M. Beisenherz: Sorry, I’m here privately
Eisbach, Negroni and Rolex-Strizzis: An ode to Munich
A surfer at the Eisbachwelle in the English Garden in Munich
© Imago Images
Hubsi, Helles and Hofgarten: Our columnist tried out life in white and blue for a weekend.
By Micky Beisenherz
“Naaaa! Tell Leopold to come down from the tower! And Maximilian won’t jump.” Motherly calls, the only ones you can hear Bavaria occurs to me. They’re all called Maximilian. Except for Leopold.
It’s mid-September, and at the Utting lido on Lake Ammersee, people are squeezing the last bit of summer out of their calendars. A little something is always possible. On the bank, a lady has set up an easel and wants to record the events around the wooden diving tower as a watercolor. She brushes and dabs with whatever the aquamarine color palette offers, while I drink a lager in the folding chair, read and immediately doze off in the late summer sun. Maybe Markus Söder, the largest heat pump in Europe, didn’t lie for once, and Bavaria is possibly the most beautiful federal state.
Back in the state capital, I enjoy streets and signs around the Glockenbachviertel that are so old fashioned that I expect to pass Master Eder’s carpentry shop at any moment. There is an old BMW 635 Csi in tourmaline green on Holzstrasse. In my memory, one of the FC Bayern players drove over to Schwabing in the mid-eighties to fool around with exactly this and conjured up a fresh shade of magenta on Hoeneß’s face. Oh, Bavaria and football! On the meadows in the English Garden, young men and women kick at goals they have made together. I would love to play along right away. Nobody has to know that I’m from Dortmund. Or, for refreshment, jump into the Eisbach, which runs through the park like a green-blue vein. On the Standing Wave, not far from the State Chancellery, surfers show Japanese tourists why you don’t necessarily have to go to the Alps to swing your hips.
Fit the stereotype? In Munich it doesn’t matter
“Schumann’s” is located at the other end of the Hofgarten. Here the boss, who is still sensationally good-looking at the age of 82 – something like the unofficial prime minister – is walking through his restaurant in a blood-red fine corduroy suit and insulting pretty much everyone who hasn’t disappeared behind the menu at three o’clock. The last time I saw the fear in the guests’ eyes was at “Jurassic Park” when the T-Rex snorted at the window of the Jeep. According to legend, Helmut Markwort was once chased away here in the same way as a Lamborghini driver who had dared to park his mint green penis prosthesis in front of the store without asking and sit down.
From Leopoldstrasse to Odeonsplatz: election posters. FDP, SPD, brazen Södereien and, of course, Aiwanger. Vandals painted Hitler’s beard and parting on his face. Outrageous. On the other hand: he suddenly looks 17 again.
Strolling along Lodenfrey, a three-year-old girl in a Moncler shirt comes towards me. While Hamburg still tries to achieve street credibility with a few fig leaf celebrities with baseball caps or St. Pauli hoodies, Munich simply doesn’t give a shit about completely conforming to the cliché.
Kostas serves one last Negroni and olives while Fidi and I look at the Rolex Strizzis on the film casino floor. This city is more Italian in summer than Milan can ever be. It may be that it helps if you’re rich and white, but in Bavaria it’s like the watercolor on the edge of Lake Ammer: It’s actually even more beautiful than in the pictures.
At some point I’ll move there and be the only one to vote for the SPD.