9-27-88: I am now lying in a 'Pension Beck' in Munich, Germany where I spent the last three days. Octoberfest is a strange thing -- it's like a huge amusement park with all of the trappings except that there are about 15 or so (maybe a lot more) huge warehouses that are the 'beer halls,' each owned and operated by a different company. They all have hundreds of picnic tables and wooden benches and each hall has a large, round stage in the middle where the band plays. All the bands play the same songs over and over and the international cheer seems to be 'Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole, etc.' Beers are 6.5-7.0 M (approx $4) but they're the very big kind you've always seen in pictures. It's great, though, because you can always cram into a table somewhere and everyone likes everyone as long as everyone has a beer and the music gets rolling. Sunday night we sat next to this couple with a handicapped daughter. It was kind of sad, because at the end, the mother threw up all over the place and they had to go. Well, they had a great time before the end though, dancing and rocking back and forth on top of the table -- it was cool.
Would you believe that I came here in a group of seven girls? I'm not kidding. It's weird being in a group that's always turning heads. They're all sort of upper-crust conservative though, which is starting to get on my nerves. This one girl S__ is really bizarre. The other night at the table, we played this stupid game called 'I Never.' So after a while S___ forced Holly to admit some strange things like 'I never had sex five times in the same day in the mountains.' So a little later, Holly told this guy at the next (actually a bunch of guys) table that S___ wanted them. So of course she grabbed hold of me, who happened to be sitting next to her, and makes me put my arm around her and pretend that I'm her boyfriend and all that stuff. But this didn't work for too well because all of her friends were trying to dish her out to the next table with these guys for a while, along with Susu, who was pretty funny. Anyway, S___ got drunk and later screamed at me for letting her get pushed to the next table. What a bitch! Anyway, we spent yesterday in the English gardens (very nice) and went back for a third night last night. I'm not drinking at all today. Off to Strausburg.
9-28-88: I'm on the train to Strausburg -- the sky is really blue and it's pretty spectacular to ride through the European countryside and villages and forests -- the whole deal -- lots of white houses with red-tile rooftops, or more accurately, a sort of brownish white house with a brownish red rooftop. There are huge cornfields bordered by tall trees. There are also a lot of dingy square apartment buildings in the bigger towns, but all-in-all, it is everything that I might have expected from the German countryside. Some general observations about Germany (very general, as my visit only lasted 3.5 days in Munich):
-- Munich was an exceptionally clean and uncrowded city in comparison to Paris -- also the people didn't seem so dirty, either, to support a sweeping generalization against the French. But it was true that although thousands of people were packed into those beer halls, it didn't smell at all -- quite different from your basic Parisian metro.
-- The Germans are great bike-riders. I have to get a bike in Paris.
-- The English garden in Munich was the nicest place I think I've seen in Europe so far. It's just a great big park in the middle of the city with acres of open fields, forests and fast-moving streams. Everyone in the park is completely (for the most part) relaxed, and in the middle of the park there was a beer garden -- you can just sit there and drink huge beers and eat huge pretzels and chicken or sausage.
-- I thought I lost my keys but I was extremely psyched when I found them in the bottom of my suitcase for safe-keeping.
-- It would be awesome to drive a car through Europe and just sort of check out the out-of-the-way places.
-- It is hard to believe that 45 years ago, the Germans were the enemy. I wonder what really happened, and would we (USA) support a Hitler today? Sometimes I wonder. I mean, outside of the 'Final Solution,' his economic views seemed to hold true with the same type of hardcore businesses that still exist.
[John Tangent hesitated and then turned around to look back at the sky, still dark and solid as the first snow began to fall.]
these are SO GREAT
Posted by: sabf | 09/13/2009 at 12:12 PM
Thank u, sabf!!!
On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 12:12 PM, wrote:
Posted by: Matthew Gallaway | 09/13/2009 at 12:22 PM