Das Münchner Leben

Here in München there are three (especially) good things that I'm so happy with: 1. Bier (beer), 2. Brot (bread), 3. Eis (ice cream). Amund knows what I'm talking about.

The Münchner Bier is just simply world-beater. Let me be a little bit technical and just tell some dry facts about the German Bier. Bier in Germany is not only Bier but much much more than that: there is Helles which is the clear golden-color lager beer, and Dunkles which is the lager beer with amber to dark brown color because of higher content of barley malt. The beer that's called Pils in Germany is another type of lager bier that has a higher hop content, which makes the taste a little bit more bitter. Amund said its taste is pretty close to Norwegian beer. Then there is the Weißbier (Weizenbier, Hefeweizen) which is a completely different beer type that has a significant portion of wheat malt. Another characteristic is the top-fermented yeast that causes the cloudy appearance and the full-bodied, yeasty taste of the Weißbier. There is Weißbier, dunkles Weißbier (dark color) and Kristallweißbier (filtered). Weißbier must be served in a Weißbierglas and poured in a special, careful manner, which is one of the checks if one is Bavarian-educated or not ;). Talking about beer glass, one may have heard about the Maß, a one-liter beer mug that is typically used to serve Helles, or Radler. Radler is a mix drink consisting of ~1/3 lemonade and ~2/3 Helles (if it's a good Radler, often people just make life simple by mixing 1:1 lemonade and helles). Some other common mix drinks are Russ'n (Russe) that is limonade and Weißbier, and Neger (or Colaweizen) which is self-explanatory.

Ok, enough beerology.

Ah, one last thing: My favorite Münchner Helles is Augustiner, which I of course introduced to Amund the first day. And he loved it. :)

Anyway, we didn't only drink beer all the time (just quite often) but also did some other sober stuff like taking Salsa class, going dancing, walking in the city, in Englischer Garten or along the Isar river, shopping, cooking and eating (bread and ice cream among others)... I love this city so damn much, so I wanted to share that love with Amund :).

Picnic at the Isar...



... at sunset



An ordinary morning: breakfast with oatmeal and coffee:



The Couchsurfing community in Munich is pretty active. They meet up a couple of times a week for going out, dancing, cooking, bbqing etc. Once we were at a BBQ meeting. The weather was super that day, the night was so warm that we stayed at the river in shorts and t-shirts until midnight. A (German) friend of mine and his girlfriend from Mexico were also joining us - it nice to talk to her about Mexican food in Mexico and Mexican food in California :)

The riverbank full of people grilling and enjoying summer in the city:



Our big CS group:

Prost! (All August)




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