My excitement for our next stop after Budapest, if you can imagine, was endless, as we were heading to someplace that I have once called home: Munich. On top of making it to Munich for the fourth time in my life, I was able to not only meet up with my German friends who I hadn’t seen in four years, but one of my very good friends from high school, Matt would also be there. Matt did the exchange with me in 2006 through our high school, where a group of German students came and lived with us in the fall and then we went and lived with them in Munich the following summer. Mr. Kenderes, our German teacher, did an exchange with an English teacher in Germany eons ago, and since then have just been exchanging groups of students. Unfortunately, we were unable to track down Mr. Kenderes while we were there… he’s always been a man of mystery. But honestly, after being away for seven weeks and some days, nothing sounded better than being someplace so familiar.
We arrived in Munich in the early evening after a long ride on a beautiful and very comfortable air-conditioned Austrian train. In the lobby of our hostel, I immediately ran into Matt, his friend from school, and Morgan, who took an earlier train than us. We checked in, changed our clothes and headed straight for Germering – the town I lived in way back when. Every July they have a festival called Volksfest (folk’s festival) right in the town. The best way I know how to describe it is a mini Oktoberfest with a huge tent under which you buy beer by the liter, eat pretzels and wurst and anything else good and German, along with many rides and food stands outside of the tent. We, fortunately, got to Munich just in time for the last night of Volksfest.
We were greeted at the S-Bahn station in Berlin by Matt’s exchange partner, Oliver, and walked into the tents, only to find everything exactly how we left it. All of our friends we spent time with at school were there, sitting at the same tables, drinking beer and singing and dancing to the live band on the stage in the front. I greeted my long lost friends with a smile probably as wide as the tent. We joined them for as long as the festival would allow us before it shut down. Interestingly, not only did we get to see and talk with our old German friends, but we also ran into the exchange students through Mr. Kenderes’ program that were here this summer; one of whom is Matt’s roommate’s little brother! Truly this was a fantastic night, but all good things must come to an end, so we headed back by S-Bahn into the city. I, knowing everything shut down earlier in Munich, headed back to the hostel, while everyone else went looking for someplace to continue their party. It’s such a stark contrast between Berlin and Munich – Berlin’s clubs and parties shutting down for breakfast, Munich’s for bed. Munich is known to be far more conservative than the North and therefore, the lifestyle’s are much different.
The next day, we slept in and decided to just walk around and talk and enjoy the city. Matt, and the other guy I graduated with, Matt McCarrier (who I will refer to as McCarrier), were traveling together and had already spent some time walking around the city, so I thought for something different we could head to the BMW headquarters right by the Olympic Park. What a good decision. We literally just barely made it into the tour of the factory five minutes before the tour started because some people didn’t show up and paid five Euros to walk around the ENTIRE assembly line. There we got see cars being painted, welded, stored, tested, etc. for two hours before they were ready to be sold. Here in Munich they put together the 3 series. I had actually never done this before, in all my times in Munich and was 100% impressed with everything that we got to see. We got done just in time to look around the Olympic Park and head back to the hostel to get ready for another evening in Germering.
This time, it was only Matt, McCarrier and I meeting our friends Hunor, Chris, Oli, Verena and some of Hunor’s Spanish friends to get some dinner. It was most definitely a good time, and as McCarrier said, it was interesting to talk to people our age from Germany about issues relevant to all of us in the world – to hear their point of view. I, of course, agree completely, but when we got done with dinner, in true German fashion, we had to get ice cream. So, we went to the same ice cream place that I went to when I lived here, right by the S-Bahn station and sat and talked some more. But that wasn’t really enough either, when we got done, so we just walked around Germering, talking some more; reminiscing about when we lived there and all the crazy stuff we did. Finally, I felt like I wasn’t traveling, that I was just being (if that makes sense). We headed back for yet another restful night, waking up late, having no agenda for the next day.
So, Matt, McCarrier and I, yet again just walked around, this time mostly with a mission to do some souvenier shopping for them and then to enjoy a beer and pretzel in the Englischer Garten. We successfully did both, and then yet again met our German friends at the beer hall across the street from our hostel for beer and dessert for Matt’s birthday! That night, I didn’t really go to bed because Brooke and I were leaving so early for airport to go to Malaga, Spain. But, I was kept company by everyone coming in and out of the lobby, which was also a great time.
A week later, I came back by myself to Munich to stay with Hunor in Germering. Upon my arrival at the train station, I was greeted by Hunor and Chris, my two dearest German friends. Surprised that both came, we ended up getting some sushi in the city then heading back to Germering for a “junior” game of English Scrabble. Admittedly, Chris was the master at English words that night… The next day, we didn’t really do much except shop and clean for a house party we told Chris he should have the week before. It was quite an event, and we really had a great time, starting with BBQ and dancing and ending with watching Sweeney Todd and only two casualties: Hunor’s (now broken) arm and Chris’ car keys… After cleaning up and searching for the (still) long lost keys, Hunor and I headed back to his house, where I took a nap, enjoyed a fantastic Hungarian meal, and then headed on our way to Seefest with Daniela and Megan (who also did the exchange from Butler and was visiting, too). Seefest is a one-day outdoor version of Volksfest by the lake in Germering, and was honestly kind of boring. So, Hunor and I came back early and settled in for the evening by watching The Last Samurai - naturally a classic. And now, I’m on the train to Berlin, to grab my suitcase and head to London to meet Michael.
After typing all of that, I feel like I regurgitated that without any charm, that I didn’t convey how exciting and fun it was to be in Munich and Germering. Understand, for four years, I have facebooked, emailed, chatted with these people, always talking about how someday we might see each other again. But, it happened. And, when you have someone on the other side of the world to chat with all the time, there are a lot of things you feel like you talk to them about because they are so removed from your life and the issues within it. I told Hunor that coming back and just being with them, helping to clean a house, or to play late night scrabble with, to confide in things in person, it made me feel like the friend to them that I am to my friends at home. I finally just got to be there, and to be a normal someone their age just in a different place on the planet. All of a sudden, everything felt twenty million times more real.
It was also quite the experience linguistically. Hunor, first of all, amazes me. His family is Hungarian, like speaks Hungarian at home, his friends are German and he speaks German with them, but then someone like me comes around, or his Spanish friends come and stay and he automatically switches to English or Spanish. Not to mention, he can also speak French. Literally, He can be on the phone with someone speaking German, telling me what’s going on in English and then hollering back to his family in Hungarian all at the same time. It was actually really funny because a couple of times, Hunor and his brothers would be talking in Hungarian and I would interject something into it, without thinking and without knowing Hungarian. It was really crazy, actually. I was also so relieved to be back in Germering the second time, because I had just come from Austria where the German is DEFINITELY different, and where I felt majorly discouraged because of it. But, when I got back into Germering, I felt so much better because all of a sudden I could understand the German again… and didn’t feel as if I had regressed. Not to mention, especially between Chris, Hunor and I, we did a very funny dance of German and English, or Germlish! For instance, there are words for me in German that now come out easier/faster than they would have had in English even if I had started my sentence in English. There is no doubt, that it was a fun learning experience for all of us that way.
Anyways, thus far, my time in Germering was probably the best I’ve had since I’ve been in Europe, because I felt at home. I felt like, sure I was visiting, but that I was just doing what I would be doing if I were home in Butler this summer: watching movies, going to house parties, playing scrabble, eating sushi, all that good stuff. And without Mr. Kenderes (and my mom, too), I would never have had these connections for the rest of my life. Sometimes, I think teachers don’t realize what kind of impact they can TRULY have on a student’s life. But ultimately, without him, this world would be much bigger. And ultimately, it’s clear now, that when I say I’ll be seeing you to my friends in Germany, that, because it’s happened once, it WILL happen again.
