First Weekend in Munich (and Living Arrangements)

I'll leave the "living arrangements" subject until the end because I'm sure most of you reading (save my mother) don't care about that.

The first weekend was a whirlwind of the nightlife and culture of Munich. On Friday, Matt, Dylan and I went down to the Freiheitsraum (Free-time room). Only two other people were in there, but that quickly changed. People from all over the Gasthaus showed up, most around our age. Megan also joined, coming from her home-stay.We were all meeting over drinks and music and I met people from Spain, Mexico, Turkey, Venezuela, Brazil, and the US. We stayed in there for something like 3 hours (until 1am). Supposedly that's a usual pregame? Then we went out to Neuraum (pronounced noi-rowm), a club that I went to with my college singing group. The place has over 4 rooms, each playing a different type of music - electronic, R&B, club/dance, and bar hits. We left at 4:30ish and were all scared that the S-Bahn would not be running at that time, but of course it was...because we are in Germany.

At the train stop we met a group of Germans. We said where we were from and one guy couldn't stop talking about Hollister, the clothing company. He was going on and on and I didn't quite understand his obsession over clothes. Supposedly they are expensive here. The conversation, for the most part, was in German. I was tired and still had a few drinks in me so I wasn't so hesitant to just speak their language. I don't think I've ever spoken German so well with a group of people. We all went back and slept for a longgggg time.

Saturday was not even a full day. I woke up (at 1), walked around the neighborhood, did my homework then went to bed. Recovery from the night before was rough.

Sunday was not a waste of a day and was more cultural. I woke up and tried to go to the grocery store, but I guess places are closed on Sundays. Instead I used my time out to check out the Hirschgarden. The Hirschgarten is all of 500 feet from where I am. It was 55 degrees out and the biergarten was open for the first time since winter came; people were also out sunbathing. Megan came over and we molled over what museum to visit that day.  We decided to go to the Pinakothek der Moderne (Modern Art Museum). It is situated in the Kunstareal, one of the many art districts in Munich. Federico, a Venezuelan who we met from Friday night, came with us. Here are a few pictures from our walk around the museum:

Men playing GIANT CHESS!

Public ping pong tables. BYOP: Bring Your Own Paddle

The Pinakothek der Moderne

The museum itself was really cool and it was only 1 euro to enter. Immediately when you entered, a huge sky-lit rotunda filled the space with the gorgeous weather (picture on right). I only wish we got there earlier because we had another floor and a half left when it closed. We did see an eye-opening exhibit that displayed personal computers from the dawn of the device to around 2000. In addition, there was an awesome exhibit on German car design. If you didn't know Bavaria is the headquarters of BMW (naturally) and Audi. Mercedes-Benz has a main factory in Munich as well. I left my camera in my bag at the coatcheck, so I didn't take pictures. It is sometimes nice to allow something not to be photographed.

The coolest piece I saw was a huge room filled with green fluorescent lights. You would walk into this room and after 10 seconds, the normal white-washed rooms outside it would seem pink. You would walk to the normal rooms and they would fade from pink back to white in a few seconds - more of an artistic experiment than an optical illusion. In the next room there was a piece of art on the ground and we really couldn't get out of the room without stepping on it. We were wondering if we could when we saw the guard on duty walking on it...so we did too.

After the museum, we walked to a cafe and hung out there for a few hours talking about music. Megan had her iPod and we were talking about our favorite bands, songs, and albums. It was cool seeing how globalized the world is because Federico was knew so much about American and western European music. He actually knew about just every type of music. Megan went back to her place and Federico and I headed back to the Gasthaus, where he gave me his hard drive to ninja some of his music.

I tried watching some of the superbowl, but only got through one quarter before I felt the need to pass out. The superbowl started at 12:30am in Germany. Well done Packers!

Living Arrangements:

The Gasthaus rooms are too big. I guess that's bigger than too small, but I don't have anything to fill the space. It is right next to the train tracks and I thought the noise would be a problem. Not only are German trains quiet on the inside (as stated in the last blog post), but they are all around quiet. I have never woken up to a train. The neighborhood is a bunch of apartment buildings. Each with a courtyard. Every other courtyard has a playground or some wort of play structure. Here is the view from my window:

I think I'll try to get some cheap posters to try and spiff up the place. It's a bit drab at the moment and I am here for 2 months. Here are pictures of the room itself:

Being Monday, it is the start of the first full week of classes. Today's class ended with us getting in fake fights to use the words obwohl (although) and weil (because) in sentences. As I get to know my classmates better, the class gets better and today's excercise ended up being a lot of fun. Tomorrow, I take a 2 hour tour of BMW Welt. I'm also thinking of going on one about the Weiße Rose, a student-organized movement in Munich against Hitler and the Nazis. I was in the courthouse today where they were tried by the Nazis.

Tschüß!