Munich

I’ve heard and read people call Munich one of the most “liveable” cities in Germany.  And I agree.  It not only has a type of fairy tale charm in the old sections of the city, but the Bavarian pace and modern infrastructure make it a pleasure to navigate and explore. 

Munich’s public transport system of U-bahns (subways), S-bahns (commuter rails), trams, and buses put Toronto’s TTC to shame, and it’s not only fast and efficient, but cheap.  I purchased day tickets from the ticket machines.   For just over 5 Euros, I could hop on and off as often as I liked, all day long. 

Munich, like Amsterdam, is a cyclist’s heaven.  Every road has dedicated bike lanes, and pedestrians need to be aware of their surroundings to make sure that there aren’t cyclists bearing down on them.  All in all, however, if you pay attention, you won’t get gored by a bike. 

I have a saying these days when travelling.  “Turn around.”  In some of these great cities, if you don’t turn around and look behind you (i.e., staying so focused on where you’re going), you could miss a great piece of architecture, or something interesting happening.  There were several times in Munich that I was afforded a better view or sight, just by seeing the city from a different angle. 






So this was all good . . . but I did have a very disappointing experience with the Youth Hostel I was staying at.  Haus International seemed a bit more tame than the place I stayed for a night when I was there last year, since it was not even close to Hostel Row, right by the Hauptbahnhof (main train station).  Well, it seems like this place is a hotbed for organized tours of teenagers (and slightly older), and it also has a disco in the basement pumping out the beats all night long.  Oh, and it had tiled walls that reflected and amplified every sound so that a door slamming was like a shotgun and a drunk teenager was shouting every few minutes....

On another note, I’ve discovered that travelling solo offers many opportunities to meet other people if one is just a little more outgoing than they were at home.  However, it’s also easy to stay within one’s self and feel lonely on the road.  I consider myself lucky that my first few weeks here in Europe have afforded me the opportunities to meet people at workshops and festivals (in Weimar and Krakow) that I can actually meet up with later on down the road.  Additionally, my previous European and klezmer travels have also made me friends in far flung places.

Munich is more than a collection of individual sites for me.  It is the home of Andrea Pancur, a wonderful Yiddish singer that I met at KlezKamp this winter.  Her musical group, Federmentsh (which performs Yiddish songs from the 1950s to the present), was performing last night (July 21) at a café.  Andrea performed as a duo, with accordionist Franka Lampe, who I had also met at Yiddish Summer Weimar.  In other words, this trip to Munich offered me a chance to hang out with Franka and Andrea some more, interview Franka for my research, and see the reduced version of Federmentsh in action. 

Federmentsh brought up some interesting points.  Most of the arrangements of songs are Franka’s, with traditional klezmer tunes weaving in and out of the Yiddish song sections.  It’s an interesting juxtaposition of the instrumental dance genre with the rather new Yiddish songs.  Both Franka’s accordion talents, and Andrea’s vocal virtuosity were definitely on display last night.

So what else did I do in Munich?  I …

-  visited the Kaufingerstrasse and Marienplatz, seeing the pedestrian heart of old Munich. 

- Drank beer with Franka and Andrea

- Visited the Pinakothek die Moderne – the modern art museum, with an excellent exhibition of Neo Rauch (a German painter).

- Had lunch in the beer garden in the Viktualienmarkt – the farmer’s market of Munich.  Farmer’s market is a bit of an understatement.  It’s a farmer’s market in a town that loves their beer and Wurst.  I sat down and had my lunch with 4 strangers from Trier – 3 women who were there together and one man who was waiting, drinking and eating while his daughters were shopping.

- Interviewed Franka and went to see the concert.

I’m sure I could spend much more time in Munich, but it’ll have to wait for another trip.  I’ve recently arrived in Innsbruck, where I shall do some hiking, and meet up with Patricia, a new friend I met in Krakow at the festival there (through Krystof, a PhD student at the Jagjellonian University … pardon my spelling). 

One thing that my adventures in klezmer over the last 10 years is that klezmer is one big community.  From Sherry Mayrent in Hawaii, all the way to Chitoshi, a Japanese clarinetist who was in my ensemble in Weimar, there are new friends all around the world!