Munich brings to most people's mind the picture of happy jolly beer guzzling people. To a certain extent, that is true - you can see people drinking beer on streets, in parks, on the subway, or whatever place you can think of, in evenings or on weekends; it is even difficult to find beer bottles less than ½ liters. (I dared to inquire about smaller bottles somewhere, only to be told that its unmanly to drink off smaller ones!) I betcha that 9 out of 10 pictures you may have seen in ads of bartenders carrying big dozen glasses or so of beer are from some bar in Munich or somewhere else in Bavaria!

I decided to become a part of this Munich-o-rama for my only night in Munich. I went out partying, had one ½ L thing before leaving, two at the party, and two more at a bar post-party. I rarely drink, and this was, by some distance, both in terms of volume as well as volume per hour, the max I been. Even the native Muncheners were impressed, even encouraging me on, like "Frank the tank" chant for Will Farrelly's character in "Old School". Thankfully, the similarity didn't go farther than that - I definitely didn't go streaking from there. I was, however, barely in control of my limbs, and came the closest I had been to throwing up. I don't remember too much of that night - I will have to sync up with folks I was with that night to make sure I didn't do anything embarrassing! The lesson: one learns to be a Munchener over a lifetime; one can't become one overnight.

Its difficult to say what makes Munich stand out otherwise. It does have a more than a fair share of history, museums and buildings, and a very impressive nightlife (something I was too drunk to explore). A very interesting place is the collection of paintings of the most beautiful women of time as ordered by King Ludwig. A ingenious concept-- probably that was royalty's pretense for getting to hang out with the world's beauties. Lesser creatures like me have to work harder to get to do that.

Trust me, after seeing as much of art and buildings as I had seen by the time I got to Munich, technical whizzes (what are you doing at MIT mister/mam, if you are not? :) are bound to long for something more technical. Its sort of like being a fish which has been out of water for a while, and enjoying learning to live out of water, being returned fleetingly to the comfort of water.

The Deutsche science museum is arguably the best science museum in the world, and I would have been able to testify on the claim if the exhibits were labeled in English as well. For the car aficionados, there is the BMW museum.

The visit to these two museums was comforting. As a guy I met later in Cologne on his way back to California after traveling and spending a bit too much time with hot Eastern European blondes said: "If after having had or seen as much as I had recently, I am excited about returning to my girlfriend, I must have made the right choice in life".