Guten tag mein friends!!
After years of dreaming of eating a soft pretzel larger than my head, I am finally in Bavaria - and the Brezen and Beer are flowing like the Isar River!
My sister, Henrietta, and I arrived this morning, our blonde hair pulled back into braided buns, and looking sehr, sehr, German.
We are trying to fit in like locals here, and so we have given ourselves German names to aid us in our quest.
I going by Norberta, which means "Blonde Hero."
Amanda is Henrietta, which means "Ruler of the House."
We thought these names were extremely fitting. And to everyone else, this is a clear sign we are German, because what kind of lunes would pretend to have German names?
Henrietta took German in high school for 4 years, so she is especially convincing as a local Municher. Her German is fluent as long as we only have to say "hello," "thank you", and "2 pretzels please!" Unsurprisingly, we have not had to say much else yet!
Mein German is not so guten. I am just adding rt, ien, über, and frau to the english words for things.
We arrived and headed directly to the Marienplatz, where we planned to pick up Mike's Bikes Tours, to embark on a 4 hour bike ride around Munich. But first we needed a quick pre-bike breakfast, so we popped into the delicious looking Rishcart bakery to order our first Brezen.
We were overwhelmed with choices! Cheese brezen, croissant-brezen, brezen sandwhiches... the brezen options were amazing! But since it was our first day, and our first brezen - we went with the traditional, and it was das gut!!
A real, fresh, German bakery pretzel blows a dirty, stale New York streetcart pretzel out of the water! It's not even the same animal. This brezen was fluffy and chewy inside, with big chunks of sea salt adorning the golden crust. It was überdelicious!
We walked our brezen-filled bellys over to Mikes Bikes and took off on our tour, our braids blowing in the wind and clear blue skies!
James, our guide, biked us around the beautiful Bavarian streets, and into all the majors platzs, while sharing bits of information and history. We learned about various Konigs, all of which were named Ludwigs or Hans, and the churches and monuments. We eventually stopped in someplatz, and James told us to take 5 minutes to walk down a little street with a monument and then pop into the church. However, on the way to the street we spotted a good looking bakery and had a detour of picking out a knugen instead.
Krapfen, Lebkuchen, Baumkuchen, Gugelhupf .... how to choose! We kept getting passed up in line because we couldn't decide what we wanted to try, and didn't know how to order it. Finally Henrietta took charge by waving down the Frau, pointing at the strudel, and saying "ein"!
As we re-grouped, we had half an apfelstrudel in our hands and faces covered in powdered sugar, which gave James quite a laugh. Oh vell! Everyone else was sehr, sehr überjealoustein of our strudel.
Our glorious bike ride continued through the English Garten.
Who knew Munich had a garten bigger than Central Park? There is a beautiful stream flowing through the center of it, large bits of lawn, and various biergartens strewn throughout. It is uberpretty! The first thing we saw, however, was a group of men stripping down nude in the meadow! überyikes!! Our guide ensured us this was not unusual, particulary on a warm day.
We eventually hit the Chinese biergarten in the park, where we stopped for lunch. Extremely excited for our first biergarten, we jumped in line and got one of everything!
1 Weisswurst, 1 enormous dumpling swimming in a pool of gravy, salad, a big clump of Ozhban cheese, my first German beir and of course - an enormous Brezen. Everybite brought made us squeal in delight! German good is übergute!!
I have hated beer my whole life, but oddly upon arrival in Germany, it was suddenly delicious and refreshing and the perfect beverage to accompany a brezen! I got a Radler, which is a light beer mixed with Lemonade. A good starting point for a non-beer drinker.
Our plates started full to the brim, and ended licked clean. By the time our bike ride ended we were completely in love with Munchen, and had made friends with everyone on our tour, including our guide James.
Munich has a unique charm and a vibe unlike anywhere else I've been in Europe. The giant glokenspiel, the grown men walking around in Leiderhosen, the cross-thatched buildings and obsession with schnitzel.... it is überfun for two sister fraus to wonder around for the first time!
After an afternoon of pratice, Henrietta gave her German a real go at dinner. We arrived at the Austingliner Brewery, where James recommend we get some good Bavarian food. The place was packed with locals in their leiders! Even in our braids, we were clearly out of place. There appeared to be no hostess stand, so Henrietta bravely approached the nearest nice looking Frau and proudly declared "Enschulagen sie bitte, ich sprechen Englisch?"
The Frau gave her a look of disgust, shook her head no and fraued off. She sheepishly wandered back and we were so sad that we felt like leaving and finding another place for spatzel, when a nice herr came along and showed us to a quaint table for two in the back. Danke goodness for the herr!
We had so yummy German cuisine, including cheese spatzel, that tasted like mac n' cheese. But the highlight of our dietary diaster was of course, dessert.
We ordered the blueberry german pancake with ice cream and whip. We figured it would be delicious, and probably big enough for us to share, though we were doubtful.
30 minutes later, out came this.
The head of every frau turned and starred as the world's largest pancake passed by, and landed in the middle of our two jaw-dropped faces.
As he put down the pipping hot 5" high pancake, still in the skillet, covered in a thick coat of powdered sugar, and enclosing a giant scoop of quickly melting vanilla ice cream, we couldn't believe our luck. It was essentially an enormous popover filled with blueberries and ice cream.
To the shock and horror of everyfrau in the bierhaus, we ate it in it's entirety in 5 minutes flat.
We rolled ourselves back to our hotel room, and I passed out instantly and dreamed of world where nothing existing aside from brezen and pancakes.
Willkommen to Bavaria my friends!!!
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