About 16 weeks ago (or so), the lockdowns were lifted and we experienced our first Covid-19 Biergarten Experience. A lot has changed since then, but a lot has also stayed the same: masks upon entering, fill out the form indicating the details of your next of kin, drink 5 more beers than usual to forget for just one evening the world that we somehow currently live in, the usual...
It was your typical Corona Sunday in Bayern and the family made a short trip to the local Beer Garden for a much-needed Bavarian dinner fix. The sun sat low in the sky on a warm still-clinging-to-summer evening. By this point in 2020 the children had lost all semblance of social skills, connection to reality, and ability to cope with anything, and the adults were not any better. We ran into some acquaintances who were entering the Garden at the coincidental same time as Pemulis & Co. and much like a hilarious sitcom episode re-running on Netflix the acquaintances asked us if we would like to join their table; as in the TV show, Mrs. Pemulis tried as she might to silently show her extreme disapproval of the idea but following the perfectly honed over time formula, Mr. Pemulis goofily accepted the invitation happily and prepared the audience for an evening full of laughs for some and pain for many others.
The first (and probably most severe) disaster happened when Pemulis ordered a cold, fresh, delicious Weißbier but was instead delivered what the good Bavarians refer to as a "Russ": Weißbier mixed with sparkling lemonade. Now, I'm all for a good Radler (sparkling lemonade with Helles) on a hot mid-morning bike ride, but sitting in a beer garden on a Sunday evening sparkling lemonading down a perfectly good beer for no reason other than to upset a customer? Well, I never...
When Helga disappeared the first five minutes were really quite lovely. It's easy to all of a sudden get lost in a moment when you happen to be enjoying it and are not busy having stress take over your body and doing whatever can be done to keep the temperature of your blood below the ignition point and realizing that Hey! it can actually be relaxing sitting around having dinner with your family but then things come crashing down and it quickly becomes clear that the only reason things seem OK is that your child is nowhere to be found.
Don't worry she was eventually found behind a tree where she had attempted to pee I guess (hopefully) on the ground but actually peed all over herself. Par for the course and all that.
Heinrich had a small cold which developed the previous week at Krippe (pronounced "KRI-PUH" and which means DAYCARE) that was basically completely gone by the time we arrived at our allegedly relaxing Sunday evening outing. The acquaintances were also sitting with some of their acquaintances and Joelle sat down with Heinrich on her lap next to a man from this latter group and he asked how serious we were about this whole Corona thing and if it was OK if they sat next to one another. Joelle told him that she should warn everybody that Heinrich was a little bit sick because of Krippe but the man didn't hear Krippe he heard Grippe (pronounced "GRI-PUH") which sounds really quite close to Krippe but instead means influenza. Surprisingly he got up very quickly and made one of the most disgusted faces I've ever seen. Quite something, really. Somebody explained that Joelle had said Krippe, not Grippe, and things continued as they would but in some ways the atmosphere was never really quite the same. Pemulis ordered another beer and made sure they didn't dilute it with Sprite.
Then the Biergarten people lit the Tiki Torches. Luckily it turns out that Tiki Torches are only a White Supremacist thing in the US and they were just a nice looking way to light up the beer garden once it got dark. Unluckily, however, it turns out that kids just love fire. We left shortly thereafter.
All in all another enthralling Covid-19 Biergarten Experience. 8 / 10. Would go again.
