Lunch in the English Gardens

Now, if I had gone over my travel plan before I left America, and looked at my month-long travel plan to find the absolute most inconvenient night to have difficulty sleeping, I would have quickly and easily decided on last night. After all, if I have only one full day in Munich, and can’t sleep the night beforehand, it should be obvious that it will be that much harder to enjoy the one day I have.

If you haven’t caught on by now, last night I had difficulty sleeping for the first time since Glascow. Not a little trouble sleeping, but a lot. Though I’ve managed to get to sleep by midnight regularly since I left America, for some reason last night I tossed and turned until 4. I blame Robin Hobbs and Jesus, myself.

So this morning I roused later than I would have liked (around 10) and still lacked a good deal of energy-restoring sleep. In the end, I’m afraid that I set my day’s ambitions rather low.

Both my guidebooks were crazy about Munich, and had many recommendations for activity, yet nothing that really stood out to me. Before I left, Gwyn had highly recommended the English Gardens, and a man I met on a train told me the beer-gardens of Munich ought not to be overlooked. So it was that when I arrived in the English Gardens, hungry and ready for lunch, when I saw the beer garden within the english garden, an obvious strategy formed in my head.

To begin with, what I saw of the English Gardens was quite nice. Don’t be fooled by the name, it’s really a large park more than a garden, and utterly filled with greenery. There wasn’t much here that couldn’t be found somewhere in America, but the atmosphere was quite serene.

It wasn’t raining, but the weather was overcast to the point that it seemed like the skies could open up at any moment, destroying any fantasy I had of the nude sunbathers the guidebook predicted would be there (for this reason, one of my books suggested it was Munich’s most popular tourist attraction).

The gardens features a rapidly moving stream that seemed startling deep and rough for a man made body of water. They were enough to make me pause and watch the water pass for a good time, before moving on. I suspect I must be distantly related to a vampire, because although I’ve never had trouble crossing running water, I have never been able to keep myself from stopping from a small time and admiring it.

To walk through the gardens, especially with the sound of running water in the background, was quite refreshing. So it was that I found myself in the beer gardens, and thankfully they did serve food.

My meal could not have been better than it was without the sun having come out. As it happened, they served one of my favorite meals – mozzarella and tomato salad with vinaigrette dressing. Mmmmmm. Too vegetarian for you? I’m afraid I have such tendencies – sue me.

Naturally though, a beer lover could hardly visit the beer gardens of Munich without having himself a beer. This led to perhaps the most defining moment in my Munich experience – a moment I doubt I’ll ever forget.

The place served two kinds of beer described by the beer server as ‘light beer’ and ‘strong beer’. The choice left no room for hesitation – clearly strong beer was the way to go.

Then I received the beer, and my jaw gained some slack.

My guidebook had mentioned that in some parts of Germany they are in the habit of selling beer in liter-sized cups. I’d expected that sort of thing to be the exception rather than the rule, served by only a few eccentric bars. So when the man slammed a mug of beer down in front of me almost as tall as my head and half as wide, I was a little bit shocked. I almost cried.

Oh, and it was good beer too, and strong as advertised. It didn’t rival some Belgian beers I’d had recently, but it certainly did the trick quite well. Having it served to me along with one of my favorite meals, the whole thing looked so good that I had to take a picture before consuming it.

In the end it took me about 15 minutes to eat my food and another hour on top of that to fully drink the monsterously sized beer.