I wandered around, went to the Hofbräuhaus. Found a table to myself. A few Korean girls claimed another one nearby. I ordered, and a Japanese girl came up and asked if the rest of my table was free. 

I said sure, hoping for, you know, more young people. Turned out to be a family group of old Japanese people. But they were nice, actually. One of the men was in general conversation with me. He actually said that his area of work was in nuclear research, and when I mentioned that I used to live in Indonesia, he mentioned that he’d been there several times to advise them on a research reactor. 

I had to admit that a nuclear reactor in Indonesia is somewhat worrying. Anyway, he said that they had been staying in Innsbruck for a month and just travelling out from there. 

I ordered a Surhaxn. It was impressive. 

Oh, by the way, earlier in the day when I went out for my Weisswurst, some prick behind me went “Ni Hao! Keine Chinesen hier!” I ignored him. 

So after I’d had one of those large beers, plus the beer before that, I was walking a little tipsy. Honestly I haven’t been out drinking since… ooh, since Malaysia. So I excuse myself a short adjustment period. And then I wandered into the most awesome busking group I’ve ever seen. A violinist, a celloist, a double bassist, an accordionist, and a pianist. They were selling their album while also taking busking money. They took traditional classical pieces and then made them more… what’s the word, upbeat? It was lovely. They were named something-Balkon. I promised myself I’d look them up. 

I do, though, have a couple of videos. I’ll upload them later. 

After that I came back to the hostel, went to the bar, got a beer, chatted to the girls next to me. One was American from California, another was originally German but grew up in France and studied in America. Which explained why I couldn’t place her accent. Interesting, in any case. They went off to smoke, then I got into a conversation with the German guy from Nuremburg next to me, who comes to Munich a couple of days a week for work. He was a pretty good conversationalist. We were at least half an hour into conversation when he was like “Oh, you live in Switzerland? So we could have been speaking German this whole time?” But he said that the way things are these days it’s his default to speak English with random people, because most random people he meets these days don’t speak German. 

I also briefly met a Korean girl who’d been born in Germany but moved back to Korea when she was young. The time spent here made her want to learn more about it though, hence the interest and the travel, among other things. Then there was an Australian guy who came to Europe to see her sister get married and took the chance to do some travelling. 

Then, later, when I was on my way back to my room, I heard a group of people in another room, and someone saying “Man, so far none of the Asians have said a word to me. I tried talking to them and they just hole up and don’t want to talk at all!” So I walked in. 

I spent about an hour in there, with a group of Spaniards, one or two Mexicans, two American girls, one American guy and one Canadian. And I felt really old among them. The two American girls were so typically white-blonde-girl it was crazy. They were speaking American Spanish. You know when their grammar and vocab isn’t bad but it’s tinged with White-American-Girl accent? Yeah. It was impressive how much attention they gathered. 

The Canadian girl called herself a modern hippy, namely because she’d smoke things, liked electro music, had some bangles, and… I don’t know. 

The American guy was 18. Fucking 18. Though I was surprised to learn that at a young age he had lived in Norway for a while. But he was still… 18. His whole way of doing things was 18. 

In fact, all of them were so… so… young. Life hadn’t kicked any of them in the vulnerables yet. 

This morning I woke up and conversed with the really nice Austrian girl with a pretty smile, studying psychology. She said my German was great. It’s nice to get that support but all the same I didn’t want to tell her I didn’t understand *everything* she said, haha. But I got most of it. She wears summer dresses. That was highly endearing. 

And now I’m telling you guys. 

One of my friends said she’d message me when she finished work today. Other than that I don’t have particular plans. I figure I’ll wait until around lunchtime, head out and wander some more. I’m divided on tonight’s plans. I still have to follow a recommendation to check out the bars at Giselastrasse. I also wouldn’t mind meeting more people around here at the hostel, though I’d stab myself with a pen before hanging out with that younger crowd last night. The Spanish guys were alright, but I couldn’t stand the North Americans. 

I wanted to pop by Marienplatz, perhaps. Well, to the market nearby it, whose name I can’t recall. I think I’ll get lunch there.