Sandeman in Munich! -- Munich, Germany

Love does not dominate; it cultivates. 

I love those who yearn for the impossible. 

Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live. 

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone. 

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Lots of quotes today. 

I'm starting this post from Martin's kitchen in Munich. My laptop rests atop a plastic blue tablecloth atop a wooden table atop a black vinyl floor in a white room with a blue banner that turns into a shelf that holds up all my favorite spices.

The kettle and the toaster sit on the windowsill in front of a blue window beside a few cookbooks ("Fur Zwei" in yellow font peaks out from behind the black toaster). A generous pile of garlic covers the silver and black toaster oven that squats on top of the microwave next to the blender next to a half empty bottle of wine, olive oil, sparkling water and various vinegars.

I love this space.

My first night with Martin and Daniel (the Spanish flatmate) was phenomenal and served to remind me of the things I appreciate about couchsurfing.

I appreciate couchsurfing because I get to meet and live with (if only for a short time) people who are

Ingenuous

Enthusiastic

Generous

Curious

Insatiable

After returning from the library, Martin prepared a salad and we all sat around the table discussing Morocco, religion, education, travel -- anything and everything.

Curious people with whom I can discuss anything and everything are the best kinds. Unequivocally and absolutely tendentiously, they are the best kinds.

Daniel poured glasses of wine.

"Are you sure you want no more to eat? That is all? Salad? Eat, eat!" the welcoming Spaniard encouraged (as he'd witnessed my peckish appetite at lunch, Martin had already given up trying to convince me to eat more).

We walked to a pub that had somehow managed to tastefully fuse Germany and Japan, ordered a few drinks and spent a couple of hours continuing our lively conversation over wine. Well, I drank wine. Martin and Daniel were exemplary Germans and ordered beer, although Martin was a good deal more exemplary than our Spanish companion, as he ordered his frothy beverage in a liter glass.

This is the first time I've ever seen beer served in a liter container. It was epic. I should have taken a picture it was so epic. But snapping a photo of a German drinking a liter would be about as silly as snapping a photo of an Irish bloke drinking a pint.

We headed back to the flat around midnight and I thankfully, happily crawled onto my couch.

"Goodnight, Martin."

"Goodnight, Aimee."

I slept well. In fact, I slept soundly all the way until six o'clock in the morning (which is impressively late for me), when I regretfully extricated myself from the warm duvet, tiptoed out of bed, meandered into the kitchen and made myself a cup of coffee.

There's not a lot better than the day's first cup of coffee.

I've noticed that Germans keep their homes a good deal cooler than most of the Europeans with whom I've stayed. These houses are places in which you wear sweaters and thick socks/slippers (leg warmers wouldn't be entirely uncalled for, in some situations) and continually fill up the kettle for tea. Even if it's 10 degrees Celsius outside, the windows are cracked open and cool air wafts in. The window right behind where I now sit was open this morning, but I closed it after the hair on the back of my neck started to stand at attention due to a blossoming of goosebumps and the warmth of the cup in my hands felt better on my cold skin than the coffee tasted in my mouth. My hypothesis for this bizarre cold air infatuation is that since Germans are incredibly forward thinking when it comes to taking care of their environment and producing clean energy sources, they keep their windows open so that they can constantly enjoy all of that clean air.

My second day with Martin was slow, cold, hilarious, informative.

As normal people sleep quite late after an evening of drinking liters of beer, my lanky host didn't rouse himself until around eleven. In the meanwhile, I went for a brisk walk along the Isar, listening to the sounds of the water, breathing the crisp air (slightly crisper than the apartment) and watching the runners in their good quality spandex and Salomon shoes.

I returned from the Isar walk, bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked and eager for more coffee. I sat around the small kitchen table with bleary-eyed, pillow-cheeked Daniel and Martin, drinking in the morning and discussing plans for the afternoon.

Daniel drinks coffee.

I drink more coffee than Daniel.

Martin drinks a tea he brews from fresh ginger, fresh turmeric, lemon, green tea leaves and apple juice. I recommend it to all.

Daniel wanted to sleep his Friday holiday and attend a birthday party in the evening.

Martin wanted to drop by a cafe and then meet a friend to go support his favorite football team.

I wanted to do the Sandeman free walking tour. I've attended these tours in Berlin, Madrid, Dublin, Copenhagen, Paris and Versailles. I felt it absolutely necessary to add Munich to the list, so I slipped a map of Munich into my purse (as a last resort should I get hopelessly lost) and left my hosts to finish their recovery breakfast in peace.

Getting to Marienplatz was a piece of cake. A simple, delicious, easy piece of cake. I arrived at Sandeman's meeting spot 20 minutes before the tour began and tried to not feel awkward as I stood in the throng of tourists comprised of throngs of romantic couples. Hands in hands, heads on shoulders, wrapped around waists and shoulders, drinking to-go coffee, kissing soft and hard.

I wonder what it would be like to long term travel with a lover who lives for movement and adventure the way I do. Would I even like it? Goodness, I don't know. It might be too stressful. I wouldn't be as independent... I wouldn't meet as many people...no, I think I like things they are now. I love things the way they are now.

The tour was led by an English chap named Marcin. His parents named him such because of his Polish heritage, only to find out two years later that they'd been mispronouncing his name the entire time. But by two years old, it's a wee bit late to change things like that. Marcin was a university music teacher (I believe he plays around 40 instruments) and was a very active member of a few jazz bands (he got around). However, making jazz music brings home zero bacon, so Marcin took a six month break to reevaluate his life/career.

He found Sandeman.

Six months turned into five years. Now he leads walking tours in Munich and holds the highest certification possible for Dachau. If you have the chance, take a Sandeman tour with Marcin -- you'll be ever so chuffed that you did.

Our massive group

The Glockenspiel in Marienplatz. These quaint, merry figures on the top celebrate the wedding of Duke Wilhelm V to Renata of Lorraine and the quaint dancing figures on the bottom celebrate the disappearance of the plague. Every day at 11:00, these figures come alive and perform their pieces in front of masses of tourists for a solid ten minutes.

Gothic gargoyles. I really don't understand humanity's obsession with creating obscenely creepy figures with which to adorn their buildings .

The Old Town Hall. Completely destroyed during WWII and reconstructed off of meticulous pictures and documents that Hitler had ordered made before the war, specifically because he knew his home city would be demolished and hoped to rebuild it, stone for stone. Bruce Wayne style. It is now a toy museum.

The New Town Hall, a new-gothic building composed of brick and limestone and originally built by Hauberrisser in 1867. However, just like an artist who can't stop fudging with his painting, this building was continually modified until 1909. It was mostly destroyed during WWII, but is now the mayor's office.

A few interesting tidbits from the tour:

• The royal opera house is located in Max-Joseph-Platz and has been completely rebuilt 3 times. The first version was ordered by King Maximillian I, designed by Karl von Fischer and was partially consumed by a fire in 1817. The Germans hurried to rebuild the charred bits, but the flammable opera house was fully ravaged by flames in 1823. The architect who built this version had designed a sprinkler system to help extinguish fires, but in his genius plan had somehow ignored the fact that water freezes. So when it came time to turn on the sprinklers and release the lake of rainwater that had been collecting on the roof all year, nothing happened. The water had frozen solid, as water has a habit of doing in the whereabouts of December. So the king went next door to his royal brewery and demanded that all his poor drunken subjects throw their liters of Weissbier onto the flames; to which his poor drunken subjects unanimously slurred, "F*ck you and your f*cking opera house, we're not wasting our beer." The king then summoned the police and forced the surprised men (who'd only wanted a fun night out) to carry the barrels of beer over to the opera house to douse the fire. Thousands of barrels left royal brewery. Six barrels of beer arrived at the opera house. The king should have known better than to leave a drunkard alone with a beer barrel. The next version was destroyed in WWII. Like the majority of Munich. 
• The Hofbrauhaus was founded by Duke Wilhelm V (the fellow getting married in the Glockenspiel) in 1589 and was located just around the bend from where the royal family lived. The Hofbrauhaus quickly became quite popular with folks from every class because its first brewer, Heimeran Pongratz, introduced the Bavarian Beer Purity law. This law states that only natural ingredients can be used in the brewing process -- water, barley and hops (Louis Pasteur didn't discover yeast until the 1800s). Period. I find it interesting that for nearly a hundred years, this popular beer house lacked its most important feature. Toilets. If you were out for a fine night of drinking and found yourself in desperate need of relief after three liters or so, you'd have to walk outside and piss in the street. However, during your drunken jaunt, your seat would inevitably be stolen by an opportunist who'd eagerly watched you down your third liter. So grooves were carved into the floor of the Hofbrauhaus to allow people to piss and guzzle beer simultaneously. Very efficient, these Germans. The problem with this groove method was that you would quite frequently piss upon your neighbor (who was typically too drunk to notice, but pissing upon your neighbor is generally just bad taste). Many men chose to direct the stream  upwards towards the table and allow gravity to pull the urine into the groove, but this particular method brought most of the urine back on their own laps. A hollow walking stick was invented at one point. I'll let you imagine how this was used. 

 This is a memorial commemorating Bavarians who died protesting the Nazi regime. Before Hitler's official rise to power, he gathered three thousand drunk supporters and tried to overthrow the government. He was stopped by the police and sixteen or seventeen of his men died in the attack. When he came to power, he chose to honor these men (mostly to distract from how embarrassing the matter was) by constructing a memorial where they had fallen. When people passed this memorial, they were required by law to salute. If they failed to do so, the Nazi standing guard would brutally beat them. There were a few residents who resolutely refused to salute, and would walk up to the memorial and turn to the left just before they reached it as a display of defiance. However, the Nazis weren't too fond of defiance, so they would have soldiers waiting around the corner to receive the protesters and escort them to their new home/concentration camp. These gold stones show the final footsteps of the protesters.

You rub the nose for luck. :) There used to be four four hundred year old lions in front of the residenz, but two have been commandeered for cleaning. One lion is meant to bring luck in love, one good weather, one a long and healthy life, and I can't quite remember what the last lion was supposed to bring. Perhaps liters of beer.

The Maypole!

Juliet. I'll let you guess what you rub for luck.

I was cold, tired, exhausted after the tour. As it hadn't been raining and I was wearing my thick smartwool socks, I'd assumed that my barefoot shoes would offer me adequate protection. However, I'd failed to remember that pavement and cobble stones get cold. As I tripped and stumbled back to the apartment,  I flexed my toes with each step, trying to bring feeling back into my feet.

You'd think that getting frostbite in Ireland would have taught me not to wear barefoot shoes when it's cold. Good grief, I take forever to learn some things. Most things, actually. I'm too optimistic/lazy/purposefully forgetful to make better, healthier choices. 

Ach. 

I made it back to Martin's by 17:00, made myself a cup of tea and immediately curled up in bed under the duvet, cramming my toes into the corner of the couch.

I wrote, studied French, listened to Radiolab and finished knitting an alpaca hat for myself

I'm getting much better at this knitting business

Martin returned from his football game at about 11:00, tired and ready to go to bed. His team had lost, angry and heart-broken hooligans had struck (like they do in Europe), but he'd still had a wonderful time with his friends.

I woke up at four the next morning (which is much more usual for someone like me) and spent a couple of hours researching different yoga opportunities in various countries. I'm particularly interested in volunteering at retreats across South America for the year of 2015 (I'm a long term traveler and a long term planner), and found several retreat centers that offer room and board for a couple hours of yoga every day.

Yes. Please and thank-you and you're welcome very much (shout out to Janet).

Saturday was stunning. Martin took me on a bike ride along the Isar, showed me a few of his favorite swimming areas and explained some local history. We popped into an oriental food shop on the way back and ogled some strange looking vegetables for a few minutes.

Seeing strange vegetables just makes me want to visit the place where they grow the strange vegetables.

At about four o'clock, I started walking towards the Diverbo meeting at a restaurant on the other side of town. The hour journey was not a deterrent to me, and I gave myself loads of time to get lost.

And loads of time to enjoy the scenery.

The dinner was lovely (steak salad, wine and soup) and I'm sure that the other Anglos will make this a fantastic week. This program has participants from France, Malaysia, Scotland, England, Canada and the United States. So the lucky Germans won't have to deal with the Scottish, Welsh, Australian or Irish accents this time around.

I leave to walk to the bus in just a few minutes. It'll probably take me an hour and a half, as I'm carrying my backpack and lugging my sierra designs rolling bag. I am absolutely desperate to downsize at this point. I do not need so much crap.

Preconceptions: I've said it before and I'll say it again -- Germans are hilarious. Their sense of humor is dry and witty, for the most part. Like the English. 

Challenges: Gargoyles!