Or: My Trip to Munich through the eyes of Pemulis's brother, through the eyes of Pemulis, as he is imagined by the author (part 1)
As our sparklingly new 787 Dreamliner touches down on Warsaw soil I begin mentally preparing myself for the week that lies ahead. I will be sans children for the first time in at least 2000 days and every time I start breathing the European air I feel something that brings me back to my youth and not only energizes my body and soul but leaves me feeling ready to take on the world. I step on to the tarmac with the other tired and weary passengers but I feel disconnected from them; I've slept a luxurious 7 hours and my first deep breath electrifies my senses. I feel as I did in 2003 schwarzfahren the TGV from Venice to Rome, filling Pemulis's coke can with duty free Canadian Club. I'm envisioning beer halls, soccer hooligans, schnapps-fueled all-night parties on the Ludwigstraße, white sausage breakfasts beside an alpine hut with majestic mountain landscapes surrounding me. I'm thinking about girls in Dirndls holding 1L steins of beer as high as the ceiling; men dressed in Lederhosen carrying freshly-timbered logs from the Waldperlach; and gleaming shiny BMWs racing down the Autobahn at 200 km per.
After a brief sojourn in the Warsaw airport I'm finally bound directly for Munich. I relax into my Lufthansa city jet seat and sip a refreshing Bitburger as we calmly sail over Prague and whatever crap there might be between Łódź, Wrocław, and Walbrzych. When I finally step off the plane in Munich my energy levels still have yet to subside. I practically bound out of the airport luggage area eagerly awaiting my warm welcome from Pemulis and family. I particularly look forward to Baby Helga's smiling face holding a hand-drawn sign with "Onkel Tom" lovingly written upon. I scan the crowd and much to my dismay all I see is a solitary Pemulis looking older than ever. As a side note to myself I make a mental reminder to at some point in the future (if Pemulis gets over whatever it is that seems to be ailing him) upon re-seeing Pemulis to sing him my rendition of Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat and put particular emphasis on my favourite line "the last time I saw you, you looked so much older". But that will be for another day. For now, my smile turns to a frown and I, as innocently as possible and doing everything I can to hide my disappointment, ask "where's Helga?". When Pemulis explains that they simply ran out of time while getting ready to come to the airport and that if everyone had come they probably wouldn't even have yet left the Welfenhof, I take a step back (mentally, I mean), and realize that I would have had to be crazy to imagine that they all would have made it here on time. We're talking about Joelle and family here, people...
We take a short S-bahn ride into the city and upon our arrival, dang! Es schüttet wie aus Eimern! But no matter. Pemulis and I step into a local café and I indulge in my first European coffee break of 2016. Even with the El Niño rain (I'm assuming) coming down like the world is ending outside, there is still something special about sipping a cappuccino on a cobbled pedestrian street in a European city in July. Pemulis fills me in on his plans for the week, and to be honest I'm a little frightened. While my feelings stirred up by the plane ride were real, I'm now starting to remember how close to 40 I am and how drinking beer in the afternoon just makes me want to sleep. I start missing my kids and my wife and even, just a little, my Tim Horton's coffee, despite the ritualistic vomiting that it normally induces in the hours after its consumption. What is this joie de vivre I'm seeing on the faces around me? Do they not see that it's raining outside? Do they not remember that they're in Munich? Germany is dark, cold, and efficient! It's not where one sips surprisingly delicious coffee in a comfortable artfully decorated café staffed by cheerful young German girls. Ok, never mind.. I like it here.
The rain lets up a bit and we continue our journey home. We walk past all manner of Europeany stuff: statues, a few trams go by, I hear church bells 7 or 8 thousand times, people dressed nicely, squares with people actually just sitting around instead of rushing off somewhere as fast as they can go, old women on bicycles bringing their groceries home, more people on bicycles everywhere, places to walk that haven't been taken over by cars, and, not quite as nice, a lot of people smoking. Like a lot. But finally we make it home to Pemulis & Co.'s train-track-located abode. The apartment is nicer than I would have imagined. Compared to Pemulis's previous dwellings that I've visited it is bigger, cleaner (despite baby Helga's presence), and surprisingly well-decorated. Of course I'm sure this has zero to do with Pemulis and 100% to do with his lovely wife Joelle who I finally encounter when we make our way into the apartment. It's great to see her and all that, but at last the apple of my eye appears. The reason I made this trip in the first place. The one true hope for the Pemulis Darling Family. The proof that there is hope in this frightening world. The light that guides Pemulis home at the end of his long days slaving away for an American multi-national. The Princess, Queen, and God of the household: Baby Helga. She smiles at me and my heart melts into a mollified bundle of gooey gooey organ mass or whatever. Wow what a baby that Baby Helga. If the trip takes a major nosedive from this point forward and I'm forced to, for example, accompany my hosts to a real-estate open house out in the boonies of Munich, even as far as Waldperlach, for example, or vertical-death-march up a mountain by the Tegernsee only to descend and then re-ascend the other side, then the trip will still have been worth its weight in gold. Baby Helga, you are one hell of a baby.
It's Saturday and thanks to my ability to sleep well on the plane I'm ready for the evening's festivities: Germany's first elimination game at the Euro Cup, where they will take on the much-hated Team Italy. If there are two things that everyone in the world knows they are thus: (1) Italy is the most boring soccer team to watch in the world; and (2) Italy is the cheatingest soccer team in the world. As you no doubt know, the Germans almost gave it to the Italians with their new style of "Superman" play, but watching the game in the Paulaner Nockherberg biergarten, drinking a Maß of Helles in the evening twilight, surrounded by good people and good fun, the night is a great success. We make our way home and despite the vast quantity of beer that you are expected to drink whilst in the South of Germany, my jet-lag, and my near-40 age, I again feel the European air re-energize me. We even almost head out on the town to celebrate but quickly think better of it and go straight to bed.
Sunday morning greets me with warm healing rays shining from the sun and descending upon me in the Pemulis apartment. I hold Baby Helga close and am reminded of why life exists in the universe. Pemulis suggests we take a bike ride to "The French Bakery" up in Schwabing and I reluctantly agree. Soon my reluctance proves to have been a folly and we have great fun gliding through a sleepy Munich Sunday morning to the North of the city. We pass by parks and cafés (of course), and go by the consulates and the Bogenhausen villas (the "Munich Bridle Path"), and through the Englischgarten where Helga breathed her first breath, and past the Habsburgerplatz and across the Leopoldstraße and finally to the world-famous French Bakery. Pemulis tries to show off by speaking French to the boy at the counter but to me he kind of just looks like a douche. Sorry Pemmy. In any case we load up Joelle's Brompton-brand Carry Bag with crossants and pain-au-chocolats and baguette and set forth once more into the great unknown of the beautiful city. Pemulis leads us on a different return route past the river surfers of the Eisbach where the coolness of this city bowls me over all over again, and finally past his workplace where he serves the overlords of the American Military Industrial Complex. At home we fix espressos and cappuccinos and relax with our well-deserved French pastries and Italian coffee and I think to myself, can life really be so grand? I dare venture that it can.
<End of Part 1>
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