München

     On the train to Munich, I met a woman named Bari. She was Indian by birth but grew up in Germany and had lived there most of her life. I told her about the Eurotrip I was on and that this was my first time visiting Munich. I asked her what I should see during my stay, and she suggested that I tour the loop of streets that circle the city center. Then she offered to show me Munich herself and gave me her email address. When we got to Munich she helped me find my hostel on the map, I promised to email her, and we said goodbye.

     After a short walk I found my Munich hostel to be almost as cool as the Caledonian Backpackers Hostel in Edinburgh. It was a little too chic for my taste but had a decidedly more interesting name – Wombats City – I think because there are a lot of Aussie backpackers in Europe. The first floor had two common spaces, a lounge complete with modern-style chairs and palm trees; and a pub with plenty of seating and a pool table.

     After I checked in, I was about to go upstairs to my room when, peering into the lounge room, my eyes fell upon a familiar face. It was Gayle, from my program in Alicante. I went to say hi and found that she was Skyping her dad. So I sat down and began to write a preliminary version of what had just happened to me in Switzerland. When she got off the computer, I told her my story and about the rest of my travels. She said she was leaving the next morning for Alicante, then the US. We had hardly talked for ten minutes when she said she was going to bed, and I never saw her again.

     Then I Skyped my friend Ivan from back home. We caught up and I told him I was going to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers the next night. He was envious. After that I hung up the laptop, put my bags in my room, and left the hostel for a mid-nacht stroll.

Paul Bünjan?

     I went around only a fraction of the downtown loop that Bari had recommended, but it was enough to see some interesting things. The first was a kebob shop, which I investigated to the satisfaction of my belly. On this night in this part of town, there were surprisingly few people out. There seemed little to do but lots to see. There weren’t many stores but next I came across a Paul Bunyon-sized sculpture that seems to represent some historical figure from Munich or perhaps just a well-dressed imperial era German man.

     By far the most interesting site I stumbled upon was a shrine to Michael Jackson. Apparently Michael is very popular is Europe, and five months after his death, people in Munich were still enthusiastically celebrating his life. The shrine, which was set up over this statue’s dedication, was complete with uplifting quotes by Michael and (English) words of remembrance from his fans, as well as many pictures and candles. Simply fascinating. I stood by and contemplated the Michael shrine for several minutes, as I couldn’t stop ‘til I’d gotten enough. Once I’d had enough, I walked back to Wombat City and went to bed.

Legends Never Die – R.I.P. Jacko

     When I woke the next morning, I was surprised to find it was in fact not morning but 1:00 pm. Rather than make the most of my afternoon, I simply stopped out for a sandwich and coffee, then returned to the hostel and wrote the “Edinburgh” entry for this very blog, which would prove to be the last entry on Honoldblog before the 2013 revival. There was simply too much to do in each city, and I had to sleep each time I was in transit.

     I emailed Bari about meeting up on one of my nights in Munich then walked a few block to the train station, where I found out I wouldn’t be able to catch a train until 6 am the morning after the night I intended to leave. Thus I would have to forego a planned stop in Cannes, France, where I was going to stay with a couple my mom and I met in Florence – Sandy and… jeez I forget the guy’s name. We’ll call him Frenchy. (If you reread the guest entry my momma wrote, you’ll recall how a series of coincidences involving Italian art and food led us to become friends with Sandy and Frenchy.) Anyway Cannes, on France’s southern shore, would have been a nice stop on the way from Munich and Barcelona. (Sandy, if you're reading this, rain check.)

     I then returned to my hostel to meet a German chap named Johannes for the Red Hot Chili Peppers show that evening. I had found Johannes through a Facebook campaign fronted by my big sister, Katherine, which lead my twin sister, Liz, asking her German friend, Anna (who was an exchange student at Monmouth University) if she had any friends near Munich who like the Chili Peps. Originally I was gonna go from Freiburg with Shelby, but she had to cancel since she had final exams. Not to fear – thanks to modern technology, it wasn’t too hard to find Johannes. He turned out to be a cool guy, easy to talk to and very good at English like all college-educated Germans. Over a pre-show dinner of kurrywurst and glühwein, he explained the German juice economy and many points of Brazilian culture. When we finished our food and drinks, Johannes led us to the subway on the way to the concert.
      I had been awaiting this night for over three months by the time I was part of the massive queue extending through Munich’s Olympiapark, standing in line to see the show that night with my new pal, Johannes. (I regrettably have no pictures of the guy. I swear he's real though!)

     When we got inside the venue, there was music playing already, which turned out to be the mediocre opening band from Los Angeles called Fools Gold.  It was better than nothing, but these guys didn’t have half the talent, variety, or stage presence that the main event was about to display, even without John Frusciante on guitar. When they got off the stage, Johannes and I got a couple beers and found better seats to watch the Red Hots. We waited until the band walked out and the crowd erupted.

     They started the show with "Monarchy of Roses," the first song off their new album and a great way to open. The song changes texture, from disorderly and dark to steady and bright, giving the Peppers the perfect platform to launch things off with a ton of energy and enthusiasm. It pumped up the crowd.

     They went on to play an incredible set that included many songs I didn’t expect. Fourteen of the nineteen songs came from the album By The Way (2002) or earlier. To my delight, the album most represented by the set list was Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991), with six songs. They played only “Dani California” from Stadium Arcadium (2006) and four songs from their new album, I’m With You (2011).

     Of the highlights there was “If You Have to Ask”, one of the band’s funkiest jams and the first tune they played from Blood Sugar, which got me into a groove I couldn't shake no matter how hard I shook. Another was “Me and My Friends”, a hard rock throwback from the band's younger days. They also played their classic funk-punk cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” and of course all their most popular songs, like “Can’t Stop”, “Scar Tissue”, “Under the Bridge”, “Californication”, and “By the Way."  Some other key parts of the performance were Flea’s insane bass solos and the many funky jams they played to introduce songs.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – 12/05/11 – Olympiahalle, Munich

     To start the encore, a member of the opening band played a strange percussion instrument, a metal bowl played by rubbing and squeaking it. This solo then evolved into a jam, one Chili Pepper instrumentalist at a time: first Chad Smith on drums, then Josh Klinghoffer on guitar, then Flea, who walked across the stage on his hands to reach his bass. The man was forty-nine years old at the time. They then surprised the crowd by jumping into “Sir Psycho Sexy”, which is another one of the funkiest numbers off Blood Sugar, going straight into “They’re Red Hot," a short song originally by the great blues man Robert Johnson. They then played a ballad, “Soul to Squeeze,” and finished with the extended “Give it Away” jam.

     (The following paragraph reads like an RHCP fan forum, so unless you're into that kinda thing, I won’t be offended if you skim over.) The question on everybody’s mind: How does the new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer compare to his predecessor, the long-trusted John Frusciante? First of all, Klinghoffer did a great job and the show wouldn’t have been the same without him.  His style is different from Frusciante’s, much more vigorous, approaching the guitar as a sort of sophisticated noise machine, using different distortion effects, and slamming a lot of notes.  On the other hand, John plays the guitar like it’s an extension of his soul, taking care of every note as if it were is child. This effect was especially missed on numbers such as “Under the Bridge” and “Californication” where the guitar part is written as a song from John’s heart. This is not to say Josh can’t play those parts well and with precision, it’s just that the way he delivers the music is different, less soulful and bluesy. I actually wish that they had played more songs from I’m With You because Klinghoffer helped write them and his style presented itself best on those performances. Also the sound guy should have given him more volume, since his guitar was slightly drowned out by the bass and drums. So of course I would rather have seen RHCP in their prime with John, but I'm definitely not gonna say no to them just because they have a new guitarist. Josh put on a good show.

     The concert ended with Chad Smith throwing his drumsticks into the audience and walking off the stage, at which point Johannes and I made a b-line to the exit and tried to beat the crowd to the subway. We made the second train to Munich’s central station where we said goodnight to each other. It was great getting to know the guy on such an incredible occasion, and we vowed to be in touch if either one of us is ever in the other’s corner of the world. (You better not have visited New York City without telling me, Johannes!) The night was a total success.

München Christkindlmarkt

     I slept until 1 pm again the next day, but I didn’t waste my afternoon in the Wombats City Hostel this time. Instead I decided to take a walk around the city and wind up at the Christkindlmarkt in Munich’s central Marienplatz, the city’s biggest plaza. This Christmas market was exceptionally bigger than the one in Freiburg and included a life size nativity scene. The rest was your typical, yet awesome, Christkindlmarkt offerings, like bratwurst, schnitzel with noodle, crystal ornaments, and any number of heart warming artisan items. I pretty much just walked around for a while and soaked in the Christkindlmarkt atmosphere. I was to meet Bari here at 5 pm, next to the wishing well.

Bright Church

     At 4:55, I stood by the well waiting for Bari. By 5:00, she hadn’t shown up. Five minutes later, the impatient Millennial devil on my right shoulder told me She’s not showing up and you should just continue your walk around the city. However, the patient, more old school angel on my left shoulder insisted that I wait just a little longer. She showed up at 5:10 and apologized for being late, but it was no problem of course.

     She showed me around Marienplatz and some other plazas around town, some German stores, and two churches. The first church was brightly lit with white walls and gold accents. The second was dimly lit, with no sunlight to shine through the stained glass, only a few low lights and the candles on the alter. And few people were there. Bari and I stood in the front entrance way for a few minutes, conversing in whispers, until she said it was time to continue through the city.

Odeonsplatz, Munich

     Next Stop: Odeonsplatz, a large plaza near the center of Munich that points toward a large structure of three arches, resembling a stage. Bari told me that during the third Reich, Hitler stood on that stage and addressed the people of Germany. In fact, Nazi Germany's annual memorial parade began in Odeonsplatz each of those years. Pretty Scary!

     We then went to a mall where we found a place called Vapiano, an Italian restaurant by the food if not by the atmosphere. It was a pretty big place with the same new-and-clean look as Wombat City, two stories, and a lot of tables. There, we got appetizers and then split a pizza, which was amazing. The crust was half-way a flatbread and the ingredients were super fresh. We both stuffed ourselves to the brim, so we sat there for a while before getting up and continuing on our adventure.

     Around 9:00 we got to our next and last stop, appropriately called the Café Good Night. It was your typical independent coffee shop, not too crowded at the late hour. We both ordered drinks and sat down. I’m pretty sure I got a caffeinated coffee, since my train was scheduled to leave at 6 am and I wouldn’t dare go to sleep and chance missing it. Bari and I sat there talking for an hour or so before she walked me back to my hostel.  We got a picture together, hugged, and said Auf Wiedersehen.

Bari and me!

     I went back inside my hostel facing the dilemma of how I was going to spend the next six hours boarding time at the train station. So I went up to my room where I struck up a conversation with several roommates from Portugal. Their group was sitting on the floor in a circle, drinking beers, and after ten minutes of talking with them, two agreed to go down to the hostel bar with me. We sat down at one table, but quickly became involved in the conversation of the adjacent table and moved to join them. I will quote my notes (written the next day) which describe them as “some crazy people: friends of Ryan McGrath, guy who saw the Chili Peppers and thanked me, weird French guy, Swedish guy.” I don’t remember what I did to earn the thanks of the guy who saw the Chili Peppers, but it was definitely a good conversation. Ryan McGrath was a friend of mine from my program in Alicante, and his friends were American exchange students as well, studying elsewhere in Germany. To picture how weird the French guy was, I can only embellish my memory with imagination.

     I remember the Swedish lad well though. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, wore a pink hat, and simply oozed Swedish stereotypes. He's the pink hat guy in this picture. After an hour at the bar, he and I

"Kinda weird but pretty fun."

agreed to go out on the town. It was almost 1:00 in the morning. He knew the town much better than I (as informative as Bari’s tour was, it didn’t include any clubs), so he took me to a strange bar lit with deep red lights that stood by itself in a quiet part of town. It wasn’t quiet inside the club though. There was house music vibrating the walls, and plenty of people though it wasn’t quite packed. To get inside, we had to walk through a porch, which had it’s own small bar and was space-heated transparent plastic curtains. After a quick run through of the club’s blood red interior, the porch is where we spent most of the night. Lucky for me, the default language here was English, and we mingled with a group of people as strange as the ones from the hostel bar. I won’t describe them with words but simply offer the picture of them. To quote my notes again, “It was kinda weird but pretty fun.”

     It must have been around 3:30 in the morning when Mr. Sweden and I left and went back to the hostel. The scene there was expectedly dead, and like so many momentary travel friends, we parted ways and wished one another good luck. I went upstairs to my room and quietly packed my backpack while travelers around me slept. I went down to the lobby and sat down for a while, then checked out and walked two blocks to the train station. My train arrived a little before 5:00, and I slept, awaiting a layover day in Strasbourg, the capital of France's Alsace region.