Germany- ‘Man’s Day’

Not all of my adventures are epic sojourns into foreign jungles to fight fantastic beasts (without expecting to find them). Many of my most treasured memories are the small, accidental little happenings that came about as a result of living in another country, doing normal life with the locals.

Often, this is because the country I lived in had truly deep history- Europe, and Germany in particular, is a wonderful example of this. Hardly a week would pass without some national or regional tradition of significance. Yes, most of these had degenerated into nothing more than an excuse to over indulge (in classic functional alcoholism that is the German way) in the national beverage. But no matter how much bier flowed, the heart of the tradition was always explicitly visible and incorporated into the day. One such tradition was the wonderful German take on Father’s Day. In classic German style, this involved lots and lots of beer.

Our kiwi version of Father’s day is pretty simple- it is the reflection of Mother’s day, with a few gifts, perhaps a cooked breakfast or meal, and a general obligation to tell the bloke how good he is and how much you valued that time he helped you bash up that fence. You also surreptitiously try to build up enough goodwill to help you with the next construction project you’ve got lined up.

Germany, in my opinion, does it better, by reflecting the natural desires of the creature known as ‘Dad’- namely, doing dumb stuff with your mates while getting super pissed. And boy do the Germans deliver.

The day begins early, at a predetermined location with your chosen posse. The train station is a hilarious place to be in the morning on Man’s Day, where big groups of boys are congregating in loud, jovial bunches, beers already in hand and cheeks already slightly flushed. It is traditional to head to another town via train (the no drinking on public transport rules are relaxed as, to be honest, every single passenger is there with bottles in hand). It might seem cruel to offload neighboring towns with all of your drunken fathers but you need to remember, the neighboring towns would happily send all of their degenerates to us in exchange so really, everybody lost.

Germans love their bikes, and every household will have at least one per family member- one designated Dad in the group is charged with bringing the trailer attachments for their bike- normally intended to take the kids, these are instead repurposed for a far more precious cargo- crates upon crates of beer.

Now we, being neither Fathers nor German, did not have the handy-dandy trailers so we were instead forced to forage within the landscape to meet our requirements- namely, the hundreds of beer gardens that ranged throughout the city. Conveniently for us, these joyous little establishments formed a haphazard trail along the beautiful Elbe river that flowed lazily through the middle of Dresden.

We met at a rather famous beer garden that overlooked Dresden’s Altstadt, or ‘Old Town’ across the river. It was one of my favourite views, with the glorious Catholic church built in secret by August the Strong and many others displayed prominently, each building representing a fascinating and diverse history that I adored hearing about, and forming a vista that never failed to captivate my attention.

As the group members slowly arrived and ordered themselves their first beverage of the day, I chuckled a little, remembering the trail of emails that had preceded this event, where the boys covertly shared secret idea and ploys to obtain permission from their significant others to attend the event. When they had asked me how I planned on doing it, I replied that my girlfriend was 23, and the only problem I had was convincing her that she was not allowed to come along. There was the occasional benefit to dating a Uni student.

Once we were all there, the drinking began in earnest. Now as I have always maintained, true connoisseurs of the golden ambrosia that is beer fall into one of 2 camps- either you believe the Germans or the Belgians do the best beer in the world. Germans, by right of their purity law, are only allowed 3 ingredients in beer for it to even be called beer, so the differences between different brews are more subtle, but the resulting liquid is incredibly free from imperfections, impurities and has a thousand years of history and refinement backing up the product. Belgian beer is the maverick, mixing willy-nilly to create a vast range of flavors that are fun, exciting and still expertly made. But truly, the purists will always fall to German beers, and I can tell you I often had the experience of coming to a small village or new town, and the locals would tell me, “no, no, don’t drink that beer, that one is crap” only for their version of Lion Red (only kiwis will get that one I’m afraid- suffice to say of you want to do a little spring cleaning of your intestines, Lion Red will do it for you) to taste better than any beer I had tried in ANY other country. Then when you found a true favourite of the locals- well, orgasmic might be slightly strong but perhaps elevating you to a state of nirvana might be closer to the truth.

I stuck to Weissbier, which is wheat beer that has a thick, heady kind of flavor and is often a little sweet. I never got over the fact that German beers universally lacked the bitter after taste that other countries never quite managed to brew out of their own beverages.

Anyway, my sojourn into my one true passion is now over, so I will attempt to return to the story.

We had 2 beers each in the first spot, which, in Germany, are always 500ml- useful for two reasons- firstly, to help you keep track of how much you have drunk (see how useful the metric system is!) and secondly, to ensure that said drunkenness occurs rather faster than with those piddly little 330ml stubbies everyone else is so fond of. Oops, apologies, I have returned rather quickly to beer, though in my defense, it is the central tenet of this particular blog post. There is a slightly unfortunate consequence of these larger servings- ones tolerance for beer increases dramatically, particularly if you drink as the Germans do who, as a society, are essentially functional alcoholics. One of the last nights out I had in Germany was a fun comedy club evening with a few good mates, and we had a few beers during the evening of course. I woke happily the next day, a little tired but none other the worse for wear, to uncomfortably discover that I had imbibed 10 of these wonderful beers- a total of 5 litres- and had felt really nothing more than a mild buzz.

Returning to my tale, after our first few beers, we decided it was time to move on, and mounting our trusty steeds, we toddled down the cycleway, marvelling at the glorious view of the jewel that is Dresen, and laughing at the other groups we saw that had obviously started quite a bit earlier than we had and were very heavily on their pathway to oblivion. Everyone was in high spirits though, and I never grew tired of the fact that at every student party I had attended (which was quite a few) never once had the alcohol led to a violent outburst or untoward behaviour.

We chatted happily, falling into that routine that boys have of somewhat crass stories and silly anecdotes of former drunken shenanigans.

The next 3 beer gardens passed happily, having to wait a little due to the popularity of the holiday, but otherwise going very smoothly. I started to concentrate on my words a little more carefully, and carefully hid my shock as I heard some of the stories my distinguished colleagues shared. Teachers, you see, are by nature rather careful and demure while at school- it is a deceptively stressful job with long hours and many challenges, and in consequence, we are some of the worst for letting our hair down when finally released from the burdens that come with the job. When the story of one of our science teachers pooping in what turned out to be a neighbors garden came out, I knew we were definitely in that grasp of the beersies mentality.

We made a few more gardens, I am honestly unsure of the exact number or location of these, and ended up near the blue beauty, a huge blue bridge that spanned the Elbe and was near a wonderful castle and gardens that were the remnants of the royalty that ruled over Saxony many years past. The Elbe had hills on one side a little further down from neustadt (new town, where you will find the wonderful hippy-styled hipster vegans that brought vitality and charisma to an otherwise somewhat humdrum German culture). These hills are dotted with terraced vineyards and huge homes and castles that represent the uber wealthy of Europe, and were beautiful additions to the vista.

The little beer garden here was positioned almost under the blue wonder, and was near a well known ice cream stand that was receiving huge patronage. It was busy, happy and chaotic, and I loved it. However, one of our colleagues was the very definition of a scrooge. I hadn’t spent much time with him but it became apparent from the first stop that a- he hated children, b- he hated teaching and c- he hated women (which was an attitude, I am loath to admit, was prevalent in not only the male staff but also the student population of the school). Also, his job was far harder than anyone else's in existence and he desperately wanted to share this viewpoint with everyone. Being polite, I had refrained from telling him to shut up and let us enjoy the moment, but even my patience was wearing thin by this stage, and with the amount of beer I had consumed by this point (which might have been more easily measured in barrels rather than millilitres) I was at a dangerous risk of throwing him over my shoulder to dump in the river in frustration, so I chose at that point to bid adieu to my fellowship of men, and make my way carefully and not necessarily in a straight line towards my bike.

Throwing my legs over the saddle (after a few failed attempts to do so) I began the long, slow meander back towards home, wandering happily all over the narrow lane and arousing the ire of many other pathway users who were also struggling to remember what upright was really supposed to look like.

About halfway back along the river, I found myself marveling at my good fortune- living in a beautiful European city, having a job I loved and being in a relationship that brought absolute fulfilment to me. Unfortunately, my thoughtfulness was taking a little too much attention away from my focus of staying alight on my bike, and as a consequence I very gently and happily trailed off the pathway and into the long, dry grass that lined the river, and promptly fell off the bike. I was not unhappy about this, as it was a comfortable and picturesques spot, and I was feeling a little tired anyway. Deciding that one place really was as good as any other, my groggy mind decided that this was an excellent spot to take a little nap, and with one leg still straddling my bike, I promptly fell asleep.

After an hour or so of pleasant dreams, I returned to consciousness a little reluctantly, took stock of where I was, smiled, and shakily returned to the pathway to meander the rest of the way home. It was a wonderful day, and a treasured memory (at least, the parts I can remember with clarity are) and I desperately hope that someday, somewhere, I can partake in this charming little tradition once more.