town earlier the next day, so we could see inside some of the buildings, and we made sure to crack the window. We were unable to convince Steffi to come with us, but she reminded us that she was planning to make us dinner, so we planned to be back in the early evening.
The next day, we slept better, but not as late. We didn’t get out as early as hoped, but still got to lunch within a few hours of noon, at Cafe Ignatz, which was the first tough place for me to eat as it was vegetarian but not vegan and menu was in only German (and the waitress when asked if she spoke English said “No!”), but a nice German man helped us with translations, so we figured things out. Plus we got free cakes with our food, which we ate on the way back to town center. We made it to Munich Residenz, the former Palace / government center in town by 3pm, which was magnificent. After that, we made our way to Alter Peter (St. Peter’s Church) and paid what we thought was entrance fee to the church, but turned out to be the entrance to the steeple, a very narrow stairwell that went on for what seemed like forever. 306 steps and 54 meters (150+ feet) – it took about 20 minutes to climb, with needing to stop frequently to let others pass on their way down. We did get some amazing pictures from up there.
After that, we walked around, checking out some shops, looking for a reasonably priced cuckoo clock. There were plenty of tourists, but no classical musicians this day. We headed back on the early side (around 6) and made it home just as Stephanie was getting up. She made us a nice dinner (spargel and meat product sandwiches for her and Irina, roasted veggies for me). I had warned her that I wasn’t fond of spargel after all our earlier experiences (downplaying my hatred of the leached and bleached “asparagus”), but managed to eat 2 of the giant phallic stalks without retching (they actually didn’t taste as bad as I was expecting) among the other veggies. After dinner, we managed to get Steffi’s DVD player working and watched a very bizarre film – “Southland Tales“.
After the movie, Irina started to get ready for bed and I started to say a sad goodbye to my friend as she was going to be at work the next day until we left town. It was really the first time we’d had any quality time together, due to her unavailability in Leipzig and during daylight hours in Munich. She was in a tough place because she was facing serious difficulties at work and had just been dumped by her boyfriend, so I could somewhat understand, but I was also struggling to manage my disappointment from so long planning to see her without feeling like we really connected due to all the distractions. I was also really worried about her as she seemed utterly lost with all that was going on. We talked for about an hour, then goodbye, perhaps for many years to come. 🙁
The next day, I left a sticky note with my only German on Steffi’s computer, Danke Schoen (thanks very much). We packed our stuff and called the taxi number she’d given us. I struggled to explain the German address with my bad American accent and the taxi dispatcher knowing only a little English, but eventually they figured it out and they brought us to Central Station where we locked up our luggage for the day. We ate again at Max Pett, which was again excellent, if a bit slow. After that, we didn’t have much time, only about 3 hours before we needed to catch a train to the airport, so we focused mostly on shopping – we went to several Dirndl shops (and boy, does Lederhosen stink) and continued our search for a cuckoo clock for Irina’s friend and we finally found one (!). We made our way back to the train station and managed to get to the airport with relative ease. On to Dublin…
More pictures from Europe on flickr (Munich starts here).
