Munich, Germany
18 Aug 2000
 

After three wonderful days with Markus and Uli, it was time to depart for Munich. I don’t know what you imagine when you think of Munich, but all I know is that “tropical paradise” was pretty low on the list of descriptions I considered.  And a tropical paradise is what we found. Our friends and relations in the South and the Northeast will be dismayed and amused at what heat wimps we’ve become. This week we encountered hot weather for the first time this summer, and we were nothing but big babies about it.  As I mentioned in my last dispatch, Europeans simply do not share our American fondness for icy-cold air-conditioning, so when we arrived—already sweating and whining from the heat in the taxi—to discover that our hotel had no air-conditioning at all, we spent over an hour doing some world-class outraged American complaining, slamming doors, and threatening to move over to the nice, civilized Marriott across town. Then we each took a nice cool shower, changed clothes, and calmed the hell down.

Munich is yet another gorgeous European city, and it’s getting hard not to be inured against picturesque architecture.  We hadn’t prepared at all for our three-day visit, so we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves. Our first afternoon was spent walking around in search of bottled water and postcards and ducking into cathedrals when we thought we might pass out from the heat. We strolled through the Hoffgarten, and its beauty was almost enough to make us forget the temperature. Almost. It was also in the Hoffgarten that I discovered the joy of Geshmichtes. Geschmichtes means “mixed” or “assorted” in German, and it was used to describe the ice cream I ate in the Hoffgarten cafe.  The ice cream was sublime (i.e. cold), and, as it turns out, geschmichtes  (guh-SHMIK-tis) is just about the most fun word to say over and over and over. It beats the hell out of friske fiske, believe it or not.

Wednesday evening we had a terrific dinner with our friend Berthold. Berthold and Rob used to work together on FrontPage before returning to Munich. I’d never met him before, but I thoroughly enjoyed our evening. First of all, Berthold was very concerned about the amount of pork products we’d consumed over the last few days and was careful to select a restaurant where we could have some salad and fish. Then he regaled us with the incredibly fascinating 1,000-year history of his family, dating back to the days when they lay in wait at roadsides to rob people and hit them on the head. I began to get depressed that I don’t have a 1,000-year family history too, but then I realized that I do….I just don’t know about it. Lastly, Berthold and I share a common affection for champagne, so we bonded in that way people do when they enjoy a lot of it. We spent only one evening with Berthold, but it will remain one of the trip’s highlights.

As I mentioned before, we didn’t prepare a lot for our visit to Munich, so we really did spend a lot of time just sort of walking around. This was tremendous fun for us, but it doesn’t, as they say, make very good copy. I did, however, have an exciting adventure in the Museum of Modern Art. We’d ducked in to—once again—escape the heat. It turned out to have several Andy Warhol paintings. I took the opportunity to look closely at one (Eggs) to see if I could see the brush strokes. As I was looking, I heard this sharp “PSSSSHHHHHT!” noise, which I couldn’t imagine being directed at me. It wasn’t until I felt Rob tug on my elbow that I realized that the “PSSSSSHHHT!” noise had come from a museum guard who was now shaking his finger at me. Unbeknownst to me, I had crossed over a black line on the ground in front of the paintings. So, what did I do? Why, I did what any red-blooded, over-heated American girl would do: first, I made a face at the poor guard who was just doing his job, then I lined my toes up as close as I could to the black line (until my beleaguered husband begged me to stop lest we be thrown out), then I started pulling Rob away from anything he seemed to get too close to: a display of children’s art, postcard racks, the café counter). Lots of spouses would have gotten impatient or even angry at my antics, but Rob, bless him, was a great sport throughout. I do love him so.

--Lisa

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