Recorded by Eddy

Our first outing after arriving to Munich and checking into the hostel was to the infamous Hoffbrau House. It is a beer garden just around the corner from the Marienplatz Square. We sat at a bench just cleared by one of the beer maids. The house polka band was in full swing. The place was packed. I think it was around one o'clock in the afternoon. Brad and I ordered "zwei mass" and were greeted a few minutes later with two giant liters. We decided to hold a little informal "Monday morning" meeting about the next movie we are working on together.

The meeting was going well. Then, we were distracted by a family that sat down next to us. They were from a small town in the country and make a trip to Munich once a month or so to do some shopping and relax at the Hoffbrau. The son seemed about 22 and had real punk-like bleached hair. He ordered a salad and nibbled on his parents' dinners. They both ordered what I think was liverwurst (liebe... something). It seemed to be a kind of molded, (not moldy, but formed) jellied meat that came with very yellow mashed potatoes. All the potatoes in Germany were very yellow, ultra yellow, super yellow. I don't know what that is a function of, though it could be the "mit Antioxidationsmittel". The dad was drinking what would soon be my second liter and favorite style beer of the trip -- weissbier. It is a cloudy, wheat beer with a sweet taste (and that is sweet in the non-tart descriptive sense, not SWEET or "schwiete" as Brad and I used often on the trip to describe SWEET things).

We talked with them and ordered some more liters, weiss being mine. Then they left and a very nice family from Switzerland sat down. Mother, father, a boy about 8, and two younger daughters (one of them had a set of crutches that kept falling over on me and my stuff). The daughter sitting next to me (with the crutches) seemed very interested in our meeting that was still half-adjourned, while we weren't drinking or ogling over all the good food and giant pretzels around us.

The family had gotten some pretzels and weisswurst (white sausages), which always come in a bowl of water covered with a plate. They are boiled, I think, as their only preparation. The sausages are served with yellow mustard or an awesome honey mustard concoction. Brad and I ordered a pair of weisswursts and another sausage plate that had three or four different kinds of sausages prepared in a variety of ways. Both came with sauerkraut and were footnoted on the menu as having "antioxidationsmittel" included. We found out later that evening from a guy from Mexico that we met on the Mike's Bike Tour that "antioxidationsmittel" was just something they had to include for health reasons, like a surgeon general's warning. That didn't clear things up much, we were still unsure of exactly what it was. Looking on as we ate our weisswurst the Swede mother clued us in that they actually taste better if you peel the skin away. This little taste tip came in handy the rest of the trip.

Well, they soon left and we were ready to move on, having spent well enough time there, when our waiter surprised us. He drop-slid two more liters on the table. We sat back down, finished them up, and left only to return two more times that same night to the Hoffbrau. schwiete.