Part 1- Kooky Guy
We set off for the Lisbon airport in a taxi after breakfast. We have found that frequently on our trip it is cheaper for the three of us to share a cab than to buy three metro tickets.
We weren’t sure which terminal our airline flew out of but our driver was sure it was terminal 1. He dropped us off and we quickly discovered he was incorrect. Twenty minutes and a sardine packed bus ride later we made it. We flew Trasavia airline because it was cheap. Like most budget European airlines they severely limit your baggage- we just paid a little and checked. We did all agree though that the entire experience from start to finish was much better than either Ryan Air or Easyjet. None of us had heard of Transavia but it turns out they are the budget carrier owned by KLM. (Royal Dutch) I have enjoyed my experiences on KLM in the past so it was fun to discover Transavia.
We sat on the tarmac for a really long time during which we started to observe the strange behavior of the man sitting in front of me. He smelled like an ash tray when he sat down and promptly rang the call button even though passengers were still loading. He tried to get them to serve him some alcohol before departure and said something about his anxiety during takeoff. The nice flight attendant calmly told him he would have to wait.
Once the plane finally was on its way he tried tried several times to get the flight attendants to give him a discount on alcohol and complained loudly about the freshness of his sandwich.
He then proceeded to talk to his friend across the aisle loudly in Portugese. I have my own anxiety about flying and love nothing more than escaping into my book. I couldn’t concentrate with his chatter and probably did too much loud sighing myself.
A little while later he laid his seat back- which is frustrating to me when the person is clearly not sleeping- and turned around to loudly ask me if my knees were ok. Those seats don’t even recline down by your knees… After he fully reclined he got angry with his armrest because it wouldn’t raise and started sitting on it instead of his seat. The carts kept passing so every time the attendants had to ask him to move- at one point he didn’t and he got a pretty good whack on the knee.
Finally it got quiet in front of me and I was completely absorbed in my book- it was a high tension scene I was enjoying- and then a crazy alarm started buzzing throughout the plane. The flight attendants quickly pulled the curtain up between the first row and the galley. The alarm was scilenced and we were all very curious about what was happening behind the curtain. It was at that moment I realized my buddy wasn’t in his seat! He returned after a few minutes and proceeded to act like he was going to pass out or be sick throughout the entire landing sequence. We pulled up to the terminal and though the captain hadn’t turned off the seatbelt sign everyone started getting up- including our hero who was making a beeline to be first. We sat for a little while and the flight attendants kept asking everyone to sit down. After about five minutes our attendants welcomed two German police officers on the plane and directed them to our guy. They had a few words and told him to stay on the plane while everyone left. I watched him pass off his laptop bag to his friend but we all agreed to not get involved and hurried off to baggage claim.
We had thought that he pushed that “help me” buzzer in the bathroom but after the police became involved we figured he was trying to smoke- or said/did something inappropriate behind the curtain….
Part 2- Bier!
After a relaxing train ride into the city center we headed out on foot to explore. I have been to Munich many times so I took the other two to my favorite places. We walked through Marienplatz to the Viktualienmarkt. Our timing was perfect and we got to see the Knights jousting in the historic glockenspiel. We found some space at a table with a German/Scottish couple and shared pretzels, obatza, sausages and drinks. It was the perfect first stop.
We spent the late afternoon wandering in the direction of the Chinese Tower in the English garden. We poked our heads into the hofbrauhaus along the way but didn’t stay.
The English garden is like Munich’s Central Park.There were literally thousands of people enjoying the cool grass and rivers. Huge groups of people were drinking beer, having picnics and laying in the sun. We stopped to watch the surfers on Munich’s two waves, and then laughed as huge groups of people jumped in the river (right next to the many “no swimming/surfing – you might die” signs. They would float down for a while climb out and then hike back up to do it again. It looked refreshing but we weren’t dressed for it and we also felt like we should have an experienced local with us.
We settled for more beer and some fantastic food next to the Chinese Tower serenaded by a full brass band. We slowly sauntered home enjoying the perfect evening.