I’ve decided that today is a day for museums but not the usual art or history sort.
I first take a tram and a bus to Olympiapark. So peaceful. It’s a massive park with an Olympic stadium and a lake with swans in it. Massive yet smaller than the English Garden, another park in Munich, which is supposed to be the world's biggest urban park. The English Garden came highly recommended too but I don’t have the time and don’t prioritise it.
Olympiapark
So many jet trails in the sky all over Europe. Counted nine in the sky at one point while at Olympiapark.
Then a superb three hours spent at the BMW Museum and BMW showroom! Too many dream bikes to pick a fave. When I tell one of the salesmen at the showroom that I’m visiting from Singapore, he says that lots of people visit from Singapore, and all very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about bikes. Guess I’ve passed a test! Might go to the dedicated motorbike showroom tomorrow, the BMW Motorrad Zentrum.
Dream machine!
Now to the Beer Museum.
Diverted by the Viktualienmarkt (which, translated literally, would mean "food market" as in "market for victuals"?). The Biergarten is packed and mostly with locals. After all it's already 3:30 pm. Definitely time for a beer. Heh.
My companions at the Biergarten in the Viktualienmarkt
Fall into conversation with an older foursome from Düsseldorf. One has relatives in Singapore. The lady next to me speaks German almost exclusively but I catch a few words every now and then, which helps keep the conversation going. They fly to Shanghai tonight for a holiday with children, grandchildren and (I think) one or two great-grandchildren in a group of twenty. I tell them not to drink Chinese beer and to watch out for the rice wine!
I find the beer museum after a little hunting. It’s tiny! Bit of a disappointment. Decide to restrict my explorations to having one of their beers. Interesting Weissbier + lemonade combo. Sounds sacrilegious, I know, but came recommended and worth a try. Absolutely no food or even snacks available until the kitchen opens at 6 pm! My only calorie intake after my 9:30 am breakfast has been two (admittedly yummy) beers. Another two beer bottles acquired for the collection at home.
At the Beer Museum
I walk back to the Viktualienmarkt and walk into a cheese shop. I ask the shopkeeper if he speaks English and he replies in Hindi! He doesn’t look particularly Indian (not that that's THAT surprising) and turns out to be from Turkmenistan originally. He’s lived in Germany for forty years now but previously lived in Indian/Pakistani Kashmir for some 15 years. His Hindi is completely fluent without a trace of an accent. Definitely more fluent than me! I have to keep switching back to English. Gives me a taste of a strong-smelling Swiss cheese as a parting gift. I could swear it smells like durian. Tastes different though.
I return to the Rathaus and loiter randomly when I come across some buskers outside the Galerie Kaufhof department store. It’s actually a mini orchestra playing classical music. Not one false note. They’re even selling some CDs they’ve produced and an appreciative crowd has stopped to listen from among the tourists and shoppers walking by.
Buskers
As they take a short break, I happen to overhear two girls speaking in Chinese and recognise the Singapore accent. Give them a bright hullo and tell them I'm from Singapore, to which they respond by yelping out a horrified hullo like I’d just bitten them on the nose and then quickly scurrying away like cockroaches. Idiots.
My room in the hostel is a six-bedder and is the largest I’ve stayed in so far. The room feels about as busy as an Indian railway station at peak hour. Mostly because of a weird slob in the next bed. (I thought he was weird even earlier when we first chatted.) Keeps getting up in the middle of the night to throw his things around and making enough noise for a rogue elephant on a rampage in a sugarcane plantation, at one point even starting to eat and drink noisily. I assume he’s packing, having an early breakfast and leaving but he goes back to bed after this. Only later do I realise it must have been about midnight when this happened. Doesn’t seem to have the slightest consideration for the room’s other occupants. I’m very irritated to be woken up constantly but also feel like I don’t want to tell him to quiet down. Finally fall back into an uneasy doze. It’s my only bad experience of the whole trip so I suppose it’s par for the course.
More pictures here (no captions, free to access) or here (with captions but requires Facebook log-in).
This post is the seventh in a series. The full series:
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