Bob and the Great Big Beers
A totally fictional account of life on the road with a totally fictional family!!!
The following story about Bob and his travels to Munich is purely fictional. It in no way has anything to do with the McKinney family travels through Germany. Any similarities would be purely coincidental.
Bob had one thing and one thing only on his mind as he sat on the crowded subway train. Beer. It had been on his mind for a while now. Having visited Prague the week before, he had experienced the “Original Pilsner” and the “Best tasting beers in the world”.
In Bob’s mind however, real beer wasn’t about fancy labels or taste. Real beer was about quantity and Munich beers had the reputation of being the “biggest”, which in Bob’s mind made them the best. For several weeks now Bob had been dreaming about sitting down to a meal of enormous pretzels and giant beers in one of Munich’s famous beer halls. Unfortunately for Bob however, his family had decided that this was a dream that must be shared.
The morning had been spent visiting the prison complex of Dachau. This was in Bob’s mind a decidedly sobering place, and the entire family left the site in a state of depressed shock at what they had seen and experienced. Sobering states and depressed shock however, seem to have a very short life span with children. It was just 2 train stops after they had left Dachau, that the kids Bobbin and Harrah were already questioning Bob as to where, when and what they were going to do for lunch. Bobbin had even begun a campaign of subversive lobbying that perhaps it would be best for all concern if they were to just “rest for the remainder of the afternoon and maybe play some internet games” just to pass the time of course.
Bob and Dobbie had been down this road before and Bob put his foot down. “No” Bob said, “We are going to a surprise location. I did a great deal of research on it and I know you will all find it very interesting. It is the secret location where Hitler used to hold the early meetings of the Nazi party”.
No doubt the kids and Dobbie were imagining a dark dungeon or something. Certainly they weren’t imagining the world famous Hofbrauhaus. One of the oldest and arguably, the most famous beer house in the world.
As they exited the subway in downtown Munich, Bob quickly consulted his handy tourist map and immediately set off on a brisk pace towards his liquid lunch. Half a block later however he noticed that he was alone. Puzzled he retraced his steps, only to find his family standing around looking at the central square. Specifically they were staring up at the old clock tower.
“Uh Oh” thought Bob as he looked anxiously down at his watch, “I know where this is going and I have to nip it in the bud right now.”
“Come on!” Bob shouted “We’ve only seen like a hundred thousand clock towers and old steeples in the last 3 weeks. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Let’s go to lunch”.
“But Bob”, Dobbie replied, “isn’t this the world famous Glockenspiel? Where the guys go round and round and do the dance and stuff. It should be going off in about 20 minutes. It would be a shame to miss it. The kids would be soooo disappointed. They have to watch the Glockenspiel”.
Frustrated at the thought of the Hofbrauhaus sliding through his fingers, Bob snaps back. “I know all about the Glockenspiel. It’s 3 minutes of old beat up bells, followed by some little guys that go around in a circle, a couple of old knights competing in the same joust that has gone on 8 times a day for the last 4 hundred years with the same guy winning. After that a bunch of little dudes in tights come out and do some kind of spinning barrel dance. Then you get another bit of clanking bells and to end it all the chicken at the top crows three times. We got better things to do than stand around here. Let’s GO!”
“There’s a chicken?” pipes up Harrah, “Oh mom we have to stay and see the chicken”.
Twenty minutes later as the chicken clucks its last cluck, Bob is still cursing himself at not cutting off his description just one sentence earlier.
“Ok. The chicken has clucked. Now can we finally go to lunch?” pleaded Bob nearly in tears; and to his tremendous relief they did.
Five minutes and a couple of blocks later they are looking up at the “hall of halls”, the “bastion of beers”, the “home of the 1.02 Litre mugs”, “the Hofbrauhaus”.
“Oh Bob!” exclaims Dobbie. “You decided to share your beer experience with the family. How sweet!”
At this point Bob is beginning to see a potential flaw in his decision to come here for lunch. “Only if you promise to behave and not embarrass me” he responds.
“Oh Never!” exclaims Dobbie pulling the big camera out of her backpack and racing for the door with a suddenly very worried Bob bringing up the rear.
As they enter the hall, it’s apparent that the lunch time crowd is starting to kick it up. The oompah band in the corner is really belting it out, and most of the tables are filling up. It’s not too smoky yet however and Bob manages to snag a table with two (not quite yet inebriated) locals. Getting everybody seated, Bob signals the server.
“I’m not ready to order yet. I need to see a menu to decide what kind of drink I want to order” explains Dobbie patiently to the frazzled server.
“But Dobbie, it’s a beer hall” Bob explains, “You drink beer here.”
“But I don’t like beer.” responds Dobbie. “I’ll have a coke light” she tells the waiter, “and the kids will have sprite and this non-alcoholic swamp water thingy. Oh! And we will have 3 wiener schnitzels too and oh, Bob what do you want?”
“I’ll have a beer” pops up Bob in a very subdued tone, “a big dark beer!”
“But Bob, you didn’t have any breakfast. Are you sure it’s a good idea to have beer on an empty stomach?” asks Dobbie.
“The beer will be just perfect” Bob says to the waiter who responds with a knowing wink of the eye and hustles off to rustle up the drink order.
By this time Bob is certain the other two table mates are stifling their laughter. The drinks arrive and Bob is not disappointed.
“Wow dad! 1.02 liters of beer in one glass. Can you drink that much?” asks Bobbin.
“And then some” comes Bob’s response.
For the one moment as Bob struggles to raise the glass and give it the sniff test, all is well in his little world. Then as he tilts the glass to take a sip of the brew his world explodes in a flash of white light.
“Oh Bob, you blinked!” accuses Dobbie, “take another first sip!”
By this time Bob is certain of two things:
- his two semi-drunken table mates do indeed speak English
- they are laughing at him.
He gives them his best “killer look” takes a big swig of his beer, and offers a polite observation.
“Dobbie, did you know that you are probably the only individual in this whole house that is over the age of 16 that is not drinking beer?” he asks.
FLASH! As another photo is taken and Bob feels like looking for a hole.
Ignoring his question, Dobbie poses an observation of her own.
“Bob these ladies are carrying 4 one litre glasses in each hand. Do you think I could take a picture of them?” she asks as she takes off camera in hand not waiting for an answer.
“Oh please don’t” begs Bob who settles down for another very large swig of brew.
By this point Bob is aware that things are swinging drastically out of control. As Dobbie swings around in the middle of the aisle looking for another photo opportunity, she clips the serving maid who with hands full of 8, one litre beer mugs has to perform a full 360 turn in order to avoid Dobbie from backing into her. As she pirouettes away, Dobbie receives an “please excuse me maam” and Bob gets the “icy glare”.
Bob takes another drink amid the flashes and Dobbie is off to photograph the band.
Five minutes into his 1.02 liter beer, Bob is sweating and is now down to only a couple of sips left. At this time, Dobbie has re-seated herself and the waiter has served the 3 wiener schnitzels. Bob gets the big double take as the waiter looks at the nearly empty 1.02 liter glass and asks Bob if he needs a refill.
“Yes” replies Bob with a one word answer.
“Daddy, do you really think you should? Won’t you get drunk?” whispers Harrah as the waiter hustles away.
Sometimes when things look like they are taking a turn for the worst, help can come from unexpected quarters.
Bobbin, somehow sensing the desperation of the moment, steps up and takes control of the situation, forever joining the fraternity of beer drinking men (at least in Bob’s eyes).
“Mom, I saw lots of statues of lions out in the square below the glockenspiel before we came in here. Why don’t you and Sierra go out with the camera after lunch for an hour and take some pictures. I’ll stay with dad while he finishes his beer and look after him. You can pick us up in an hour or so.”
And with that, Dobbie and Harrah depart the beerhouse leaving the “boys” to enjoy the last of Bob’s beer, which he consumed under a great deal less stress than he did the first one.
An hour later, the ladies did indeed return and Bob had just finished off his second 1.02 liter beer. As they walked back to their hotel, Bob observed that the day was not such a write off after all. He not only got his beers, he managed to make some new friends along the way.