München & Freising

This past weekend I took my second trip to southern Germany and visited my dear Ian.  This trip was my first trip to Bayern, the most stereotypically German state in Deutschland.  Typically when people think of Germany, they think of beer halls, lederhosen, castles, and mountains, and all of these things can be found in Bavaria.  I got to Munich by way of Mitfahrgelegenheit (see Greenservations 4 for more about that experience). 

I arrived to Munich rather late on  the night of Friday May 4th, and then took a short train ride to Freising where Ian lives.  Friday night we went to the Hofbrauhaus Freising which has been around since 1160, no big deal.  We spilt a smorgasbord of Deutsch delicacies and drank some tasty Weißbier.  We spent the evening catching up on each others lives and feasting away.

Nomz.

Deeelicious!

München Fruühlingsfest!

Saturday we took the train into Munich and spent the day wandering around the beautiful and lively city.  We saw awesome  live street music and even stumbled across an “Irish-Bayerish Festival” where we saw some sweet dancing and drank some Guinness.  Saturday night I donned my Dirndl and Ian put on his Lederhosen and we headed to the München Frühlingsfest.  It was an awesome time!  Very similar to the Stuttgart Frühlingsfest, except this time our seats were very close to the back.  We met up with some of Ian’s other co-op friends from Texas Instruments.  They’re a cool international mix of people from places like Russia, Mexico, Brazil, and Italy.  I’m pretty jealous of my friends co-oping at big companies that have dozens of other interns.  I think Wupperverband has maybe four or five other interns, but I have yet to meet them. 

Wandering around Munich

Sunday we got a bit of a late start, but we still wanted to try and go to the Dachau memorial of the first concentration camp.  We ended up being too late to see the memorial since it was a Sunday, so we just hung around Munich again.  Ian and I decided to see ‘The Avengers’, so we found a movie theater that plays movies in their original language.  We tried to do a ‘self check-out’ to buy our tickets and ended up accidentally buying tickets to a German version.  We didn’t realize it until we walked into the theater and saw Samuel L. Jackson talking with a dubbed German voice.  Luckily we were able to exchange our tickets and see a later show in English!

I didn’t leave Munich on Sunday because coincidentally there was a huge, international water and environmental services conference there!  The timing of my trip worked out perfectly because Inka had two extra tickets to the conference for Monday and Tuesday.  I was able to stay with Ian for two more nights and attend the HUGEST international conference I have ever been to.  The conference is called the IFAT Entsorga (http://www.ifat.de/en) and was hosted at the Munich international conference center or ‘Messa’.  The Messa used to be the Munich airport, so the thing is HUGE.  I’ve been to international conferences before, but nothing like this.  Every single exhibitor had an extremely lavish display with delicious snackies and BEER.  I mean, I know we were in Bavaria, but I couldn’t believe that nearly every exhibitor had delicious beer on tap starting around 11.  I was able to try Weißwurst, a Bavarian specialty, and more Weißbier at no cost to me!  

Me at the conference, at a mini Biergarten

After the conference, I headed back to Freising and Ian took me to dinner at the Weihenstephan, the oldest brewery in the world (http://www.weihenstephaner.de/index2.html?lang=eng).  It’s been continuously functioning since 1040.  TEN-FORTY.  It’s almost a millennium old.  Unbelievable, and of course the food and beer were deeelicious. 

Tuesday I spent the day at the conference and listened to some speakers about waste water treatment technologies.  Then I spent the afternoon wandering around throughout the vendors, scoopin’ up freebies and checking out the outlandish displays.  Then I had to head to the Munich Hbf to catch my train back to Wuppertal.  This weekend was fun and relaxing.  I had an awesome time in Munich and Freising checking out the Bavarian scene and enjoying the company of an amazing person.