It Was The Best of Times, It Was The Wurst of Times, Part V: Wednesday 9/26

To sober us up a little, late Wednesday morning a couple groups of us went to the Dachau concentration camp, which was the first Nazi concentration camp, in the Munich suburb of Dachau. I have been there before. It's right in the middle of the town, across the street from houses, which I think is kind of messed up. If you're ever in Munich, I would definitely suggest making the trip out to Dachau. It wasn't a "death camp," and they make a point to tell you that the "showers" were never used for mass homicide. Whether that means they were still used for smaller homicide is unclear. Regardless, tens of thousands of people died there, and the crematorium is pretty fucking haunting. At least this time (unlike the first time I went), some bastard, fat American woman from Georgia didn't light up a cigarette immediately after exiting the crematorium. Here are some pictures.
Before boarding the S-Bahn back to Munich, we hit up a döner kebab restaurant. Like that dude in Life is Beautiful always said, there's nothing like a döner kebab to cheer you up after visiting a concentration camp. I tried to order an adana kebab, but the jackass behind the counter couldn't differentiate between my American-accented "döner kebab" and "adana kebab," so I got a döner instead of an adana. I thought there was a rule that everyone is supposed to speak English. What evs. It was still pretty good.

Wednesday night turned out to be pivotal. We decided to go to the Augustiner Bierhalle, one of the big beer halls in Munich, obviously affiliated with the Augustiner brewery. Unfortunately the weather sucked, which meant that we couldn't sit in their awesome beer garden. But that actually turned out to be a good thing because we got seated in a back room with a few rowdy tables.

One such table was comprised of a about 8 middle-aged Norwegians who were not fucking around. They managed to get the whole room to join in their drinking cheer, which they seemed to bust out every three minutes or so. I have no idea what they were saying, but it started with a primal Viking howl ("ooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh") -- during which everyone in the room held their beers up -- followed by some Norwegian words that I assume meant, "By the power of Odin, now is the time when I will drink from my liter of beer. Cheers," during which Toto and the other Norwegians swayed back and forth, blatantly imitating the journey across the violent North and Norwegian Seas by native son Erik the Red after his exile from Norway (for murder), past the Shetlands and the Faroes to Iceland (from whence he was exiled -- for murder), and then eventually onto Grænland (which many of you know as Greenland, but you natives know it as Kalaallit Nunaat). A Germanic neopagan rite glorifying violent imagery and bacchanalia? Sure. An unabashed tribute to the sexual power and virility bestowed upon Norsemen by Freyr? Probably. A warning to everyone that, if necessary, these Norwegians can -- and will -- summon Mjølnir, the hammer of Thor, to destroy all in their path, ensuring an eternal seat in Valhalla? Painfully obvious. But one thing was clear: it was undoubtedly better than "so-cial!" (Sorry Hardesty.)



The leader of the Norwegians -- aptly named Toto -- took a liking to Ari (apparently thinking her name was Rosanna) and talked with us for a while, extolling the benefits of Scandinavian massage techniques and the perks of serving the whims of multiple anthropomorphic deities. Before leaving, he got Ari's phone number, explaining in pretty decent English that it's gonna take a lot to drag him away from her. Then he blessed the rains down in Africa.

Meanwhile, our first waiter, who looked like Dennis Franz, ended his shift, probably to go get hammered and bust some punk drug dealer. Then a waiter by the name of Rudy took over. Rudy was awesome. We bought him some beer, chatted him up, and eventually gave him an exorbitant amount of Euros for the food and drink we consumed.

Jessie ordered (read: Dennis Franz told Jessie she was getting) some pig knuckle that came with the skin on it. And some hair here and there protruding from the skin. Despite the hair, it was some good knuckle.

A nice group of people sitting at the table next to us joined us, and they turned out to be from Dayton. Jessie proceeded to explain to them how much she hated living in Dayton, and how much she likes Chicago better than Dayton. Nothing quite like your wife alienating complete strangers by telling them how much she hates their hometown. "Oh, and your wife's ugly. And I think your haircut's stupid. And I stabbed your dog." Luckily, Gregerson was sitting next to her and steered the conversation in another direction.

All the while, Alex and I were concocting a beer hall cheer of our own. We reached agreement on the following: a long howl ("ooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh") -- during which everyone in the room hold their beers up while I slither like the serpent I am -- held until I raise my arm and then bring it down to the table, at which point everyone yells "Cheers! Skol! Prost! Hey!"

It was flawless and eerily sexual, that is until the first attempt, during which I knocked Brendan's half-liter of dunkel out of his hand while I was bringing my arm around, spraying it all over the place and all over him. But what better to be drenched with than the urine of the gods.

Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of Brendan sucking the dunkel from his shirt.

Whenever Rudy came in the room, we would start up the "Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!" cheer. I can't remember the name of the movie that's from, but it was a hell of a cheer.

At the end of the night, we asked Rudy which tent we should attempt to go to the next day, and he suggested the Augustiner tent. Not because he worked at the Augustiner restaurant, but because he was going to be there, and it was generally a good tent. I finally understood where The Clash got their inspiration for "Rudy Can't Fail." God I miss him.

Unbeknownst to us, the rest of the crew was also at the Augustiner.

We managed to all meet up at a bar a few blocks from our hotel called Lotter Leben.Then some people went and drank in a mall. Dancing also may have taken place.