A Day in Munich

Germany
  Germany
   

May 29, 2008
by Eric Van Wyke

Once we landed in Munich, the first noticeable change was the weather—hot and muggy as opposed to dry and mild.

The unrelenting maze of five-story buildings gave me a feeling of entrapment that I hadn't felt before. It was weird not being able to see the sun's final glow as it dipped below the horizon.

Today, we went on a guided tour of Munich. Our tour guide, Sarah, was just a little too enthusiastic in giving us a meticulously detailed history of Munich's significance. We started out our tour at the Glockenspiel, which, to nobody's surprise, is regarded as one of the most overrated tourist attractions in Germany.

During our tour, I spoke with Darby Adams, a soft-spoken twenty-two year old woman from Reno, Nevada. Training to be a tour guide herself, she had the task of shadowing Sarah for the day. "Munich is like a big village," she said. I asked her about the difference between Munich and Berlin, which we had just flown in from the day before. As Darby and I trailed the rest of our tour group, we elaborated on the differences between people's perceptions of liberals and conservatives. I had talked with many Berliners about Munich, and many had said that Berlin was more laid-back in comparison to a very conservative Munich. "There's a difference between laid back and liberal," she said. "Whereas I think Munich is laid-back and conservative, and Berlin is just liberal, and, I dunno...crazy."

One of the highlights of our tour was a visit to the historic Hofbräuhaus, an enormous beer hall and location where Hitler officially founded the Nazi party in 1920. We also walked the streets of the infamous Beer Hall Putsch—Hitler's failed attempt to gain control in Munich by overthrowing the Bavarian government—that resulted in sixteen deaths of both Nazi supporters and Bavarian police from gunfire.

After our tour of Munichand a quick nap, it was time to hit the town.

Once we arrived at a club (its name eludes me) after a 10-minute subway ride from our hotel, I began to ask a few people at the club what they thought of Americans. I spoke with a group of three ladies who were smoking cigarettes, all leaning against one of the high-top tables that lined the large balcony that wrapped around the club. The woman seemed reluctant to talk to me. "I don't know—I think that many of them are stupid, and that they have no culture," she said.

On our walk back, across the street from our hotel there was a large crowd of people huddled outside of a small bar. A tall, skinny man playing an acoustic guitar led the crowd in song, singing (with full German accents) "Let it be," by The Beatles, followed by "Revolution." Everyone seemed very happy, and completely oblivious to how they might have looked, or sounded—they were all immersed in the moment.