Weekend of Streetlife festival, Studentenstadt and Biergarten

Streetlife festival is, almost self-explaining, one of the biggest street festivals that took place on Leopoldstrasse, the main boulevard of Munich. It was over the weekend, and since Saturday was rainy, we decided to stay in Munich on Sunday instead of going hiking to enjoy the festival in nice weather. It was a good decision. :)

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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Newschwanstein and Co.

Castle Newschwanstein is one of the must-do-s when one gets to Munich, I suppose. I myself was there twice and I definitely don't need a third time. So it was pretty cool that Goethe Institut organized a trip to Newschwanstein for the students. Actually it was Amund's trip so I'd better let him report about it :).

There was also a festival called Tollwood, a semianual festival with arts, music, theater, performances, handicraft stands etc, taking place in Olympiapark that weekend. So Amund had some stuff to do and see while I was still busy with the thesis. He was besides busy with his German class, too, I bet he must speak German crazily now :)

Ready at Hauptbahnhof



Ok, here comes my version of the story (Amund). I went to neuschwanstein, and a couple of other famous places with the language school. The castle itself was rather full of people. It was ofcourse also being renovated while we were there, so it looked kinda crappy. I didn't really like it that much, but it was my first trip to the alps, and that was nevertheless a very nice experience, seing how the mountains just suddenly pop out of the flat landscape around.

Castle Linderhof (with a little of the Alps behind)



This is how the mountains just pop out of the flat land


Tollwood was a nice little festival. That weekend the weather was pretty good too. So I strolled around at this festival for a few hours, observing the strange germans, making notes, considering what to do. Then I got lured by a faint smell, it seemed familiar, but something was different. Paralyzed by the enchanting aroma, I walked like a blind, over to a stand and bought a sausage. Later I also ended up buing some arabian food, coffee with waffels, and a radler (I wanted a beer but ended up with a 50/50 mix of beer and lemonade (I think) instead). Ok, so I guess mostly I was just eating and looking this day.

-Amund



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München mag Dich!

Friday, July 02, 2009. A double-arrival-day. Amund even got to Munich a couple of hours earlier than me, which means he - who has been to Munich for the very first time - was the one who welcomed me to the city where I've lived for 5 years. What a pleasant switch!

Amund got to know my notorious cat(s).



First thing to do in Munich: Having a Maß beer (1 liter beer mug) in a Biergarten on Viktualienmarkt, one of thousand and one biergartens in Munich.



A touch of touristy-ness: At Marienplatz, in front of the Rathaus (City hall).



Then going out with the GERMANSSS!!!


On Sunday we wanted to see how the swing scene in Munich looks like. And here it is, swing dancing the German way:



That was the first weekend in Munich. From now on viel Spaß!


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