Samstag, 8 Juli 2006:

Saturday was a rather leisurely day. I spent the morning and early afternoon attempting internet, then at 4pm met at the Institut for the Opera. We took the U-Bahn to Odeonsplatz, which is pretty much one stop north of Marienplatz, and got out into the gorgeous afternoon sunlight, surrounded by beautiful buildings. The richly carved, high structures were extremely old, and in the midst of them, at the end of a full street, was the Opera house. Immediately entering into the square, my smile sank. There was a huge screen erected with large speakers in the square, and people had placed picnic blankets on the roughly cobbled stones, preparing to watch the Opera outside. Like the concert in the park series the New York symphony puts on every summer, people came prepared with picnics and blankets—but this was in the middle of a cobble-stone square. Insanity!

We’d all come dressed up—it was the Opera! You dress up for the Opera!—and I was terribly annoyed—I’d worn a skirt!—that I was supposed to sit on the ground. They might have warned us, but instead the description had merely mentioned it’d be free Wagner. I might have Googled it or such, but intermittent internet leaves me less eager to Google things of questionable natures. So. Getting on with my story. We found a place and sat, and I spread my jacket along the ground in an attempt at comfort. (At least I’d brought a jacket! Okay, enough bitterness.) The Opera started after a brief introduction in German (I knew the story thanks to Medieval Lit class last semester) and I was surprised immediately to see the main stars were—well—middle-aged. Tristan and Isolde are supposed to be young romantic lovers, but Tristan had a beer belly and Isolde was definitely not capturing my imagination as a virginal maiden of Ireland, but oh well. Eighteen, forty-eight, no matter. It’s Opera, after all, and I expect those sorts of roles take a career’s worth of singing to garner, as opposed to Broadway, where they cast a person based on looks and/or appeal. (Ever wonder why Backstreet Boys have been cast in Rent?)

It was interesting, though, and staged on what appeared to be a modern cruise ship, with medieval costumes. Weird. Though nothing beats Dead Man Walking, the Opera, that we saw in Pittsburgh. Its really redeeming factor for me was the music. It was fantastic, and seeing German (the subtitles were in German, logically) sung and written in such poetically complex grammar was fascinating. For example in English, in a song like America the Beautiful, you know the line “O’er purple mountains majesty”? Well, in German, they do the same thing, as far as I can wager. It’s not quite like using a contraction to take the place of a word to shorten it for ease/speech, but more used because of syllabic or rhyming necessity. In the opera they kept shortening the German from “Ich sehe ihn”—(Isch Say-uh Eeen)—to “Ich seh’ ihn”—(Isch Say Eeen)—so it would flow better with the music. Pretty fun, for someone as nerdy as me. It kept me from wondering just how many layers of mascara Isolde had to be wearing for that spiders’ legs look she had goin’ on…

Needless to say, it was very blatantly obvious that it was time to go after the first act (of three). If my butt hadn’t told me, my cramped legs would have. (Note to self: if ever invited to a free opera, or theatre show, or concert, or anything involving a 5-hour commitment… inquire as to its precise location.) Mary and I made our way from the cramped crowd to the U-Bahn, which we took to meet Ian and a few people at the Olympiapark, the 1976 summer Olympics site now used for various things, including acting as host for a major World Cup (Weltmeister, or WM) “Fanfest.” The park is huge, first off. It takes up a huge section on the city map (add it with Englisher Garten, a few blocks southeast, and together that’s about Central Park, or near enough). Surrounded by highways and threaded throughout with strings of trees and loping sidewalks, it’s an incredible place. I’d seen and read about the famous park in my tourbook, and going there and getting to see the brilliantly designed waving glass of the park’s buildings’ roofs was fantastic. In the center of the park was the Olympiaturm, the television broadcasting tower erected for the Olympics that towers over the park and most of München. We walked through the Fanfest—a carnival-like atmosphere of Bier, pretzels, sausages, and port-o-potties where black-red-and-gold-wearing people surrounded us—and met Ian and a few of his friends, one of whom was from Lyon, France (I can’t pronounce her name well enough to spell it phonetically) and Noreen, I believe, from Ohio.

We took a stroll down to Tollwood, a sort of faire/flea market place of colorful crafts and vendors and food from every possible nation, with a few Biergartens thrown in for good German measure. I got a delicious döner kebab, a somewhat gyro-like sandwich (meat, lettuce, tomato, onions, sauce) that had been sprinkled with a spicy red peppery/paprika spice. (I managed the majority of it without complaining overly much! It had an almost pleasant zing to it. As Mary and Ian had some difficulty, I would have to say I miiiight be comparatively acclimating myself to spicy foods…perhaps. Let’s not try that theory out, though, Bryan, hehe.) Things were sehr teuer, generally (very expensive) but it was a faire, and they *were* capitalizing on the German Fußball fans being willing to spend 4€ for a rather cheap sandwich. Ah, well.

Zeb (we met him at the Stammtisch, and again Friday) came to join us and soon it was the four of us, Mary, Zeb, Ian, and me. Possibly for lack of anything better to do or out of sheer curiosity, I’m not sure which, we decided to check out the Olympiaturm, the tower, and see what they’d charge for going to the top. By the time we exited Tollwood and made our way slowly to the tower, it was quite dark, but the Fußball match was still going strongly, the German fans cheering intermittently. The road wound its way up a hill and beside a curving lake, where opposite where we stood the largest of the screens was erected, partially on top of the water. We passed a few thick stacks of fireworks, idly being watched by some Polizei (Policemen). Supposedly after the game—win or lose—they were to have fireworks. Seeing fireworks from the Olympiaturm suddenly made going there all the more interesting.

The elevator to the top of the tower was faster than any I’d ever been in. This one went a good 7 meters per second or something like that, zooming upward and sending my stomach somewhere below my knees. It deposited us on a round deck indoors, with a breathtaking view of the twinkling lights of München far below us. We took the stairs out into the open air of the platform and even higher, to the top-most level, and I was stunned. I hadn’t gone to the Eiffel Tower at night, but now I know something of what I would have seen. The lights of München prickled as far as I could see in every direction, but what was even more amusing was looking downward into Olympiapark to see the Fußball fans clustered around the three large screens set up by FIFA for the Germany-Portugal third place match. The black-red-and-gold was extremely vivid, even on fans as small as ants, and the crowd vibrated with the electricity of the finale. It was getting close to the end, and closer to the fireworks.

We took a spin around the deck and suddenly we heard it: the telltale end-of-the-game noise, but clearly the Germans had won. What a fantastic sound! It was the sound we might have heard in greater force had the Germans gone on to the final. We gathered near the lake’s side on the top of the tower to watch as the fireworks erupted—below us. Below! It was the first time I’d ever seen fireworks from above, and it was amazing… the angle was so strange, but we had—arguably—the best view in the house, of every bit of the show. The blazing, erupting light reflected on the mirror-like surface of the lake was nearly as rewarding as seeing it from the tower itself. My Fourth of July fireworks, four days late.

On the way down, we noticed a rather odd part of the tower’s main floor: a rock and roll museum. Europeans and their penchant for strange museums in strange places, I thought amusedly. We made our way over to see autographed clothing from Madonna and Britney Spears, original letters and postcards from the lead singer of Queen, from Shakira, the Beatles, and dozens and dozens of photos from obscure and famous musicians, some signed. Ian pumped some Euro coins in to the vinyl jutebox and we listened to some terrific songs (including Bohemian Rhapsody, along to which we all had to have our ritualistic Wayne’s World moment). Quite a random place to have an Elton John piano and pair of sunglasses and Madonna’s pillowcase, eh? I suppose every major city with a big Europe-world-tour sort of venue has a museum where they collect things like clothing, letters, and pillowcases from their visiting musicians, but to have it in the Olympiaturm? Strange!

Ah, München. I keep learning all sorts of things, every day… be it having to do with the German language or not…