How tourism will save the world (sort of)

Eighty-five percent of Munich was destroyed during WWII, but the city still looks old, full of imposing Gothic buildings. How is that possible? Because they rebuilt it to appear pretty much as it had before the way. It's fake historic architecture.

And why would you do that? Tourists. You don't go to Munich to gamble or to sit in the sun, you go to Munich to pretend to appreciate German culture, or at least their beer. You go to sit in massive historic (or faux-historic) beer halls. You go because here you can get drunk and call it a culturally authentic, history-enriched experience.

Yes, there were other reasons to re-build the city as it was--pride, for one. But according to our tour guide, tourism was indeed a major factor.

A lot of the historic sites and restaurants here seem to serve tourists almost exclusively. For starters, there's no way the ridiculous Glockenspiel in City Hall would still be here if tourists didn't love the crazy thing.

So tourists help preserve history and culture! Hooray for tourists! We're saving the world!

... Or maybe not. Obviously, tourism often promotes a particular variety of preservation, an exaggerated, theme park-ish one. Like a frog preserved with formaldehyde, it's kinda deformed and distorted (and foul-smelling). Superficially like the real thing, but not quite 100 percent authentic.

So here's a question for discussion:

Without tourists, would Munich beer halls be:

(A) replaced by modern office buildings or malls, or at least converted to sprawling department stores?
or
(B) packed, per tradition, with thousands of old men wearing lederhosen and singing drinking songs without the slightest trace of irony or snickering in their voices?

Zurich on ... a lot of money a day

Lee: Maybe I can do a post about what you can get in Zurich for $5 a day now.

Doug: Nothing?

Lee: Absolutely fucking nothing. They would give you a haughty Franco-German laugh, in whatever language they speak here. They'd laugh at you in three languages, all of them official.

Seriously, Zurich: $6 for a Carlsburg? $15 for a Manhattan? (That's right, we drink classy drinks. We're classy men. Citizens of the world and all.)

* * *

Special bonus quote from Lee, as he's preparing for bed:
L: Aw, sweet!

D: What?

L: Want a free stay in this hotel?

D: Sure.

L: Here, drink from this glass. It's got a chip in the rim. Drink right here. [Points to chip.]

D: Um . . .

L: You can sue them. You'll be able to stay free whenever you want. That's the only way you could afford to stay here.

D: Um . . .

L: It's the American way: affordability through litigation. It might be the only way we get out of here without going bankrupt.

Europe on five dollars TODAY

Europe on Five Dollars a Day? Not anymore. Here's a list of items that cost five dollars or less in Europe today:

• 3-5 postcards (they vary from 25 cents to a whole Euro), but only 2 postcards with their relevant stamps
• Two bottles of water
• Two croissants or similar pastries
• A tour of Amsterdam/Berlin/Munich (all free, but a five Euro tip would be considered polite)
• Approximately one gallon of gasoline.
• One Doner Kebab, the universal street food of Europe
• One ride (one way) on the Berlin Super-bahn
• One half liter of most beer
• A condom
• A pregnancy test (from a self-serve vending machine where it is also possible to purchase a prostate exam, though that will cost you more than $5)

And that's about it. Can you tour Europe on five dollars a day? That probably depends on who you give that half liter of beer.

By the numbers: midpoint report

Days on the road: 20
Days left: 20
Cities visited: 5 (Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Munich)
Cities left: 5
Current city: Munich
Frommer-recommended item I am most hoping does not still exist: "liver-cheese" at a place in the Munich train station
Amount of time left until we head out, with dread, to find it: approx. 30 minutes
Pre-emptive Pepto-Bismol tablets I am going to take momentarily: as many as I can fit in my mouth
Times I have consumed the Pope's favorite beer (Augustiner): 2
Truly bizarre nightclubs Frommer recommends in Berlin: at least 3
Number still open: 0
Entertainment-district bars we patronized in a valiant attempt to discern how nightlife has changed in Berlin in the last generation: 2
Interior design style of the first bar: Neo-Steampunk-Hobbit-Junkyard-Beach Hut Revival
Rank of the first bar among the most sketchy I have ever entered: top 3
Rank of second bar among the most classy I have ever entered: top 3
Times Lee has made me consume weird foods/drinks out of "spirit of adventure": at least 4
Languages mangled (not including English): 4
Average number of languages used in each of my typically-flustered attempt to order pastries: 3
Example of such ordering: "Deux croissant und ein jugo de naranja, please."
Walking tours taken: 3
Pastries consumed: approx. 42
Best pastry so far: chocolate croissant at Melly's Cookie Bar in Amsterdam
Worst pastry so far: Beignet at an incredibly pretentious, fancy-looking place called Paul, just off the Grand Place in Brussels
Waffles consumed in Belgium: 2
Number of said waffles that had toppings other than sugar, and therefore marked me as a tourist: 2
Level that I cared, given that the chocolate sauce and ice cream were so damn delicious: 0
Disappointing statues that I really can't believe are tourist landmarks: 2 (Little Mermaid, Manneken-Pis)
Museums visited: approx. 8
Maximum number of museums visited in one day: 3
Number of the museums on that day that were free: 3 (hell yes!)
Miles walked per day: approx. 6
Total miles walked so far: approx. 120
Pirate bars patronized: 1
Mexican restaurants patronized: 1
Minimum number of non-Mexican cultures mistakenly represented in the ostensibly-authentic decor: 4
Quality of nachos there: appealingly mediocre
Quality of tacos: unspeakably foul
Rank of the Glockenspiel in Munich among most overrated tourist attractions in Europe, according to a recent poll (per our tour guide): 2
(Location of most disappointing: Prague)
Age of the New Town Hall in Munich, relative to the Old Town Hall: older

9:50 to Munich, via Kafka

First, a quick history lesson:

There are three main things that opened up European travel for the average American in the late 1950s: Europe on Five Dollars a Day, affordable plane tickets, and Eurail passes.

(There was also the evolving postwar psyche of optimism, freedom, and increasing amounts of leisure time. That's probably the most important piece of the puzzle, but it's a hell of a lot less tangible and I should probably not try to tackle it in a hastily-written blog post composed on a crowded train about to arrive in Munich.)

E5D came along in 1957, giving travelers an easy-to-follow recipe for travel. Jumbo jets and economy-class plane tickets began in 1959, along with the Eurail pass; these, of course, were the ingredients. Extending the cooking metaphor, the result was that European travel became as easy as pie.

One of the wonderful things about a Eurail pass is that you just step onto the trains. No additional ticket required. If you miss one, get the next. If you impulsively decide you'd like to stop in Nuremberg on your way to Munich, you can. Eurail tickets are sold by countries and days; as long as you stay within those constraints, you can take as many trains as you like. (I have a five-country pass for eight travel days, to be used in two months.) In some cases you need to make reservations for trains, but in most cases you don't.

And now, back to the present.

It's 9:45 this morning, and we step onto a train headed for Munich. Technically, Eurail passes are first-class tickets (livin' large, baby!), but we prefer to be with the Great Unwashed Masses--that is, the more interesting, less stuffy normal people. We choose a random second-class car, push our way through the scrum by the door, and take a couple of adjacent seats.

We soon discover that, in fact, some seats are reserved. For example, ours. Just as we get settled, a middle-aged man says something mildly stern to us in German. It could be "Pardon me, good sirs, you seem to be occupying the seats that I have reserved. I really don't mean to be a bother, but I'd be ever so grateful if you wouldn't mind finding another place to sit." But it wasn't that long, and certainly not that polite. More likely: "Scräm, türists." (Gratuitous umlauts are funny. You're going to have to put up with them until I'm out of Germany.)

We apologize and move. At the moment our rears hit the upholstery of our new seats, it happens again. You can't be here, you must go somewhere else! But in a language we don't speak.

This goes on for a good half-hour. It becomes mildly Kafkaesque. We pinball around the car, apologizing at every bounce. We hope that this will not continue for the entirety of the six-hour journey. We also wonder why these people keep appearing with reservations in hand, even though the train has been moving for a while. Where have they been all this time? Waiting for us to take their seats so that they can practice their comedic timing on these hapless, easily-flustered, oh-so-amusing Americans?

After an hour or so, the train starts going backwards. As in: opposite from the direction we want to travel. As in: What the hell? Did we really, actually joined the Kafka Day Tour? I don't recall signing up for such an excursion, but then again, given the nature of the thing, I suppose you wouldn't be given the option.

So this will be our fate: to travel the same expanse of countryside over and over, all day, all night, an endless loop. But on the train, nothing will repeat, nothing will be settled. We'll never sit in the same spot for more than a minute. For the rest of days, we will be bounced around a train to nowhere, a train called Tourism As Existential Crisis.

At one point, I find a table with three seats occupied; a fourth, on the aisle, is free. I take it. My table-mates are all reading German newspapers, which they have spread over the table, leaving no room for my laptop. All of my reading material is in my backpack, down on the other end of the train, where Lee is, presumably, guarding it with his life. What the hell am I going to do here for the next four or five hours?

I try sleeping, but I'm afraid of being awoken by a swift umbrella-slap to the face by an angry German. I try staring off into space, letting my mind wander, but a toddler starts glaring at me from across the aisle, annoyed at my apparent sloth and lack of German devotion to productivity. (The kid is creepy--he's glaring non-stop, with an utterly unsettling gaze, for a good five or ten minutes. I'm not lying. Very Children of the Corn.)

So I pull out my pocket-sized notebook; it will have to keep me busy. For four hours. With only eight blank pages left.

Well, you will be happy to know that I have put those pages--and a good ten whole minutes--to use composing a limerick for you:

There once was a man from Berlin
Who believed that to smile was to sin
At the sight of a tourist
He grew über-boorish
And growled, "Das est mein seat you're in!"

Manneken-Pis and the meaning of celebrity

As mentioned previously, Brussels has a famous statue called Manneken-Pis. It's basically the national icon; they're very proud of it.

So what is it, exactly? Why, a statue of a nude toddler urinating in public. Hence the "Pis" part of the name--he's a fountain, you see. As one tourist brochure I saw put it, "a small and absurd symbol for a small and absurd country."

At the City Museum of Brussels, they have a large section on Manneken-Pis, which includes a selection of some of the 700-plus outfits that he's had. That's right: they dress him up. You know, for holidays . . . or just for the hell of it. There's an outfit for pretty much every country in the world--Tunisia, Malaysia, Tahiti: congrats, you're in the club. Also, naturally, an Elvis outfit. And bear in mind that all of these outfits have to be specially-made to fit his proportions and account for the fact that his left arm is forever clutching his, er, Pis-ing unit.

There's also the requisite video, which explains his history and symbolism, none of which I remember right off hand because all of this new knowledge was washed from my mind by the footage that follows, which features a large crowd singing and toasting the wee whizzer. They look so proud of him. It's kind of jaw-dropping.

Lee: Manneken-Pis doesn't interest me. What I do find fascinating is that so many other people find him so interesting.

Doug: He's a celebrity. Famous for being famous.

Lee: Right. The original tabloid star. He achieves notoriety through a scandalous act, and then everyone talks about him. Forever. He's like Paris Hilton, but with less artificial bronzer.

Fact-checking, 45 years late

We spent an hour or so yesterday strolling down the Kurfurstendamm, which is kind of like the Champs-Elysees of Berlin: a wide street populated with both the impossibly ritzy and astonishingly kitschy. Every fashion label I've heard of has a store here--Prada, Burberry, Gucci, etc.--as well as many I haven't. But there are also t-shirt shops, theme restaurants, and all the stereotypically gauche trappings of tourism.

On the east end of the street, we tracked down what seems to be the only Frommer-recommended restaurant still open in Berlin, a big bistro called Berliner Kindl. You can't miss it: the name is on the bright-red awning and spelled out in yellow neon letters that glow above the bar.

As we took our seats, Lee started laughing. He plucked a coaster from a holder on the table. It also had the name of the restaurant. Impressive, I thought. Custom coasters.

Then he pointed to the top of the drink menu, which was lying on the table. The text read, "Alt-Berliner Biersalon."

Below, in smaller type, was the name of the restaurant, heading a long list. There was a number after the name.

"I think Arthur got the name of this place wrong," Lee said. "I'm pretty sure Berliner Kindl is the name of a beer, not the restaurant."

"Arthur wouldn't do that," I said.

"Well, he did."

"What, he just saw the beer sign, and thought that was the name? Like walking into an American bar and assuming it's called Miller Lite?"

"Exactly."

I examined all the menus and promotional materials on the table, unable to believe Arthur could have been so wrong. But Lee was correct.

Proof below. Note the coaster and the drink menu (left).