As the final week of the Princeton in Munich program dawned, I began to feel the last-minute press to see and do everything that I wanted in the city before I moved on to other (if not necessarily bigger and better) adventures. One of my biggest dreams was to rent bikes for an afternoon and take a ride around the enormous park in the middle of the city (the largest inner-city park in the world). However, the weather and other people's plans kept interfering with this and it *almost* didn't happen. Nevertheless, every day I managed to cross something off my list and generally have a great time, so the week was far from lost. However, there were an unusual number of disappointments and last-minute plan changes this week that managed to keep us on our toes, and not completely in a good way...
Monday I finally managed to visit the Paleontological Museum when it was open, after precept. The dinosaur skeletons were very interesting, but it was a rather small museum housed in one of the academic buildings of the university, so nothing terribly exciting or extensive. The prevalence in Germany of the Darwinistic worldview and old-earth philosophy was evident in every exhibit description, where they talked about the dinosaurs which ruled the earth "millions and millions of years ago". There was also plenty about the evolution of man and Archaeopteryx, the supposed link between birds and dinosaurs (though to be fair, that isn't what the top scientists are saying anymore). All in all, it was an interesting museum to visit, just to try and imagine what it would be like to meet the critters exhibited back when they were still covered in skin and muscle, but it didn't take too long to get through so I still had plenty of time for shopping and supper before our next activity of the evening.
On Monday night there was supposed to be a huge roller-skating event where the police closed off the streets for the evening and everyone skated around the city. It sounded like great fun and there were even rental skates available, so a big group of us met plenty early and headed down to the meeting point. Imagine our disappointment when we arrived only to find that the event had been cancelled for fear of rain, which didn't even end up falling. Reluctant to give up on all evening activities, we wandered to the nearest cinema, but we arrived too late for all of the movies that we wanted to see (movies in Germany generally begin at 8:15, and cinemas aren't usually as large as in America, only having a couple of theaters). We wandered around for a while looking for a good place to eat (and the grad students offered to treat us as a consolation prize), and finally we found a good ice-cream parlor. Most of the group hadn't eaten supper yet, since we had met at 6:30, so I was the only one who bought an ice cream (I'm ALWAYS hungry for ice cream ;]). I took advantage of not paying for my own food to try "spaghetti ice", figuring that even if it was gross at least I didn't pay for it ;) It was quite disappointing, and not because it wasn't tasty. It was simply vanilla ice cream squeezed through a garlic press into the shape of noodles, with cherry sauce and white chocolate shavings on the top. A fun treat, and quite delicious, but not special enough to pay twice as much as anything else on the menu... :P Afterwards the group settled on a likely-looking pizza place, but by this time it was already 10pm and my stomach had been acting up all day (which still didn't stop me from eating ice cream, but at least it didn't make it worse, thankfully), so I opted to find my way home alone. The grad students were a little concerned about me going back by myself, and I wasn't completely happy with the situation either, but I managed to find the correct tram and bus without too much trouble and got home without incident. (Besides, I had a cell phone with their numbers, and Germany isn't NEARLY as dangerous as St. Petersburg, where I was wont to wander often by myself at night. It wasn't really a problem.)
The next day the weather was beautiful again, and I was excited to go biking - but the grad students had other plans. They wanted to take us swimming at yet another local lake, and since no one wanted to skip that to go with me, I opted to join the group instead of doing my own thing (reasoning that I would have 8 weeks to do my own thing in Clausthal, so I should take advantage of the company while I had it). However, this was also destined for disaster, as a couple of stops out our train (a regional train, since the lake was a bit of a distance away and couldn't be reached by normal S-Bahn) was stopped by an "emergency on the tracks" (Professor Rankin told us that last time this happened, someone had committed suicide by jumping in front of a train, but we don't know if that was the reason this time or not) and though they were supposedly sending buses to continue our journey, we looked at the huge crowd of people milling around and thought about the time it would take to get to Tagensee by bus, and decided that we were better off picking another activity for the afternoon. The weather was just too nice to give up on the idea of swimming, so we decided to take Herr Foldeak (our eccentric professor)'s advice and swim in the Isar. Well, not exactly in the river, but in a "Freibad" (free swimming pool) next to it. I've never heard of a "Freibad" in America, so I don't know if we have them, but it's like an outdoor swimming pool. And not an outdoor swimming pool like you might find at a cheap motel or in your backyard, but more like a redirected river that feeds into an Olympic swimming pool. It looked like a normal swimming pool, except that the water was exceptionally green and the bottom was slimy (apparently Germans aren't as crazy about nuking their swimming water with chemicals to remove all of the algae and make the water clear). We thought the water was pretty cold, but that was only until we discovered the canal. This was actually a channel with cement walls and a rocky bottom, and whereas the water in the actual Isar at this point in the river was very shallow and slow-moving, the water in the canal flowed fast and strong, though it was still only about three feet deep. I for one quickly grew bored of the "normal" swimming pool and wanted to try my luck in the canal, and I convinced the others to come with me. We jumped in and realized what truly cold water felt like. It was pretty fun to float with the current, and you were quickly moved far downstream of where you jumped in, but the real challenge was to try and fight your way back against the current to your starting point. If you faced the current head-on, you would be pushed backwards. The only way to do it was to stand sideways or brace yourself with one foot behind the other and take short lunges forward (Dan compared it to fencing moves). After a ten-minute struggle I reached my goal triumphant and exhausted, laughing all the way. There was a bridge near the head of the canal and we had fun playing with that too, trying to monkey-bar upstream on the bridge supports and being quickly swept back downstream when we finally fell in. At one point I stealthily swam upstream and let the current carry me back, submerged, towards Dan; but he saw my plan and when I grabbed his legs underwater he dove down on top of me and we both surfaced, laughing. I wore goggles mostly because of my contacts, but it also made it more fun since I could swim underwater with my eyes open (and it made me effectively immune to splashing ;]). At one point a couple of us (former swimmers) were doing starting dives off of the blocks at one end of the pool, and Mareike asked if I would teach her how to dive. I've been taking swimming lessons for as long as I can remember (I think I started when I was about three) and I learned to dive probably before I could ride a bike, so thinking back that far to try and teach someone else was an exercise in creativity. I'm not sure how well I succeeded, but her last attempts looked like they hurt less than the first ones, so I think we made some progress ;) Finally we all emerged, rosy-cheeked and well-spent, back into the warm afternoon sunshine. Hannes had generously bought us all Kinderbeer (which isn't really beer but an alcohol-free malt drink that comes in a dark brown bottle), but it had gotten warm in the sun and we had to all run down to the canal and hold it under the water for some time to cool it off again. It had a very sweet caramel taste that was not at all disagreeable (and tasted much better than actual beer, if I may say so), and was all in all a splendid finale to a great day.
The Kinderbeer got us talking about German specialties, and Hannes mentioned another favorite of his - Maultasche. Literally translated it means "muzzle-bags" (or maybe feed bags, if you think of horses), and it is a Swabish specialty much like ravioli (but if you say that to a Swabian, they'll probably yell at you ;]). Hannes generously offered to buy some and cook them for us, and (thinking of our final grammar test the next day, no doubt), we all enthusiastically agreed. Hannes warned us about his mediocre cooking abilities, but I think the meal went off smashingly well. We each had as many maultasche as we wanted with a nice side of tossed salad (little more than lettuce and dressing, but for several reasons I hadn't had much salad in Munich, so it was delicious). We ate the maultasche with ketchup on Hannes' recommendation, but I could imagine that they would also be delicious with a nice cheese or alfredo sauce. Sarah had a bottle of wine and, since I'd never had any alcohol other than a glass of champagne and a sip of beer (even after having been in Germany for nearly a month), she let me have a little. It was better-tasting than beer, but the alcohol taste was still quite strong and is something that I'm not very used to yet, so it threw me off a little. I think it was white wine, for those who know/care about these things - it doesn't make much difference to me (yet). All of us were busy studying both during and after dinner, and we went to bed that night in eager anticipation of the test the next morning, if only because it meant the last grammar class of the program.
In the interest of posting this as soon as possible, I will end here and (hopefully, with a bit of luck) recount the rest of the week soon (although my short week is quickly filling up with activities, so realistically it may not be until next Monday or so). It's actually kind of nice, being this far behind, because I get to relive the memories over again and remember how much fun I had. Don't worry, there are still plenty of adventures about Munich to be told before we move on to my current locale, but we will get there eventually. Until then, happy living!!
