A Night Out in Munich

During spring break 1988, I went with other students and parents and my German teacher to four German-speaking countries: Austria, West Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. The following is part of a series of travel journal excerpts. Keep in mind: a teenager wrote this.

Marienpltz has been the city center of Munich since the Middle Ages. Here’s the Munich town hall, built by King Ludwig I. You’d need a magnifying glass, but up in the tower balconies were automatons that moved around at 11 am.

Tonight, we climbed to the second floor of a restaurant and had dinner. The servers wore traditional costume — lederhosen. As the meal was trailing to an end, we heard shrill whistles emitting from outside. Someone said, “Oh, it’s those crazy soldiers again, blowing their whistles.” We all (the tour group) protruded our heads out the window and watched those amusing (and intoxicated) men.

A woman teacher in charge of the other school group warned her students that the soldiers may seem amusing, but they’re a bunch of men who are drunk and therefore they could be dangerous. Do not wander around alone.

As we stepped outside after dinner, a couple of the “Aussies” came along and entered the restaurant we had just left. Soon Kelly and Stacy exited the building, laughing. Kelly said, “We were signing their shirts, and one of them tried to kiss me on the lips!”

[Yeah, we actually thought that was funny at the time. Or maybe I pretended to find that funny because Kelly and Stacey thought so — even though when I imagined the attempted kiss, I thought it was gross…