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munchkinland

The hauptbahnhof in Munich looks exactly like the one in Zurich, except it is covered in rabid soccer people. Rabid like sleep-deprived Raiders fans on angel dust who suddenly have access to one of the world’s finest public transportation systems, thus making the consumption of beer hours before the game starts feasible, each with an also sleep-deprived mother wolverine-wraith strapped to their viking helmets.

Let’s see what word’s grammar checking thing has to say about that sentence:

I didn’t know Viking was capitalized. Recommend changing who -> that. That’s it?

As I was saying, that is the only difference between the two train stations.

When a person goes to Munich, they pretty much want one thing: those big-ass 1-litre glasses of beer know to the munchkins as a MASS. Every beer hall only featured one brewery’s beer and I only saw the big 5: Franziskaner, Spaten, Lowenbrau, Paulaner, and Augustiner. I was certain that Munich would unseat Portland as undisputed beer variety overlord, but I uberestimated the bavarians. P still has more variety of tastiness per square meter.

If you’re ever in Munich, be sure not to not realize that kartoffel means potato that that the Kartoffelhaus is a horrible abonination; an insult to potatoes and restaurants world-wide. It may LOOK charming and homey on the outside, but once inside you realize that these people are fucking crazy about potatoes and you are doomed to a dinner in which baked potatoes have infiltrated all dishes. Serves me right for not going to some sort of sausagehaus instead.

BUT I had been burned on that front earlier in the day. At the bierhalle I got lentil soup with sausage, but no one warned me that the sausage would be so authentic that it would have METAL CLIPS ON THE ENDS. HIDDEN IN THE SOUP FOR ME TO BITE ON. WTF Bavaria?!

Munich kicks Zurich’s ass in terms of street musicians. Highlights include:

– an actually good classical string quartet
– those peruvian flute dudes who seem to be everywhere these days, except in full american indian headdresses
– a lone man in a deserted alley at night playing the godfather theme music on a clarinet
– a trio of mongolian throat singers w/crazy mongolian outfits & mongolian instruments and HOT DANG wuz they good! Watched in pure mongolian mezmerization for 25 minutes. Turns out they are Chinggis Khaan from Mongolia. Turns out. Holy crap was that cool.

A picture of an actual door in historic Munich:

http://users.sdsc.edu/~mpackard/wtfsc.jpg