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Munich Exposed – Part 4
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- 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 there! Herr Frühling ist finally here, to my sheer amazement, because the whole of last week it looked like he was trying to cross the mountains but some Heidi wouldn’t let him leave. If there is anything that’s really opposite everything that is Bayerisches in Bayern, that is good weather. Good weather is always late, incredibly unreliable and quite bipolar, because it often decides to turn from manic to depressive when you least expect it, like those Schuhplattler dancers. And right after I sigh and start on my mental list of ‘things I can do while it’s windy and/or raining’, the weather suddenly becomes lovely again, serenely laughing in my face like a fat Münchner Kindl.
I’m sure this has something to do with the local energy flow and it’s directly connected to the general Weltschmerz and closeted feelings that most of the citizens are unable to share with one another. So all the unexpressed bad juju, along with the secret love, admiration and good vibes swirl up to the clouds, clash and provoke the statistically scary ‘rain-once-every-three-days’ phenomenon.
It might sound esoteric but it feels awkwardly real to me, this emotional impairment that almost everyone seems to have, appears to be aware of and yet goes on living with it (because what else is there to do). I often imagine the Germans as the Japanese of Europe, having the same great deal of trouble with intuitive communication skills.
This brings us to something that happened to some friends and me last summer on the bank of the Isar, close to the Wittelsbacher Bridge. It was a lukewarm August night, perfect for having a couple of beers while staring at the stars, smelling the grills, feeding the ducks and listening to the rapids. We were five, three girls and two guys, and it was maybe around midnight. As we’re chatting away on our blanket, a thirty-something, musky, blond, longhaired fellow, towel around his waist, comes up to us and asks us for a light. We comply but immediately resume our lols. He asks us if he can sit with us. We agree and again try to continue the conversation. He sits down beside us; says nothing for a while. We have our backs to him and can only peripherally observe a faint up-and-down movement of his hand. “I think I’ll go for a swimâ€, he says out of the blue, drops his towel and heads, white-assed, into the freezing Isar. At this point we’re giggling but not really minding him, while I point out the widespread practice of nudism in Bayern. But oh, he comes back, barely having entered the water, his penis halfway up, and he sits down exactly in front of us, the girls, legs spread wide. At this point we’re all like what the hell and start making faces; he then asks, “Do you mind me being naked?†Just try having a conversation with a big German penis pointed at you – trust me, it’s impossible. We try to act natural but there’s just too much natural in the situation, so we quickly start gathering our stuff, make some excuses and dash to our escape. The guys stay behind while we hear him telling them he’s deeply sorry he scared us away.
Of course we had a good laugh about it and tried to make sense out of the incident, evidently to no result. And to this day it still doesn’t make sense to me why would a Bavarian sober-looking naked hunk find pleasure in exposing himself to an innocent group of beer-drinking friends. Did this ever happen to you? I need to know.
Nudism is something I can totally understand but not relate to. I find it amazing how people with fragile communication skills exhibit such confidence when it comes to exposing their privates. But I guess there is a sense in everything, even in the mind of nude wrinkly Omas walking around in the English Garden among flabbergasted tourists. I still have a lot of things to learn about the concept of shame, and especially about the omnipresent shame most young people seem to have inherited from past generations, which surprises me even more than public displays of invisible underwear.
Besides nudism, some other riverside activities that I’ve observed and find interesting are rafting, grilling and (last and least) jogging. Rafting is another good excuse for getting pissed and engage in group contemplation while the landscape behaves like a screensaver and loud brass instruments scare all living things away – and what can I say, I’d totally try it out once. Grilling is something I appreciate as well; the notion of the river being so permissive and so social always feels comforting. This is the only place I’ve ever seen so much grilling equipment on sale in supermarkets. Oh and Mallorca of course. Good for you.
Now the jogging part of the triangle is something that I don’t enjoy and I’d especially hate doing after working hours. Or on Saturdays and Sundays. But it seems to me that Munich jogs day and night. Seriously, where do they find the energy to go running every evening after work? Maybe in the carbs of the beers they had through the day? Maybe the worries weigh too heavy on their backs I don’t think so?
It feels weird to see people running on the street like that and not being chased by cops or dogs or something. And oh, when they take the skiing sticks out for a stroll on the flat grounds of the city I’m just bewildered; I’m the kind of girl who believes that both heartbeats and oxygen are precious and should not be wasted so carelessly.
My absolute favorite outdoor activity would be to ride a horse through the English Garden like rich people do. They are the ones who truly make Bavarian soil feel needed. But until that day comes I’ll just try walking on one of those elastic ropes I see everywhere (where can I buy one from?) because they’re up and tight, not just uptight.
Alright, that’s it for this episode of “ways of having fun in Munich†– log on to read its last part next Thursday. See you around until then (or maybe once again on the riverbank one of these nights) and that being said, I leave you with a picture of my übersüsse cat which doesn’t relate to anything but it has an instant feel-good effect.
:*!
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