I went out in Munich tonight in search of a drink. It turned out to be a little harder than I thought. I had some image of these key German cities as immense clusters of cool little Bierkellers full of people willing to have a good knees-up and a pint, all of the above just aching to accept a stupid mute Englishman into their midst for an evening just for the sake of good drinking.
An hour of cold, windy wandering later, I found the best approximation I could. I’d been walking through the old city and was pretty much ready to give up when I saw a sign that said “Viktualler Markt”. “Oh ho ho,” I thought, “I know what that means!” I didn’t really, but I was hoping the etymology of “victuallers” had led to the same meaning in both Germany and England. I kept my enthusiasm in check knowing the chances were that whatever was there would be closed up for the night, like everything else was. A couple of minutes later, I came upon a gigantic undercover marketplace that looked astonishingly promising. I circumnavigated it, too scared to enter lest my dreams be shattered and suddenly an automatic door beckoned me in. “Ok, then,” I thought. I wandered inside.
The interior was like a food court, but a food court with some kind of middle-class aesthetic applied: like it was designed by people who shop at John Lewis. It combined food places with drinks places and little market stalls selling tat. Custom printed t-shirt shops were knocking up against Chinese and Thai food shops, Hungarian goulash stalls and also – importantly – huge beer rotundas with stools to sit on and beer being piped from giant barrels underground straight into massive glasses, all with my name on. Hurrah, the promised land! As I explored, I also noticed a stall with the greatest combination of food and drink I’ve ever seen: a “Currywurst and Champagne” stand surrounded by little stools and posh ladies wearing faux fur. I kid you not. What a find!
I decided to kick off at the beer rotunda, and barely found a place squeezed on the end of the bar near where the staff kept coming and going. I made a terrible hash out of asking for my first beer but I think I got across the important part which was “EIN HALB LITER BITTE”. It arrived and was delicious. So was the next. By the time I was half way through my third, the guy I was stood next to had started to talk to himself, and then me. I did what you do in these fraught occasions and smiled at him. Shit. That’s not what you do at all. You ignore them – at all costs! He started talking to me properly now and I just stared straight into his drink-addled gaze and nodded, smiling. Thank Christ, he left pretty pronto though he did mumble some things I’m sure were offensive. I finished my beer having avoided my “ICH BIN ENGLISCHE” act and with important wurst-based plans.
I made a beeline for the Champagne and Currywurst stand. I sort of hovered for a bit getting a feel for the place. This seemed to make people look at me out of the corner of their eyes, suspiciously. Thankfully by this time the beer had steeled my resolve and I dove in head first. Stepping to the counter I bellowed, a little louder than I had intended, ICH SPRECHE NICHTS DEUTCSCH! The girl smiled at me as though I was disabled and doing my best to order in spite of having only half a brain. “HABEN SIE CURRYWURST?” I asked. “UND CHAMPAGNE?” I pointed at a random bottle in front of me. She said “DRY, OK?” I nodded and and she poured a glass, fetched my currywurst and deposited both before me. Success, again!
The wurst came on a big, square white plate and resembled, and tasted like, a saveloy sausage but a good deal spicier. On the plate, the sausage was covered in a thick brown sauce made from molasses and other dubious substances apparently excreted by Satan’s curry chef. My God, this stuff is hot. I finished it up pretty swiftly and moved onto the champagne in an effort to cool my rebelling tastebuds. Then I realise the complete pointlessness of the exercise of buying expensive drink to go with this stuff. My palette by this time had taken refuge in another world, beaten to holy hell by the spices. The champagne could do nothing to combat this assault and just washed over my tongue, bubbly and gassy before gushing off to my tummy to inebriate me some more. It took most of the glass before the spice wore off. I beckoned CHAMPAGNE FRAU and pointed at another random bottle. Oooh, a glass of Rose, how nice!
At some point in the proceedings, a guy comes up with a blonde attached to his arm. “ZWEI CHAMPAGNE” he asks. I chuckle as the waitress waves her arms to the vast array of various possibilities, theatrically demonstrating the idiocy of his question. (It took me a while to realise she pretty much did the same to me.) He picks one, Lanson Black Label, and she pours a couple of glasses. “It’s OK, you can add a little bit more!” he jokes. It takes me fully five minutes to realise he said that in English: I’d even chuckled at it at the time. Definitely time to go home, I’m losing it.
I hop out of my seat and wander towards the exit past a closed stall selling some godawful oil paintings in sickly bright colours. One of the paintings appears to be a parody of Vettriano’s The Singing Butler done in the style of saucy 1950s postcards. It’s all I can do to stop myself from retching and hit the street back to the hotel.
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