How could such an evil political movement like the Nazis, have started amidst the wonderfully festive atmosphere that we experienced in Munich’s Hofbräuhaus?
If you don’t know: the Hofbräuhaus is a 500-year-old beer hall located in the Marienplatz (Town Square) in Munich, Germany. It’s also infamously known as the place where in February 1920, a failed artist named Adolf Hitler ignited one of history’s most brutal regimes. But during that year, the Hofbräuhaus must have been filled with a lot of angry drunks who were already pissed off about something. Hitler too, must have been an angry drunk, riling everyone up, and angrily shouting with his arms flailing all about. But since then, and for 400 years prior, IT’S BEEN THE FUNNEST PLACE EVER!
When Michèle and I were there, music oompahed and beer flowed endlessly. Whenever a server dropped a plate, cheers and applause filled the hall. Laughter could be heard everywhere, even from Germans. (Which was weird because I’ve always heard that Germans run to their basements when they feel the urge to laugh.) Well that’s good news for Germans visiting the Hofbräuhaus because it has a real basement feel.
Everyone was having fun. Just look at this couple:
They look so happy, right? But do you know who they are? Well, neither do we! They were sitting at the table next to us and insisted that we take their picture. We thought they wanted us to use their camera, but they didn’t even have one. They never even asked us to send it to them. But for some reason it was important to this couple that Michèle and I have a memory of their joy. Mission accomplished. They made it into our photo album and onto this travelogue.
How passionate are Germans about beer? They have their own lockers to store their personal krugs. Krug is the German word for beer glass.
- TIP: Don’t call a beer glass a ‘stein’ in Germany. That will make you seem stupid. (I called them steins, so I should know.) Stein means stone. If you ask for a stein of beer, you’re actually asking for a stone of beer, which makes no sense. So ask for a krug.
- SUPER TIP: Don’t mispronounce the word krug as krieg. Krieg means war. If you ask for a krieg, there’s no telling what will happen.
It was easy to order beer by the krug, but I could not decide on which meal to get. I was dying for wurst but also wanted schnitzel. I decided to just get both. Germans are very precise people, so when I ordered one more meal than there were people sitting at the table, it took our server a while to understand. Finally she realized that I was just an American SCHWEIN! (PIG!). I knew I wasn’t coming back, so I’d be stupid not to order two meals. Right? I’m so glad I did because it was the best wurst-schnitzel I ever had. I’m not sure what Michèle had, but in the video it looks exactly like something a French person would order in Germany.
Anyway, we got out of the Hofbräuhaus without aligning to any political parties.
This blog post was made possible by the german letter – ä, whatever the hell that is!
International Travel Humor 