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Munich Exposed – Part 2
- Retro-Pop aus Thailand: Chris Menist im Interview - 20. September 2011
- Thank you for rocking so hard! - 12. April 2011
- Brit Jazz Week – Soweto Kinch and the poetry of jazz - 21. März 2011
Der wöchentliche Blick auf München von außen – oder: a weekly rant of a non-Münchner Mädchen.
Hi again and welcome to your weekly 5-minute English cross(town)-examination!
I promised last week that I’d take pictures of people staring at me, but I have to admit that I completely abandoned my bike to the disturbing frost and snow. I’d so love to talk about the weather this time, (because seriously, there’s so much to discuss) but I already had my mind set (before the terrible blizzard last weekend) on something else: on (drum roll, trumpets, curtain) … crowding.
Now you must know that I wasn’t very used to crowding in the places I went in order to have some temperate fun, such as bars. Since I’ve been in Munich, getting a bit of quality time on weekends in a bar has been nearly impossible. Yes, I’m quite picky and I gladly go for the hipster places. Ok, I settle for moderately cool places as well, but what I miss is the fresh and lo-fi, cheap but hip, familiar yet somewhat stiff kind of place. Thanks to the god of nice little things, there are plenty such places here. Problem is, they’re all overcrowded.
So what I think is that there is an invisible phenomenon of natural, magnetic crowding in this city. For the number of inhabitants it has, the city is quite spacious. Really spacious, actually, but people still crowd. This is not a tourist-like crowding, the “ooohh let me get closer to this and that†type, but more of an undisclosed form of local bonding. There are so many places to pick from (there are so many homes to gather in!) and yet everybody tends to pick exactly those 10 places I want to go to on a Thursday/Friday/Saturday night.
I’m sure you like names so I’m going to give you some. Of the places I(’d ) looove to go to on a Friday night my favorite is Favorit, because of the skate-park-like furniture and the reaaallly nice music, followed by Kilombo for the awesome mirror and jukebox and reaaallly nice-looking people, then maybe the lo-fi, intimate, lovely Südstadt, the minuscule Rakete, where you get the funny looks from everyone, the cozy Joseph, the popular Nage&Sauge, the remote and occult Cafe Kult and maybe the Glockenbachwerkstatt for a quick (dancing) stop. And if forced, I’d give the Holy Home a try as well, but you’d have to drag me in. My attempt of checking out these places always fails after entering the first two or three (and immediately exiting), so I’m compelled to drop in on Sundays. And surprise, I’m not the only one.
What happens in the end is that I give up the idea of sitting in a bar and decide on – guess what – walking for a couple of hours. Yes, I like walking on weekend nights in the places you’d normally want to spend time on a Sunday afternoon. Why? Because in case it’s (mildly) sunny, there are huge crowds of people in those places on a Sunday afternoon, or any afternoon, as a matter of fact, since half of the city seems to have nothing else to do during the day. Also, there’s nobody breathing down my neck (except for who I want to, of course.)
Even my notion of crowd surfing has completely changed since I saw the boards on the Eisbach. Ducks, geese and swans also crowd in Munich for no apparent reason – why, when they have so much water to enjoy? Maybe they’re imitating the people .. (maybe they’re born with it?)
I have this favorite place (small lake which resembles a marsh) on the right bank of the Isar (I won’t tell you where exactly) where there’s only one family of swans and maybe 3 or 4 couples of ducks. I wish there was a bar there. Bars in the parks would be a great great great thing. An amazing thing.
I somewhat appreciate the queues that form on the Isar when it’s sunny outside, because the people are at least moving. Normally, while at a bar or concert or even club, people go like “Ok, now that we’ve crowded, let’s just stand here for an indefinite amount of time.†And they do. Some don’t even talk, they just crowd up and stand. Some play on their Iphones, some play with their beer. Then they go out for a cig and quickly smoke it, just to go back in and crowd again. I really don’t understand it. It’s funny that at a concert you can almost tell who’s from Munich and who’s not by the amount of movement they display. Usually people who are not from Munich (or who are, but smoke good weed) occupy the first three rows.
And now, (drum roll again) the conclusion of these observations! I definitely think people should spend more weekend evenings at home, cooking and throwing dinner parties or watching movies or playing board games or doing psychedelics or whatever it is that they like doing, but avoid bars. In my opinion, that’s the real bonding, if you have the friends to do it with. Also, there should be more places like the Orangehouse, where I’ve never seen more than 50 people (which is a bad thing, considering all the amazing bands and solo acts who are booked there).
I’m done for this week as well and, as usual, if you don’t hate me by now, am waiting for your lovely comments here —–>
Tschüss!
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