Pig Knuckles and Stinky Cheese

Nick, Ernie and I met up with Chris at the apartment we rented in Munich  So good to see him.  He had beer and pretzles awaiting and it was a little bit of heaven.  The apartment is quite large but not exactly the cleanest place on we've stayed.  The beds and bathroon are fine, but the carpet and couches could use some Woolite.  The bathroom is huge. Almost twice the size of the kitchen.  Must have been designed by a man.  The kitchen is sparsely equipped. Among the supplies are four non-matching glasses, three dinner plates, one pan big enough to fry an egg, and one entire two shelf cupboard containing nothing but an ashtray.  Rental prices were pretty high due to Oktoberfest.  Whenever we complain, we remind ourselves that the place is gigantic and in a great location.  We'll be fine, and we won't be hanging around much.

It was getting late so we decided to just eat and crash for the night.  Body clock is nutty.  We found a homey-looking restaurant that seemed authentically German.  (we by-passed Kentucky Fried).  Chris talked Nick into trying pig knuckles.  They both chowed down on the bony, crusty knuckle and prounced it good.  Ernie had the sausage plate with about six different kinds of sausage.  Yes, about as healthy as it sounds but also good.  I had a hearty bowl of a great potato soup and a side of some kind of marinated cheese that not only tasted was too strong, but was so smelly that Nick asked me to move it off of the table before he lost his pig knuckle.  Yeah, like his choice didn't gross me out.

Today we slept in then caught a train to Dachau Concentration Camp.  Not your every day tourist attraction, but something we all felt was important to see.  It is now a museum and memorial.  We spent a couple of hours with our listening guides learning about the details of the camp.  As I touched window sills and trees, I thought about the people who had touched those same spots and what they must have gone through.  There is one part of a memorial that says "Never Again" and I guess that is why we went. 

Talk about a 180 -- from there we went to Oktoberfest.  Beer "tents" were overflowing with happy people.  The tables in every tent we looked in were full to capacity with people standing in any extra floor space.  The servers carrying multiple mugs of beer were merciless in pushing their way throught the crowds.  I don't see how they could have done it otherwise.  When I had beer splashed on my glasses I decided that I had truly experienced Oktoberfest.  For a short time we watched people standing on tables, or not, and singing along with the band to songs that sounded like fun though we had not idea what they were saying.  We found out later that people get to the tents, or halls, around 10 am to mark out their spot.  It was a fun experience and if I was 40 years younger . . .   People were just happy, not problematically rowdy and most were dressed in dirdls and lederhosen -- for real.  It's only Tuesday night and I can only imaging how insane it will be on the weekend. 

Tomorrow?  Still deciding.