Here I am now, in terminal 4 of JFK, killing the 6 hours I have in between flights. It's what I like to call the mourning period of a vacation. When you're coming to terms with letting go of everything you loved about your vacation. Accepting that it will be at least another year or two before you can return to some of those things. Wondering how long before some of the memories fade, and which ones you'll reminisce about in twenty or fifty years. Reflecting on some of the experiences that have changed you as a person. Returning to a different culture, a different way of life.
It was another another awesome vacation. Visiting New York was great. So was hanging out with Kevin for a month; experiencing new cities; meeting new people; practicing German; German food, beer, culture; living differently for a few weeks; all the compromises that made both of our personalities more flexible.
I'm certainly reluctant to let it go. But I know I'll be back. Sooner than later. I'm a bit envious that Kev gets to stay there another month. But he earned that. He'll keep the spirit going a while longer.
So that brings me to looking forward to the other end of the next flight. Coming home to San Francisco.
I'm not sad that I'm back. And I'm not excited about it either. I was having an incredible time abroad, but things are incredible here too. Friends, kitty, lifestyle, work. They're always great to come home to. And this time probably more than any time before.
Till next time!
Saturday, July 5
Wednesday, July 2
san francisco coffee company and so on
there's a final post by me coming later (there was, but i don't know how to work this blog thing so well, so now this is the final and the real final post came before) but i wanted to add these thoughts here, not so much about munich as a city, since it's a great place and you all should just go ahead and visit, but about a big theme of our trip; relaxing in the morning with a good (or terrible) espresso and taking it easy until we were ready to hoof it once more.
i'm generally okay with eating or having a drink, beer or coffee, at the slightly larger perhaps more touristy spots while travelling. it's generally a matter of availability and more often than not the places i might otherwise be interested in finding are a bit out of the way. thus far i think we've hit 3 places or so that have really felt comfortable and more to my liking: cafe duddel in köln, schlenkerla in bamberg, and cafe kopfeck in münchen. there have been a few places in freiburg as well and now that i've been through hamburg there's also the Pudel Club. these are at least the most memorable. there are a few cities, though, that i believe deserve further exploration, namely freiburg, ulm and, despite all previous bashing, Basel. sitting in the san francisco coffe company in münchen, i was reminded of the reasons why i like those smaller, out of the way places. here was a novelty chain, playing on american popular coffee culture, so much so that you can't even order a double espresso, it's either a small or a medium (could be worse, i guess. could have been tall or grande or something). it's a chain and the baristas even have a bit of the american barista attitude readily at hand. and for some reason they want to speak english. the design elements are easily mass produced so as to fit into any space and with somewhere near or over ten locations in münchen i guess that makes sense. objectively, the design is not terrible, just a little to stagnant or impersonal maybe for my taste. and above all, the coffee isn't even all that. perhaps the biggest novelty here is that there isn't even a san francisco coffee company in san francisco.
but that's not meant as a diss on anything in particular. we've had some great fun finding the out of the way places and sometimes when you just want an espresso, you go with what you got. so in a Prosht to one of the main themes of our trip, i'll leave you with that.
i'm generally okay with eating or having a drink, beer or coffee, at the slightly larger perhaps more touristy spots while travelling. it's generally a matter of availability and more often than not the places i might otherwise be interested in finding are a bit out of the way. thus far i think we've hit 3 places or so that have really felt comfortable and more to my liking: cafe duddel in köln, schlenkerla in bamberg, and cafe kopfeck in münchen. there have been a few places in freiburg as well and now that i've been through hamburg there's also the Pudel Club. these are at least the most memorable. there are a few cities, though, that i believe deserve further exploration, namely freiburg, ulm and, despite all previous bashing, Basel. sitting in the san francisco coffe company in münchen, i was reminded of the reasons why i like those smaller, out of the way places. here was a novelty chain, playing on american popular coffee culture, so much so that you can't even order a double espresso, it's either a small or a medium (could be worse, i guess. could have been tall or grande or something). it's a chain and the baristas even have a bit of the american barista attitude readily at hand. and for some reason they want to speak english. the design elements are easily mass produced so as to fit into any space and with somewhere near or over ten locations in münchen i guess that makes sense. objectively, the design is not terrible, just a little to stagnant or impersonal maybe for my taste. and above all, the coffee isn't even all that. perhaps the biggest novelty here is that there isn't even a san francisco coffee company in san francisco.
but that's not meant as a diss on anything in particular. we've had some great fun finding the out of the way places and sometimes when you just want an espresso, you go with what you got. so in a Prosht to one of the main themes of our trip, i'll leave you with that.
nachdem wir unsere Reise gemacht hatten...
less of a footnote and more of a full blog post :)
it was a bit strange putting my stuff in a train station luggage storage compartment and then accompanying matt to the airport. germany, for me as a traveller, was always a multiple person adventure, first the World Championships and now the Eupopean Championships. but now i was taking it on with just my backpack, my two feet and my stare-invoking beard. so i'd like to share a few things as a final aufwiedersehen to matt.
things you will not forget to do when traveling with matt, but must remember to do when you're on your own:
brush your teeth.
wash your face.
find a place to sleep that includes a solid floor and hopefully a roof over your head.
eat.
as of now i've actually managed to keep up the good habits matt instilled in me. and until next time, aufwiedersehen.
it was a bit strange putting my stuff in a train station luggage storage compartment and then accompanying matt to the airport. germany, for me as a traveller, was always a multiple person adventure, first the World Championships and now the Eupopean Championships. but now i was taking it on with just my backpack, my two feet and my stare-invoking beard. so i'd like to share a few things as a final aufwiedersehen to matt.
things you will not forget to do when traveling with matt, but must remember to do when you're on your own:
brush your teeth.
wash your face.
find a place to sleep that includes a solid floor and hopefully a roof over your head.
eat.
as of now i've actually managed to keep up the good habits matt instilled in me. and until next time, aufwiedersehen.
Finals in Frankfurt
Back to Frankfurt we traveled. Matt's last night in Germany. The finals of the EM, Germany vs Spain. We headed to our favorite spot in the Sachsenhausen neighborhood. We were there twice on our last trip, and even watched the finals of the WM there. Ironically, we never wrote down either the name or the location of the place. But instinct carried us straight back.
We parked in the beer garden 2 1/2 hours ahead of game time to claim our spot. We enjoyed a local specialty, Handkäse mit Musik (hand cheese with music), some fries, and a few beers. Not too surprisingly, an older gentleman, a true regular at this restaurant, just like two years prior, sat down at his reserved seat right in front of the tv. Nice and nostalgic.
We had also met up with a friend of Kevin's from New York. He was in Germany, like Kev, to study in Kassel. He joined us to watch the finals. I think this was good for Kev. He had one friend representing 3 weeks of vacationing in Germany, and another representing the month of heads-down studying that was quickly approaching. Thus we provided for Kev a merging of the two worlds, and a soft cognitive transition between the two.
Walking back through Frankfurt at night after the game, we were reminded what a nice city Frankfurt is at night. They light up everything, but they do it very well. Like the whole city is a set for a play. From the skyscrapers, cathedrals, and bridges to the trees, walking paths, and even construction equipment. It appeared as if they had a lighting designer go after all of it.
Weihenstephan Freibierfest
We were graciously invited by Matthias (from the Schlenkerla Brewery) to join him and some of his friends at this year's Weihenstephan Freibierfest.
Background - once a year, alumni and students of the Weihenstephan Brewing University in Freising (just north of Munich) gather together to have a beer festival on the lawn of the university. Each alumnus donates a keg of beer from the brewery they're currently working at. In exchange, they're given mugs to bring to the beer fest. Beer is free, but they'll only fill this specific mug. Since each attendee only has one mug, you need to guard it like buried treasure; if it breaks or is stolen, your night is over.
A time line of the evening convey the night's events well.
5:00 - Kev and I jump on the train from Munich to Freising
6:12 - bus from Freising train station to Weihenstephan University
6:30 - arrive; we discuss bus/train schedules for the return trip. it's crucial we get back to the Munich train station by 10pm, where we shall meet the guy who's house we're staying at this evening.
6:50 - meet up with Matthias at a nearby restaurant, meet the crew, and get our mugs for the evening
8:00 - stroll back to the university
8:15 - the anticipation climaxes as we fill our mugs with our first beer of the evening
8:20 - Prost!
8:45 - second beer of the evening
9:10 - third beer
9:15 - Kevin and I decide that we can take a faster train back to Munich
and arrive just after 10, giving us 15 more minutes at the beer festival
9:30 - I convince Kevin to let me get one more refill for the road. when i return to the group, kevin also managed a refill
9:45 - having too much fun hanging out with everyone, and the lawn looking quite comfortable, Kev and I vote unanimously to spend the night on the grass instead of going back to Munich
9:45-10:00 - Kev tries his damnedest to contact the guy we're supposed to meet. it's quite the challenge, given that we don't know his phone number or his name...
10:15 - fifth beer
10:xx - camera battery dies
11:00? - sixth beer
later - seventh beer
???? - eigth beer?
2ish/3ish - beer runs out...
little while after - head to restaurant for another half a beer and 3 garlic pizzas
4ish - Matt burns lip on scalding hot pizza. He won't feel it till tomorrow
after 4ish - guys we've been hanging out with offer us the floors of the hotel rooms they're staying at. while less comfortable than the lush grass, they're far warmer. kev and i vote unanimously to accept. head back to hotel.
later - super drunk dude vomits up some pizza/beer mix, a portion of which splashes onto Kevin's shoe. He doesn't remember the event, and won't solve the mystery of the pizza stain on his shoe till tomorrow.
4:30? - crash on carpet. excellent evening.
9:30am-ish - wake up, breath reeking of garlic.
10:00 - whole crew gathers in hotel lobby, we head to a nearby restaurant for a typical bavarian breakfast - wiesswurst and a glass of hefeweizen. (we both order something else**)
11:30 - part company with the crew, quickly purchase a large bottle of water, stroll back through downtown Freising to the train station, and board the train back to Munich.
All in all a magnificent outing. Prost Weihenstephan! Prost Fellas!
**edit: i was still a little dazed or something, i actually ordered a weiß - kev
Background - once a year, alumni and students of the Weihenstephan Brewing University in Freising (just north of Munich) gather together to have a beer festival on the lawn of the university. Each alumnus donates a keg of beer from the brewery they're currently working at. In exchange, they're given mugs to bring to the beer fest. Beer is free, but they'll only fill this specific mug. Since each attendee only has one mug, you need to guard it like buried treasure; if it breaks or is stolen, your night is over.
A time line of the evening convey the night's events well.
5:00 - Kev and I jump on the train from Munich to Freising
6:12 - bus from Freising train station to Weihenstephan University
6:30 - arrive; we discuss bus/train schedules for the return trip. it's crucial we get back to the Munich train station by 10pm, where we shall meet the guy who's house we're staying at this evening.
6:50 - meet up with Matthias at a nearby restaurant, meet the crew, and get our mugs for the evening
8:00 - stroll back to the university
8:15 - the anticipation climaxes as we fill our mugs with our first beer of the evening
8:20 - Prost!
8:45 - second beer of the evening
9:10 - third beer
9:15 - Kevin and I decide that we can take a faster train back to Munich
and arrive just after 10, giving us 15 more minutes at the beer festival
9:30 - I convince Kevin to let me get one more refill for the road. when i return to the group, kevin also managed a refill
9:45 - having too much fun hanging out with everyone, and the lawn looking quite comfortable, Kev and I vote unanimously to spend the night on the grass instead of going back to Munich
9:45-10:00 - Kev tries his damnedest to contact the guy we're supposed to meet. it's quite the challenge, given that we don't know his phone number or his name...
10:15 - fifth beer
10:xx - camera battery dies
11:00? - sixth beer
later - seventh beer
???? - eigth beer?
2ish/3ish - beer runs out...
little while after - head to restaurant for another half a beer and 3 garlic pizzas
4ish - Matt burns lip on scalding hot pizza. He won't feel it till tomorrow
after 4ish - guys we've been hanging out with offer us the floors of the hotel rooms they're staying at. while less comfortable than the lush grass, they're far warmer. kev and i vote unanimously to accept. head back to hotel.
later - super drunk dude vomits up some pizza/beer mix, a portion of which splashes onto Kevin's shoe. He doesn't remember the event, and won't solve the mystery of the pizza stain on his shoe till tomorrow.
4:30? - crash on carpet. excellent evening.
9:30am-ish - wake up, breath reeking of garlic.
10:00 - whole crew gathers in hotel lobby, we head to a nearby restaurant for a typical bavarian breakfast - wiesswurst and a glass of hefeweizen. (we both order something else**)
11:30 - part company with the crew, quickly purchase a large bottle of water, stroll back through downtown Freising to the train station, and board the train back to Munich.
All in all a magnificent outing. Prost Weihenstephan! Prost Fellas!
**edit: i was still a little dazed or something, i actually ordered a weiß - kev
The Felsenau Adventure
The much anticipated (even if by no one else but me) Felsenau Adventure...
One sunny afternoon in Bern, we struck north in order to sample the best local beer, Felsenau, at the brewery itself. We did eventually try the beer, but the journey was not as smooth as we would have hoped.
Some locals told us that on Fridays from 3-6 the Felsenau Brewery serves up fifty-cent glasses of their beer. And you can sit right along the riverfront and drink the city's best beer in the afternoon sun. What they failed to tell us was that at 6:00, they don't serve any more beer at all. At any price.
After a causal lunch in a park in the Altstadt, we walked due north towards the brewery. The way there was simple enough - we just follow a single, main road straight to the brewery. A couple wrong turns later, we were still headed towards the brewery but were a bit behind schedule.
When we arrived at the location where the brewery was supposed to be, we saw only a cluster of buildings way down the hill from us. Before venturing all the way down there, we figured we'd better get another opinion. We stopped a pair of younger, hip-looking locals biking by and solicited their knowledge about the brewery's whereabouts. The couple was very friendly and thankfully did in fact know the way.
We arrived at 5:55, walked through a very small crowd of locals - one group of teenagers who seemingly got their money's worth, and a second group of men sitting in the back of a delivery truck - and up to the brewery employees, who informed us that the serving time was over.
With nothing left to do except trudge back up the hill in defeat, we slowly made our way back up the hill disappointed that we so narrowly missed the time window.
At the top, our spirits all but broken, we stood across the street from a small restaurant with a small Felsenau Beer sign out front. The brewery may have shut us out, but we were resolute to taste the beer.
They had a dunkles and a lager; we ordered them both.1 We drank the first in silence. Over the second, we cheered up convincing ourselves that the trip was worthwhile.
After all, we saw a bunch of green roofs and solar panels. We brought up the construction site with the massive tunnel/pipe, bigger than any we'd ever seen, half buried in the ground. And we reminisced about the flock of pirate sheep, or were they sheep pirates?, that we passed along the way.
As we finished off the last of our beers, we decided that an adventure is an adventure, and at least we got off the beaten path. Then promptly headed for the bus stop.
1. The dark, named Bärni, is delicous - interesting flavors, a nice mouthfeel, and a nice malty-hoppy balance. The lager was nothing special.
One sunny afternoon in Bern, we struck north in order to sample the best local beer, Felsenau, at the brewery itself. We did eventually try the beer, but the journey was not as smooth as we would have hoped.
Some locals told us that on Fridays from 3-6 the Felsenau Brewery serves up fifty-cent glasses of their beer. And you can sit right along the riverfront and drink the city's best beer in the afternoon sun. What they failed to tell us was that at 6:00, they don't serve any more beer at all. At any price.
After a causal lunch in a park in the Altstadt, we walked due north towards the brewery. The way there was simple enough - we just follow a single, main road straight to the brewery. A couple wrong turns later, we were still headed towards the brewery but were a bit behind schedule.
When we arrived at the location where the brewery was supposed to be, we saw only a cluster of buildings way down the hill from us. Before venturing all the way down there, we figured we'd better get another opinion. We stopped a pair of younger, hip-looking locals biking by and solicited their knowledge about the brewery's whereabouts. The couple was very friendly and thankfully did in fact know the way.
We arrived at 5:55, walked through a very small crowd of locals - one group of teenagers who seemingly got their money's worth, and a second group of men sitting in the back of a delivery truck - and up to the brewery employees, who informed us that the serving time was over.
With nothing left to do except trudge back up the hill in defeat, we slowly made our way back up the hill disappointed that we so narrowly missed the time window.
At the top, our spirits all but broken, we stood across the street from a small restaurant with a small Felsenau Beer sign out front. The brewery may have shut us out, but we were resolute to taste the beer.
They had a dunkles and a lager; we ordered them both.1 We drank the first in silence. Over the second, we cheered up convincing ourselves that the trip was worthwhile.
After all, we saw a bunch of green roofs and solar panels. We brought up the construction site with the massive tunnel/pipe, bigger than any we'd ever seen, half buried in the ground. And we reminisced about the flock of pirate sheep, or were they sheep pirates?, that we passed along the way.
As we finished off the last of our beers, we decided that an adventure is an adventure, and at least we got off the beaten path. Then promptly headed for the bus stop.
1. The dark, named Bärni, is delicous - interesting flavors, a nice mouthfeel, and a nice malty-hoppy balance. The lager was nothing special.
Ulm pics
We don't have a post dedicated to Ulm. In short, Ulm is great. Here are some pics:
Including this gentleman at the train station:
Bavaria
We followed due precedence by having extreme fluctuation in the tail end of our trip. First, to some personal disappointment, we cut out Salzburg in exchange for Nürnberg. Next, to more disappointment, we had to cut Nürnberg, where we would have met my friend Lisa, as she happened to be traveling through Germany at the same time.
Instead, we had an absolutely superb time at the Weihenstephan Freibierfest, more than making up for both disappointments.1
Munich is always a great city to visit. We had an extraordinarily leisurely attitude about it. Nothing at all planned except for going to a fabulous vegan restaurant (Kopfeck). No sights to see because we saw them last time. No pictures to take because the camera battery died and I didn't seize any chances to recharge it.
The leisurely schedule was helpful on a number of levels, but mostly because Kevin's anxieties about the following week were quickly growing; he had a lot to figure out for the time in between my departure and the start of his studies in one week.
Foremost, he would have to deal with the excruciating sadness of not having me around.2 Then there were some logistics about where he'd go / where he'd sleep for the next week. So we made Coffee Fellows Internet Lounge our home in Munich.3
We met some interesting characters and had some good times.
1. Both Salzburg and Nürnberg will be in our next trip
2. I expect Kevin to add a footnote here to (dis)qualify this claim, so this is merely a preemptive footnote.
3. Including some stories about the toilet-seatless toilet, which we'll save as an in-person story
Instead, we had an absolutely superb time at the Weihenstephan Freibierfest, more than making up for both disappointments.1
Munich is always a great city to visit. We had an extraordinarily leisurely attitude about it. Nothing at all planned except for going to a fabulous vegan restaurant (Kopfeck). No sights to see because we saw them last time. No pictures to take because the camera battery died and I didn't seize any chances to recharge it.
The leisurely schedule was helpful on a number of levels, but mostly because Kevin's anxieties about the following week were quickly growing; he had a lot to figure out for the time in between my departure and the start of his studies in one week.
Foremost, he would have to deal with the excruciating sadness of not having me around.2 Then there were some logistics about where he'd go / where he'd sleep for the next week. So we made Coffee Fellows Internet Lounge our home in Munich.3
We met some interesting characters and had some good times.
1. Both Salzburg and Nürnberg will be in our next trip
2. I expect Kevin to add a footnote here to (dis)qualify this claim, so this is merely a preemptive footnote.
3. Including some stories about the toilet-seatless toilet, which we'll save as an in-person story
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