Danke... BITTE.

Wow. That's all I have to say about my last weekend in Munich. The fun started on Wednesday when Ali came to visit and didn't stop until around 3am on Sunday. I don't have any other way to organize this post except to break it down by each day... so here goes.

Wednesday- Ali came... we went out to a Mexican restaurant and then to a beer garden where we met these crazy old German men who played tricks on us the whole night. They told us the Seehaus was closed, the beer sucked, etc. Weird old German guys. But after a certain age I guess even the little things in life can be entertaining.

Thursday- dinner at this amazing Italian restaurant where I ran into my boss. When I say "ran into" I mean "he knew we were going to dinner there and wanted to see Ali." It was actually hilarious. Anyway, we had a good long dinner and then went to this bar with Peter and his friend Isabella. They had a bunch of German friends there so Ali and I hung out around the bar and met all sorts of interesting characters. There were the old, greasy Saudi Arabians who were dripping in oil money and looking for a pretty, young mistress to spoil. There were the young Germans, Christian and Erik, who were hammered (but very cute) and tried to convince us that they were secret spies and had to change identities. We got really confused so we just gave them nicknames - Blondie and Elvis. I was talking to Peter and some guy came up and started hitting on Ali in German... so I told him we were lesbians and to fuck off. Ali kissed me on the cheek to prove it.. but apparently we don't make very convincing lesbians (which in all honesty, I don't want to be a convincing lesbian, so that was fine with me.) We got home around 3 in the morning... all in all a good night.

Friday- public holiday, soccer game with Thomas, Marcus, and Nadine. When you think about wild things in Europe, two places come to mind: ridiculous European techno dance clubs and crazy soccer fans. I got to experience both this weekend. I figured I should join in the fun and get some sort of soccer t-shirt or something.... I stood in line at the gift shop for almost an hour before buying a scarf. Three people left the line, hands covering their mouths, because it was so crowded and hot that some people got sick. It was disgusting. Aside from the gift shop house of horrors, the game was amazing. It was the opening game of the season, so they had Paul Potts come and sing before it started...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

Watch it. It gives me chills every time. Unfortunately, some of the crazy German soccer fans wouldn't shut up while he was singing so they kept having to turn his microphone volume up to be heard above the drunken cheers of "BAYERN!" My favorite moments of the game were when Munich scored. The announcer would say (in German, obviously, but whatever):

Announcer: Scoring for Bayern München, number 20.. Lukasss
Crowd of 69,900 screaming soccer fans: PODOLSKI
Announcer: Lukassss
Crowd of 69,900 screaming soccer fans: PODOLSKI
Announcer: LLUUKASSS
Crowd of 69,900 screaming soccer fans: PODOOOLLLLSKI!!!
Announcer: Munich..?
Crowd of 69,900 screaming soccer fans: TWO
Announcer: Hamburg..?
Crowd of 69,900 screaming soccer fans: ZERO
Announcer: Thank you.
Crowd of 69,900 screaming soccer fans: YOU'RE WELCOME.

My absolute favorite part was the end... the announcer would say "danke" and the drunk, capacity crowd at the Allianz Arena would scream "BITTE." I think I laughed for a solid five minutes straight. It was hilarious. After the game we went to an Irish pub where they played amazing American music and more drunk soccer fans gave me free beer at the bar. Awesome. I didn't end up going to sleep until around 5am, but it was an amazing night.

Saturday- Dear Christ this post is long. Okay Saturday was good... met up with Marcus and Nadine and we went to the Kuntspark... which looks just like Las Vegas. It's club, after club, after club... it's insane. Unfortunately, I thought we were just going to a bar so I was NOT dressed for going clubbing. The night before, Marcus joked that apparently when you say the words "American intern" everybody thinks of Monica Lewinsky. So they were joking that I was Monica. Uhhh, not cool. So since we were just going to a bar (I thought), I wore a very conservative crew neck sweater and a headband. Very preppy, very good-girl, the complete opposite of Monica. Yeah and then we ended up going out to clubs. Whoops. I tried to make the best of it, and made it my mission to find guys on the dance floor who were either making drunken fools of themselves or were just really shy and I would go "help" them. I felt kind of like a third wheel to Marcus and Nadine, so this ended up working out pretty well. Once again, I met all sorts of characters. There were the drunk English guys who were there for a bachelor party and taking turns wearing this ridiculous grey wig. There were the cool German guys who didn't want to dance; they just sipped their drinks against the wall and looked for girls. Of course, there was the extremely overweight Saudi guy who thought he was god's gift to women- after I turned him down for a dance, he found some other girl and said, "Jealous?" Nope. Not one bit. I danced for a while with this Italian guy who got really pushy... but I guess he was just being Italian. Lastly, there was the dumbest guy I have ever met in my entire life. His pickup line was, "oh, you from America?! I was in New York one week before September 11th."

SERIOUSLY?? Oh man. That is the worst line I've ever heard, including the guy who asked me and Margo to go to Burger King with him. We were in the middle of the dance floor, having a good time and singing along to "Summer of 69" (which is apparently a really popular song here) and he is telling me about terrorist attacks. We left shortly thereafter and I went home to have a tipsy conversation with my sister before going to bed.

It was the perfect ending to my time here. I couldn't have planned a better weekend. So now, I'm sitting at work with no work to do and I can't believe that in 24 hours I'll be on a plane back to the US. I guess there's only one thing I can say....

Elizabeth: Danke
Germany: BITTE.


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