Sept. 7

St. Goar - Rhine Valley to Munich (Munchen)

Guten Morgen. We drove our way along the Rhine river, seeing the barges and boats on the waterways. The vineyards and castles ripple down the hills around the villages. With its brooding castles and storybook villages, it seems altogether appropriate that this area should be so closely associated with tales of dragons, magic rings and heroic figures, and -- perhaps the most famous of all -- Lorelei. The 433-foot-high Lorelei cliff near St. Goarshausen is the one feature we were anticipating to see this morning. According to the legend, Lorelei was a temptress whose sirens' song lured sailors to their deaths on the dangerous rocks beneath the cliffs.

After an hour later, I started to snooze on our way to Bavarian capital, Munich. I have to prepare myself for the big drinking bash tonight. Munich prides itself as the beer capital of the world. They have six breweries in a town of only 1.3 million people. In 1810, the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen was celebrated with horse racing in a huge meadow. Crowds of Bavarians cheered the couple and so delighted were the participants that they decided to celebrate the event year after year. Thus began the city’s famous Oktoberfest. During Oktoberfest, 7 million visitors drink 14 million litres of beer.

Later on, each one of us has to stand up in front of the bus to introduce who we are, tell us their likes and dislikes, hobbies, what we do professionally and share a little bit of sexual fantasy. There were 50 people in the tour group. 23 were from USA and 8 of those were from California. The rest consisted of 13 Aussies, 1 Kiwi, 2 Japs, 9 Canadians, and 2 Afrikanners. Our driver is a Kiwi and our tour manager is a Brit. They came from all walks of life.

We arrived in Munich mid-afternoon, and after checking in at Hotel Ibis in Dachauerstrasse, our sightseeing tour started in Marienplatz, the heart of Old Munich. This cobblestone plaza which is a 15 minute walk from our hotel is only open to pedestrian and it’s here that you’ll find Munich’s smartest boutiques, its most traditional restaurants, its oldest churches (Frauenkirche & Michaelskirche) along the Neuhauses Strasse and its outdoor market, the Viktualienmarkt. It is a huge open-air stage providing a venue for buskers of all nationalities and a colourful motley of street artists and performers of every kind. Marienplatz is dominated by the neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus. The Viktualienmarkt is Munich’s famous outdoor market, dating back from the early 1800. The stalls set up under umbrellas sell wurst, bread, cakes, honey, cheese, wine, fruits, vegetables, flowers, meat, pickles, etc.

At around 5PM, we stood by the Neues Rathaus. The tower is the famous Glockenspiel which has 43 bells that play a 15 minute carillon. As the bells peal out their tune, 32 figures first re-enact the festivities of the marriage of Duke Wilhelm V to Renate von Lothringer in 1568. Then they a Cooper’s dance (Schlafflertanz), which was first performed in 1517 because it was believed to be a way of averting the plague. Finally a rooster does a cock-a-doodle.

7:30 PM - Mathaser Beirstadt. This was something that most of us were waiting for. An experience at a typical Bavarian beerhall with local bier served on a stein. This massive beer hall seats 5000 people overall and rightly lives up to its claim as the world’s largest beer hall. It has music -- traditional Bavarian-style -- oompah band. A long table was reserved for more 40 of us up front near the bandstand. Waiters were serving us 1 liter of Lowenbrau beer each (more or less like a pitcher). After making sure where the toilet was, we ordered our first bier. Everybody knew each other by now. Some of the guys are now beginning to associate with the girls they like and vice-versa.

For the next four hours, we became louder and louder. We were dancing, laughing, and doing the prost (cheers). Last time I had this experience was way back in college. The highlight of the evening was when Jennifer and Angela from Sacramento had their 15 minutes of fame by ascending the bandstand and asking everybody in the beer hall to do the chicken dance with them. Around 11:30, and 4 litres of bier later, we started heading home (the place closes at 11:30). The hotel was a 15 minute walk. Suddenly, I was all by myself! I missed the hotel by two buildings. While they went inside, I somehow continued walking pass the hotel. Angela was laughing her hearts out. Some of us thought the night was still young so we went to the bar next door. The last thing I knew was Jose was accosting me and Alan back to our room with our arms around his shoulder.