München

June 18

I see we have ended up in the correct part of town. Fully half of the signs are in Farsi and there is a dirty DVD shop under the hotel, which might be the oldest building in the city; certainly it is the most beautiful in the newer part of town, clientele excluded. If the building is not the oldest, than the wiring is; turning on the light causes the electrical outlets to quit working, and using the outlets causes the lights to turn on. The people who are there for the hotel are actually not seedy at all, though; most of them are young people looking for a cheap and convenient place to stay, and it is certainly both. It is within easy walking distance of anything anyone would want with the center of the city. The museums are two blocks away, as is the train station, the light rail, tram as they call it here, stops right below our window, and the city center is not much farther. All in all, it is a great place to sleep at night, and its amenities and prices do not allow it to be more than that.

Munich is certainly different from the cities I have been visiting over the past month. Florence and Venice are both ancient cities with a wealth of history hidden just in the architecture alone, never mind the museums. Munich, however, must have been more devastated by the war than the other two; sure the historic city center is still there, as well as the Cathedral and palaces. Most of the city is new and very modern. The streets are wide, allowing several lanes of automobile traffic along with a special lane for bikes and wide sidewalks, like those in New York City or London. The transportation system is probably better than that in London, which until now I had thought the most advanced in the world. Many of the streets are paved with cobblestones, but the effect is not convincing. It is obvious to even the untrained eye that there are two Munichs, the old and the modern. The modern is the one we see, and the old is gone forever.

June 19

Popular German band Rammstein has a song whose chorus, and central theme is, “We’re all living in Amerika.” The English is their words, despite the fact that their usual lyrical tongue is German, is meant to illustrate the point that the English speaking culture is wiping out the other ways of life. This had always seemed to me to be a bit of a trite point; neither Italy, nor the United Kingdom, the two places outside of America I had spent the most time, seemed to be succumbing to American cultural imperialism. If Munich is an illustrative example, however, Germany may be. Never mind the rampant availability of a Big Mac and a Coca Cola; these brands sell well because people enjoy them. The proliferation of Starbucks seemed a bit out of place. Munich is not far from Vienna, the first European city to taste coffee. Until the seventeenth century, coffee and coffee houses were the secret of the Arabs; however, the Turks retreated from the second siege of Vienna in such a disorganized fashion, that they left their beverages and the machines for manufacturing it behind. It would stand to reason then, that a city so close to where the phenomenon of coffee began would have some great coffee houses, and they do. Starbucks, however, remains a strong brand, and is almost as prolific in Munich as it is in America.

Further evidence is seen in the advertising. More than once I saw advertising that was entirely in English; once on a Starbucks board and once in a Burger King commercial on television. Granted these are international corporations based in America; I did not see any specifically German companies advertising in English. However, why advertise in English at all? I also saw countless other small postings in English, as well as centers that specialized in teaching English, not merely a foreign language. Even the more diversified language teaching centers advertised their prowess at teaching English. It very much felt like medieval nobility; there was the vulgar vernacular in German, and the learned man’s language in English. If this is the case all over Germany, then the complaint about cultural imperialism may not be trite at all, but a rebellion against what could be seen as a very real problem.

The Alte Pinakothek deserves mention in any list of Europe’s great art museums. Certainly what it lacked in size, it made up for in quality. It was probably the size of the Houston Museum of Fine Art, but the works stood larger than life; one room dedicated to the Italian Renaissance including Botticelli, Fra and Fillipino Lippis, no less than three Raphael, and the crown jewel, da Vinci’s first commission. Another room was dedicated to the Venetian Renaissance with pieces by Tintoretto, Giorgione and Titian. The focus, however, was on the German and Flemish painters, who I knew less well, but acquired plenty of names to look up. The other half of the museum was dedicated to Baroque painting, with one of the larger rooms dedicated to Rubens; there was not one square inch of wall space not covered in canvass. And this was one of a few Pinakotheks!

The most noteworthy thing about the Munich museum system, however, is not how they managed to fit so many masterpieces in so small a space. The extremely reasonably priced admission included informed audio tours, and most surprising of all, photography was allowed. I was able to take a picture of a da Vinci without being yelled at or having to sneak; I understand that the flash damages the paintings, but I, unlike most, can control my flash. This is all in contrast to the Florentine museums, whose security has been noted. The overall feeling of the museums of Florence was that of nothing left to chance; the feeling one gets from a Pinakothek is that one is trusted.

June 20
The old Munich lives on in the city’s beer halls. I only had time to visit three of them, the Hofbauhaus, the Lowenbraukeller and the Augustiner-Keller, but all three had rich histories spanning hundreds of years. Like the pubs in the United Kingdom, these are the best places to experience local culture. I even saw patrons in the traditional costume, not just the waitstaff, and of course the beer and food was excellent. Unlike the pubs, each brew house only sold beer that was made in house, and the proximity to the house seemed to determine which beer is served in which bar. Certainly no bar in the city center, near the Hofbrauhaus, flew any flags other than that of the Hofbrau. It brought to mind visions of modern gangs claiming territory in the city. Or perhaps a more apt description would be that of medieval lords staking out their part of the city with their beers.

Apparently Munich has a lively immigrant population; as I mentioned earlier, my part of town is a strange juxtaposition of Farsi and shops of ill repute, but looking beyond that, there are Italians, Asians, all manner of peoples from the Middle East, and certainly plenty of immigrants from places not easily identifiable by sight. In the Karlsplatz and marching down the main road, were many Persians taking part in a protest against the reelection of Iran’s firebrand of a president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with signs showing his picture with an X over it and chanting in German. I am certain that there would have been many more, had it not been raining, but it is still nice to see people protesting in a foreign country and not be the embodiment of what they are protesting. It did make me wonder if the Ayatollah Khamenei has read The Prince; if he had, certainly he would not allow the reelection of a man so hated by his people that his people protest against him not only in his country, but the rest of them as well. It is not conducive to the maintaining of power to have one so hated installed in the highest office, unless the Ayatollah has something cunning planned for his secular counterpart.

A late addition: seeing the news, it seems that the Islamic Republic may be in grave jeopardy. Analysts are calling it the largest protest since the revolution. It is certainly something to stay tuned to, particularly as it has hit rather close to home. Kristina’s cousin was killed in one of the protests in Iran. Hopefully his death will not be in vain.

June 21

It seems to me that Venice ought to lose its distinction as the city of music. While I was there I heard neither instrument nor voices, not even a gondolier. Meanwhile in Munich, I could hardly go a block without hearing a cello, clarinet, violin, singing, or piano. Once I was walking in a neighborhood, and I heard the loveliest violin from inside the house, so I lingered outside, having my own private concert that was free in the bargain. The city center was full of musicians and the beer halls usually had traditional bands playing as well. The Opera House is apparently also designed in such a way as to allow people outside to hear the concert from within. My only suggestion would be to implement London’s system of paying artists to work in the subway stations, as that was the only place that could be expected to be devoid of music.
The rest of the subway system, however, is on par with the one in London. What impressed me the most was the boards that not only showed which platform went where, but also showed how long until the next train arrived. The boards on the platforms also displayed the major stops for the train as well as its termination. The ticket system required one’s ticket to be stamped, but there was not much accountability for it; London prevented one from entering the system without a ticket and the multiday passes were nice plastic cards that remotely scanned themselves. On the other hand, Munich had few busses and fewer need for busses; where underground trains did not go, aboveground trains were abundant. There is just something quaint about taking a streetcar to one’s destination that is not present in a bus.

When speeding through the Alps, it is required to listen to the music of the north. I have playing a few Finish bands that combine their native folk music, which is like Polka but I am assured that it is totally different, with death metal. One of the bands even sings in their native tongue, making them sound like a band of trolls playing their simple instruments around a fire in the mountains where they are tearing the meat off of the bone, and telling of their most evil deeds. Another one sings of the glory to be gained in honorable armed combat; this particular band wears skins, leather armor and war paint when they play. If all else fails, listening to Wagner while the mountains, streams and forests rush by makes one feel like one is riding a Valkyrie.

Now I am a Russian Czar on the royal train to visit the front during the Great War. I never realized how quick Shostakovich’s fifth symphony moved. It is truly a song that encapsulates an entire rugged country into an audio format. These orchestral pieces are as much a must for flying through the Alps as the Folk music.